HANDY 1^ O L U M E EDITION
THE
MILL ON THE FLOSS
GEORGE ELIOT
BOSTON
DANA ESTES & COMPANY
PUBLISHERS
SRLR
URL
1,-'
lO
GEORGE HENRY LEWES,
/ GIVE THIS MS. OF MY THIRD BOOK,
WRITTEN IN THIS SIXTH YEAR OF OUR LIFE TOGETHER, AT HOW.Y
LODGE, SOUTH FIELD, WANDSWORTH, AND FINISHED
21 ST MARCH. lS6o.
URL
SRLF
CONTENTS.
Book I.
BOY AND GIRL.
Chapter Page
I. Outside Dorlcote Mill 3
II. Mr. Tulliveb, of Dorlcote Mill, declares uis Reso-
lution ABOUT Tom 5
III. Mr. Riley gives his Advice concerning a School
FOR Tom 12
IV. Tom is expected 26
V. Tom comes Home 31
VI. The Aunts and Uncles are coming 42
VII. Enter the Aunts and Uncles 54
VIII. Mr. Tulliver shows his Weaker Side ..... 79
IX. To Garum Firs 89
X. Maggie behaves worse than she expected .... 104
XI. Maggie tries to run away from her Shadow . .■ . Ill
XII. Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home 123
XIII. Mr. Tulliver further entangles the Skein of Life 137
Book II.
SCHOOL-TIME.
I. Tom's "First Half" 141
II. The Christmas Holidays 163
III. The New Schoolfellow 171
IV. "The Young Idea" 177
V. Maggie's Second Visit 189
VI. A Love-scene 194
VII. The Golden Gates are passed . 199
n CONTENTS.
3Soofe in.
THE DOWNFALL.
Chaptee Paoe
I. What had happened at Home 207
II. Mrs. Tulliver's Teraphim, or Household Gods . . 214
III. The Family Council 219
IV. A Vanishing Gleam 235
V. Tom applies his Knife to the Oyster 239
VI. Tending to refute the Popular Prejudice against
THE Present of a Pocket-knife 252
VII. How a Hen takes to Stratagem 259
VIII. Daylight on the Wreck 272
IX. An Item added to the Family Register 281
Book IV.
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.
I. A Variation of Protestantism unknown to Bossubt . 287
IT. The Torn Nest is pierced by the Thorns .... 292
III. A Voice from the Past 298
Book V.
WHEAT AND TARES.
I. In the Red Deeps 314
II. Aunt Glegg learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb . 327
III. The Wavering Balance 345
IV. Another Love-scene 352
V. The Cloven Tree 359
VI. The Hard-won Triumph 371
VII. A Day of Reckoning 376
CONTENTS. viv
Book VI.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION.
Chapter p^^,
I. A Duet in Paradise 384
II. First Impressions 39j
III. Confidential Moments 407
IV. Brother and Sister 4]^2
V. Showing that Tom had opened the Oyster .... 420
VI. Illustrating the Laws of Attraction 424
VII. Philip re-enters 435
VIII. Wakem in a New Light 4,50
IX. Charity in Plll-dress 457
X. The Spell seems broken 468
XL In the Lane . 474
XII. A Family Party . . , 48i
XIII. Borne along by the Tide 488
XIV. Waking , . 503
Book VII.
THE PINAL RESCUE.
I. The Return to the Mill 515
II. St. Ogg's passes Judgment 522
III. Showing that Old Acquaintances are capable of
surprising us 532
IV. Maggie and Lucy 53S
V. The Last Conflict 545
Conclusion ,, 557
ILLUSTRATIONS.
Engraved by George T. Andrew.
Maggie Tulliver in the Boat . . F. S. Church . Frontispiece
Maggie and Stephen W. L. Taylor . . . 496
Lucy and Maggie W. St. John Harper . 544
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
BOOK I.
BOY AND GIRL.
CHAPTER I.
OUTSIDE DOELCOTE 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,
tinging 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 bee-hive
ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows ; and every-
where the hedgerows are studded with trees : the distant ships
seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown
sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by
the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively
current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its
dark changing wavelets ! It seems to me like a living com-
panion while I wander along the bank and listen to its low
4 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
placid voice, as to tlie voice of one who is deaf and loving. I
remember those large dipping willows. I remember the stone
bridge.
And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two
here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threat-
ening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless
time of departing February it is pleasant to look at — perhaps
the chill damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept comfort-
able dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that
shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now,
and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns
the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look
at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green
powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches
that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love
with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping
their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmind-
ful 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 tlie huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of
grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting
sadly dry in tlie 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 towards 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 ! 1
should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly -earned
feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed from
the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond.
BOY AND orRL. 5
Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at «
swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at
the tm-ning behind the trees.
Now I can turn my eyes towards the mill again, and watch
the unresting wheel sending out its diamond jets of water.
That little girl is watching it too : she has been standing op.
just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused
on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear
seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance witb
the wheel ; perhaps he is jealous, because his playfellow in the
beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time the little
playfellow went in, I think ; and there is a very bright fire to
tempt her : the red light shines out under the deepening graj^
of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arm*
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 talk-
ing about, as they sat by the bright fire in the left-hand par-
lor, on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.
CHAPTEE II.
MR. TULLIVER, OF DORLCOTE MILL, DECLARES HIS
RESOLUTION ABOUT TOM.
"What I want, you know," said Mr. Tulliver —" what I
want is to give Tom a good eddication ; an eddication as '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, if 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' mij father
6 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ever paid for was a bit o' birch at one end and the alphabet at
th' other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard,
so as he might be up to the tricks o' these fellows as talk fine
and write with a flourish. It 'ud be a help to me wi' these
lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I wouldn't make a
downright lawyer o' the lad — I should be sorry for him to
be a raskill — but a sort o' engineer, or a surveyor, or an
auctioneer and vallyer, like Eiley, 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
Kiley 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 had n't I better kill a couple o' fowl and have th' aunts
and uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what
sister Glegg and sister Pullet have got to say about it ?
There 's a couple o' fowl wants killing ! "
'' You may kill every fowl i' the yard, if you like, Bessy ;
but I shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what I 'm to do wi' my
own lad," said IMr. Tulliver, defiantly.
" Dear heart ! " said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this san-
guinary 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 was n't lucky for my children to have aunts and
uncles as can live independent. Hcjwiver, if Tom 's to go to
a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him
and mend him ; else he might as well have calico as linen,
for they 'd be one as yallow as th' other before they 'd been
washed half-a-dozen times. And then, when the box is goin'
BOY AND GIRL. •
backards and forrards, 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
must n't put a spoke i' the wheel about the washin', if we can't
get a school near enough. That's the fault I have to find
wi' you, Bessy ; if you see a stick i' the road, you 're allays
thinkin' you can't step over it. You'd want me not to hire a
good wagoner, 'cause he'd got a mole on his face."
" Dear heart ! " said Mrs. Tulliver, in mild surprise, " when
did I iver make objections to a man because he 'd got a mole
on his face ? I 'm sure I 'm rether fond o' the moles ; for my
brother, as is dead an' gone, had a mole on his brow. But I
can't remember your iver offering to hire a wagoner with a
mole, Mr. Tulliver. There was John Gibbs had n'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 had n't died o' th'
inflammation, as we paid Dr. TurnbuU for attending him, he 'd
very like ha' been driving the wagon now. He might have
a mole somewhere out o' sight, but how was I to know that,
Mr. Tulliver ? "
" No, no, Bessy ; I did n'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
yight 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 shan't
be a 'cademy ; it shall be a place where the lads spend their
time i' summat else besides blacking the family's shoes, and
getting up the potatoes. It 's an uncommon puzzling thing to
know what school to pick."
Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both
hands into his breeches-pockets as if he hoped to find some
suggestion there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for
he presently said, "I know what I'll do — I'll talk it over
wi' Riley : he 's coming to-morrow, t' arbitrate about the dam."
8 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Well, Mr. Tulliver, I've j)ut the sheets out for the best
bed; and Kezia 's got 'em hanging at the fire. They are n'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 '11 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 ; an' they lie at the left-hand corner
o' the big oak linen-chest at the back : not as I should trust
anybody to look 'em out but myself."
As Mrs. Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright
bunch of keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing
her thumb and finger up and down it with a placid smile while
she looked at the clear fire. If Mr. Tulliver had been a sus-
ceptible man in his conjugal relation, he might have supposed
that she drew out the key to aid her imagination in anticipat-
ing the moment when he would be in a state to justify the
production of the best Holland sheets. Happily he was not
so ; he was only susceptible in respect of his right to water-
power ; moreover, he had the marital habit of not listening
very closely, and since his mention of Mr. Riley, had been
apparently occupied in a tactile examination of his woollen
stockings,
" I think I 've hit it, Bessy," was his first remark after a
short silence. " Riley 's as likely a man as any to know o'
some school ; he 's had schooling himself, an' goes about to all
sorts o' places — arbitratin' and vallyin' and that. And we
shall have time to talk it over to-morrow night when the 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 should n'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
BOY AND GIRL. 9
and then hide it with a bib ; I know Riley does. And tlien,
if Tom's to go and live at Mudport, like Kiley, 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 bui-nt to death before he
can get down."
"No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, " I 've no thoughts of his going
to Mudport : I mean him to set up his office at St. Ogg's, close
by uS, an' live at home. But," continued Mr. Tulliver after a
pause, " what I 'm a bit afraid on is, as Tom has n'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 '11 come on 't. The little un takes after
my side, now : she 's twice as 'cute as Tom. Too 'cute for a
woman, I 'm afraid," continued Mr. Tulliver, turning his head
dubiously first on one side and then on the other. " It 's no
mischief much while she 's a little un, but an over-'cute woman
's no better nor a long-tailed sheep — she'll fetch none the
bigger price for that."
"Yes, it is a mischief while she 's a little un, Mr. Tulliver, for
it 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 going to the win-
dow, " I don't know whore she is now, an' it 's pretty nigh tea-
time. Ah, I thought so — wanderin' up an' down by the
water, like a wild thing: she'll tumble in some day."
Mrs. Tulliver rapped the window sharply, beckoned, and
shook her head, — a process which she repeated more than once
before she returned to her chair.
" You talk o' 'cuteness, Mr. Tulliver," she observed as she
sat down, "but I'm sure the child's half an idiot i' some
10 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
thiugs ; for if I send her up-stairs to fetch anything, she forgets
what she 's gone for, an' perhaps 'ull sit down on the floor i'
the sunshine an' plait her hair an' sing to herself like a Bedlam
creatur', all the while I 'm waiting for her 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't like to fly i' the
face o' Providence, but it seems hard as I should have but one
gell, an' her so comical."
"Pooh, nonsense!" said Mr. Tulliver ; " she 's a straight
black-eyed wench as anybody need wish to see. I don't know
i' wliat she 's behind other folks's children ; and she can read
almost as well as the parson."
" But her hair won't curl all I can do with it, and she 's so
franzy about having it put i' paper, and I 've such work as
never was to make her stand and have it pinched with th'
irons."
" Cut it off — cut it off short," said the father, rashly.
" How can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver ? She 's too big a gell,
gone nine, and tall of her age, to have her hair cut short ; an'
there 's her cousin Lucy 's got a row o' curls round her head, an'
not a hair out o' place. It seems hard as my sister Deane
should have that pretty child ; I 'm sure Lucy takes more after
me nor my own child does. Maggie, Maggie," continued the
mother, in a tone of half-coaxing fretfulness, as this small mis-
take of nature entered the room, " where 's the use o' my tell-
ing you to keep away from the water ? You '11 tumble in and
be drownded some day, an' then you '11 be sorry you did n'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 papei', Maggie was incessantly tossing her head to keep
the dark heavy locks out of lier 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
BOY AND GIRL. 11
good gell, an' let your liair be brushed, an' put your other pina-
fore 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 ivant to do my patchwork."
" What ! not your pretty patchwork, to make a counterpane
for your aunt Glegg ? "
"It's foolish work," said Maggie, with a toss of her mane, —
'< tearing things to pieces to sew 'em together again. And I
don't want to do anything for my aunt Glegg — I don't like
her."
Exit Maggie, dragging her bonnet by the string, while Mr.
Tulliver laughs audibly.
" I wonder at you, as you '11 laugh at her, Mr. Tulliver,"
said the mother, with feeble f retfuluess iu 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 upwards 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.
1 have often wondered whether those early Madonnas of Ra-
phael, with the blond faces and somewhat stupid expression,
kept their placidity undisturbed when their strong-limbed,
strong-willed boys got a little too old to do without clothing.
I think they must have been given to feeble remonstrance,
getting more and more peevish as it became more and mora
ineffectual.
12 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
CHAPTER III.
MB. RILEY GIVES HIS ADVICE CONCERNING A SCHOOL FOR TOM.
The gentleman in tlie ample white cravat and shirt-frill,
taking his brandy-aud-water so pleasantly with his good friend
Tulliver, is Mr. E-iley, 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 towards 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-
cital of the cool retort by which Riley had shown himself too
many for Dix, and how Wakem had had his comb cut for once
in his life, now the business of the dam had been settled by
arbitration, and how there never would have been any dispute
at all about the height of water if everybody was what they
should be, and Old Harry had n't made the lawyers. Mr. Tul-
liver 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 trium-
phant : this affair of the water-power had been a tangled busi-
ness somehow, for all it seemed — look at it one way — as plain
as water 's water ; but, big a puzzle as it was, it had n't got the
better of Riley. Mr. Tulliver took his brandy-and-water a
little stronger than usual, and, for a man who might be sup-
posed 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 keepj
BOY AND GIRL. 13
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.
Eiley's advice. This was his particular reason for remaining
silent for a short space after his last draught, and rubbing his
knees in a meditative manner. He was not a man to make an
abrupt transition. This was a puzzling world, as he often said,
and if you drive your wagon in a hurry, you may light on an
awkward corner. Mr. Riley, meanwhile, was not impatient.
Why should he be ? Even Hotspur, one would think, must
have been patient in his slippers on a warm hearth, taking
copious snuff, and sipping gratuitous brandy -and-water.
" There 's a thing I 've got i' my head," said Mr. Tulliver at
last, in rather a lower tone than usual, as he turned his head
and looked steadfastly at his companion.
" Ah ! " said Mr. Eiley, in a tone of mild interest. He was
a man with heavy waxen eyelids and high-arched eyebrows,
looking exactly the same under all circumstances. This 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 gagerly. There
were few sounds that roused Maggie when she was dreaming
over her book, but Tom's name served as well as the shrillest
whistle : in an instant she was on the watch, with gleaming
eyes, like a Skye terrier suspecting mischief, or at all events
determined to fly at any one who threatened it towards Tom.
"You see, I want to put him to a new school at Midsummer,"
said Mr. Tulliver ; " he 's comin' away from the 'cademy at
Lady Day, an' I shall let him run loose for a quarter; but
after that I want to send him to a downright good school,
where they '11 make a scholard of him."
" Well," said Mr. Eiley, " there 's no greater advantage you
can give him than a good education. Not," he added, with
14 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
polite significance — " not that a man can't be an excellent
miller and farmer, and a shrewd sensible fellow into the
bargain, without much help from the schoolmaster."
"I believe you/' said Mr. TuUiver, winking, and turning
his head on one side, "but that's where it is. I don't mean
Tom to be a miller and farmer. I see no fun i' that : why, if
I made him a miller an' farmer, he 'd be expectin' to take to
the mill an' the land, an' a-hinting at me as it was time for
me to lay by an' think o' my latter end. Nay, nay, I 've seen
enough o' that wi' sons. I '11 never pull my coat off before I
go to bed. I shall give Tom an eddication an' put him to a
business, as he may make a nest for himself, an' not want to
push me out o' mine. Pretty well if he gets it when I 'm dead
an' gone. I shan't be put off wi' spoon-meat afore I 've lost
my teeth."
This was evidently a point on which Mr. Tulliver felt
strongly, and the impetus which had given unusual rapidity
and emphasis to his speech, showed itself still unexhausted
for some minutes afterwards, in a defiant motion of the head
from side to side, and an occasional "Nay, nay," like a sub-
siding growl.
These angry symptoms were keenly observed by Maggie,
and cut her to the quick. Tom, it appeared, was supposed
capable of turning his father out of doors, and of making the
future in some way tragic by his wickedness. This was not
to be borne ; and Maggie jumped up from her stool, forgetting
all about her heavy book, which fell with a bang within the
fender ; and going up between her father's knees, said, in a
half-crying, half-indignant voice —
" Father, Tom would n't be naughty to you ever ; I know
he would n't."
Mrs. Tulliver was out of the room superintending a choice
supper-dish, and IMr. Tulliver's heart was touched ; so Maggie
was not scolded about the book. Mr. Riley quietly picked it
up and looked at it, while the father laughed with a certain
tenderness in his hard-lined face, and patted his little girl on
the back, and then held her hands and kept her between his
knees.
BOY AND GIRL. 15
" What ! they must n'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 could n't
hear, " She understands what one 's talking about so as never
was. And you should hear her read — straight off, as if she
knowed it all beforehand. And allays at her book ! But it 's
bad — it 's bad," Mr, Tulliver added, sadly, checking this blam-
able exultation ; " a woman 's no business wi' being so clever ;
it '11 turn to trouble, I doubt. But, bless you ! " — here the
exultation was clearly recovering the mastery — " she '11 read
the books and understand 'em better nor half the folks as are
growed up."
Maggie's cheeks began to flush with triumphant excitement :
she thought Mr. Eiley would have a respect for her now ; it
had been evident that he thought nothing of her before.
Mr. Biley was turning over the leaves of the book, and she
could make nothing of his face, with its high-arched eyebrows ;
but he presently looked at her and said —
" Come, come and tell me something about this book ; here
are some pictures — I want to know what they mean."
Maggie with deepening color went without hesitation to
Mr. Riley's elbow and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one
corner, and tossing back her mane, while she said —
" Oh, I '11 tell you what that means. It 's a dreadful pic-
ture, isn't it? But I can't help looking at it. That old
woman in the water 's a witch — they 've put her in to find
out whether she 's a witch or no, and if she swims she 's a
witch, and if she 's drowned — and killed, you know — she 's
innocent, and not a witch, but only a poor silly old woman.
But what good would it do her then, you know, when she was
drowned ? Only, I suppose, she 'd go to heaven, and God
would make it up to her. And this dreadful blacksmith with
his arms akimbo, laughing — oh, is n't he ugly ? — I '11 tell
you what he is. He 's the devil really/ " (here Maggie's voice
became louder and more emphatic), "and not a right black-
smith ; for the devil takes the shape of wicked men, and walks
about and sets people doing wicked things, and he 's oftener in
the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know, if
16 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
people saw he was the devil, and he roared at 'em, they 'd run
away, and he could n't make 'em do what he pleased."
Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie's
with petrifying wonder.
" Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on ? " he
burst out at last.
" ' The History of the Devil,' by Daniel Defoe ; not quite
the right book for a little girl," said Mr. Eiley, "How came
it among your books, Tulliver ? "
Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father
said —
"Why, it's one o' the books I bought at Partridge's sale.
They was all bound alike — it's a good binding, you see —
and I thought they 'd be all good books. There 's Jeremy
Taylor's 'Holy Living and Dying' among 'em; I read in it
often of a Sunday " (Mr. Tulliver felt somehow a familiarity
with that great writer because his name was Jeremy) ; '• and
there's a lot more of 'em, sermons mostly, I think; but
they 've all got the same covers, and I thought they v^^ere all
o' one sample, as you may say. But it seems one mustn't
judge by th' outside. This is a puzzliu' world."
" Well," said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory patronizing tone,
as he patted Maggie on the head, " I advise you to put by the
'History of the Devil,' and read some prettier book. Have
you no prettier books ? "
" Oh yes," said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to
vindicate the variety of her reading, " I know the reading in
this book is n't pretty — but I like the pictures, and I make
«tories 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 ' — "
" Ah, a beautiful book," said Mr. Eiley ; " 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
BOY AND GIEL. 17
old copy of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least
trouble of search, at the picture she wanted.
" Here he is," she said, running back to Mr. Riley, *^ and
Tom colored him for me with his paints when he was at home
last holidays — the body all black, you know, and the eyes red,
like fire, because he 's all fire inside, and it shines out at his
eyes."
" Go, go ! " said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to
feel rather uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal
appearance of a being powerful enough to create lawyers ;
" shut up the book, and let 's hear no more o' such talk. It is
as I thought — the child 'uil 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 com-
promised the matter by going into a dark corner behind her
father's chair, and nursing her doll, towards which she had an
occasional fit of fondness in Tom's absence, neglecting its
toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on it that the waxen
cheeks had a wasted unhealthy appearance.
"Did you ever hear the like on't?" said Mr. Tulliver, as
Maggie retired. "It 's a pity but what she 'd been the lad —
she 'd ha' been a match for the lawyers, she would. It 's the
wonderful'st thing " — here he lowered his voice — '• as I
picked the mother because she was n't o'er-'cute — bein' a
good-looking woman too, an' come of a rare family for man-
aging ; but I picked her from her sisters o' purpose, 'cause she
was a bit weak, like ; for I was n'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 '11 run to ; an'
a pleasant sort o' soft woman may go on breeding you stupid
lads and 'cute wenches, till it 's like as if the world was turned
topsy-turvy. It 's an uncommon puzzlin' thing."
Mr. Riley's gravity gave way, and he shook a little under
the application of his pinch of snuff, before he said —
" But your lad 's not stupid, is he ? I saw him, when I
was here last, busy making fishing-tackle ; he seemed quite uji
to it."
roL. II.
18 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Well, he is n't not to say stupid — lie 's got a notion o'
things out o' door, an' a sort o' common-sense, as he 'd lay hold
o' things by the right handle. But he 's slow with his tongue,
you see, and he reads but poorly, and can't abide the books,
and spells all wrong, they tell me, an' as shy as can be wi'
strangers, an' you never hear him say 'cute things like the
little wench. Now, what I want is to send him to a school
where they '11 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 are n'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 of exemplifying
the truth that a perfectly sane intellect is hardly at home in
this insane world.
"You're quite in the right of it, Tulliver," observed Mr.
Riley. " Better spend an extra hundred or two on your son's
education, than leave it him in your will. I know I should
have tried to do so by a son of mine, if I 'd had one, though,
God knows, I have n't your ready-money to play with, Tulliver ;
and I have a houseful of daughters into the bargain."
"I dare say, now, you know of a school as 'ud be jast the
thing for Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, not diverted from his pur-
pose by any sympathy with Mr. E-iley's deficiency of ready
cash.
Mr. Riley took a pinch of snuff, and kept Mr. Tulliver in
suspense by a silence that seemed deliberative, before he
said — •
" I know of a very fine chance for any one that 's got the
necessary money, and that's what you have, Tulliver. The
fact is, I would n't recommend any friend of mine to send a
boy to a regular school, if he could afford to do better. But
BOY AND GIRL. 19
if any one wanted his boy to get superior instruction and
training, where he would be the companion of his master, and
that master a first-rate fellow — I know his man. I would n't
mention the chance to everybody, because I don't think every-
body would succeed in getting it, if he were to try ; but I
mention it to you, Tulliver — between ourselves."
The fixed inquiring glance with which Mr. Tulliver had been
watching his friend's oracular face became quite eager.
" Ay, now, let 's hear," he said, adjusting himself in his
chair with the complacency of a person who is thought worthy
of important communications.
" He 's an Oxford man," said Mr. Riley, sententiously, shut-
ting his mouth close, and looking at Mr. Tulliver to observe
the effect of this stimulatinp- information.
" What ! a parson ? " said Mr. Tulliver, rather doubtfully.
" Yes, and an M. A. The bishop, I understand, thinks very
highly of him : why, it was the bishop who got him his present
curacy."
" Ah ? " said Mr. Tulliver, to whom one thing was as 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 or
two boys as pupils to fill up his time profitably. The boys
would be quite of the family — the finest thing in the world
for them ; under Stelling's eye continually."
" But do you think they 'd give the poor lad twice o' 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
20 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
get the highest honors if he chose.' But he did n't care about
university honors. He 's quiet man — not noisy,"
" Ah, a deal better — a deal better," said Mr. TuUiver ;
" but a hundred and j&fty 's an uncomiuou price. I never
thought o' payin' 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 's not a grasping man. I 've no doubt he 'd take
your boy at a hundred, and that 's what you would n't get
many other clergymen to do. I '11 write to him about it, if
you like."
Mr. Tulliver rubbed his knees, and looked at the carpet in a
meditative manner.
*' But belike he 's a bachelor," observed Mrs. Tulliver in
the interval, " an' I 've no opinion o' housekeepers. There
was my brother, as is dead an' gone, had a housekeeper once,
an' she took half the feathers out o' the best bed, an' packed
'em up an' sent 'em away. An' it 's unknown the linen she
made away with — Stott her name was. It 'ud break my
heart to send Tom where there 's a housekeeper, an' I hope
you won't think of it, Mr. Tulliver."
" You may set your mind at rest on that score, Mrs.
Tulliver," said Mr. Eiley, " for Stelling is married to as nice
a little woman as any man need wisli for a wife. There is n't
a kinder little soul in the world ; I know her family well.
She has very much your complexion — light curly hair. She
comes of a good Mudport family, and it 's not every offer that
would have been acceptable in that quarter. But Stelling 's
not an every -day man. Kather a particular fellow as to the
people he chooses to be connected with. But I think he
would have no objection to take your son — I think he would
not, on my representation."
" I don't know what he could have against the lad," said
Mrs. Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation ;
" a nice fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see."
" But there 's one thing I 'm thinking on," said Mr. Tulliver,
turning his head on one side and looking at Mr. Riley, after
a long perusal of the carpet. " Would n't a parson be almost
BOY AND GIRL. 21
too high-learnt to bring up a lad to be a man o' business ?
My notion o' the parsons ^vas as they 'd got a sort o' learning
as lay mostly out o' sight. And that is n'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 are n't actionable. It 's an un-
common fine thing, that is," concluded Mr. Tulliver, shaking
his head, " when you can let a man know what you think of
him without paying for it."
" Oh my dear Tulliver," said Mr. Eiley, " you 're quite
under a mistake about the clergy ; all the best schoolmasters
are of the clergy. The schoolmasters who are not clergymen,
are a very low set of men generally — "
"Ay, that Jacobs is, at the 'cademy," interposed Mr.
Tulliver.
" To be sure — men who have failed in other trades, most
likely. Now a clergyman is a gentlemen by profession and
education ; and besides that, he has the knowledge that will
ground a boy, and prepare him for entering on any career
with credit. There may be some clergymen who are mere
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 arithmetician,' and you may leave the rest to him."
Mr. Eiley paused a moment, while Mr. Tulliver, somewhat
reassured as to clerical tutorship, was inwardly rehearsing to
an imaginary ]Mr. Stelling the statement, " I want my son to
know 'rethmetic."
" You see, my dear Tulliver," Mr. Riley continued, " when
you get a thoroughly educated man, like Stelling, he 's at no
loss to take up any branch of instruction. When a workman
knows the use of his tools, he can make a door as well as a
window."
" Ay, that 's true," said Mr. Tulliver, almost convinced now
that the clergy must be the best of schoolmasters.
" Well, I '11 tell you what I '11 do for you," said Mr. Riley,
" and I would n't do it for everybody. I '11 see Stelliug's
22 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
father-in-lavv, or drop him a line when I get back to Mud-
port, 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 '11 have a poor tap," said Mr. Tulliver, wink-
ing and smiling at Mr. Eiley with the natural pride of a man
who has a buxom wife conspicuously his inferior in intel-
lect. " 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 propo-
sitions from other parties, and I know he would not take more
than two or three boarders, if so many. If I were you, I
think I would enter on the subject with Stelling at once :
there 's no necessity for sending the boy before Midsummer,
but I would be on the safe side, and make sure that nobody
forestalls you."
" Ay, there 's summat in that," said Mr. Tulliver.
" Father," broke in Maggie, who had stolen unperceived to
her father's elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she
held her doll topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the
wood of the chair — " Father, is it a long way off where Tom
is to go ? shan't we ever go to see him ? "
" I don't know, my wench," said the father, tenderly. "Ask
Mr. Riley ; he knows."
Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Riley, and
said, " How far is it, please, sir ? "
" Oh, a long long way oif," 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
BOY AND GIRL. 23
and turning away, with the tears springing in her eyes. She
began to dislike Mr. Riley : it was evident he thought her silly
and of no consequence.
" Hush, Maggie ! for shame of you, asking questions and
chattering," said her mother. " Come and sit down on your
little stool and hold your tongue, do. But," added Mrs. Tulli-
ver, who had her own alarm awakened, " is it so far off as I
could n't wash him and mend him ? "
" About fifteen miles, that 's all," said Mr. Eiley. " 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. TuUi-
ver, sadly.
The entrance of supper opportunely adjourned this difficulty,
and relieved Mr. Riley from the labor of suggesting some solu-
tion or compromise — a labor which he would otherwise doubt-
less have undertaken ; for, as you perceive, he was a man of
very obliging manners. And he had really given himself the
trouble of recommending Mr. Stelling to his friend Tulliver
without any positive expectation of a solid, definite advantage
resulting to himself, notwithstanding the subtle indications to
the contrary which might have misled a too sagacious observer.
For there is nothing more widely misleading than sagacity if
it happens to get on a wrong scent ; and sagacity, persuaded
that men usually act and speak from distinct motives, with a
consciously proposed end in view, is certain to waste its ener-
gies on imagiuary game. Plotting covetousness, and deliber-
ate contrivance, in order to compass a selfish end, are nowhere
abundant but in the world of the dramatist : they demand too
intense a mental action for many of our fellow-parishioners to
be guilty of them. It is easy enough to spoil the lives of our
neighbors without taking so much trouble : we can do it by
lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by trivial falsities for
which we hardly know a reason, by small frauds neutralized
by small extravagancies, by maladroit flatteries, and clumsily
improrised insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most
of us, with a small family of immediate desires — we do little
24 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
else than snatch a morsel to satisfy the hungry brood, rarely
thinking of seed-corn or the next year's crop.
Mr. Eiley was a man of business, and not cold towards his
own interest, yet even he was more under the influence of
small promptings than of far-sighted designs. He had no
private understanding with the Rev. Walter Stelling ; on the
contrary, he knew very little of that M. A. and his 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.
Riley had received a tincture of the classics at the great Mud-
port Free School, and had a sense of understanding Latin gen-
erally, 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 " ^neid," but it had ceased to be distinctly recognizable
as classical, and was only perceived in the higher finish and
force of his auctioneering style. Then, Stelling was an Oxford
man, and the Oxford men were always — no, no, it was the
Cambridge men who were always good mathematicians. But
a man who had had a university education could teach any-
thing he liked ; especially a man like Stelling who had made
a speech at a Mudport dinner on a political occasion, and had
acquitted himself so well that it was generally remarked, this
son-in-law of Timpson's was a sharp fellow. It was to be ex-
pected 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 Timp-
son's, for Timpson was one of the most useful and influential
men in the parish, and had a good deal of business, which he
knew how to put into the right hands. Mr. Riley liked such
men, quite apart from any money which might be diverted,
through their good judgment, from less worthy pockets into
his own ; and it would be a satisfaction to him to say to Timp-
son on his return home, " I 've secured a good pupil for your
son-in-law." Timpson had a large family of daugliters ; Mr.
BOY AND GIRL. 25
Riley felt for him ; besides, Louisa Timpson's face, with its
light curls, had been a familiar object to him over the pew
wainscot on a Sunday for nearly fifteen years : it was natural
her husband should be a commendable tutor. Moreover, Mr.
Riley knew of no other schoolmaster whom he had any ground
for recommending in preference : why then should he not rec-
ommend Stelling ? His friend Tulliver had asked him for an
opinion ; it is always chilling, in friendly intercourse, to say
you have no opinion to give. And if you deliver an opinion
at all, it is mere stupidity not to do it with an air of convic-
tion and well-founded knowledge. You make it your own in
uttering it, and naturally get fond of it. Thus Mr. Riley,
knowing no harm of Stelling to begin with, and wishing him
well, so far as he had any wishes at all concerning him, had
no sooner recommended him than he began to think with ad-
miration of a man recommended on such high authority, and
would soon have gathered so warm an interest on the subject,
that if Mr. Tulliver had in the end declined to send Tom to
Stelling, Mr. Riley would have thought his " friend of the old
school " a thoroughly pig-headed fellow.
If you blame Mr. Riley very severely for giving a recom-
mendation on such slight grounds, I must say you are rather
hard upon him. Why should an auctioneer and appraiser
thirty years ago, who had as good as forgotten his free-school
Latin, be expected to manifest a delicate scrupulosity which
is not always exhibited by gentlemen of the learned 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 occasion-
ally quarters an inconvenient parasite on an animal towards
whom she has otherwise no ill-will. What then? We admire
her care for the parasite. If Mr. Riley had shrunk from giv-
ing a recommendation that was not based on valid evidence,
he would not have helped Mr. Stelling to a paying pupil, and
that would not have been so well for the reverend gentleman.
Consider, too, that all the pleasant little dim ideas and com-
placencies — of standing well with Timpson, of dispensing
26 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
advice when he was asked for it, of impressing his friend
Tiilliver with additional respect, of saying something, and
saying it emphatically, with other inappreciably minute in-
gredients that went along with the warm hearth and the
brandy-and- water to make up Mr. Kiley's consciousness on
this occasion — would have been a mere blank.
CHAPTER IV.
TOM IS EXPECTED.
It was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not
allowed to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch
Tom home from the academy ; but the morning was too wet,
Mrs. Tulliver said, for a little girl to go out in her best bonnet.
Maggie took the opposite view very strongly, and it was a
direct consequence of this difference of opinion that when her
mother was in the act of brushing out the reluctant black crop,
Maggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and dipped her
head in a basin of water standing near — in the vindictive
determination that there should be no more chance of curls
that day.
" Maggie, Maggie ! " exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout
and helpless with the brushes on her lap, " what is to become
of you if you 're so naughty ? I '11 tell your aunt Glegg and
your aunt Pullet when they come next week, and they '11 never
love you any more. Oh dear, oh dear ! look at your clean
pinafore, wet from top to bottom. Folks 'ull think it 's a
judgment on me as I 've got such a child — they '11 think I 've
done summat wicked."
Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already
out of hearing, making her way towards the great attic that
ran under the old high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her
black locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his
bath. This attic was Maggie's favorite retreat on a wet day,
BOY AND GIRL. 27
when the weather was not too cold ; here she fretted out all
her ill-humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and
the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with
cobwebs ; and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for
all her misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden
doll, which once stared with the roundest of eyes above the
reddest of cheeks ; but was now entirely defaced by a long
career of vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the
head commemorated as many crises in Maggie's nine years
of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been
suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in
the old Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer
stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented
aunt Glegg. But immediately afterwards Maggie had reflected
that if she drove many nails in, she would not be so well able
to fancy that the head was hurt when she knocked it against
the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it,
when her fury was abated ; for even aunt Glegg would be
pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly
humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she
had driven no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alter-
nately grinding and beating the wooden head against the rough
brick of the great chimneys that made two square pillars sup-
porting the roof. That was what she did this morning on
reaching the attic, sobbing all the while with a passion that
expelled every other form of consciousness — even the memory
of the grievance that had caused it. As at last the sobs were
getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of
simshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-
eaten shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the
window. The sun was really breaking out ; the sound of the
mill seemed cheerful again ; the granary doors were open ;
and there was Yap, the queer white-and-brown terrier, with
one ear turned back, trotting about and snifiing vaguely, as
if he were in search of a companion. It was irresistible.
Maggie tossed her hair back and ran down-stairs, seized her
bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then dashed along
the passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was
28 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 '11 make yourself giddy, an' tumble
down i' the dirt," said Luke, the head miller, a tall broad-
shouldered man of forty, black-eyed and black-haired, subdued
by a general mealiness, like an auricula.
Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little,
" Oh no, it does n'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 uncontrollable
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 ol grain, which she could sit on and slide down
continually. She was in the habit of taking this recreation as
she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very communiJca-
tive, 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 thai
shrill pitch which was requisite in mill-society —
BOY AND GIRL. 29
" I think you never read any book but the Bible — did you,
Luke ? "
" Nay, Miss — an' not much o' that," said Luke, with great
frankness. " I 'm no reader, I are n'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 did n't
understand the reading, the pictures would help you — they
show the looks and ways of the people, and what they do.
There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know —
and one sitting on a barrel."
"Nay, Miss, I 'u no opinion o' Dutchmen. There be n't
much good i' knowin' about themV
" But they 're our fellow-creatures, Luke — we ought to know
about our fellow-creatures."
" Not much o' fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss ; all I know —
my old master, as war a knowin' man, u^sed 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 are n't goin' to bother mysen about
Dutchmen. There 's fools enoo — an' rogues enoo — wi'out
lookin' i' books for 'em."
"Oh, well," said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpect-
edly 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 sun-
fish, 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. Should n't you like to know about them,
Luke ? "
" Nay, Miss, I 'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn — I
can't do wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That 's
what brings folks to the gallows — knowin' everything but
what they 'n got to get their bread by. An' they 're mostly
lies, I think, what 's printed i' the books : them printed sheets
are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the streets."
" Why, you 're like my brother Tom, Luke," said Maggie,
30 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
wishing to turn the conversation agreeably ; " Tom 's not fond
of reading. I love Tom so dearly, Luke — better than any-
body else in the world. When he grows up, I shall keep his
house, and we shall always live together. I can tell him
everything he does n't know. But I think Tom 's clever, for
all he does n't like books : he makes beautiful whipcord and
rabbit-pens."
" Ah," said Luke, " but he '11 be fine an' vexed, as the rabbits
are all dead."
" Dead ! " screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding
seat on the corn. " Oh dear, Luke ! What ! the lop-eared
one, and the spotted doe that Tom spent all his money to
buy ? "
" As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison from
the unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable-wall.
"Oh dear, Luke," said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the
big tears rolled down her cheek ; " Tom told me to take care
of 'em, and I forgot. What shall I do ? "
" Well, you see. Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an'
it was nobody's business to see to 'em. I reckon Master Tom
told Harry to feed 'em, but there 's no countin' on Harry —
Ae's an offal creatur as iver come about the primises, he is.
He remembers nothing but his own inside — an' I wish it 'ud
gripe him."
" Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rab-
bits every day ; but how could I, when they did n't come into
my head, you know ? Oh, he will be so angr}- 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 does n'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."
BOY AND GIRL. 31
The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie's
grief, and her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by-
Luke's side to his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple
and pear trees, and with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty,
at the other end of the Mill fields. Mrs. Moggs, Luke's wife,
was a decidedly agreeable acquaintance. She exhibited her
hospitality in bread and treacle, and possessed various works
of art. Maggie actually forgot that she had any special cause
of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to look at a
remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son in
the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might
have been expected from his defective moral character, he had
not, like that accomplished hero, the taste and strength of
mind to dispense with a wig. But the indefinable weight the
dead rabbits had left on her mind caused her to feel more than
usual pity for the career of this weak young man, particularly
when she looked at the picture where he leaned against a tree
with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches unbuttoned and
his wig awry, while the swine, apparently of some foreign
breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their
feast of husks.
" I 'm veiy glad his father took him back again — are n't
you, Luke ? " she said. '' For he was very sorry, you know,
and would n't do wrong again."
" Eh, Miss," said Luke, " he 'd be no great shakes, I doubt,
let's fevther do what lie 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 wa*
another fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late
enough for the sound of the gig-wheels to be expected ; for if
82 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for lier
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. TuUiver's
curls and cap-strings, she came outside the door, and even
held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting all the
griefs of the morning.
" There he is, my sweet lad ! But, Lord ha' mercy ! he 's
got never a collar on ; it 's been lost on the road, I '11 be
bound, and spoilt the set."
Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open ; Maggie jumped
first on one leg and then on the other ; while Tom descended
from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the
tender emotions, " Hello ! Yap — what ! are you there ? "
Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough,
though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion,
while his blue-gray eyes wandered towards the croft and the
lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would
begin to fish the first thing to-morrow morning. He was one
of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and at twelve
or thirteen years of age, look as much alike as goslings : — a
lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips,
indeterminate nose and eyebrows — a physiognomy in which
it seems impossible to discern anything but the generic char-
acter 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 ai^pearance of
openness, so that simple people think they can see through
her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a
refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average
boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross,
she conceals some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some
of her most un modifiable characters ; and the dark-eyed, de-
monstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a
passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of mas-
culinity with the indeterminate features.
" Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner,
BOY AND GIRL. 33
as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box, and
the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from the
long drive, " you don't know what I 've got in imj pockets,"
nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense
of mystery.
" Ko," said Maggie. " How stodgy they look, Tom ! Is it
marls (marbles) or cobnuts ? " Maggie's heart sank a little,
because Tom always said it was " no good " playing with her
at those games — she played so badly.
" Marls ! no ; I 've swopped all my marls with the little
fellows, and cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts
are green. But see here ! " He drew something half out of
his right-hand pocket.
"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see
nothing but a bit of yellow."
" Why, it 's . . . a . . . new . . . guess, Maggie ! "
" Oh, I canH guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.
" Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrust-
ing his hand back into his pocket, and looking determined.
"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the
arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. " I 'm not cross, Tom ;
it was only because I can't bear guessing. Please be good
to me."
Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, " Well, then, it 's a
new fish-line — two new uns — one for you, Maggie, all to
yourself. I would n't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread
on purpose to save the money ; and Gibson and Spouncer
fought with me because I would n't. And here 's hooks ; see
here ! . . . I say, wonH we go and fish to-morrow down by
the Eound 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 tlirow 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 T a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to
yourself ? You know, I need n't have bought it, if I had n't
liked."
VOL. II.
34 THE MILL ON THl5 FLOSS.
"Yes, very, very good. . . . 1 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 would n't give in
about the toffee."
" Oh dear ! I wish they would n't fight at your school, Tom.
Did n't it hurt you ? "
" Hurt me ? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks againj
taking out a large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest
blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his fingei
along it. Then he added —
" I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know — that 's what he got
by wanting to leather me ; I was n't going to go halves because
anybody leathered me."
" Oh how brave you are, Tom ! I think you 're like Samson.
If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you 'd fight him —
would n'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
A^frica, where it 's very hot — the lions eat people there. I cau
show it you in the book where I read it."
" Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."
" But if you had n't got a gun — we might have gone out.
you know, not thinking — just as we go fishing; and then a
great lion might run towards us roaring, and we could n't get
away from him. What should you do, Tom ? "
Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously,
saying, " But the lion is n't coming. What 's the use of
talking ? "
" But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, follow-
ing him. " Just think what you would do, Tom."
" Oh, don't bother, Maggie ! you 're such a silly — I shall go
and see my rabbits."
Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not
tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in 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 j for
BOY AND GIRL. 85
Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all things — it was quite a
different anger from her own.
"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out of doors,
" how much money did you give for your rabbits ? "
" Two half-crowns and a sixpence/' said Tom, promptly.
" I think I 've got a great deal more than that in my steel
purse up-stairs. I '11 ask mother to give it you."
"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want your money, you
silly thing. I 've got a great deal more money than you, be-
cause I 'm a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sover-
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 to-
wards 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 shan't go fishing
with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every
day." He walked on again.
"Yes, bv;t 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 7J0U forgot anything — I would n't mind what you did
. -- 1 '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.
36 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremp-
tory tone, " Now, Maggie, you just listen. Are n't I a good
brother to you ? "
"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling
convulsedly.
" Did n't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and
mean to buy it, and saved my money o' purpose, and would n't
go halves in the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I
would n't ? "
" Ye-ye-es . . . and I . . . lo-lo-love you so, Tom."
" But you 're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the
paint off ray lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let
the boat drag my fish-line down when I 'd set you to watch it,
and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothmg."
'' But I did n't mean," said Maggie ; " I could n't help it."
" Yes, you could," said Tom, " if you 'd minded what you
were doing. And you 're a naughty girl, and you shan't go
fishing with me to-morrow."
With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie
towards the mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain
to him of Harry.
Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute
or two ; then she turned round and ran into the house, and
up to her attic, where she sat on the floor, and laid her head
against the worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of misery.
Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she
should be — and now he was cruel to her. What use was any-
thing, if Tom did n't love her ? Oh, he was very cruel !
Had n't she wanted to give him the money, and said how very
sorry she was ? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but
she had never been naughty to Tom — had never meant to be
naughty to him.
" Oh, he is cruel ! " Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched
pleasure in the hollow resonance that came through the long
empty space of the attic. She never thought of beating or
grinding her Fetish ; she was too miserable to be angry.
These bitter sorrows of childhood I when sorrow is all new
^aid strange, when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond
BOY AND GIKL. 37
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 ? — per-
haps her father would be there, and he would take her part.
But then she wanted Tom to forgive her because he loved her,
not because his father told him. No, she would never go
down if Tom did n't come to fetch her. This resolution lasted
in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the tub ; but
then the need of being loved, the strongest need in poor Mag-
gie's nature, began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw
it. She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long
attic, but just then she heard a quick footstep on the stairs.
Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in
going the round of the premises, walking in and out where he
pleased, and whittling sticks without any particular reason,
except that he didn't whittle sticks at school, to think of
Maggie and the effect his anger had produced on her. He
meant to punish her, and that business having been performed,
he occupied himself with other matters, like a practical 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 did n't want to " tell " of
Maggie, though he was angry with her ; for Tom Tulliver was
a lad of honor.
" What ! has n't she been playing with you all this while ? "
said the father. " She 'd been thinking o' nothing but youi
coming home."
38 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" I have n't seen her this two hours/' says Tom, commencing
on the plumcake.
" Goodness heart ! she 's got drownded ! " exclaimed Mrs.
Tulliver, rising from her seat and running to the window.
" How could you let her do so ? " she added, as became a fear-
ful woman, accusing she did n't know whom of she did n'fc
know what.
" Nay, nay, she 's none drownded," said Mr. Tulliver.
" You 've been naughty to her, I doubt, Tom ? "
"I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom, indignantly. "I
think she 's in the house."
"Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing
and talking to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times."
"You go and fetch her down, Tom," said Mr. Tulliver,
rather sharply, his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for
Maggie making him suspect that the lad had been hard
upon "the little un," else she would never have left his side.
"And be good to her, do you hear ? Else I'll let you know
better."
Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a
peremptory man, and, as he said, would never let anybody get
hold of his whip-hand; but he went out rather sullenly, carry-
ing his piece of plumcake, and not intending to reprieve Mag-
gie's punishment, which was no more than she deserved. Tom
was only thirteen, and had no decided views in grammar and
arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open questions,
but he was particularly clear and positive on one point —
namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it:
why, he would n't have minded being punished himself, if he
deserved it ; but, then, he never did deserve it.
It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs,
when her need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she
was going down with her swollen eyes and dishevelled hair to
beg for pity. At least her father would stroke her head and
say, "Never mind, my wench." It is a wonderful subduer,
this need of love — this hunger of the heart — as peremptory
as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to
the yoke, and change the face of the world.
BOY AND GIRL. 39
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 or
the other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the
mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves
in every respect like members of a highly civilized society.
Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and
so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a
random, sobbing way ; and there were tender fibres in the lad
that had been used to answer to Maggie's fondling ; so that he
behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolu-
tion to punish her as much as she deserved . he actually began
to kiss her in return, and say —
"Don't cry, then, Magsie — here, eat a bit o' cake."
Maggie's sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth
for the cake and bit a piece ; and then Tom bit a piece, just
for company, and they ate together and rubbed each other's
cheeks and brows and noses together, while they ate, with a
humiliating resemblance to two friendly ponies.
" Come along, Magsie, and have tea," said Tom at last,
when there was no more cake except what was down-stairs.
So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning
Maggie was trotting with her own fishing-rod in one hand and
a handle of the basket in the other, stepping always, by a
peculiar gift, in the muddiest places, and looking darkly ra-
diant 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 could n't feel (it was
Tom's private opinion that it did n't much matter if they did).
40 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
He knew all about worms, and fish, and those things; and
what birds were mischievous, and how padlocks opened, and
which way the handles of the gates were to be lifted. Maggie
thought this sort of knowledge was very wonderful — much
more difficult than remembering what was in the books ; and
she was rather in awe of Tom's superiority, for he was the
only person who called her knowledge " stuff," and did not
feel surprised at her cleverness. Tom, indeed, was of opinion
that Maggie was a silly little thing; all girls were silly — they
could n't throw a stone so as to hit anything, could n't do any-
thing 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 Bound Pool — that wonder-
ful pool, which the floods had made a long while ago : no one
knew how deep it was ; and it was mysterious, too, that it
should be almost a perfect round, framed in with willows and
tall reeds, so that the water was only to be seen when you got
close to the brink. The sight of the old favorite spot always
heightened Tom's good-humor, and he spoke to Maggie in
the most amicable whispers, as he opened the precious basket,
and prepared their tackle. He threw her line for her, and
put the rod into her hand. Maggie thought it probable that
the small fish would come to her hook, and the large ones to
Tom's. But she had forgotten all about the fish, and was
looking dreamily at the glassy water, when Tom said, in a
loud whisper, '' Look, look, Maggie ! " and came running to
prevent her from snatching her line away.
Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something
wrong, as usual, but presently Tom drew out her line and
brought a large tench bouncing on the grass.
Tom was excited.
" Magsie, you little duck ! Empty the basket."
Maggie was not conscious of unusual merit, but it was
enough that Tom called her Magsie, and was pleased with
her. There was nothing to mar her delight in the whispers
and the dreamy silences, when she listened to the light dip-
BOY AND GIRL. 41
ping sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle rustling, as if
the willows and the reeds and the water had their happy
whisperings also. Maggie thought it would make a very nice
heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded.
She never knew she had a bite till Tom told her; but she
liked fishing very much.
It was one of their happy mornings. They trotted along
and sat down together, with no thought that life would ever
change much for them : they would only get bigger and not
go to school, and it would always be like the holidays; they
would always live together and be fond of each other. And
the mill with its booming — the great chestnut-tree under
which they played at houses — their own little river, the Eip-
ple, where the banks seemed like home, and Tom was always
seeing the water rats, while Maggie gathered the purple plumy
tops of the reeds, which she forgot and dropped afterwards —
above all, the great Floss, along which they wandered with a
sense of travel, to see the rushing spring-tide, the awful Eagre,
come up like a hungry monster, or to see the Great Ash which
had once wailed and groaned like a man — these things would
always be just the same to them. Tom thought people were
at a disadvantage who lived on any other spot of the globe ;
and Maggie, when she read about Christiana passing "the river
over which there is no bridge," always saw the Floss between
the green pastures by the Great Ash.
Life did change for Tom and Maggie; and yet they were
not wrong in believing that the thoughts and loves of these
first years would always make part of their lives. We could
never have loved the earth so well if we had had no childhood
in it, — if it were not the earth where the same flowers come
up again every spring that we used to gather with our tiny
fingers as we sat lisping to ourselves on the grass — the same
hips and haws on the autumn 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
42 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
sky, the white star-flowers and the blue-eyed speedwell and
the ground ivy at my feet — what grove of tropic palms, what
strange ferns or splendid broad-petalled blossoms, could ever
thrill such deep and delicate fibres within me as this home
scene ? These familiar flowers, these well-remembered bird-
notes, this sky, with its fitful brightness, these furrowed and
grassy fields, each with a sort of personality given to it by the
capricious hedgerows — such things as these are the mother
tongue of our imagination, the language that is laden with all
the subtle inextricable associations the fleeting hours of our
childhood left behind them. Our delight in the sunshine on
the deep-bladed grass to-day, might be no more than the faint
perception of wearied souls, if it were not for the sunshine
and the grass in the far-off years which still live in us, and
transform our perception into love.
CHAPTER VI.
THE AUNTS AND UNCLES ABE COMING.
It was Easter week, and Mrs. Tulliver's cheesecakes were
more exquisitely light than usual : " a puff o' wind 'ud make
'em blow about like feathers," Kezia the housemaid said, —
feeling proud to live under a mistress who could make such
pastry ; so that no Season or circumstances could have been
more propitious for a family party, even if it had not been
advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pullet about Tom's
going to school.
" I 'd as lief not invite sister Deane this time," said Mrs.
Tulliver, "for she's as jealous and having as can be, and 's
allays trying to make the worst o' my poor children to their
aunts and uncles."
" Yes, yes," said Mr. Tulliver, " ask her to come. I never
hardly get a bit o' talk with Deane now ; we have n't had him
this six months. What's it matter what she says? — my
children n«ed be beholding to nobody."
BOY AND GIRL. 43
"That's what you allays say, Mr. Tulliver ; hut I'm sure
there's nobody o' your side, neither aunt nor uncle, to leave
'em so much as a five-pound note for a leggicy. And there 's
sister Glegg, and sister Pullet too, saving money unknown —
for they put by all their own interest and butter-money too ;
their husbands buy 'em everything." Mrs. Tulliver was a
mild woman, but even a sheep will face about a little when
she has lambs.
" Tchuh ! " said Mr. Tulliver. " It takes a big loaf when
there 's many to breakfast. What signifies your sisters' bits
o' money when they 've got half-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to
divide it among? And your sister Deane won't get 'em to
leave all to one, I reckon, and make the country cry shame ou
'em when they are dead ? "
"I don't know what she won't get 'em to do," said Mrs.
Tulliver, " for my children are so awk'ard wi' their aunts and
uncles. Maggie 's ten times naughtier when they come than
she is other days, and Tom does n'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 '11 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, tak-
ing up his hat and walking out to the mill. Few wives were
more submissive than Mrs. Tulliver on all points unconnected
with her family relations ; but she had been a Miss Dodson,
and the Dodaons were a very respectable family indeed-^ as
44 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
fnuch 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 every thing in that family ; particular ways of
bleaching the linen, of making the cowslip wine, curing the
hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries ; so that no daugh-
ter of that house could be indifferent to the privilege of hav-
ing been born a Dodsou, rather than a Gibson or a Watson.
Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety in
the Dodson family : the hat-bands were never of a blue shade,
the gloves never split at the thumb, everybody was a mourner
who ought to be, and there were always scarfs for the bearers.
When one of the family was in trouble or sickness, all the
rest went to visit the uiafortunate member, usually at the same
time, and did not shrink from uttering the most disagreeable
truths that correct family feeling dictated : if the illness or
trouble was the sufferer's own fault, it was not in the practice
of the Dodson family to shrink from saying so. In short,
there was in this family a peculiar tradition as to what was
the right thing in household management and social de-
meanor, and the only bitter circumstance attending this superi-
ority was a painful inability to approve the condiments or the
conduct of families ungoverned by the Dodson tradition. A
female Dodson, when in "strange houses," always ate dry
bread with her tea, and declined any sort of preserves, having
no confidence in the butter, and thinking that the preserves
had probably begun to ferment from want of due sugar and
boiling. There were some Dodsons less like the family than
others — that was admitted; but in so far as they were "kin,"
they were of necessity better than those who were " no kin."
And it is remarkable that while no individual Dodson was
satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each was sat-
isfied, not only with him or her self, but with the Dodsons
collectively. The feeblest member of a family — the one who
has the least character — is often the merest epitome of the
family habits and traditions ; and Mrs. Tulliver was a thorough
BOY AND GIRL. 45
Dodson, 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 /outh under the yoke of her elder
sisters, and still shed occasional tears at their sisterly re-
proaches, it was not in Mrs. Tulliver to be an innovator on the
family ideas. She was thankful to have been a Dodson, and
to have one child who took after her own family, at least in
his features and complexion, in liking salt and in eating beans,
which a Tnlliver never did.
In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom,
and he was as far from appreciating his " kin " on the mother's
side as Maggie herself ; generally absconding for the day with
a large supply of the most portable food, when he received
timely warning that his aunts and unclesvwere coming ; a moral
symptom from which his aunt Glegg deduced the gloomiest
views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie that Tom
always absconded without letting her into the secret, but the
weaker sex are acknowledged to be serious impedimenta in
cases of flight.
On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were
coming, there were such various and suggestive scents, as of
plumcakes in the oven and jellies in the hot state, mingled
with the aroma of gravy, that it was impossible to feel altogether
gloomy : there was hope in the air. Tom and Maggie made
several inroads into the kitchen, and, like other marauders,
were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowed
to carry away a sufficient load of booty.
" Tom," said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-
tree, eating their jam-puffs, " shall you run away to-morrow ? "
"No," said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and
was eying the third, which was to be divided between them
— "no, I shan't."
" Why, Tom ? Because Lucy 's coming ? "
" E"o," 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."
56 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Is it the tipsy-cake, then ? " said Maggie, exerting her
hypothetic powers, while she leaned forward towards Toid
with her eyes fixed on the hovering knife.
" No, you silly, that '11 be good the day after. It 's the
pudden. I know what the pudden 's to be — apricot roll-up —
O my buttons ! "
With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff and
it was in two, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for
he still eyed the halves doubtfully. At last he said —
" Shut your eyes, Maggie."
" What for ? "
" You never mind what for. Shut 'em when I tell you."
Maggie obeyed.
" Now, which '11 you have, Maggie — right hand or left ? "
*' X '11 have that with the jam run out," said Maggie, keeping
her eyes shut to please Tom.
" Why, you don't like that, you silly. You may have it if
it comes to you fair, but I shan't give it you wdthout. Right
of left — you choose, now. Ha-a-a ! " said Tom, in a tone of
exasperation, as Maggie peeped. " You keep your eyes shut,
now, else you shan't have any."
Maggie's power of sacrifice did not extend so far ; indeed, I
fear she cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible
amount of puff, than that he should be pleased with her for
giving him the best bit. So she shut her eyes quite close,
till Tom told her to " say which," and then she said, " Left
hand."
" You 've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.
« What ! the bit with the jam run out ? "
"No; here, take it," said Tom, firmly, handing decidedly
the best piece to Maggie.
" Oh, please, Tom, have it : I don't mind — I like the other :
please take this."
"No, I shan'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
BOY AND GIRL. 47
while Maggie ate her last morsel or two, feeling in himself a
capacity for more. Maggie did n't know Tom was looking
at her ; she was seesawing on the elder-bough, lost to almost
everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.
" Oh, you greedy thing ! " said Tom, when she had swallowed
the last morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly,
and thought she ought to have considered this, and made up
to him for it. He would have refused a bit of hers beforehand,
but one is naturally at a different point of view before and
after one's own share of puff is swallowed.
Maggie turned quite pale. " Oh, Tom, why did n't you ask
me?"
" I was n't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You
might have thought of it without, when you knew I gave you
the best bit."
" But I wanted you to have it — you know I did," said
Maggie, in an injured tone.
" Yes, but I was n't going to do what was n't fair, like
Spouncer. He always takes the best bit, if you don't punch
him for it ; and if you choose the best with your eyes shut, he
changes his hands. But if I go halves, I '11 go 'em fair — only
I would n'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 dis-
tance from the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her
bough, and gave herself up to the keen sense of unmerited
reproach. She would have given the world not to have eatec
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.
48 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
And he had said he would n't have it — and she ate it without
thinking — how could she help it ? The tears flowed so plen-
tifully that Maggie saw nothing around her for the next ten
minutes ; but by that time resentment began to give way to
the desire of reconciliation, and she jumped from her bough to
look for Tom. He was no longer in the paddock behind the
rickyard — where was he likely to be gone, and Yap with him ?
Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree, where
she could see far away towards 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 Jakiu, 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 dread-
fully 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 would n't stop
barking ; and when Bob's mother came out after it, and screamed
above the barking to tell them not to be frightened, Maggie
thought she was scolding them fiercely, and her heart beat
with terror. Maggie thought it very likely that the round
house had snakes on the floor, and bats in the bedroom ; for
she had seen Bob take off his cap to show Tom a little snake
that was inside it, and another time he had a handful of young
bats : altogether, he was an irregular character, perhaps even
slightly diabolical, judging from his intimacy with snakes and
bats ; and to crown all, when Tom had Bob for a companion,
he did n't mind about Maggie, and would never let her go with
him.
It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company.
How could it be otherwise ? Bob knew, directly he saw a
bird's egg, whether it was a swallow's, or a tomtit's, or a
yellow-hammer's ; he found out all the wasps' nests, and could
set all sorts of traps ; he could climb the trees like a squirrel,
and had quite a magical power of detecting hedgehogs and
stoats ; and he had courage to do things that were rather
naught}^, such as making gaps in the hedgerows, throwing
BOY AND GIRL. 49
stones after the sheep, and killing a cat that was wandering
incognito. Such qualities in an inferior, who could always be
treated with authority in spite of his superior knowingness,
had necessarily a fatal fascination for Tom ; and every holiday-
time Maggie was sure to have days of grief because he had
gone off with Bob.
Well ! there was no hope for it : he was gone now, and
Maggie could think of no comfort but to sit down by the
hollow, or wander by the hedgerow, and fancy it was all
different, refashioning her little world into just what she
should like it to be.
Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in
which she took her opium.
Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting
of reproach which he had left in her heart, was hurrying along
with Bob, whom he had met accidentally, to the scene of a
great rat-catching in a neighboring barn. Bob knew all about
this particular affair, and spoke of the sport with an enthu-
siasm which no one who is not either divested of all manly
feeling, or pitiably ignorant of rat-catching, can fail to im-
agine. For a person suspected of preternatural wickedness,
Bob was really not so very villanous-looking ; there was even
something agreeable in his snub-nosed face, with its close-
curled border of red hair. But then his trousers were always
rolled up at the knee, for the convenience of wading on the
slightest noticej 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 amphibious animal who fore-
saw occasion for darting in. "He lives up the Kennel Yard
at Sut Ogg's — he does. He 's the biggest rot-catcher any-
where — he is. I 'd sooner be a rot-catcher nor anything — I
would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors ! you
mnn ha' ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there 's that dog,
50 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
now ! " Bob continued, pointing with an air of disgust towards
Yap, " lie 's no more good wi' a rot nor nothin'. I see it my-
self — 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 '11 have
regular good dogs for rats and everything, when I've done
school."
" Hev ferrets, Measter Tom," said Bob, eagerly, — " them
white ferrets wi' pink eyes ; Lors, you might catch your own
rots, an' you might put a rot in a cage wi' a ferret, an' see 'em
fight — you might. That 's what I 'd do, I know, an' it 'ud be
better fun a'most nor seein' two chaps fight — if it was n't
them chaps as sold cakes an' oranges at the Fair, as the
things flew out o' their baskets, an' some o' the cakes was
smashed. . . . But they tasted just as good," added Bob, by
way of note or addendum, after a moment's pause.
" But, I say, Bob," said Tom, in a tone of deliberation,
" ferrets are nasty biting things — they '11 bite a fellow with-
out being set on."
" Lors ! why, that 's the beauty on 'em. If a chap lays
hold o' your ferret, he won't be long before he hollows out a
good un — he won't."
At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause
suddenly in their walk. It was the plunging of some small
body in the water from among the neighboring bulrushes : if
it was not a water-rat, Bob intimated that he was ready to
undergo the most unpleasant consequences.
" Hoigh ! Yap — hoigh ! there he is," said Tom, clapping
his hands, as the little black snout made its arrowy course to
the opposite bank. " Seize him, lad ! seize him ! "
Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined
to plunge, trying whether barking would not answer the
purpose just as well.
" Ugh ! you coward ! " said Tom, and kicked him over.
BOY AND GIRL. 51
feeling humiliated as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited
an animal. Bob abstained from remark and passed on, choos-
ing, however, to walk in the shallow edge of the overflowing
river by way of change.
" He 's none so full now, the Floss is n't," said Bob, as he
kicked the water up before him, with an agreeable sense of
being insolent to it. " Why, last 'ear, the meadows was all
one sheet o' water, they was."
"Ay, but," said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an
opposition between statements that were really quite accord-
ant — " 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 Bob ; "■ I don't mind
the water, no more nor the land. I 'd swim — / would."
"Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long ? " said
Tom, his imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus
of that dread. " When I 'm a man, I shall make a boat with
a wooden house on the top of it, like Noah's ark, and keep
plenty to eat in it — rabbits and things — all ready. And
then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I should n't mind. . . .
And I 'd take you in, if I saw you swimming," he added, in
the tone of a benevolent patron.
" I are n't frighted," said Bob, to whom hunger did not
appear so appalling. " But I 'd get in an' knock the rabbits
on th' head when you wanted to eat 'em."
" Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we 'd play at heads-
and-tails," said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that
this recreation might have fewer charms for his mature age.
" I 'd divide fair to begin with, and then we 'd see who 'd
win."
" I 've got a halfpenny o' my own," said Bob, proudly, coming
out of the water and tossing his halfpenny in the air. " Yeads
or tails ? "
" Tails," said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.
"It's yeads," said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny
as it fell.
52 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
*' It was n't," said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. " You
give me the halfpenny — I 've won it fair."
" I shan't," said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.
" Then I '11 make you — see if I don't," said Tom.
" You can't make me do nothing, you can't," said Bob.
« Yes, I can."
"No, you can't."
"I 'm master."
" I don't care for you."
" But I '11 make you care, you cheat," said Tom, collaring
Bob and shaking him.
" You get out wi' you," said Bob, giving Tom a kick.
Tom's blood was thoroughly up : he went at Bob with a
lunge and threw him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it
like a cat, and pulled Tom down after him. They struggled
fiercely on the ground for a moment or two, till Tom, pinning
Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the mastery.
" You say you '11 give me the halfpenny now," he said, with
difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of
Bob's arms.
But at this moment, Yap, who had been running on before,
returned barking to the scene of action, and saw a favorable
opportunity for biting Bob's bare leg not only with impunity
but with honor. The pain from Yap's teeth, instead of sur-
prising Bob into a relaxation of his hold, gave it a fiercer
tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force, he pushed Tom
backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could get
no sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so
that Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom, and,
almost throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time
Tom was up again, and before Bob had quite recovered his
balance after the act of swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him,
threw him down, and got his knees firmly on Bob's chest.
" You give me the halfpenny now," said Tom.
« Take it," said Bob, sulkily.
" No, I shan't take it ; you give it me."
Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it
away from him on the ground.
BOY AND GIRL. 53
Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise.
" There the halfpenny lies," he said. " I don't want your
halfpenny ; I would n't have kept it. But you wanted to
cheat : I hate a cheat. I shan't go along with you any more,"
he added, turning round homeward, not without casting a
regret towards the rat-catching and other pleasures which he
must relinquish along with Bob's society.
"You may let it alone, then,'-* Bob called out after him.
" I shall cheat if I like ; there 's no fun i' playing else ; and I
know where there 's a goldfinch's nest, but I '11 take care
you don't. . . . An' you're a nasty fightin' turkey-cock, you
are — "
Tom walked on without looking round, and Yap followed his
example, the cold bath having moderated his passions.
" Go along wi' you, then, wi' your drowned dog ; I would n't
own such a dog — I would n'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 thpre
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 would n't vex Tom, and pride or resent-
ment was a feeble passion in Bob's mind compared with the
love of a pocket-knife. His very fingers sent entreating thrills
that he would go and clutch that familiar rough buck's-horn
handle, which they had so often grasped for mere affection, as
it lay idle in his pocket. And there were two blades, and they
had just been sharpened ! What is life without a pocket-knife
to him who has once tasted a higher existence ? No : to throw
the handle after the hatchet is a comprehensible act of despera-
tion, but to throw one's pocket-knife after an implacable friend
is clearly in every sense a hyperbole, or throwing beyond th«
54 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 Ehadamanthine person-
age, having jnore than the usual share of boy's justice in him
— the justice that desires to hurt culprits as much as they
deserve to be hurt, and is troubled with no doubts concerning
the exact amount of their deserts. Maggie saw a cloud on his
brow when he came home, which checked her joy at his coming
so much sooner than she had expected, and she dated hardly
speak to him as he stood silently throwing the small gravel-
stones into the mill-dam. It is not pleasant to give up a rat-
catching when you have set your mind on it. But if Tom had
told his strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said,
"I'd do ]ust the same again." That was his iisual mode of
viewing his past actions ; whereas Maggie was always wishing
she had done something different.
CHAPTEK VII.
ENTER THE AUNTS AND UNCLES.
The Dodsons were certainly a handsome family^ and Mrs.
Glegg was not the least handsome of the sisters. As she sat
in Mrs. Tulliver's arm-chair, no impartial observer could have
denied that for a woman of fifty she had a very comely face
and figure, though Tom and Maggie considered their aunt
Glegg as the type of ugliness. It is true she despised the
BOY AND GIRL. 55
advantages of costume, for though, as she often observed, no
woman had better clothes, it was not her way to wear her new
things out before her old ones. Other women, if they liked,
might have their best thread-lace in every wash ; but when
Mrs. Glegg died, it would be found that she had better lace
laid by in the right-hand drawer of her wardrobe, in the
Spotted Chamber, than ever Mrs. Wooll of St. Ogg's had
bought in her life, although Mrs. Wooll wore her lace before
it was paid for. So of her curled fronts : Mrs. Glegg had
doubtless the glossiest and crispest brown curls in her drawers,
as well as curls in various degrees of fuzzy laxness ; but to look
out on the week-day world from under a crisp and glossy front,
would be to introduce a most dreamlike and unpleasant confu-
sion between the sacred and the secular. Occasionally, indeed,
Mrs. Glegg wore one of her third-best fronts on a week-day
visit, but not at a sister's house ; especially not at Mrs. Tulli-
ver's, who, since her marriage, had hurt her sisters' feelings
greatly by wearing her own hair, though, as Mrs. Glegg ob-
served to Mrs. Deane, a mother of a family, like Bessy, with
a husband always going to law, might have been expected to
know better. But Bessy was always weak !
So if Mrs. Glegg's front to-day was more fuzzy and lax than
usual, she had a design under it: she intended the most
poi^ited and cutting allusion to Mrs. Tulliver's bunches of
bio id curls, separated from each other by a due wave of
smoothness on each side of the parting. Mrs. Tulliver had
shed tears several times at sister Glegg's unkindness on the
subject of these unmatronly curls, but the consciousness of
looking the handsomer for them, naturally administered sup-
port. Mrs. Glegg chose to wear her bonnet in the house to-day
— untied and tilted slightly, of course — a frequent practice
of hers when she was on a visit, and happened to be in a
severe humor : she did n't know what draughts there might
be in strange houses. For the same reason she wore a small
sable tippet, which reached just to her shoulders, and was very-
far from meeting across her well-formed chest, while her long
neck was protected by a chevaux-de-frise of miscellaneous
frilling. One would need to be learned in the fashions of
56 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
those times to know liow far in the rear of them Mrs. Glegg's
slate-colored silk-gown must have been ; but from certain
constellations of small yellow spots upon it, and a mouldy
odor about it suggestive of a damp clothes-chest, it was prob-
able 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 shan't be viy iault
— IHl 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 '11 take my advice, Bessy, you '11 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 '11 be all here in
time, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, in her mild-peevish tone.
" The dinner won't be ready till half-past one. But if it 's
long for you to wait, let me fetch you a cheesecake and a glass
o' wine."
" Well, Bessy ! " said Mrs. Glegg, with a bitter smile, and a
scarcely perceptible toss of her head, '' I should ha' thought
you 'd known your own sister better. I never did eat between
meals, and I 'm not going to begin. Not but what I hate that
nonsense of having your dinner at half-past one, when you
might have it at one. You was never brought up in that
way, Bessy."
" Why, Jane, what can I do ? Mr. Tulliver does n't like
his dinner before two o'clock, but I put it half an hour earlier
because o' you."
"Yes, yes, I know how it is with husbands — they're for
putting everything oft" — they '11 put the dinner off till after
BOY AND GIRL. 57
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 have n't got
more strength o' mind. It '11 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 extrava-
gance. I wonder you don't take pattern by your sister Deane
— she 's far more sensible. And here you 've got two children
to provide for, and your husband 's spent your fortin i' going
to law, and 's likely to spend his OAvn too. A boiled joint, as
you could make broth of for the kitchen," Mrs. Glegg added,
in a tone of emphatic protest, "and a plain pudding, with a
spoonful o' sugar, and no spice, 'ud be far more becoming."
With sister Glegg in this humor, there was a cheerful 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 must n't look to
having any o' Mr. Glegg's money, for it 's well if I don't go
first — he comes of a long-lived family ; and if he was to die
and leave me well for my life, he 'd tie all the money up to go
back to his own kin."
The sound of wheels while Mrs. Glegg was speaking was
an interruption highly welcome to Mrs. Tulliver, who hast-
ened out to receive sister Pullet — it must be sister Pullet,
because the sound was that of a four-wheel.
Mrs. Glegg tossed hex head and looked rather sour about the
mouth at the thought of the " four-wheel." She had a strong
opinion on that subject.
Sister Pullet was in tears when the one-horse chaise stopped
before Mrs. TuUiver's door, and it was apparently requisite
58 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
that she should shed a few more before getting out, for though
her husband and Mrs. TuUiver stood ready to support her,
she sat still and shook her head sadly, as she looked through
her tears at the vague distance.
*• Why, whativer is the matter, sister ? " said Mrs. Tulliver.
She was not an imaginative woman, but it occurred to her
that the large toilet-glass in sister Pullet's best bedroom was
possibly broken for the second time.
There was no reply but a further shake of the head, as Mrs.
Pullet slowly rose and got down from the chaise, not without
casting a glance at Mr. Pullet to see that he was guarding her
handsome silk dress from injury. Mr. Pullet was a small man
with a high nose, small twinkling eyes, and thin lips, in a
fresh-looking suit of black and a white cravat, that seemed to
have been tied very tight on some higher principle than that
of mere personal ease. He bore about the same relation to
his tall, good-looking wife, with her balloon sleeves, abundant
mantle, and large be-feathered and be-ribboned bonnet, as a
cimall fishing-smack bears to a brig with all its sails spread.
It is a pathetic sight and a striking example of the complexity
introduced into the emotions by a high state of civilization —
the sight of a fashionably drest female in grief. From the
sorrow of a Hottentot to tliat of a woman in large buckram
sleeves, with several bracelets on each arm, an architectural
bonnet, and delicate ribbon-strings — what a long series of
gradations ! In the enlightened child of civilization the aban-
donment characteristic of grief is checked and varied in the
subtlest manner, so as to present an interesting problem to the
analytic mind. If, with a crushed heart and eyes half blinded
by the mist of tears, she were to walk with a too devious step
through a door-place, she might crush her buckram sleeves too,
and the deep consciousness of this possibility produces a com-
position of forces by which she takes a line that just clears the
doorpost. Perceiving that the tears are hurrying fast, she un-
pins 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
BOY AND GIRL. .^0
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 doorpost 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 ad-
vanced 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 is n't the glass this time, then," thought Mrs. Tulliver.
" Died the day before yesterday," continued Mrs Pullet ;
" an' her legs was as thick as my body," she added, with deep
sadness, after a pause. " They 'd tapped her no end o' times,
and the water — they say you might ha' swum in it, if you 'd
liked."
" Well, Sophy, it 's a mercy she 's gone, then, whoever she
may be," said Mrs. Glegg, with the promptitude and emphasis
of a mind naturally clear and decided ; " but I can't think who
you 're talking of, for my part."
" But I know," said Mrs. Pullet, sighing and shaking her
head ; " and there is n't another such a dropsy in the parish,
/know as it's old Mrs. Sutton o' the Twentylands."
" Well, she 's no kin o' yours, nor much acquaintance as I 've
ever beared of," said Mrs. Glegg, who always cried just as
much as was proper when anything happened to her own
"* kin," but not on other occasions.
-^ She 's so much acquaintance as I 've seen her legs when
they was like bladders. . . . And an old lady as had doubled
her money over and over again, and kept it all in her own
60 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
management to the last, and had her pocket with her keys in
under her pillow constant. There is n't many old ^ansh'ners
like her, I doubt."
" And they say she 'd took as much physic as 'ud fill a
wagon," observed Mr. Pullet.
" Ah ! " sighed Mrs. Pullet, " she 'd another complaint ever
so many years before she had the dropsy, and the doctors
could n'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 '11 think o' me.' She did say so,"
added Mrs. Pullet, beginning to cry bitterly again ; " those
were her very words. And she's to be buried o' Saturday,
and Pullet 's bid to the funeral."
" Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg, unable any longer to contain her
spirit of rational remonstrance — '^ Sophy, I wonder at you,
fretting and injuring your health about people as don't belong
to you. Your poor father never did so, nor your aunt Frances
neither, nor any o' the family as I ever heared of. You could n'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. Pul-
let had married a gentleman farmer, and had leisure and money
to carry her crying and everything else to the highest pitch of
respectabilit3\
"Mrs. Sutton did n't die without making her will, though,"
said Mr. Pullet, with a confused sense that he was saying
something to sanction his wife's tears ; " ours is a rich parish,
but they say there 's nobody else to leave as many thousands
behind 'em as Mrs. Sutton. And she 's left no leggicies, to
speak on — left it all in a lump to her husband's nevvy."
" There was n't much good i' being so rich, then," said Mrs.
Glegg, " if she 'd got none but husband's kin to leave it to.
It 's poor work when that 's all you 've got to pinch yourself
for ; — not as I 'm one o' those as 'ud like to die without
leaving more money out at interest than other folks had
BOY AND GIRL. 61
reckoned. But it 's a poor tale when it must go out o' your
own family."
'•' 1 'm sure, sister/' said Mrs. Pullet, who had recovered suf-
ficiently 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 was n't many months
in the year as I was n't under the doctor's hands. And he
said, ' Mrs. Pullet, I can feel for you.' That was what he said
— the very words. Ah ! " sighed Mrs. Pullet, shaking her
head at the idea that there were but few who could enter fully
into her experiences in pink mixture and white mixture, strong
stuff in small bottles, and weak stuff in large bottles, damp
boluses at a shilling, and draughts at eighteenpeuce. '' 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 '11 bring it up-stairs, 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 up-stairs 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 drest, considering ; and she
was too proud to dress her child in the good clothing her sister
Glegg gave her from the primeval strata of her wardrobe ; it
was a sin and a shame to buy anything to dress that child, if
it was n't a pair of shoes. In this particular, however, Mrs.
Glegg did her sister Bessy some injustice, for Mrs. Tulliver
had really made great efforts to induce Maggie to wear a leg-
horn bonnet and a dyed silk frock made out of her aunt Glegg's,
62 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
but the results had been such that Mrs. Tulliver was obliged
to bury them in her maternal bosom ; for Maggie, declaring
that the frock smelt of nasty dye, had taken an opportunity
of basting it together with the roast-beef the first Sunday she
wore it, and, finding this scheme answer, she had subsequently
pumped on the bonnet with its green ribbons, so as to give it a
general resemblance to a sage cheese garnished with withered
lettuces, I must urge in excuse for Maggie, that Tom had
laughed at her in the bonnet, and said she looked like an old
Judy. Aunt Pullet, too, made presents of clothes, but these
were always pretty enough to please Maggie as well as her
mother. Of all her sisters, Mrs. Tulliver certainly preferred
her sister Pullet, not without a return of preference ; but Mrs.
Pullet was sorry Bessy had those naughty awkward children ;
she would do the best she could by them, but it was a pity
they weren't as good and as pretty as sister Deane's child.
Maggie and Tom, on their part, thought their aunt Pullet tol-
erable, chiefly because she Avas not their aunt Glegg. Tom
always declined to go more than once, during his holidays, to
see either of them : both his uncles tipped him that once, of
course ; but at his aunt Pullet's there were a great many toads
to pelt in the cellar-area, so that he preferred the visit to her.
Maggie shuddered at the toads, and dreamed of them horribly,
but she liked her uncle Pullet's musical snuff-box. Still, it
was agreed by the sisters, in Mrs- Tulliver's absence, that the
Tulliver blood did not mix v/ell with the Dodson blood ; that,
in fact, poor Bessy's children were Tullivers, and that Tom,
notwithstanding he had the Dodson complexion, was likely to
be as " contrairy " as his father. As for Maggie, she was the
picture of her aunt Moss, Mr, Tulliver's sister, — a large-boned
iwomai), who had married as poorly as could be ; had no
china, and had a husband who had much ado to pay his rent.
But when Mrs. Pullet was alo:)ie with Mrs. Tulliver up-stairs,
the remarks were naturally to the disadvantage of Mrs. Glegg,
and they agreed, in confidence, that there was no knowing
what sort of fright sister Jane would come out next. But
their tete-a-tete was curtailed by the appearance of Mrs, Deane
with little Lucy ; and Mrs. Tulliver had to look on with a
BOY AND GIRL. 63
silent pang while Lucy's blond curls were adjusted. It was
quite unaccountable that Mrs. Deane, the thinnest and sallow-
est of all the Miss Dodsons, should have had this child, who
might have been taken for Mrs. Tulliver's any day. And
Maggie always looked twice as dark as usual when she was by
the side of Lucy.
She did to-day, when she and Tom came m from the garden
with their father and their uncle Glegg. Maggie had thrown
her bonnet off very carelessly, and, coming in with her hair
rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once to Lucy, who was
standing by her mother's knee. Certainly the contrast between
the cousins was conspicuous, and, to superficial eyes, was very
much to the disadvantage of Maggie, though a connoisseur
might have seen " points " in her which had a higher promise
for maturity than Lucy's natty completeness. It was like the
contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white
kitten. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be
kissed : everything about her was neat — her little round neck,
with the row of coral beads ; her little straight nose, not at
all snubby ; her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her
curls, to match her hazel eyes, which looked up with shy pleas-
ure 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 '11 stay
with Tom and me, won't you ? Oh, kiss her, Tom."
Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to
kiss her — no; he came up to her with Maggie, because it
seemed easier, on the whole, than saying, " How do you do ? "
to all those aunts and uncles : he stood looking at nothing in
particular, with the blushing, awkward air and semi-smile
which are common to shy boys when in company — very much
as if they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in
a degree of undress that was quite embarrassing.
64 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Heyday!" said aunt Glegg, with loud emphasis. "Do
little boys and gells come into a room without taking notice
o' their uncles and aunts ? That was n'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 declined
that pleasure apparently, for he tried to draw his hand away.
" Put your hair behind your ears, Maggie, and keep your frock
on your shoulder."
Aunt Glegg always spoke to them in this loud emphatic way,
as if she considered them deaf, or perhaps rather idiotic : it
was a means, she thought, of making them feel that they
were accountable creatures, and might be a salutary check on
naughty tendencies. Bessy's children were so spoiled — they 'd
need have somebody to make them feel their duty.
"Well, my dears," said aunt Pullet, in a compassionate
voice, "you grow wonderful fast. I doubt they'll outgrow
their strength," she added, looking over their heads with a
melancholy expression, at their mother. "I think the gell
has too much hair. I 'd have it thinned and cut shorter,
sister, if I was you : it is n't good for her health. It 's that
as makes her skin so brown, I should n't wonder. Don't you
think so, sister Deane ? "
" I can't say, I 'm sure, sister," said Mrs. Deane, shutting her
lips close again, and looking at Maggie with a critical eye.
" No, no," said Mr. Tulliver, " the child 's healthy enough —
there 's nothing ails her. There 's red wheat as well as white,
for that matter, and some like the dark grain best. But it
'ud be as well if Bessy 'ud have the child's hair cut, so as it
'ud lie smooth."
BOY AND GIRL. 65
A dreadful resolve was gathering in Maggie's breast, but it
was arrested by the desire to know from lier aunt Deane
whether she would leave Lucy behind: aunt Deane would
hardly ever let Lucy come to see them. After various reasons
for refusal, Mrs. Deane appealed to Lucy herself.
'* You would n't like to stay behind without mother, should
you, Lucy ? "
"Yes, please, mother," said Lucy, timidly, blushing very
pink all over her little neck.
" Well done, Lucy ! Let her stay, Mrs. Deane, let hei
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 m 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 \>y the superior partners
in the firm to which he belonged, at the same time that they
gave him a share in the business, in acknowledgment of his
valuable services as manager. No man was thought more
highly of in St. Ogg's than Mr. Deane, and some persons were
even of opinion that Miss Susan Dodson, who was once held
to have made the worst match of all the Dodson sisters, might
one day ride in a better carriage, and live in a better house,
even than her sister Pullet. There was no knowing where
a man would stop, who had got his foot into a great mill-
owning, ship-owning busiitess 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
would n't let her husband stand still in the world for want of
spurring.
" Maggie," said Mrs. Tulliver, Deckoning 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 ahame.
TOT.. II. ^
66 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 up-stairs 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 up-stairs 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, Maggie, j'ou '11 catch it ! " exclaimed Tom ;
" you 'd better not cut any more off."
Snip ! went the great scissors again while Tom was speak-
ing ; and he could n'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 '11 catch it, you know," said Tom, nodding his head in
an admonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he took the
scissors,
" Never mind — make haste ! " said Maggie, giving a little
stamp with her foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed.
The black locks were so thick — nothing could be more
tempting to a lad who had already tasted the forbidden pleas-
ure 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
then another and another, and tlie hinder-locks fell heavily
on the floor, and Maggie stood cropped in a jagged, uneven
BOY AND GIRL. 67
manner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, as if she
had emerged from a wood into the open plain.
" Oh, Maggie," said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping
his knees as he laughed, "oh, my buttons, what a queer thing
you look ! Look at yourself in the glass — you look like the
idiot we throw out nutshells to at school."
Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought 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 b}^ this very
decided course of action : she did n'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 '11 have to go down to dinner directly,"
said Tom. " Oh my ! "
"Don't laugh at me, Tom," said Maggie, in a passionate
tone, with an outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving
him a push.
" Now, then, spitfire ! " said Tom. " What did you cut it off
for, then ? I shall go down : I can smell the dinner going in."
He hurried down-stairs and left poor Maggie to that bitter
sense of the irrevocable which was almost an everyday experi-
ence 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 hap-
pened if they had not been done, with all the detail and ex-
aggerated 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
was much more wilful and inflexible than Maggie, his mother
68 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
hardly ever called him naughty. But if Tom did make a mis-
take of that sort, he espoused it, and stood by it : he " did n't
mind." If he broke the lash of his father's gig-whip by lash-
ing the gate, he could n't help it — the whip should n't have
got caught in the hinge. If Tom TuUiver whipped a gate, he
was convinced, not that the w^hipping of gates by all boys was
a justifiable act, but that he, Tom Tulliver, was justifiable in
whipping that particular gate, and he was n't going to be sorry.
But Maggie, as she stood crying before the glass, felt it impos-
sible that she should go down to dinner and endure the severe
eyes and severe words of her aunts, while Tom, and Lucy, and
Martha, who waited at table, and perhaps her father and her
uncles, would laugh at her, — for if Tom had laughed at her,
of course every one else would ; and if she had only let her
hair alone, she could have sat with Tom and Lucy, and had
the apricot-pudding and the custard ! What could she do but
sob ? She sat as helpless and despairing among her black
locks as Ajax among the slaughtered sheep. Very trivial,
perhaps, this anguish seems to weather-worn mortals who have
to think of Christmas bills, dead loves, and broken friendships ;
but it was not less bitter to Maggie — perhaps it was even more
bitter — than what we are fond of calling antithetically the real
troubles of mature life. "Ah, my child, you will have real
troubles to fret about by-and-by," is the consolation we have
almost all of us had administered to us in our childhood, and
have repeated to other children since we have been ijrown up.
We have all of us sobbed so piteously, standing with tiny bare
legs above our little socks, when we lost sight of our mother
or nurse in some strange place ; but we can no longer recall
the poignancy of that moment and weep over it, as we do over
the remembered sufferings of five or ten years ago. Every
one of those keen moments has left its trace, and lives in us
still, but such traces have blent themselves irrecoverably with
the firmer texture of our youth and manhood ; and so it comes
that we can look on at the troubles of our children with a
smiling disbelief in the reality of their pain. Is there any
one who can recover tlie experience of his childhood, not
merely with a memory of what he did and what happened to
BOY AND GIRL. 69
him, of what he liked and disliked when he was in frock and
trousers, but with an intimate penetration, a revived conscious-
ness of what he felt then — when it was so 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 wilfulness ; or on a rainy day in the holi-
days, when he didn't know how to amuse himself, and fell
from idleness into mischief, from mischief into defiance, and
from defiance into sulkiness ; or when his mother absolutely
refused to let him have a tailed coat that "half," although
every other boy of his age had gone into tails already ?
Surely if we could recall that early bitterness, and the dim
guesses, the strangely perspectiveless conception of life that
gave the bitterness its intensity, we should not pooh-pooh the
griefs of our children.
" Miss Maggie, you 're to come down this minute," said
Kezia, entering the room hurriedly. " Lawks ! what have j'-ou
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 tak-
ing 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 shan't come."
" Oh, well, I can't stay. I 've got to wait at dinner," said
Kezia, going out again.
" Maggie, you little silly," said Tom, peeping into the room
ten minutes after, " why don't you come and have your dinner ?
There's lots o' goodies, and mother says you're to come.
What are you crying for, you little spoony ? "
Oh, it was dreadful ! Tom was so hard and unconcerned ; if
he had been crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried too.
And there was the dinner, so nice ; and she was so hungry.
It was very bitter.
But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to
cry, and did not feel that Maggie's grief spoiled his prospect
of the sweets ; but he went and put his head near her, and said
in a lower, comforting tone —
70 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Won't you come, then, Magsie ? Shall I bring you a bit
o' pudding when I 've had mine ? . . . and a custard and
things ? "
" Ye-e-es," said Maggie, beginning to feel life a little more
tolerable.
*' Very well," said Tom, going away. But he turned agaii^
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 K^r scattered locks, and slowly
she made her way down-stairs. Then she stood leaning with
one shoulder against the frame of the dining-parlor door, peep-
ing 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 to-
wards 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 dropt the large gravy-spoon into the
dish with the most serious results to the table-cloth. For
Kezia had not betrayed the reason of Maggie's refusal to come
down, not liking to give her mistress a shock in the moment
of carving, and Mrs. Tulliver thought there was nothing worse
in question than a fit of perverseness, which was inflicting its
own punishment by depriving Maggie of half her dinner.
Mrs. Tulliver's scream made all eyes turn towards the same
point as her own, and Maggie's cheeks and ears began to burn,
while uncle Glegg, a kind-looking, white-haired old gentleman,
said —
" Heyday ! what little gell 's this — why, I don't know her.
Is it some little gell you 've picked up in the road, Kezia ? "
" Why, she 's gone and cut her hair herself," said Mr.
Tulliver in an undertone to Mr. Deane, laughing with much
enjoyment. "Did you ever know such a little hussy as
it is?"
BOY AND GIRL. 71
" Why, little miss, you 've made yourself look very funny,"
said uncle Pullet, and perhaps he never in his life made an
observation which was felt to be so lacerating.
" Fie, for shame ! " said aunt Glegg, in her loudest, severest
tone of reproof. " Little gells as cut their own hair should be
whipped and fed on bread and water — not come and sit down
with their aunts and uncles."
"Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, meaning to give a playful turn
to this denunciation, " she must be sent to jail, I think, and
they '11 cut the rest of her hair off there, and make it all
even."
" She 's more like a gypsy nor ever," said aunt Pullet, in a
pitying tone ; '' it 's very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be
so brown — the boy 's fair enough. I doubt it '11 stand in her
way i' life to be so brown."
" She 's a naughty child, as '11 break her mother's heart,"
said Mrs. Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.
Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and
derision. Her first flush came from anger, which gave her a
transient power of defiance, and Tom thought she was braving
it out, supported by the recent appearance of the pudding and
custard. Under this impression, he whispered, " Oh my !
Maggie, I told you you 'd catch it." He meant to be friendly,
but Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing in her
ignominy. Her feeble power of defiance left her in an instant,
her heart swelled, and, getting up from her chair, she ran to
her father, hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud
sobbing.
"Come, come, my wench," said her father, soothingly, 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 '11 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 '11 be the
72 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ruin of her, if you don't take care. My father never brought
his children up so, else we should ha' been a different sort o'
family to what we are."
Mrs. Tulliver's domestic sorrows seemed at this moment to
have reached the point at which insensibility begins. She took
no notice of her sister's remark, but threw back her 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 thxi 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 hus-
band 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 hus-
band'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 towards Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane
— "I've settled to send him to a Mr. Stelling, a oarson, down
BOY AND GIRL. 73
at King's Lorton, there — an uncommon clever fellow, I under-
stand — as '11 put liini 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 from
the pulpit. It was equally astonishing to the aunts and uncles
to find a parson introduced into Mr. Tulliver's family arrange-
ments. As for uncle Pullet, he could hardly have been more
thoroughly obfuscated if Mr. Tulliver had said that he was
going to send Tom to the Lord Chancellor : for uncle Pullet
belonged to that extinct class of British yeomen who, dressed
in good broadcloth, paid high rates and taxes, went to church,
and ate a particularly good dinner on Sunday, without dream-
ing that the British constitution in Chitrch 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 cir-
cumstances. And uncle Pullet had a great natural faculty
for ignorance. He was the first to give utterance to his
astonishment.
" Why, what can you be going to send him to a parson for ? "
he said, with an amazed twinkling in his eyes, looking at
Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane, to see if they showed any signs of
comprehension.
"Wliy, because the parsons are the best schoolmasters, bj
what I can make out," said poor Mr. Tulliver, who, in the
maze of this puzzling world, laid hold of any clew 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 make
74 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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']l have to pay a swinging half-yearly bill, then, eh,
Tulliver ? The clergymen have highish notions, in general,"
said Mr. Deane, taking snuff vigorously, as he always did when
wishing to maintain a neutral position,
" What ! do you think the parson '11 teach him to know a
good sample o' wheat when he sees it, neighbor Tulliver ? "
said Mr, Glegg, who was fond of his jest ; and, having retired
from business^ felt that it was not only allowable but becoming
in him to take a playful view of things.
" Why, you see, I 've got a plan i' my head about Tom," said
Mr. Tulliver, pausing after that statement and lifting up his
glass.
" Well, if 1 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 briiigin' 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 Ms son. I mean to put him to
some business, as he can go into without capital, and I want
to give him an eddication as he '11 be even wi' the lawyers and
folks, and put me up to a notion now an' then."
Mrs, Glegg emitted a long sort of guttural sound with closed
lips, that smiled m mingled pity and scorn.
" It 'ud be a fine deal better for some people," she said, after
that introductory note, " if they 'd let the lawyers alone."
" Is he at the head of a grammar school, then, this clergyman
— such as that at Market Bewley ? " said Mr. Deane.
" Ko — nothing o' that," said Mr. Tulliver. " He won't take
more than two or three pupils — and so he '11 have the more
time to attend to 'em, you know."
" Ah, and get his eddication done the sooner : they can't
learn much at a time when there 's so many of 'em," said uncle
BOY AND GIRL. 75
Pullet, feeling that he was getting quite an insight into thia
difficult matter.
"■ But he '11 want the more pay, I doubt," said Mr. Glegg.
"A}', ay, a cool hundred a-year — that 's all," said Mr. TuUi-
ver, with some pride at his own spirited course. "But then,
you know, it's an investment j Tom's eddication 'uU be so
much capital to him."
" Ay, there 's something m that," said Mr. Glegg. " Well,
well, neighbor Tulliver, you may be right, you may be right :
' When land is gone and money 's spent,
Then learning is most excellent '
I remember seeing those two lines wrote on a window at Bux-
ton. But us that have got no learning had better keep our-
money, eh, neighbor Pullet ? " Mr. Glegg rubbed his knees
and looked very pleasant.
"Mr. Glegg, I wonder at you," said his wife. "It's very
unbecoming in a man o' your age and belongings."
" What 's unbecoming, Mrs. G. ? " said Mr. Glegg, winking
pleasantly at the company. " My new blue coat as I 've got
on ? "
" I pity your weakness, Mr. Glegg. I say it 's unbecoming
to be making a joke when you see your own kin going head-
longs to ruin."
" If you mean me by that," said Mr. Tulliver, considerably
nettled, "you need n'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,
— did n't they, Susan ? " (appealing to his wife).
" I can give no account of it, I 'm sure," said Mrs. Deane,
closing her lips very tightly again. Mrs. Deane was not a
woman to take part in a scene where missiles were flying.
"Well," said Mr. Tulliver, speaking all the more cheerfully,
that Mrs. Glegg might see he didn't mind her, "if Wakem
thinks o' sending his son to a clergyman, depend on it I shili
make no mistake i' sending Tom to one. Wakem 's as big a
76 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 '11 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 uat'ral to send him to a clergyman."
"Yes," said Mr. Glegg, interpreting Mrs. Pullet's observa-
tion with erroneous plausibility, "you must consider that,
neighbor Tulliver ; Wakem's son is n't likely to follow any busi-
ness. 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 deter-
mined to keep it corked up, " you 'd far better hold your
tongue. Mr. Tulliver does n'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, / say nothing," said Mrs. Glegg, sarcastically. "My
advice has never been asked, and I don't give it."
" It '11 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, oome," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly. But Mr.
Tulliver was not to be hindered of his retort.
" You 've got a bond for it, I reckon," he said ; " and you 've
had your five per cent, kin or no kin."
" Sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, pleadingly, " drink your wine,
and let me give you some almonds and raisins."
" Bessy, I 'm sorry for you," said Mrs. Glegg, very much
with the feeling of a cur that seizes the opportunity of divert-
ing his bark towards 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
BOY AND GIRL. 77
fit, getting so red in the face after dinner, and we are but just
out o' mourning, all of us — and all wi' gowns craped alike
and just put by — it 's very bad among sisters."
" I should think it is bad," said Mrs. Glegg. " Things are
come to a fine pass when one sister invites the other to her
house o' purpose to quarrel with her and abuse her."
" Softly, softly, Jane — be reasonable — be reasonable," said
Mr. Glegg.
But while he was speaking, Mr. Tulliver, who had by no
means said enough to satisfy his anger, burst out again.
" Who wants to quarrel with you ? " he said. " It 's you
as can't let people alone, but must be gnawing at 'em forever.
/ 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 '11 sit by and see
me abused by them as 'ud never ha' had the chance if there
had n'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 has n't got a damned ill-
tempered woman in it."
" Well," said Mrs. Glegg, rising from her chair, " I don't
know whether you think it 's a fine thing to sit by and hear
me swore at, Mr. Glegg ; but I 'm not going to stay a minute
longer in this house. You can stay behind, and come home
with the gig — and I '11 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 yon
78 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 '11 make
it up another day."
"Then, sisters, shall we go and look at the children ?" said
Mrs. Tulliver, drying her eyes.
No proposition could have been more seasonable. Mr.
Tulliver felt very much as if the air had been cleared of ob-
trusive flies now the women were out of the room. There
were few things he liked better than a chat Avith Mr. Deane,
whose close application to business allowed the pleasure very
rarely. Mr. Deane, he considered, was the " knowingest "
man of his acquaintance, and he had besides a ready causticity
of tongue that made an agreeable supplement to Mr. TuUiver's
own tendency that way, which had remained in rather an
inarticulate condition. And now the women were gone, they
could carry on their serious talk without frivolous interruption.
They could exchange their views concerning the Duke of
Wellington, whose conduct in the Catholic Question had
thrown such an entirely new light on his character ; and
speak slightingly of his conduct at the battle of Waterloo,
which he would never have won if there had n't been a great
inany Englishmen at his back, not to speak of Blucher and
the Prussians, who, as Mr. Tulliver had heard from a person
of particular knowledge in that matter, had come up in the
very nick of time ; though here there was a slight dissidence,
Mr. Deane remarking that he was not disposed to give much
credit to the Prussians, — the build of their vessels, together
with the unsatisfactory character of transactions in Dantzic
beer, inclining him to form rather a low view of Prussian
pluck generally. Rather beaten on this ground, Mr. Tulliver
proceeded to express his fears that the country could never
again be what it used to be ; but Mr. Deane, attached to a
firm of which the returns were on the increase, naturally took
a more lively view of the present; and had some details to
give concerning the state of the imports, especially in hides
and spelter, which soothed Mr. TuUiver's imagination by
throwing into more distant perspective the period when the
BOY AND GIRL. 79
country would become utterly the prey of Papists and Radi
cals, and there would be no more chance for honest men.
Uncle Pullet sat by and listened with twinkling eyes to
these high matters. He did n't understand politics himself
— thought they were a natural gift — but by what he could
make out, this Duke of Wellington was no b-^^-ter than he
should be.
CHAPTER VIII.
MK. TULLIVER SHOWS HIS WEAKER SIDE.
"Suppose sister Glegg should call her money in — it 'ud be
very awkward for you to have to raise five hundred pounds
now/' said Mrs. Tulliver to her husband that evening, as she
took a plaintive review of the day.
Mrs. Tulliver had lived thirteen years with her husband,
yet she retained in all the freshness of her early married life a
facility of saying things which drove him in the opposite direc-
tion to the one she desired. Some minds are wonderful for
keeping their bloom in this way, as a patriarchal gold-fish
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 hundved pounds ; and when Mrs. Tulliver became rather
pressing to know hotv he would raise it without mortgaging
the mill and the house which he had said he never would mort-
gage, 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
80 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
into a family where there was a whole litter of women, he might
have plenty to put up with if he chose. But Mr. TuUiver did
not choose
Mrs Tulliver cried a little in a trickling quiet way as she
put on her nightcap; but presently sank into a comfortable
sleep, lulled by the thought that she would talk everything
over with her sister Pullet to-morrow, when she was to take
the children to Garum Firs to tea. ISTot that she looked for-
ward to any distinct issue from that talk ; but it seemed im-
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 thinking
of a visit he would pay on tbe morrow ; and his ideas on the
subject were not of so vague and soothing a kind as tnose of
his amiable partner.
Mr Tulliver, when under the influence of a strong feeling,
had a promptitude in action that may seem inconsistent with
that painful sense of the complicated puzzling nature of human
affairs under which his more dispassionate deliberations were
conducted ; but it is really not improbable that there was a
direct relation between these apparently contradictory phe-
nomena, since I have observed that for getting a strong impres-
sion that a skein is tangled, there is nothing like snatching
hastily at a single thread. It was owing to this promptitude
that Mr. Tulliver was on horseback soon after dinner the next
day (he was not dyspeptic) on his way to Basset to see his
sister Moss and her husband. For having made up his mind
irrevocably that he would pay Mrs. Glegg her loan of five
hundred pounds^ it naturally occurred to him that he had a
promissory -note for three hundred pounds lent to his brother-
in-law Moss, and if the said brother-in-law could manage to
pay in the money within a given time, it would go far to
lessen the fallacious air of inconvenience which Mr. Tulliver's
spirited step might have worn in the eyes of weak people who
require to know precisely how a thing is to be done before they
are strongly confident that it will be easy.
For Mr. Tulliver was in a position neither new nor striking,
but, like other every-day things, sure to have a cumulative
BOY AND GIRL. 81
effect that will be felt in the long-run : he was held to be a
much more substantial man than he really was. And as we
are all apt to believe what the world believes about us, it was
his habit to think of failure and ruin with the same sort of
remote pity with which a spare long-necked man hears that
his plethoric short-necked neighbor is stricken with apoplexy.
He had been always used to hear pleasant jokes about his
advantages as a man who worked his own mill, and owned a
pretty bit of land; and these jokes naturally kept up his sense
that he was a man of considerable substance. They gave a
pleasant flavor to his glass on a market-day, and if it had not
been for the recurrence of half-yearly payments, Mr. Tulliver
would really have forgotten that there was a mortgage of two
thousand pounds on his very desirable freehold. That was
not altogether his own fault, since one of the thousand pounds
was his sister's fortune, which he had to pay on her marriage ;
and a man who has neighbors that will go to law with him, is
not likely to pay off his mortgages, especially if he enjoys the
good opinion of acquaintances who want to borrow a hundred
pounds on security too lofty to be represented by parchment.
Our friend Mr. Tulliver had a good-natured fibre in him, and
did not like to give harsh refusals even to a sister, who had not
only come into the world in that superfluous way characteristic
of sisters, creating a necessity for mortgages, but had quite
thrown herself away m marriage, and had crowned her mis-
takes by having an eighth baby. On this point Mr. Tulliver was
conscious of being a little weak ; but he apologized to himself
by saying that poor Gritty had been a good-looking wench
before she married Moss — he would sometimes say this even
with a slight tremulousness in his voice. But this morning he
was in a mood more becoming a man of business, and in the
course of his ride along the Basset lanes, with their deep ruts,
— lying so far away from a market-town that the lahor of
drawing produce and manure was enough to take away the
best part of the profits on such poor land as that parish was
made of, — he got up a due amount of irritation against Moss
as a man without capital who, if murrain and blight were
abroad, was sure to have his share of them, and who, the more
TOL. II. 6
82 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
you tried to help him out of the mud, would sink the further
in. It would do him good rather than harm, now, if he were
obliged to raise this three hundred pounds : it would make
him look about him better, and not act so foolishly about his
wool this year as he did the last : in fact, Mr. TuUiver had
been too easy with his brother-in-law, and because he had let
the interest run on for two years. Moss was likely enough to
think that he should never be troubled about the principal.
But Mr. Tulliver was determined not to encourage such shuf-
fling people any longer; and a ride along the Basset lanes
was not likely to enervate a man's resolution by softening his
temper. The deep-trodden hoof-marks, made m the muddiest
days of winter, gave him a shake now and then which sug-
gested 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 abun-
dance of foul land and neglected fences that met his eye, though
they made no part of his brother Moss's farm, strongly con-
tributed to his dissatisfaction with that unlucky agriculturist.
If this was n't Moss's fallow, it might have been : Basset was
all alike ; it was a beggarly parish in Mr. Tulliver's opinion,
and his ojDinion was certainly not groundless. Basset had a
poor soil, poor roads, a poor non-resident landlord, a poor non-
resident vicar, and rather less than half a curate, also poor. If
any one strongly impressed with the power of the human mind
to triumph over circumstances, will contend that the parish-
ioners of Basset might nevertheless have been a very superior
class of people, I have nothing to urge against that abstract
propcEition ; I only know that, in point of fact, the Basset
mind was in strict keeping with its circumstances. The muddy
lanes, green or clayey, that seemed to the unaccustomed eye
to lead nowhere but into each other, did really lead, with
patience, to a distant highroad ; but there were many feet in
Basset which they led more frequently to a centre of dissipa-
tion, spoken of formerly as the " Markis o' Granby," but among
intimates as " Dickison's." A large low room with a sanded
floor, a cold scent of tobacco, modified by undetected beer-
dregs, Mr. Dickison leaning against the doorpost with a melan-
BOY AND GIRL. 83
chol} pimpled face, looking as irrelevant to the daylight as a
last night's guttered candle — all this may not seem a very
seductive form of temptation ; but the majority of men in
Basset found it fatally alluring when encountered on their
road towards 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 did n't spend a shilling at Dickison's
from one Whitsuntide to another. Mrs. Moss had said so of
her husband more than once, when her brother was in a mood
to find fault with him, as he certainly was to-day. And noth-
ing 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 cause-
way ; but the timely appearance of a cowboy saved him that
frustration of a plan he had determined on — namely, not to
get down from his horse during this visit. If a man means to
be hard, let him keep in his saddle and speak from that height,
above the level of pleading eyes, and with the command of a
distant horizon. Mrs. Moss heard the sound of the horse's
feet, and, when her brother rode up, was already outside the
kitchen door, with a half-weary smile on her face, and a black-
eyed baby in her arms. Mrs. Moss's face bore a faded resem-
blance 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 did n't look for you to-day. How do you do ? "
" Oh . . . pretty well, Mrs. Moss . . . pretty well," an-
swered the brother, with cool deliberation, as if it were rather
too forward of her to ask that question. She knew at once
that her brother was not in a good humor : he never called her
Mrs. Moss except when he was angry, and when they were in
84 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
company. Bat she liiought 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 is n't in the house, I sxippose ? " added Mr.
Tulliver, after a grave pause, during which four children had
run out, like chickens whose mother has been suddenly in
eclipse behind the hencoop.
" 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 '11 get down, brother, won't you,
and take something ? "
" No, no ; I can't get down. I must be going home again
directly," said Mr. Tulliver, looking at the distance,
"And how's Mrs. Tulliver and the children?" said Mrs.
Moss, humbly; not daring to press her invitation.
" Oh . . . pretty well. Tom 's going to a new school at
Midsummer — a deal of expense to me. It 's bad work for
me, lying out o' my money."
" I wish you 'd be so good as let the children come and see
their cousins some day. My little uns want to see their cousin
Maggie, so as never was. And me her godmother, and so
fond of her — there 's nobody 'ud make a bigger fuss with her,
according to what they 've got. And I know she likes to come,
for she 's a loving child, and how quick and clever she is, to
be sure ! "
If Mrs. Moss had been one of the most astute women in the
world, instead of being one of the simplest, she coidd have
thought of nothing more likely to propitiate her brother than
this praise of Maggie. He seldom found any one volunteering
praise of " the little wench : " it was usually left entirely to
himself to insist on her merits. But Maggie always appeared
in the most amiable light at her aunt Moss's : it was her
Alsatia, where she was out of the reach of law — if she upset
anything, dirtied her shoes^ or tore her frock, these things
were matters of course at 'I'^r 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 - - •
BOY AND GIRL. 85
" A.y : 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
m awe of their uncle from Dorlcote Mill. She was inferior
enough to Maggie m 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 lit-
tle 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, strok-
ing Lizzy's hair on each side of her forehead j '' 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 must n't
look to hanging on their brothers."
"No: but I hope their brothers 'ull love the poor things,
and remember they came o' one father and mother : the lads
'ull never be the poorer for that," said Mrs. Moss, flashing out
with hurried timidity, like a half-smothered fire.
Mr. Tulliver gave his horse a little stroke on the flank, then
checked it, and said, angrily, " Stand still with you ! " much to
the astonishment of that innocent animal.
"And the more there is of 'em, the more they must love
one another," Mrs. Moss went on, looking at her children with
a didactic purpose. But she turned towards 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."
8(1 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
That arrow went straight to Mr. Tulliver's heart. He had
not a rapid iiaagination, but the tliouglit 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
lier ?
" 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 ! "
" While, do you call it ? " said Mr. Moss, feeling out of breath
and injured. " I 've been running all the way. Won't you
'light, Mr. Tulliver?"
" Well, I '11 just get down and have a bit o' talk with you
in the garden," said Mr. Tulliver, thinking that he should be
more likely to show a due spirit of resolve if his sister were
not present.
He got down, and passed with Mr. Moss into the garden,
towards an old yew-tree arbor, while his sister stood tapping
her baby on the back, and looking wistfully after them.
Their entrance into the yew-tree arbor surprised several
fowls that were recreating themselves by scratching deep
holes in the dusty ground, and at once took flight with much
pother and cackling. Mr. Tulliver sat down on the bench, and
tapping the ground curiously here and there with his stick, as
if he suspected some hollowness, opened the conversation by
observing, with something like a snarl in his tone —
" Why, you 've got wheat again in that Corner Close, 1 see ;
and never a bit o' dressing on it. You '11 do no good with it
this year."
Mr. Moss, who, when he married Miss Tulliver, had been
regarded as the buck of Basset, now wore a beard nearly a
week old, and had the depressed, unexpectant air of a machine-
horse. He answered in a patient-grumbling tone, "Why, poor
farmers like me must do as they can : they must leave it to
BOY AND GIRL. 87
them as have got money to play with, to put half as much
iuto the ground as they mean to get out of it."
*' I don't know who should have money to play with, if it
is n't them as can borrow money without paying interest,"
said Mr. Tulliver, who wished to get into a slight quarrel ;
it was the most natural and easy introduction to calling in
money.
"I know I'm behind with the interest," said Mr. Moss, "but
I was so unlucky wi' the wool last year; and what with the
Missis being laid up so, things have gone awk'arder nor
usual."
"Ay," snarled Mr. Tulliver, "there 's folks as things 'ull allays
go awk'ard with . empty sacks 'ull never stand upright."
" Well, I don't know what fault you 've got to find wi' me,
Mr. Tulliver," said Mr. Moss, deprecatingly ; " I know there
is n't a day-laborer works harder."
"What's the use o' that," said Mr. Tulliver, sharply, "when
a man marries, and 's got no capital to work his farm but his
wife's bit o' fortm ? 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 hun-
dred 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 al-
ways very faulty people. Mr. Tulliver had succeeded in get-
ting quite as much irritated with Mr. Moss as he had desired,
and he was able to say angrily, rising from his seat —
" Well, you must do as you can. / can't find money for
ererybody 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.'"'
88 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Mr. Tulliver walked abruptly out of the arbor as he uttered
the last sentence, and, without looking round at Mr. Moss,
went on to the kitchen door, where the eldest boy was holding
his horse, and his sister was waiting in a state of wondering
alarm, which was not without its alleviations, for baby was
making pleasant gurgling sounds, and performing a great deal
of finger practice on the faded face. Mrs. Moss had eight
children, but could never overcome her regret that the twins
had not lived. Mr. Moss thought their removal was not with-
out its consolations. " Won't you come in, brother? " she said,
looking anxiously at her husband, who was walking slowly up,
while Mr. Tulliver had his foot already in the stirrup.
" No, no ; good-by," said he, turning his horse's head, and
riding away.
No man could feel more resolute till he got outside the yard
gate, and a little way along the deep-rutted lane ; but before
he reached the next turning, which would take him out of
sight of the dilajoidated farm-buildings, he appeared to be
smitten by some sudden thought. He checked his horse, and
made it stand still in the same spot for two or three minutei.,
during which he turned his head from side to side in a melan-
choly way, as if he were looking at some painful object oi)
more sides than one. Evidently, after his fit of promptitude,
Mr. Tulliver was relapsing into the sense that this is a puzzling
world. He turned his horse, and rode slowly back, giving vent
to the climax of feeling which had determined this movement
by saying aloud, as he struck his horse, " Poor little wench !
she '11 have nobody but Tom, belike, when I 'm gone."
Mr. Tulliver's return into the yard was descried by sev-
eral young Mosses, who immediately ran in with the exciting
news to their mother, so that Mrs. Moss was again on the door-
step when her brother rode up. She had been crying, but was
rocking baby to sleep in her arms now, and made no 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
BOY AND GIRL. gg
you fret — that 's all — I '11 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 '11 bring her and Tom some day before he goes to school.
You must n't fret ... I '11 allays be a good brother to you."
"Thank you for that word, brother," said Mrs. Moss, drying
her tears ; then turning to Lizzy, she said, " Run now, and
fetch the colored egg for cousin Maggie." Lizzy ran in, and
quickly reappeared with a small paper parcel.
"It's boiled hard, brother, and colored with thrums — very
pretty : it was done o' purpose for Maggie. Will you please
to carry it in your pocket ? "
" Ay, ay," said Mr. Tulliver, putting it carefully in his side-
pocket. " Good-by."
And so the respectable miller returned along the Basset
lanes rather more puzzled than before as to ways and means,
but still with the sense of a danger escaped. It had come
across his mind that if he were hard upon his sister, it might
somehow tend to make Tom hard upon Maggie at some dis-
tant 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 towards his sister.
CHAPTEE IX.
TO GARUM FIRS.
While the possible troubles of Maggie's future were occu-
pying her father's mind, she herself was tasting only the
bitterness of the present. Childhood has no forebodings . but
then, it is soothed by no memories of outlived sorrow.
90 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
The fact was, the day had begun ill with Maggie. The
pleasure of having Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the
afternoon visit to Garum Firs, where she would hear uncle
Pullet's musical box, had been marred as early as eleven
o'clock by the advent of the hairdresser from St. Ogg's, who
had spoken in the severest terms of the condition in which he
had found her hair, holding up one jagged lock after another
and saying, " See here ! tut — tut — tut ! " in a tone of min-
gled disgust and pity, which to Maggie's imagination was
equivalent to the strongest expression of public opinion. Mr.
Eappit, the hairdresser, with his well-anointed coronal locks
tending wavily upward, like the simulated pyramid of flame
on a monumental urn, seemed to her at that moment the most
formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at St.
Ogg's she would carefully refrain from entering through the
rest of her life.
Moreover, the preparation for a visit being ahvays a serious
affair in the Dodson family, Martha was enjoined to have
Mrs. Tulliver's room ready an hour earlier than usual, that
the laying out of the best clothes might not be deferred till
the last moment, as was sometimes the case in families of lax
views, where the ribbon-strings were never rolled up, where
there was little or no wrapping in silver paper, and where
the sense that the Sunday clothes could be got at quite easily
produced no shock to the mind. Already, at twelve o'clock,
Mrs. Tulliver had on her visiting costume, with a protective
apparatus of brown holland, as if she had been a piece of
satin furniture in danger of flies ; Maggie was frowning and
twisting her shoulders, that she might if possible shrink away
from the prickliest of tuckers, while her mother was remon-
strating, " Don't, Maggie, my dear — don't make yourself so
ugly ! " and Tom's cheeks were looking particularly brilliant
as a relief to his best blue suit, which he wore with becoming
calmness ; having, after a little wrangling, effected what was
always the one point of interest to him in his toilet — he had
transferred all the contents of his every-day pockets to those
actually in wear.
As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had
BOY AND GIRL. 91
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 of the roof : ■ — it was
always so with the things that Maggie made ; and Tom had
deduced the conclusion that no girls could ever make any-
thing. 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 tc
teach her. Maggie, too, would have admired Lucy's houses,
and would have given up her own unsuccessful building to
contemplate them, without ill-temper, if her tucker had not
made her peevish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately laughed
when her houses fell, and told her she was " a stupid."
" Don't laugh at me, Tom ! " she burst out, angrily ; " I 'm
not a stupid. I know a great many things you don't."
" Oh, I dare say. Miss Spitfire ! I 'd never be such a
cross thing as you — making faces like that. Lucy does n't
do so. I like 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 auger, 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
92 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
his pagoda, and Lucy looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing
from its lapping.
"Oh, Tom," said Maggie, at last, going half-way towards
him, " I did n't mean to knock it down — indeed, indeed I
did n'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 fresh air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at
the half-built bird's nest without caring to show it Maggie,
and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself, without
offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, " Maggie, should n't
you like one ? " but Tom was deaf.
Still the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail
on the stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was
enough to divert the mind temporarily from personal griev-
ances. And this was only the beginning of beautiful sights at
Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was wonderful there —
bantams, speckled and top-knotted ; Friesland hens, with their
feathers all turned the wrong way ; Guinea-fowls that flew
and screamed and dropped their pretty-spotted feathers ;
pouter-pigeons and a tame magpie ; nay, a goat, and a 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
that the unusual size of the toads there was simply due to
the general unusualness which characterized uncle Pullet's
possessions as a gentleman farmer. Toads who paid rent
were naturally leaner. As for the house, it was not less
remarkable ; it had a receding centre, and two wings with
BOY AND GIRL. 93
battlemented turrets, and was covered with glittering white
stucco.
Uncle Pullet had seen the expected party approaching from
the window, and made haste to unbar and unchain the front
door, kept always in this fortified condition from fear of
tramps, who might be supposed to know of the glass-case of
stuffed birds in the hall, and to contemplate rushing in and
carrying it away on their heads. Aunt Pullet, too, appeared
at the doorway, and as soon as her sister was within hearing
said, " Stop the children, for God's sake, Bessy — don't let 'em
come up the door-steps : Sally 's bringing the old mat and the
duster, to rub their shoes."
Mrs. Pullet's front-door mats were by no means intended tf'
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 m 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 com-
panions : it was the mounting of the polished oak stairs, which
had very handsome carpets rolled up and laid by in a spare
bedroom, so that the ascent of these glossy steps might have
served, in barbarous times, as a trial by ordeal from which
none but the most spotless virtue could have come off with 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," 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 i* r -'
94 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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 '11 be troublesome to you getting it out,
sister," said Mrs. TuUiver, " 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 ac-
quaintance with the habits of the Dodson family. In this
wardrobe Mrs. Pullet was seeking something small enough to
be hidden among layers of linen — it was a door-key.
"You must come with me into the best room," said Mrs.
Pullet.
" May the children come too, sister ? " inquired Mrs. TuUi-
ver, who saw that Maggie and Lucy were looking rather
eager.
" Well," said aunt Pullet, reflectively, " it '11 perhaps be
safer for 'em to come — they '11 be touching something if we
leave 'em behind."
So they went in procession along the bright and slippery
corridor, dimly lighted by the semi-lunar top of the window
which rose above the closed shutter : it was really quite sol-
emn. Aunt Pullet paused and unlocked a door which opened
on something still more solemn than the passage : a darkened
room, in which the outer light, entering feebly, showed what
looked like the corpses of furniture in white shrouds. Every-
thing that was not shrouded stood with its legs upwards.
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
BOY AND GIRL. 95
in keeping with the funereal solemnity of the scene. The
delicious scent of rose-leaves that issued from the wardrobe,
made the process of taking out sheet after sheet of silver paper
quite pleasant to assist at, though the sight of the bonnet at
last was an anticlimax to Maggie, who would have preferred
something more strikingly preternatural. But few things could
have been more impressive to Mrs. Tulliver. She looked all
round it in silence for some moments, and then said emphati-
cally, " Well, sister, I '11 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 '11
open the shutter a bit further."
" Well, if you don't mind taking off your cap, sister," said
Mrs. Tulliver.
Mrs. Pullet took ofE her cap, displaying the brown silk
scalp with a jutting promontory of curls which was commoi,
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, thax Mrs. Tulliver might miss no point of
view.
" I 've sometimes thought there 's a loop too much o' rib-
bon on this left side, sister ; what do you think ? " said Mrs.
Pullet.
Mrs. Tulliver looked earnestly at the point indicated, and
turned her head on one side. '' Well, I think it 's best as it
is ; if you meddled with it, sister, you might repent."
" That 's true," said aunt Pullet, taking off the bonnet and
looking at it contemplatively.
'' How much might she charge you for that bonnet, sister ? "
said Mrs. Tulliver, whose mind was actively engaged on the
possibility of getting a humble imitation of this chef-d'oeuvre
made from a piece of silk she had at home.
Mrs. Pullet screwed up her mouth and shook her head, and
then whispered, " Pullet pays for it : he said I was to have
the best bonnet at Garum Church, let the next best be whose
it would."
96 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
She began slowly to adjust the trimmings, in preparation
for returning it to its place in the wardrobe, and her thoughts
seemed to have taken a melancholy turn, for she shook her
head.
" Ah," she said at last, " I may never wear it twice, sister ;
who knows ? "
"Don't talk o' that, sister," answered Mrs. Tulliver. "I
hope you '11 have your health this summer."
"Ah! but there may come a death in the family, as there
did soon after I had my green satin bonnet. Cousin Abbott
may go, and we can't think o' wearing crape less nor half a
year for him."
"That v;ould be unlucky," said Mrs. Tulliver, entering
thoroughly into the possibility of an inopportune decease.
" There 's never so much pleasure i' wearing a bonnet the
second year, especially when the crowns are so chancy —
never two summers alike."
"Ah, it 's the way i' this world," said Mrs. Pullet, returning
the bonnet to the wardrobe, and locking it up. She 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 3'ou should
never see that bonnet again till I 'm dead and gone, you '11 re-
member I showed it you this day."
Mrs. Tulliver felt that she ought to be affected, but she was
a woman of sparse tears, stout and healthy — she couldn't
cry so much as her sister Pullet did, and had often felt her
deficiency at funerals. Her effort to bring tears into her eyes
issued in an odd contraction of her face. Maggie, looking on
attentively, felt that there was some painful mystery about
her aunt's bonnet which she was considered too young to un-
derstand : indignantly conscious, all the while, that she could
have understood that, as well as everything else, if she had
been taken into confidence.
When they went down, uncle Pullet observed with some
acumen, that he reckoned the missis had been showing her
bonnet — that was what had made them so long up-stairs.
With Tom the interval had seemed still longer, for he had
BOY AND GIKL. 97
been seated in irksome constraint on the edge of a sofa directly
opposite his uncle Pullet, who regarded him with twinkling
gray eyes, and occasionally addressed him as " Young sir."
"Well, young sir, what do you learn at school?" was a
standing question with uncle Pullet ; whereupon Tom always
looked sheepish, rubbed his hands across his face and answered,
" I don't know." It was altogether so embarrassing to be
seated tete-a-tete with uncle Pullet, that I'om could not even
look at the prints on the walls, or the fly cages, or the wonder-
ful 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 did n't want to be a gentle-
man farmer, because he should n't like to be such a thin-legged
silly fellow as his uncle Pullet — a molly-coddle, in fact. A
boy's sheepishness is by no means a sign of overmastering rev-
erence ; and while you are making encouraging advances to
him under the idea that he is overwhelmed by a sense of your
age and wisdom, ten to one he is thinking you extremely
queer. The only consolation I can suggest to you is, that the
Greek boys probably thought the same of Aristotle. It is
only when you have mastered a restive horse, or thrashed a
drayman, or have got a gun in your hand, that these shy jun-
iors feel you to be a truly admirable and enviable character.
At least, I am quite sure of Tom Tulliver's sentiments on
these points. In very tender years, when he 'jtill wore a lace
border under his outdoor cap, he was often observed peeping
through the bars of a gate and making minatory gestures with
his small fore-finger while he scolded the sheep with an in-
articulate burr, intended to strike terror into their astonished
minds : indicating thus early that desire for mastery over the
inferior animals, wild and domestic, including cockchafers,
neighbors' dogs, and small sisters, which in all ages has been
an attribute of so much promise for the fortunes of our race.
Now Mr. Pullet never rode anything taller than a low pony,
and was the least predatory of men, considering firearms dan-
gerous, 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
VOL. II. 7
98 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
as a nincompoop, taking care at the same time to observe that
he was a very '•' rich fellow."
The only alleviating circumstance in a tete-a-tete with uncle
Pullet was that he kept a variety of lozenges and peppermint-
drops about his person, and when at a loss for conversation,
he filled up the void by proposing a mutual solace of this
kind.
" Do you like peppermints, young sir ? " required only a
tacit answer when it was accompanied by a presentation of the
article in question.
The appearance of the little girls suggested to uncle Pullet
the further solace of small sweet-cakes, of which he also kept
a stock under lock and key for his own private eating on wet
days ; but the three children had no sooner got the tempting
delicacy between their fingers, than aunt Pullet desired them
to abstain from eating it till the tray and the plates came, since
with those crisp cakes they would make the floor " all over "
crumbs. Lucy didn't mind that much, for the cake was so
pretty, she thought it was rather a pity to eat it ; but Tom,
watching his opportunity while the elders were talking, hastily
stowed it in his mouth at two bites, and chewed it furtively.
As for Maggie, becoming fascinated, as usual, by a print of
Ulysses and Nausicaa, which uncle Pullet had bought as a
"pretty Scripture thing," she presently let fall her cake, and
in an unlucky movement crushed it beneath her foot — a source
of so much agitation to aunt Pullet and conscious disgrace to
Maggie, that she began to despair of hearing the musical snuff-
box to-day, till, after some reflection, it occurred to her that
Lucy was in high favor enough to venture on asking for a tune.
So she whispered to Lucy, and Lucy, who always did what she
was desired to do, went up quietly to her uncle's knee, and,
blushing all over her neck while she fingered her necklace, said,
" Will you please play us a tune, uncle ? "
liucy thought it was by reason of some exceptional talent in
uncle Pullet that the snuff-box played such beautiful tunes,
and indeed the thing was viewed in that light by the majority
of his neighbors in Garum. Mr. Pullet had bought the box, to
begin with, and he understood winding it up, and knew which
BOY AND GIRL. 99
tune it was going to play beforehand ; altogether, the posses-
sion of this unique "piece of music" was a proof that Mr.
Pullet's character was not of that entire nullity which might
otherwise have been attributed to it. But uncle Pullet, when
entreated to exhibit his accomplishment, never depreciated it
by a too ready consent. "We '11 see about it," was the answer
he always gave, carefully abstaining from any sign of com-
pliance till a suitable number of minutes had passed. Uncle
Pullet had a programme for all great social occasions, and in
this way fenced himself in from much painful confusion and
perplexing freedom of will.
Perhaps the suspense did heighten Maggie's enjoyment
when the fairy tune began : for the first time she quite forgot
that she had a load on her mind — that Tom was angry with
her ; and by the time " Hush, ye pretty warbling choir," had
been played, her face wore that bright look of happiness, while
she sat immovable with her hands clasped, which sometimes
comforted her mother with the sense tliat Maggie could look
pretty now and then, in spite of her brown skin, Biit when
the magic music ceased, she jumped up, and, running towards
Tom, put her arm round his neck and said, " Oh, Tom, is n't it
pretty ? "
Lest you shoiild think it showed a revolting insensibility
in Tom that he felt any new anger towards Maggie for this
uncalled-for, and, to him, inexplicable caress, I must tell you
that he had his glass of cowslip wine in his hand, and that she
jerked him so as to make him spill half of it. He must have
been an extreme milksop not to say angrily, "Look there
now ! " especially when his resentment was sanctioned, as it
was, by general disapprobation of Maggie's behavior.
" Why don't you sit still, Maggie ? " her mother said,
peevishly.
" Little gells must n't come to see me if they behave in that
way," said aunt Pullet.
" Why, you 're too rough, little miss," said uncle Pullet.
Poor Maggie sat down again, with the music all chased out
of her soul, and the seven small demons all in again.
Mrs. Tulliver, foreseeing nothing but misbehavior while the
100 THE MILL ON THE FLO&S.
children remained indoors, took an early opportunity of sug-
gesting 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 oft" the paved walks in the
garden, and if they wanted to see the poultry fed, to view
them from a distance on the horse-block , a restriction which
had been imposed ever since Tom had been found guilty of
running after the peacock, with an illusory idea that fright
would make one of its feathers drop off.
Mrs. Tulliver's thoughts had been temporarily diverted from
the quarrel with Mrs. Glegg by millinery and maternal cares,
but now the great theme of the bonnet was thrown into per-
spective, and the children were out of the way, yesterday's
anxieties recurred.
"It weighs on my mind so as never was," she said, by way
of opening the subject, "sister Glegg's leaving the house in
that way. I 'm sure I 'd no wish t' oft'end a sister."
"Ah," said aunt Pullet, "there's no accounting for what
Jane 'uU do. I would n't speak of it out o' the family — if it
was n't to Dr. Turnbull ; but it 's ray belief Jane lives too low.
I 've said so to Pullet often and often, and he knows it."
"Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came
away from drinking tea with 'em," said Mr. Pullet, beginning
to nurse his knee and shelter it with his pocket-handkerchief, as
was his way when the conversation took an interesting turn.
" Very like I did," said Mrs. Pullet, " for j^ou 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.
BOY AND GIRL, 101
Tulliver, who naturally saw the wide subject of medicine
chiefly iu relation to Mrs. Glegg.
" It 's dreadful to think on," said aunt Pullet, raising her
hands and letting them fall again, "people playing with
their own insides in that way I And it 's flymg i' the face o'
Providence ; for what are the doctors for, if we are n'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.
T 'm ashamed of acquaintance knowing it."
" Well, we 've no call to be ashamed,"' said Mr. Pullet, '' for
Doctor Turnbull has n't got such another patient as you i' this
parish, now old Mrs. Sutton 's gone."
" Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles — did you know,
Bessy?" said Mrs. Pullet. "He won't have one sold. He
says it's nothing but right folks should see 'em when I'm
gone. They fill two o' the long store-room shelves a'ready —
but," she added, beginning to cry a little, " it 's well if they
ever fill three. I may go before I 've made up the dozen o'
these last sizes. The pill-boxes are in the closet in my room
— you '11 remember that, sister — but there 's nothing to show
for the boluses, if it is n't the bills."
" Don't talk o' your going, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver ; " I
should have nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if
you was gone. And there 's nobody but you can get her to
make it up with Mr. Tulliver, for sister Deane 's never o' my
side, and if she was, it 's not to be looked for as she can speak
like them as have got an independent fortin."
"Well, your husband is awk'ard, j^ou 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 fa.vorite 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 hei
102 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
eye, " but I 'm sure he 's never been the man, since he married
me, to object to my making the friends o' my side o' the
family welcome to the house."
"/don't want to make the worst of you, Bessy," said Mrs.
Pullet, compassionately, " for I doubt you '11 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 '11 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 retribu-
tive, 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 allays offer it along with the sherry, though
sister Glegg will have it I 'm so extravagant ; and as for lik-
ing 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 neigh-
bors' ; and the linen 's so in order, as if I was to die to-morrow
I should n'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.
BOY AND GIRL. 103
''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 to the
parson, and get by heart what I should tell my husband for
the best. And 1 'm sure I don't pretend to know anything
about putting out money and all that. I could never see into
men's business as sister Glegg does."
" Well, you "re like me in that, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet ;
"and I think it "ud be a deal more becoming o' Jane if she 'd
have that pier-glass rubbed oftener — there was ever so many
spots on it last week — instead o' dictating to folks as have
more comings in than she ever had, and telling 'em what
they've to do with their money. But Jane and me were
allays eontrairy ; she would have striped things, and I like
spots. You like a spot too, Bessy : we allays hung together
i' that."
" Yes, Sophy," said Mrs. Tulliver, '' I remember our having
a blue ground with a white spot both alike — I 've got a bit in
a bed-quilt now ; and if you would but go and see sister Glegg,
and persuade her to make it up with Tulliver, I should take it
very kind of you. You was allays a good sister to me."
" But the right thing 'ud be for Tulliver to go and make it
up with her himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so
rash. If he 's borrowed money of her, he should n't be above
that/' said Mrs. Pullet, whose partiality did not blind her to
principles : she did not forget what was due to people of
independent fortune.
'' It 's no use talking o' that," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, al-
most 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 does n'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 an-
other ; time 'ud mend things, and Tulliver 'ud forget all about
it, and they 'd be friends again."
104 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Mrs. Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her husband's
irrevocable determination to pay in the five hundred pounds ;
at least such a determination exceeded her powers of belief.
" Well, Bessy/' said Mrs. Pullet, mournfull}^, " / don't want
to help you on to ruin. I won't be behindliand 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 does n't mind. What do you say, Mr. Pullet ? "
"I've no objections," said Mr. Pullet, who was perfectly
contented with any course the quarrel might take, so that Mr.
Tulliver did not apply to hbn for money. Mr. Pullet was ner-
vous about his investments, and did not see how a man could
have any security for his money unless he turned it into land.
After a little further discussion as to whether it would not
be better for Mrs. Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to
sister Glegg, Mrs. Pullet, observing that it was tea-time,
turned to reach from a drawer a delicate damask napkin,
which she pinned before her in the fashion of an apron. The
door did, in fact, soon open, but instead of the tea-tray, Sally
introduced an object so startling that both Mrs. Pullet and
Mrs. Tulliver gave a scream, causing uncle Pullet to swallow
his lozenge — for the fifth time in his life, as he afterwards
noted.
CHAPTER X.
MAGGIE BEHAVES WORSE THAN SHE EXPECTED.
The startling object which thus made an epoch for uncle
Pullet was no other than little Lucy, with one side of her
person, from her small foot to her bonnet-crown, wet and dis-
colored with mud, holding out two tiny blackened hands, and
making a very piteous face. To account for this unprecedented
apparition in aunt Pullet's parlor, we must return to the
moment when the three (children went to play out of doors,
and the small demons who had taken possession of Maggie'a
JU
BOY AND GIKL. 105
soul at an early period of the da}' had returned in all the
greater force after a temporary absence. All the disagreeable
recollections of the morning were thick upon her, when Tom,
whose displeasure towards her had been considerably re-
freshed by her foolish trick of causing him to upset his cow-
elip wine, said, "Here, Lucy, you come along with me," and
walked off to the area where the toads were, as if there were
no Maggie in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a dis-
tance, looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped.
Lucy was naturally pleased that cousin Tom was so good to
her, and it was very amusing to see him tickling a fat toad
with a piece of string when the toad was safe down the area,
with an iron grating over him. Still Lucy wished Maggie
to enjoy the spectacle also, especially as she would doubtless
find a name for the toad, and say what had been his past
history; for Lucy had a delighted semi-belief in Maggie's
stories about the live things they came upon by accident —
how Mrs. Earwig had a wash at home, and one of her chil-
dren 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 de-
sire to know the history of a very portly toad, added to her
habitual affectionateness, made her run back to Maggie and
say, " Oh, there is such a big, funny toad, Maggie ! Do come
and see."
Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a
deeper frown. As long as Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her,
Lucy made part of his unkindness. Maggie would have
thought a little while ago that she could never be cross with
pretty little Lucy, any more than she could be cruel to a little
white mouse ; but then, Tom had always been quite indifferent
to Lucy before, and it had been left to Maggie to pet and
make much of her. As it was, she was actually beginning to
think that she should like to make Lucy cry, by slapping oi
106 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
pinching lier, especially as it might vex Tom, whom it was of
no use to slap, even if she dared, because he did n't mind it.
And if Lucy had n't been there, Maggie was sure he would
have got friends with her sooner.
Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive, is an amuse-
ment that it is possible to exhaust, and Tom by-and-by began
to look round for some other mode of passing the time. But
in so prim a garden, where they were not to go off the paved
walks, there was not a great choice of sport. The only great
pleasure such a restriction suggested was the pleasure of
breaking it, and Tom began to meditate an insurrectionary
visit to the pond, about a iield's length beyond the garden.
" I say, Lucy," he began, nodding his head up and down
with great significance, as he coiled up his string again, ^' what
do you think I mean to do ? "
" What, Tom ? " said Lucy, with curiosity.
" I mean to go to the pond, and look at the pike. You may
go with me if you like," said the young sultan.
" Oh, Tom, dare you ? " said Lucy. " Aunt said we must n't
go out of the garden."
" Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden," said
Tom. " Nobody 'uU see us. Besides, I don't care if they do
— I '11 run off home."
" But I could n't run," said Lucy, who had never before
been exposed to such severe temptation.
"Oh, never mind — they won't be cross with 2/om," said
Tom. " You say I took you."
Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly en-
joying 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 foAvl. Mag-
gie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the im-
pulse 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 Avas ignorant would have been
an intolerable idea to Maggie. So she kept a few yards behind
them, unobserved by Tom, who was presently absorbed in
watching for the pike — a highly interesting monster ; he was
BOY AND GIKL. 107
said to be so very old, so very large, and to have such a remark-
able 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 an-
other spot on the brink of the pond.
" Here, Lucy ! " he said in a loud whisper, '^ come here ! take
care ! keep on the grass — don't step where the cows have
been ! " he added, pointing to a peninsula of dry grass, with
trodden mud on each side of it ; for Tom's contemptuous con-
ception of a girl included the attribute of being unfit to walk
in dirty places.
Lucy came carefully as she was bidden, and bent down to
look at what seemed a golden arrow-head darting through the
water. It was a water-snake, Tom told her, and Lucy at last
could see the serpentine wave of its body, very much wonder-
ing 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 tl yueye^os 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
pi nk-and- white Lucy into the cow-trodden mud.
Then Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two
smart slaps on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay
crying helplessly. Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a
few yards off, and looked on impeniteutly. Usually her re-
pentance came quickly after one rash deed, but now Tom and
Lucy had made her so miserable, she was glad to spoil theif
happiness — glad to make everybody uncomfortabla Why
should she be sorry ? Tom was very slow to forgive her, how-
ever sorry she might have been.
108 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" I shall tell mother, you know, Miss Mag," said Tom, loudl;^
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 ut-
most punishment : not that Tom had learnt to put his views
in that abstract form ; he never mentioned "justice," and had
no idea that his desire to punish might be called by that fine
name. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil that had
befallen her — the spoiling of her pretty best clothes, and the
discomfort of being wet and dirty — to think much of the
cause, which was entirely mysterious to her. She could never
have guessed what she had done to make Maggie angry with
her ; but she felt that Maggie was very unkind and disagree-
able, and made no magnanimous entreaties to Tom that he
would not "tell," only running along by his side and crying
piteously, while Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and looked
after them with her small Medusa face.
" Sally," said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door, and
Sally looked at them in speechless amaze, with a piece of bread-
and-butter in her mouth and a toasting-fork in her hand —
" Sally, tell mother it was Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud."
" But Lors ha' massy, how did you get near such mud as
that ? " said Sally, making a wry face, as she stooped down
and examined the corpus delicti.
Tom's imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough
to include this question among the foreseen consequences, but
it was no sooner put than he foresaw whither it tended, and
that Maggie would not be considered the only culprit in the
case. He walked quietly away from the kitchen door, leaving
Sally to that pleasure of guessing which active minds noto-
riously prefer to ready-made knowledge.
Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at
the parlor door, for to have so dirty an object introduced into
the house at Garum Firs was too great a weight to be sustained
by a single mind.
" Goodness gracious ! " aunt Pullet exclaimed, after prelud-
ing by an inarticulate scream ; " keep her at the door, Sally I
Don't bring her off the oil-cloth, whatever you do."
BOY AND GIRL. 109
"Why, she's tumbled into some nasty mud," said Mrs. Tul-
liver, going up to Lucy to examine into the amount of damage
to clothes for which she felt herself responsible to her sister
Deane.
" If you please, 'um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in/'
said Sally ; " Master Tom 's been and said so, and they must
ha' been to the pond, for it 's only there they could ha' got into
such dirt."
" There it is, Bessy ; it 's what I 've been telling you," said
Mrs. Pullet, in a tone of prophetic sadness : " it 's your chil-
dren — there 's no knowing what they '11 come to."
Mrs. TuUiver 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 in-
jury in the course of removing the dirt. Meantime tea was to
be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty children were
to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen. Mrs.
Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, suppos-
ing them to be close at hand ; but it was not until after some
search that she found Tom leaning with rather a hardened
careless air against the white paling of the poultry-yard, and
lowering his piece of string on the other side as a means of
exasperating the turkey-cock.
" Tom, you naughty boy, where 's your sister ? " said Mrs.
Tulliver, in a distressed voice.
" I don't know," said Tom ; his eagerness for justice on
Maggie had diminished since he had seen clearly that it could
hardly be brought about without the injustice of some blame
on his own conduct.
" Why, where did you leave her ? " said his mother, looking
round.
"Sitting under the tree, against the pond," said Tom, appar-
ently indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey-
cock.
" Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy.
And how could you think o' going to the pond, and taking
110 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
your sister where there was dirt ? You know she '11 do mia-
chief, if there 's mischief to be done."
It was Mrs. Tulliver's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his
misdemeanor, somehow or other, to Maggie.
The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond, roused an
habitual fear in Mrs. Tulliver's mind, and she mounted the
horse-block to satisfy herself by a sight of that fatal child,
while Tom walked — not very quickly — on his way towards
her.
" They 're such children for the water, mine are," she said
aloud, without reflecting that there was no one to hear her ;
" they '11 be brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish
that river was far enough."
But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but 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. Pul-
let, confused and overwhelmed by this revolutionary aspect
of things — the tea deferred and the poultry alarmed by the
unusual running to and fro — took up his spud as an instru-
ment 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 and take me home — we shall perhaps find her on the
road. Lucy can't walk in her dirty clothes," she said, looking
at that innocent victim, who was wrapped up in a shawl, and
sitting with naked feet on the sofa.
Aunt Puilet was quite wiliiug to take the shortest means oi
BOY AND GIRL. Ill
restoring her premises to order and quiet, and it was not long
before Mrs. Tulliver was in the chaise looking anxiously at the
most distant point before her. What the father would say if
Maggie was lost ? was a question that predominated over every
other.
CHAPTER XL
MAGGIE TRIES TO RUN AWAY FROM HER SHADOW.
Maggie's intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than
Tom had imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind,
after Tom and Lucy had walked away, was not so simple as
that of going home. No ! she would run away and go to the
gypsies, and Tom should never see her any more. That was
by no means a new idea to Maggie ; she had been so often told
she was like a gypsy, and " half wild," that when she was mis-
erable it seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium,
and being entirely in harmony with circumstances would be to
live in a little brown tent on the commons : the gypsies, she
considered, would gladly receive her, and pay her much respect
on account of her superior knowledge. She had once men-
tioned 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, ob-
serving that gypsies were thieves, and hardly got anything to
eat, and had nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day, however,
Maggie thought her misery had reached a pitch at which gypsy-
dom 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 secretly send him a
112 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
letter by a small gypsy, who would run away without telling
where she was, and just let him know that she was well and
happy, and always loved him very much.
Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time
Tom got to the pond again, she was at the distance of three
long fields, and was on the edge of the lane leading to the
highroad. She stopped to pant a little, reflecting that running
away was not a pleasant thing until one had got quite to the
common where the gypsies were, but her resolution had not
abated : she presently passed through the gate into the lane,
not knowing where it would lead her, for it was not this way
that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she
felt all the safer for that, because there was no chance of her
being overtaken. But she was soon aware, not without trem-
bling, that there were two men coming along the lane in front
of her : she had not thought of meeting strangers — she had
been too much occupied with the idea of her friends coming
after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby -looking
men with flushed faces, one of them carrying a bundle on a
stick over his shoulder : but to her surprise, while she was
dreading their disapprobation as a runaway, the man with the
bundle stopped, and in a half-whining half-coaxing tone asked
her if she had a copper to give a poor man. Maggie had a
sixpence in her pocket — her uncle Glegg's present — which
she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a polite
smile, hoping he would feel very kindly towards her as a gen-
erous person. " That 's the only money I 've got," she said,
apologetically. " Thank you, little miss," said the man in a
less respectful and grateful tone than Maggie anticipated, and
she even observed that he smiled and winked at his companion.
She walked on hurriedly, but was aware that the two men
were standing still, probably to look after her, and she pres-
ently 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 impression on passengers,
BOY AND GIRL. 113
and she thought she would turn into the fields again; but
not on the same side of the lane as before, lest they should
still be uncle Pullet's fields. She turned through the first
gate that was not locked, and felt a delightful sense of privacy
in creeping along by the hedgerows, after her recent humili-
ating encounter. She was used to wandering about the fields
by herself, and was less timid there than on the highroad.
Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, but that was a
small evil ; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she
should probably soon come within sight of Duulow Common,
or at least of some other common, for she had heard her father
say that you could n't go ver}^ 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 walk-
ing a very great distance indeed, and it was really surprising
that the common did not come within sight. Hitherto she
had been in the rich parish of Garum, where there was a great
deal of pasture-land, and she had only seen one laborer at a
distance. That was fortunate in some respects, as laborers
might be too ignorant to understand the propriety of her
wanting to go to Dunlow Common ; yet it would have been
better if she could have met some one who would tell her the
way without wanting to know anything about her private
business. At last, however, the green fields came to an end,
and Maggie found herself looking through the bars of a gate
into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of it.
She had never seen such a wide lane before, and, without her
knowing why, it gave her the impression that the common
could not be far oif ; perhaps it was because she saw a donkey
with a log to his foot feeding on the grassy margin, for she
had seen a donkey with that pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow
Common when she had been across it in her father's gig. Shg
VOL. II. 8
114 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
crept through the bars of the gate and walked on with new
spirit, though not without haunting images of ApoUyon, and
a highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow,
with a mouth from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers.
T'or poor little Maggie had at once the timidity of an active
imagination and the daring that comes from overmastering
impulse. She had rushed into the adventure of seeking her
unknown kindred, the gypsies ; and now she was in this
strange lane, she hardly dared look on one side of her, lest
she should see the diabolical blacksmith in his leathern apron
grinning at her with arms akimbo. It was not without a leap-
ing of the heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare
legs sticking up, feet uppermost, by the side of a hillock ; they
seemed something hideously preternatural — a diabolical kind
of fungus ; for she was too much agitated at the first glance
to see the ragged clothes and the dark shaggy head attached to
them. It was a boy asleep, and Maggie trotted along faster
and more lightly, lest she should wake him : it did not occur
to her that he was one of her friends the gypsies, who in all
probability would have very genial manners. But the fact
was so, for at the next bend in the lane, Maggie actually saw
the little semicircular black tent with the blue smoke rising
before it, which was to be her refuge from all the blighting
obloquy that had pursued her in civilized life. She even saw
a tall female figure by the column of smoke — doubtless the
gypsy -mother, who provided the tea and other groceries ; it
was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more delighted.
But it was startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after all, and
not on a common ; indeed, it was rather disappointing ; for a
mysterious illimitable common, where there were sand-pits to
hide in, and one was out of everybody's reach, had always
made part of Maggie's picture of gypsy life. She went on,
however, and thought with some comfort that gypsies most
likely knew nothing about idiots, so there was no danger of
their falling into the mistake of setting her down at the first
glance as an idiot. It was plain she had attracted attention ;
for the tall figure, who proved to be a young woman with a
baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her. Maggie looked
BOY AND GIRL. 115
Dp in the new face rather tremblingly as it approached, and
was reassured by the thoi;ght 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 some-
thing 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-
sies saw at once that she was a little lady, and were prepared
to treat her accordingly.
"Not any farther," said Maggie, feeling as if she were
saying what she had rehearsed in a dream. " I 'm come to
stay with you, please."
" That 's pretty ; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady
you are, to be sure," said the gypsy, taking her by the hand.
Maggie thought her very agreeable, but wished she had not
been so dirty.
There was quite a group round the fire when they reached
it. An old gypsy woman was seated oil the ground nursing
her knees, and occasionally poking a skewer into the round
kettle that sent forth an odorous steam : two small shock-
headed children were lying prone and resting on their elbows
something like small sphinxes ; and a placid donkey was
bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying on her back, was
scratching his nose and indulging him with a bite of excellent
stolen hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and
the scene was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie
thought, only she hoped they would soon set out the tea-cups.
Everything would be quite charming when she had taught
the gypsies to use a washing-basin, and to feel an interest in
books. It was a little confusing, though, that the young
woman began to speak to the old one in a language which
Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl, who was feed-
ing the donkey, sat up and stared at her without offering any
salutation. At last the old woman said —
" What ! my pretty lady, are you come to stay with u» ^
Sit ye down and tell us where you come from."
116 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 '11 live with you if you like, and I can teach
you a great many things."
" Such a clever little lady," said the woman with the baby,
sitting down by Maggie, and allowing baby to crawl ; " and
such a pretty bonnet and frock," she added, taking off
Maggie's bonnet and looking at it while she made an obser-
vation to the old woman, in the unknown language. The tall
girl snatched the bonnet and put it on her own head hind-
foremost with a grin ; but Maggie was determined not to show
any weakness on this subject, as if she were susceptible about
her bonnet.
" I don't want to wear a bonnet," she said, " I 'd rather
wear a red handkerchief, like yours " (looking at her friend by
her side) ; " my hair was quite long till yesterday, when I cut
it off : but I dare say it will grow again very soon," she added
apologetically, thinking it probable the gypsies had a strong
prejudice in favor of long hair. And Maggie had forgotten
even her hunger at that moment in the desire to conciliate
gypsy opinion.
" Oh what a nice little lady ! — and rich, I 'm sure," said
the old woman. " Did n't you live in a beautiful house at
home ? "
" Yes, my home is pretty, and I 'm very fond of the river,
where we go fishing — but I 'm often very unhappy. I should
have liked to bring my books with me, but I came away in a
hurry, you know. But I can tell you almost everything there
is in my books, I 've read them so many times — and that will
amuse you. And I can tell you something about Geography
too — that 's about the world we live in — very useful and
interesting. Did you ever hear about Columbus ? "
Maggie's eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks to flush
— she was really beginning to instruct the gypsies, and 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
BOY AND GIRL. 117
friend at her right hand had by this time emptied without
attracting her notice.
" Is that where you live, my little lady ? " said the old
woman, at the mention of Columbus.
" Oh no ! " said Maggie, with some pity ; " Columbus was
a very wonderful man, who found out half the world, and
they put chains on him and treated him very badly, you know
— it's in my Catechism of Geography — but perhaps it's
rather too long to tell before tea ... 7 iva7it my tea soy
The last words burst from Maggie, in spite of herself,
with a sudden drop from patronizing instruction to simple
peevishness.
" Why, she 's hungry, poor little lady," said the younger
woman. "Give her some o' the cold victual. You've been
walking a good way, I '11 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 must n't let him know where I
am, else he '11 fetch me home again. Where does the queen
of the gypsies live ? "
" What ! do you want to go to her, my little lady ? " said
the younger woman. The tall girl meanwhile was constantly
staring at Maggie and grinning. Her manners were certainly
not agreeable.
" No," said Maggie, " I 'm only thinking that if she is n'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."
" Wi; '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.
118 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"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 5'ounger 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 pres-
».ntly came running up the boy whom Maggie had passed as
he was sleeping — a rough urchin about the age of Tom. He
stared at Maggie, and there ensued much incomprehensible
chattering. She felt very lonely, and was quite sure she
should begin to cry before long : the gypsies did n'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
became of that pacific kind which implies curiosity on one
side and the power of satisfying it on the other. At last
the younger woman said in her previous deferential coaxing
tone —
" This nice little lady 's come to live with us : are n't you
glad?"
" Ay, very glad," said the younger man, who was looking at
A-
BOY AND GIRL. 119
Maggie's silver thimble and other small matters that had been
taken from her pocket. He returned them all except the
thimble to the younger woman, with some observation, and
she immediately restored them to Maggie's pocket, while the
men seated themselves, and began to attack the contents of
the kettle — a stew of meat and potatoes — which had been
taken off the fire and turned out into a yellow platter.
Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the
gypsies — they must certainly be thieves, unless the man
meant to return her thimble by-and-by. She would willingly
have given it to him, for she was not at all attached to her
thimble ; but the idea that she was among thieves prevented
her from feeling any comfort in the revival of deference and
attention towards her — all thieves, except Robin Hood, were
wicked people. The women saw she was frightened.
" We 've got nothing nice for a lady to eat," said the old
woman, in her coaxing tone. " And she 's so hungry, sweet
little lady."
" Here, my dear, try if you can eat a bit o' this," said the
younger woman, handing some of the stew on a brown dish
with an iron spoon to Maggie, who, remembering that the old
woman had seemed angry with her for not liking the bread-
and-bacon, dared not refuse the stew, though fear had chased
away her appetite. If her father would but come by in the
gig and take her up! Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or
Mr. Greatheart, or St. George who slew the dragon on the
halfpennies, 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
informed you that there was such a word as "polygamy,"
120 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
and being also acquainted with "polysyllable," she had de-
duced 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 iive 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 un-
favorable opinion of them, and she wondered, with a keenness
of interest that no theologian could have exceeded, whether,
if the devil were really present, he would know her thoughts.
" What ! you don't like the smell of it, my dear," said the
young woman, observing that Maggie did not even take a
spoonful of the stew. " Try a bit — come."
" No, thank you," said Maggie, summoning all her force for
a desperate effort, and trying to smile in a friendly way. "I
have n'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 '11 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 ?"
BOY AND GIRL. 121
"Dorlcote Mill is my home," said Maggie, eagerly. "My
father is Mr, Tulliver — lie lives there."
"What ! a big mill a little way this side o' St. Ogg's?"
" Yes," said Maggie. " Is it far off ? I thiuk I should like
to walk there, if you please."
" No, no, it '11 be getting dark, we must make haste. And
the donkey '11 carry you as nice as can be — you '11 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 '11 say we 've been very good to
you, won't you? and what a nice little lady we said you was."
" Oh yes, thank you," said Maggie, " I 'm very much obliged
to you. But I wish you 'd go with me too." She thought
anything was better than going with one of the dreadful men
alone : it would be more cheerful to be murdered by a larger
party.
" Ah, you 're fondest o' me, are n't you ? " said the woman.
"But I can't go — you'll go too fast for me."
It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the
donkey, holding Maggie before him, and she was as incapable
of remonstrating against this arrangement as the donkey 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 oif at a rapid walk along the lane towards the point Maggie
had come from an hour ago, while the tall girl and the rough
urchin, also furnished with sticks, obligingly escorted them for
the first hundred yards, with much screaming and thwacking,
Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with
her phantom lover, was more terrified than poor IMaggie in this
entirely natural ride on a short-paced donkey, Avith 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
122 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"with the log on its foot must surely have some connectioiL
Two low thatched cottages — the only houses they passed in
this lane — seemed to add to its dreariness : they had no win-
dows to speak of, and the doors were closed ; it was probable
that they were inhabited 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-
roa.d, where there was actually a coach passing ! And there
was a finger-post at the corner : she had surely seen that finger-
post before — " To St. Ogg's, 2 miles." The gypsy really meant
to take her home, then : he was probably a good man, after all,
and might have been rather hurt at the thought that she did n'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 conversar
tion with the injured gypsy, and not only gratify his feelings
but efface the impression of her cowardice, when, as they
feached 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. TuUiver'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 tlie 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."
BOY AND GIRL. 123
" Why, Maggie, how 's this, how 's this ? " he said, as they
rode along, while she laid her head against her father, and
sobbed. "How came you to be rambling about and lose
yourself ? "
" Oh, father," sobbed Maggie, " I ran away because I was sc
unhappy — Tom was so angry with me. I could n'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 con-
duct had been too wicked to be alluded to.
CHAPTER XII.
MR. AND MRS. GLEGG AT HOME.
In order to see Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at home, we must enter
the town of St. Ogg's — that venerable town with the red-
fluted roofs and the broad warehouse gables, where the blrick
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
124 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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, review-
ing the scenes of his youth and love-time, and is met by the
gloomier shadov7 of the dreadful heathen Dane, who was stabbed
in the midst of his warriors by the sword of an invisible avenger,
and who rises on autumn evenings like a white mist from his
tumulus on the hill, and hovers in the court of the old hall by
the river-side — the spot where he was thus miraculously slain
in the days before the old hall was built. It was the Normans
who began to build that fine old hall, which is like the town,
telling of the thoughts and hands of widely sundered genera-
tions ; but it is all so old that we look with loving pardon at
its inconsistencies, and are well content that they who built
the stone oriel, and they who built the Gothic facade and
towers of finest small brickwork with the trefoil ornament,
and the windows and battlements defined with stone, did not
sacrilegiously pull down the ancient half-timbered body with
its oak-roofed bauqueting-hall.
But older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall
now built into the belfry of the parish church, and said to
be a remnant of the original chapel dedicated to St. Ogg, the
patron saint of this ancient town, of whose history I possess
several manuscript versions. I incline to the briefest, since,
if it should not be wholly true, it is at least likely to contain
the least falsehood. " Ogg the son of Beorl," says my private
hagiographer, " was a boatman who gained a scanty living by
ferrying passengers across the river Floss. And it came to
pass, one evening when the winds were high, that there sat
moaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in
her arms ; and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and 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 hei'e for the night : so shalt thou be wise and not
foolish.' Still she went on to mourn and crave. But Ogg the
BOY AND GIRL. 125
son of Beorl came up and said, ' I will ferry thee across : it is
enough that thy heart needs it.' And he ferried her across.
And it came to pass, when she stepped ashore, that her rags
were turned into robes of flowing white, aud 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 ir no peril from the storm ; and whenever it
puts forth to the rescue, it shall save the lives both of men
and beasts.' And when the floods came, many were saved by
reason of that blessing on the boat. But when Ogg the son of
Beorl died, behold, in the parting of his soul, the boat loosed
itself from its moorings, and was floated with the ebbing tide
in great swiftness to the ocean, and was seen no more. Yet it
was witnessed in the floods of aftertime, that at the coming
on of eventide, Ogg the son of Beorl was always seen with his
boat upon the wide-spreading waters, and the Blessed Virgin
sat in the prow, shedding a light around as of the moon in its
brightness, so that the rowers in the gathering darkness took
heart and pulled anew."
This legend, one sees, reflects from a far-off time the 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 the
civil wars, when it was a continual fighting-place, Avhere 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
126 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
a muddy strand overflowed continually by the rushing tide.
Everywhere the brick houses have a mellow look, and in Mrs.
Glegg's day there was no incongruous new-fashioned smartness,
no plate-glass in shop-windows, no fresh stucco-facing or other
fallacious attempt to make fine old red St. Ogg's wear the air
of a town that sprang up yesterday. The shop-windows were
small and unpretending ; for the farmers' wives and daughters
who came to do their shopping on market-days were not to
be withdrawn from their regular well-known shops ; and the
tradesmen had no wares intended for customers who would go
on their way and be seen no more. Ah ! even Mrs. Glegg's day
seems far back in the past now^ separated from us by changes
that widen the years. War and the rumor of war had then died
out from the minds of men, and if they were ever thought of
by the farmers in drab great-coats, 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. Sarely the time was gone forever when
the broad river could bring up unwelcome ships : Eussia was
only the place where the linseed came from — the more the bet-
ter — making grist for the great vertical millstones with their
scythe-like arms, roaring and grinding and carefully sweeping
as if an informing soul were in them. The Catholics, bad har-
vests, and the mysterious fluctuations of trade, were the three
evils mankind had to fear : even the floods had not been great
of late years. The mind of St. Ogg's did not look extensively
before or after. It inherited a long past without thinking of
it, and had no eyes for the spirits that walk the streets. Since
the centuries when St. Ogg with his boat and the Virgin
Mother at the prow had been seen on the wide water, so
many memories had been left behind, and had gradually van-
ished 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 because they would lay hold of government
BOY AND GIRL. 127
and property, aud burn men alive ; not because any sane and
honest parishioner of St. Ogg's could be brought to believe in
the Pope. One aged person remembered how a rude multi-
tude 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 oc-
casional burst of fervor, in Dissenting pulpits, on the subject
of infant baptism, was the only symptom of a zeal unsuited to
sober times when men had done with change. Protestantism
sat at ease, unmindful of schisms, careless of proselytism :
Dissent was an inheritance along with a superior pew aud a
business connection ; and Churchmanship only wondered con-
temptously at Dissent as a foolish habit that clung greatly
to families in the grocery and chandlering lines, though not
incompatible with prosperous wholesale dealing. But with the
Catholic Question had come a slight wind of controversy to
break the calm •. the elderly rector had become occasionally
historical and argumentative, and Mr. Spray, the Independent
minister, had begun to preach political sermons, in which he
distinguished with much subtlety between his fervent belief
in the right of the Catholics to the franchise and his fervent
belief in their eternal perdition. Most of Mr. Spray's hearers,
however, wei'e incapable of following his subtleties, and many
old-fashioned Dissenters were much pained by his " siding
with the Catholics ; " while others thought he had better let
politics alone. Public spirit was not held in high esteem at St.
Ogg's, and men who busied themselves with political questions
were regarded with some suspicion, as dangerous characters :
they were usually persons who had little or no business of
their own to manage, or, if they had, were likely enough to
become insolvent.
This was the general aspect of things at St. Ogg's in Mrs.
Glegg's day, and at that particular period in her family his-
tory when she had had her quarrel with Mr. Tulliver. It was
a time when ignorance was much more comfortable than at
present, and was received with all the honors in very good
society, without being obliged to dress itself in an elaborate
costume of knowledge ; a time when cheap periodicals were
128 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
not, and when country surgeons never thought of asking their
female patients if they were fond of reading, but simply took
it for granted that they preferred gossip : a time when ladies
in rich silk gowns wore large pockets, in which they carried a
mutton-bone to secure them against cramp. Mrs. Glegg carried
such a bone, which she had inherited from her grandmother
with a brocaded gown that would stand up empty, like a suit
of armor, and a silver-headed walking-stick; for the Dodson
family had been respectable for many generations.
Mrs. Glegg had both a front and a back parlor in her 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 Eoad, 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 cot-
ton stockings, which opened a dreary prospect for the coming
generation ; and from her back windows she could look down
the pleasant garden and orchard which stretched to the river,
and observe the folly of Mr. Glegg in spending his time among
"them flowers and vegetables." For Mr. Glegg, having re-
tired from active business as a wool-stapler, for the purpose
of enjoying himself through the rest of his life, had found
this last occupation so much more severe than his business,
that he had been driven into amateur hard labor as a dissipa-
tion, and habitually relaxed by doing the work of two ordinary
gardeners. The economizing of a gardener's wages might
perhaps have induced Mrs. Glegg to wink at this folly^ if it
were possible for a healthy female mind even to simulate 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 if
BOY AND GIRL. 129
natural history, finding that his piece of garden-groimd 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 disengaged
from the wool business, naturally made itself a pathway in
other directions.) And his second subject of meditation was
the " contrairiness " of the female mind, as typically exhibited
in Mrs. Glegg. That a creature made — in a genealogical
sense — out of a man's rib, and in this particular case main-
tained in the highest respectability without any trouble of her
own, should be normally in a state of contradiction to the
blandest propositions and even to the most accommodating
concessions, was a mystery in the scheme of things to which
he had often in vain sought a clew in the early chapters of
Genesis. Mr. Glegg had chosen the eldest Miss Dodson as
a handsome embodiment of female prudence and thrift, and
being himself of a money-getting, money-keeping turn, had
calculated on much conjugal harmony. But in that curious
compound, the feminine character, it may easily happen that
the flavor is unpleasant in spite of excellent ingredients ; and
a fine systematic stinginess may be accompanied with a 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 rem.ember to save them for
you, with a good-natured delight in gratifying your palate, and
he was given to pet all animals which required no appreciable
keep. There was no humbug or hypocrisy about Mr. Glegg :
his eyes would have watered with true feeling over the sale
of a widow's furniture, which a five-pound note from his side-
VOL. n. ^
130 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 tracking
of the fox belongs to the harrier — it constituted them a
" race," which is nearly lost in these days of rapid money-
getting, when lavishness comes close on the back of want. In
old-fashioned times, an " independence " was hardly ever made
without a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have
found that quality in every provincial district, combined with
characters as various as the fruits from which we can extract
acid. The true Harpagons were always marked and excep-
tional characters : not so the worthy tax-payers, who, having
once pinched from real necessity, retained even in the midst of
their comfortable retirement, with their wall-fruit and wine-
bins, the habit of regarding life as an ingenious process of
nibbling out one's livelihood without leaving any perceptible
deficit, and who would have been as immediately prompted
to give up a newly taxed luxury when they had 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 dailv
BOY AND GIRL. 131
snapping and quarrelling without any sense of alienation. Mr.
Glegg, being of a reflective turn, and no longer occupied with
wool, had much wondering meditation on the peculiar consti-
tution of the female mind as unfolded to him in his domestic
life ; and yet he thought Mrs. Glegg's household ways a model
for her sex ; it struck him as a pitiable irregularity in other
women if they did not roll up their table-napkins with the
same tightness and emphasis as Mrs. Glegg did, if their pastxy
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
mystery.
Mr. Glegg's unmistakable kind-heartedness was shown in
this, that it pained him more to see his wife at variance with
others — even with Dolly, the servant — than to be in a state
of cavil with her himself ; and the quarrel between her and
Mr. Tulliver vexed him so much that it quite nullified the
pleasure he would otherwise have had in the state of his early
cabbages, as he walked in his garden before breakfast the next
morning. Still he went into breakfast with some slight hope
that, now Mrs. Glegg had " slept upon it," her anger might be
subdued enough to give way to her usually strong sense of
family decorum. She had been used to boast that there had
never been any of those deadly quarrels among the Dodsons
which had disgraced other families ; that no Dodson had ever
been " cut off with a shilling," and no cousin of the Dodsons
disowned ; as, indeed, why should they be ? for they had no
cousins who had not money out at use, or some houses of their
own, at the very least.
There was one evening-cloud which had always disappeared
from Mrs. Glegg's brow when she sat at the breakfast-table :
it was her fuzzy front of curls ; for as she occupied herself in
household matters in the morning, it would have been a mere
132 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 frugal
habit to stem his morning hunger witii, prudently resolved to
leave the first remark to Mrs. Glegg, lest, to so delicate an
article as a lady's temper, the slightest touch should do 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 single remark
from Mr. Glegg on which to exercise itself. But by-and-by it
appeared that his silence would answer the purpose, for he
heard himself apostrophized at last in that tone peculiar to
the wife of one's bosom.
" Well, Mr. Glegg ! it 's a poor return I get for making you
the wife I 've made you all these years. If this is the way I 'm
to be treated, I 'd better ha' known it before my poor father
died, and then, when I 'd wanted a home, I should ha' gone
elsewhere — as the choice was offered me."
Mr. Glegg paused from his porridge and looked up — not
with any new amazement, but simply with that quiet, habitual
wonder with which we regard constant mysteries.
"Why, Mrs. G., what have I done now ? "
" Done now, Mr. Glegg ? done now? . . . I 'm sorry for you."
Not seeing his way to any pertinent answer, Mr. Glegg re-
verted to his porridge.
" There 's husbands in the world," continued Mrs. Glegg;
after a pause, "as 'ud have known how to do sometliing diifer-
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."
BOY AND GIRL. 133
" 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 facetious-
ness. " You 're like a tipsy man as thinks everybody 's had
too much but himself."
" Don't lower yourself with using coarse language to me, Mr.
Glegg ! It makes you look very small, though you can't see
yourself," said Mrs. Glegg, in a tone of energetic compassion.
" A man in your place should set an example, and talk more
sensible."
" Yes ; but will you listen to sense ? " retorted Mr. Glegg,
sharply. " The best sense I can talk to you is what I said
last night — as you 're i' the wrong to think o' calling in your
money, when it 's safe enough if you 'd let it alone, all because
of a bit of a tiff, and I was in hopes you 'd ha' altered your
mind this morning. But if you 'd like to call it in, don't do it
in a hurry now, and breed more enmity in the family — but
wait till there 's a pretty mortgage to be had without any
trouble. You 'd have to set the lawyer to work now to find an
investment, and make no end o' expense."
Mrs. Glegg felt there was really something in this, but she
tossed her head and emitted a guttural interjection to indicate
that her silence was only an armistice, not a peace. And, in
fact, hostilities soon broke out again.
" I '11 thank you for my cup o' tea, now, Mrs. G.," said Mr.
Glegg, seeing that she did not proceed to give it him as usual,
when he had finished his porridge. She lifted the teapot with
a slight toss of the head, and said —
" I 'm glad to hear you '11 thank me, Mr. Glegg. It 's little
thanks I get for what I do for folks i' this world. Though
there 's never a woman o' yo%ir side o' the famil}', Mr. Glegg, as
134 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
is fit to "^tand up with me, and I 'd say it if I was on my dying
bed. Not but what I 've allays conducted myself civil to your
kin, and there is n't one of 'em can say the contrary, though
my equils they are n't, and nobody shall make me say it."
" You 'd better leave finding fault wi' my kin till you 've
left off quarrelling with your own, Mrs. G.," said Mr. Glegg,
with angry sarcasm. '' I '11 trouble you for the milk-jug."
" That 's as false a word as ever you spoke, Mr. Glegg," said
the lady, pouring out the milk with unusual profuseness, as
much as to say, if he wanted milk he should have it with a
vengeance. " And you know it 's false. I 'm not the woman
to quarrel with my own kin : you may, for I 've known you
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 quar-
relled with me, and drove me out o' the house. But perhaps
you 'd have had me stay and be swore at, Mr. Glegg ; perhaps
you was vexed not to hear more abuse and foul language
poured out upo' your own wife. But, let me tell you, it 's your
disgrace."
" Did ever anybody hear the like i' this parish ? " said Mr.
Glegg, getting hot. " A woman, with everything provided for
her, and allowed to keep her own money the same as if it was
settled on her, and with a gig new stuffed and lined at no end
o' expense, and provided for when I die beyond anything she
could expect ... to go on i' this way, biting and snapping
like a mad dog ! It 's beyond everything, as God A'mighty
should ha' made women so." (These last words were uttered
in a tone of sorrowful agitation. Mr. Glegg pushed his tea
from him, and tapped the table with both his hands.)
"Well, Mr. Glegg, if those are your feelings, it 's best they
should be known," said Mrs. Glegg, taking off her napkin, and
folding it in an excited manner. " But if you talk o' my being
provided for beyond what I could expect, I beg leave to tell
you as I 'd a right to expect a many things as I don't find.
And as to my being like a mad dog, it 's well if you're not cried
BOY AND GIRL. 135
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 x^ut the blinds
down. Mr. Glegg, you '11 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 Eest," 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' Eest " and the gruel, may
have had some influence in gradually calming her feelings,
and making it possible for her to endure existence on the
ground-floor shortly before tea-time. This was, partl}^, 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
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-
ance 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
136 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
numerous poor relations — to have sums of interest coming in
more frequently, and secrete it in various corners, bafEing to
the most ingenious of thieves (for, to Mrs. Glegg's mind,
banks and strong-boxes would have nullified the pleasure of
property — she might as well have taken her food in capsules)
— finally, to be looked up to by her own family and the
neighborhood, so as no woman can ever hope to be who has
not the prseterite and present dignity comprised in being a
" widow well left," — all this made a flattering and concilia
tory view of the future. So that when good Mr. Glegg, re
stored to good-humor by much hoeing, and moved by the
sight of his wife's empty chair, with her knitting rolled up in
the corner, went up-stairs to her, and observed that the bell
had been tolling for poor Mr. Morton, Mrs. Glegg answered
magnanimously, quite as if she had been an uninjured woman,
" Ah ! then, there '11 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 Tullivers
that evening. Mr. Glegg went the length of admitting that
Tulliver was a sad man for getting into hot water, and was
like enough to run through his property ; and Mrs. Glegg,
meeting this acknowledgment half-way, declared that it was
beneath her to take notice of such a man's conduct, and that,
for her sister's sake, she would let him keep the live hundred
a while longer, for when she put it out on a mortgage she
should only get four per ceut.
BOY AND GIJRL. 137
CHAPTER XIII.
MK. TULIilVER FURTHER ENTANGLES THE SKEIN OF LIFE.
Owing to this new adjustment of Mrs. Glegg's thoughts,
Mrs. Pullet found her task of mediation the next day sur-
prisingly easy. Mrs. Glegg, indeed, checked her rather sharply
for thinking it would be necessary to tell her elder sister what
was the right mode of behavior in family matters. Mrs.
Pullet's argument, that it would look ill in the neighborhood
if people should have it in their power to say that there was a
quarrel in the family, was particularly offensive. If the family
name never suffered except through Mrs. Glegg, Mrs. Pullet
might lay her head on her pillow in perfect confidence.
" It 's not to be expected, I suppose," observed Mrs. Glegg,
by way of winding up the subject, " as I shall go to the mill
again before Bessy comes to see me, or as I shall go and fall
down o' my knees to Mr. Tulliver, and ask his pardon for
showing him favors ; but I shall bear no malice, and when
Mr. Tulliver speaks civil to me, I '11 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 ex-
pressed 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.
138 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Then I may call and tell Bessy you 'II bear no malice, and
everything be as it was before ? " Mrs. Pullet said, just before
parting.
"Yes, you may, Sophy," said Mrs. Glegg; "you may tell
Mr. Tulliver, and Bessy too, as I 'm not going to behave ill
because folks behave ill to me : I know it 's my place, as the
eldest, to set an example in every respect, and I do it. Nobody
can say different of me, if they "II keep to the truth."
Mrs. Glegg being in this state of satisfaction in her own
lofty magnanimity, I leave you to judge what effect was pro-
duced on her by the reception of a short letter from Mr, Tulli-
ver, that very evening, after Mrs. Pullet's departure, informing
her that she need n't trouble her mind about her iive hundred
pounds, for it should be paid back to her in the course of the
next month at farthest, together with the interest due thereou
until the time of payment. And furthermore, that Mr. Tulli-
ver had no wish to behave uncivilly to Mrs. Glegg, and she
was welcome to his house whenever she liked to come, but he
desired no favors from her, either for himself or his children.
It was poor Mrs. Tulliver who had hastened this catastrophe,
entirely throvigh 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 sup-
posed inability, or in any other way piqued his pride ; still,
she thought to-day, if she told him when he came in to tea
that sister Pullet was gone to try and make everything up
with sister Glegg, so that he need n't think about paying in
the money, it would give a cheerful effect to the meal. Mr.
Tulliver had never slackened in his resolve to raise the money,
but now he at once determined to write a letter to Mrs, Glegg,
which should cut off all possibility of mistake. Mrs. Pullet
gone to beg and pray for him indeed ! Mr. Tulliver did not
willingly write a letter, and found the relation between spoken
and written language, briefly known as spelling, one of tlie
most puzzling things in this puzzling world. Nevertheless,
like all fervid writing, the task was done iu less time than
-.^T AND GIRL. 139
usual, and if the spelliug differed from Mra. Glegg's — why,
she belonged, like himself, to a generation with whom spelling
was a matter of private judgment.
Mrs. Glegg did not alter her will in consequence of this
letter, and cut off the Tulliver children from their sixth and
seventh share in her thousand pounds ; for she had her prin-
ciples. No one must be able to say of her when she was dead
that she had not divided her money with perfect fairness
among her own kin : in the matter of wills, personal qualities
were subordinate to the great fundamental fact of blood ; and
to be determined in the distribution of your property by
caprice, and not make your legacies bear a direct ratio to
degrees of kinship, was a prospective disgrace that would have
embittered her life. This had always been a principle in the
Dodson family ; it was one form of that sense of honor and
rectitude which was a proud tradition in such families — a
tradition which has been the salt of our provincial society.
But though the letter could not shake Mrs. Glegg's 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 : his
state of mind, apparently, was too corrupt for her to contem-
plate it for a moment. It was not until the evening before
Tom went to school, at the beginning of August, that Mrs.
Glegg paid a visit to her sister Tulliver, sitting in her gig all
the while, and showing her displeasure by markedly abstaining
from all advice and criticism, for, as she observed to her sister
Deane, " Bessy must bear the consequence o' having such a
husband, though I 'm sorry for her," and Mrs. Deane agreed
that Bessy was pitiable.
That evening Tom observed to Maggie, " Oh my ! Maggie,
aunt Glegg 's beginning to come again ; I 'm glad I 'm going to
school. You HI catch it all ncjw ! "
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.
140 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Mr. Tulliver's jn-ompt procedure entailed on him further
promptitude in finding the convenient person who was desirous
of lending five hundred pounds on bond. " It must be no
client of Wakem's," he said to himself ; and yet at the end
of a fortnight it turned out to the contrary ; not because
Mr. Tulliver's will was feeble, but because external fact was
stronger. Wakem's client was the only convenient person to
be found. Mr. Tulliver had a destiny as well as CEdipus, and
in this case he might plead, like CEdipus, that his deed was
inflicted on him rather than committed by him.
BOOK T
SCHOOL-TIME.
CHAPTER I.
tom's "fikst half."
Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was
at King's Lorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev.
Walter Stelling, were rather severe. At Mr. Jacobs's academy,
life had not presented itself to him as a difficult problem . there
were plenty of fellows to play with, and Tom being good at
all active games — lighting especially — had that precedence
among them which appeared to him inseparable from the
personality of Tom Tulliver. Mr. Jacobs himself, familiarly
known as Old Goggles, from his habit of wearing spectacles,
imposed no. painful awe ; and if it was the property of snuffy
old hypocrites like him to write like copperplate and surround
their signatures with arabesques, to spell without forethought,
and to spout " my name is Norval " without bungling, Tom,
for his part, was rather glad he was not in danger of those
mean accomplishments. He was not going to be a snuffy
schoolmaster — he ; but a substantial man, like his father,
who used to go hunting when he was younger, and rode a
capital black mare — as pretty a bit of horse-flesh as ever
you saw ; Tom had heard what her points were a hundred
times. He meant to go hunting too, and to be generally re-
spected. When people were grown up, he considered, nobody
inquired about their writing and spelling : when he was a man,
he should be master of everything, and do just as he liked.
It had been very difficult for him to reconcile himself to the
idea that his school-time was to be prolonged, and that he was
1.42 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
not to be brought up to liis father's business, which he had
always thought extremely pleasant, for it was nothing but
riding about, giving orders, and going to market ; and he
thought that a clergyman would give him a great many Scrip-
ture lessons, and probably make him learn the Gospel and Epis-
tle 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 differ-
ent from the academy of Mr. Jacobs. So, not to be at a de-
ficiency, in case of his finding genial companions, he had taken
care to carry with him a small box of percussion-caps ; not
that there was anything particular to be done with them, but
they would serve to impress strange boys with a sense of his
familiarity with guns. Thus poor Tom, though he saw very
clearly through Maggie's illusions, was not without illusions of
his own, which were to be cruelly dissipated by his enlarged
experience at King's Lorton.
He had not been there a fortnight before it was evident to
him that life, complicated not only with the Latin Grammar
but with a new standard of English pronunciation, was a very
difficult business, made all the more obscure by a thick mist
of bashfulness. Tom, as you have observed, was never an ex-
ception among boys for ease of address ; but the difficulty of
enunciating a monosyllable in reply to Mr. or Mrs. Stelling
was so great, that he even dreaded to be asked at table whether
he would have more pudding. As to the percussion-caps, he
had almost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that he
would throw them into a neighboring pond ; for not only was
he the solitary pupil, but he began even to have a certain scep-
ticism about guns, and a general sense that his theory of life
was undermined. Eor Mr. Stelling thought nothing of guns,
or horses either, apparently ; and yet it was impossible for
Tom to despise Mr. Stelling as he had despised Old Goggles.
If there were anjrthing that was not thoroughly genuine about
Mr. Stelling, it lay quite beyond Tom's power to detect it : it
is only by a wide comparison of facts that the wisest full-
grown man can distinguish well-rolled barrels from more
supernal thunder.
SCHOOLr-TIME. 143
Mr. Stelling was a well-sized, broad-chested man, not yet
thirty, with flaxen hair standing erect, and large lightish-gray
eyes, which were always very wide open ; he had a sonorous
bass voice, and an air of defiant self-confidence inclining to
brazenuess. He had entered on his career with great vigor,
and intended to make a considerable impression on his fellow-
men. The Eev. 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 master-
ships 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 preaching
he had chosen was the extemporaneous, which was held little
short of the miraculous in rural parishes like King's Lorton.
Some passages of Massillon and Bourdaloue, which he knew
by heart, were really very effective when rolled out in Mr.
Stelling's deepest tones ; but as comparatively feeble appeals
of his own were delivered in the same loud and impressive
manner, they were often thought quite as striking by his
hearers. Mr. Stelling's doctrine was of no particular school;
if anything, it had a tinge of evangelicalism, for that was
" the telling thing " just then in the diocese to which King's
Lorton belonged. In short, Mr. Stelling was a man who meant
to rise in his profession, and to rise by merit, clearly, since he
had no interest beyond what might be promised by a prob-
lematic relationship to a great lawyer who had not yet become
Lord Chancellor. A clergyman who has such vigorous inten-
tions naturally gets a little into debt at starting ; it is not to
be expected that he will live in the meagre style of a man who
means to be a poor curate all his life, and if the few hundreds
Mr. Timpson advanced towards 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 supe-
rior flower-garden, it followed in the most rigorous manner.
144 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
either that these things must be procured 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 anything ; he would become celebrated b}^ 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 attentions
to Mrs. Stelling; but he had told that fine woman what he
meant to do some day, and she felt great confidence in her
husband, as a man who understood everything of that sort.
But the immediate step to future success was to bring on
Tom Tulliver during this first half-year ; for, by a singular
coincidence, there had been some negotiation concerning
another pupil from the same neighborhood, and it might
further a decision in Mr. Stelling's favor, if it were under-
stood that young Tulliver, who, Mr. Stelling observed in
conjugal privacy, was rather a rough cub, had made prodi-
gious 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 every-
thing dim to him except the feeling that he would rather not
have anything to do with Latin ; of course he answered,
SCHOOL TIME. 145
"Roast-beef," whereupon there followed much laughter and
some practical joking with the plates, from which Tom
gathered that he had in some mysterious way refused beef,
and, in fact, made himself appear "sb silly." If he could
have seen a fellow-pupil undergo these painful operations and
survive them in good spirits, he might sooner have taken them
as a matter of course. But there are two expensive forms of
education, either of which a parent may procure for his son
by sending him as solitary pupil to a clergyman : one is, the
enjoyment of the reverend gentleman's undivided neglect ; the
other is, the endurance of the reverend gentleman's undivided
attention. It was the latter privilege for which Mr. Tulli-
ver 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 Eiley's advice about a tutor for Tom.
Mr. Stelling's eyes were so wide open, and he talked in such
an off-hand, matter-of-fact way — answering every difficult
slow remark of Mr. Tulliver's with, " I see, my good sir, I
see ; " " To be sure, to be sure ; " " You want your son to be a
man who will make his way in the world," — that Mr. Tulli-
ver was delighted to find in him a clergyman whose knowl-
edge was so applicable to the every-day affairs of this life.
Except Counsellor AYylde, whom he had heard at the last
sessions, Mr. Tulliver thought the Rev. Mr. Stelling was the
shrewdest fellow he had ever met with — not unlike Wylde,
in fact : he had the same way of sticking his thumbs in the
armholes of his waistcoat. Mr. Tulliver was not by any
means an exception in mistaking brazenness for shrewdness :
most laymen thought Stelling shrewd, and a man of remark-
able powers generally : it was chiefly by his clerical brethren
that he was considered rather a dull fellow. But he told Mr.
Tulliver several stories about " Swing " and incendiarism, and
asked his advice about feeding pigs in so thoroughly secular
and judicious a manner, with so much polished glibness of
tongue, that the miller thought, here was the very thing he
VOL. II. 10
146 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
wanted for Tom. He had no doubt this first-rate man was
acquainted with every branch of information, and knew ex-
actly what Tom must learn in order to become a match for
the lawyers — which poor Mr. Tulliver himself did not know,
and so was necessarily thrown for self-direction on this wide
kind of inference. It is hardly fair to laugh at him, for I
have known much more highly instructed persons than he
make inferences quite as wide, and not at all wiser.
As for Mrs. Tulliver — finding that Mrs. Stelling's views as
to the airing of linen and the frequent recurrence of hunger in
a growing boy entirely coincided with her own ; moreover,
that Mrs. Stelliug, 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 Tom with a woman who, in spite of her
youth, seemed quite sensible and motherly, and asked advice
as prettily as could be.
" They must be very well off, though," said Mrs. Tulliver,
"for everything's as nice as can be all over the house, and that
watered silk she had on cost a pretty penny. Sister Pullet
has got one like it."
"Ah," said Mr. Tulliver, "he's got some income besides the
curacy, I reckon. Perhaps her father allows 'em something.
There 's Tom 'ull be another hundred to him, and not much
trouble either, by his own account : he sa3^s teaching comes
natural to him. That 's wonderful, now," added Mr. Tulliver,
turning his head on one side, and giving his horse a meditative
tickling on the flank.
Perhaps it was because teaching came naturally to Mr.
Stelling, that he set about it with that uniformity of method
and independence of circumstances, which distinguish the ac-
tions of animals understood to be under the immediate teach-
ing of nature. Mr. Broderip's amiable beaver, as that charming
naturalist tells us, busied himself as earnestly in constructing
a dam, in a room up three pair of stairs in London, as if he
had been laying his foundation in a stream or lake in Upper
SCHOOL-TIME. 147
Canada. It was " Binny's " fuuctiou to build : the absence
of water or of possible progeny was an accident for which he
was not accountable. With the same unerring instinct Mr.
Stelling set to work at his natural method of instilling the
Eton Grammar and Euclid into the mind of Tom Tulliver.
This, he considered, was the only basis of solid instruction :
all other means of education were mere charlatanism, and could
produce nothing better than smatterers. Fixed on this firm
basis, a man might observe the display of various or special
knowledge made by irregularly educated people with a pitying
smile : all that sort of thing was very well, but it was impossi-
ble these people could form sound opinions. In holding this
conviction Mr. Stelling was not biassed, as some tutors have
been, by the excessive accuracy or extent of his own scholar-
ship ; and as to his views about Euclid, no opinion could have
been freer from personal partialit}^ Mr. Stelling was very far
from being led astray by enthusiasm, either religious or intel-
lectual ; on the other hand, he had no secret belief that every-
thing was humbug. He thought religion was a very excellent
thing, and Aristotle a great authority, and deaneries and pre-
bends useful institutions, and Great Britain the providential
bulwark of Protestantism, and faith in the unseen a great
support to afflicted minds : he believed in all these things, as
a Swiss hotel-keeper believes in the beauty of the scenery
around liim, and in the pleasure it gives to artistic visitors.
And in the same way Mr. Stelling believed in his method of
education ; he had no doubt that he was doing the very best
thing for Mr. Tulliver's boy. Of course, when the miller
talked of '' mapping" and '^ summing" in a vague and diffident
manner, Mr. Stelling had set his mind at rest by an assurance
that he understood what was wanted ; for how was it possible
the good man could form any reasonable judgment about the
matter ? Mr. Stelling's duty was to teach the lad in the only
right way — indeed, he knew no other : he had not wasted his
time in the acquirement of anything abnormal.
He very soon set down poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad ;
for though by hard labor he could get particular declensions
into his brain, anything so abstract as the relation between
148 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
cases and terminations could by no means get such a lodg-
ment there as to enable him to recognize a chance genitive or
dative. This struck Mr. Stelling as something more than
natural stupidity : he suspected obstinacy, or at any rate, in-
difference ; and lectured Tom severely on his want of thorough
application. " You feel no interest in what you 're doing, sir,"
Mr. Stelling would say, and the reproach was painfully true.
Tom had never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from
a setter, when once he had been told the distinction, and his
perceptive powers were not at all deficient. I fancy they were
quite as strong as those of the Rev. Mr. Stelling ; for Tom
could predict with accuracy what number of horses were 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 slate
without any measurement. But Mr. Stelling took no note of
these things : he only observed that Tom's faculties failed him
before the abstractions hideously symbolized to him in the
pages of the Eton Grammar, and that he was in a state border-
ing 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 ivere equal.
Whence Mr. Stelling concluded that Tom's brain being pecu-
liarly impervious to etymology and demonstrations, was pe-
culiarly 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 tlie mind which pre-
pared it for the reception of any subsequent crop. I say
nothing against Mr. Stelling's theory : if we are to have one
regimen for all minds, his seems to me as good as any other. I
only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom Tulliver as if
he had been plied with cheese in order to remedy a gastric weak-
ness 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
\
SCHOOL-TIME. 149
to follow great authorities, and call the mind a sheet of white
paper or a mirror, in which case one's knowledge of the diges-
tive 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.
Aristotle ! if you had had the advantage of being *' the fresh-
est modern" instead of the greatest ancient, would you not
have mingled your praise of metaphorical speech, as a sign
of high intelligence, with a lamentation that intelligence so
rarely shows itself in speech without metaphor, — that we can
so seldom declare what a thing is, except by saying it is some-
thing 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 m a state of as blank unimagiuativeness 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
150 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
and emasculate his pupil's mind by simplifying and explaining,
or to reduce the tonic effect of etymology by mixing it with
smattering, extraneous information, such as is given to girls.
Yet, strange to say, under this vigorous treatment Tom
became more like a girl than he had ever been in his life
before. He had a large share of pride, which had hitherto
found itself very comfortable in the world, despising Old
Goggles, and reposing in the sense of unquestioned rights ;
but now this same pride met with nothing but bruises and
crushings. Tom was too clear-sighted not to be aware that
Mr. Stelling's standard of things was quite different, was
certainly something higher in the eyes of the world than that
of the people he had been living amongst, and that, brought
in contact with it, he, Tom Tulliver, appeared uncouth and
stupid : he was by no means indifferent to this, and his pride
got into an uneasy condition which quite nullified his boyish
self-satisfaction, and gave him something of the girl's suscep-
tibility. He was of a very firm, not to say obstinate disposi-
tiou, but there was no brute-like rebellion and recklessness in
his nature : the human sensibilities predominated, and if it
had occurred to him that he could enable himself to show
some quickness at his lessons, and so acquire Mr. Stelling's
approbation, by standing on one leg for an inconvenient length
of time, or rapping his head moderately against the wall, or
any voluntary action of that sort, he would certainly have
tried it. But no — Tom had never heard that these measures
would brighten the understanding, or strengthen the verbal
memory ; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment.
It did occur to him that he could perhaps get some help by
praying for it ; but as the prayers he said every evening were
forms learned by heart, he rather shrank from the novelty and
irregularity of introducing an extempore passage on a topic of
petition for which he was not aware of any precedent. But
one day, when he had broken down, for the fifth time, in the
supines of the third conjugation, and Mr. Stelling, convinced
that this must be carelessness, since it transcended the bounds
of possible stupidity, had lectured him very seriously, pointing
out that if he failed to seize the present golden opportunity
SCHOOL-TIME. 151
of learning supines, he would have to regret it when he be-
came 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 shan't do Euclid any
more. Amen."
The fact that he got through his supines Avithout 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 pray-
ing for help any longer ? He made up his mind to this con-
clusion 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 a.shamed of it : he could n't help thinking with some
affection even of Spouncer, whom he used to fight and quarrel
with ; he would have felt at home with Spouncer, and in a
condition of superiority. And then the mill, and the river,
and Yap pricking up his ears, ready to obey the least sign
when Tom said, " Hoigh ! " would all come before him in a
sort of calenture, when his fingers played absently in his
pocket with his great knife and his coil of whipcord, and
other relics of the past. Tom, as I said, had never been so
much like a girl in his life before, and at that epoch of irregu-
lar verbs his spirit was further depressed by a new means of
mental development which had been thought of for him out
152 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
of school hours. Mrs. Stelling had lately had her second
baby, and as nothing could be more salutary for a boy than to
feel himself useful, Mrs, Stelling considered she was doing
Tom a service by setting him to watch the little cherub Laura
while the nurse was occupied with the sickly baby. It was
quite a pretty employment for Tom to take little Laura out
in the sunniest hour of the autumn day — it would help to
make him feel that Lorton Parsonage was a home for him,
and that he was one of the family. The little cherub Laura,
not being an accomplished walker at present, had a ribbon
fastened round her waist, by which Tom held her as if she
had been a little dog during the minutes in which she chose
to walk ; but as these were rare, he was for the most part
carrying this fine child round and round the garden, within
sight of Mrs. Stelling's window — according to orders. If
any one considers this unfair and even oppressive towards
Tom, I beg him to consider that there are feminine virtues
which are with difficulty combined, even if they are not in-
compatible. 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 occasion-
ally officiate as lady's-maid, — when, moreover, her dinner-
parties and her drawing-room show that effort at elegance and
completeness of appointment to which ordinary women might
imagine a large income necessary, it would be unreasonable
to expect of her that she should employ a second nurse, or
even act as a nurse herself. Mr. Stelling knew better : he
saw that his wife did wonders already, and was proud of her :
it was certainly not the best thing in the world for young
Tulliver's gait to carry a heavy child, but he had plenty of
exercise in long walks with himself, and next half-year Mr.
Stelling would see about having a drilling-master. Among the
many means whereby Mr. Stelling intended to be more fortu-
nate 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 mai-ried " as kind a little soul as ever breathed,"
according to Mr. Riley, who had been acquainted with Mrs.
Stelling's blond ringlets and smiling demeanor throughout her
SCHOOL-TIME. 153
maiden life, and on the strength of that knowledge would
have been ready any day to pronounce that whatever domestic
differences might arise in her married life must be entirely
Mr. Stelling's fault.
If Tom had had a worse disposition, he would certainly
have hated the little cherub Laura, but he was too kind-
hearted a lad for that — there was too much in him of the
fibre that turns to true manliness, and to protecting pity for
the weak. I am afraid he hated Mrs. Stelling, and con-
tracted 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
could n't help playing with little Laura, and liking to amuse
her ; he even sacrificed his percussion-caps for her sake, in
despair of their ever serving a greater purpose — thinking the
small flash and bang would delight her, and thereby drawing
down on Jiimself a rebuke from Mrs. Stelling for teaching her
child to play with fire. Laura was a sort of playfellow —
and oh how Tom longed for playfellows ! In his secret heart
he yearned to have Maggie with him, and was almost ready
to dote on her exasperating acts of forgetfulness ; though,
when he was at home, he always represented it as a great
favor on his part to let Maggie trot by his side on his pleasure
excursions.
And before this dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually
came. Mrs. Stelling had given a general invitation for the
little girl to come and stay with her brother ; so when Mr.
Tulliver drove over to King's Lorton late in October, Maggie
came too, with the sense that she was taking a great journey,
and beginning to see the world. It was Mr. Tulliver's first
visit to see Tom, for the lad must learn not to think too much
about home.
" Well, my lad," he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had
left the room to announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie
had begun to kiss Tom freely, '' you look rarely ! School
agrees with you."
Tom wished he had looked rather ill.
"I don't think I a7n well, father," said Tom; "I wish
154 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 tri-
angles, and things. It 's a book I ' ve got to learn in — there 's
no sense in it."
" Go, go ! " said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly, " you must n't say
so. You must learn what your master tells you. He knows
what it 's right for you to learn."
"/'ZZ 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, have n't I, father ? "
" You help me, you silly little thing ! " said Tom, in such
high spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the
idea of confounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid.
" I should like to see yon doing one of my lessons ! Why,
I learn Latin too ! Girls never learn such things. They 're
too silly."
" I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie, confidently.
"Latin's a language. There are Latin words in the Dic-
tionary. There 's bonus, a gift."
" Now, you 're just wrong there. Miss Maggie ! " said Tom,
secretly astonished. " You think you 're very wise ! But
''- bonus ' means ' good,' as it happens — bonus, bona, bonum."
" Well, th?vt 's no reason why it should n'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,
SCHOOL-TIME. 155
who took her between his knees, and asked her where she
stole her dark eyes from, insisted that she must stay a fort-
night. Maggie thought Mr. Stelling was a charming man, and
Mr. Tulliver was quite proud to leave his little wench where
she would have an opportunity of showing her cleverness to
appreciating strangers. So it was agreed that she should not
be fetched home till the end of the fortnight.
"Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said
Tom, as their father drove away. "What do you shake and
toss your head now for, you silly ? " he continued ; for
though her hair was now under a new dispensation, and was
brushed smoothly behind her ears, she seemed still in imagi-
nation 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 could n't read one of 'em," said Tom, trium-
phantly. "They're all Latin."
" No, they are n't," said Maggie. " I can read the back of
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 I could soon find out," said Maggie, scornfully.
" Why, how ? "
" 1 should look inside, and see what it was about."
"You'd better not. Miss Maggie," said Tom, seeing her
hand on the volume. " Mr. Stelling lets nobody touch his
books without leave, and I shall catch it, if you take it out."
" Oh, very well ! Let me see all yoicr books, then," said
Maggie, turning to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub
his cheek with her small round nose,
Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie
to dispute with and crow over again, seized her round the
waist, and began to jump with her round the large library
table. Away they jumped with more and more vigor, till
156 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Maggie's hair flew from behind her ears, and twirled about
like an animated mop. But the revolutions round the table
became more and more irregular in their sweep, till at last
reaching Mr. Stelling's reading-stand, they sent it thundering
down with its heavy lexicons to the floor. Happily it was
the ground-floor, and the study was a one-storied wing to the
house, so that the downfall made no alarming resonance,
though Tom stood dizzy and aghast for a few minutes, 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 '11 make us cry peccavi."
" What 's that ? " said Maggie.
" Oh, it 's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom, not
without some pride in his knowledge.
" Is she a cross woman ? " said Maggie.
" I believe you ! " said Tom, with an emphatic nod.
"I think all women are crosser than men," said Maggie.
" Aunt Glegg 's a great deal crosser than uncle Glegg, and
mother scolds me more than father does."
" Well, you HI be a woman some day," said Tom, " so you
need n't talk."
" But I shall be a clever woman," said Maggie, with a toss.
" Oh, I dare say, and a nasty conceited thing. Everybody '11
hate you."
" But you ought n't to hate me, Tom : it '11 be very wicked
of you, for I shall be your sister."
" Yes, but if you 're a nasty disagreeable thing, I shall hate
you."
" Oh but, Tom, you won't ! I shan'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 towards 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,
SCHOOL-TIME. 157
becoming quite bewildered, her face flushed with irritation.
It was unavoidable — she must confess her incompetency, and
she was not fond of humiliation.
"It's nonsense ! " she said, "and very ugly stuff — nobody
need want to make it out."
" Ah, there now, Miss Maggie ! " said Tom, drawing the
book away, and wagging his head at he^, " you see you 're not
so clever as you thought you were."
" Oh," said Maggie, pouting, " I dare say I could make it out,
if I 'd learned what goes before, as you have."
"But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said
Tom. " For it 's all the harder when you know what goes
before : for then you 've got to say what definition 3. is, and
what axiom V. is. But get along with you now : I must go on
with this. Here 's the Latin Grammar. See what you can
make of that."
Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her
mathematical mortification ; for she delighted in new words,
and quickly found that there was an English Key at the end,
which would make her very wise about Latin, at slight ex-
pense. She presently made up her mind to skip the rulea
in the Syntax — the examples became so absorbing. These
mysterious sentences, snatched from an unknown context, —
like strange horns of beasts, and leaves of unknown plants,
brought from some far-off region, — gave boundless scope to
her imagination, and were all the more fascinating because
they were in a peculiar tongue of their own, which she could
learn to interpret. It was really very interesting — the Latin
Grammar that Tom had said no girls could learn : and she
was proud because she found it interesting. The most frag-
mentary examples were her favorites. Mors omnibus est com-
munis would have been jejune, only she liked to know the
Latin ; but the fortunate gentleman whom every one congratu-
lated because he had a son " endowed with such a disj)osition "
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 ! "
158 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Oh, Tom, it 's such a pretty book ! " she said, as she
jumped out of the large arm-chair to give it him ; " it 's much
prettier than the Dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon.
I don't think it's at all hard."
"Oh, I know what you 've been doing," said Tom, "you've
been reading the English at the end. Any donkey can do
that."
Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and
business-like air, as much as to say that he had a lesson to
learn which no donkeys would find themselves equal to.
Maggie, rather piqued, turned to the bookcases to amuse her-
self with puzzling out the titles.
Presently Tom called to her: "Here, Magsie, come and
hear if I can say this. Stand at that end of the table, where
Mr. Stelling sits when he hears me."
Maggie obeyed, and took the open book.
" Where do you begin, Tom ? "
"Oh, I begin at ' Appellativa arbonim,'' because I say all
over again what I've been learning this week."
Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines ; and Maggie
was beginning to forget her office of prompter in speculating
as to what mas could mean, which came twice over, when he
stuck fast at Sunt etiam volucrum.
" Don't tell me, Maggie ; Sunt etiam vohicrum . . . Sunt
etiam volucrum . . . ut ostrea, cetus — "
" No," said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her
head.
" Sunt etiam 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,
hirundo ; Ferarum . . . ferarum — " Tom took his pencil
and made several hard dots with it on his book-cover . . .
"ferarum — "
" Oh dear, oh dear, Tom," said Maggie, " what a time you
are! Ut — "
" Ut, ostrea — '*
JEL
SCHOOL-TTME. 159
"Ko. no," said Maggie, ^'ut, tigris — "
" Oh yes, now I can do," said Tom ; " it was tigris, vulpes,
I 'd forgotten : ut tigris, tndpes ; 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 learnt 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.
'' Masctda nomina in a," he began.
" No, Tom," said Maggie, "■ that does n't come next. It 's
Nomen non creskens genittivo — "
" Creskens genittivo ! " exclaimed Tom, with a derisive
laugh, for Tom had learned this omitted passage for his 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 ! 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 could n't learn Latin. It 's
Nomen non crescens genitivo."
" Very well, then," said Maggie, pouting. " I can say that
as well as you can. And you don't mind your stops. For you
ought to stop twice as long at a semicolon as you do at a
comma, and you make the longest stops where there ought to
be no stop at all."
" Oh, well, don't chatter. Let me go on."
They were presently fetched to spend the rest of the 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 ! " 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
160 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 specula-
tion that she one day asked Mr. Stelling if all astronomers
hated women, or whether it was only this particular astrono-
mer. 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.
" 1 'm sure you could n't do it, now," said Tom ; " and I '11
just ask Mr. Stelling if you could."
" I don't mind," said the little conceited minx. " I '11 ask
him myself."
" Mr. Stelling," she said, that same evening when they were
in the drawing-room, " could n't I do Euclid, and all Tom's
lessons, if you were to teach me instead of him ? "
" No ; you could n't," said Tom, indignantly. '^ Girls can't
do Euclid : can they, sir ? "
'' They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say," said
Mr. Stelling. " They 've a great deal of superficial cleverness ;
but they could n'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 hei little life, and
SCHOOL-TIME. 161
now it appeared that this quickness was the brand of inferior-
ity. 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 line thing to be quick. You '11 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 mor&
quite lonely for Tom, he missed her grievously. He had
really been brighter, and had got through his lessons better,
since she had been there ; and she had asked Mr. Stalling so
many questions about the Roman Empire, and whether there
really ever was a man who said, in Latin, " I would not buy it
for a farthing or a rotten nut," or whether that had only been
turned into Latin, that Tom had actually come to a dim under-
standing of the fact that there had once been people upon the
earth who were so fortunate as to know Latin without learn-
ing it through the medium of the Eton Grammar. This lumi-
nous idea was a great addition to his historical acquirements
during this half-year, which were otherwise confined to an
epitomized history of the Jews.
But the dreary half-year did come to an end. How glad
Tom was to see the last yellow leaves fluttering before the
cold wind ! The dark afternoons, and the first December
snow, seemed to him far livelier than the August sunshine ;
and that he might make himself the surer about the flight of
the days that were carrying him homeward, he stuck twenty-
one sticks deep in a corner of the garden, when he was three
weeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a
great wrench, throwing it to a distance with a vigor of will
which would have carried it to limbo, if it had been in the
nature of sticks to travel so far.
But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of the
Latin Grammar — the happiness of seeing the bright light in
the parlor at home, as the gig passed noiselessly over the snow-
covered bridge ; the happiness of passing from the cold air
to the warmth and the kisses and the smiles of that familiar
TOL. II. 11
le^ THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
hearth, where the pattern of the rug and the grate and the
fire-irons were " first ideas " that it was no more possible to
criticise than the solidity and extension of matter. There is
no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes where
we were born, where objects became dear to us before we had
known the labor of choice, and where the outer world seemed
only an extension of our own personality : we accepted and
loved it as we accepted our own sense of existence and our
own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly, that furniture of
our early home might look if it were put up to auction; an
improved taste in upholstery scorns it ; and is not the striving
after something better and better in our surroundings, the
grand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute —
or, to satisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distin-
guishes 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
m memory. One's delight in an elderberry bush overhanging
the confused leafage of a hedgerow bank, as a more gladdening
sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreading itself on the
softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiable preference
to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those severely regulated
minds who are free from the weakness of any attachment that
does not rest on a demonstrable superiority of qualities. And
there is no better reason for preferring this elderberry bush
than that it stirs an early memory — that it is no novelty in
my life, speaking to me merely throvigh my present sensibili-
ties to form and color, but the long companion of my existence,
that wove itself into my joys when joys were vivid.
SCHOOL-TIME. 163
CHAPTER II.
THE CHRISTMAS HOLIDAYS.
Fine old Christmas, with the snowy hair and ruddy face,
had done his duty that year in the noblest fashion, and had
set off his rich gifts of warmth and color with all the heighten-
ing contrast of frost and snow.
Snow lay on the croft and river-bank in undulations softer
than the limbs of infancy ; it lay with the neatliest finished
border on every sloping roof, making the dark-red gables stand
out with a new depth of color; it weighed heavily on the
laurels and fir-trees, till it fell from them with a shuddering
sound ; it clothed the rough turnip-field with whiteness, and
made the sheep look like dark blotches ; the gates were all
blocked up with the sloping drifts, and here and there a dis-
regarded four-footed beast stood as if petrified "in unrecum-
bent 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 rich-
ness of indoor color, and give a keener edge of delight to the
warm fragrance of food ; he meant to prepare a sweet im-
prisonment that would strengthen the primitive fellowship
of kindred, and make the sunshine of familiar human faces
as welcome as the hidden day-star. His kindness fell but
hardly on the homeless — fell but hardly on the homes where
the hearth was not very warm, and where the food had little
fragrance ; where the human faces had no sunshine in them,
but rather the leaden, blank-eyed gaze of unexpectant want.
But the fine old season meant well ; and if he has not learnt
the secret how to bless men impartially, it is because his father
Time, with ever-unrelenting purpose, still hides that secret in
his own mighty, slow-beating heart.
164; THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 mantel-pieces 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. There
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
parish clerk, and the rest of the church choir : she trembled
with awe when their carolling broke in upon her dreams, and
the image of men in fustian clothes was always thrust away
by the vision of angels resting on the parted cloud. The mid-
night chant had helped as usual to lift the morning above the
level of common days ; and then there was 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 round-
ness as ever, and came in with the symbolic blue flames around
it, as if it had been heroically snatched from the nether fires
into which it had been thrown by dyspeptic Puritans ; the
dessert was as splendid as ever, with its golden oranges, brown
nuts, and the crystalline light and dark of apple-jelly and
damson cheese : in all these things Christmas was as it had
always been since Tom could remember ; it was only distin-
guished, if 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 Maggio when Mr.
Tulliver got louder and more angry in narration and assertion
with the increased leisure of dessert. The attention that Tom
might have concentrated on his nuts and wine was distracted
SCHOOL-TIME. 165
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 feeling,
or conceived the notion that his father- was faulty in this
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 Kipple, was taking measures for
their irrigation, which either were, or would be, or were bound
to be (on the principle that water was water), an infringement
on Mr. Tulliver's legitimate share of water-power. Dix, who
had a mill on the stream, was a feeble auxiliary of Old Harry
compared with Pivart. Dix had been brought to his senses
by arbitration, and Wakem's advice had not carried him far ;
no ; Dix, Mr. Tulliver considered, had been as good as nowhere
in point of law ; and in the intensity of his indignation against
Pivart, his contempt for a baffled adversary like Dix began to
wear the air of a friendly attachment. He had no male audi-
ence to-day except Mr. Moss, who knew nothing, as he said, of
the " natur' o' mills," and could only assent to Mr. Tulliver's
arguments on the a priori ground of family relationship and
monetary obligation ; but Mr. Tulliver did not talk with the
futile intention of convincing his audience — he talked to re-
lieve himself; while good Mr. Moss made strong efforts to keep
his eyes wide open, in spite of the sleepiness which an unusually
good dinner produced in his hard-worked frame. Mrs. Moss,
more alive to the subject, and interested in everything that
affected her brother, listened and put in a word as often as
maternal preoccupations allowed.
" Why, Pivart 's a new name hereabout, brother, is n't it ? "
she said : " he did n't own the land in father's time, nor yours
either, before I was married."
" New name ? Yes — I should think it is sl new name,"
said Mr. Tulliver, with angry emphasis. '• Dorlcote Mill 's been
166 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
in our family a hundred year and better, and nobody ever
heard of a Pivart meddling with the river, till this fellow
came and bought Bincome's farm out of hand, before anybody
else could so much as say ' snap.' But I '11 Pivart him ! "
added Mr. Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense that he had
defined his resolution in an unmistakable manner.
" You won't be forced to go to law with him, I hope, brother? "
said Mrs. Moss, with some anxiety.
" I don't know what I shall be forced to ; but I know what
I shall force him to, with his dykes and erigations, if there 's
any law to be brought to bear o' the right side. I know well
enough who 's at the bottom of it ; he 's got Wakem to back
him and egg him on. I know Wakem tells him the law can't
touch him for it, but there 's folks can handle the law besides
Wakem. It takes a big raskil to beat him ; but there 's bigger
to be found, as know more o' th' ins and outs o' the law, else
how came Wakem to lose Brumley's suit for him ? "
Mr. Tulliver was a strictly honest man, and proud of being
honest, but he considered that in law the ends of justice could
only be achieved by employing a stronger knave to frustrate
a weaker. Law was a sort of cock-fight, in which it was the
business of injured honesty to get a game bird with the best
pluck and the strongest spurs.
" Gore 's no fool — you need n'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 is n't up
to the law as Wakem is. And water 's a very particular thing
— you can't pick it up with a pitchfork. That's why it's been
nuts to Old Harry and the lawyers. It 's plain enough what 's
the rights and the wrongs of water, if you look at it straight-
forrard j for a river 's a river, and if you 've got a mill, you
must have water to turn it ; and it 's no use telling me, Pivart's
erigation and nonsense won't stop my wheel : I know what
belongs to water better than that. Talk to me o' what th'
engineers say ! I say it 's common sense, as Pivart's dykes
must do me an injury. But if that 's their engineering, I '11 put
Tom to it by-and-by, and he shall see if he can't find a bit more
S^nse in th' engineering business than what that comes to."
SCHOOL-TIME. 167
Tom, looking round with some anxiety at this announce-
ment 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, feel-
ing apparently that the original wrong of having it taken from
her remained in all its force. Mrs. Moss hurried away with
her into another room, and expressed to Mrs. Tulliver, who
accompanied her, the conviction that the dear child had good
reasons for crying ; implying that if it was supposed to be the
rattle that baby clamored for, she was a misunderstood baby.
The thoroughly justifiable yell being quieted, Mrs. Moss looked
at her sister-in-law and said —
"I 'm sorry to see brother so put out about this water work."
" It 's your brother's way, Mrs. Moss ; I 'd never anything
o' that sort before I was married," said Mrs. Tulliver, with a
half-implied reproach. She always spoke of her husband as
"your brother" to Mrs. Moss in any case when his line of
conduct was not matter of pure admiration. Amiable Mrs.
Tulliver, who was never angry in her life, had yet her mild
share of that spirit without which she could hardly have been
at once a Dodson and a woman. Being always on the defen-
sive towards her own sisters, it was natural that she should
be keenly conscious of her superiority, even as the weakest
Dodson, over a husband's sister, who, besides being poorly off,
and inclined to " hang on " her brother, had the good-natured
submissiveness of a large, easy-tempered, untidy, prolific 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 '11 end. And the right
does n't allays win. This Mr. Pivart 's a rich man, by what I
can make out, and the rich mostly get things their own way."
" As to that," said Mrs. Tulliver, stroking her dress down,
" I 've seen what riches are in my own family ; for my sisters
have got husbands as can afford to do pretty much what they
168 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
like. But I think sometimes I shall be drove off my head with
the talk about this law and erigation ; and my sisters lay all
the fault to me, for they don't know what it is to marry a man
like your brother — how should they ? Sister Pullet has her
. own way from morning till night."
" Well/' said Mrs. Moss, " I don't think I sliould like my
husband if he hadn't got any wits of his own, and 1 had to find
jhead-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 sister
Glegg, "I'm sure your brother might have waited a long while
before he 'd have found a wife that 'ud have let him have his
say in everything, as I do. It 's nothing but law and erigation
now, from when we first get up in the morning till we go to
bed at night ; and I never contradict him ; I only say — ' Well,
Mr. Tulliver, do as you like ; but whativer you do, don't go to
law.' "
Mrs. Tulliver, as we have seen, was not without influence
over her husband. No woman is ; she can always incline him
to do either what she wishes, or the reverse ; and on the com-
posite impulses that were threatening to hurry Mr. Tulliver
into "law," 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 breaking
the camel's back ; though, on a strictly impartial view, the
blame ought rather to lie with the previous weight of feathers
which had already placed the back in such imminent peril, that
an otherwise innocent feather could not settle on it without
mischief. Not that Mrs. Tulliver's feeble beseeching could
have had this feather's weight in virtue of her single personal-
ity ; but whenever she departed from entire assent to her hus-
band, he saw in her the representative of the Dodson family ;
and it was a guiding principle with Mr. Tulliver, to let the
Dodsons knx)W that they were not to domineer over Jiim, or —
more specifically — that a male Tulliver was far more than
equal to four female Dodsons, even though one of them was
J!ilrs. Glegg.
SCHOOL-TIME. 169
But not even a direct argument from that typical Dodson
female herself against his going to law, could have heightened
his disposition towards it so much as the mere thought of
Wakem, continually freshened by the sight of the too able
attorney on market-days. Wakem, to his certain knowledge,
was (metaphorically speaking) at the bottom of Pivart's irri-
gation : Wakem had tried to make Dix stand out, and go to
law about the dam : it was unquestionably Wakem who had
caused Mr. Tulliver to lose the suit about the right of road and
the bridge that made a thoroughfare of his land for every vaga-
bond who preferred an opportunity of damaging private prop-
erty 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 oppo-
sition to that form of right embodied in Mr. Tulliver's inter-
ests and opinions. And as an extra touch of bitterness, the
injured miller had recently, in borrowing the five hundred
pounds, been obliged to carry a little business to Wakem's
office on his own account. A hook-nosed glib fellow ! as cool
as a cucumber — always looking so sure of his game ! And it
was vexatious that Lawyer Gore was not more like him, but
was a bald, round-featured man, with bland manners and fat
hands ; a game-cock that you would be rash to bet upon against
Wakem. Gore was a sly fellow ; his weakness did not lie on
the side of scrupulosity : but the largest amount of winking,
however significant, is not equivalent to seeing through a
stone wall ; and confident as Mr. Tulliver was in his prin-
ciple that water was water, and in the direct inference that
Pivart had not a leg to stand on in this affair of irrigation,
he had an uncomfortable suspicion that Wakem had more
law to show against this (rationally) irrefragable inference,
than Gore could show for it. But then, if they went to law,
there was a chance for Mr. Tulliver to employ Counsellor
Wylde on his side, instead of having that admirable bully
against him ; and the prospect of seeing a witness of Wakem's
made to perspire and become confounded, as Mr. Tulliver's
witness had once been, was alluring to the love of retributive
justice.
170 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Mucli rumination had Mr. Tulliver on these puzzling subjects
during his rides on the gray horse — much turning of the
head from side to side, as the scales dipped alternately ; but
the probable result was still out of sight, only to be reached
through much hot argument and iteration in domestic and so-
cial life. That initial stage of the dispute which consisted in
the narration of the case and the enforcement of Mr. Tulliver's
views concerning it throughout the entire circle of his connec-
tions would necessarily take time, and at the beginning of Feb-
ruary, when Tom Avas going to school again, there were scarcely
any new items to be detected in his father's statement of the
case against Pivart, or any more specific indication of the
measures he was bent on taking against that rash contravener
of the principle that water was water. Iteration, like friction,
is likely to generate heat instead of progress, and Mr. Tulli-
ver's heat was certainly more and more palpable. If there had
been no new evidence on any other point, there had been new
evidence that Pivart was as "thick as mud" with Wakem.
" Father," said Tom, one evening near the end of the holi-
days, "uncle Glegg says Lawyer Wakem is going to send his
son to Mr. Stelling. It is n't true — what they said about his
going to be sent to France. You won't like me to go to school
with Wakem's son, shall you ? "
" It 's no matter for that, my boy," said Mr. Tulliver ;
" don't you learn anything bad of him, that 's all. The lad 's
a poor deformed creatur, and takes after his mother in the
face : I think there is n't much of his father in him. It 's a
sign Wakem tliinks 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
much clearer if the lawyer's son had not been deformed, for
then Tom would have had the prospect of pitching into him
with all that freedom which is derived from a high moral
sanction.
SCHOOL-TIME. 171
CHAPTER III.
THE NEW SCHOOLFELLOW.
It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back
to school ; a day quite in keeping with this severe phase of
his destiny. If he had not carried in his pocket a parcel of
sugar-candy and a small Dutch doll for little Laura, there
would have been no ray of expected pleasure to enliven the
general gloom. But he liked to think how Laura would put
out her lips and her tiny hands for the bits of sugar-candy ;
and, to give the greater keenness to these pleasures of imagi-
nation, 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.
Stalling, heartily. " Take off your wrappings and oome into
the study till dinner. You '11 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 embarrass-
ment and defiance as he followed Mr. Stelling to the study.
" Here is a new companion for you to shake hands withj
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."
172 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Tom looked confused and awkward, while Philip rose and
glanced at him timidly. Tom did not like to go up and put
out his hand, and he was not prepared to say, " How do you
do ? " on so short a notice.
Mr. Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door behind
him : boys' shyness only wears off in the absence of their
elders.
Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk towards
Tom. He thought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion
to looking at him : every one, almost, disliked looking at him ;
and his deformity was more conspicuous when he walked.
So they remained without shaking hands or even speaking,
while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every now
and then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to be
drawing absently first one object and then another on a piece
of paper he had before him. He had seated himself again,
and as he drew, was thinking what he could say to Tom, and
trying to overcome his own repugnance to making the first
advances.
Tom began to look oftener and longer at Philip's face, for
he could see it without noticing the hump, and it was really
not a disagreeable face — very old-looking, Tom thought. He
wondered how much older Philip was than himself. An anat-
omist — even a mere physiognomist — would have seen that
the deformity of Philip's spine was not a congenital hump,
but the result of an accident in infancy; but you do not
expect from Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions : to
him, Philip was simply a humpback. He had a vague notion
that the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the
lawyer's rascality, of which he had so often heard his father
talk with hot emphasis ; and he felt, too, a half-admitted fear
of him as probably a spiteful fellow, who, not being able to
fight you, had cunning ways of doing you a mischief by the
sly. There was a humpbacked tailor in the neighborhood of
Mr. Jacobs's academy, who was considered a very unamiable
character, and was much hooted after by public-spirited boys
solely on the ground of his unsatisfactory moral qualities ; so
ihat Tom was not without a basis of fact to go upon. Still,
SCHOOL-TIME. 173
ao face could be more unlike that ugly tailor's than this
melancholy boy's face ; the brown hair round it waved and
curled at the ends like a girl's : Tom thought that truly pitia-
ble. This Wakera was a pale, puny fellow, and it was quite
clear he would not be able to play at anything worth speaking
of: but he handled his pencil in an enviable manner, and
was apparently making one thing after another without any
trouble. What was he drawing ? Tom was quite warm now,
and wanted something new to be going forward. It was cer-
tainly more agreeable to have an ill-natured humpback as a
companion than to stand looking out of the study window at
the rain, and kicking his foot against the washboard in soli-
tude ; something would happen every day — "a quarrel or
something ; " and Tom thought he should rather like to show
Philip that he had better not try his spiteful tricks on him.
He suddenly walked across the hearth, and looked over Philip's
paper.
"Why, that 's a donkey with panniers — and a spaniel, and
partridges in the corn ! " he exclaimed, his tongue being 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 accomplishments.
" Oh yes," said Philip, " it 's very easy. You Ve only to
look well at things, and draw them over and over again. What
you do wrong once, you can alter the next time."
"But have n't you been taught a?i//thing ?" said Tom, begin-
•aing to have a puzzled suspicion that Philip's crooked back
174 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
might be the source of remarkable faculties. *' I thought
you 'd beeu to school a loug while."
"Yes," said Philip, smiling, "I've been taught Latin, and
Greek, and mathematics, — and writing, and such things."
" Oh, but I say, you don't like Latin, though, do you ? " said
Tom, lowering his voice confidentially.
" Pretty well ; I don't care much about it," said Philip.
" Ah, but perhaps you have n't got into the Proj^jria qum
maribus," said Tom, nodding his head sideways, as much as
to say, " that was the test : it was easy talking till you came
to that''
Philip felt some bitter complacency in the promising 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 ; I don't learn that any
more."
" Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall ? " said
Tom, with a sense of disappointment.
" No ; but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad to
help you if I can."
Tom did not say "Thank" you," for he was quite absorbed
in the thought that Wakem's son did not seem so spiteful a
fellow as might have been expected.
"I say," he said presently, "do you love your father ? "
" Yes, " said Philip, coloring deeply ; " don't you love
j^ours ? "
" 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 towards the son of Lawyer Wakem, and it had
occurred to him that if Philip disliked his father, that fact
might go some way towards 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 my
time to other things now."
SCHOOL-TIME. 175
" What ! Latin, and Euclid, and those things ? " said Tom.
" Yes," said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and
was resting his head on one hand, while Tom was leaning for-
ward on both elbows, and looking with increasing admiration
at the dog and the donkey.
" And you don't mind that ? " said Tom, with strong
curiosity
'^ No : I like to know what everybody else knows. I can
study what 1 like by-and-by."
"I can't think why anybody should learn Latin," said Tom.
" It 's no good."
"It's part of the education of a gentleman," said Philip.
"All gentlemen learn the same things."
" What ! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the
harriers, knows Latin ? " said Tom, who had often thought he
should like to resemble Sir John Crake.
" He learnt 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 ' Sj^eaker ' Mr. Stelling 's
very particular — did you know ? He '11 have you up ten
times if you say ' nam ' for ' jam ' ... he won't let you go a
letter wrong, I can tell you."
" Oh, I don't mind," said Philip, unable to choke a laugh ;
" I can remember things easily. And there are some lessons
I 'm very fond of. I 'ra very fond of Greek history, and every-
thing about the Greeks. I should like to have been a Greek
and fought the Persians, and then have come home and have
written tragedies, or else have been listened to by everybody
for my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a grand death."
(Philip, you perceive, was not without a wish to impress the
well-made barbarian with a sense of his mental superiority.)
" Why, were the Greeks great fighters ? " said Tom, who
saw a vista in this direction. " Is there anything like David^
176 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS,
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-
tiful 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 ! " 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 shan't
learn Greek, you know. . . . Shall I ? " he added, pausing in
his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the contrary might be
possible. " Does every gentleman learn Greek ? . . . Will
Mr. Stelling make me begin with it, do you think? "
"No, I should think not — very likely not," said Philip.
"But you may read those stories without knowing Greek.
I 've got them in English."
" Oh, but I don't like reading ; I 'd sooner have you tell
them me. But only the fighting ones, you know. My sister
Maggie is always wanting to tell me stories — but they 're
stupid things. Girls' stories always are. Can you tell a good
many fighting stories ? "
"Oh yes," said Philip; "lots of them, besides the Greek
stories. I can tell you about Richard CoBur-de-Lion and Sala-
din, and about William Wallace, and Robert Bruce, and James
Douglas — 1 know no end."
" You 're older than I am, are n'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 standing,
^and sitting still, you know."
Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his
SCHOOL-TIME. 177
favor. This hunchback must not suppose that his acquaint-
ance with fighting stories put him on a par with an actual
figliting hero, like Tom Tulliver. Philip winced under this
allusion to his unfitness for active sports, and he answered
almost peevishly —
"I can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sit-
ting watching a line hour after hour — or else throwing and
throwing, and catching nothing."
" Ah, but you would n't say they looked like fools when
they landed a big pike, I can tell you," said Tom, who had
never caught anything that was "big" in his life, but whose
imagination was on the stretch with indignant zeal for the
honor of sport. Wakem's son, it was plain, had his disagree-
able points, and must be kept in due check. Happily for the
harmony of this first interview, they were now called to din-
ner, and Philip was not allowed to develop farther his un-
sound views on the subject of fishing. But Tom said to
himself, that was just what he should have expected from a
hunchback.
CHAPTER IV.
"the young idea."
The alternations of feeling in that first dialogue between
Tom and Philip continued to mark their intercourse even after
many weeks of schoolboy intimacy. Tom never quite lost the
feeling that Philip, being the son of a " rascal," was his natu-
ral enemy, never thoroughly overcame his repulsion to Philip's
deformity : he was a boy who adhered tenaciously to impres-
sions once received : as with all minds in which mere per-
ception predominates over thought and emotion, the external
remained to him rigidly what it was in the first instance.
But then, it was impossible not to like Philip's company when
he was in a good humor ; he could help one so well in one's
Latin exercises, which Tom regarded as a kind of puzzle that
could only be found out by a lucky chance ; and he could tell
YOL. II. IP
178 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
such wonderful fighting stories about Hal of the Wynd, for
example, and other heroes who were especial favorites with
Tom, because they laid about them with heavy strokes. He
had small opinion of Saladin, whose scimitar could cut a cush-
, ion in two in an instant : who wanted to cut cushions ? That
was a stupid story, and he didn't care to hear it again. But
when Robert Bruce, on the black pony, rose in his stirrups,
and, lifting his good battle-axe, cracked at once the helmet
and the skull of the too hasty knight at Bannockburn, tlien
Tom felt all the exaltation of sympathy, and if he had had a
cocoa-nut at hand, he would have cracked it at once with the
poker. Philip in his happier moods indulged Tom to the top
of his bent, heightening the crash and bang and fury of every
fight with all the artillery of epithets and similes at his com-
mand. But he was not always in a good humor or happy
mood. The slight spurt of peevish susceptibility which had
escaped him in their first interview, was a symptom of a per-
petually recurring mental ailment — half of it nervous irrita-
bility, 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 indilference 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 some-
times make him turn upon the well-meaning lad quite sav-
agely ; 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, Mv. TuUiver, having a vague intention that
SCHOOL-TIME. 179
Tom should be put to some business which included the draw-
ing out of plans and maps, had complained to Mr. Riley,
when he saw him at Mudport, that Tom seemed to be learning
nothing of that sort ; whereupon that obliging adviser had
suggested that Tom should have drawing-lessons. Mr. Tulli-
ver must not mind paying extra for drawing : let Tom be
made a good draughtsman, and he would be able to turn his
pencil to any purpose. So it was ordered that Tom should
have drawing-lessons ; and whom should Mr. Stelling have
selected as a master if not Mr. Goodrich, who was considered
quite at the head of his profession within a circuit of twelve
miles round King's Lorton ? By which means Tom learned
to make an extremely fine point to his pencil, and to represent
landscape with a '•' broad generality," which, doubtless from a
narrow tendency in his mind to details, he thought extremely
dull.
All this, you remember, happened in those dark ages when
there were no schools of design — before schoolmasters were
invariably men of scrupulous integrity, and before the clergy
were all men of enlarged minds and varied culture. In those
less favored days, it is no fable that there were other clergy-
men besides Mr. Stelling who had narrow intellects and large
wants, and whose income, by a logical confusion to which
Fortune, being a female as well as blindfold, is peculiarly
liable, was proportioned not to their wants but to their in-
tellect — 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 clergyman : 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 tlian 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
180 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
faculties had been early trained to boring m a straight line,
and he had no faculty to spare. But among Tom's contem-
poraries, whose fathers cast their sons on clerical instruction
to find them ignorant after many days, there were many far
less lucky than Tom Tulliver. Education was almost entirely
a matter of luck — usually of ill luck — in those distant days.
The state of mind in which you take a billiard-cue or a dice-
box in your hand is one of sober certainty compared with that
of old-fashioned fathers, like Mr. Tulliver, vv^hen they selected
a school or a tutor for their sons. Excellent men, who had
been forced all their lives to spell on an impromptu-phonetic
system, and having carried on a successful business in spite of
this disadvantage, had acquired money enough to give their
sons a better start in life than they had had themselves, must
necessarily take their chance as to the conscience and the com-
petence of the schoolmaster whose circular fell in their way,
and appeared to promise so much more than they would ever
have thought of asking for, including the return of linen, fork,
and spoon. It was happy for them if some ambitious draper
of their acquaintance had not brought up his son to the
Church, and if that young gentleman, at the age of four-and-
twenty, had not closed his college dissipations by an impru-
dent marriage : otherwise, these innocent fathers, desirous of
doing the best for their offspring, could only escape the drar
per's son by happening to be on the foundation of a grammar-
school as yet unvisited by commissioners, where two or
three boys could have, all to themselves, the advantages of a
large and lofty building, together with a head-master, tooth
less, dim-eyed, and deaf, whose erudite indistinctness and
inattention were engrossed by them at the rate of three hun-
dred 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,
SCHOOL-TIME 181
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
en3oying 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 incom-
petent gentlemen must live, and without private fortune it is
difficult to see how they could all live genteelly if they had
nothing to do witb educatiou or government. Besides, it was
the fault of Tom's mental constitution that his faculties could
not be nourished on the sort of knowledge Mr, Stelling had
to communicate. A boy born with a deficient power of 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 duiness of a boy who was merely
living at the time then present. And Mr. Stelling was con-
vinced that a boy so stupid at signs and abstractions must be
stupid at everything else, even if that reverend gentleman
could have taught him everything else. It was the practice
of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenious instrument
the thumb-screw, and to tighten and tighten it in order to
elicit non-existent facts ; they had a fixed opinion to begin
with, that the facts were existent, and what had they to do
but to tighten the thumb-screw ? In like manner, Mr Stell
ing had a fixed opinion that all boys with any capacity could
learn what it was the only regular thing to teach . if they
were slow, the thumb-screw must be tightened — the exercises
must be insisted on with increased severity, and a page of
Virgil be awarded as a penalty, to encourage and stimulate a
too languid inclination to Latin verse.
The thumb-screw was a little relaxed, however, during this
second half-year. Philip was so advanced in his studies, and
so apt, that Mr. Stelling could obtain credit by his facility,
which required little help, much more easily than by the
troublesome process of overcoming Tom's duiness. Gentle-
men with broad chests and ambitious intentions do sometimes
182 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
disappoint their friends by failing to carry tlie 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 divincB particulum 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 Avith much resolu-
tion, sat down to one of Theodore Hook's novels. Tom was
gradually allowed to shuffle through his lessons with less
rigor, and having Philip to help him, he was able to make
some show of having applied his mind in a confused and
blundering way, without being cross-examined into a betrayal
that his mind had been entirely neutral in the matter. He
thought school much more bearable under this modiiieation 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 m the effort to
learn by rote.
Nevertheless, there was a visible improvement in Tom under
this training ; perhaps because he was not a boy in the abstract,
existing solely to illustrate the evils of a mistaken education,
but a boy made of flesh and blood, with dispositions not en-
tirely 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,
ikOt from age, but from the extreme perversity of the King's
SCHOOL-TIME. 183
Lorton boys, which nothing but gin could enable him to sus-
tain with any firmness. Still, he carried himself with martial
erectness, had his clothes scrupulously brushed, and his trou-
sers tightly strapped; and on the Wednesday and Saturday
afternoons, when he came to Tom, he was always inspired
with gin and old memories, which gave him an exceptionally
spirited air, as of a superannuated charger who hears the drum.
The drilling-lessons were always protracted by episodes of
warlike narrative, much more interesting to Tom than Philip's
stories out of the ' Iliad ; ' for there were no cannon in the
'^ Iliad,' and besides, Tom had felt some disgust on learning
that Hector and Achilles might possibly never have existed.
But the Duke of Wellington was really alive, and Bony had
not been long dead — therefore Mr. Poulter's reminiscences of
the Peninsular War were removed from all suspicion of being
mythical. Mr. Poulter, it appeared, had been a conspicuous
figure at Talavera, and had contributed not a little to t/ie pe-
culiar 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 Wel-
lington had (in strict privacy, lest jealousies should be awak-
ened) 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 of Badajos, then ! Tom
did not escape irritating his drilling-master occasionally, by his
curiosity concerning other militaxy matters than Mr. Poulter's
pevsonai experience.
184 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" And General Wolfe, Mr. Poulter ? was n't he a wonderful
fighter ? " said Tom, who held the notion that all the martial
heroes commemorated on the public-house signs were engaged
in the war with Bony.
" Not at all ! " said Mr. Poulter, contemptuously. " 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
a fellow like General Wolfe."
" Mr. Poulter," Tom would say, at any allusion to the sword,
" I wish you 'd bring your sword and do the sword-exercise ! "
For a long while Mr. Poulter only shook his head in a sig-
nificant manner at this reqiiest, and smiled patronizingly, as
Jupiter may have done when Semele urged her too ambitious
request. But one afternoon, when a sudden shower of heavy
rain had detained Mr. Poulter twenty minutes longer than
usual at the Black Swan, the sword was brought — just for
Tom to look at.
" And this is the real sword you fought with in all the bat-
tles, Mr. Poulter?" said Tom, handling the hilt. "Has it
ever cut a Frenchman's head off ? "
" Head off ? Ah ! and would, if he 'd had three heads."
" But you had a gun and bayonet besides ? " said Tom. *' 1
should like the gun and bayonet best, because you could shoot
'em first and spear 'em after. Bang ! Ps-s-s-s ! " Tom gave
the requisite pantomime to indicate the double enjoyment of
pulling the trigger and thrusting the spear.
"Ah, but the sword's the thing when you come to close
fighting," said Mr. Poulter, involuntarily falling in with Tom's
enthusiasm, and drawing the sword so suddenly that Tom
leaped back with much agility.
" Oh but, Mr. Poulter, if you 're going to do the exercise,"
said Tom, a little conscious that he had not stood his ground
SCHOOL-TIME. 185
as became an Englishman, '• let me go and call Philip. He '11
like to see you, you know."
" What ! the humpbacked lad ? " said Mr. Poulter, contempt-
uously. " What 's the use of his looking on ? "
" Oh, but he knows a great deal about fighting," said Tom,
"and how they used to fight with bows and arrows, and
battle-axes."
" Let him come then. I '11 show him sometliing different
from his bows and arrows," said Mr. Poulter, coughing, and
drawing himself up, while he gave a little preliminary play to
his wrist.
Tom ran in to Philip, who was enjoying his afternoon's
holiday at the piano, in the drawing-room, picking out tunes
for himself and singing them. He was supremely happy,
perched like an amorphous bundle on the high stool, with his
head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the opposite cornice, and
his lips wide open, sending forth, with all his might, 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 ; and Tom, in the hurry of seizing something to say to
prevent Mr. Poulter from thinking he was afraid of the sword
when he sprang away from it, had alighted on this proposition
to fetch Philip — though he knew well enough that Philip
hated to hear him mention his drilling-lessons. Tom would
never have done so inconsiderate a thing except under the
severe stress of his personal pride.
Philip shuddered visibly as he paused from his music.
Then turning red, he said, with violent passion —
"Get away, yoii lumbering idiot! Don't come bellowing
at me — you're not fi^t to speak to anything but a cait-
horse ! "
186
THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
It was not the first time Philip had been made angry by
him, but Tom had never before been assailed with verbal
missiles that he understood so well.
" I 'm fit to speak to something better than you — you poor-
spirited imp ! " said Tom, lighting up immediately at Philip's
fire. ''You know I won't hit you, because you're no better
than a girl. But I 'm an honest man's son, and your father 's
a rogue — everybody says so ! "
Tom flung out of the room, and slammed the door after
him, made strangely heedless by his anger ; for to slam doors
within the hearing of Mrs. Stelling, who was probably not far
off, was an offence only to be wiped out by twenty lines of
Virgil. In fact, that lady did presently descend from her
room, in double wonder at the noise and the subsequent cessa
tion of Philip's music. She found him sitting in a heap on
the hassock, and crying bitterly.
" What 's the matter, Wakem ? What was that noise
about ? Who slammed the door ? "
Philip looked up, and hastily dried his eyes. " It was Tul-
liver who came in . . . to ask me to go out with him."
" And what are you in trouble about ? " said Mrs. Stelling.
Philip was not her favorite of the two pupils ; he was less
obliging than Tom, who was made useful in many ways. Still
his father paid more than Mr. Tulliver did, and she meant him
to feel that she behaved exceeding^ well to him. Philip, how-
ever, met her advances towards a good understanding very
much as a caressed mollusc meets an invitation to show him-
self out of his shell. Mrs. Stelling was not a loving, tender-
hearted woman : she was a woman whose skirt sat well, who
adjusted her waist and patted her curls with a preoccupied
air when she inquired after your welfare. These things,
doubtless, represent a great social power, but it is not the
power of love -— and no other power could win Philip from
his personal reserve.
He said, in answer to her question, " My toothache came
on, and made me hysterical again."
This had been the fact once, and Philip was glad of the
recollection — it was like an inspiration to enable him to
SCHOOL-TIME. 187
excuse his crying. He had to accept eau-de-Cologne, and to
refuse creosote in consequence ; but that was easy.
Meanwhile Tom, who had for the first time sent a poisoned
arrow into Philip's heart, had returned to the carriage-house,
where he found Mr. Poulter, with a fixed and earnest eye,
wasting the perfections of his sword-exercise on probably
observant but inappreciative rats. But Mr. Poulter was a
host in himself ; that is to say, he admired himself more than
a whole army of spectators could have admired him. He took
no notice of Tom's return, being too entirely absorbed in the
cut and thrust — the solemn one, two, three, four; and Tom,
not without a slight feeling of alarm at Mr. Poulters fixed
eye and hungry-looking sword, which seemed impatient for
something else to cut besides the air, admired the performance
from as great a distance as possible. It was not until Mr-
Poulter paused and wiped the perspiration from his forehead,
that Tom felt the full charm of the sword-exercise, and
wished it to be repeated.
"Mr. Poulter," said Tom, when the sword was being finally
sheathed, " I wish you 'd lend me your sword a little while to
keep."
"No, no, young gentleman," said Mr. Poulter, shaking his
head decidedly, "you might do yourself some mischief with it."
" No, I 'm sure I would n't — I 'm sure I 'd take care and
not hurt myself. I should n'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."
188 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
*'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 conscientious-
ness, and said, "Well, now, Master Tulliver, if I take the
crown-piece, it is to make sure as you '11 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 up-stairs 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
closet behind some hanging clothes. That night he fell asleep
in the thought that he would astonish Maggie with it when
she came — tie it round his waist with his red comforter, and
make her believe that the sword was his own, and that he was
going to be a soldier. There was nobody but Maggie who
would be silly enough to believe him, or whom he dared allow
to know that 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 not have been so child-
ish, you must be an exceptionally wise man, who, although
you are devoted to a civil calling, requiring you to look bland
rather than formidable, yet never, since you had a beard, threw
yourself into a martial attitude, and frowned before the looking-
glass. It is doubtful whether our soldiers would be maintained
if there were not pacific people at home who like to fancy
themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic spectacles,
might possibly cease for want of a " public."
SCHOOL-TIME. 189
CHAPTER V.
Maggie's second visit.
This last breach between the two lads was not readily
mended, and for some time they spoke to each other no more
than was necessary. Their natural antipathy of temperament
made resentment an easy passage to hatred, and in Philip the
transition seemed to have begun : there was no malignity in
his disposition, but there was a susceptibility that made him
peculiarly liable to a strong sense of repulsion. The ox — we
may venture to assert it on the authority of a great classic —
is not given to use his teeth as an instrument of attack ; and
Tom was an excellent bovine lad, who ran at questionable ob-
jects in a truly ingenious bovine manner : but he had blundered
on Philip's tenderest point, and had caused him as much acute
pain as if he had studied the means with the nicest precision
and the most envenomed spite. Tom saw no reason why they
should not make up this quarrel as they had done many others,
by behaving as if nothing had happened ; for though he had
never before said to Philip that his father was a rogue, this
idea had so habitually made part of his feeling as to the rela-
tion between himself and his dubious schoolfellow, whom he
could neither like nor dislike, that the mere utterance did not
make such an epoch to him as it did to Philip. And he had a
right to say so when Philip hectored over him, and called him
names. But perceiving that his first advances towards amity
were not met, he relapsed into his least favorable disposition
towards 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 Avith 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.
100 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
She had arrived in the middle of school-hours, and had sat by
while Philip went through his lessons with Mr. Stelling. Tom,
some weeks ago, had sent her word that Philip knew no end
of stories — not stupid stories like hers ; and she was con-
vinced 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 ten-
derness for deformed things ; she preferred the wry-necked
lambs, because it seemed to her that the lambs which were
quite strong and well made would n't mind so much about be-
ing petted ; and she was especially fond of petting objects that
would think it very delightful to be petted by her. She loved
Tom very dearly, but she often wished that he cared more about
her loving him.
" I think Philip Wakem seems a nice boy, Tom," she said,
when they went out of the study together into the garden, to
pass the interval before dinner. " He could n't choose his
father, you know; and I've read of very bad men who had
good sons, as well as good parents who had bad children. And
if Philip is good, I think we ought to be the more sorry for
him because his father is not a good man. You like him, don't
you ? "
" Oh, he 's a queer fellow," said Tom, curtly, " and he 's as
sulky as can be with me, because I told him his father was a
rogue. And I 'd a right to tell him so, for it was true — and
he began it, with calling me names. But you stop here by
yourself a bit, Magsie, will you ? I 've got something I want
to do iip-stairs."
" Can't I go too ? " said INIaggie, who in this first day of
meeting again, loved Tom's shadow.
"No, it's something I '11 tell you about by-and-by, not yet,"
said Tom, skipping away.
In the afternoon the boys were at their books in the study,
preparing the morrow's 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 paternos-
ters ; and Philip, at the other end of the room, was busy with
SCHOOL-TIME. 191
two volumes, with a look of contented diligence that excited
Maggie's curiosity ; he did not look at all as if he were learn-
ing 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 towards the fireplace, caught
the pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon him. He thought
this sister of TuUiver's seemed a nice little thing, quite unlike
her brother ; ht* wished he had a little sister. What was it, he
wondered, that made Maggie's dark eyes remind him of the
stories about princesses being turned into animals ? . . . I
think it was that her eyes were full of unsatisfied intelligence,
and unsatisfied, beseeching affection.
"I say, Magsie," said Tom at last, shutting his books and
putting them away with the energy and decision of a perfect
master in the art of leaving off, " I 've done my lessons now.
Come up-stairs with me."
" What is it ? " said Maggie, when they were outside the
door, a slight suspicion crossing her mind as she remembered
Tom's preliminary visit up-stairs. " It is n't a trick you 're
going to play me, now ? "
" No, no, Maggie," said Tom, in his most coaxing tone ; " it 's
something you'll like ever so J'
He put his arm round her neck, and she put hers round his
waist, anil, twined together in this way, they went up-stairs.
" I say, Magsie, you must not tell anybody, you know," said
Tom, " else I shall get fifty lines."
" Is it alive ? " said Maggie, whose imagination had settled for
the moment on the idea that Tom kept a ferret clandestinely.
" Ob, I shan't tell you," said he. " Now you go into that
corner and hide your face, while I reach it out," he added, as
he locked the bedroom door behind them. " I '11 tell you when
to turn round. You must n'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 shan't peep," said Maggie, disdainfully ; and she
buried her face in the pillow like a person of strict honor.
192 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 princi-
ple, for in that dream-suggestive attitude she had soon forgot-
ten 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
figure as he did to Maggie when she looked up. Dissatisfied
with the pacific aspect of a face which had no more than the
faintest hint of flaxen eyebrow, together with a pair of amiable
blue-gray eyes and round pink cheeks that refused to look for-
midable, let him frown as he would before the looking-glass —
(Philip had once told him of a man who had a horse-shoe
frown, and Tom had tried with all his frowning-might to
make a horse-shoe 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 satisfac
tory manner over his nose, and were matched by a less care-
fully 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, with the tremendous frown on his brow,
and the decision with which he grasped the sword, as he
held it with its point resting on the ground, would suffice to
convey an approximative idea of his fierce and bloodthirsty
disposition.
Maggie looked bewildered for a moment, and Tom enjoyed
that moment keenly ; but in the next she laughed, clapped
her hands together, and said, " Oh, Tom, you 've made yourself
like Bluebeard at the show."
It was clear she had not been struck with the presence of
the sword — it was not unsheathed. Her frivolous mind 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 (carefully) drew
the sword from its sheath, and pointed it at Maggie.
SCHOOL-TIME. 193
" Oh, Tom, please don't," exclaimed Maggie, iu a tone of
suppressed dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite
Isomer. " I shall scream — I 'm sure I shall ! Oh, don't ! I
wish I'd never come up-stairs ! "
The corners of Tom's mouth showed an inclination to a smile
of complacenc}' that was immediately checked as inconsistent
with the severity of a great warrior. Slowly he let down the
scabbard on the floor, lest it should make too much noise, and
then said, sternly —
" I 'm the Duke of Wellington ! March ! " stamping forward
with the right leg a little bent, and the sword still pointing
towards Maggie, who, trembling, and with tear-filled eyes,
got upon the bed, as the only means of widening the space
between them.
Tom, happy in this spectator of his military performances,
even though the spectator was only Maggie, proceeded, with
the utmost exertion of his force, to such an exhibition of the
cut and thrust as would necessarily be expected of the Duke
of Wellington.
" Tom, I will not bear it — I will scream," said Maggie, at
the first movement of the sword. " You '11 hurt yourself ;
you '11 cut your head off ! "
" One — two," said Tom, resolutely, though at " two " his
wrist trembled a little. " Three " came more slowly, and
with it the sword swung downwards, and ]\raggie gave a loud
shriek. The sword had fallen, with its edge on Tom's foot,
and in a moment after he had fallen too. Maggie leaped from
the bed, still shrieking, and immediately there was a rush of
footsteps towards the room. Mr. Stelling, from his up-stairs
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 had opened his eyes : she
could n't sorrow yet that he had hurt his foot — it seemed as
if all happiness lay in his being alive.
TOL. II. 13
194 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 " — 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 bed-
side, the children sobbed together with their heads laid on the
same pillow. Tom was thinking of himself walking about on
crutches, like the wheelwright's son ; and Maggie, who did
not guess what was in his mind, sobbed for company. It had
not occurred to the surgeon or to Mr. Stelling to anticipate
this dread in Tom's mind, and to reassure him by hopeful
words. But Philip watched the surgeon out of the house,
and waylaid Mr. Stelling to ask the very question that Tom
had not dared to ask for himself.
" I beg your pardon, sir, — but does Mr. Askern say Tulliver
will be lame ? "
" Oh no, oh no," said Mr. Stelling, " not permanently, only
for a little while."
*' Did he tell Tulliver so, sir, do you think ? "
" No : nothing was said to him on the subject."
" Then may I go and tell him, sir ? "
" Yes, to be sure : now you mention it, I dare say he may
be troubling about that. Go to his bedroom, but be very
quiet at present."
It had been Philip's first thought when he heard of the
accident — " Will Tulliver be lame ? It will be very hard for
him if he is" — and Tom's hitherto unforgiven offences were
washed out by that pity. I'hilip felt that they were no longer
SCHOOL-TIME. 195
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 '11 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, feeling
very brave now. " I shall soon get well."
" Good-by, Tulliver," said Philip, putting out his small,
delicate hand, which Tom clasped immediately with his more
substantial fingers.
" I say," said Tom, " ask Mr. Stelling to let you come and
sit with me sometimes, till I get up again, Wakem — and tell
me about Robert Bruce, you know."
After that, Philip spent all his time out of school-hours
with Tom and Maggie. Tom liked to hear fighting stories as
much as ever, but he insisted strongly on the fact that those
great fighters, who did so many wonderful things and came
off unhurt, wore excellent armor from head to foot, which
made fighting easy work, he considered. He should not have
hurt his foot if he had had an iron shoe on. He listened with
great interest to a new story of Philip's about a man who had
a very bad wound in his foot, and cried out so dreadfully with
the pain that his friends could, bear with him no longer, but
196 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
put him ashore ou a desert island, with nothing but some
wonderful poisoned arrows to kill animals with for food.
" I did n'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 Phi-
loctetes had a sister, and why she did n't go with him on the
desert island and take care of him.
One day, soon after Philip had told this story, he and
Maggie were in the study alone together while Tom's foot was
being dressed. Philip was at his books, and Maggie, after
sauntering idly round the room, not caring to do anything in
particular, because she would soon go to Tom again, went and
leaned on the table near Philip to see what he was doing, for
they were quite old friends now, and perfectly at home with
each other.
" What are you reading about in Greek ? " she said. " It 's
poetry — I can see that, because the lines are so short."
"It's about Philoctetes — the lame man I was telling you
of yesterday," he answered, resting his head on his hand,
and looking at her, as if he were not at all sorry to be inter-
rupted. Maggie, in her absent way, continued to lean for-
ward, resting on her arms and moving her feet about, while
her dark eyes got more and more fixed and vacant, as if she
had quite forgotten Philip and his book.
" Maggie," said Philip, after a minute or two, still leaning
on his elbow and looking at her, " if you had had a brother
like me, do you think you should have loved him as well as
Tom ? "
Maggie started a little on being roused from her reverie,
and said, " What ? " Philip repeated his question.
"Oh yes, better," she answered, immodiatoly. "No, not
better; because I don't think T cou/d lov(; you better than
Tom. But I should be so sorry — su sorry for yuu."
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,
SCHOOL-TIME. 197
young as sLe was, felt her mistake. Hitherto she had in-
stinctively behaved as if she were quite unconscious of
Philip's deformity : her own keen sensitiveness and experi-
ence under family criticism sufficed to teach her this as well
as if she had beeu 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 '11 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 '11 hardly take any notice of me."
"Oh no, I shan't forget you, I 'm sure," said Maggie, shak-
ing 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 '11 die. Only don't you tell Tom, because it will vex
him so. You never saw Yap: he's a queer little dog — no-
body cares about him but Tom and me."
"Do you care as much about me as you do about Yap,
Maggie ? " said Philip, smiling rather sadly.
" Oh yes, I should think so," said Maggie, laughing.
" I 'm very fond of you, Maggie ; I shall never forget yon"
said Philip, " and when I 'm very unhappy, I shall always think
of you, and wish I had a sister with dark eyes, just like yours."
"Why do you like my eyes?" said Maggie, well pleased.
She had never heard any one but her father speak of her eyes
as if they had merit.
"I don't know," said Philip. "They're not like any other
eyes. They seem trying to speak — trying to speak kindly.
I don't like other people to look at me much, but I like you to
look at me, Maggie."
"Why, I think you're fonder of mo than Tom is," said
Maggie, rather sorrowfully. Then, wondering how she could
convince Philip that she could like him just as well, although
he was crooked, she said —
198 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
*' Should you like me to kiss you, as I do Tom. I will, if
you like."
"Yes, very much : nobody kisses me."
Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite
earnestly.
" There now," she said, " I shall always remember you, and
kiss you when I see you again, if it 's ever so long. But I '11
go now, because I think Mr. Askern 's done with Tom's foot."
When their father came the second time, Maggie said to
him, " Oh, father, Philip Wakem is so very good to Tom —
he is such a clever boy, and I do love him. And you love
him too, Tom, don't you ? Say you love him," she added,
entreatingly.
Tom colored a little as he looked at his father, and said, " I
shan'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 creatur, 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 tAVO 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 by-and-by began to walk
about as usual, the friendly warmth that had been kindled by
pity and gratitude died out by degrees, and left them in their
old relation to each other. Philip was often peevish and
contemptuous ; and Tom's more specific and kindly impres-
sions gradually melted into the old background of suspicion
and dislike towards him as a queer fellow, a humpback, and
the son of a rogue. If boys and men are to be welded to-
gether in the glow of transient feeling, they must be made of
metal that wiU mix, else they inevitably fall asunder when
the heat dies out.
SCHOOL-TIME. 199
CHAPTEE VII.
THE GOLDEN GATES ARE PASSED.
So Tom went on even to the fifth half-year — till he waa
turned sixteen — at King's Lorton, while Maggie was growing
with a rapidity which her aunts considered highly reprehen-
sible, at Miss Firniss's boarding-school in the ancient town of
Laceham on the Floss, with cousin Lucy for her companion.
In her early letters to Tom she had always sent her love to
Philip, and asked many questions about him, which were
answered by brief sentences about Tom's toothache, and a
turf-house which he was helping to build in the garden, with
other items of that kind. She was pained to hear Tom say in
the holidays that Philip was as queer as ever again, and often
cross : they were no longer very good friends, she perceived ;
and when she reminded Tom that he ought always to love
Philip for being so good to him when his foot was bad, he
answered, " Well, it is n't my fault : I don't do anything to
him." She hardly ever saw Philip during the remainder of
their school-life ; in the Midsummer holidays he was always
away at the seaside, and at Christmas she could only meet
him at long intervals in the 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 promises of cur childhood; void as promises
made in Eden before the seasons were divided, and when the
starry blossoms grew side by side with the ripening peach —
impossible to be fulfilled when the golden gates had been
passed.
But when their father was actually engaged in the long-
threatened lawsuit, and Wakem, as the agent at once of
Pivart and Old Harry, was acting against him, even Maggie
felt, with some sadness, that they were not likely ever to have
200 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
any intimacy with Philip again ; the very name of Wakem
made her father angry, and she had once heard him say, that
if that crook-backed son lived to inherit his father's ill-gotten
gains, there would be a curse upon him. " Have as little to
do with him at school as you can, my lad," he said to Tom ;
and the command was obeyed the more easily because Mr.
Stelling by this time had two additional pupils ; for though
this gentleman's rise in the world was not of that meteor-like
rapidity which the admirers of his extemporaneous eloquence
had expected for a preacher whose voice demanded so wide a
sphere, he had yet enough of growing prosperity to enable
him to increase his expenditure in continued disproportion to
his income.
As for Tom's school course, it went on with mill-like monot-
ony, his mind continuing to move with a slow, half-stifled
pulse in a medium of uninteresting or unintelligible ideas.
But each vacation he brought home larger and larger drawings
with the satiny rendering of landscape, and water-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 ear and tongue had become
accustomed to a great many words and phrases which are
understood to be signs of an educated condition ; and though
he had never really applied his mind to any one of his lessons,
the lessons had left a deposit of vague, fragmentary, ineffect-
ual notions. Mr. Tulliver, seeing signs of acquirement beyond
the reach of his own criticism, thought it was probably all
right with Tom's education : he observed, indeed, that there
were no maps, and not enough " summing ; " but he made no
formnl complaint to Mr. Stelliug. It was a puzzling business,
this schooling; and if he took Tom away, where could he send
him with better effect ?
By the time Tom had reached his last quarter at King's
Lorton, the years had made striking changes in him since the
SCHOOL-TIME. 201
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
bicoming symptom of blended diffidence and pride : he wore
his tail-coat and his stand-up collars, and watched the down
on his lip with eager impatience, looking every day at his
virgin razor, with which he had provided himself in the last
holidays. Philip had already left — at the autumn quarter —
that he might go to the south for the winter, for the sake of
his health ; and this change helped to give Tom the unsettled,
exultant feeling that usually belongs to the last months before
leaving school. This quarter, too, there was some hope of his
father's lawsuit being decided : that made the prospect of
home more entirely pleasurable. For Tom, who had gathered
his view of the case from his father's conversation, had no
doubt that Pivart would be beaten.
Tom had not heard anything from home for some weeks —
a fact which did not surprise him, for his father and mother
were not apt to manifest their affection in unnecessary letters
— when, to his great surprise, on the morning of a dark cold
day near the end of November, he was told, soon after entering
the study at nine o'clock, that his sister was in the drawing-
room. It was Mrs. Stelling who had come into the study to
tell him, and she left him to enter the drawing-room alone.
Maggie, too, was tall now, with braided and coiled hair : she
was almost as tall as Tom, though she was only thirteen ; and
she really looked older than he did at that moment. She had
thrown ofE 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 towards the door. When Tom entered she did not
speak, but only went up to him, put her arms round his neck,
and kissed him earnestly. He was used to various moods of
hers, and felt no alarm at the unusual seriousness of her
greeting.
" Why, how is it you 're come so early this cold morning,
Maggie ? Did you come in the gig ? " said Tom, as she backed
towards the sofa, and drew him to her side.
202 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"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 came home three or four days
ago."
"Isn't my father well?" said Tom, rather anxiously.
" Not quite," said Maggie. "• He 's very unhappy, Tom.
The lawsuit is ended, and I came to tell you because I thought
it would be better for you to know it before you came home,
and I did n't like only to send you a letter."
" My father has n't lost ? " said Tom, hastily, springing from
the 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 translating
the loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results.
"But my father's very much vexed, I dare say ? " he added,
looking at Maggie, and thinking that her agitated face was
only part of her girlish way of taking things.
"Yes," said Maggie, again faintly. Then, urged to fuller
speech by Tom's freedom from apprehension, she said loudly
and rapidly, as if the words would burst from her, " Oh, Tom,
he will lose the mill and the land, and everything} he will
have nothing left."
Tom's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her, before
he turned pale, and trembled visibly. He said nothing, but
sat down on the sofa again, looking vaguely out of the opposite
window.
Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom's mind.
His father had always ridden a good horse, kept a good house,
and had the cheerful, confident air of a man who has plenty of
SCHOOL-TIME. 203
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
\vas 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 who
made a show without money to support it, and he had always
heard such people spoken of by his own friends with contempt
and reprobation. He had a strong belief, which was a lifelong
habit, and required no definite evidence to rest on, that his
father could spend a great deal of money if he chose; and
since his education at Mr. Stelling's had given him a more 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 dis-
agreeable 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 well."
Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her entreating kisses,
and there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed
away with his hand. The action seemed to rouse him.
204 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
for he shook himself and said, "I shall go home with you,
Maggie. Did n't my father say I was to go ? "
" No, Tom, father did n't wish it," said Maggie, her anxiety
about his feeling helping her to master her agitation. What
would he do when she told him all ? " But mother wants you
to come — poor mother ! — she cries so. Oh, Tom, it 's very
dreadful at home."
Maggie's lips grew whiter, and she began to tremble almost
as Tom had done. The two poor things clung closer to each
other — both trembling — the one at an unshapen fear, the
other at the image of a terrible certainty. When Maggie
spoke, it was hardly above a whisper.
" And . . . and . . . poor father — "
Maggie could not utter it. But the suspense was intolerable
to Tom. A vague idea of going to prison, as a consequence of
debt, was the shape his fears had begun to take.
" Where 's my father ? " he said, impatiently. " Tell me,
Maggie."
" He 's at home," said Maggie, finding it easier to reply to
that question. " But," she added, after a pause, " not himself.
. . . He fell off his horse. . . , He has known nobody but me
ever since. . . . He seems to have lost his senses. . . . Oh,
father, father — "
With these last words, Maggie's sobs burst forth with the
more violence for the previous struggle against them. Tom
felt that pressure of the heart which forbids tears : he had no
distinct vision of their troubles as Maggie had, who had been
at home ; he only felt the crushing weight of what seemed 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 — father will
miss me — we must be at the turnpike at ten to meet the
coach." She said this with hasty decision, rubbing her eyes,
and rising to seize her bonnet.
SCHOOL-TIME. 205
Tom at once felt the same impulse, and rose too. " Wait
a minute, Maggie," he said. ^' I must speak to Mr. Stelling,
and then we '11 go."
He thought he must go to the study where the pupils were,
but on his way he met Mr. Stelling, who had heard from his
wife that Maggie appeared to be in trouble when she asked for
her brother ; and, now that he thought the brother and sister
had been alone long enough, was coming to inquire and offer
his sympathy.
"Please, sir, I must go home," Tom said, abruptly, as he
met Mr. Stelling in the passage. '' I must go back with my
sister directly. My father's lost his lawsuit — he's lost all
his property — and he's very ill."
Mr. Stelling felt like a kind-hearted man ; he foresaw a
probable money loss for himself, but this had no appreciable
share in his feeling, while he looked with grave pity at the
brother and sister for whom youth and sorrow had begun
together. When he knew how Maggie had come, and how
eager she was to get home again, he hurried their departure,
only whispering something to Mrs. Stelling, who had followed
him, and who immediately left the room.
Tom and Maggie were standing on the door-step, ready to
set out, when Mrs. Stelling came with a little basket, which
she hung on Maggie's arm, saying, " Do remember to eat some-
thing on the way, dear." Maggie's heart went out towards
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 ! " And now his school years seemed
like a holiday that had come to an end.
206 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on
the distant road — were soon lost behind the projecting
hedgerow.
They had gone forth together into their new life of sorrow,
and they would nevermore see the sunshine undimmed by
remembered cares. They had entered the thorny wilderness,
and the golden gates of their childhood had forever cl<?<ied
behind them.
BOOK III.
THE DOWNFALL.
CHAPTER I.
WHAT HAD HAPPENED AT HOME.
When Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the lawsuit was
decided against him, and that Pivart and Wakem were trium-
phant, 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 obsti-
nacy and defiance of his nature, driven out of their old chan-
nel, found a vent for themselves in the immediate formation of
plans by which he would meet his difficulties, and remain Mr.
Tulliver of Dorlcote Mill in spite of them. There was such a
rush of projects in his brain, that it was no wonder his face
was flushed when he came away from his talk with his attor-
ney, Mr. Gore, and mounted his horse to ride home from
Lindum. There was Furley, who held the mortgage on the
land — a reasonable fellow, who would see his own interest,
Mr. Tulliver was convinced, and who would be glad not only
to purchase the whole estate, including the mill and home-
stead, but would accept Mr. Tulliver as tenant, and be willing
to advance money to be repaid with high interest out of the
208 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
profits of the business, which would be made over to him, Mr.
Tulliver only taking enough barely to maintain himself and
his family. Who would neglect such a profitable investment ?
Certainly not Furley, for Mr, Tulliver Lad determined that
Furley should meet his plans with the utmost alacrity ; and
there are men whose brains have not yet been dangerously
heated by the loss of a lawsuit, who are apt to see in their own
interest or desires a motive for other men's actions. There
was no doubt (in the miller's mind) that Furley would do just
what was desirable ; and if he did — why, things v/ould not be
so very much worse. Mr. Tulliver and his family must live
more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be till the
profits of the business had paid off Furley's advances, and that
might be while Mr. Tulliver had still a good many years of
life before him. It was clear that the costs of the suit could
be paid without his being obliged to turn out of his old place,
and look like a ruined man. It was certainly an awkward
moment in his affairs. There was that suretyship for poor
Riley, who had died suddenly last April, and left his friend
saddled with a debt of two hundred and fifty pounds — a fact
which had helped to make Mr, Tulliver's banking book less
pleasant reading than a man might desire towards Christmas.
Well ! he had never been one of those poor-spirited sneaks
who would refuse to give a helping hand to a fellow-traveller
in this puzzling world. The really vexatious business was the
fact that some months ago the creditor who had lent him the
five hundred pounds to repay Mrs. Glegg, had become uneasy
about his money (set on by Wakem, of course), and Mr. Tulliver,
still confident that he should gain his suit, and finding it emi-
nently inconvenient to raise the said sum until that desii'able
issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the demand that
he should give a bill of sale on his household furniture, and
some other effects, as security in lieu of the bond. It was all
one, he had said to himself : he should soon pay off the money,
and there was no harm in giving that security any more than
another. But now the consequences of this bill of sale oc-
curred to him in a new light, and he remembered that the lime
vas close at hand, when it would be enforced unless the money
THE DOWNFALL. 209
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 nothiug but right
and natural that Bessy should go to the Pullets and explain
the thing to them : they would hardly let Bessy's furniture be
sold, and it might be security to Pullet if he advanced the
money — there would, after all, be no gift or favor in the mat-
ter. 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 them-
selves in this sudden manner : everything is easier to them
than to face the simple fact that they have been thoroughly
defeated, and must begin life anew. And Mr. Tulliver, you
perceive, though nothing more than a superior miller and
maltster, was as proud and obstinate as if he had been a very
lofty personage, in whom such dispositions might be a source
of that conspicuous, far-echoing tragedy, which sweeps the
stage in regal robes, and makes the dullest chronicler sublime.
The pride and obstinacy of millers, and other insignificant
people, whom you pass unnoticingly on the road every day,
have their tragedy too ; but it is of that unwept, hidden sort,
that goes on from generation to generation, and leaves no
record — such tragedy, perhaps, as lies in the conflicts of young
souls, hungry for joy, under a lot made suddenly hard to them,
under the dreariness of a home where the morning brings no
promise with it, and where the nnexpectant discontent of worn
and disappointed parents weighs on the children like a damp,
thick air, in which all the functions of life are depressed ; or
such tragedy as lies in the slow or sudden death that follows
on a bruised passion, though it may be a death that finds only
a parish funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity
of position is a law of life — they can never flourish again,
after a single wrench : and there are certain human beings to
whom predominance is a law of life — they can only sustain
humiliation so long as they can refuse to believe in it, and, iu
their own conception, predominate still.
TOL. H. 14
210 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Mr. TuUiver was still predominating in his own imagination
as he approached St. Ogg's, through which he had to pass on
his way homeward. But what was it that suggested to him,
as he saw the Laceham coach entering the town, to follow it
to the coach-office, and get the clerk there to write a letter,
requiring Maggie to come home the very next day ? Mr. Tul-
liver'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 mornin?.
There was a craving which he would not account for to him-
self, 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 posses-
sion 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 '11 see him to-morrow at eleven ; " and
he turned his horse.
The clerk;, struck with Mr. Tulliver's glistening excited
THE DOWNFALL. 211
glance, looked after him for a few moments, and then rode
away. The reading of a letter was not the affair of an instant
to Mr. Tulliver ; he took in the sense of a statement very
slowly through the medium of written or even printed char-
acters ; so he had put the letter in his pocket, thinking he
would open it in his arm-chair at home. But by-and-by it oc-
curred to him that there might be something in the letter Mrs.
Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to
keep it out of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse,
took out the letter, and read it. It was only a short letter ;
the substance was, that Mr. Gore had ascertained, on secret
but sure authority, that Furley had been lately much strait-
ened for money, and had parted with his securities — among
the rest, the mortgage on Mr. Tulliver's property, which he
had transferred to — Wakem.
In half an hour after this, Mr. Tulliver's own wagoner
found him lying by the roadside insensible, with an open
letter near him, and his gray horse snuffing uneasily about
him.
When Maggie reached home that evening, in obedience to her
father's call, he was no longer insensible. About an hour before,
he had become conscious, and after vague, vacant looks around
him, had muttered something about " a letter," which he pres-
ently 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 let-
ter, 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, ap-
pearing 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
212 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
backwards and forwards to the gate to see if the Laceham
coach were coming, though it was not yet time.
But it came at last, and set down the poor anxious girl, no
longer the " little wench," except to her father's fond memory.
" Oh mother, what is the matter ? " Maggie said, with pale
lips, as her mother came towards her crying. She didn't
think her father was ill, because the letter had come at his
dictation from the office at St. Ogg's.
But Mr. Turnbull came now to meet her : a medical man is
the good angel of the troubled house, and Maggie ran towards
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 hin) good to see you. Keep as quiet as
you can ; take off your things, and come up-stairs 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 towards the door when she entered and met the
strange, yearning, helpless look that had been seeking her in
vain. With a sudden flash and movement, he raised himself
in the bed — she rushed towards him, and clasped him with
agonized kisses.
Poor child ! it was very early for her to know one of those
supreme moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted
in, all we can dread or endure, falls away from our regard as
insignificant — is lost, like a trivial memory, in that simple,
primitive love which knits us to the beings who have been
nearest to us, in their times of helplessness or of anguish.
But that flash of recognition had been too great a strain on
the father's bruised, enfeebled powers. He sank back again
in renewed insensibility and rigidity, whicli 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
THE DOWNFALL. 213
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 genera]
family sense that a judgment had fallen on Mr. Tulliver,
which it would be an impiety to counteract by too much
kindness. But Maggie heard little of this, scarcely ever
leaving her father's bedside, where she sat opposite him
with her hand on his. Mrs. Tulliver wanted to have Tom
fetched home, and seemed to be thinking more of her boy even
than of her husband ; but the aunts and uncles opposed this.
Tom was better at school, since Mr. Turnbull said there was
no immediate danger, he believed. But at the end of the
second day, when Maggie had become more accustomed to
her father's fits of insensibility, and to the expectation that
he would revive from them, the thought of Tom had become
urgent with her too ; and when her mother sat 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 '11 go to-morrow morning if father does n'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 '11 make him feel for it when I 'm
a man. Mind you never speak to Pliiiip 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.
214 THE MILL UN THE FLOSS.
CHAPTER II.
MBS. TULLIVER's TERAPHIM, OR HOUSEHOLD GODS.
When the coach set clown Tom and Maggie, it was five
hours since she had started from home, and she was thinking
with some trembling that her father had perhaps missed her,
and asked for " the little wench " in vain. She thought of no
other change that might have happened.
She hurried along the gravel-walk and entered the house
before Tom ; but in the entrance she was startled by a strong
smell of tobacco. The parlor door was ajar — that was where
the smell came from. It was very strange : could any visitor
be smoking at a time like this ? Was her mother there ? If
so, she must be told that Tom was come. Maggie, after this
pause of surprise, was only in the act of opening the door
when Tom came up, and they both looked into the parlor to-
gether. There was a coarse, dingy man, of whose face Tom
had some vague recollection, sitting in his father's chair,
smoking, with a jug and glass beside him.
The truth flashed on Tom's mind in an instant. To •' have
the bailiff in the house," and " to be sold up," were phrases
which he had been used to, even as a little boy : they were
part of the disgrace and misery of " failing," of losing all one's
money, and being ruined — sinking into the condition of poor
working people. It seemed only natural this should happen,
since his father had lost all his property, and he thought of
no more special cause for this particular form of misfortune
than the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence of
this disgrace was so much keener an experience to Tom than
the worst form of apprehension, that he felt at this moment
as if his real trouble had only just 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.
THE DOWNFALL. 215
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 up-stairs,
checking herself at the bedroom door to throw off her bonnet,
and enter on tiptoe. All was silent there : her father was ly-
ing, heedless of everything around him, with his eyes closed
as when she had left him. A servant was there, but not her
mother.
" Where 's my mother ? " she whispered. The servant did
not know.
Maggie hastened out, and said to Tom, "Father is lying
quiet: let us go and look for my mother. I wonder where
she is."
Mrs. Tulliver was not down-stairs — not in any of the
bedrooms. There was but one room below the attic which
Maggie had left unsearched : it was the store-room, where her
mother kept all her linen and all the precious "best things"
that were only unwrapped and brought out on special occa-
sions. Tom, preceding Maggie as they returned along the
passage, opened the door of this room, and immediately said,
"Mother!"
Mrs. Tulliver was seated there with all her laid-up treasures.
One of the linen-chests was open : the silver teapot was un-
wrapped from its many folds of paper, and the best china
was laid out on the top of the closed linen-chest ; spoons and
skewers and ladles were spread in rows on the shelves ; and
the poor woman was shaking her head and weeping, with
a bitter tension of the mouth, over the mark, "Elizabeth
Dodson," on the corner of some table-cloths she held in
her lap.
She dropped them, and started up as Tom spoke.
"Oh, my boy, my boy ! " she said, clasping him round the neck.
"To think as I should live to see this day ! We're ruined . . .
everything 's going to be sold up ... to think as your father
should ha' married me to bring me to this ! We 've got
216 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
nothing ... we shall be beggars ... we must go to the
workhouse — "
She kissed him, then seated herself again, and took another
table-cloth on her lap, unfolding it a little way to look at
the pattern, while the children stood by in mute wretched-
ness — their minds quite filled for the moment with the words
" beggars " and '' workhouse."
" To think o' these cloths as I spun myself," she went on,
lifting things out and turning them over with an excitement
all the more strange and piteous because the stout blond
woman was usually so passive : if she had been ruffled before,
it was at the surface merely : '' and Job Haxey wove 'em, and
brought the piece home on his back, as I remember standing
at the door and seeing him come, before I ever thought o'
marrying your father! And the pattern as I chose myself —
and bleached so beautiful, and I ma,rked 'em so as nobody ever
saw such marking — they must cut the cloth to get it out, for
it 's a particular stitch. And they 're all to be sold — and go
into strange people's houses, and perhaps be cut with the
knives, anji wore out before I 'm dead. You '11 never have
one of 'em, my boy," she said, looking up at Tom with her
eyes full of tears, "and I meant 'em for you. I wanted you
to have all o' this pattern. Maggie could have had the large
check — it never shows so well when the dishes are on it."
Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry
reaction immediately. His face flushed as he said —
" But will my aunts let them be sold, mother ? Do they
know about it ? They '11 never let your linen go, will they ?
Have n'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 '11 buy the spotted cloths for her-
self, because she 's never had so many as she wanted o' that
pattern, and they shan't go to strangers, but she 's got more j
checks a'ready nor she can do with." (Here Mrs. Tulliver
began to lay back the table-cloths in the chest, folding and
stroking them automatically.) '' And your uncle Glegg 's been
THE DOWNFALL. 217
too, and he says things must be bought in for us to lie down
on, but he must talk to your aunt ; and they 're all coming to
consult. . . . But I know they '11 none of 'em take my chany,"
she added, turning towards 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 times and times, < Whativer you do,
don't go to law ' — and what more could I do ? I 've had to
sit by while my own fortin 's been spent, and what should ha'
been my children's, too. You '11 have niver a penny, my boy
. . . but it is n't your poor mother's fault."
She put out one arm towards 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 towards his father by the predisposition to think \\\m
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.
218 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Don't fret, mother/' he said, tenderly. " I shall soon be
able to get money : I '11 get a situation of some sort."
"Bless you, my boy!" said Mrs. Tulliver, a little soothed.
Then, looking round sadly, " But I should n't ha' minded so
much if we could ha' kept the things wi' my name on 'em."
Maggie had witnessed this scene witli 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 table-cloths and china ; and her anger on
her father's account was heightened by some egoistic resent-
ment at Tom's silent concurrence with her mother in shutting
her out from the common calamity. She had become almost
indifferent to her mother's habitual depreciation of her, but
she was keenly alive to any sanction of it, however passive,
that she might suspect in Tom. Poor Maggie was by no
means made up of unalloyed devotedness, but put forth large
claims for herself where she loved strongly. She burst out at
last in an agitated, almost violent tone, " Mother, how can
you talk so ? as if you cared only for things with your name
on, and not for what has my father's name too — and to care
about anything but dear father himself! — when he's lying
there, and may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to
say so too — you ought not to let any one find fault with my
father."
Maggie, almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left
the room, and took her old place on her father's bed. Her
heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever,
at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated
blame : she had been blamed all her life, and nothing had
come of it but evil tempers. Her father had always defended
and excused her, and her loving remembrance of his 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 DOWNFALL. 219
the slighter impressions of the previous hour. When Maggie
t;aw how he was moved, she went to him and put her arm
round liis neck as he sat by the bed, and the two children
forgot everything else in the sense that they had one father
and one sorrow.
CHAPTER III.
THE FAMILY COUNCIL.
It was at eleven o'clock the next morning that the aunts
and uncles came to hold their consultation. The fire was
lighted in the large parlor, and poor Mrs. Tulliver, with a
confused impression that it was a great occasion, like a fune-
ral, unbagged the bell-rope tassels, and unpinned the curtains,
adjusting them in proper folds — looking round and shaking
her head sadly at the polished tops and legs of the tables,
which sister Pullet herself could not accuse of insufficient
brightness.
Mr. Deane was not coming — he was away on business ; but
Mrs. Deane appeared punctually in that handsome new gig
with the head to it, and the livery-servant driving it, which
had thrown so clear a light on several traits in her character
to some of her female friends in St. Ogg's. Mr. Deane had
been advancing in the world as rapidly as Mr. Tulliver had
been going down in it ; and in Mrs. Deane's house the Dodson
linen and plate were beginning to hold quite a subordinate
position, as a mere supplement to the handsomer articles of
the same kind, purchased in recent years : a change which
had caused an occasional coolness in the sisterly intercourse
between her and Mrs. Glegg, who felt that Susan was getting
" like the rest," and there would soon be little of the true
Dodson spirit surviving except in herself, and, it might be
hoped, in those nephews who supported the Dodson name on
the family land, far away in the Wolds. People who live at
a distance are naturally less faulty than those immediately un-
der our own eyes ; and it seems superfluous, when we consider
220 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 pros-
pect of losing her furniture became unusually vivid, but she
felt how unfitting it was to be quite calm under present
circumstances.
'' Oh sister, what a world this is ! " she exclaimed as she
entered ; " what trouble, oh dear ! "
Mrs. Deane was a thin-lipped woman, who made small well-
considered speeches on peculiar occasions, repeating them
afterwards 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 right to be prepared for all things, and if trouble 's
sent, to remember as it is n't sent without a cause. I 'm very
sorry for you as a sister, and if the doctor orders jelly for Mr.
Tulliver, I hope you '11 let me know : I '11 send it willingly.
For it is but right he should have proper attendance while
he 's ill."
" Thank you, Susan," said Mrs. Tulliver, rather faintly,
withdrawing her fat hand from her sister's thin one. "But
there 's been no talk o' jelly yet." Then after a moment's
pause she added, " There 's a dozen o' cut jelly -glasses up-
stairs. ... I slmll 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.
THE DOWNFALL. 221
Mrs. Glegg had on her fuzziest front, and garments wliich
appeared to have had a recent resurrection from rather a creasy
form of burial ; a costume selected with the high moral purpose
of instilling perfect humility into Bessy and her children,
" Mrs. G., won't you come nearer the fire ? " said her 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 ; '^jjou can roast yourself, if you like."
"Well," said Mr. Glegg, seating himself good-humoredly,
"and how's the poor man up-stairs?"
"Dr. Turnbull thought him a deal better this morning,'*
said Mrs. Tulliver ; " he took more notice, and spoke to me ;
but he 's never known Tom yet — looks at the poor lad as it
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 does n't know Tom because he 's thinking of him
when he was little. Eh dear, eh dear ! "
" I doubt it 's the water got on his brain," said aunt Pullet,
turning round from adjusting her cap in a melancholy way
at the pier-glass. " It 's much if he ever gets up again ; and
if he does, he '11 most like be childish, as Mr. Carr was, poor
man ! They fed him with a spoon as if he 'd been a babby
for three year. He 'd quite lost the use of his limbs ; but then
he 'd got a Bath chair, and somebody to draw him ; and that 's
what you won't have, I doubt, Bessy."
" Sister Pullet," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, " if I understand
right, we 've come together this morning to advise and consult
about what 's to be done in this disgrace as has fallen upon
the family, and not to talk o' people as don't belong to us.
Mr. Carr was none of our blood, nor noways connected with
us, as I 've ever beared."
" 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. / know what
he was," she added, with a sigh ; " his breath was short to
that degree as you could hear him two rooms off."
222 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Sophy ! " said Mrs. Glegg, with indiguant disgust, " you
do talk o' people's complaints till it 's quite undecent. But I
say again, as I said before, I did n't come away from home to
talk about acquaintance, whether they 'd short breath or long.
If we are n't come together for one to hear what the other 'ull
do to save a sister and her children from the parish, / shall go
back. One can't act without the other, I suppose ; it is n't to
be expected as / 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 kuow, this is the first
time as here you 've been, since it 's been known as the bailiff 's
in the house ; and I was here yesterday, and looked at all
Bessy's linen and things, and I told her I 'd buy in the spotted
table-cloths. I couldn't speak fairer ; for as for the teapot as
she does n't want to go out o' the family, it stands to sense I
can't do with two silver teapots, not if it had nH a straight
spout — but the spotted damask I was allays fond on."
'■'■ I wish it could be managed so as my teapot and ciiany and
the best castors need n't be put up for sale," said poor Mrs.
Tulliver, beseechingly, " and the sugar-tongs, the first things
ever I bought."
''But that can't be helped, you know," said Mr. Glegg.
"If one o' the family chooses to buy 'em in, they can, but one
thing must be bid for as well as another."
" And it is n't to be looked for," said uncle Pullet, with
unwonted independence of idea, " as your own family should
pay more for things nor they '11 fetch. They may go for an
old song by auction."
''Oh dear, oh dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, "to think o' my
chany being sold i' that way — and I bought it when I was
married, just as you did yours, Jme and Sophy : and I know
you did n'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
would n't like your ehany 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
THE DOWNFALL. 223
there 's the castors — sister Deane, I can't think but you 'd like
to have the castors, for I 've heard you say they 're pretty."
" Well, I 've no objection to buy some of the best things,"
said Mrs. Deane, rather loftily ; " we can do with extra things
in our house."
" Best things ! " exclaimed Mrs. Glegg with severity, which
had gathered intensity from her long silence. "It drives me
past patience to hear you all talking o' best things, and buying
in this, that, and the other, such as silver and chany. You
must bring your mind to your circumstances, Bessy, and not
be thinking o' silver and chany ; but v/hether 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 '11 be because your friends have bought 'em for you, for
you 're dependent upon them for everything ; for your hus-
band lies there helpless, and has n't got a penny i' the world
to call his own. And it's for your own good I say this,
for it 's right you should feel what your state is, and what
disgrace your husband 's brought on your own family, as
you 've got to look to for everything — and be humble in your
mind."
Mrs. Glegg paused, for speaking with much energy for the
good of others is naturally exhausting. Mrs. Tulliver, always
borne down by the family predominance of sister Jane, who
had made her wear the yoke of a younger sister in very tender
years, said pleadingly —
" I 'm sure, sister, I 've never asked anybody to do anything,
only buy things as it 'ud be a pleasure to "em to have, so as
they might n'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 liim. But I 've said nothing
as I wanted my sisters to pay their money for me. W^hat my
husband has done for his sister 's tinknown, and we should ha*
been better off this day if it had n't been as he 's lent money
and never asked for it again."
224 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS. •
" 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
must n't be thinking o' what 's unnecessary. A table, and a
chair or two, and kitchen things, and a good bed, and suchlike.
Why, I 've seen the day when I should n'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 '11 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 did n'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. " Have n't they
been anear you ? They ought to do something, as well as
other folks ; and if he 's lent 'em money, they ought to be made
to pay it back."
" Yes, to be sure," said Mrs. Deane ; " I 've been thinking
so. How is it Mr. and Mrs. Moss are n't here to meet us ?
It is but right they should do their share."
" Oh dear ! " said Mrs. Tulliver, " I never sent 'em word
about Mr. Tulliver, and they live so back'ard among the lanes
at Basset, they niver hear anything onl}^ when Mr. Moss comes
to market. But I niver gave 'em a thought. I wonder Maggie
did n'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'
THE DOWNFALL. 225
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 '11 go and fetch 'em, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver, resign-
edly. She was quite crushed now, and thought of the treasures
in the store-room with no other feeling than blank despair.
She went up-stairs 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 store-room door suggested a new thought to
her. She went towards 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 shrink-
ing reluctance ; for though Tom, with a practical sagacity
which had been roused into activity by the strong stimulus of
the new emotions he had undergone since yesterday, had been
turning over in his mind a plan which he meant to propose to
one of his aunts or uncles, he felt by no means amicably to-
wards them, and dreaded meeting them all at once as he would
have dreaded a large dose of concentrated physic, which was
but just endurable in small draughts. As for Maggie, she was
peculiarly depressed this morning : she had been called up,
after brief rest, at three o'clock, and had that strange dreamy
weariness which comes from watching in a sick-room through
the chill hours of early twilight and breaking day — in which
the outside 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 ob-
served, 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."
TOL. II. 16
226 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS,
" Ay, ay," said uncle Glegg, with admonition which he meant
to be kind, " we must look to see the good of all this school-
ing, as your father 's sunk so much money in, now —
' When land is gone and money 's spent,
Then learning is most excellent.'
Now 's the time, Tom, to let us see the good o' your learning,
Let us see whether you can do better than I can, as have mad
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 1 doubt high living and high learning 'uU
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 has n't got to consider what 's
hard ; he must consider as he is n't to trusten to his friends to
keep him in idleness and luxury : he's got to bear the fruits
of his father's misconduct, and bring his mind to fare hard and
to work hard. And he must be humble and grateful to his
aunts and uncles for what they 're doing for his mother and
father, as must be turned out into the streets and go to the
workhouse if they did n'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 '11 be no servants to wait on
her any more — she must remember that. She must do the
work o' the house, and she must respect and love her aunts as
have done so much for her, and saved their money to leave to
their nepheys and nieces."
Tom was still standing before the table in the centre of the
group. There was a heightened color in his face, and he was
very far from looking humbled, but he was preparing to say,
in a respectful tone, something he had previously meditated,
when the door opened and his mother re-entered.
Poor Mrs. Tulliver had in her hands a small tray, on which
she had placed her silver teapot, a specimen teacup and saucer,
the castors, and sugar-tongs.
" See here, sister," she said, looking at Mrs. Deane, as she
set the tray on the table, " I thought, perhaps, if you looked
1
THE DOWNFALL. 227
at the teapot aga\n — 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 'era to buy it at the Golden Lion,"
said the poor woman, her heart swelling, and the tears coming,
"my teapot as I bought when I was married, and to think
of its being scratched, and set before the travellers and folks,
and my letters on it — see here, E. D. — and everybody to see
'em."
" Ah, dear, dear ! " said aunt Pullet, shaking her head with
deep sadness, "it's very bad — to think o' the family initials
going about everywhere — it niver was so before : you 're a
very unlucky sister, Bessy. But what \s the use o' buying the
iteapot, when there 's the linen and spoons and everything to
jgo, and some of 'em with your full name — • and when it 's got
ithat straight spout, too."
"As to disgrace o' tlie 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."
I Maggie had started up from the sofa at the allusion to her
father, but Tom saw her action and flushed face in time to pre-
vent her from speaking. " Be quiet, Maggie," he said, authori-
tatively, pushing her aside. It was a remarkable manifestation
of self-command and practical judgment in a lad of fifteen, that
when his aunt Glegg ceased, he began to speak in a quiet and
respectful manner, though with a good deal of trembling in
bis voice ; for his mother's words had cut him to the quick.
"Then, aunt," he said, looking straight at Mrs. Glegg, "if
you think it 's a disgrace to the family that we should be sold
up, would n't it be better to prevent it altogether? And if
you and my aunt Pullet," he continued, looking at the latter,
r think of leaving any money to me and Maggie, would n't it
pe better to give it now", and pay the debt we 're going to
be sold up for, and save my mother from parting with hei
fuiniture ? "
228 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 have n'u thought o' that,"
" I could work and pay that every year," said Tom, promptly.
" I 'd do anything to save my mother from parting with her
things."
" Well done ! " said uncle Glegg, admiringly. He had been
drawing Tom out, rather than reflecting on the practicability
of his proposal. But he had produced the unfortunate result
of irritating his wife. «
" Yes, Mr. Glegg ! " said that lady, with angry sarcasm.
" It 's pleasant work for you to be giving my money away,
as you 've pretended to leave at my own disposal. And my
money, as was my own father's gift, and not yours, Mr. Glegg;
and I 've saved it, and added to it myself, and had more to put
out almost every year, and it 's to go and be sunk in other
folks' furniture, and encourage 'em in luxiiry and extrava-
gance as they 've no means of supporting ; and I 'm to alter my
will, or have a codicil made, and leave two or three hundred
less behind me when I die — me as have allays done right and
been careful, and the eldest o' the family ; and my money 's to i
go and be squandered on them as have had the same chance
as me, only they 've been wicked and wasteful. Sister Pullet,
yoxi may do as you like, and you may let your husband rob you
back again o' the money he 's given you, but that is n't my
sperrit."
" La, Jane, how fiery you are ! " said Mrs. Pullet. " I 'm
sure you '11 have the blood in your head, and have to be cupped.
T '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
THE DOWNFALL. 229
nil the law debts behind, as 'ud take every shilling, and more
;han could be made out o' land and stock, for I 've made that
)ut from Lawyer Gore. We 'd need save our money to keep
;he poor man with, instead o' spending it on furniture as he
;an neither eat nor drink. You iv'dl be so hasty, Jane, as if I
lid n't know what was reasonable."
" Then speak accordingly, Mr. Glegg ! " said his wife, with
5I0W, loud emphasis, bending her head towards him signifi-
?antly.
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
Diomentary 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
jstood in front of them, her eyes flashing like the eyes of a
young lioness.
"Why do you come, then," she burst out, "talking and
interfering with us and scolding us, if you don't mean to do
anything to help my poor mother — your own sister — if
you 've no feeling for her when she 's in trouble, and won't
part with anything, though you would never miss it, to save
her from pain? Keep away from us then, and don't come to
find fault with my father — he was better than any of you —
he was kind — he would have helped you, if you had been in
trouble. Tom and I don't ever want to have any of your
money, if you won't help my mother. We 'd rather not have
it ! we '11 do without you."
Maggie, having hurled her defiance at aunts and uncles in
this way, stood still, with her large dark eyes glaring at them,
'as if she were ready to await all consequences.
Mrs. Tulliver was frightened ; there was something porten-
tous in this mad outbreak ; she did not see how life could go
on after it. Tom was vexed ; it was no tise 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.
230 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"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. 1 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 1 Ve said — ' Mark my
words ; that child 'ull come to no good : there is n't a bit of
our family in her.' And as for her having so much schooling,
I never thought well o' that. 1 "d my reasons when I said 1
wouldn't pay anything towards it.''
" Come, come," said Mr. Glegg, " let 's waste no more time
in talking — let 's go to business. Tom now, get the pen and
ink — "
While Mr. Glegg was speaking, a tall dark figure was seen
hurrying past the window.
" Why, there 's Mrs. Moss," said Mrs. Tulliver. " The bad
news must ha' reached her, then ; " and she went out to open
the door, Maggie eagerly following her.
" That 's fortunate.," said Mrs. Glegg. " She can agree to
the list o' things to be bought in. It 's biit 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
Dodson sisters as she entered in her shabby dress, with her
shawl and bonnet looking as if they had been hastily huddled
on, and with that entire absence of self-consciousness which
belongs to keenly felt trouble. Maggie was clinging to her
arm ; and Mrs. Moss seemed to notice no one else except Tom,
whom she went straight up to and took by the hand.
" Oh my dear children," she burst out, " you 've no call to
think well o' me ; I 'm a poor aunt to you, for I 'm one o' them
as take all and give nothing. How 's my poor brother ? "
" Mr. Turnbull thinks he '11 get better," said Maggie. " Sit
down, aunt Gritty. Don't fret."
THE DOWNFALL. 231
" 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. Tullive-r,
who, when she had said that her husband had done "un-
known " things for his sister, had not had any particular sum
in her mind, and felt a wife's irritation at having been kept in
the dark.
" What madness, to be sure ! " said Mrs. Glegg. " A man with
a family ! He 'd no right to lend his money i' that way ; and
without security, I '11 be bound, if the truth was known."
Mrs. Glegg's voice had arrested Mrs. Moss's attention, and.
looking up, she said —
" Yes, there was security : my husband gave a note for it.
We're not that sort o' people, neither of us, as 'ud rob my
brother's children ; and we looked to paying back the money,
when the times got a bit better."
" Well, but now," said Mr. Glegg, gently, " has n't your
husband no way o' raising this money ? Because it 'd be a
little fortin, like, for these folks, if we can do Avithout Tulli-
ver's being made a bankrupt. Your husband's got stock: it
is but right he should raise the money, as it seems to me —
not but what I 'm sorry for you, Mrs. Moss."
" Oh sir, you don't know what bad luck my husband 's had
with his stock. The farm 's suffering so as never was for
want o' stock ; and we 've sold all the wheat, and we 're be
hind 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.
232 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Did Mr. Tulliver let you have the money all at once ? '*
said Mrs. Tulliver, still lost in the conception of things which
had been " going on " without her knowledge.
" ISTo ; 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. " T should
never ha' stayed away all this while, if you 'd thought well to
let me know. And it is n't as I 'm thinking all about ourselves,
and nothing about my brother — only the money was so on
my mind, I could n't help speaking about it. And my husband
and me desire to do the right thing, sir," she added, looking at
Mr. Glegg, " and we '11 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 right to warn you ; — if Tulliver 's made a
bankrupt, anr" ^le 's got a note-of-hand of your husband's for
three hundrt^a pounds, you '11 be obliged to pay it : th' assign-
ees 'uU come on you for it."
" Oh dear, oh dear ! " said Mrs. Tulliver, thinking of the
bankruptcy, and not of Mrs. Moss's concern in it. Poor Mrs.
Moss herself listened in trembling submission, while Maggie
looked with bewildered distress at Tom to see if he showed
any signs of understanding this trouble, and caring about poor
aunt Moss. Tom was only looking thoughtful, with his eyes
on the table-cloth.
" And if he is n'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
THE DOWNFALL. 233
one way, it *11 be right for you to raise the money ; and looking
at it th' other Avay, you '11 be obliged to pay it. You won't
think ill o' me for speaking the truth."
"Uncle," said Tom. looking up suddenly from his meditative
view of the table-cloth, " I don't think it would be right for my
aunt Moss to pay the money, if it would be against my father's
will for her to pay it ; would it ? "
Mr. Glegg looked surprised for a moment or two before he
said, " Why, no, perhaps not, Tom ; but then he 'd ha' destroyed
the note, you know. We must look for the note. What makes
you think it 'ud be against his will ? "
"Why," said Tom, coloring, but trying to speak firmly, in
spite of a boyish tremor, "I remember quite well, before I
went to school to Mr. Stelling, my father said to me one night,
when we were sitting by the fire together, and no one else was
in the room — "
Tom hesitated a little, and then went on.
" He said something to me about Maggie, and then he said,
*I've always been good to my sister, though she married
against my will — and I 've lent Moss money ; but I shall
never think of distressing him to pay it : I 'd rather lose it.
My children must not mind being the poorer for that.' And
now my father's ill, and not able to speak for himself, I
should n't like anything to be done contrary to what he said
to me."
"Well, but then, my boy," said uncle Glegg, whose good
feeling led him to enter into Tom's wish, but who could not
at once shake oif his habitual abhorrence of such recklessness
as destroying securities, or alienating anything important
enough to make an appreciable difference in a man's property,
"we should have to make away wi' the note, you know, if
we're to guard against what may happen, supposing your
father's made bankrupt — "
"Mr. Glegg," interrupted his wife, severely, "mind what
you 're saying. You 're putting yourself very forrard in other
folks's business. If you speak rash, don't say it was my
fault."
"That 's such a thing as I never beared of before," said uncle
234 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Pullet, who liad been making haste with his lozenge in order
to express his amazement ; " making away with a note ! J
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 should n't get well, I should be
very unhappy to think anything had been done against his
will, that I could hinder. And I 'm sure he meant me to
remember what he said that evening. I ought to obey my
father's wish about his property."
Even Mrs. Glegg could not withhold her approval from
Tom's words : she felt that the Dodson blood was certainly
speaking in him, though, if his father had been a Dodson,
there would never have been this wicked alienation of money.
Maggie would hardly have restrained herself from leaping on
Tom's neck, if her aunt Moss had not prevented her by herself
rising and taking Tom's hand, while she said, with rather a
choked voice —
" You '11 never be the poorer for this, my dear boy, if there 's
a God above ; and if the money 's wanted for your father,
Moss and me 'ull pay it, the same as if there was ever such
security. We '11 do as we 'd be done by ; for if my children
have got no otlier luck, they 've got an honest father and
mother."
" Well," said Mr. Glegg, who had been meditating after
Tom's words, " we should n't be doing any wrong by the credi-
tors, supposing your father tvas bankrupt. I 've been thinking
o' that, for I 've been a creditor mj^self, and seen no end o'
cheating. If he meant to give your aunt the money before
THE DOWNFALL. 285
ever he got into this sad work o' lawing, it 's the Bame as if
he 'd made away with the note himself ; for he 'd made up his
mind to be that much poorer. But there 's a deal o' things to
be considered, young man," Mr. Glegg added, looking 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 did n't think you 'd been so
sharp," said uncle Glegg, with much candor. " But perhaps
your father did make away with the note. Let us go and see
if we can find it in the chest."
"It's in my father's room. Let us go too, aunt Gritty,"
whispered Maggie.
CHAPTER IV.
A VANISHING GLEAM.
Mr. Tulliver, even between the fits of spasmodic rigidity
which had recurred at intervals ever since he had been found
fallen from his horse, was usually in so apathetic a condition
that the exits and entrances into his room were not felt to be
of great importance. He had lain so still, with his eyes closed^
aU this morning, that Maggie told her aunt Moss she must not
expect her father to take any notice of them.
They entered very quietly, and Mrs. Moss took her seat near
the head of the bed, while Maggie sat in her old place on the
bed, and put her hand on her father's without causing any
change in his face.
Mr. Glegg and Tom had also entered, treading softly, and
were busy selecting the key of the old oak chest from the
bunch which Tom had brought from his father's bureau. They
succeeded in opening the chest — which stood opposite the
2B6 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
foot of Mr. TuUiver's bed — and propping the lid with the
iron holder, without much noise.
"There's a tin box," whispered Mr. Glegg ; "he'd most
like put a small thing like a note in there. Lift it out, Tom ;
but I '11 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 instanta-
neous 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 ? " 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 him, his father continued to look with a growing dis-
tinctness of suspicion at Mr. Glegg and the deeds.
" What 's been happening, then ? " he said, sharply. " What
are you meddling with my deeds for ? Is Wakem laying hold
of everything ? . . . Why don't you tell me what you 've been
a-doing ? " he added, impatiently, as Mr. Glegg advanced to
the foot of the bed before speaking.
THE DOWNFALL. 237
" 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 '11 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 ! " he said, in the half-sad, affectionate tone
in which he had been wont to speak to her. " What !
you 're there, are you ? How could you manage to leave the
children ? "
" Oh, brother ! " said good Mrs. Moss, too impulsive to be
prudent, " I 'm thankful I 'm come now to see you yourself
again — I thought you 'd never know us any more."
" What ! have I had a stroke ? " said Mr. Tulliver, anxiously,
looking at Mr. Glegg.
" A fall from your horse — shook you a bit — that 's all, I
think," said Mr. Glegg. " But you '11 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 down-stairs with my aunts, father : shall I fetch
her ? "
" Ay, ay : poor Bessy ! " and his eyes turned towards Tom
as Maggie left the room. ,
" You '11 have to take care of 'em both if I die, you know,
238 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Tom. You '11 be badly olf, I doubt. But you must see and
pay everybody. And mind — there 's fifty pound o' Luke's
as 1 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."
Cncle Glegg involuntarily shook his head, and looked more
concerned than ever, but Tom said firmly —
" Yes, father. And have n't you a note from my uncle
Moss for three hundred pounds ? We came to look for that.
What do you wish to be done about it, father ? "
" Ah ! I 'm glad you thought o' that, my lad," said Mr.
Tulliver. " I allays meant to be easy about that money,
because o' your aunt. You must n't mind losing the money,
if they can't pay it — and it 's like enough they can't. The
note 's in that box, mind ! I allays meant to be good to you.
Gritty," said Mr. Tulliver, turning to his sister ; " but, you
know, you aggravated me when you would have Moss."
At this moment Maggie re-entered with her mother, who
came in much agitated by the news that her husband was
quite himself again.
"Well, Bessy," he said, as she kissed him, "you must 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 soothing,
but he was prevented by Mr. Tulliver's speaking again to his
wife. " They '11 make a shift to pay everything, Bessy," he
said, " and yet leave you your furniture ; and your sisters '11
do something for you . . . and Tom '11 grow up . . . though
what he 's to be I don't know ... I 've done what I could
. . . I 've given him a eddication , . . and there 's the little
wench, she '11 get married . . . but it 's a poor tale • — ■ "
The sanative effect of the strong vibration was exhausted,
THE DOWNFALL. 239
and with the last words the poor man fell again, rigid and
insensible. Thougli this was only a recurrence of what had
happened before, it struck all present as if it had been death,
not only from its contrast with the completeness of the
revival, but because his words had all had reference to the
possibility that his death was near. But with poor Tulliver
death was not to be a leap : it was to be a long descent under
thickening sliadows.
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, oui 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 mathe-
matical demonstration.
CHAPTER V.
TOM APPLIES HIS KNIFE TO THE OYSTER.
The next day, at ten o'clock, Tom was on his way to St.
Ogg's, to see his uncle Deane, who was to come home last
night, his aunt had said ; and Tom had made up his mind
that his uncle Deane was the right person to ask for advice
about getting some employment. He was in a great way of
business ; he had not the narrow notions of uncle Glegg ; and
he had risen in the world on a scale of advancement which
accorded with Tom's ambition.
240 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
It was a dark, chill, misty morning, likely to end in rain —
one of those mornings when even happy people take refuge in
their hopes. And Tom was very unhappy : he felt the humil-
iation as well as the prospective hardships of his lot with all
the keenness of a proud nature; and with all his resolute
dutifuluess towards his father there mingled an irrepressible
indignation against him which gave misfortune the less endur-
able aspect of a wrong. Since these were the consequences of
going to law, his father was really blauiable, as his aunts and
uncles had always said he was ; and it was a significant indi-
cation of Tom's character, that though he thought his aunts
ought to do something more for his mother, he felt nothing
like Maggie's violent resentment against them for showing no
eager tenderness and generosity. There were no impulses in
Tom that led him to expect what did not present itself to him
as a right to be demanded. Why should people give away
their money plentifully to those who had not taken care of
their own money? Tom saw some justice in severity; and
all the more, because he had confidence in himself that he
should never deserve that just severity. It was very hard
upon him that he should be put at this disadvantage in life by
his father's want of prudence ; but he was not going to com-
plain and to find fault with people because they did not make
everything easy for him. He would ask no one to help him,
more than to give him work and pay him for it. Poor Tom
was not without his hopes to take refuge in under the chill
damp imprisonment of the December fog which seemed only
like a part of his home troubles. At sixteen, the mind that
has the strongest affinity for fact cannot escape illusion and
self-flattery ; and Tom, in sketching his future, had no other
guide in arranging his facts than the suggestions of his own
brave self-reliance. Both Mr. Glegg and Mr. Deane, he knew,
had been very poor once ; he did not want to save money
slowly and retire on a moderate fortune like his uncle Glegg,
but he would be like his uncle Deane — get a situation in
some great house of business and rise fast. He had scarcely
seen anything of his uncle Deane for the last three years —
the two families had been getting wider apart ; but for this
THE DOWNFALL. 241
^ery reason Tom was the more hopeful about applying to him.
His uncle Glegg, he felt sure, would never encourage any
spirited project, but he had a vague imposing idea of the re-
sources at his uncle Deane's command. He had heard his
father say, long ago, how Deaue had made himself so valuable
bo Guest & Co. that they were glad enough to offer him a
share in the business : that was what Tom resolved he would
lo. It was intolerable to think of being poor and looked
down upon all one's life. He would provide for his mother
ind sister, and make every one say that he was a man of high
jharacter. He leaped over the years in this way, and in the
liaste 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
jpoint in his reverie he was startled by some one who had
Icrossed without his notice, and who said to him in a rough,
Ifamiliar voice —
" Why, Master Tom, how 's your father this morning ? " It
was a publican of St. Ogg's — one of -his father's customers.
Tom disliked being spoken to just then ; but he said civilly,
" He 's still very ill, thank you."
" Ay, it 's been a sore chance for you, young man, has n't
lit ? — this lawsuit turning out against him," said the publican,
jwith a confused beery idea of being good-natured.
Tom reddened and passed on : he would have felt it like the
handling of a bruise, even if there had been the most polite
and delicate reference to his position.
'• That 's Tulliver's son," said the publican to a grocer stand-
ing on the adjacent door-step.
" Ah ! " said the grocer, " I thought I knew his features.
He takes after his mother's family : she was a Dodson. He 's
a fine, straight youth : what 's he been brought up to ? "
VOL. II. 16
242 THE MILI. ON THE FLOSS.
" Oh ! to turn up his nose at his father's customers, and be
a line gentleman — not much else, I think."
Tom, roused from his dream of the future to a thorough con-
sciousness 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 igno-
rance : Mr. Deane was not to be found in River Street on a
Thursday morning.
At the bank Tom was admitted into the private room where
his uncle was, immediately after sending in his name. Mr.
Deane was auditing accounts ; but he looked up as Tom en-
tered, 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 towards 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 for-
over to the loud ticking of a time-piece. 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 '11 just step up to Torry's now, Mr. Spence, will you ? "
said Mr. Deane, and the clock suddenly became less loud and
deliberate in Tom's ears.
" Well, Tom," said Mr. Deane, when they were alone, tui-n-
ing his substantial person a little in his chair, and taking out
his snuff-box, " what 's the business, my boy — what 's the
business ? " Mr. Deane, who had heard from his wife what
had passed the day before, thought Tom was come to appeal
to him fox soma means of averting the sale.
THE DOWNFALL. 243
" I hope you '11 excuse me for troubling you, uncle," said
Tom, coloring, but speaking in a tone which, though tremu-
lous, had a certain proud independence in it ; " but I thought
you were the best person to advise me what to do."
"Ah!" said Mr. Deane, reserving his pinch of snuff, and
looking at Tom with new attention, " let us hear."
" I want to get a situation, uncle, so that I may earn some
money," said Tom, who never fell into circumlocution.
" A situation ? " said Mr. Deane, and then took his pinch
of snuff with elaborate justice to each nostril. Tom thought
snuff-taking a most provoking habit.
" Why, let me see, how old are you ? " said Mr. Deane, as
he threw himself backward again,
" Sixteen — I mean, I am going in seventeen," said Tom,
hoping his uncle noticed how much beard he had.
"Let me see — your father had some notion of making you
an engineer, I think ? "
I "But I don't think I could get any money at that for a long
! while, could I?"
I " That 's true ; but people don't get much money at anything,
I my boy, when they 're only sixteen. You 've had a good deal
j of schooling, however ; I suppose you 're pretty well up in
I accounts, eh ? You understand book-keeping ? "
I "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 copying-
clerk's, if you know nothing of book-keeping — nothing of ac-
counts. 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
244 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
last year I did Themes, one week in Latin and one in English j
and Greek and Roman History ; and Euclid ; and I began Al-
gebra, but I left it off again ; and we had one day every week
for Arithmetic. Then I used to have drawing-lessons ; and
there were several other books we either read or learned out
of, English Poetry, and Horae Paulinse, and Blair's Rhetoric,
the last half."
Mr. Deane tapped his snuff-box again, and screwed up his
mouth : he felt in the position of many estimable persons
when they had read the New Tariff, and found how many com-
modities 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 suc-
cessful a man as himself would hardly have been ignorant of
it. About Latin he had an opinion, and thought that in case
of another war, since people would no longer wear hair-powder,
it would be well to put a tax upon Latin, as a luxury much
run upon by the higher classes, and not telling at all on the
ship-owning department. But, for what he knew, the Horae
Paulinge might be something less neutral. On the whole, this
list of acquirements gave him a sort of repulsion towards 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. Had n't you better take up some line where
they '11 come in handy ? "
Tom colored, and burst out, with new energy —
" I 'd rather not have any employment of that sort, uncle.
I don't like Latin and those things. I don't know what I
could do with them unless I went as usher in a school ; and
I don't know them well enough for that : besides, I would as
soon carry a pair of panniers. I don't want to be that sort
of person. I should like to enter into some business where
I can get on — a manly business, where I should have to look
after things, and get credit for what I did. And I shall want
to keep my mother and sister."
" Ah, young gentleman," said Mr. Deane, with that tendency
THE DOWNFALL. 245
to repress youthful hopes which stout and successful men of
fifty find one of their easiest duties, " that 's sooner said than
done — sooner said than done."
I "But didn't you get on in that way, uncle?" said Tom,
ia little irritated that Mr. Deane did not enter more rapidly
into his views. "I mean, didn't you rise from one place to
another through your abilities and good conduct ? "
"Ay, ay, sir," said Mr. Deane, spreading himself in his
chair a little, and entering with great readiness into a 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 was n't too fond of my own back, and
|I made my master's interest my own. Why, with only look-
ling 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 had n't more schooling to begin with than a charity boy ;
but I saw pretty soon that I couldn't get on far without mas-
tering accounts, and I learned 'em between working hours,
after I 'd been unlading. Look here." Mr. Deane opened a
book, and pointed to the page. " I write a good hand enough,
and I '11 match anybody at all sorts of reckoning by the head,
and I got it all by hard work, and paid for it out of my own
earnings — often out of my own dinner and supper. And I
looked into the nature of all the things we had to do 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 is n'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 tlie same thing more than onoe
246 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
before, and was not distinctly aware that he had not his port-
wine before him,
" Well, uncle," said Tom, with a slight complaint in hia
tone, "that's what I should like to do. Can't / get on in
the same way ? "
" In the same way ? " said Mr. Deane, eying Tom with
quiet deliberation. " There go two or three questions to that,
Master Tom. That depends on what sort of i-naterial you are,
to begin with, and whether you 've been put into the right
mill. But I '11 tell you what it is. Your poor father went
the wrong way to work in giving you an education. It was n't
my business, and I did n'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. Stexjhen Guest, who '11 have
nothing to do but sign checks all his life, and may as well
have Latin inside nis 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 afterwards — I didn't care about them."
" Ay, ay, that 's all very well," said Mr. Deane ; " but it
does n't alter what I was going to say. Your Latin and rig-
marole may soon dry off you, but you '11 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 soi
much of reckoning as a common shopman. You'll have toi
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 i
your father 's been paying for, if you don't give yourself ?
new un."
Tom bit his lips hard; he felt as if the tears were rising,
and he would rather die than let them. i
"You want me to help you to a situation," Mr. Deane wen1|
on ; " well, I 've no fault to find with that. I 'm willing to d(
something for you. But you youngsters nowadays thinl
you're to begin with living well and working easy: you'vi
i
jj_
THE DOWNFALL. 247
no notion of running afoot before you get on horseback
Now, you must remember wliat you are — you 're a lad of
sixteen, trained to nothing particular. There 's heaps of your
sort, like so many pebbles, made to fit in nowhere. Well, you
might be apprenticed to some business — a chemist's and
druggist's perhaps : your Latin might come in a bit there — "
Tom was going to speak, but Mr. Deane put up his hand
and said —
" Stop ! hear what I "ve got to say. You don't want to be
a 'prentice — I know, I know — you want to make more haste
— .and you don't want to stand behind a counter. But if
you're a copying-clerk, you'll have to stand bi-hind a desk,
and stare at your ink and paper all day : there is n't much
out-look there, and you won't be much wiser at the end of the
year than at the beginning. The world isn't made of pen,
ink, and paper, and if you 're to get on in the world, young
man, you must know what the world's made of. Now the
best chance for you 'ud be to have a place on a wharf, or in a
warehouse, where you 'd learn the smell of things — but you
would n't like that, I '11 be bound ; you 'd have to stand cold
and wet, and be shouldered about by rough fellows. You 're
too fine a gentleman for that."
Mr. Deane paused and looked hard at Tom, who certainly
felt some inward struggle before he could reply.
" I would rather do what will be best for me in the end,
sir: I would put up with what was disagreeable."
" That 's well, if you can carry it out. But you must re-
member it is n't only laying hold of a rope — 3'ou 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
/ started, young man : when I was sixteen, my jacket smelt
of tar, and I was n't afraid of handling cheeses. That 's the
reason I can wear good broadcloth now, and have my legs
under the same table with the head* of the best firmg in
St. Ugg's."
248 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Uncle Deane tapped liis box, and seemed to expand a little
under his waistcoat and gold chain, as he squared his shoulders
in the chair.
" Is there any place at liberty that you know of now, uncle,
that I should do for ? I should like to set to work at once,"
said Tom, with a slight tremor in his voice.
" Stop a bit, stop a bit ; we must n't be in too great a hurry.
You must bear in mind, if I put you in a place you 're a bit
young for, because you happen to be my nephew, I shall be
responsible for you. And there 's no better reason, you know,
than your being my nephew; because it remains to be seen
whetlier you 're good for anything."
" I hope I should never do you any discredit, uncle," said
Tom, hurt, as all boys are at the statement of the unpleasant
truth that people feel no ground for trusting them. " I care
about my own credit too much for that."
" Well done, Tom, well done ! That 's the right spirit, and
I never refuse to help anybody if they 've a mind to do 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 un-
commonly knowing in manufactures, that young fellow."
" I 'd better set about learning book-keeping, had n't I,
uncle ? " said Tom, anxious to prove his readiness to exert '
himself.
" Yes, yes, you can't do amiss there. But ... ah, Spence,
you 're back again. Well, Tom, there 's nothing more to be
said just now, I think, and I must go to business again. Good- [
by. Kemember 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.,
especially in the presence of Mr. Spence. So he went o\xv
again into the cold damp air. He had to call at his unclf
Glegg's about the money in the Savings Bank, and by tin
time he set out again, the mist had thickened, and he couli
THE DOWNFALL. 249
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 towards him that his uncle
Deane had no confidence in him — did not see at once that
he should acquit himself Avell, which Tom himself was as
certain of as of the daylight. Apparently he, Tom Tulliver,
was likely to be held of small account in the world, and for
the first time he felt a sinking of heart under the sense that
jhe really was very ignorant, and could do very little. Who
■was that enviable young man, tha+ could tell the cubic con-
tents of things in no time, and make suggestions about Swedish
bark? Swedish bark! Tom had been used to be so entirely
satisfied with himself in spite of his breaking down in a
demonstration, and construing nimc illas promite vires, as
" now promise those men ; " but now he suddenly felt at a
disadvantage, because he knew less than some one else knew.
There must be a world of things connected with that Swedish
bark, which, if he only knew them, might have helped him to
get on. It would have been much easier to make a figure with
a spirited horse and a new saddle.
Two hours ago, as Tom was walking to St. Ogg's, he saw
he 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
bhingles might soon be passed. But now his feet were on
the sharp stones ; the bolt of shingles had widened, and the
Stretch of sand had dwindled into narrowness.
"What did my uncle Deane say, Tom?" said Maggie,
butting her arm through Tom's as he was warming himself
jrather drearily by the kitchen fire. " Did he say he would
bive you a situation ? "
250 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
*' No, he did n't say that. He did n't quite promise me
anything ; he seemed to think I cuuld n't have a very good
situation. I 'm too young."'
" But did n't he speak kindly, Tom ? "
" Kindly ? Pooh ! what 's the use of talking about that ?
I would n't care about his speaking kindly, if I could get a
situation. But it 's such a nuisance and bother — I 've been
at school all this while learning Latin and things — not a bit
of good to me — and now my uncle says, I must set about
learning book-keeping and calculation, and those things. He
seems to make out I 'm good for nothing."
Tom's mouth twitched with a bitter expression as he looked
at the fire.
" Oh what a pity we have n't got Dominie Sampson ! " said
Maggie, who could n't help mingling some gayety with their
sadness. " If he had taught me book-keeping by double entry
and after the Italian method, as he did Lucy Bertram, I could
teach you, Tom."
" You teach ! Yes, I dare say. That 's always the tone you
take," said Tom.
"Dear Tom, I was only joking," said Maggie, putting her
cheek against his coat-sleeve.
"But it 's always the same, Maggie," said Tom, with the little
frown he put on when he was about to be justifiably severe.
" You 're always setting yourself up above me and every one !
else, and I 've wanted to tell you about it several times. You
ought not to have spoken as you did to my uncles and aunts '
— you should leave it to me to take care of my mother and '
you, and not put yourself forward. You think you know
better than any one, but you 're almost always wrong. I can
judge much better than you can." I
Poor Tom ! he had just come from being lectured and made
to feel his inferiority : the reaction of his strong, self-assertinf
nature must take place somehow ; and here was a case ii
which he could justly show himself dominant. Maggie's'
cheek flushed and her lip quivered with conflicting resentmen
and affection, and a certain awe as well as admiration of Tom'
firmer and more effective character. She did not answe
THE DOWNFALL. 251
immediately; very angry words rose to her lips, but they were
driven back again, and she said at last —
"You often think I am 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 yesterciay.
But you are always so harsh to me, Tom."
With the last words the resentment was rising again.
" ]Sro, 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-
pen till she was safe up-stairs. They were very bitter tears :
everybody in the world seemed so hard and unkind to Mi,ggie :
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 ? Noth-
ing but poverty and the companionship of her mother's narrow
griefs — perhaps of her father's heart-cutting childish depen-
dence. There is no hopelessness so sad as that of early youth,
when the soul is made up of wants, and has no long memories,
no superadded life in the life of otliers ; 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
father lay, to the dull walls of this sad chamber which was
the oentre 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, un-
conscious yearning for something that would link together the
252 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
wonderful impressions of this mysterious life, and give her
soul a sense of home in it.
No wonder, when there is this contrast between the outward
and the inward, that painful collisions come of it.
CHAPTER VL
TENDING TO REFUTE THE POPULAR PREJUDICE AGAINST THE
PRESENT OF A POCKET-KNIFE,
In that dark time of December, the sale of the household
turniture lasted beyond the middle of the second day. Mr.
Tulliver, who had begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to
manifest an irritability which often appeared to have as a
direct effect the recurrence of spasmodic rigidity and insensi-
bility, had lain in this living death throughout the critical
hours when the noise of the sale came nearest to his chamber.
Mr. Turubull had decided that it would be a less risk to let
him remain where he was, than to move 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. Tulli-
ver'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 ham-
mer ; 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
THE DOWNFALL. 253
she had to sit and make no sign of this inward agitation.
Such things bring lines in well-rounded faces, and broaden the
streaks of white among the hairs that once looked as if they
had been dipped in pure sunshine. Already, at three o'clock,
Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered housemaid, who re-
garded all people that came to the sale as her personal ene-
mies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly vile quality,
had begun to scrub and swill with an energy much assisted by
a continual low muttering against " folks as came to buy up
other 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-smoking pig " the bailiff had sat,
to such an appearance of scant comfort as could be given to it
by cleanliness, and the few articles of furniture bought in for
the family. Her mistress and the young folks should have
their tea in it that night, Kezia was determined.
It was between five and six o'clock, near the usual tea-time,
when she came up-stairs 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 call-
ing that had to do with boats ; but this did not help Tom's
memory.
^'Sarvant, Mister Tom," said he of the red locks, with a
smile which seemed to break through a self-imposed air of
melancholy. " You don't know me again, I doubt," he went
on, as Tom continued to look at him inquiringly ; " but I 'd
like to talk to you by yourself a bit, please."
254 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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 towards that particular spot, and uncle Deane
might any time be sending for him to say that there was a
situation at liberty.
The bright fire in the parlor was the only light that showed
the few chairs, the bureau, the carpetless floor, and the one
table — no, not the one table : there was a second table, in a
corner, with a large Bible and a few other books upon it. It
was this new strange bareness that Tom felt first, before he
thought of looking again at the face which was also lit up by
the fire, and which stole a half-shy, questioning glance at him
as the entirely strange voice said —
" Why ! you don't remember Bob, then, as you gen the
pocket-knife to, Mr. Tom ? "
The rough-handled pocket-knife was taken out in the same
moment, and the largest blade opened by way of irresistible
demonstration,
" What ! Bob Jakin ? " said Tom — not with any cordial
delight, for he felt a little ashamed of that early intimacy
symbolized by the pocket-knife, and was not at all sure that
Bob's motives for recalling it were entirely admirable.
" Ay, ay, Bob Jakin — if Jakin it must be, 'cause there 's
so many Bobs as you went arter the squerrils with, that day
as I plumped right down from the bough, and bruised my
shins a good un — but I got the squerril tight for all that, an'
a scratter it was. An' this littlish blade 's broke, you see, but
I would n't hev a new un put in, 'cause they might be cheatin'
me an' givin' me another knife istid, for there is n'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 was n'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
THE DOWNFALL. 2.35
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, no, Mr. Tom," answered Bob, shutting up his knife
with a click and returning it to his pocket, where he seemed
to be feeling for something else. " I should n'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 '11
niver lift up his yead 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
shan'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 / war a little chap, for all you leathered
me, and would n'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 war n'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 runniu' rat, or a stoat, or that, when I
war a-beatin' the bushes."
Bob had drawn out a diriy 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
256 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
unfaded space ou the wall, and below it the small table with
the Bible and the few other books.
" Oh, Tom," she burst out, clasping her hands, "where are the
books ? I thought my uncle Glegg said he would buy them —
did n'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
so little furniture ? "
" Oh, but, Tom," said Maggie, her eyes filling with tears, as
she rushed up to the table to see what books had been rescued.
" Our dear old Pilgrim's Progress that you colored with your
little paints ; and that picture of Pilgrim with a mantle on,
looking just like a turtle — oh dear ! " Maggie went on, half
sobbing as she turned over the few books. "I thought we
should never part with that while we lived — everything is
going away from us — the end of our lives will have nothing
in it like the beginning ! "
Maggie turned away from the table and threw herself into
a chair, with the big tears ready to roll down her cheeks —
quite blinded to the presence of Bob, who was looking at her
with the pursuant gaze of an intelligent dumb animal, with
perceptions more perfect than his comprehension.
"Well, Bob," said Tom, feeling that the subject of the books
was unseasonable, " I suppose you just came to see me because
we 're in trouble ? That was very good-natured of you."
" I '11 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
was n'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 was n'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 I " Here Bob emptied the canvas bag on the table.
THE DOWNFALL. 257
« An' -when I 'd got 'em, my head was all of a boil like a kettle
o' broth, thinkin' what sort o' life I should take to — for there
■war a many trades I "d thought on , for as for the barge, 1 'm
clean tired out wi't, for it pulls the days out till they 're as
long as pigs' chitterlings. An' I thought first I 'd ha' ferrets
an' dogs, an' be a rat-catcher ; an' then I thought as I should
like a bigger way o' life, as I did n't know so well ; for I 'n
seen to the bottom o' rat-catching ; an' I thought, an' thought,
till at last I settled I'd be a packman, for they're knowin'
fellers, the packmen are — an' I 'd carry the lightest things I
could i' my pack — an' there 'd be a use for a feller's tongue,
as is no use neither wi' rats nor barges. An' I should go about
the country far an' wide, an' come round the women wi' my
tongue, an' get my dinner hot at the public — lors ! it 'ud be
a lovely life ! "
Bob paused, and then said, with defiant decision, as if 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, an'
I 'n bought a blue plush wescoat, an' a sealskin cap — for if
I meant to be a packman, I 'd do it respectable. But I don't
mind about it — not a chip ! My yead is n'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 '11 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 m.i V ^ "i" go fur enough
— but they '11 help."
Tom was touched keenly enough to forget his pride and
suspicion.
"You're a very kind fellow, Bob," he said, coloring, with
that little diffident tremor in his voice, which gave a certain
charm even to Tom's pride and severity, "and I shan't forget
you again, though I did n't know you this evening. But I can't
take the nine sovereigns : I should be taking your little fortune
from you, and they would n't do me much good either."
" Wouldn't they, Mr. Tom ? " said Bob, regretfully. "Now
don't say so 'cause' you think I want 'em. I are n't a poor
chap. My mother gets a good penn'orth wi' picking feathers
VOL, II. 17
258 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
an' things ; an' if she eats notliin' but bread-au'-water, it runs
to fat. An' I 'm such a lucky chap : an' I doubt you are n't
quite so lucky, Mr. Tom — th' old master is n'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 '11 be bound. Come,
think better on it, Mr. Tom, for old 'quinetance' sake — else I
shall think you bear me a grudge."
Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before Tom could
speak, Maggie, clasping her hands, and looking penitently at
Bob, said —
" Oh, I 'm so sorry, Bob — I never thought you were so good.
Why, I think you 're the kindest person in the world ! "
Bob had not been aware of the injurious opinion for which
Maggie was performing an inward act of penitence, but he
smiled with pleasure at this handsome eulogy — especially
from a young lass who, as he informed his mother that even-
ing, had " such uncommon eyes, they looked somehow as they
made him feel nohow."
'' No, indeed. Bob, I can't take them," said Tom ; " but
don't think I feel your kindness less because I say no. I
don't want to take anything from anybody, but to work my
own way. And those sovereigns would n't help me much —
they would n't, really, — if I were to take them. Let me shake
hands with you instead."
Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to place
his hard, grimy hand within it.
" Let me put the sovereigns in the bag again," said Maggie ;
"and you '11 come and see us when you 've bought your pack,
Bob."
" It 's like as if I 'd come out o' make-believe, o' purpose to
show 'em you," said Bob, with an air of discontent, as Maggie
gave him the bag again, " a-taking 'em back i' this way. I am
a bit of a Do, you know ; but it is n'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 '11 get transported some day."
THE DOWNFALL. 259
"No, no; not me, Mr. Tom," said Bob, with an air of
cheerful confidence. " There 's no law again' flea-bites. If T
was n't to take a fool in now and then, l)e 'd niver get any
wisero But, lors ! hev a suvreign to buy you and Miss 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 thn
gold, and said, "No, indeed. Bob; thank you heartily; but I
can't take it." And Maggie, taking it between her lingers,
held it up to Bob, and said, more persuasively —
"Not now — but perhaps another time. If ever Tom or
my father wants help that you can give, we '11 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 — is n'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, INIiss, and good-luck, Mr. Tom, and
thank you for shaking hands wi' me, though you would n't take
the money."
Kezia's entrance, with very black looks, to inquire if she
should n't bring in the tea now, or whether the toast was to
get hardened to a brick, was a seasonable check on Bob's flux
of words, and hastened his parting bow.
CHAPTEK VII.
HOW A HEN TAKES TO STRATAGEM.
The days passed, and Mr. Tulliver showed, at least to the
eyes of the medical man, stronger and stronger symptoms of
a gradual return to his normal condition : the paralytic ol>
struction was, little by little, losing its tenacity, and the mind
was rising from under it with fitful struggles, like a living
creature making its way from under a great snowdrift, that
slides and slides again, and shuts up the newly made opening.
260 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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
towards its moment of most palpable change. The taxing-
masters had done their work like any respectable gunsmith
conscientiously preparing the musket, that, duly pointed by
a brave arm, will spoil a life or two. Allocaturs, filing of
bills in Chancery, decrees of sale, are legal chain-shot or bomb-
shells that can never hit a solitary mark, but must fall with
widespread shattering. So deeply inherent is it in this life
of ours that men have to suffer for each other's sins, so in-
evitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes
its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not
spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.
By the beginning of the second week in January the bills
were out advertising the sale, under a decree of Chancery, of
Mr. Tulliver's farming and other stock, to be followed by a
sale of the mill and land, held in the proper after-dinner hour
at the Golden Lion. The miller himself, unaware of the lapse
of time, fancied himself still in that first stage of his misfor-
tunes 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 chil-
dren were not without hope of an issue that would at least
save Mr. Tulliver from leaving the old spot, and seeking an
entirely strange life. For uncle Deane had been induced to
interest himself in this stage of the business. It would not,
he acknowledged, be a bad speculation for Guest & Co. to buy
Dorlcote Mill, and carry on the business, which was a good
one, and might be increased by the addition of steam-power ;
in which case Tulliver might be retained as manager. Still
Mr. Deane would say nothing decided about the matter : the
fact that Wakem held the mortgage on the land might put it
into his head to bid for the Avhole estate, and further, to out-
bid the cautious firm of Guest & Co., who did not carry on
THE DOWNFALL. 261
business on sentimental groundji. Mr. Deane was obliged to
tell Mrs. Tulliver so: lethin., to that cftect, when he rode over
to the mill to inspect the boo!:s r\ compan;- with Mrs. Glegg :
for she had observed that '•' "f Guest &:■ Co. would only think
about it, Mr. TuUivcr's father and grandfather haci been carry-
ing on Dorlcote Mill long befoi-^ the oil-mill of that firm had
been so much as thought ol ' Mr. Dcane, in reply, doubted
whether that was precisely the relation between the two mills
which would determine their value as investments. As for
uncle Glegg, the thing lay quite beyond his imagination ; the
good-natured man felt sincere pity for the Tulliver family,
but his money was all locked up in excellent mortgages, and
he could run no risk ; that would be unfair to his own rela-
tives ; but he had made up his mind that Tulliver should have
some new flannel waistcoats which he had himself renounced
in favor of a more elastic commodity, and that he would buy
Mrs. Tulliver a pound of tea now and then; it would be a
journey which his benevolence delighted in beforehand, to
carry the tea, and see her pleasure on being assured it was the
best black.
Still, it was clear that Mr. Deane was kindly disposed
towards 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 re-
spectable partner in a respectable firm, and perhaps Lucy's
anxious pitying questions about her poor cousins helped to
make uncle Deane more prompt in finding Tom a temporary
place in the warehouse, and in putting him in the way of get-
ting 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 untechnicai mind was the same thing as
b.ankruptcy. His father must not only be said to have " lost
his property," but to have "failed" — the word that carried
262 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
the worst obloquy to Tom's mind. For when the defendant's
claim for costs had been satisfied, there would remain the
friendly bill of Mr. Gore, and the deficiency at the bank, as
well as the other debts, which would make the assets shrink
into unequivocal disproportion ; " not more than ten or twelve
shillings in the pound," predicted Mr. Deane, in a decided
tone, tightening his lips; and the words fell on Tom like a
scalding liquid, leaving a continual smart.
He was sadly in want of something to keep up his spirits
a little in the unpleasant newness of his position — suddenly
transported from the easy carpeted ennui of study-hours at
Mr. Stelling's, and the busy idleness of castle-building in a
" last half " at school, to the companionship of sacks and
hides, and bawling men thundering down heavy weights at
his elbow. The first step towards getting on in the world was
a chill, dusty, noisy affair, and implied going without one's tea
in order to stay in St. Ogg's and have an evening lesson from
a one-armed elderly clerk, in a room smelling strongly of bad
tobacco. Tom's young pink-and-white face had its colors very
much deadened by the time he took off his hat at home, and
sat down with keen hunger to his supper. No wonder he was
a little cross if his mother or Maggie spoke to him.
But all this while Mrs. Tulliver was brooding over a scheme
by which she, and no one else, would avert the result most
to be dreaded, and prevent Wakem from entertaining the
purpose of bidding for the mill. Imagine a truly respectable
and amiable hen, by some portentous anomaly, taking to
reflection and inventing combinations by which she might
prevail on Hodge not to wring her neck, or send her and her
chicks to market : the result could hardly be other than much
cackling and fluttering. Mrs. Tulliver, seeing that everything
had gone wrong, had begun to think that she had been too
passive in life ; and that, if she had applied her mind to
business, and taken a strong resolution now and then, it would
have been all the better for her and her family. Nobody, it
appeared, had thought of going to speak to Wakem on this
business of the mill ; and yet, Mrs. Tulliver reflected, it would
have been quite the shortest method of securing the right end.
THE DOWNFALL. 263
It nroiiid have been of no use, to be sure, for Mr. Tulliver to
go. — even if he had been able and willing — for he had been
" going to law against Wakem " and abusing him for the last
ten years ; Wakem was always likely to have a spite against
him. And now that Mrs. Tulliver had come to the conclusion
that her husband was very much in the wrong to bring her
into this trouble, she was inclined to think that his opinion of
Wakem was wrong too. To be sure, Wakem had "put the
bailies in the house, and sold them up ; " but she supposed he
did that to please the man that lent Mr. Tulliver the money,
for a lawyer had more folks to please than one, and he was n't
likely to put Mr. Tulliver, who had gone to law with him,
above everybody else in the world. The attorney might be a
very reasonable man — why not ? He had married a Miss
Clint, and at the time Mrs. Tulliver had heard of that mar-
riage, the summer when she wore her blue satin spencer, and
had not yet any thoughts of Mr. Tulliver, she knew no harm
of Wakem. And certainly towards herself — whom he knew
to have been a Miss Dodson — it was out of all possibility
that he could entertain anything but goodwill, 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 dis-
posed 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
should n't he listen to her representations ? For she would
put the matter clearly before him, which had never been done
yet. And he would never go and bid for the mill on purpose
to spite her, an innocent woman, who thought it likely enough
that she had danced with him in their youth at Squire Dar-
leigh'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 can-
did attention to a more definite exposition of her project; still
264 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
less dared she mention the plan to Tom and Maggie, for " the
childi-en were always so against everything their mother said ; "
and Tom, she observed, was almost as much set against Wakem
as his father was. But this unusual concentration of thought
naturally gave Mrs. Tulliver an unusual power of device and
determination ; and a day or two before the sale, to be held at
the Golden Lion, when there was no longer any time to be lost,
she carried out her plan by a stratagem. There were pickles
in question — a large stock of pickles and ketchup which
Mrs. Tulliver possessed, and which Mr. Hyndmarsh the grocer
would certainly purchase if she could transact the business in
a personal interview, so she would walk with Tom to St. Ogg's
that morning: and when Tom urged that she might let the
pickles be, at present — he didn't like her to go about just yet
— she appeared so hurt at this conduct in her son, contradict-
ing her about pickles which she had made after the family re-
ceipts 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 towards Danish Street, where Mr.
Hyndmarsh retailed his grocery, not far from the offices of
Mr. Wakem.
That gentleman was not yet come to his office : would Mrs.
Tulliver sit down by the fire in his private room and wait for
him ? She had not long to wait before the punctual attorney
entered, knitting his brow with an examining glance at the stout
blond woman who rose, curtsying deferentially : — a tallish
man, with an aquiline nose and abundant iron-gray hair. You
have never seen Mr. Wakem before, and are possibly wonder-
ing 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
THE DOWNFALL. 265
them. It is still possible to believe that the attorney was not
more guilty towards him, than an ingenious machine, which
performs its work with much regularity, is guilty towards 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 aqui-
line nose, which offended Mr. Tulliver, there was not more
rascality than in the shape of his stiff shirt-collar, though this
too, along with his nose, might have become fraught with
damnatory meaning when once the rascality was ascertained.
" Mrs. Tulliver, I think ? " said Mr. Wakem.
"Yes, sir. Miss Elizabeth Dodson as was."
" Pray be seated. You have some business with me ? "
" Well, sir, yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, beginning to feel alarmed
at her own courage, now she was really in presence of the
formidable man, and reflecting that she had not settled with
herself how she should begin. Mr. Wakem felt in his waist-
coat-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 was n't brought up in that
way. I 'm sure you remember my father, sir, for he was close
friends with Squire Darleigh, and we allays went to the dances
there — the Miss Dodsons — nobody could be more looked on
— and justly, for there was four of us, and you're quite aware
as Mrs. Glegg and Mrs. Deane are my sisters. And as for
going to law and losing money, and having sales before you 're
dead, I never saw anything o' that before I was married, nor for
a long while after. And I 'm not to be answerable for my bad
luck i' marrying out o' my own family into one where the
goings-on was diiferent. 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."
2^6 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Mrs. Tulliver shook lier head a little, and looked at the hem
of her pocket-handkerchief.
" I 've no doubt of what you say, Mrs. Tulliver," said Mr.
Wakem, with cold politeness. " But you have some question
to ask me ? "
"Well, sir, yes. But that 's what I 've said to myself — I 've
said you 'd had some nat'ral feeling ; and as for my husband,
as has n't been himself for this two months, I 'm not a-defend-
ing him, in no way, for being so hot about th' erigation — not
but what there 's worse men, for he never wronged nobody of
a shilling nor a penny, not willingly — and as for his fieriness
and lawing, what could I do ? And him struck as if it was
with death when he got the letter as said you 'd the hold upo'
the land. But I can't believe but Vv^hat you '11 behave as a
gentleman."
"What does all this mean, Mrs. Tulliver ? " said Mr. Wakem,
rather sharply. " What do you want to ask me ? "
" Why, sir, if you '11 be so good," said Mrs. Tulliver, start-
ing a little, and speaking more hurriedly, " if you '11 be so
good not to buy the mill an' the land — the land would n't
so much matter, only my husband 'ull be like mad at your
having it."
Something like a new thought flashed across Mr. Wakem's
face as he said, " Who told you I meant to buy it ? "
" Why, sir, it 's none o' my inventing, and I should never
ha' thought of it ; for my husband, as ought to know about the
law, he allays used to say as lawyers had never no call to biiy
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, open-
ing his desk, and moving things about, with the accompani-
ment of an almost inaudible whistle.
" Why, sir, it was IVIr. 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 did n't bid for
it and raise the price. And it 'ud be such a thing for my hus-
THE DOWNFALL. 267
band to stay where he is, if he could get his living : for it was
his father's before him, the mill was, and his grandfather built
it, though I was n't fond o' the noise of it, when first I was
married, for there was no mills in our family — not the Dod-
sons' — and if I 'd known as the mills had so much to do with
the law, it would n't have been me as 'ud have been the first
Dodson to marry one ; but I went into it blindfold, that I did,
erigation and everything."
" What ! Guest & Co. would keep the mill in their own
hands, I suppose, and j^ay your husband wages ? "
" Oh dear, sir, it 's hard to think of," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,
a little tear making its way, "as my husband should take
wage. But it 'ud look more like what used to be, to stay at
the mill than to go anywhere else : and if you '11 only think —
if you was to bid for the mill and buy it, my husband might be
struck worse than he was before, and niver get better again as
he 's getting now."
" Well, but if I bought the mill, and allowed your husband
to act as my manager in the same way, how then ? " said Mr.
Wakem.
" Oh, sir, I doubt he could niver be got to do it, not if the
very mill stood still to beg and pray of him. For your name 's
like poison to him, it 's so as never was ; and he looks upon it
as you 've been the ruin of him all along, ever since you set the
law on him about the road through the meadow — that 's eight
year ago, and he's been going on ever since — as I've allays
told him he was wrong — "
'' He 's a pig-headed, foul-mouthed fool ! " burst out Mr.
Wakem, forgetting himself.
" Oh dear, sir ! " said Mrs. Tulliver, frightened at a result so
different from the one she had fixed her mind on ; "1 would n'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 would n'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 tJien . . . not as I 'm wishing you any ill-luck,
sir, for I forgot to tell you as I remember your wedding as if
268 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
it was yesterday — Mrs. Wakem was a Miss Clint, I know that
— and my boy, as there is n't a nicer, handsomer, straighter
boy nowhere, went to school with your son — "
Mr. Wakem rose, opened the door, and called to one of his
clerks.
" You must excuse me for interrupting you, Mrs. Tulliver ;
I have business that must be attended to ; and I think there is
nothing more necessary to be said."
" But if you would bear it in mind, sir," said Mrs. Tulliver,
rising, " and not run against me and my children ; and I 'm not
denying Mr. Tulliver 's been in the wrong, but he 's been pun-
ished enough, and there 's worse men, for it 's been giving to
other folks has been his fault. He 's done nobody any harm
but himself and his family — the more 's the pity — and I go
and look at the bare shelves every day, and think where all my
things used to stand."
" Yes, yes, I '11 bear it in mind," said Mr. Wakem, hastily,
looking towards the open door.
" And if you 'd please not to say as I 've been to speak to
you, for my son 'ud be very angry with me for demeaning
myself, I know he would, and I 've trouble enough without
being scolded by my children."
Poor Mrs. Tulliver's voice trembled a little, and she could
make no answer to the attorney's " good morning," but curtsied
and walked out in silence.
" Which dav is it that Dorlcote Mill is to be sold ? Where 's
the bill ? " said Mr. Wakem to his clerk when they were
alone.
-' Next Friday is the day : Friday at six o'clock."
" Oh, just run to Winship's the auctioneer, and see if he 's at
home. I have some business for him : ask him to come up."
Although, when Mr. Wakem entered hi? office that morning,
he had had no intention of purchasing Dorlcote Mill, his mind
was already made up : Mrs. Tulliver had suggested to him sev-
eral 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.
THE DOWNFALL. 269
To suppose that Wakem had the same sort of inveterate
hatred towards Tulliver, that Tulliver had towards him, would
be like supposing that a pike and a roach can look at each other
from a similar point of view. The roach necessarily abhors the
mode in which the pike gets his living, and the pike is likely to
think nothing further even of the most indignant roach than
that he is excellent good eating; it could only be when the
roach choked him that the pike could entertain a strong per-
sonal animosity. If Mr. Tulliver had ever seriously injured
or thwarted the attorney, Wakem would not have refused him
the distinction of being a special object of his vindictiveness.
But when Mr. Tulliver called Wakem a rascal at the market
dinner-table, the attorney's clients were not a whit inclined to
withdraw their business from him ; and if, when Wakem him
self happened to be present, some jocose cattle-feeder, stimulated
by opportunity and brandy, made a thrust at him by alluding
to old ladies' wills, he maintained perfect sang f mid, and knew
quite well that the majority of substantial men then present
were perfectly contented with the fact that "Wakem was
Wakem ; " that is to say, a man who always knew the stepping-
stones that would carry him through very muddy bits of prac-
tice. A man who had made a large fortune, had a handsome
house among the trees at Tofton, and decidedly the finest
stock of port-wine in the neighborhood of St, Ogg's, was likely
to feel himself on a level with public opinion. And I am not
sure that even honest Mr. Tulliver himself, with his general
view of law as a cockpit, might not, under opposite circum-
stances, have seen a fine appropriateness in the truth that
" Wakem was Wakem ; " since I have understood from per-
sons versed in history, that mankind is not disposed to look
narrowly into the conduct of great victors when their victory
is on the right side. Tulliver, then, could be no obstruction to
Wakem ; on the contrary, he was a poor devil whom the law-
yer had defeated several times — a hot-tempered fellow, who
would always give you a handle against him. Wakem's con-
science was not uneasy because he had used a few tricks against
the miller : why should he hate that unsuccessful plaintiff —
that pitiable, furious bull entangled in the meshes of a net ?
270 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 Yellow
men who sell their country, and are the demons of private
life ; but he might not be sorry, if law and opportunity favored,
to kick that Blue editor to a deeper shade of his favorite color.
Prosperous men take a little vengeance now and then, as they
take a diversion, when it comes easily in their way, and is no
hindrance to business ; and such small unimpassioned revenges
have an enormous effect in life, running through all degrees
of pleasant infliction, blocking the fit men out of places, and
blackening characters in unpremeditated talk. Still more, to
see people who have been only insignificantly offensive to us,
reduced in life and humilitated without any special efforts of
ours, is apt to have a soothing, flattering influence : Provi-
dence, or some other prince of this world, it appears, has un-
dertaken the task of retribution for us ; and really, by an
agreeable constitution of things, our enemies somehow donH
prosper.
Wakem was not without this parenthetic vindictiveness to-
wards the uncomplimentary miller ; and now Mrs, Tulliver
had put the notion into his head, it presented itself to him as
a pleasure to do the very thing that would cause Mr. Tulliver
the most deadly mortification, — and a pleasure of a complex
kind, not made up of crude malice, but mingling with it the
relish of self-approbation. To see an enemy humiliated gives
a certain contentment, but this is jejune compared with the
highly blent satisfaction of seeing him humiliated by your
benevolent action or concession on his behalf. That is a sort
of revenge which falls into the scale of virtue, and Wakem
was not without an intention of keeping that scale respectably
filled. He had once had the pleasure of putting an old enemy
of his into one of the St. Ogg's almshouses, 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
THE DOWNFALL. 271
servant. Such things give a completeness to prosperity, and
contribute elements of agreeable consciousness that are not
dreamed of by that short-sighted, over-heated vindictiveness,
which goes out of its way to wreak itself in direct injury. And
Tulliver, with his rough tongue filed by a sense of obligation,
would make a better servant than any chance-fellow who was
cap-in-hand for a situation. Tulliver was known to be a man
of proud honesty, and Wakem was too acute not to believe in
the existence of honesty. He was given to observing individ-
uals, not to judging of them according to maxims, and no one
knew better than he that all men were not like himself. Be-
sides, he intended to overlook the whole business of land and
mill pretty closely : he was fond of these practical rural matters.
But there were good reasons for purchasing Dorlcote Mill, quite
apart from any benevolent vengeance on the miller. It was
really a capital investment ; besides, Guest & Co. were going
to bid for it. Mr. Guest and Mr. Wakem were on friendly
dining terms, and the attorney liked to predominate over a
ship-owner and mill-owner who was a little too loud in the
town affairs as well as in his table-talk. For Wakem was not
a mere man of business : he was considered a pleasant fellow
in the upper circles of St. Ogg's — chatted amusingly over his
port-wine, did a little amateur farming, and had certainly been
an excellent husband and father : at church, when he went
there, he sat under the handsomest of mural monuments
erected to the memory of his wife. Most men would have
married again under his circumstances, but he was said to be
more tender to his deformed son than most men were to their
best-shapen offspring. Not that ]Mr. Wakem had not other
sons besides Philip ; but towards them he held only a chiaros-
curo parentage, and provided for them in a grade of life duly
beneath his own. In this fact, indeed, there lay the clenching
motive to the purchase of Dorlcote Mill. While ]Mrs. Tulliver
was talking, it had occurred to the rapid-m.inded lawyer, among
all the other circumstances of the case, that this purchase
would, in a few years to come, furnish a highly suitable posi-
tion for a certain favorite lad whom he meant to bring on in
the world.
272 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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-iishers fail in preparing their bait
60 as to make it alluring iu the right quarter, for want of a
due acquaintance with the subjectivity of iishes.
CHAPTER VIII.
DAYLIGHT ON THE WRECK.
It was a clear frosty January day on which Mr. Tulliver
first came down-stairs : the bright sun on the chestnut boughs
and the roofs opposite his window had made him impatiently
declare that he would be caged up no longer: he thought
everywhere would be more cheery under this sunshine than
his bedroom; for he knew nothing of the bareness below,
which made the flood of sunshine importunate, as if it had an
unfeeling pleasure in showing the empty places, and the marks
where well-known objects once had been. The impression on
his mind that it was but yesterday when he received the letter
from Mr. Gore was so continually implied in his talk, and the
attempts to convey to him the idea that many weeks had
passed and much had happened since then, had been so soon
swept away by recurrent forgetfulness, that even Mr. Turnbull
had begun to despair of preparing him to meet the facts by
previous knowledge. The full sense of the present could only
be imparted gradually by new experience — not by mere
words, which must remain weaker than the impressions left
by the old experience. This resolution to come 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 down-stairs : and Tom com-
plied, though with an intense inward shrinking from the pain-
ful scene. The hearts of all three had been more deeply
dejected than ever during the last few days. For Guest & Co.
THE DOWNFALL. 273
had not bought the mill : both mill and land had been knocked
down to Wakeni, who had been over the premises, and had
laid before Mr. Deane and Mr. Glegg, in Mrs. Tulliver's pres-
ence, his willingness to employ Mr. Tulliver, in case of his
recovery, as a manager of the business. This proposition had
occasioned much family debating. Uncles and aunts were
almost unanimously of opinion that such an offer ought not to
be rejected when there was nothing in the way but a feeling
in Mr. Tulliver's mind, which, as neither aunts nor uncles
shared it, was regarded as entirely unreasonable and childish —
indeed, as a transferring towards 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 evi-
dent descent into pauperism which makes it annoying to re-
spectable people to meet the degraded member of the family
by the wayside. Mr. Tulliver, Mrs. Glegg considered, must
be made to feel, when he came to his right mind, that he could
never humble himself enough ; for that had come which she
had always foreseen would come of his insolence in time past
" to them as were the best friends he 'd got to look to." Mr.
Glegg and Mr. Deane were less stern in their views, but they
both of them thought Tulliver had done enough harm by his
hot-tempered crotchets, and ought to put them out of the ques-
tion when a livelihood was offered him : Wakem showed a
right feeling about the matter — he had no grudge against
Tulliver. Tom had protested against entertaining the proposi-
tion : he should n't like his father to be under Wakem ; he
thought it would look mean-spirited ; but his mother's main
distress was the utter impossibility of ever " turning Mr. Tul-
liver round about Wakem," or getting him to hear reason —
no, they would all have to go and live in a pigsty on purpose
to spite Wakem, who spoke "so as nobody could be fairer."
Indeed, Mrs. Tulliver's mind was reduced to such confusion by
living in this strange medium of unaccountable sorrow, against
which she continually appealed by asking, "Oh dear, what
VOL II. 18
274 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
have I done to deserve worse than other women ? " that
Maggie began to suspect her poor mother's wits were quite
going.
" Tom," she said, when they were out of their father's room
together, " we viust try to make father understand a little of
what has happened before lie goes down-stairs. But we must
get my mother away. She will say something that will do
harm. Ask Kezia to fetch her down, and keep her engaged
with something in the kitchen."
Kezia was equal to the task. Having declared her intention
of staying till the master could get about again, '' wage or no
wage," she had found a certain recompense in keeping a strong
hand over her mistress, scolding her for '^moithering" herself,
and going about all day without changing her cap, and looking
as if she was "mushed." Altogether, this time of trouble was
rather a Saturnalian time to Kezia : she could scold her betters
with unreproved freedom. On this particular occasion there
were drying clothes to be fetched in : she wished to know if
one pair of hands could do everything indoors and out, and
observed that she should have thought it would be good for
Mrs. Tulliver to put on her bonnet, and get a breath of fresh
air by doing that needful piece of work. Poor Mrs. Tulliver
■went submissively down-stairs : to be ordered about by a ser-
vant was the last remnant of her household dignities — she
would soon have no servant to scold her. Mr. Tulliver was
resting in his chair a little after the fatigue of dressing, and
Maggie and Tom were seated near him, when Luke entered to
ask if he should help master down-stairs.
"Ay, ay, Luke, stop a bit, sit down," said Mr. Tulliver,
pointing his stick towards a chair, and looking at him with
that pursuant gaze Avhich convalescent persons often have
for those who have tended them, reminding one of an infant
gazing about after its nurse. For Luke had been a constant
night-watcher by his master's bed.
"How's the water now, eh, Luke?" said Mr. Tulliver.
" Dix has n'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,
THE DOWNFALL. 275
now Eiley '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 some-
thing — 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 pain-
ful 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 mone^r for him ; and he left
his daughters badly off — one of them is under-teacher at Miss
Firniss's, where I 've been to school, you know — "
" Ah ? " said her father, doubtfully, still looking in her
face. But as soon as Tom began to speak he turned to look
at him with the same inquiring glances, as if he were rather
surprised at the presence of these two young people. When-
ever his mind was wandering in the far past, he fell into this
oblivion of their actual faces : they were not those of the lad
and the little wench who belonged to that past.
" It 's a long while since you had the dispute with Dix,
father," said Tom. " I remember your talking about it three
years ago, before I went to school at Mr. Stelling's. I 've
been at school there three years ; don't you remember ? "
' Mr. Tulliver threw himself backward again, losing the child-
like outward glance under a rush of new ideas, which diverted
him from external impressions.
"Ay, ay," he said, after a minnte or two, "I've paid a deal
o' money ... I was determined my son should have a good
eddication : I 'd none myself, and I 've felt the miss of it.
And he '11 want no other fortin : that 's what I say ... if
Wakem was to get the better of me again — "
276 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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
■^eeks — 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
need n't trouble your mind about business until you are quite
well : everything is settled about that for the present — about
the mill and the land and the debts."
" What 's settled, then ? " said his father, angrily.
"Don't you take on too much 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-working
men whose lives have been spent in servitude, that sense of
natural fitness in rank which made his master's downfall a
tragedy to him. He was urged, in his slow way, to say some-
thing 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 pounda
THE DOWNFALL. 277
out of the children's money, were the most ready to his tongue.
They were just the words to lay the most painful hold on his
master's bewildered mind,
" Paid everybody ? " he said, with vehement agitation, his
face flushing, and his eye lighting up. " Why . . . what . . .
have they made me a bankrupt ? "
" Oh father, dear father ! " said Maggie, who thought that
terrible word really represented the fact; ''bear it well —
because we love you — your children will always love you.
Tom will pay them all ; he says he will, when he 's a man."
She felt her father beginning to tremble — his voice trem-
bled 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 must n't
throw it at your father ; the raskills have been too many
for him. I 've given you a good eddication — that '11 start
you."
Something in his throat half choked the last words ; the
flush which had alarmed his children because it had so often
preceded a recurrence of paralysis, had subsided, and his face
looked pale and tremulous. Tom said nothing : he was still
struggling against his inclination to rush away. His father
remained quiet a minute or two, but his mind did not seem to
be wandering again.
" Have they sold me up, then ? " he said, more 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 oif any
question leading to the fact that Wakem was the purchaser.
" You must not be surprised to see the room look very bare
down-stairs, father," said Maggie; "but rhere 's your chair
and the bureau — thet/'re not gone."
278 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Let us go — help me down, Luke — I '11 go and see every-
thing," said Mr. Tulliver, leaning on his stick, and stretching
out his other hand towards 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 "11 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 fust come on."
Maggie ran on before to see that all was right in the dreary
parlor, where the fire, dulled by the frosty sunshine, seemed
part of the general shabbiness. She turned her father's chair,
and pushed aside the table to make an easy way for him, and
then stood with a beating heart to see him enter and look
round for the first time. Tom advanced before him, carrying
the leg-rest, and stood beside Maggie on the hearth. Of those
two young hearts Tom's suffered the most unmixed pain, for
Maggie, with all her keen susceptibility, yet felt as if the
sorrow made larger room for her love to flow in, and gave
breathing-space to her passionate nature. No true boy feels
that : he would rather go and slay the Nemeau lion, or per-
form any round of heroic labors, than endure perpetual
appeals to his pity, for evils over which he can make no
conquest.
Mr. Tulliver paused just inside the door, resting on Luke,
and looking round him at all the bare places, which for him
were filled with the shadows of departed objects — the daily
companions of his life. His faculties seemed to be renewing
their strength from getting a footing on this demonstration of
the senses.
"Ah ! " he said, slowly, moving towards 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,
THE DOWNFALL. 279
and while he was reading with slowly travelling eyes, Mrs.
Tulliver entered the room, but stood iu mute surprise to find
her llusband 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 was n't a long-lived family — we 're oui-
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 have n'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 his
side and looking at the page.
Her husband fixed his eyes earnestly on her face.
"Poor Bessy," he said, "you was a pretty lass then —
everybody said so — and I used to think you kept your good
looks rarely. But you 're sorely aged . . . don't you bear me
ill-will ... I meant to do well by you ... we promised one
another for better or for worse — "
" But I never thought it 'ud be so for worse as this," said
poor Mrs. Tulliver, with the strange scared look that had come
over her of late ; " and my poor father gave me away . . .
and to come on so all at once — "
" Oh, mother," said Maggie, " don't talk in that way."
"No, I know you won't let your poor mother speak . . .
that 's been the way all my life . . . your father never minded
what I said ... it 'ud have been o' no use for me to beg and
pray . . . and it 'ud be no use now, not if I was to go down o'
my hands and knees — "
280 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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 '5, any-
thing left as I could do to make you amends, I would n'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 busi-
ness, 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 village . . . and
me and my children brought down to that . . . and all because
you must set vcu^ 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
■vorld 's too many for me ...I'm nought but a bankrupt —
it 's no use standing up for anything now."
"Father," said Tom, "I don't agree with my mother or my
uncles, and I don't think you ought to submit to be under
Wakem. I get a pound a-week now, and you can find 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."
THE DOWNFALL. 281
CHAPTER IX.
AN ITEM ADDED TO THE FAMILY REGISTER.
That first moment of renunciation and submission was
followed by days of violent struggle in the miller's mind, as
the gradual access of bodily strength brought with it increas-
ing ability to embrace in one view all the conflicting condi-
tions under which he found himself. Feeble limbs easily
resign themselves to be tethered, and when we are subdued
by sickness it seems possible to us to fulfil pledges which the
old vigor comes back and breaks. There were times when
poor Tulliver thought the fulfilment of his promise to Bessy
was something quite too hard for human nature : he had
promised her without knowing what she was going to say —
she might as well have asked him to carry a ton weight on his
back. But again, there were many feelings arguing on her
side, besides the sense that life had been made hard to her by
having married him. He saw a possibility, by much pinching,
of saving money out of his salary towards paying a second
dividend to his creditors, and it would not be easy elsewhere to
get a situation such as he could fill. He had led an easy life,
ordering much and working little, and had no aptitude for any
new business. He must perhaps take to day -labor, and his wife
must have help from her sisters — a prospect doubly bitter to
him, now they had let all Bessy's precious things be sold, proba-
bly because they liked to set her against him, by making her
feel that he had brought her to that pass. He listened to their
admonitory talk, when they came to urge on him what he was
bound to do for poor Bessy's sake, with averted eyes, that
every now and then flashed on them furtively when their backs
were turned. Nothing but the dread of needing their help
could have made it an easier alternative to take their advice.
But the strongest influence of all was the love of the old
premises where he had run about when he was a boy, just as
Tom had done after him. The Tullivers had lived on this
'2S2 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
epot for generations, and lie had sat listening on a low stool
on winter evenings while his father talked of the old half-
timbered mill that had been there before the last great floods
which damaged it so that his grandfather pulled it down and
built the new one. It was when he got able to walk about
and look at all the old objects, that he felt the strain of this
clinging affection for the old home as part of his life, part of
himself. He could n't bear to think of himself living on any
other spot than this, where he knew the sound of every gate
and door, and felt that the shape and color of every roof and
weather-stain and broken hillock was good, because his grow-
ing senses had been fed on them. Our instructed vagrancy,
which has hardly time to linger by the hedgerows, but runs
away early to the tropics, and is at home with palms and
banyans, — which is nourished on books of travel, and stretches
the theatre of its imagination to the Zambesi, — can hardly
get a dim notion of what an old-fashioned man like Tulliver
felt for this spot, where all his memories centred, and where
life seemed like a familiar smooth-handled tool that the
fingers clutch with loving ease. And just now he was living
in that freshened memory of the far-off time which comes to
us in the passive hours of recovery from sickness.
" Ay, Luke," he said, one afternoon, as he stood looking
over the orchard gate, "I remember the day they planted
those apple-trees. My father was a huge man for planting —
it was like a merry-making to him to get a cart full o' young
trees — and I used to stand i' the cold with him, and follow
him about like a dog."
Then he turned round, and, leaning against the gate-post,
looked at the opposite buildings.
"The old mill 'ud miss me, I think, Luke. There 's a story
as when the mill changes hands, the river 's angry — I 've
heard my father say it many a time. There's no telling
whether there may n't be summat i?i the story, for this is a
puzzling world, and Old Harry 's got a finger in it — it 's been
too many for me, I know."
" Ay, sir," said Luke, with soothing sympathy, " what wi'
the rust on the wheat, an' the firin' o' the ricks an' that, as
THE DOWNFALL. 2S3
I've seen i' my time — things often looks comical: there's
the bacon fat wi' our last pig runs away like butter it
ieaves nought but a scratchin'."
"It's just as if it was yesterday, now," Mr. Tulliver went
on, "when my father began the malting. I remember, the
day they finished the malt-house, I thought summat great was
to come of it ; for we 'd a plum-pudding that day and a bit of
a feast, and I said to my mother — she was a fine dark-eyed
woman, my mother was — the little wench 'ull be as like her
as two peas." — Here Mr. Tulliver put his stick between his
legs, and took out his snuff-box, for the greater enjoyment
of this anecdote, which dropped from him in fragments, as if
he every other moment lost narration in vision. " I was a
little chap no higher much than my mother's knee — she was
sore fond of us children, Gritty and me — and so I said to
her, ' Mother,' I said, ' shall we have plum-pudding every day
because o' the malt-house ? ' She used to tell me o' that till
her dying day. She was but a young woman when she died,
my mother was. But it 's forty good year since they finished
the malt-house, and it is n't many days out of 'em all, as I
have n't looked out into the yard there, the first thing in the
morning — all weathers, from year's end to year's end. I
should go off my head in a new place. I should be like as if
I 'd lost my way. It 's all hard, whichever way I look at it —
the harness 'ull gall me — but it 'ud be summat to draw along
the old road, instead of a new un."
" Ay, sir," said Luke, '' you 'd be a deal better here nor in
some new place. I can't abide new places mysen : things is
allays awk'ard — narrow-wheeled waggins, belike, and the stiles
all another sort, an' oat-cake i' some places, tow'rt th' head o'
the Floss, there. It's poor work, changing your country-side."
" But I doubt, Luke, they '11 be for getting rid o' Ben, and
making you do with a lad — and I must help a bit wi' the
mill. You '11 have a worse place."
" Ne'er mind, sir," said Luke, " I shan'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
284 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
abide new victual nor new faces, / can't — you niver know
but what they '11 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 afterwards 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 goiug forward in her father's mind.
Suddenly he took up the poker and broke the large coal fiercely.
" Dear heart, Mr. Tulliver, what can you be thinking of ? "
said his wife, looking up in alarm: "it's very wasteful,
breaking the coal, and we've got hardly any large coal left,
and I don't know where the rest is to come from."
" I don't think you 're quite so well to-night, are you,
father ? " said Maggie ; " you seem uneasy."
" Why, how is it Tom does n't come ? " said Mr. Tulliver,
impatiently.
" Dear heart ! is it time ? I must go and get his supper," said
Mrs. Tulliver, laying down her knitting, and leaving the room.
" It 's nigh upon half-past eight," said Mr. Tulliver. " He'll
be here soon. Go, go and get the big Bible, and open it at the
beginning, where everything's set down. And get the pen
and ink."
Maggie obeyed, wondering : but her father gave no further
orders, and only sat listening for Tom's footfall on the gravel,
apparently irritated by the wind, which had risen, and was roar-
ing 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 '11 open it."
THE DOWNFALL. 285
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
Baid, 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 ; " be
must come into the parlor first."
Tom entered with his usual saddened evening face, but his
eyes fell immediately on the open Bible and the inkstand, and
he glanced with a look of anxious surprise at his father, who
was saying —
" Come, come, you 're late — I want you."
" Is there anything the matter, father ? " said Tom.
"You sit down — all of you," said Mr. Tulliver, peremp-
torily. " 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 '11 be as good as my
word to you. There '11 be the same grave made for us to lie
down in, and we must n't be bearing one another ill-will, I '11
stop in the old place, and I '11 serve under Wakem — and I '11
serve him like an honest man : there 's no Tulliver but what 's
honest, mind that, Tom " — here his voice rose : " they '11 have
it to throw up against me as I paid a dividend — but it was n'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 '11 put
my neck in harness — for you 've a right to say as I 've brought
you into trouble, Bessy — and I '11 serve him as honest as if he
was no raskill : I 'm an honest man, though I shall never hold my
head up no more — I 'm a tree as is broke — a tree as is broke."
He paused, and looked on the ground. Then suddenly 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 props up the
raskills — he 's been at the bottom of everything — but he 's a
fine gentleman — I know, I know. I should ii't ha' gone to
law, they say. But who made it so as there was no arbitratin',
236 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
and no justice to be got ? It signifies nothing to him — I
knov that ; he 's one o' them fine gentlemen as get money by
doing business for poorer folks, and when he 's made beggars
of 'em he '11 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 '11 maybe come a time when you may make him feel —
it '11 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 is n'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
Jolin Wakem, the man as had helped to ruin him, because I 'd
promised my wife to make her what amends I could for her
trouble, and because I wanted to die in th' old place where T
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 '11 serve him honest, I wish evil may
befall him. Write that."
There was a dead silence as Tom's pen moved along the paper :
Mrs. Tulliver looked scared, and Maggie trembled like a leaf.
"Now let me hear what you've wrote," said Mr. Tulliver.
Tom read aloud, slowly.
" Now write — write as you'll remember what Wakem 's done
to your father, and you'll make him and his feel it, if ever the
day comes. And sign your name Thomas Tulliver."
" Oh no, father, dear father ! " said Maggie, almost choked
with fear. " You should n't make Tom Avrite that."
" Be q^uiet, Maggie ! " said Tom. "I shall write it."
BOOK IV.
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION.
CHAPTER I.
A VARIATION OF PROTESTANTISM UNKNOWN TO BOSSUET.
Journeying down the Rhone on a summer's day, you have
perhaps felt the sunshine made dreary by those ruined vil-
lages which stud the banks in certain parts of its course, tell-
ing how the swift river once rose, like an angry, destroying
god, sweeping down the feeble generations whose breath is
in their nostrils, and making their dwellings a desolation.
Strange contrast, you may have thought, between the effect
produced on us by these dismal remnants of commonplace
houses, which in their best days were but the sign of a sordid
life, belonging in all its details to our own vulgar era ; and
the effect produced by those ruins on the castled Rhine, which
have crumbled and mellowed into such harmony with the
green and rocky steeps, that they seem to have a natural fit-
ness, like the mountain-pine : nay, even in the day when they
were built they must have had this fitness, as if they had been
raised by an earth-born race, who had inherited from their
mighty parent a sublime instinct of form. And that was a
day of romance ! If those robber-barons were somewhat grim
and drunken ogres, they had a certain grandeur of the wild
beast in them — they were forest boars with tusks, tearing
and rending, not the ordinary domestic grunter ; they repre-
sented the demon forces forever in collision with beauty, virtue,
and the gentle uses of life ; they made a fine contrast in the
picture with the wandering minstrel, the soft-lipped princess,
the pious recluse, and the timid Israelite. That was a time of
288 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
color, when the sunlight fell on glanciug steel and floating
banners ; a time of adventure and fierce struggle — nay, of
living, religious art and religious enthusiasm ; for were not
cathedrals built in those days, and did not great emperors
leave their Western palaces to die before the infidel strong-
holds 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 epoch. But these dead-tinted, hollowed-eyed, angular
skeletons or villages on the Rhone oppress me with the feeling
that human life — very much of it — is a narrow, ugly, grovel-
ling existence, which even calamity does not elevate, but rather
tends to exhibit in all its bare vulgarity of conception ; and 1
have a cruel conviction that the lives these ruins are the traces
of, were part of a gross sum of obscure vitality, that will be
swept into the same oblivion with the generations of ants and
beavers.
Perhaps something akin to this oppressive feeling may have
weighed upon you in watching this old-fashioned family life
on the banks of the Floss, which even sorrow hardly suffices
to lift above the level of the tragi-comic. It is a sordid life,
you say, this of the Tullivers and Dodsons — irradiated by
no sublime principles, no romantic visions, no active, self-
renouncing faith — moved by none of those wild, uncontrol-
lable passions which create the dark shadows of misery and
crime — without that primitive rough simplicity of wants,
that hard submissive ill-paid toil, that childlike spelling-out of
what nature has written, which gives its poetry to peasant life.
Here, one has conventional worldly notions and habits with-
out instruction and without polish — surely the most prosaic
form of human life : proud respectability in a gig of unfash-
ionable build : worldliness without side-dishes. Observing
these people narrowly, even when the iron hand of misfortune
has shaken them from their unquestioning hold on the world,
one sees little trace of religion, still less of a distinctively
Christian creed. Their belief in the Unseen, so far as it
manifests itself at all, seems to be rather of a pagan kind ;
their moral notions, though held with strong tenacity, seem
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 289
to have no standard beyond hereditary custom. You could
not live among such people ; you are stifled for want of an
outlet towards something beautiful, great, or noble ; you are
irritated with these dull men and women, as a kind of popu-
lation out of keeping with the earth on which they live —
with this rich plain where the great river flows forever on-
ward, and links the small pulse of the old English town with
the beatings of the world's mighty heart. A vigorous super-
stition, that lashes its gods or lashes its own back, seems to be
more congruous with the mystery of the human lot, than the
mental condition of these emmet-like Dodsons and Tullivers.
I share with you this sense of oppressive narrowness ; but
it is necessary that we should feel it, if we care to understand
how it acted on the lives of Tom and Maggie — how it has
acted on young natures in many generations, that in the on-
ward tendency of human things have risen above the mental
level of the generation before them, to which they have been
nevertheless tied by the strongest fibres of their hearts. The
suffering, whether of martyr or victim, which belongs to everj
historical advance of mankind, is represented in this way in
every town, and by hundreds of obscure hearths ; and we need
not shrink from this comparison of small things with great ;
for does not science tell us that its highest striving is after
the ascertainment of a unity which shall bind the smallest
things with the greatest ? In natural science, I have under-
derstood, there is nothing petty to the mind that has a large
vision of relations, and to which every single object suggests
a vast sum of conditions. It is surely the same with the
observation of human life.
Certainly the religious and moral ideas of the Dodsons and
Tullivers were of too specific a kind to be arrived at 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
VOL. n. 19
290 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
of dried tulip-petals, which had been distributed quite impar-
tially, without preference for the historical, devotional, oi
doctrinal. Their religion was of a simple, semi-pagan kind,
but there was no heresy in it — if heresy properly means
choice — for they did n't know there was any other religion,
except that of chapel-goers, which appeared to run in families,
like asthma. How should they know ? The vicar of their
pleasant rural parish was not a cOiitroversialist, but a good
hand at whist, and one who had a joke always ready for a
blooming female parishioner. The religion of the Dodsons
consisted in revering whatever was customary and respecta-
ble : it was necessary to be baptized, else one could not be
buried in the churchyard, and to take the sacrament before
death as a security against more dimly understood perils ; but
it was of equal necessity to have the proper pall-bearers and
well-cured hams at one's funeral, and to leave an unimpeach-
able will. A Dodson would not be taxed with the omission
of anything that was becoming, or that belonged to that eter-
nal fitness of things which was plainly indicated in the prac-
tice of the most substantial parishioners, and in the family
traditions — such as, obedience to parents, faithfulness to kin-
dred, 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 com-
modities for the market, and the general preference for what-
ever was home-made. The Dodsons were a very proud race,
and their pride lay in the utter frustration of all desire to
tax them with a breach of traditional duty or propriety. A
wholesome pride in many respects, since it identified honor
with perfect integrity, thoroughness of work, and faithfulness
to admitted rules : and society owes some worthy qualities in
many of her members to mothers of the Dodson class, who
made their butter and their fromenty well, and would have
felt disgraced to make it otherwise. To be honest and poor
was never a Dodson motto, still less to seem rich though being
poor ; rather, the family badge was to be honest and rich ;
and not only rich, but richer than was supposed. To live re-
spected; and have the proper bearers at your funeral, was an
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 291
achievement of the ends of existence that would be entirely
nullified if, on the reading of your will, you sank in the opin-
ion 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 towards kindred. The right
thing was to correct them severely, if they were other than a
credit to the family, but still not to alienate from them the
smallest rightful share in the family 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 for-
sake 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 Ealph Tulliver, a wonderfully clever fellow,
who had ruined himself. It is likely enough that the clever
Ralph was a high liver, rode spirited horses, and was very
decidedly of his own opinion. On the other hand, nobody had
ever heard of a Dodson who had ruined himself : it was not
the way of that family.
If such were the views of life on which the Dodsons and
Tullivers had been reared in the praiseworthy past of Pitt
and high prices, you will infer from what you already know
concerniug the state of society in St. Ogg's, that there had
been no highly modifying influence to act on them in their
maturer life. It was still possible, even in that later time of
anti-Catholic preaching, for people to hold many pagan ideas,
and believe themselves good church-people notwithstanding;
so we need hardly feel any surprise at the fact that Mr. 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
292 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
whicli Dorlcote Mill belonged : lie was a man of excellent
family, an irreproachable bachelor, of elegant pursuits, — had
taken honors, and held a fellowship. Mr. Tulliver regarded
him with dutiful respect, as he did everything else belonging
to the church-service ; but he considered that church was one
thing and common sense another, and he wanted nobody to
tell him what common sense was. Certain seeds which are
required to find a nidus for themselves under unfavorable cir-
cumstances, have been supplied by nature with an apparatus
of hooks, so that they will get a hold on very unreceptive sur-
faces. The spiritual seed which had been scattered over Mr.
Tulliver had apparently been destitute of any corresponding
provision, and had slipped oif to the winds again, from a total
absence of hooks.
CHAPTER II.
THE TORN NEST IS PIERCED BY THE THORNS.
There is something sustaining in the very agitation that
accompanies the first shocks of trouble, just as an acute pain
is often a stimulus, and produces an excitement which is 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 intensit}'^ 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 exist-
ence, which shall give to endurance the nature of satisfaction.
This time of utmost need was come to Maggie, with her
short span of thirteen years. To the usual precocity of the
girl, she added that early experience of struggle, of conflict
between the inward impulse and outward fact, which is the
lot of every imaginative and passionate nature ; and the years
since she hammered the nails into her wooden Fetish among
the worm-eaten shelves of the attic, had been filled with so
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 293
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 aelf-
command which were the qualities that made Tom manly in
the midst of his intellectual boyishness. And now her lot was
beginning to have a still, sad monotony, which threw her more
than ever on her inward self. Her father was able to attend
to business again, his affairs were settled, and he was acting
as Wakem's manager on the old spot. Tom went to and fro
every morning and evening, and became more and more silent
in the short intervals at home : what was there to say ? One
day was like anothei', 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 im-
agination. Poor Mrs. Tulliver. it seemed, would never recover
her old self — her placid household activity : how could she ?
The objects among which her mmd 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,
294: THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
which made Maggie feel tenderly towards her poor mother
amidst all the little wearing griefs caused by her mental
feebleness. She would let Maggie do none of the work that
was heaviest and most soiling to the hands, and was quite
peevish Avhen Maggie attempted to relieve her from her grate-
brushing and scouring : " Let it alone, my dear ; your hands
'ull get as hard as hard/' she would say : " it 's your mother's
place to do that. I can't do the sewing — my eyes fail me."
And she would still brush and carefully tend Maggie's hair,
which she had become reconciled to, in spite of its refusal to
curl, now it was so long and massy. Maggie was not her pet
child, and, in general, would have been much better if she had
been quite different ; yet the womanly heart, so bruised in its
small personal desires, found a future to rest on in the life of
this young thing, and the mother pleased herself with wearing
out her own hands to save the hands that had so much more
life in them.
But the constant presence of her mother's regretful bewilder-
ment 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 m a child-
like 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 concen-
tration 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 in-
comprehensible 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 some-
times ? " thinks young elasticity. "It would be so easy if
they only liked to do it." And these leaden clouds that neve?
THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION. 295
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
towards 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
he had met several creditors who had accepted a composition
from him. To save something towards the repayment of those
creditors, was the object towards 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 noth-
ing himself but what was of the coarsest quality. Tom, though
depressed and strongly repelled by his father's sullenness, and
the dreariness of home, entered thoroughly into his father's
feelings about paying the creditors ; and the poor lad brought
his first quarter's money, with a delicious sense of achieve-
ment, and gave it to his father to put into the tin box which
held the savings. The little store of sovereigns in the tin
box seemed to be the only sight that brought a faint beam of
pleasure into the miller's eyes — faint and transient, for it
was soon dispelled by the thought that the time would be
long — perhaps longer than his life— before the narrow sav-
ings would remove the hateful incubus of debt. A deficit of
more than five hundred pounds, with the accumulating in-
terest, 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
296 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
dying fixe of sticks, which made a cheap warmth for them on
the verge of bed-time. Mrs. Tulliver carried the proud integ-
rity of the Dodsons in her blood, and had been brought up to
think that to wrong people of their money, which was another
phrase for debt, was a sort of moral pillor}- : it would have
been wickedness, to her mind, to have run counter to her hus-
band'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 could n't rightly call anything
their own. She murmured a little that Mr. Tulliver so per-
emptorily refused to receive anything in repayment from Mr.
and Mrs. Moss ; but to all his requirements of household econ-
omy she was submissive to the point of denying herself the
cheapest indulgences of mere flavor: her only rebellion was
to smuggle into the kitchen something that would make rather
a better supper than usual for Tom.
These narrow notions about debt, held by the old-fashioned
Tullivers, may perhaps excite a smile on the faces of many
readers in these days of wide commercial views and wide
philosophy, according to which everything rights itself with-
out any trouble of ours : the fact that my tradesman is out
of pocket by me, is to be looked at through the serene cer-
tainty that somebody else's tradesman is in pocket by some-
body 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 illumi-
nating doubts as to personal integrity and honor.
Under all this grim melancholy and narrowing concentration
of desire, Mr. Tulliver retained the feeling towards his " little
wench" which made her presence a need to him, though it
would not suffice to cheer him. She was still the desire of his
eyes; but the sweet spring of fatherly love was now mingled
with bitterness, like everything else. When Maggie laid down
her work at night, it was her habit to get a low stool and sit
by her father's knee, leaning her cheek against it. How she
THE VALLEY OF HUMILL4TI0N. 297
wished he would stroke her head, or give some sign that he
was soothed by the sense that he had a daughter who loved
him ! But now she got no answer to her little caresses, either
from her father or from Tom — the two idols of her life. Tom
was weary and abstracted in the short intervals when he was
at home, and her father was bitterly preoccupied with the
thought that the girl was growing up — was shooting up into
a woman ; and how was she to do well in life ? She had a
poor chance for marrying, down in the world as they were.
And he hated the thought of her marrying poorly, as her aunt
Gritty had done : that would be a thing to make him turn in
his grave — the little wench so pulled down by children and
toil, as her aunt Moss was. When uncultured minds, confined
to a narrow range of personal experience, are under the pres-
sure of continued misfortune, their inward life is apt to become
a perpetually repeated round of sad and bitter thoughts : the
same words, the same scenes are revolved over and over again,
the same mood accompanies them — the end of the year finds
them as much what they were at the beginning as if they
were machines set to a recurrent series of movements.
The sameness of the days was broken by few visitors.
Uncles and aunts paid only short visits now : of course,
they could not stay to meals, and the constraint caused by
Mr. Tulliver's savage silence, which seemed to add to the
hollow resonance of the bare uncarpeted room when the
aunts were talking, heightened the unpleasantness of these
family visits on all sides, and tended to make them rare. As
for other acquaintances — there is a chill air surrounding those
who are down in the world, and people are glad to get away
from them, as from a cold room : human beings, mere men
and women, without furniture, without anything to offer you,
who have ceased to count as anybody, present an embarrassing
negation of reasons for wishing to see them, or of subjects on
which to converse with them. At that distant day, there was
a dreary isolation in the civilized Christian society of these
realms for families that had dropped below their original level,
unless they belonged to a sectarian church, which gets some
warmth of brotherhood by walling in the sacred fire.
298 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
CHAPTER III.
A VOICE FROM THE PAST.
One afternoon, when the chestnuts were coming into flower,
Maggie had brought her chair outside the front door, and was
seated there with a book on her knees. Her dark eyes had
wandered from the book, but they did not seem to be enjoying
the sunshine which pierced the screen of jasmine on the jjro-
jecting porch at her right, and threw leafy shadows on her
pale round cheek ; they seemed rather to be searching for
something that was not disclosed by the sunshine. It had
been a more miserable day than usual : her father, after a
visit of Wakem's, had had a paroxysm of rage, in which for
some trifling fault he had beaten the boy who served in the
mill. Once before, since his illness, he had had a similar par-
oxysm, in which he had beaten his horse, and the scene had left
a lasting terror in Maggie's mind. The thought had risen, that
some time or other he might beat her mother if she happened to
speak in her feeble way at the wrong moment. The keenest of
all dread with her was, lest her father should add to his present
misfortune the wretchedness of doing something irretrievably
disgraceful. The battered school-book of Tom's which she held
on her knees could give her no fortitude under the pressure of
that dread, and again and again her eyes had filled with tears,
as they wandered vaguely, seeing neither the chestnut-trees,
nor the distant horizon, but only future scenes of home-sorrow.
Suddenly she was roused by the sound of the opening gate
and of footsteps on the gravel. It was not Tom who was
entering, but a man in a seal-skin cap and a blue plush waist-
coat, 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 j '*' I 'm
80 glad to see you."
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 2U9
''Thank you, Miss," said Bob, liftinp^ his cap and showing a
delighted face, but immediately relieving himself of some ac-
companying embarrassment by looking down at his dog, and
saying in a tone of disgust, '• Get out wi' you, you thunderiu'
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, " 1 should be glad to see Mr. Tom
— but that is n'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 witli string.
Apparently, however, they were not the object to which he
wished to call Maggie's attention, but rather something which
he had carried under his arm, wrapped in a red handkerchief.
" See here ! " he said again, laying the red parcel on the
others and unfolding it ; " you won't think I 'm a-makin' too
free, Miss, I hope, but I lighted on these books, and I thought
they might make up to you a bit for them as you 've lost ; for
I heared you speak o' picturs — an' as for picturs, look here ! "
The opening of the red handkerchief had disclosed a 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 sorts o' genelmen here," Bob went on, turning
over the leaves with some excitement, " wi' all sorts o' noses
— an' some bald an' some wi' wigs — Parlament genelmen,
I reckon. An' here," he added, opening the "'Keepsake,"
" here 's ladies for you, some wi' curly hair and some wi' smooth,
an' some a-smiling wi' their heads o' one side, an' some as if
they was goin' to cry — look here — a-sittin' on the ground out
o' door, dressed like the ladies I 'n seen get out o' the carriages
at the balls in th' Old Hall there. My eyes, I wonder what
the chaps wear as go a-courtin' 'em ! I sot up till the clock
was gone twelve last night a-lookin' at 'era — I did — till they
stared at me out o' the picturs as if they 'd know when I spoke
to 'em. But, lors ! I should n't know what to say to 'em.
They 11 be more fittin' company for you, Miss j and the man
300 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
at fche bookstall, he said they banged iverything for picturs —
he said they was a fust-rate article,"
" And you 've bought them for me, Bob ? " said Maggie,
deeply touched by this simple kindness. " How very, very
good of you ! But I 'm afraid you gave a great deal of money
for them."
" Not me ! " said Bob. " I 'd ha' gev three times the money
if they '11 make up to you a bit for them as was sold away
from you. Miss. For I 'n niver forgot how you looked when
you fretted about the books bein' gone — it 's stuck by me as
if it was a pictur hingin' before me. An' when I see 'd the
book open upo' the stall, wi' the lady lookin' out of it wi' eyes
a bit like your 'n when you was f rettiu' — you '11 excuse my
takin' the liberty, Miss — I thought I 'd make free to buy it
for you, an' then I bought the books full o' genelmen to match
— an' then '^ — here Bob took up the small stringed packet of
books — "I thought you might like a bit more print as well
as the picturs, an' I got these for a say-so — they 're cram-full
o' print, an' I thought they 'd do no harm comin' along wi'
these bettermost books. An' I hope you won't say me nay,
an' tell me as you won't have 'em, like Mr. Tom did wi' the
suvi-eigns."
"No, indeed. Bob," said Maggie, " I*m very thankful to you
for thinking of me, and being so good to me and Tom. I don't
think any one ever did such. a kind thing for me before. I
have n't many friends who care for me."
" Hev a dog, Miss I — they 're better friends nor any Chris-
tian," said Bob, laying down his pack again, which he had
taken up with the intention of hurrying away; for he felt
considerable shyness in talking to a young lass like Maggie,
though, as he usually said of himself, "his tongue overrun
him " when he began to speak. " I can't give you Mumps,
'cause he 'd break his heart to go away from me — eh, Mumps,
what do you say, you riff-raff ? " — (Mumps declined to express
himself more diffusely than by a single affirmative movement
of his tail.) " But I 'd get you a pup. Miss, an' welcome."
" No, thank you, Bob. We have a yard dog, and I may n't
keep a dog of my own."
THE VALLEY OF HUMILU.TION. 301
" Eh, that 's a pity : else there 's a pup — if you did n't mind
about it not being thorough-bred : its mother acts in the Punch
show — an uncommon sensible bitch — she means more sense
wi' her bark nor half the chaps can put into their talk from
breakfast to sundown. There's one chap carries pots, — a
poor low trade as any on the road, — he says, ' Why, Toby 's
nought but a mongrel — there 's nought to look at in her.'
But I says to him, ' Why, what are you yoursen but a mongrel ?
There was n't much pickin' o' your feyther an' mother, to look
at you.' Not but what I like a bit o' breed myself, but I can't
abide to see one cur grinnin' at another. I wish you good-
evenin', Miss," added Bob, abruptly taking up his pack again,
under the consciousness that his tongue was acting in an un-
disciplined manner.
" Won't you come in the evening some time, and see my
brother. Bob ? " said Maggie.
"Yes, Miss, thank you — another time. You'll give my
duty to him, if you please. Eh, he 's a fine growed chap, Mr,
Tom is ; he took to growin' i' the legs, an' / did n'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 a pitying
smile ; " Mumps is as fine a cross as you '11 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 toler-
ating the superfluous existence of objects in general, was
strongly confirmatory of this high praise.
" He looks dreadfully surly," said Maggie. " Would he let
me pat him ? "
" Ay, that would he, and thank you. He knows his com-
pany, Mumps does. He isn't a dog as 'ull be caught wi'
gingerbread : he 'd smell a thief a good deal stronger nor the
302 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
gingerbread — he would. Lors, I talk to him by th' hour to-
gether, when I 'm walking i' lone places, and if I 'n done a bit
o' mischief, I allays tell him. I 'n got no secrets but what
Mumps knows 'em. He knows about my big thumb, he does."
" Your big thumb — what 's that, Bob ? " said Maggie.
"That's what it is, Miss," said Bob, quickly, exhibiting a
singularly broad specimen of that difference between the man
and the monkey. '' It tells i' Qieasuring 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 are n't up to 't."
"But, Bob," said Maggie, looking serious, " that 's cheating ;
I don't like to hear you say that."
"Don't you, Miss?" said Bob, regretfully. "Then I'm
sorry I said it. But I'm so used to talking to Mumps, an' he
does n't mind a bit o' cheating, when it 's them skinflint women,
as haggle an' haggle, an' 'ud like to get their flannel for noth-
ing, an' 'ud niver ask theirselves how I got my dinner out on 't.
I niver cheat anybody as does n'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 '11 leave off that trick wi' my big
thumb, if you don't think well on me for it, Miss — but it 'ud
be a pity, it would. I could n'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
twinkled too, and under these favoring auspices he touched
his cap and walked away.
The days of chivalry are not gone, notwithstanding Burke's
grand dirge over them ; they live still in that far-off worship
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 303
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 kuight 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 con-
trast. She was too dispirited even to like answering questions
about Bob's present of books, and she carried them away to
her bedroom, laying them down there and seating herself on
her one stool, without caring to look at them just yet. She
leaned her cheek against the window-frame, and thought that
the light-hearted Bob had a lot much happier than hers.
Maggie's sense of loneliness, and utter privation of joy, had
deepened with the brightness of advancing spring. All the
favorite outdoor nooks about home, which seemed to have
done their part with her parents in nurturing and cherishing
her, were now mixed up with the home-sadness, and gathered
no smile from the sunshine. Every affection, every delight
the poor child had had, was like an aching nerve to her.
There was no music for her any more — no piano, no harmon-
ized voices, no delicious stringed instruments, with their pas-
sionate cries of imprisoned spirits sending a strange vibration
through her frame. And of all her school-life there was noth-
ing left her now but her little collection of school-books, which
she turned over with a sickening sense that she knew them all,
and they were all barren of comfort. Even at school she had
often wished for books with more in them : everything she
learned there seemed like the ends of long threads that
snapped immediately. And now — without the indirect charm
of school-emulation — Telemaque was mere bran ; so were the
hard dry questions on Christian Doctrine : there was no flavor
in them — no strength. Sometimes Maggie thought she could
have been contented with absorbing fancies ; if she could have
had all Scott's novels and all Byron's poems ! — then, perhaps,
she might have found happiness enough to dull her sensibility
to her actual daily life. And yet . . . they were hardly what
304 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
she wanted. She could make dream-worlds of her own — bi b
no dream-world would satisfy her now. She wanted some ex-
planation of this hard, real life : the unhappy-looking father,
seated at the dull breakfast-table; the childish, bewildered
mother ; the little sordid tasks that filled the hours, or the
more oppressive emptiness of weary, joyless leisure ; the need
of some tender, demonstrative love ; the cruel sense that Tom
did n't mind what she thought or felt, and that they were no
longer playfellows together; the privation of all pleasant
things that had come to her more than to others : she wanted
some key that would enable her to understand, and, in under-
standing, 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, that they were a temporary provi-
sion 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 thuir^bed — 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. Fot that the
yearning for effectual wisdom was quite unmixed • a certain
mirage would now and then rise on the desert of the future,
in which she seemed to see herself honored for her surprising
attainments. And so the poor child, with her soul'." hunger
and her illusions of self-flattery, began to nibble at thi'? 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-
THE VALLEY OF HUMILL^TION. 305
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, uncer-
tain journey. In the severity of her early resolution, she
would take Aldrich out into the fields, and then look off her
book towards the sky, where the lark was twinkling, or to the
reeds and bushes by the river, from which the water-fowl rus-
tled forth on its anxious, awkward flight — with a startled sense
that the relation between Aldrich and this living world was
extremely remote for her. The discouragement deepened as
the days went on, and the eager heart gained faster and faster
on the patient mind. Somehow, when she sat at the window
with her book, her eyes ivould fix themselves blankly on the
outdoor sunshine ; then they would fill with tears, and some-
times, 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 towards
her father and mother, who were so unlike what she would
have them to be — towards Tom, who checked her, and met
her thought or feeling always by some thwarting difference —
would flow out over her affections and conscience like a lava
stream, and frighten her with a sense that it was not difficult
for her to become a demon. Then her brain would be busy
with wild romances of a flight from home in search of some-
thing less sordid and dreary : she would go to some great man
— Walter Scott, perhaps — and tell him how wretched and
how clever she was, and he would surely do something for her.
But, in the middle of her vision, her father would perhaps
enter the room for the evening, and, surprised that she sat
still without noticing him, would say complainingly, " Come,
am I to fetch my slippers myself ? " The voice pierced
through Maggie like a sword : there was another sadness be-
sides 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
^OL. II. 20
806 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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, governing the habits, becomes morality, and, develop-
ing the feelings of submission and dependence, becomes reli-
gion : — as lonely in her trouble as if every other girl besides
herself had been cherished and watched over by elder minds,
not forgetful of their own early time, when need was keen and
impulse strong.
At last Maggie's eyes glanced down on the books that lay
on the window-shelf, and she half forsook her reverie to turn
over listlessly the leaves of the " Portrait Gallery," but she
soon pushed this aside to examine the little row of books tied
together with string. "Beauties of the Spectator,'' "Ras-
selas," " Economy of Human Life," " Gregory's Letters " —
she knew the sort of matter that was inside all these: the
" Christian Year " — that seemed to be a 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 cor-
ners turned down in many places, and some hand, now forever
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 807
quiet, had made at certaiu passages strong peri-aud-iuk marks,
long since browned by time. Maggie turned from leaf to leaf,
and read where the quiet hand pointed ..." Know that the
love of thyself doth hurt thee more than anything in the
world. ... If thou seekest this or that, and wouldst be here
or there to enjoy thy own will and pleasure, thou shalt never
be quiet nor free from care : for in everything somewhat will
be wanting, and in every place there will be some that will
cross thee. . . . Both above and below, which way soever
thou dost turn thee, everywhere thou shalt find the Cross :
and everywhere of necessity thou must have patience, if thou
wilt have inward peace, and enjoy an everlasting crown. . . .
If thou desire to mount unto this height, thou mast set out
courageously, and lay the axe to the root, that thou mayest
pluck up and destroy that hidden inordinate inclination to
thyself, and unto all private and earthly good. On this sin,
that a man inordinately loveth himself, almost all dependeth,
whatsoever is thoroughly to be overcome ; which evil being
once overcome and subdued, there will presently ensue great
peace and tranquillity. ... It is but little thou sufferest in
comparison of them that have suffered so much, were so
strongly tempted, so grievously afflicted, so many ways tried
and exercised. Thou oughtest therefore to call to mind the
more heavy sufferings of others, that thou mayest the easier
bear thy little adversities. And if they seem not little unto
thee, beware lest thy impatience be the cause thereof. . . .
Blessed are those ears that receive the whispers of the di-
vine voice, and listen not to the whisperings of the world.
Blessed are those ears which hearken not unto the voice which
soundeth outwardly, but unto the Truth, which teacheth
inwardly — "
A strange thrill of awe passed through Maggie while she read,
as if she had been wakened in the night by a strain of solemn
music, telling of beings whose souls had been astir while hers
was in stupor. She went on from one brown mark to another,
where the quiet hand seemed to point, hardly conscious that
she was reading — seeming rather to listen while a low voice
said —
308 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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
secrets — here was a sublime height to be reached without the
help of outward things — here was insight, and strength, and
conquest, to be won by means entirely within her own soul,
where a supreme Teacher was waiting to be heard. It flashed
through her like the suddenly apprehended solution of a 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 ;
returning to it after she had been called away, and reading till
the sun went down behind the willows. With all the hurry of
an imagination that could never rest in the present, she sat in
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 309
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 hmger ? — the
inmost 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 unques-
tioned 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 chroni-
cle of a solitary, hidden anguish, struggle, trust and triumph
— not written on velvet cushions to teach endurance to those
who are treading with bleeding feet on the stones. And so it
remains to all time a lasting record of human needs and human
consolations : the voice of a brother who, ages ago, felt and
suffered and renounced — in the cloister, perhaps, with serge
gown and tonsured head, with much chanting and long fasts,
and with a fashion of speech different from ours — l)ut un-
der the same silent far-off heavens, and with the same passion-
ate desires, the same strivings, the same failures, the same
weariness.
In writing the history of unfashionable families, one is apt
to fall into a tone of emphasis which is very far from being
the tone of good society, where principles and beliefs are not
only of an extremely moderate kind, but are always presup-
posed, no subjects being eligible but such as can be touched
with a light and graceful irony. But then, good society has
its claret and its velvet carpets, its dinner-engagements six
weeks deep, its opera and its faery ball-rooms ; rides olf its
310 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ennui on thorough-bred horses, lounges at the club, has to keep
clear of crinoline vortices, gets its science done by Faraday, and
its religion by the superior clergy who are to be met in the
best houses : how should it have time or need for belief and
emphasis ? But good society, floated on gossamer wings of
light irony, is of very expensive production ; requiring nothing
less than a wide and arduous national life condensed in unfra-
grant deafening factories, cramping itself in mines, sweating afc
furnaces, grinding, hammering, weaving under more or less op-
pression of carbonic acid — or else, spread over sheepwalks, and
scattered in lonely houses and huts on the clayey or chalky
cornlands, where the rainy days look dreary. This wide na-
tional life is based entirely on emphasis — the emphasis of want,
which urges it into all the activities necessary for the mainte-
nance of good society and light irony : it spends its heavy years
often in a chill, uncarpeted fashion, amidst family discord unsoft-
ened 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 demand-
ing some solution even to unspeculative minds ; just as you
inquire into the stuffing of your couch when anything galls
you there, whereas eider-down and perfect French springs ex-
cite no question. Some have an emphatic belief in alcohol,
and seek their ekstasis or outside standing-ground in gin ; but
the rest require something that good society calls "enthusi-
asm," something that will present motives in an entire absence
of high prizes, something that will give patience and feed
human love when the limbs ache with weariness, and human
looks are hard upon us — something, clearly, that lies outside
personal desires, that includes resignation for ourselves and
active love for what is not ourselves. Now and then, that
sort of enthusiasm finds a far-echoing voice that comes from
an experience springing out of the deepest need. And it was
by being brought within the long lingering vibrations of such
a voice that Maggie, with her girl's face and unnoted sorrows,
found an effort and a hope that helped her through years of
loneliness, making out a faith for herself without the aid of
established authorities and appointed guides — for they were
THE VALLEY OP HUMILIATION. 311
not at baud, and her need was pressing. From what you know
of her, you will not be surprised that she threw some exag-
geration and wilfulness, some pride and impetuosity, even
into her self-renunciation : her own life was still a drama for
her, in which she demanded of herself that her part should be
played with intensity. And so it came to pass that she often
lost the spirit of humility by being excessive in the outward
act ; she often strove after too high a flight, and came down
with her poor little half-fledged wings dabbled in the mud. For
example, she not only determined to work at plain sewing,
that she might contribute something towards the fund in the
tin box, but she went, in the first instance, in her zeal of self-
mortification, to ask for it at a linen-shop in St. Ogg's, instead
of getting it in a more quiet and indirect way ; and could see
nothing but what was entirely wrong and unkind, nay, perse-
outing, in Tom's reproof of her for this unnecessary act. " I
don't like my sister to do such things," said Tom ; " Vll take
care that the debts are paid, without your lowering yourself in
that way." Surely there was some tenderness and bravery
mingled with the w^orldliness and self-assertion of that little
speech ; but Maggie held it as dross, overlooking the grains of
gold, and took Tom's rebuke as one of her outward crosses.
Tom was very hard to her, she used to think, in her long
night-watchiugs — to her who had always loved him so ; and
the<n she strove to be contented with that hardness, and to
require nothing. That is the path we all like when we set
out on our abandonment of egoism — the path of martyrdom
and endurance, where the palm-branches grow, rather than the
steep highway of tolerance, just allowance, and self-blame,
where there are no leafy honors to be gathered and worn.
The old books, Virgil, Euclid, and Aldrich — that wrinkled
fruit of the tree of knowledge — had been all laid by; for
Maggie had turned her back on the vain ambition to share the
thoughts of the wise. In her first ardor she flung away the
books Avith a sort of triumph that she had risen above the
need of them ; and if they had been her own, she would have
burned them, believing that she would never repent. She
read so eagerly and constantly in her three books, the Eibie..
312 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Thomas k Kempis, aud the " Christian Year " (n© longer re-
jected as a " hymn-book "), that they filled her mind with a
continual stream of rhythmic memories ; and she was too
ardently learning to see all nature and life in the light of her
new faith, to need any other material for her mind to work
on, as she sat with her well-plied needle, making shirts and
other complicated stitchings, falsely called "plain" — by no
means plain to Maggie, since wristband and sleeve and the
like had a capability of being sewed in wrong side outwards
in moments of mental wandering.
Hanging diligently over her sewing, Maggie was a sight any
one might have been pleased to look at. That new inward life
of hers, notwithstanding some volcanic upheavings of 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 m 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 sub-
missive, so backward to assert her own will. Maggie used to
look up from her work and find her mother's eyes fixed upon
her : they were watching and waiting for the large young
glance, as if her elder frame got some needful warmth from
it. The mother was getting fond of her tall, brown girl, the
only bit of furniture now on which she could bestow her anx-
iety and pride ; and Maggie, in spite of her own ascetic wish
to have no personal adornment, was obliged to give way to her
mother about her hair, and submit to have the abundant black
locks plaited into a coronet on the summit of her head, after
the pitiable fashion of those antiquated times.
*^ Let your mother have that bit o' pleasure, my dear," said
Mrs. Tulliver ; " I 'd trouble enough with your hair once."
So Maggie, glad of anything that would soothe her mother,
and cheer their long day together, consented to the vain decora-
tion, and showed a queenly head above her old frocks — steadily
refusing, however, to look at herself in the glass. Mrs. Tulliver
liked to call the father's attention to Maggie's hair and other
unexpected virtues, but he had a. orusque reply to give.
THE VALLEY OF HUMILIATION. 313
<'I knew well enough what she'd be, before now -it's
nothing new to me. But it's a pity she isn't made o' com-
moner stuff -she '11 be thrown away, I doubt: there'll be
nobody to marry her as is fit for her."
And Maggie's graces of mind and body fed his gloom He
sat patiently enough while she read him a chapter, or said
something timidly when they were alone together about
trouble being turned into a blessing. He took it all as part
of his daughter's goodness, which made his misfortunes the
sadder to him because they damaged her chance in life In a
mind charged with an eager purpose and an unsatisfied vin-
dictiveness, there is no room for new feelings . I^Ir. Tulliver
did not want spiritual consolation — he wanted to shake ofi
the degradation of debt, and to have his revenge.
BOOK V.
WHEAT AND TARES.
CHAPTER L
IN" THE RED DEEPS.
The family sitting-room was a long room with a window &t
each end ; one looking towards the croft and along the Ripple
to the banks of the Floss, the other into the mill-yard. Maggie
was sitting with her work against the latter window when
she saw Mr. Wakem entering the yard, as usual, on his fine
black horse ; but not alone, as usual. Some one was with
him — a figure in a cloak, on a handsome pony, Maggie had
hardly time to feel that it was Philip come back, before they
were in front of the window, and he was raising his hat to
her; while his father, catching the movement by a side-
glance, looked sharply round at them both.
Maggie hurried away from the window and carried her
work up-stairs ; for Mr. Wakem sometimes came in and in-
spected 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 should see him when
they could just shake hands, and she could tell him that she
remembered his goodness to Tom, and the things he had said
to her in the old days, though they could never be friends
any more. It was not at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip
again ; she retained her childish gratitude and pity towards
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
WHEAT AND TARES. 315
fancied it might have been, in their talk together. But that
sort of wishing had been banished along with other dreams
that savored of seeking her own will ; and she thought, besides,
that Philip might be altered by his life abroad — he might
have become worldly, and really not care about her saying
anything to him now. And yet, his face was wonderfully
little altered — it was only a larger, more manly copy of the
pale small-featured boy's face, with the gray eyes, and the
boyish waving brown hair : there was the old deformity to
awaken the old pity ; and after all her meditations, Maggie felt
that she really should like to say a few words to him. He
might still be melancholy, as he always used to be, and like
her to look at him kindly. She wondered if he remembered
how he used to like her eyes ; with that thought Maggie
glanced towards the square looking-glass which was con-
demned to hang with its face toAvards the wall, and she half
started from her seat to reach it down ; but she checked
herself and snatched up her work, trying to repress the rising
wishes by forcing her memory to recall snatches of hymns,
until she saw Philip and his father returning along the road,
and she could go down again.
It was far on in June now, and Maggie was inclined to
lengthen the daily walk which was her one indulgence; but
this day and the following she was so busy with work which
must be finished that she never went be5'^ond 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 towards 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 Kipple. Just where
this line of bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road
316 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
turned off and led to the other side of the rise, where it was
broken into very capricious hollows and mounds by the work-
ing of an exhausted stone-quarry — so long exhausted that
both mounds and hollows were now clothed with brambles
and trees, and here and there by a stretch of grass which a
few sheep kept close-nibbled. In her childish days Maggie
held this place, called the E,ed Deeps, in very great awe, and
needed all her confidence in Tom's bravery to reconcile her to
an excursion thither — - visions of robbers and fierce animals
haunting every hollow. But now it had the charm for her
which any broken ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have
for the eyes that rest habitually on the level ; especially in
summer, when she could sit on a grassy hollow under the
shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant from the steep
above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like^ tiniest bells
on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing the
distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant
heavenly blue of the wild hyacinths. In this June time too,
the dog-roses were in their glory, and that vas an additional
reason why Maggie should direct her walk to the Red Deeps,
rather than to any other spot, on the first day she was free to
wander at her will — a pleasure she loved so well, that some-
times, in her ardors of renunciation, she thought she ought to
deny herself the frequent indulgence in i*--.
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 o)d lavender gown visible
through an hereditary black silk shawl of some wide-meshed
net-like material ; and now she is ?ure of being unseen, she
takes off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One would
certainly suppose her to be farther on in life than her seven-
teenth year — perhaps because of the slow resigned sadness of
the glance, from which all search and unrest seem to have
departed, perhaps because h'sw broad-chested figure has the
mould of early womanhood. Youth and health have with-
stood well the involuntary and voluntary hardships of her lot,
and the nights in which sbe has lain on the hard floor for a
penance have lef# *>*^»*»}'vious trace; the eyes are liquid, the
WHEAT AND TAKES. 317
brown cheek is firm and rounded, the full lips are red. With
her dark coloring and jet crown surmounting her tall figure,
she seems to have a sort of kinship with the grand Scotch
firs, at which she is looking up as if she loved them well.
Yet one has a sense of uneasiness in looking at her — a sense
of opposing elements, of which a fierce collision is imminent :
surely there is a hushed expression, such as one often sees in
older faces under borderless caps, out of keeping with the
resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a sudden,
passionate glance, that will dissipate all the quietude, like a
damj) 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."
318 THE MILL OK THE FLOSS.
"No." said Maggie, Avitli simple seriousness, walking on as
if she meant Philip to accompany her, " I 'm very glad you
came, for I wished very much to have an opportunity of
speaking to you. I 've never forgotten how good you were
long ago to Tom, and me too ; but I was not sure that you
would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal
of trouble since then, and I think that makes one think more
of what happened before the trouble came."
"I can't believe that you have thought of me so much as
I have thought of you," said Philip, timidly. " Do you know,
when I was away, I made a picture of you as you looked
that morning in the study when you said you would not for-
get 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 qvieer little girl I was! I remember myself with my
hair in that way, in that pink frock. I really urns like a gypsy.
I dare say I am now," she added, after a little pause ; " am I
like what you expected me to be ? "
The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full
bright glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a 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
admiration and love. Philip met her eyes and looked at her
in silence for a long moment, before he said, quietly, "No,
Maggie."
The light died out a little from Maggie's face, and there was
a slight trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she
did not turn away her head, and Philip continued to look at
her. Then he said, slowly —
"You are very much more beautiful than I thought you
would be."
" Am I ? " said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper
flush. She turned her face away from him and took some
WHEAT AND TARES. 319
steps, looking straight before her in silence, as if she were
adjusting her consciousness to this new idea. Girls are so
accustomed to think of dress as the main ground of vanity,
that, in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie had thought
more of abandoning all care for adornment than of renouncing
the contemplation of her face. Compai-ing herself with ele-
gant, wealthy young ladies, it iiad not occurred to her that she
could produce any effect with her person, Philip seemed to
like the silence well. He walked by her side, watching her
face, as if that sight left no room for any other wish. They
had passed from among the fir-trees, and had now come to a
green hollow almost surrounded by an amphitheatre of the
pale pink dog-roses. But as the light about them had bright-
ened, 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 such things,
and that if I behave as if I had forgotten all about you, it
is not out of envy or pride — or — or any bad feeling."
Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as
she went on, and her eyes began to fill with tears. The 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 : " 1 know what
there is to keep us apart on both sides. But it is not right,
Maggie — don't you be angry with me, I am so used to call
you Maggie in my thoughts — it is not right to sacrifice every-
thing to other people's unreasonable feelings. I would give
320 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 T did n't recognize as right."
"I don't know," said Maggie, musingly. "Often, when I
have been angry and discontented, it has seemed to me that
I was not bound to give up anything, and I have gone on
thinking till it has seemed to me that I could think away all
my duty. But no good has ever come of that — it was an evil
state of mind. I 'm quite sure that whatever I might do, I
should wish in the end that I had gone without anything for
myself, rather than have made my father's life harder to
him."
" But would it make his life harder if we were to see each
other sometimes ? " said Philip. He was going to say some-
thing else, but checked himself.
" Oh, I 'm sure he would n'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 : " / 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 eas}'' and pleas-
ant, and being discontented because I could n'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.
WHEAT AND TARES. 321
How can we ever be satisfied without them until our feelings
are deadened ? I delight in fine pictures — I long to be able
to paint such. I strive and strive, and can't produce what I
want. That is pain to me, and always ivill 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 did n't feel so." But
her heart began to beat with something of Philip's discontent.
" Well, then," said he, turning quickly round and fixing his
gray eyes entreatingly in 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 little, and show me that you cared for me — and that we
may always be friends in heart, and help each other — then I
might come to be glad of life."
" But how can I see you, Philip ? " said Maggie, falteringly.
(Could she really do him good ? It would be very hard to say
"good-by " this day, and not speak to him again. Here was a
new interest to vary the days — it was so much easier to 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 wont 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."
VOL. II. 21
322 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Maggie shook her head slowly, and was silent, under con-
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
another voice which she had been learning to obey : the
warning that such interviews implied secrecy — implied doing
something she would dread to be discovered in — something
that, if discovered, must cause anger and pain"; and that the
admission of anything so near doubleness would act as a spir-
itual blight. Yet the music would swell out again, like chimes
borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading her that the
wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and that
there was such a thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury
of another. It was very cruel for Philip that he should be
shrunk from, because of an unjustifiable vindictiveness towards
his father — poor Philip, whom some people would shrink
from only because he was deformed. The idea that he might
become her lover, or that her meeting him could cause dis-
approval in that light, had not occurred to her; and Philip saw
the absence of this idea clearly enough — saw it with a certain
pang, although it made her consent to his request the less
unlikely. There was bitterness to him in the perception that
Maggie was almost as frank and unconstrained towards him
as when she was a child.
"I can't say either yes or no," she said at last, turn-
ing round and walking towards the way she had come; "I
must wait, lest I should decide wrongly. I must seek for
guidance."
" May I come again, then — to-morrow — or the next day —
or next week ? "
'' I think I had better write," said Maggie, faltering again.
'■' I have to go to St. Ogg's sometimes, and I can put the letter
in the post."
"Oh no," said Philip, eagerly ; "that would not be so well.
My father might see the letter — and — he has not any
WHEAT AND TAKES. 393
eumity, I believe, but he views things differently from me;
he thinks a great deal about wealth and position. Pray iei 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."
''1 think it must be so, then," said Maggie, "for I can't bo
quite certain of coming here any particular evening."
Maggie felt a great relief in adjourning the decision. She
was free now to enjoy the minutes of companionship ; she
almost thought she might linger a little ; the next time
they met she should have to pain Philip by telling him her
determination.
" I can't help thinking," she said, looking smilingly at him,
after a few moments of silence, ^' how strange it is that we
should have met and talked to each other, just as if it had
been only yesterday when we parted at Lorton. And yet we
must both be very much altered in those five years — I think
it is five years. How was it you seemed to have a sort of
feeling that I was the same Maggie ? — I was not quite so
sure that you would be the same : I know you are so clever,
and you must have seen and learnt so much to fill your mind :
I was not quite sure you would care about me now."
" I have never had any doubt that you would be the same,
whenever I 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 tliey act on us. The greatest of
painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child ; he
could n'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 withoiit their changing my whole
attitude of mind for a time, and if the effect would last, I
might be capable of heroisms."
" Ah ! I know what you mean about music — I feel so,"
said Maggie, clasping her hands with her old impetuosity.
824 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"At least," she added, in a saddened tone, " I used to feel so
when I had any music : I never have any now except the organ
at church."
" And you long for it, Maggie ? " said Philip, looking at her
with affectionate pity. *' Ah, you can have very little that is
beautiful in your life. Have you many books ? You were so
fond of them when you were a little girl."
They were come back to the hollow, round which the dog-
roses grew, and they both paused under the charm of the
faery evening light, reflected from the pale pink clusters.
" "No, I have given up books," said Maggie, quietly, " except
a very, very few."
Philip had already taken from his pocket a small volume,
and was looking at the back as he said —
" Ah, this is the second volume, I see, else you might have
liked to take it home with you. I put it in my pocket because
I am studying a scene for a picture."
Maggie had looked at the back too, and saw the title : it
revived an old impression with overmastering force.
" ' The Pirate,' " she said, taking the book from Philip's
hands. " Oh, I began that once ; I read to where Minna is
walking with Cleveland, and I could never get to read the
rest. I went on with it in my own head, and I made several
endings ; but they were all unhappy. I could never make a
happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna ! I wonder
what is the real end. For a long while I could n'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
risions.
WHEAT AND TARES. 325
" Do keep it, Maggie," said Philip, entreatingly ; « it will
give you pleasure."
"No, thank you," said Maggie, putting it aside with her
hand and walking on. " It would make me in love with this
world again, as I used to be — it would make me long to see and
know many things — it would make me long for a full life."
" But you will not always be shut up in your present lot :
why should you starve your mind in that way ? It is narrow
asceticism — I don't like to see you persisting in it, Maggie.
Poetry and art and knowledge are sacred and pure."
" But not for me — not for me," said Maggie, walking more
hurriedly. " Because I should want too much. I must wait — ~
this life will not last long."
"Don't hurry away from me without saying «good-by,*
Maggie," said Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs,
and she continued still to walk along without speaking. " I
must not go any farther, I think, must I ? "
" Oh no, I forgot ; good-by," said Maggie, pausing, and
putting out her hand to him. The action brought her feeling
back in a strong current to Philip ; and after they had stood
looking at each other in silence for a few moments, with their
hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her hand —
"I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me all those
years. It is very sweet to have people love us. What a won-
derful, 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 1 I remember saying to you,
that I thought you cared for me more than Tom did."
"Ah, Maggie," said Philip, almost fretfully, "you would
never love me so well as you love your brother."
" Perhaps not," said Maggie, simply ; " but then, you know,
the first thing I ever remember in my life is standing with
Tom by the side of the Floss, while he held my hand : 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 little
girl in my mind for five years, did n't I earn some part in her ?
She ought not to take herself quite away from me."
326 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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 does n't change his
mind. . . . Oh dear, the suu is set. I am too long away.
Good-by." She gave him her hand ouce more.
" I shall come here as often as 1 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 hr-tree ; though Philip's gaze
after her remained immovable for minutes as if he saw her
still.
Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun ;
Philip went home to do nothing but remember and hope. You
can hardly help blaming him severely. He was four or five
years older than Maggie, and had a full consciousness of his
feeling towards 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 sujjpose that he was
capable of a gross selfishness, or that he could have been satis-
fied without persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse
some happiness into Maggie's life — seeking this even more
than any direct ends for himself. He could give her sympathy
— he could give her help. There was not the slightest prom-
ise of love towards him in her manner ; it was nothing more
than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown him when she
was twelve : perhaps she would never love him — perhaps no
woman ever cotdd love him : well, thi^n, he would endure that;
he should at least have the happiness of seeing her — of feel-
ing some nearness to her. And he clutched passionately the
possibility that she might love him : perhaps the feeling
would gi'ow, 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
WHEAT AND TARES. 827
forest-tree, for want of the light and space it was formed to
flourish in ! Gould he not hinder that, by persuading her out
of her system of privation ? He would be her guardian angel ;
he would do anything, bear anything, for her sake — except
not seeing her.
CHAPTER II.
AUNT GLEGG LEARNS THE BREADTH OF BOB's THUMB.
While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely
within her own soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and
the slain shadows forever rising again, Tom was engaged in a
dustier, noisier warfare, grappling with more substantial obsta-
cles, and gaining more definite conquests. So it has been since
the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of horses : inside
the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted hands
offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar, filling
their long, empty days with memories and fears : outside, the
men, in fierce struggle with things divine and human, quench-
ing memory in the stronger light of purpose, losing the sense
of dread and even of wounds in the hurrying ardor of action.
From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth
of whom you would prophesy failure in anything he had
thoroughly wished: the wagers are likely to be on his side,
notwithstanding his small success in the classics. For Tom
\ad never desired success in this field of enterprise ; and for
getting a fine flourishing growth of stupidit}'' there is nothing
like pouring out on a mind a good amount of subjects in which
it feels no interest. But now Tom's strong will bound together
his integrity, his pride, his family regrets, and his personal
ambition, and made them one force, concentrating his efforts
and surmounting discouragements. His uncle Deane, who
watched him closely, soon began to conceive hopes of him, and
to be rather proud that he had brought into the employment
of the firm a nephew who appeared to be made of such good
commercial stuff. The real kindness of placing him in the
328 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
warehouse first was soon evident to Tom, in the hints his
uncle began to throw out, that after a time he might perhaps
be trusted to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for the firm
various vulgar commodities with which I need not shock 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 shipowner, naturally threw off a few sparks when he got
warmed with talk and wine. Already, in the second year,
Tom's salary was raised ; but all, except the price of his dinner
and clothes, went home into the tin box ; and he shunned com-
radeship, lest it should lead him into expenses in spite of him-
self. Not that Tom was moulded on the spooney type of the
Industrious Apprentice ; he had a very strong appetite for
pleasure — would have liked to be a Tamer of horses and to
make a distinguished figure in all neighboring eyes, dispensing
treats and benefits to others with well-judged liberality, and
being pronounced one of the finest young fellows of those
parts ; nay, he determined to achieve these things sooner or
later ; but his practical shrewdness told him that the means
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 : their
dispositions were not in sympathy, and Tom's face showed
little radiance during his few home hours. Maggie had an
WHEAT AND TAKES. 329
awe of him, against which she struggled as something unfair
to her consciousness of wider thoughts and deefjer motives;
but it was of no use to struggle. A character at unity with
itself — that performs what it intends, subdues every counter-
acting impulse, and has no visions beyond the distinctly possi-
ble — is strong by its very negations.
You may imagine that Tom's more and more obvious un-
likeness to his father was well fitted to conciliate the maternal
aunts and uncles ; and Mr. Deane's favorable reports and pre-
dictions to Mr. Glegg concerning Tom's qualifications for
business, began to be discussed amongst them with various
acceptance. He was likely, it appeared, to do the family
credit, without causing it any expense and trouble. Mrs.
Pullet had always thought it strange if Tom's excellent com
plexion, so entirely that of the Dodsons, did not argue a
certainty that he would turn out well, his juvenile errors of
running down the peacock, and general disrespect to his aunts,
only indicating a tinge of Tulliver blood which he had doubt-
less outgrown. Mr. Glegg, who had contracted a cautious lik-
ing for Tom ever since his spirited and sensible behavior when
the execution was in the house, was now waxming into a reso-
lution to further his prospects actively — some time, when an
opportunity offered of doing so in a prudent manner, without
ultimate loss ; but Mrs. Glegg observed that she was not given
to speak without book, as some people were ; that those who
said least were most likely to find their words made good; and
that when the right moment came, it would be seen who could
do something better than talk. Uncle Pullet, after silent medi-
tation 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 towards
all indications of favorable opinion, he was glad to see his
uncle Glegg look in on him sometimes in a friendly way dur-
ing business hours, and glad to be invited to dine at his house,
though he usually preferred declining on the ground that he
was not sure of being punctual. But about a year ago, some-
330 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 ; wondering
he had not thought of this plan before. He was so well pleased
with the prospect of a speculation that might change the slow
process of addition into multiplication, that he at once deter-
mined to mention the matter to his father, and get his consent
to appropriate some of the savings in the tin box to the pur-
chase of a small cargo. He would rather not have consulted
his father, but he had just paid his last quarter's money into
the tin box, and there was no other resource. All the savings
were there ; for Mr. TuUiver would not consent to put the
money out at interest lest he should lose it. Since he had
speculated in the purchase of some corn, and had lost by it,
he could not be easy without keeping the money under his
eye.
Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on
the hearth with his father that evening, and Mr. TuUiver 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
wishes, and since he had had the sense of being an "unlucky"
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
WHEAT AND TARES. 331
which he fingered in his waistcoat pocket in all vacant mo-
ments. There they were, the dingy bank-notes and the bright
eovereigns, and he counted them out on the table — only a
hundred and sixteen pounds in two years, after all the
pinching.
" How much do you want, then ? " he said, speaking as if
the words burnt his lips.
"Suppose I begin with the thirty six pounds, father?" said
Tom.
Mr. Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and, keeping
his hand over it, said —
"It's as much as I can save out o' my pay in a year."
" Yes, father : it is such slow work — saving out of the
little money we get. And in this way we might double ouv
savings."
"Ay, my lad," said the father, keeping his hand on the
money, "but you might lose it — you might lose a year o'
my life — and I haven't got many."
Tom was silent.
'^ And you know I would n't pay a dividend with the first
hundred, because I wanted to see it all in a lump — and when
I see it, I 'm sure on 't. If you trust to luck, it 's sure to be
against me. It 's Old Harry 's got the luck in his hands ; and
if I lose one year, I shall never pick it up again — death 'uU
o'ertake me."
Mr. Tulliver's voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few
minutes before he said —
"I '11 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
Bob's 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
332 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
assure himself that the sum total had not varied since yester-
day. To him entered Tom, in what appeared to Mr. Glegg
very questionable companionship : that of a man with a pack
on his back — for Bob was equipped for a new journey — and of
a huge brindled bull-terrier, who walked with a slow swaying
movement from side to side, and glanced from under his eye-
lids with a surly indifference which might after all be a cover
to the most offensive designs. Mr. Glegg's spectacles, which
had been assisting him in counting the fruit, made these
suspicious details alarmingly evident to him.
" Heigh ! heigh ! keep that dog back, will you ? " he
shouted, snatching up a stake and holding it before him as a
shield when the visitors were within three yards of him.
" Get out wi' you, Mumps," said Bob, with a kick. " He 's
as quiet as a lamb, sir," — an observation which Mumps 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.
" No, sir," said Tom : " I came to speak to you about a
little matter of business of my own."
" Ay — well ; but what has this dog got to do with it ? "
said the old gentleman, getting mild again.
" It 's my dog, sir," said the ready Bob. " An' it 's me as
put Mr. Tom up to the bit o' business •, for Mr. Tom 's been a
friend o' mine iver since I was a little chap : fust thing iver
I did was frightenin' the birds for th' old master. An' if a
bit o' luck turns up, I 'm allays thinkin' if I can let Mr. Tom
have a pull at it. An' it 's a downright roarin' shame, as
when he 's got the chance o' making a bit o' money wi' send-
ing goods out — ten or twelve per zent clear, when freight an'
commission 's paid — as he should n't lay hold o' the chance
for want o' money. An' when there 's the Laceham goods —
lors ! they 're made o' purpose for folks as want to send out
a little carguy ; light, an' take up no room — you may pack
twenty nound so as you can't see the passill : an' they 're
WHEAT AND TARES. 888
manifacturs as please fools, so I reckon they are n't like to
want a market. An' I 'd go to Laceham an' buy in the goods
for Mr. Tom along wi' my own. An' there 's the shupercargo
o' the bit of a vessel as is goin' to take 'em out. I know him
partic'lar ; he 's a solid man, an' got a family i' the town here.
Salt, his name is — an' a briny chap he is too — an' if you
don't believe me, I can take you to him."
Uncle Glegg stood open-mouthed with astonishment at this
unembarrassed loquacity, with which his understanding could
hardly keep pace. He looked at Bob, first over his spectacles,
then through them, then over them again ; while Tom, 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
had n't Mumps to talk to, I should get top-heavy an' tumble
in a fit. I suppose it 's because I niver went to school much.
That 's what I jaw my old mother for. I says, ' You should
ha' sent me to school a bit more,' I says — •' an' then I could
ha' read i' the books like fun, an' kep' my head cool an'
empty.' Lors, she 's fine an' comfor'ble now, my old mother
is : she ates her baked meat an' taters as often as she likes.
For I 'm gettin' so full o' money, I must hev a wife to spend
it for me. But it 's botherin', a wife is — and Mumps might n't
like her."
Uncle Glegg, who regarded himself as a jocose man since
he had retired from business, was beginning to find Bob amus-
ing, 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 would n't keep that big dog,
to eat as much as two Christians. It 's shameful — shame-
ful ! " But he spoke more in sorrow than in anger, and
quickly added —
C34 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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 jDress him. If I could get twenty
or thirty pounds to begin with, I could pay five per cent for
it, and then I could gradually make a little capital of my own,
and do without a loan."
" Ay . . . ay," said Mr. Glegg, in an approving tone ;
" that 's not a bad notion, and I won't say as I would n'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 did n't offer to
get a apple for Mr, Tom, o' purpose to hev a bite out of it
myself. When I play folks tricks there '11 be more fun in 'em
nor that."
" Well, but it 's nothing but right you should have a small
percentage," said Mr. Glegg. " I 've no opinion o' transac-
tions where folks do things for nothing. It allays looks
bad."
" Well, then," said Bob, whose keenness saw at once what
■ .yas implied, " I '11 tell you what I get by 't, an' it 's money in
my pocket in the end : — I make myself look big, wi' makin'
a bigger purchase. That 's what I 'm thinking on. Lors !
I 'm a 'cute chap — I am."
" Mr. Glegg, Mr. Glegg," said a severe voice from the open
parlor window, " pray are you coming in to tea ? — or are you
WHEAT AND TARES. 335
going to stand talking with packmen till you get murdered in
tlie open daylight ? "
" Murdered ? " said Mr. Glegg ; " what 's the woman talking
of ? Here 's your nephey Tom come about a bit o' business."
" Murdered — yes — it is n't many 'sizes ago since a pack-
man murdered a young woman in a lone place, and stole her
thimble, and threw her body into a ditch."
" Nay, nay," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly, " you 're thinking o'
the man wi' no legs, as drove a dog-cart."
" Well, it 's the same thing, Mr. Glegg — only you 're fond
o' contradicting what I say ; and if my nephey 's come about
business, it 'ud be more fitting if you'd bring him into the
house, and let his aunt know about it, instead o' whispering in
corners, in that plotting, undermiudiug way."
" Well, well," said Mr. Glegg, '' we '11 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 have n't done
with this young man yet. Come in, Tom ; come in," he
added, stepping in at the French window.
" Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a fatal tone, " if you 're going
to let that man and his dog in on my carpet, before my very
face, be so good as to let me know. A wife 's got a right to
ask that, I hope."
" Don't you be uneasy, mum," said Bob, touching his cap.
He saw at once that Mrs. Glegg was a bit of game worth run-
ning down, and longed to be at the sport ; " we '11 stay out
upo' the gravel here — Mumps and me will. Mumps knows
his company — he does. I might hish at him by th' hour to-
gether, before he 'd fly at a real gentlewoman like you. It 's
wonderful how he knows which is the good-looking ladies —
and 's partic'lar fond of 'em when they 've good shapes.
Lors ! " added Bob, laying down his pack on the gravel, " it 's
a thousand pities such a lady as you should n'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'
836 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 pack-
man, as is the nat'ral way o' gettin' goods — an' pays no rent,
an' is n't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed
out on him, whether he will or no. But lors ! mum, you know
what it is better nor I do — you can see through them shop-
men, I '11 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 be-
hind her with his hands in his pockets and legs apart, winked
and smiled with conjugal delight at the probability of his
wife's being circumvented.
"Ay, to be sure, mum," said Bob. "Why, you must ha'
dealt wi' no end o' packmen when you war a young lass — 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!" 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, — " an' th' handsome young lasses
all stannin' out on the stone steps, it 'ud ha' been summat like
openin' a pack — that would. It 's on'y the poor houses now
as a packman calls on, if it is n't for the sake o' the sarvant
maids. They 're paltry times — these are. Why, mum, look
at the printed cottons now, an' what they was when you wore
'em — why, you would n'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."
WHEAT AND TARES. 337
" Yes, better quality nor any you 're like to carry : you Ve
got nothing first-rate but brazenness, I'll be bound," said
Mrs. Glegg, with a triumphant sense of her insurmountable
sagacity. " Mr. Glegg, are you going ever to sit down to your
tea ? Tom, there 's a cup for you."
"You speak true there, mum," said Bob. "My pack isn't
for ladies like you. The time 's gone by for that. Bargains
picked up dirt cheap ! A bit o' damage here an' there, as can
be cut out, or else niver seen i' the wearin' ; but not fit to offer
to rich folks as can pay for the look o' things as nobody sees.
I 'm not the man as 'ud offer t' open my pack to you, mum :
no, no ; I 'm a im parent chap, as you say — these times makes
folks imperent — but I 'm not up to the mark o' that."
"Why, what goods do you carry in your pack?" said Mrs.
Glegg. " Fine-colored things, I suppose — shawls an' that ? "
" All sorts, mum, all sorts," said Bob, thumping his bundle ;
" but let us say no more about that, if yoit 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 is n't a plan where he expects iverything to
be done for him by his friends : that 's what the young folks
think of mostly nowadays. And pray, what has this packman
got to do wi' what goes on in our family ? Can't you speak
for yourself, Tom, and let your aunt know things, as a nephey
should ? "
" This is Bob Jakin, aunt," said Tom, bridling the irritation
that aunt Glegg's voice always produced. " I 've known him
ever since we were little boys. He 's a very good fellow, and
always ready to do me a kindness. And he has had some 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
VOL. II. 22
338 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
little in the same way, I might make some money. A large
interest is got in that way."
"Large int'rest?" said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; "and
what do you call large int'rest ? "
"Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid."
"Then why was n't I let to know o' such things before, Mr.
Glegg ? " said Mrs. Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep
grating tone of reproach. "Haven't you allays told me as
there was no getting more nor five per cent ? "
"Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman," said Mr. Glegg.
" You could n't go into trade, could you ? You can't get more
than five per cent with security."
" But I can turn a bit o' money for you, an' welcome, mum,"
said Bob, " if you "d like to risk it — not as there 's any risk
to speak on. But if you 'd a mind to lend a bit o' money to
Mr. Tom, he 'd pay you six or seven per zent, an' get a trifle
for himself as well ; an' a good-natur'd lady like you 'ud like
the feel o' the money better if your nephey took part on it."
"What do you say, Mrs. G. ? " said Mr. Glegg. "I've a
notion, when I 've made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps
start Tom here with a bit of a nest-egg — he '11 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 '11 go and give
information to the tramps next, as they may come and rob
me."
" Well, well, as I was sayin', if you like to join me wi'
twenty pounds, you can — I '11 make it fifty. That 11 be a
pretty good nest-egg — eh, Tom ? "
" You 're not counting on me, Mr. Glegg, I hope," said his
wife. "You could do fine things wi' my money, I don't
doubt."
" Very well," said Mr. Glegg, rather snappishly, " then we '11
do without you. I shall go with you to see this Salt," he
added, turning to Bob.
" And now, I suppose, you '11 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 would n't put money into
WHEAT AND TARES. 389
it — I don't say as it shall be twenty pounds, though you 're
so ready to say it for me — but he '11 see some day as his aunt 's
in the right not to risk the money she 's saved for him till it 's
proved as it won't be lost."
" Ay, that 's a pleasant sort o' risk, that is," said Mr. Glegg,
indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn't avoid smiling.
But Bob stemmed the injured lady's outburst.
" Ay, mum," he said, admiringly, " you know what 's what
— you do. An' it 's nothing but fair. You see how the first
bit of a job answers, an' then you '11 come down handsome.
Lors, it 's a fine thing to liev good kin. I got my bit of a nest-
egg, as the master calls it, all by my own sharpness — ten suv-
reigns it was — wi' dousing the fire at Torry's mill, an' it 's
growed an' growed by a bit an' a bit, till I 'n got a matter o'
thirty pound to lay out, besides makin' my mother comfor'ble.
I should get more, on'y I 'm such a soft wi' the women — I
can't help lettin' 'em hev such good bargains. There 's this
bundle, now " (thumping it lustily), " any other chap 'ud make
a pretty penny out on it. But me ! . . . lors, I shall sell
'em for pretty near what I paid for 'em."
" Have you got a bit of good net, now ? " said Mrs. Glegg, in
a patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her
napkin.
"Eh, mum, not what you'd think it worth your while to
look at. I'd scorn to show it you. It'ud be an insult to
you."
" But let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, still patronizing. " If
they 're damaged goods, they 're like enough to be a bit the
better quality."
" No, mum. I know my place," said Bob, lifting up his pack
and shouldering it. "1 'm not going t' expose the lowness o'
my trade to a lady like you. Packs is come down i' the
world : it 'ud cut you to th' heart to see the difference. I 'm
at your sarvice, sir, when you 've a mind to go and see Salt."
"All in good time," said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to cut
short the dialogue. " Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom ? "
" No, sir ; I left Stowe in my place."
"Come, put down your pack, and let me see," said Mrs.
340 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Glegg, drawing a chair to the window, and seating herself with
much dignity.
" Don't you ask it, mum," said Bob, entreatingly.
" Make no more words," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, " but do
as I tell you."
" Eh, mum, I 'm loth — that I am," said Bob, slowly deposit-
ing his pack on the step, and beginning to untie it with un-
willing fingers. " But what you order shall be done " (much
fumbling in pauses between the sentences) . " It 's not as you '11
buy a single thing on me. . . . I 'd be sorry for you to do it
. . . for think o' them poor women up i' the villages there, as
niver stir a hundred yards from home ... it 'ud be a pity for
anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, it 's as good as a
junketing to 'em when they see me wi' my pack ... an' I
shall niver pick up such bargains for 'em again. Least ways,
I 've no time now, for I 'm off to Laceham. See here, now,"
Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and holding up a scarlet
woollen kerchief with an embroidered wreath in the corner ;
" here 's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two
shillin' — an' why ? Why, 'cause there 's a bit of a moth-hole
i' this plain end. Lors, I think the moths an' the mildew was
sent by Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for
the good-lookin' women as han't got much money. If it
had n't been for the moths, now, every hankicher on 'em 'ud
ha' gone to the rich handsome ladies, like you, mum, at five
shillin' apiece — not a farthin' less ; but what does the moth
do ? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no time,
an' then a packman like me can carry 't to the poor lasses as
live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em.
Lors, it 's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher ! "
Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs. Glegg said
sharply —
" Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o' year. Put these
colored things by — let me look at your nets, if you've
got 'em."
"Eh, mum, I told you how it 'ud be," said Bob, flinging
aside the colored things with an air of desperation. "I
knowed it 'ud turn again' you to look at such paltry articles
WHEAT AND TAKES. 341
as 1 carry. Here 's a piece o' figured musliu 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 '11 be bought up by the
huckster's wife at Fibb's End — that's where it'll go — ten
shillin' for the whole lot — ten yards, countin' the damaged un
— five-an' -twenty shillin' 'ud ha' been the price — not a penny
less. But I '11 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 is n't half so good. It 's nets i/ou
talked on ; well, I 've got a piece as 'ull serve you to make fun
on — "
" Bring me that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg : " it 's a buff —
I 'm partial to buff."
"Eh, but a damarjed thing," said Bob, in a tone of deprecat-
ing disgust. " You 'd do nothing with it, mum — you 'd give
it to the cook, I know you wfaild — an' it 'ud be a pity —
she'd look too much like a lady in it — it's unbecoming for
servants."
" Fetch it, and let me see you measure it," said Mrs. Glegg,
authoritatively.
Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance.
" See what there is over measure ! " he said, holding forth
the extra half-yard, while Mrs. Glegg was busy examining the
damaged yard, and throwing her head back to see how far the
fault would be lost on a distant view.
" I '11 give you six shilling for it," she said, throwing it down
with the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum.
" Did n't I tell you now, mum, as it 'ud hurt your feelings to
look at my pack ? That damaged bit 's turned your stomach
now — I see it has," said Bob, wrapping the muslin up with
the utmost quickness, and apparently about to fasten up his
pack. " You 're used to seein' a different sort o' article carried
by packmen, when you lived at the stone house. Packs is
come down i' the world ; I told you that : my goods are for
842 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
common folks. Mrs. Pepper 'ull give me ten shillin' foi- that
muslin, an' be sorry as I did n't ask her more. Such articles
answer i' the wearin' — they keep their color till the threads
melt away i' the wash-tub, an' that won't be while I'm a,
young un."
"Well, seven shilling, '^ said Mrs. Glegg.
"Put it out o' your mind, mum, new 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. 1 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 tellm' 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'-eightpence for six yards — as cheap as if it was only the
dirt on it as was paid for."
"I don't mind having three yards of it," said Mrs. Glegg.
"Why, there's but six all together," said Bob. "No, mum,
it is n'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', mum," said Bob, looking up with a
laughing face ; " I see'd you was a pleasant lady when I fust
come to the wiuder."
"Well, put it me out," said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily.
" But if I let you have it for ten shillin', mum, you '11 be so
good as not tell nobody. I should be a laugbin'-stock — the
WHEAT AND TARES. 343
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 yoti, mum," said Bob, lianding it out.
" Eh ! see what a pattern now ! Real Laceham goods. Now,
this is the sort o' article I 'm recommendin' Mr. Tom to send
out. Lors, it 's a fine thing for anybody as has got a bit o'
money — these Laceham goods 'ud make it breed like maggits.
If I was a lady wi' a bit o' money ! — why, I know one as put
thirty pound into them goods — a lady wi' a cork leg ; but as
sharp — you would n'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' ray 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
does n't live i' this town. Now then, mum, if you '11 please to
give me the net — "
" Here 's fifteen shilling, then, for the two," said Mrs. Glegg.
" But it 's a shameful price."
"Nay, mum, you'll niver say that when you're upo' your
knees i' church i' five years' time. I 'm makin' you a present
o' th' articles — I am, indeed. That eightpence shaves off my
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 for mysen : I should n't stay to
say my Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi't."
" Stop a bit, Mr. Glegg," said the lady, as her husband took
his hat, "you never will give me the chance o' speaking.
You'll go away now, and finish everything about this busi-
ness, and come back and tell me it 's too late for me to .syeak
344 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
As if I was ii't my nephey's own aunt, and th' head o' the
family on his mother's side ! and laid by guineas, all full
weight, for him — as he '11 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 shan't venture twenty pounds,
if you make out as every tning's right and safe. And if I
do, Tom," concluded Mrs. Glegg, turning impressively to her
nephew, " I hope you '11 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 7n,y
family."
"Thank you, aunt," said Tom, rather proudly. "I prefer
having the money only lent to me."
" Very well : that 's the Dodson sperrit," said Mrs. Glegg,
rising to get her knitting with the sense that any further
remark after this would be bathos.
Salt — that eminently " briny chap " — having been dis-
covered in a cloud of tobacco-smoke at the Anchor Tavern,
Mr. Glegg commenced inquiries which turned out satisfac-
torily enough to warrant the advance of the " nest-egg," to
which aunt Glegg contributed twenty pounds; and in this
modest beginning you see the ground of a fact which might
otherwise surprise you — namely, Tom's accumulation of a
fund, unknown to his father, that promised in no very long
time to meet the more tardy process of saving, and quite
cover the deficit. When once his attention had been turned
to this source of gain, Tom determined to make the most of
it, and lost no opportunity of obtaining information and ex-
tending his small enterprises. In not telling his father, he
was influenced by that strange mixture of opposite feelings
which often gives equal truth to those who blame an action
and those who admire it : partly, it was that disinclination
to confidence which is seen between near kindred — that
family repulsion which spoils the most sacred relations of our
lives ; partly, it was the desire to surprise his father with
a great ioy. He did not see that it would have been bettei
WHEAT AND TARES. 345
to soothe the interval with a new hope, and prevent the
delirium of a too sudden elation.
At the time of Maggie's iirst 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 Eed
Deeps, he, by the same evening light, was riding into Laceham,
proud of being on his first journey on behalf of Guest & Co.,
and revolving in his mind all the chances that by the end of
another year he should have doubled his gains, lifted off the
obloquy of debt from his father's name, and perhaps — for he
should be twenty-one — have got a new start for himself, on a
higher platform of employment. Did he not deserve it ? He
was quite sure that he did.
CHAPTER III.
THE WAVERING BALANCE.
I SAID that Maggie went home that evening from the Eed
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 unfathomed sky ; and some of the memory-
haunting earthly delights were no longer out of her reach.
She might have books, converse, affection — she might hear
tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its
sense of exile ; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who
was pitiable — clearly not happy ; and perhaps here was an
opportunity indicated for making her mind more worthy of its
highest service — perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness
could hardly exist without some width of knowledge : miist
she always live in this resigned imprisonment ? It was so
blameless, so good a thing that there should be friendship
between her and Philip ; the motives that forbade it were so
unreasonable — so unchristian ! But the severe monotonous
346 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
warning came again and again — that she was losing the siiit
plicity and clearness of her life by admitting a ground of con-
cealment, and that, by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation,
she was throwing herself under the seductive guidance of illim-
itable wants. She thought she had won strength to obey the
warning before she allowed herself the next week to turn her
steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while she was
resolved to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she
looked forward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered
shade of the hollows, away from all that was harsh and un-
lovely ; to the affectionate admiring looks that would meet
her ; to the sense of comradeship that childish memories would
give to wiser, older talk ; to the certainty that Philip would
care to hear everything she said, which no one else cared for !
It was a half-hour that it would be very hard to turn her back
upon, with the sense that there would be no other like it.
Yet she said what she meant to say ; she looked firm as well
as sad.
"Philip, I have made up my mind — it is right that we
should give each other up, in everything but memory. I could
not see you without concealment — stay, I know what you are
going to say — it is other people's wrong feelings that make
concealment necessary; but concealment is bad, however it
may be caused. I feel that it would be bad for me, for us
both. And then, if our secret were discovered, there would
be nothing but misery — dreadful anger ; and then we must
part after all, and it would be harder, when we were used to
seeing each other."
Philip's face had flushed, and there was a momentary 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 : 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.
WHEAT AND TARES. 347
" Let us sit clown in the hollow," said Pliilip, '• whore we
stood the last time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the
ground, and spread their opal petals over it I "
They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.
"I've begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs,
Maggie," said Philip, " so you must let me study your face a
little, while you stay — since I am not to see it again. Please
turn your head this way."
This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been
very hard of Maggie to refuse. The full lustrous face, with
the bright black coronet, looked down like that of a divinity
well pleased to be worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured
face that was turned up to it.
"I shall be sitting for my second portrait then," she said,
smiling. " Will it be larger than the other ? "
" Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will look
like a tall Hamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just issued
from one of the fir-trees, when the stems are casting theii-
afternoon shadows on the grass."
" You seem to think more of painting than of anything now,
Philip ? "
" Perhaps I do," said Philip, rather sadly ; " but I think of
too many things — sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great
harvest from any one of them. I 'm cursed with susceptibility
in every direction, and effective faculty in none. I care for
painting and music ; I care for classic literature, and mediaeval
literature, and modern literature : I flutter all ways, and fly
in none."
" But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes —
to enjoy so many beautiful things — when they are within
your reach," said Maggie, musingly. " It always seemed to
me a sort of clever stupidity only to have one sort of talent —
almost like a carrier-pigeon."
"It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like
other men," said Philip, bitterly. " I might get some power
and distinction by mere mediocrity, as they do ; at least I
should get those middling satisfactions which niake men con-
tented to do without great ones. I uiiglit think society at
348 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could make life worth
the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty that would
lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes — ■
there is one thing : a passion answers as well as a faculty."
Maggie did not hear the last words : she was struggling
against the consciousness that Philip's words had set her own
discontent vibrating again as it used to do.
" I understand what you mean," she said, " though I know
so much less than you do. I used to think I could xiever bear
life if it kept on being the same every day, and I must always
be doing things of no consequence, and never know anything
greater. But, dear Philip, I think we are only like children,
that some one who is wiser is taking care of. Is it not right
to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be denied us ? I
have found great peace in that for the last two or three years
— even joy in subduing my own will."
"■ Yes, Maggie," said Philip, vehemently ; " and you are
shutting yourself up in a narrow self-delusive fanaticism,
which is only a way of escaping pain by starving into dulness
all the highest powers of your nature. Joy and peace are not
resignation : resignation is the willing endurance of a pain
that is not allayed — that you don't expect to be allayed.
Stupefaction is not resignation : and it is stupefaction to re-
main in ignorance — to shut up all the avenues by which the
life of your fellow-men might become known to you. I am
not resigned : I am not sure that life is long enough to learn
that lesson. Yoa 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 seri-
ously believed what he said, but he said it Avith vehemence
because it made an argument against the resolution that
opposed his wishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike
by the gathering tears, touched him with a tenderer, less
egoistic feeling He took her hand and said gently —
WHEAT AND TARES. 349
" Don't let us think of such things in this short half-hour,
Maggie. Let us only care about being together. . . . We shall
be friends in spite of separation. . . . We shall always think
of each other. I shall be glad to live as long as you are
alive, because I shall think there may always come a time
when I can — when you will let me help you in some way."
" What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip,"
said Maggie, smiling through the haze of tears. " I think you
would have made as much fuss about me, and been as pleased
for me to love you, as would have satisfied even me. You
would have loved me well enough to bear with me, and forgive
me everything. That was what I always longed that Tom
should do. I was never satisfied with a little of anything.
That is why it is better for me to do without earthly happi-
ness altogether. ... I never felt that I had enough music —
I wanted more instruments playing together — I wanted voices
to be fuller and deeper. Do you ever sing now, Philip ? " she
added abruptly, as if she had forgotten what went before.
" Yes," lie 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, is n'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 imagiua'
tion. And it flashes out in your face still, until you draw
that veil of dull quiescence over it."
d50 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip ? " said
Maggie.
*' Because I foresee it will not eud well : you can never
carry on this self-torture."
"I shall have strength given me," said Maggie, tremulously.
" No, you will not, Maggie : no one has strength given to
do what is unnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in
negations. No character becomes strong in that way. You
will be thrown into the world some day, and then every
rational satisfaction of your nature that you deny now, will
assault you like a savage appetite."
Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in
her face.
" Philip, how dare you shake me in this way ? You are a
tempter."
" No, I am not ; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight
often gives foreboding. Listen to me — let me supply you with
books ; do let me see you sometimes — be your brother and
teacher, as you said at Lorton. It is less wrong that you should
see me than that you should be committing this long suicide."
Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and
walked on in silence, till they came to the end of the Scotch
firs, and she put out her hand in sign of parting.
" Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie ?
Surely I may come and walk in it sometimes ? If I meet you
by chance, there is no concealment in that ? "
It is the moment when our resolution seems about to 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 hira not
to be visited with glancing fears lest he had been intervening
WHEAT AND TARES. 351
too presumptuously in the action of Maggie's consfience —
perhaps for a selfish end. But no ! — he persuaded himself
his end was not selfish. He had little hope that ^laggie
would ever return the strong feeling he had for her ; and it
must be better for Maggie's future life, when these petty
family obstacles to her freedom had disappeared, that the
present should not be entirely sacrificed, and that she should
have some opportunity of culture — some interchange with a
mind above the vulgar level of those she was now condemned
to live with. If we only look far enough off for the conse-
quence of our actions, we can always find some point in the
combination of results by which those actions can be justified :
by adopting the point of view of a Providence who arranges
results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find it
possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what
is most agreeable to us in the present moment. And it was
in this way that Philip justified his subtle efforts to overcome
Maggie's true prompting against a concealment that would
introduce doubleness into her own mind, and might cause new
misery to those who had the primary natural claim on her.
But there was a surplus of passion in him that made him
half independent of justifying motives. His longing to see
Maggie, and make an element in her life, had in it some of that
savage impulse to snatch an offered joy, which springs from a
life in which the mental and bodily constitution have made
pain predominate. He had not his full share in the common
good of men : he could not even pass muster with the insig-
nificant, but must be singled out for pity, and excepted from
what was a matter of course with others. Even to INfaggie 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 tem])tation8
of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only bear the
352 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation to excesa
at a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear as
well as palate, bears to the temptations that assail the despe-
ration of hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the
type of the utmost trial to what is human in us ?
Philip had never been soothed by that mother's love which
flows out to us in the greater abundance because our need is
greater, which clings to us the more tenderly because we are
the less likely to be winners in the game of life ; and the
sense of his father's affection and indulgence towards him was
marred by the keener perception of his father's faults. Kept
aloof from all practical life as Philip had been, and by nature
half-feminine in sensitiveness, he had some of the woman's
intolerant repulsion towards worldlmess 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 tri-
umph ; and it has rarely had time for that at two-and-twenty.
That force was present in Philip in much strength, but the sun
himself looks feeble through the morning mists.
CHAPTER IV.
ANOTHER LOVE-SCENE.
Early in the following April, nearly a year after that dubi-
ous 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, inquir-
ing look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is
WHEAT AND TARES. 353
hovering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting
the right hearer The hearer was not long in appearing.
" Take back your ' Corinne,' " said Maggie, drawing a book
from under her shawl. " You were right in telling me she
would do me no good; but you were wrong in thinking I
should wish to be like her."
" Would n't you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Mag-
gie ? " said Philip, looking up m her face as wc look at a first
parting in the clouds that promises us a bright heaven once
more.
"Not at all," said Maggie, laughing, "The Muses were
uncomfortable goddesses, I think — obliged always to carry
rolls and musical instruments about with them. If I carried
a harp m 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 did n'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 yon 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
VOL. II. ^
354 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
old gowns and want of all accomplishments, could be a rival of
dear little Lucy, who knows and does all sorts of charming
things, and is ten times prettier than I am — even if I were
odious and base enough to wish to be her rival. Besides, I
never go to aunt Deane's when any one is there: it is only
because dear Lucy is good, and loves me, that she comes to see
me, and will have me go to see her sometimes."
" Maggie," said Philip, with surprise, " it is not like you
to take playfulness literally. You must have been in St.
Ogg's this morning, and brought away a slight infection of
dulness."
"Well," said Maggie, smiling, "if you meant that for a
joke, it was a poor one ; but I thought it was a very good
reproof. I thought you wanted to remind me that I am vain,
and wish every one to admire me most. But it is n'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 the
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
conceited ; and yet, if he got extremely humiliated afterwards,
I should relent."
"I've often wondered, Maggie," Philip said, with some
effort, " whether you would n't really be more likely to love
a man that other women were not likely to love."
" That would depend on what they did n'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
WHEAT AND TARES. 355
— who had been marked from childhood for a peculiar kind
of suffering — and to whom you were the day-star of his life —
who loved you, worshipped you, so entirely that he felt it hai>-
piness enough for him if you would let him see you at rare
moments — "
Philip paused with a pang of dread lest his confession
should cut short this very happiness — a j)ang of the same
dread that had kept his love mute through long months. A
rush of self-consciousness told him that he was besotted to
have said all this. Maggie's manner this morning had been as
unconstrained and indifferent as ever.
But she was not looking indifferent now. Struck with the
unusual emotion in Philip's tone, she had turned quickly to
look at him, and as he went on speaking, a great change came
over her face — a flush and slight spasm of the features such
as we see in people who hear some news that will require them
to readjust their conceptions of the past. She was quite
silent, and, walking on towards the trunk of a fallen tree, she
sat down, as if she had no strength to spare for her muscles.
She was trembling.
"Maggie," said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in
every fresh moment of silence, " I was a fool to say it — forget
that I 've said it. I shall be contented if things can be as
they were."
The distress with which he spoke urged Maggie to say
something. " I am so surprised, Philip — I had not thought
of it." And the effort to say this brought the tears down
too.
« Has it made you hate me, Maggie ? " said Philip, im-
petuously. " Do you think I 'm a presumptuous fool ? "
" Oh, Philip ! " said Maggie, " how can you think I have
such feelings ? — as if I were not grateful for any love. But
... but I had never thought of your being my lover. It
seemed so far off — like a dream — only like one of tlie stories
one imagines — that I should ever have a lover."
" Then can you bear to think of me as your lover, Maggie ? "
said Philip, seating himself by her, and taking her hand, in
the elation of a sudden hope. " Do you love me ? "
356 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Maggie turned rather pale : this direct question seemed not
easy to answer. But her eyes met Philip's, which were in this
moment liquid and beautiful with beseeching love. She spoke,
with hesitation, yet with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness.
" I think I could hardly love any one better : there is noth-
ing but what I love you for." She paused a little while, and
then added, "But it will be better for us not to say any more
about it — won't it, dear Philip ? You know we could n't
even be friends, if our friendship were discovered. I have
never felt that I was right in giving way about seeing you —
though it has been so precious to me in some ways ; and now
the fear comes upon me strongly again, that it will lead to
evil."
" But no evil has come, Maggie ; and if you had been guided
by that fear before, you would only have lived through an-
other dreary benumbing year, instead of reviving into your
real self."
Maggie shook her head. " It has been very sweet, I know
— all the talking together, and the books, and the feeling that
I had the walk to look forward to, when I could tell you th**
thoughts that had come into my head while I was away from
you. But it has made me restless : it has made me think a
great deal about the world ; and I have impatient thoughts
again — I get weary of my home — and then it cuts me to the
heart afterwards, that I should ever have felt weary of my
father and mother. I think what you call being benumbed
was better — better for me — for then my selfish desires were
benumbed."
Philip had risen again, and was walking backwards and
forwards impatiently.
" No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as I 've
often told you. What you call self-conquest — blinding and
deafening yourself to all but one train of impressions — is
only the culture of monomania in a nature like yours."
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, ever>'
WHEAT AND TARES. 357
obstacle will be overcome in time : we need only wait. I can
live on hope. Look at me, Maggie ; tell me again, it is possi-
ble for you to love me. Don't look away from me to that
cloven tree ; it is a bad omen."
She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad
smile.
" Come, Maggie, say one kind word, or else you were better
to me at Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss
me — don't you remember? — and you promised to kiss me
when you met me again. You never kept the promise."
The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet re
lief to Maggie. It made the present moment less strange to
her. She kissed him almost as simply and quietly as she had
done when she was twelve years old. Philip's eyes flashed
with delight, but his next words were words of discontent.
" You don't seem happy enough, Maggie : you are forcing
yourself to say you love me, out of pity."
"No, Philip," said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old
childish way; "I'm telling you the truth. It is all new and
strange to me ; but I don't think I could love any one better
than I love you. I should like always to live with you — to
make you happy. I have always been happy when I have
been Avith 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 '11 wait another year only for a kiss, if you will only give
me the first place in your heart."
"No," said Maggie, smiling, "I won't make you wait so long
as that." But then, looking serious again, she added, as she
rose from her seat —
"But what would your own father say, Philip ? Oh, it is
quite impossible we can ever be more than friends — brother
and sister in secret, as we have been. Let us give up thinking
of everything else."
"No, Maggie, I can't give you up — unless you are deceiving
me — unless you really only care for me as if I were your
brother. Tell me the truth."
358 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have 1 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 wdien speech is at once sincere and de-
ceptive — when feeling, rising high above its average depth,
leaves flood-marks which are never reached again.
They stopped to part among the Scotch firs.
" Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie — and I
shall be happier than other men, in spite of all ? We do be-
long 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.
WHEAT AND TAliES. 859
CHAPTER V.
THE CLOVEN TREE.
Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any
programme our fear has sketched out. Fear is almost always
haunted by terrible dramatic scenes, which recur in spite of
the best-argued probabilities against them ; and during a year
that Maggie had had the burthen of concealment -on her mind,
the possibility of discovery had continually presented itself
under the form of a sudden meeting with her father or Tom
when she was walking with Philip in the Red Deeps. She
was aware that this was not one of the most likely events ;
but it was the scene that most completely symbolized her
inward dread. Those slight indirect suggestions which are
dependent on apparently trivial coincidences and incalculable
states of mind, are the favorite machinery of Fact, but are
not the stuff in which imagination is apt to work.
Certainly one of the persons about whom Maggie's fears
were furthest from troubling themselves was her aunt Pullet,
on whom, seeing that she did not live in St. Ogg's, and was
neither sharp-eyed nor sharp-tempered, it would surely have
been quite whimsical of them to fix rather than on aunt
Glegg. And yet the channel of fatality — the pathway of
the lightning — was no other than aunt Pullet. She did not
live at St. Ogg's, but the road from Garum Firs lay by the
Red Deeps, at the end opposite that by which Maggie entered.
The day after Maggie's last meeting with Philip, being a
Sunday on which Mr. Pullet was bound to appear in funeral
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 tlie afternoon ; and to-day the
brighter spirits he had been in of late had flowed over in un-
usually cheerful open chat with his father, and in the invita-
tion, "Come, Magsie, you come too!" when he strolled out
860 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
with his mother in the garden to see the advancing cherry-
blossoms. He had been better pleased with Maggie since she
had been less odd and ascetic; he was even getting rather
proud of her : several persons had remarked in his hearing
that his sister was a very iine girl. To-day there was a pecul-
iar brightness in her face, due in reality to an under-current of
excitement, which had as much doubt and pain as pleasure in
it ; but it might pass for a sign of happiness.
"You look very well, my dear," said aunt Pullet, shaking
her head sadly, as they sat round the tea-table. " I niver
thought your girl 'ud be so good-looking, Bessy. But you
must wear pink, my dear : that blue thing as your aunt Glegg
gave you turns you into a crowflower. Jane never was tasty.
Why don't you wear that gown o' mine ? "
" It is so pretty and so smart, aunt. I think it 's too showy
for me — at least for my other clothes, that I must wear
with it."
" To be sure, it 'ud be unbecoming if it was n't well known
you 've got them belonging to you as can afford to give you
such things when they 've done with 'em themselves. It
stands to reason I must give my own niece clothes now and
then — such things as / buy every year, and never wear any-
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 sermon
to-day."
" Ah, he 's a wonderful preacher, by all account — is n't he,
Sophy ? " said Mrs. Tulliver.
"Why, Lucy had got a collar on this blessed day," con-
tinued Mrs. Pullet, with her eyes fixed in a ruminating man-
ner, " as I don't say I have n't got as good, but I must look
out my best to match it."
" ]\Iiss 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
WHEAT AND TAKES. 361
email thing, not much of a figure. But fine feathers make fine
birds. I see nothing to admire so much iu those diminutive
women; they look silly by the side o' the men — out o' pro-
portion. 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 com-
placently.
" But the men are n't all big," said uncle Pullet, not without
some self-reference ; "a young fellow may be good-looking and
yet not be a six-foot, like Master Tom here."
"Ah, it's poor talking about littleness and bigness, — 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 —
does n't like much company. I should n't wonder if he goes
out of his mind ; for we never come along the road but he 'a
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 sat opposite her, and she was intensely anxious to look
indifferent. At Philip's name she had blushed, and the blush
deepened every instant from consciousness, until the mention
of the Red Deeps made her feel as if the whole secret were
betrayed, and she dared not even hold her tea-spoon lest she
should show how she trembled. She sat with her hands
clasped under the table, not daring to look round. Happily,
her father was seated on the same side with herself, beyond
her uncle Pullet, and could not see her face without stooping
forward. Her mother's voice brought the first relief — turn-
ing the conversation ; for Mrs. Tulliver was always alarmed
when the name of Wakem was mentioned in her husband's
presence. Gradually Maggie recovered composure enough to
look up; her eyes met Tom's, but he turned away his head
immediately ; and she went to bed that night wondering if he
had gathered any suspicion from her confusion. Perhaps not:
perhaps he would think it was only her alarm at her aunt's
362 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 repulsion for
Philip's deformity, shrank from attributing to his sister the
probability of feeling more than a friendly interest in such an
unfortunate exception to the common run of men. Tom's was
a nature which had a sort of superstitious repugnance to
everything exceptional. A love for a deformed man would
be odious in any woman — in a sister intolerable. But if she
had been carrying on any kind of intercourse whatever with
Philip, a stop must be put to it at once : she was disobeying
her father's strongest feelings and her brother's express com-
mands, besides compromising herself by secret meetings. He
left home the next morning in that watchful state of mind
which turns the most ordinary course of things into pregnant
coincidences.
That afternoon, about half-past three o'clock, Tom was stand-
ing on the wharf, talking with Bob Jakin about the probability
of the good ship Adelaide coming in, in a day or two, with
results highly important to both of them.
" Eh," said Bob, parenthetically, as he looked over the fields
on the other side of the river, "there goes that crooked young
Wakem. I know him or his shadder as far off as I can see
'em ; I 'm allays lighting on him o' that side the river."
A sudden thought seemed to have darted through Tom's
mind. '' I must go, Bob," he said, " I 've something to attend
to/' hurrying off to the warehouse, where he left notice for
WHEAT AND TARES. 868
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, tliat lie 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 go-
ing," and turned round.
" Yes, you are ; but I want to speak to you first. Where is
my father ? "
" Out on horseback."
" And my mother ? "
"In the yard, I think, with the poultry."
" I can go in, then, without her seeing me ? "
They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlor, said
to Maggie, " Come in here."
She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her.
"Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that has
passed between you and Philip Wakem,"
"Does my father know anything?" said Maggie, still
trembling.
" No," said Tom, indignantly. " But he shall know, if you
a,ttempt to use deceit towards 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 father's sake, then."
364 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for 3"our father,
when you have despised his strongest feelings."
" You never do wrong, Tom," said Maggie, tauntingly.
"Not if I know it," answered Tom, with proud sincerity.
"But I have nothing to say to you beyond this : tell me what
has passed between you and Philip Wakem. When did you
first meet him in the Red Deeps ? "
" A year ago," said Maggie, quietly. Tom's severity gave
her a certain fund of defiance, and kept her sense of error in
abeyance. " You need ask me no more questions. We have
been friendly a year. We have met and walked together often.
He has lent me books."
" Is that all ? " said Tom, looking straight at her with his
frown.
Maggie paused a moment ; then, determined to make an end
of Tom's right to accuse her of deceit, she said, haughtily —
"No, not quite all. On Saturday he told me that he loved
me. I did n't think of it before then — I had only thought of
him as an old friend."
" And you encouraged him ? " said Tom, with an expression
of disgust.
" I told him that I loved him too."
Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and
frowning, with his hands in his pockets. At last he looked up
and said, coldly —
" Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to
take; either you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my
father's Bible, that you will never have another meeting or
speak another word in private with Philip Wakem, or you 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
deceitful daughter, who throws away her own respectability by
clandestine meetings with the son of a man that has helped to
ruin her father. Choose ! " Tom ended with cold decision,
going up to the large Bible, drawing it forward, and opening
it at the fly-leaf, where the writing was.
It was a crushing alternative to Maggie.
WHEAT AND TARES. 3G5
"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 ieel 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 me
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, Maggie.
There is no consistency in you. Put your hand on this Bible,
and say, ' I renounce all private speech and intercourse with
Philip Wakem from this time forth.' Else you will bring
shame on us all, and grief on my father ; and what is the use
of my exerting myself and giving up everything else for the
sake of paying my father's debts, if you are to bring madness
and vexation on him, just when he might be easy and hold up
his head once more ? "
'^ Oh, Tom — luill the debts be paid soon ? " said Maggie,
clasping her hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her
wretchedness.
" If things turn out as I expect," said Tom. " But," he added,
his voice trembling with indignation, " while I have been con-
triving and working that my father may have some peace of
mind before he dies — working for the respectability of our
family — you have done all you can to destroy both."
Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction : for the 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," 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 enougL
Say no more ; but promise, in the words I told you."
366 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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 yoi;r knowledge. That is the only thing I will say.
I will put my hand on the Bible if you like."
'^ Say it, then."
Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and 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 wou.ld fall on him from
Tom's lips ; but she felt it was in vain to attempt anything
but submission. Tom had his terrible clutch on her conscience
and her deepest dread : she writhed under the demonstrable
truth of the character he had given to her conduct, and yet
her whole soul rebelled against it as unfair from its incom-
pleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his indignation
diverted towards Philip. He did not know how much of an
old boyish repulsion and of mere personal pride and animosity
was concerned in the bitter severity of the words by which he
meant to do the duty of a son and a brother. Tom was Bot
given to inquire subtly into his own motives, any more than
into other matters of an intangible kind ; he was quite sure
that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he
would have had nothing to do with them.
Maggie's only hope was that something might, for the first
time, have prevented Philip from coming. Then there would
be delay — then she might get Tom's permission to write to
him. Her heart beat with double violence when they got 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 thore, in the pale
WHEAT AND TARES. 867
parted lips, and the terrified tension of the largo eyes. Hor
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 gentleman,
sir ? " Tom said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as riiilip'*
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 '11 tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advan-
tage of a young girl's foolishness and ignorance to get her to
have secret meetings with you. I mean, daring to triiie with
the respectability of a family that has a good and honest name
to support."
" I deny that," interrupted Philip, impetuously. " I could
never trifle with anything that affected your sister's happiness.
She is dearer to me than she is to you ; I honor her more
than you can ever honor her ; I would give up my life to her."
" Don't talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir ! Do you mean
to pretend that you did n't know it would be injurious to her
to meet you here week after week ? Do you pi-etend you had
any right to make professions of love to her, even if yon had
been a fit husband for her, when neither her father nor your
father would ever consent to a marriage between you ? And
you — 1/ou to try and worm yourself into the affections of a
handsome girl who is not eighteen, and has been shut out from
the world by her father's misfortunes ! That 's your crooked
notion of honor, is it ? I call it base treachery — I call it
taking advantage of circumstances to win wdiat '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 emo'tions. " Giants
have an immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse.
You are incapable even of understanding what I feel for your
sister. I feel so much for her that I could even desire to be
at friendship with yow."
"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said
Tom, with scorching contempt. "What I wish is that you
368 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
should understand me — that I shall take care of yny 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 '11 thrash
you — I '11 hold you up to public scorn. Who would n't laugh
at the idea of your turning lover to a fine girl ? "
"Tom, I will not bear it — I will 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 Avishes to the slightest word."
" It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, implor-
ingly. " Tom threatens to tell my father — and he could n't
bear it : I have promised, I have vowed solemnly, that we will
not have any intercourse without my brother's knowledge."
"It is enough, Maggie. I shall not change; but I w'.sh
you to hold yourself entirely free. But trust me — remember
that I can never seek for anything but good to what belongs
to you."
" Yes," said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip's,
" you can talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to
her now : did you seek her good before ? "
" I did — at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have
a friend for life — who would cherish her, who would do her
more justice than a coarse and narrow-minded brother, that
she has always lavished her affections on."
" Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours ;
and I '11 tell you what is my way. I '11 save her from diso-
beying and disgracing her father : I '11 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.
WHEAT AND TARES. 3G9
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 ou";
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
*-,hat there is anything better than your own conduct and your
own petty aims."
" Certainly," said Tom, coolly. " I don't see that your
conduct is better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and
Philip Wakem's conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed
of its being known ? Answer me that. I know what I have
aimed at in my conduct, and I 've succeeded : pray, what good
has your conduct brought to you or any one else ? "
" I don't want to defend myself," said Maggie, still with
vehemence : " I know I 've been wrong — often, continually.
But yet, sometimes when I have done wrong, it has been
because I have feelings that you would be the better for, if
you had them. If you Avere in fault ever — if you had done
anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it brought
you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you.
But you have always enjoyed punishing me — you have al-
ways been hard and cruel to me : even when I was a little
girl, and always loved you better than any one else in the
world, you would let me go crying to bed without forgiving
me. You have no pity : you have no sense of your own im-
perfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard ; it is
not fitting for a mortal — for a Christian. You are nothing
VOL. II. 24
370 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
but a Pharisee. You thank God for nothing but your own
virtues — you think they are great enough to win you every-
thing else. You have not even a vision of feelings by the
side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness ! "
" Well," said Tom, with cold scorn, " if your feelings are so
much better than mine, let me see you show them in some
other way than by conduct that 's likely to disgrace us all —
than by ridiculous flights first into one extreme and then into
another. Pray, how have you shown your love, that you talk
of, either to me or my father ? By disobeying and deceiving
us. I have a different way of showing my affection."
" Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do
something in the world."
" Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can."
" So I zvill submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be
right. I will submit even to what is unreasonable from my
father, but I will not submit to it from you. You boast of
your virtues as if they purchased you a right to be cruel and
unmanly as you 've been to-day. Don't suppose I would give
up Philip Wakem in obedience to you. The deformity you
insult would make me cling to him and care for him the
more."
" Very well — that is your view of things," said Tom, more
coldly than ever ; " you need say no more to show me what a
wide distance there is between us. Let us remember that in
future, and be silent."
Tom went back to St. Ogg's, to 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 own room to pour out all that indig-
nant remonstrance, against which Tom's mind was close barred,
in bitter tears. Then, when the first burst of unsatisfied anger
was gone by, came the recollection of that quiet time before
the pleasure which had ended in to-day's misery had perturbed
the clearness and simplicity of her life. She used to think
in that time that she had made great conquests, and won a
lasting stand on serene heights above worldly temptations
and conflict. And here she was down again in the thick of
WHEAT AND TARES. 371
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 h?,ve recovered more inward harmony ; but
now her penitence and submission were constantly obstructed
by resentment that would present itself to her no otherwise
than as a just indignation. Her heart bled for Thilip : she
went on recalling the insults that had been flung at him
with so vivid a conception of what he had felt under them,
that it was almost like a sharp bodily pain to her, making
her beat the floor with her foot, and tighten her fingers on
her palm.
And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious
of a certain dim background of relief in the forced separation
from Philip ? Surely it was only because the sense of a
deliverance from concealment was welcome at any cost.
CHAPTER VI.
THE HARD-WON TRIUMPH.
Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest
moment in all the year — the great chestnuts in blossom, and
the grass all deep and daisied — Tom Tulliver came home to
it earlier than usual in the evening, and as he passed over the
bridge, he looked with the old deep-rooted affection at the
respectable red brick house, which always seemed cheerful
and inviting outside, let the rooms be as bare and the hearts
as sad as they might, inside. There is a very pleasant light
in Tom's blue-gray eyes as he glances at the house-windows :
that fold in his brow never disappears, but it is not unbecom-
ing ; it seems to imply a strength of will that may possibly
be without harshness, when the eyes and mouth have their
gentlest expression. His firm step becomes quicker, and the
372 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
corners of liis mouth rebel against the compression which is
meant to forbid a smile.
The eyes in the parlor were not turned towards the bridge
just then, and the group there was sitting in unexpectaut
silence — Mr. Tulliver in his arm-chair, tired with a long ride,
and ruminating with a worn look, fixed chiefly on Maggie,
who was bending over her sewing while her mother was
making the tea.
They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-
known foot.
" Wliy, what 's up now, Tom ? " said his father. *' You 're
a bit earlier than usual."
" Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away.
Well, mother ! "
Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual
good-humor with him. Hardly a word or look had passed
between him and Maggie in all the three weeks ; but his usual
incommunicativeness at home prevented this from being notice-
able to their parents.
'' Father," said Tom, when they had finished tea, " do you
know exactly how much money there is in the tin box ? "
" Only a hundred and ninety -three pound," said Mr. Tulliver.
" You 've brought less o' late — but young fellows like to have
their own way with their money. Though I didn't do as
I liked before / was of age." He spoke with rather timid
discontent.
" Are you quite sure that 's the sum, father ? " said Tom :
" I wish you would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down.
I think you have perhaps made a mistake."
" How should I make a mistake ? " said his father, sharply.
" I 've counted it often enough ; but I can fetch it, if you won't
believe me."
It was always an incident Mr. Tulliver liked, in his gloomy
life, to fetch the tin box and count the money.
"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Tom, as he saw
her moving when his father was gone up-stairs.
" And is n't Maggie to go ? " said Mrs. Tulliver j " because
somebody must take away the things."
WHEAT AND TARES. 378
*•'' Just as she likes," said Tom, indifferently.
That was a cutting word to Maggie. Her heart had leaped
with the sudden conviction that Tom was going to tell their
father the debts could be paid — and Tom would have let her
be absent when that news was told ! But she carried away
the tray, and came back immediately. The feeling of injury
on her own behalf could not predominate at that moment.
Tom drew to the corner of the table near his father when
the tin box was set down and opened, and the red evening
light falling on them made conspicuous the worn, sour gloom
of the dark-eyed father and the suppressed joy in the face of
the fair-complexioned son. The mother and Maggie sat at the
other end of the table, the one in blank patience, the other in
palpitating expectation.
Mr. Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on
the table, and then said, glancing sharply at Tom —
" There now ! you see I was right enough."
He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency.
"There 's more nor three hundred wanting — it'll be a fine
while before / 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 j^ear to lay this by — it's much if I'm
above ground for another four year. ... I must trusten to
you to pay 'em," he went on, with a trembling voice, " if you
keep i' the same mind now you 're coming o' age. . . . But
you 're like enough to bury me first."
He looked up in Tom's face with a querulous desire for
some assurance.
"No, father," said Tom, speaking with energetic decision,
though there was tremor discernible in his voice too, "you
will live to see the debts all paid. You shall pay them with
your own hand."
His tone implied something more than mere hopefulness or
resolution. A slight electric shock seemed to pass through
Mr. Tulliver, and he kept his eyes fixed on Tom with a look
of eager inquiry, while Maggie, unable to restrain herself,
rushed to her father's side and knelt down by him. Tom was
silent a little while before he went on.
3T4 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" A good while ago, my uncle Glegg lent me a little money
to trade with, and that has answered. I have three hundred
and twenty pounds in the bank."
His mother's arms were round his neck as soon as the last
words were uttered, and she said, half crying —
" Oh, my boy, I knew you 'd make iverything right again,
when you got a man."
But his father was silent : the flood of emotion hemmed in
all power of speech. Both Tom and Maggie were struck with
fear lest the shock of joy might even be fatal. But the blessed
relief of tears came. The broad chest heaved, the muscles of
the face gave way, and the gray-haired man burst into loud
sobs. The fit of weeping gradually subsided, and he sat quiet,
recovering the regularity of his breathing. At last he looked
up at his wife and said, in a gentle tone —
" Bessy, you must come and kiss me now — the lad has made
you amends. You '11 see a bit o' comfort again, belike."
When she had kissed him, and he had held her hand a min-
ute, his thoughts went back to the money.
" I wish you 'd brought me the money to look at, Tom," he
said, fingering the sovereigns on the table ; " I should ha' felt
surer."
" You shall see it to-morrow, father," said Tom. " My uncle
Deane has appointed the creditors to meet to-morrow at the
Golden Lion, and he has ordered a dinner for them at two
o'clock. My uncle Glegg and he will both be there. It was
advertised in the ' Messenger ' on Saturday."
" Then Wakem knows on 't ! " said JMr. Tulliver, his eye
kindling with triumphant fii-e. " Ah ! " he went on, with a
long-drawn guttural enunciation, taking out his snuff-box, the
only luxury he had left himself, and tapping it with something
of his old air of defiance — "I '11 get from under his thumb
now — though I mtist leave the old mill. I thought I could
ha' held out to die here — but I can't. . . . We 've got a glass
o' nothing in the house, have we, Bessy ? "
" Yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced
bunch of keys, " there 's some brandy sister Deane brought me
when I was ill."
WHEAT AND TARES. 875
" Get it me, then, get it me. I feel a bit weak."
" Tom, my lad," he said, iu a stronger voice, when he had
taken some Lrandy-and-water, " you shall make a speech to
'em. I '11 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 '11 prosper i' the world, my lad ; you '11 maybe see the day
when Wakem and his son 'nil 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 discon-
tent and foreboding, suddenly filled, by the magic of joy, with
visions of good fortune. But some subtle influence prevented
him from foreseeing the good fortune as happening to himself.
" Shake hands wi' me, my lad," he said, suddenly putting
out his hand. " It 's a great thing when a man can be proud
as he 's got a good son. I 've had that luck."
Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as
that ; and Maggie could n't help forgetting her own grievances.
Tom was good ; and in the sweet humility that springs in us
all in moments of true admiration and gratitude, she felt that
the faults he had to pardon in her had never been redeemed,
as his faults were. She felt no jealousy this evening that, for
the first time, she seemed to be thrown into the background in
her father's mind.
There was much more talk before bed-time. Mr. Tulliver
naturally wanted to hear all the particulars of Tom's trading
adventures, and he listened with growing excitement and de-
light. He was curious to know what had been said on every
occasion — if possible, what had been thought ; and Bob
Jakin's part in the business threw him into peculiar outbursts
of sympathy with the triumphant knowingness of that remark,
able packman. Bob's juvenile history, so far as it had come
373 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 maRter3%
in sudden bursts of irrelevant exclamation.
It was long before Mr. Tulliver got to sleep that night, and
the sleep, when it came, was filled with vivid dreams. At
half-past five o'clock in the morning, when Mrs. Tulliver was
already rising, he alarmed her by starting up with a sort of
smothered shout, and looking round in a bewildered way at
the walls of the bedroom.
" What 's the matter, Mr. Tulliver ? " said his wife. He looked
at her, still with a puzzled expression, and said at last —
"Ah! — I was dreaming . . . did I make a noise? , . , I
thought I'd got hold of him."
CHAPTER VII.
A DAT OF RECKONING.
Mr. Tulliver was an essentially sober man — able to take
his glass and not averse to it, but never exceeding the bounds
of moderation. He had naturally an active Hotspur tempera-
ment, which did not crave liquid fire to set it a-glow ; 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
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
WHEAT AND TARES. 377
the consciousness tliat he was about to make an honorable
figure once more, he looked more like the pi-oud, confident,
warm-hearted and warm-tempered Tulliver of old times, than
might have seemed possible to any one who had met him a
week before, riding along as had been his wont for the last
four years since the sense of failure and debt had been upon
him — with his head hanging down, casting brief, unwilling
looks on those who forced themselves on his notice. He made
his speech, asserting his honest principles with his old confi-
dent eagerness, alluding to the rascals and the luck that had
been against him, but that he had triumphed over, to some
extent, by hard efforts and the aid of a good son ; and wind-
ing up with the story of how Tom had got the best part of
the needful money. But the streak of irritation and hostile
triumph seemed to melt for a little while into purer fatherly
pride and pleasure, when, Tom's health having been proposed,
and uncle Deane having taken occasion to say a few words of
eulogy on his general character and conduct, Tom himself got
up and made the single speech of his life. It could hardly
have been briefer : he thanked the gentlemen for the honor
they had done him. He was glad that he had been able to
help his father in proving his integrity and regaining his hon-
est name ; and, for his own part, he hoped he should never
undo that work and disgrace that name. But the applause
that followed was so great, and Tom looked so gentlemanly as
well as tall and straight, that Mr. Tulliver remarked, in an
explanatory manner, to his friends on his right and left, that
he had spent a deal of money on his son's education.
The party broke up in very sober fashion at five o'clock.
Tom remained in St. Ogg's to attend to some business, and
Mr. Tulliver mounted his horse to go home, and describe the
memorable things that had been said and done, to "poor
Bessy and the little wench." The air of excitement that
hung about him was but faintly due to good cheer or any
stimulus but the potent wine of triumphant joy. He did not
choose any back street to-day, but rode slowly, with uplifted
head and free glances, along the principal street all the way
to the bridge. Why did he not happen to meet Wakem ?
378 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
The •want of that coincidence vexed him, and set his mind at
work in an irritating way. Perhaps Wakem was gone out of
town to-day on purpose to avoid seeing or hearing anything
of an honorable action, which might well cause him some
unpleasant twinges. If Wakem were to meet him then, Mr.
Tulliver would look straight at him, and the rascal would
perhaps be forsaken a little by his cool domineering impu-
dence. He would know by-and-by that an honest man was
not going to serve him an}^ longer, and lend his honesty to fill
a pocket already over-full of dishonest gains. Perhaps the
luck was beginning to turn ; perhaps the devil did n't always
hold the best cards in this world.
Simmering in this way, Mr. Tulliver approached the yard-
gates of Dorlcote Mill, near enough to see a well-known figure
coming out of them on a fine black horse. They met about
fifty yards from the gates, between the great chestnuts and
elms and the high bank.
" Tulliver," said Wakem, abruptly, in a haughtier tone than
usual, '' what a fool's trick you did — spreading those hard
lumps on that Far Close ! I told you how it would be ; but
you men never learn to farm with any method."
" Oh ! " said Tulliver, suddenly boiling up ; '' get somebody
else to farm for you, then, as '11 ask you to teach him."
" You have been drinking, I suppose," said Wakem, .really
believing that this was the meaning of Tulliver's flushed face
and sparkling eyes.
"No, I've not been drinking," said Tulliver; "I want no
drinking to help me make up my mind as I '11 serve no longer
under a scoundrel."
" Very well ! you may leave my premises to-morrow, then :
hold your insolent tongue and let me pass." (Tulliver was
backing his horse across the road to hem Wakem in.)
'-No, I skanH let you pass," said Tulliver, getting fiercer.
" I shall tell you what I think of you first. You 're too big a
raskill to get hanged — you 're — "
" Let me pass, you ignorant brute, or I '11 ride over you."
Mr. Tulliver, spurring his horse and raising his whip, made
a rush forward, and Wakem's horse, rearing and staggering
WHEAT AND TARES. 379
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 trying
to recover his feet, grasped him by the "left arm so as to press
Wakem's whole weight on the right arm, which rested on the
ground, and flogged him fiercely across the back with his
riding-whip. Wakem shouted for help, but no help came,
until a woman's scream was heard, and the cry of " Father,
father ! "
Suddenly, Wakem felt, something had arrested Mr. Tulli-
ver's arm ; for the flogging ceased, and the grasp on his own
arm was relaxed.
" Get away with you — go ! " said Tulliver, angrily. But it
was not to Wakem that he spoke. Slowly the lawyer rose,
and, as he turned his head, saw that Tulliver's arms were
being held by a girl — rather by the fear of hurting the girl
that clung to him with all her young might.
" Oh, Luke — mother — come and help Mr. Wakem ! " 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 : though — confound it — I
think this arm is sprained."
With some difiiculty, Wakem was heaved on to Tulliver's
horse. Then he turned towards the miller and said, with
white rage, " You '11 suffer for this, sir. Your daughter is a
witness that you 've assaulted me."
" I don't c?re," said Mr. Tulliver, in a thick, fierce voice ;
" go and show your back, and tell 'em I thrashed you. Tell
'em I 've made things a bit more even i' the world."
"Ride my horse home with me," said Wakem to Luka
^'By the Tofton Ferry — not through the town."
380 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Father, come in 1 " 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 m silence, quivering
with fear. But Maggie became conscious that as she was
slackening her hold, her father was beginning to grasp her
and lean on her. The surprise checked her sobs.
" I feel ill — faintish," he said. " Help me in, Bessy — I 'm
giddy — I 've a pain i' the head."
He walked in slowly, propped by his wife and daughter,
and tottered into his arm-chair. The almost purple flush had
given way to paleness, and his hand was cold.
■' Had n't we better send for the doctor ? " said Mrs.
Tulliver.
He seemed to be too faint and suffering to hear her ; but
presently, when she said to Maggie, " Go and see for some-
body to fetch the doctor," he looked up at her with full
comprehension, and said, " Doctor ? no — no doctor. It 's my
head — that 's all. Help me to bed."
Sad ending to the day that had risen on them all like a
beginning of better times ! But mingled seed must bear a
mingled crop.
In half an hour after his father had lain down Tom came
home. Bob Jakin was with him — come to congratulate "the
old master," not without some excusable pride that he had
had his share in bringing about Mr. Tom's good luck; and
Tom had thought his father would like nothing better, as a
finish to the day, than a talk with Bob. But now Tom could
only spend the evening in gloomy expectation of the unpleas-
ant 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 inclina-
tion to tell his mother and sister anything about the dinner —
they hardly cared to ask it. Apparently the mingled thread
in the web of their life was so curiously twisted together, that
there could be no joy without a sorrow coming close upon it.
Tom was dejected by the thought that his exemplary effort
must always be baffled by the wrong-doing of others : Maggie
WHEAT AND TARES. 381
was living through, over and over again, the agony of the mo-
ment 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 does n't
say it 's worse — he only said sudden, ' 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 towards Tom, who came and stood next to her.
" Tom, my lad, it 's come upon me as I shan'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 othei
an instant. Then Tom said, trying to speak firmly —
" Have you any wish, father — that I can fulfil, when — "
« Ay, my lad . . . you '11 try and get the old mill back."
« Yes, father."
382 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" And there 's your mother — you '11 try and make her
amends, all you can, for my bad luck . . . and there 's the
little wench — "
The father turned his eyes on Maggie with a still more eager
look, while she, with a bursting heart, sank on her knees, to be
closer to the dear, time-worn face which had been present with
her through long years, as the sign of her deepest love and
hardest trial.
" You must take care of her, Tom . . . don't you fret, my
wench . . . there '11 come somebody as '11 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 '11 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 towards
Tom and said —
' I had my turn — I beat him. That was nothing but fair.
I never wanted anything but what was fair."
"But, father, dear father," said IMaggie, 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 forgiv-
ing 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 . . . puz-
zling — "
WHEAT AND TARES. 383
Soon they merged into mere mutteriugs ; the eyes had ceased
to discern ; and then came the final silence.
But not of death. For an hour or more the chest heaved,
the loud hard breathing continued, getting gradually slower, as
the cold dews gathered on the brow.
At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly
lighted soul had forever ceased to be vexed with the painful
riddle of this world.
Help was come now : Luke and his Avife were there, anc
Dr. Turnbull had arrived, too late for everything but to say,
" This is death."
Tom and Maggie went down-stairs together into the room
where their father's place was empty. Their eyes turned to
the same spot, and Maggie spoke :
" Tom, forgive me — let us always love each other ; " and
they clung and wept together.
BOOK VI.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION.
CHAPTER I.
V
A DUET IN PARADISE.
The well-furnished drawing-room, with the open grand piano,
and the pleasant outlook down a sloping garden to a boat-
house bj the side of the Floss, is Mr. Deane's. The neat
little lady in mourning, whose light-brown ringlets are falling
over the colored embroidery with which her fingers are busy,
is of course Lucy Deane ; and the fine young man who is
leaning down from his chair to snap the scissors in the ex-
tremely abbreviated face of the " King Charles " lying on the
young lady's feet, is no other than Mr. Stephen Guest, whose
diamond ring, attar of roses, and air of nonchalant leisure, at
twelve o'clock in the day, are the graceful and odoriferous
result of the largest oil-mill and the most extensive wharf in
St. Ogg's. There is an apparent triviality in the action with
the scissors, but your discernment perceives at once that there
is a design in it which makes it eminently worthy of a large-
headed, long-limbed young man ; for you see that LiTcy 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 fingers hope-
lessly.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 385
"Confound the scissors! The oval lies the wrong way.
Please, draw them off for me."
"Draw them off with your other hand," says Miss Lucy,
roguishly.
" Oh, but that 's my left hand : I 'm not left-handed."
Lucy laughs, and the scissors are drawn off with gentle
touches from tiny tips, which naturally dispose Mr. Stephen
for a repetition da capo. Accordingly, he watches for the
release of the scissors, that he may get them into his 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 behave
properly, and then I will tell you some news."
" What is that ? " said Stephen, throwing himself back
and hanging his right arm over the corner of his chair. He
might have been sitting for his portrait, which would have
represented a rather striking young man of five-and-twenty,
with a square forehead, short dark-brown hair standing erect,
with a slight wave at the end, like a thick crop of corn, and a
half-ardent, half-sarcastic glance from under his well-marked
horizontal eyebrows. " Is it very important news ? "
" Yes — very. Guess."
" You are going to change Minny's diet, and give him three
ratafias soaked in a dessert-spoonful of cream daily ? "
" Quite wrong."
" Well, then, Dr. Kenn has been preaching against buck,
ram, and you ladies have all been sending him a round-robin,
saying — ' This is a hard doctrine ; who can bear it ? ' "
" For shame ! " said Lucy, adjusting her little mouth gravely.
"It is rather dull of you not to guess my news, because it is
about something I mentioned to you not very long ago."
" But you have mentioned many things to me not long ago.
Does your feminine tyranny require that when you say the
thing you mean is one of several things, I should know it
immediately by that mark?"
" Yes, I know you think I am silly."
" I think you are perfectly charming."
VOL. II. 26
386 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" And my silliness is part of my charm ? "
" I did n't say tliatr
" But I know you like women to be rather insipid, Philip
Wakem betrayed you : he said so one day when you were not
here."
" Oh, I know Phil is fierce on that point ; he makes it
quite a personal matter. I think he must be love-sick for
some unknown lady — some exalted Beatrice whom he met
abroad."
"By the bye," said Lucy, pausing in her work, "it has
just occurred to me that I have 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 shan't be able
to sing our glees — shall we ? "
"What! is your cousin coming to stay with you?" said
Stephen, with a look of slight annoyance.
" Yes ; that was my news, which you have forgotten. She 's
going to leave her situation, where she has been nearly two
years, poor thing — ever since her father's death ; and she will
stay with me a month or two — many months, I hope."
" And am I bound to be pleased at that news ? "
" Oh no, not at all," said Lucy, with a little air of pique,
"/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 ? "
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 387
"No," said Steplien, with rather supercilious indifference.
"I've always known the name, and I dare say I knew the man
by sight, apart from his name. I know half the names and faces
in the neighborhood in that detached, disjointed way."
"He was a very hot-tempered man. I remember, when I
was a little girl, and used to go to see my cousins, he often
frightened me by talking as if he were angry. Papa told me
there was a dreadful quarrel, the very day before my uncle's
death, between him and Mr. Wakem, but it was hushed up.
That was when you were in London. Papa says n\j uncle
was quite mistaken in many ways : his mind had become
embittered. But Tom and iVIaggie must naturally feel it very
painful to be reminded of these things. They have had so
much — so very much trouble. Maggie was at school with
me six years ago, when she was fetched away because of her
father's misfortunes, and she has hardly had any pleasure
since, I think. She has been in a dreary situation in a school
since uncle's death, because she is determined to be indepen-
dent, 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 1 "
388 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"No, indeed : I 'in only guessing wliat Mrs. Tulliver'a
daughter must be ; and then if she is to banish Philip, our
only apology for a tenor, that will be an additional bore."
" But I hope that may not be. I think I will ask you to
call on Philip and tell him Maggie is coming to-morrow. He
is quite aware of Tom's feeling, and always keeps out of his
way ; so he will understand, if you tell him, that I asked you
to warn him not to come until I write to ask him."
'' I think you had better write a pretty note for me to take :
Phil is so sensitive, you know, the least thing might frighten
him off coming at all, and we had hard work to get him. I
can never induce him to come to the park : he doesn't like my
sisters, I think. It is only your faery touch that can lay his
ruffled feathers."
Stephen mastered the little hand that was straying towards
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 — v/hen each is
sure of the other's love, but no formal declaration has been
made, and all is mutual divination, exalting the most trivial
word, the lightest gesture, into thrills delicate and delicious
as wafted jasmine scent. The explicitness of an engagement
wears off this finest edge of susceptibility ; it is jasmine
gathered and presented in a large bouquet.
" But it is really odd that you should have hit so exactly on
Maggie's appearance and manners," said the cunning Lucy,
moving to reach her desk, " because she might have been like
her brother, you know ; and Tom has not round eyes ; and he
is as far as possible from staring at people."
"Oh, I suppose he is like the father: he seems to be as proud
as Lucifer. Not a brilliant companion, though, I should
think."
"I like Tom. He gave me my Minny when I lost Lolo;
and papa is very fond of him : he says Tom has excellent
principles. It was through him that his father was able to
pay all his debts before he died."
" Oh, ah ; I 've heard about that. I heard your father and
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 389
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 th^ni from
a considerable loss by riding home in some marveHous way,
like Turpin, to bring them news about the stoppage of a bank,
or something of that sort. But I was rather drowsy at the
time."
Stephen rose from his seat, and sauntered to the piano, hum-
ming in falsetto, " Graceful Consort," as he turned over the
volume of " The Creation," which stood open on the desk.
" Come and sing tliis," he said, when he saw Lucy rising.
*' What ! ' Graceful Consort ' ? I don't think it suits your
voice."
" Never mind ; it exactly suits my feeling, which, Philip
will have it, is the grand element of good singing. I notice
men with indifferent voices are usually of that opinion."
" Philip burst into one of his invectives against ' The 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 unfallen, in Paradise. Now, then —
the recitative, for the sake of the moral. You will sing tlie
whole duty of woman — ' And from obedience grows my pride
and happiness.' "
" Oh, no, I shall not respect an Adam who drags the tempo,
as you will," said Lucy, beginning to play the duet.
Surely the only courtship unshaken by doubts and fears,
must be that in which the lovers can sing together. The
sense of mutual fitness that springs from the two deep notes
fulfilling expectation just at the right moment between the
notes of the silvery soprano, from the perfect accord of de-
scending thirds and fifths, from the preccncerfced loving chase
of a fugue, is likely enough to supersede any immediate de-
mand for less impassioned forms of agreement. The contralto
will not care to catechise the bass; the tenor will foresee
no embarrassing dearth of remark in evenings spent with the
390 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 princi-
ple must have been in danger of relaxation under such circum-
stances ; and the violin, faithful to rotten boroughs, must have
been tempted to fraternize in a demoralizing way with a re-
forming violoncello. In this case, the linnet-throated soprano,
and the full-toned bass, singing,
" With thee delight is ever new,
With thee is life incessant bliss,"
believed what they sang all the more because they sang it.
" Now for Eaphael'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 rep-
resenting the tread of the heavy beasts : but when a singer
has an audience of two, there is room for divided sentiments.
Minny's mistress was charmed ; but Minny, who had intrenched
himself, trembling, in his basket as soon as the music began,
found this thunder so little to his taste that he leaped out and
scampered under the remotest chiffomiier, as the most eligible
place in which a small dog could await the crack of doom.
" Adieu, ' graceful consort,' " said Stephen, buttoning his
coat across when he had done singing, and smiling down from
his tall height, with the air of rather a patronizing lover, at
the little lady on the music-stool. " My bliss is not incessant,
for I must gallop home. I promised to be there at lunch."
" You will not be able to call on Philip, then ? It is of no
consequence : I have said everything in my note."
"You will be engaged with your cousin to-morrow, I
suppose ? "
"YeSj we are going to have a little family-party. My cousin
Tom will dine with us ; and poor aunty will have her two
children together for the first time. It will be very pretty;
I think a great deal about it."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 391
" But I may come the next day ? "
" Oh yes ! Come and be introduced to my cousin Maggie —
though you can hardly be said not to have seen her, you have
described her so well."
"Good-by, then." And there was that slight pressure of
the hands, a.nd momentary meeting of the eyes, which will
often leave a little lady with a slight flush and smile on her
face that do not subside immediately when the door is closed,
and with an inclination to walk up and down the room rather
than to seat herself quietly at her embroidery, or other rational
and improving occupation. At least this was the eft'ect on
Lucy ; and you will not, I hope, consider it an indication of
vanity predominating over more tender impulses, that she just
glanced in the chimney-glass as her walk brought her near it.
The desire to know that one has not looked an absolute fright
during a few hours of conversation, may be construed as lying
within the bounds of a laudable benevolent consideration for
others. And Lucy had so much of this benevolence in her
nature that I am inclined to think her small egoisms were
impregnated with it, just as there are people not altogether
unknown to you, whose small benevolences have a predomi-
nant 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 per-
son of chief consequence in her small world, you may see in
her hazel eyes an ever-present sunny benignity, in which the
momentary harmless flashes of personal vanity are quite lost ;
and if she is happy in thinking of her lover, it is because the
thought of him mingles readily with all the gentle affections
and good-natured offices with which she fills her peaceful days.
Even now, her mind, with that instantaneous alternation which
makes two currents of feeling or imagination seem simulta-
neous, 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
392 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 towards the door, but
paused there.
"What's the matter, then, Miuny ?" she said, stooping in
answer to some whimpering of that small quadruped, and lift-
ing his glossy head against her pink cheek. " Did you think
I was going without you ? Come, then, let us go and see
Sinbad."
Sinbad was Lucy's chestnut horse, that she always fed with
her own hand when he was turned out in the paddock. She
was fond of feeding dependent creatures, and knew the private
tastes of all the animals about the house, delighting in the 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 mor-
tifications, with long ruminating enjoyment of little pleasures
prepared for them ? Perhaps the emphasis of his admiration
did not fall precisely on this rarest quality in her — perhaps
he approved his own choice of her chiefly because she did not
strike him as a remarkable rarity. A man likes his wife to be
pretty : well, Lucy was pretty, but not to a maddening extent.
A man likes his wife to be accomplished, gentle, affectionate,
and not stupid ; and Lucy had all these qualifications. 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
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 893
was only the daughter of his father's subordinate partner;
besides, lie had had to defy and overcome a slight unwilling,
ness and disappointment in his father and sisters — a circum-
stance which gives a young man an agreeable consciousness of
his own dignity. Stephen was aware that he had sense and
independence enough to choose the wife who was likely to
make him happy, unbiassed by any indirect considerations.
He meant to choose Lucy : she was a little darling, and 6»»-
actly the sort of woman he had always most admired.
OHAPTER II.
FIRST IMPRESSIONS.
"He is very clever, Maggie," said Lucy. She was kneeling
on a footstool at Maggie's feet, after placing that dark lady in
the large crimson- velvet chair. " I feel sure you will like him.
I hope you will."
" I shall be very difficult to please," said Maggie, smiling,
and holding up one of Lucy's long curls, that the sunlight
might shine through it. " A gentleman who thinks he is good
enough for Lucy must expect to be sharply criticised."
" Indeed, he 's a great deal too good for me. And sometimes,
when he is away, I almost think it can't really be that he loves
me. But I can never doubt it when he is Avith me — though
I could n'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. Wluni people are engaged,
they begin to think of being married soon," said Luc)-, 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
394 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
And Stephen's sisters are very civil to me now. At first, 1
think they did n'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 insignifi-
cant thing as I am."
" But people are not expected to be large in proportion to
the houses they live in, like snails," said Maggie, laughing.
" Pray, are Mr. Guest's sisters giantesses ? "
" Oh no ; and not handsome — that is, not very," said Lucy,
half-penitent at this uncharitable remark. ''But he is — at
least he is generally considered very handsome."
" Though you are unable to share that opinion ? "
" Oh, I don't know," said Lucy, blushing pink over brow and
neck. " It is a bad plan to raise expectation ; you will perhaps
be disappointed. But I have prepared a charming surprise for
him ; I shall have a glorious laugh against him. I shall not
tell you what it is, though."
Lucy rose from her knees and went to a little distance, 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
faultless drapery of silk and crape.
Lucy kept her contemplative attitude a moment or two in
silence, and then said —
"I can't think what Avitchery it is in you, Maggie, that
makes you look best in shabby clothes ; though you really
must have a new dress now. But do you know, last night I
was trying to fancy you in a handsome fashionable dress, and
do what I would, that old limp merino would come back as
the only right thing for you. T wonder if Marie Antoinette
looked all the grander when her gown was darned at the el-
bows. Now, if / were to put anything shabby on, I should be
quite unnoticeable — I should V)p a mere rag."
" Oh, quite," said Maggie, with mock gravity. " You would
THE GREAT TEMPI ATION. 395
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. May n'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 f roclc. I 've been saving my
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 tine 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 turn-
ing backwards and forwards in that narrow space, that he
would keep doing it if they set him free. One gets a bad
habit of being unhappy.'^
"But I shall put you under a discipline of pleasure that
will make you lose that bad habit," said Lucy, sticking the
black butterfly absently in her own collar, while her eyes met
Maggie's affectionately.
" You dear, tiny thing," said Maggie, in one of her bursts
of loving admiration, " you enjoy other people's happiness so
much, I believe you would do without any of your own. I
wish I were like you."
" I 've never been tried in that way," said Lucy. " I 've al-
ways been so happy. I don't know whether I could bear much
trouble ; I never had any but poor mamma's death. You have
been tried, Maggie ; and I 'm sure you feel for other people
g^uite as much as I do."
396 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
'' No, Lucy," said Maggie, shaking her head slowly, " I don't
enjoy their happiness as you do — else I should be more con-
tented. I do feel for them when they are in trouble ; I don't
think I could ever bear to make any one wihappy ; and yet I
often hate myself, because I get angry sometimes at the sight
of happy people. I think I get worse as I get older — more
selfish. That seems very dreadful."
'' Now, Maggie ! " said Lucy, in a tone of remonstrance, " I
don't believe a word of that. It is all a gloomy fancy — just
because you are depressed by a dull wearisome life."
" Well, perhaps it is," said Maggie, resolutely clearing away
the clouds from her face with a bright smile, and throwing
herself backward in her chair. "Perhaps it comes from the
school diet — watery rice-pudding spiced with Pinnock. Let
us hope it will give way before my mother's custards and this
charming Geoffrey Crayon."
Maggie took up the " Sketch Book," which lay by her on
the table.
"Do I look fit to be seen with this little brooch?" said
Lucy, going to survey the effect in the chimney -glass.
" Oh no, Mr. Guest will be obliged to go out of the room again
if he sees you in it. Pray make haste and put another on."
Lucy hurried out of the room, but Maggie did not take the
opportunity of opening her book : she let it fall on her knees,
while her eyes wandered to the window, where she could see
the sunshine falling on the rich clumps of spring flowers and
on the long hedge of laurels — and beyond, the silvery breadth
of the dear old Floss, that at this distance seemed to be sleep-
ing in a morning holiday. The sweet fresh garden-scent came
through the oj^en 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 fcha
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 397
transient present : her future, she thought, was likely to be
worse than her past, for after her years of contented renuncia-
tion, she had slipped back into desire and longiug : she found
joyless days of distasteful occupation harder and harder — she
found the image of the intense and varied life she yearned for,
and despaired of, becoming more and more importunate. The
sound of the opening door roused her, and, hastily wiping away
her tears, she began to turn over the leaves of her book.
" There is one pleasure, I know, Maggie, that your deepest
dismalness will never resist," said Lucy, beginning to speak as
soon as she entered the room. " That is music, and I mean
you to have quite a riotous feast of it. I mean you to get up
your playing again, which used to be so much better than
mine, when we were at Laceham."
" You would have laughed to see me playing the little girls'
tunes over and over to them, when I took them to practice,"
isaid Maggie, "just for the sake of fingering the dear keys
again. But I don't know whether I could play anything more
difficult now than ' Begone, dull care I ' "
" I know what a wild state of joy you used to be in when
the glee-men 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 gentle-
men. There are really only Stephen and Philip AVakem 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 fsel at all as Tom does on that subject," said
Maggie, rising and going to the window as if she wanted to see
898 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
more of the landscape. " I 've always liked Philip Wakem
ever since I was a little girl, and saw him at Lorton. He was
so good when Tom hurt his foot,"
" Oh, I 'm so glad ! " said Lucy. " Then you won't mind
his coming sometimes, and we can have much more music than
we could without him. I 'm very fond of poor Philip, only I
wish he were not so morbid about his deformity. I suppose it
is his deformity that makes him so sad — and sometimes bitter.
It is certainly very piteous to see his poor little crooked body
and pale face among great strong people."
"But, Lucy," said Maggie, trying to arrest the prattling
stream —
" Ah, there is the door-bell. That must be Stephen," Lucy
went on, not noticing Maggie's faint effort to speak, "One
of the things I most admire in Stephen is, that he makes a
greater friend of Philip than any one."
It was too late for Maggie to speak now : the 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 TuUiver," said
Lucy, turning with wicked enjoyment towards 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 towards Avhom 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 ciieek, 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
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. f599
triumph. She enjoyed her lover's confusion — the advantage
was usually on his side,
" This designing cousin of yours quite deceived me, Miss
Tulliver," said Stephen, seating himself by Lucy, and stooping
to play with Minny — only looking at Maggie furtively.
'•'She said you had light hair and blue eyes."
"Nay, it was you who said so," remonstrated Lucy. "I
only refrained from destroying your confidence in your own
second-sight."
" I wish I could always err in the same way," said Ste-
phen, "and find reality so much more beautiful than my pre-
conceptions."
" Now you have proved yourself equal to the occasion," said
Maggie, " and said what it was incumbent on you to say under
the circumstances."
She flashed a slightly defiant look at him : it was clear to
her that he had been drawing a satirical portrait of her before-
hand. Lucy had said he was inclined to be satirical, and
Maggie had mentally supplied the addition — " and rather
conceited."
"An alarming amount of devil there," was Stephen's first
thought. The second, when she had bent over her work, was,
"I wish she would look at me again." The next was to
answer —
" I suppose all phrases of mere compliment have their turn
to be true. A man is occasionally grateful Avhen he says
'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 ? "
"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,"
400 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" No compliment can be eloquent, except as an expression
of indifference," said Maggie, flushing a little.
Lucy was rather alarmed : she thought Stephen and Maggie
were not going to like each other. She had alwaj^ s feared lest
Maggie should appear too odd and clever to please that critical
gentleman. " Why, dear Maggie," she interposed, " j^ou have
always pretended that you are too fond of being admired ;
and now, I think, you are angry because some one ventures to
admire you."
" Not at all," said Maggie ; " I like too well to feel that 1
am admired, but compliments never make me feel that."
" I will never pay you a compliment again, Miss Tulliver,"
said Stephen.
" Thank you ; that will be a proof of respect."
Poor Maggie ! She was so unused to society that she could
take nothing as a matter of course, and had never in her life
spoken from the lips merely, so that she must necessarily 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
instance. It was true she had a theoretic objection to compli-
ments, and had once said impatiently to Philip, that she did n't
see why women were to be told with a simper that they were
beautiful, any more than old men were to be told that they
were venerable : still, to be so irritated by a common practice
in the case of a stranger like Mr. Stephen Guest, and to care
about his having spoken slightingly of her before he had seen
her, was certainly unreasonable, and as soon as she was silent
she began to be ashamed of herself. It did not occur to her
that her irritation was due to the pleasanter emotion which
preceded it, just as when we are satisfied with a sense of glow-
ing 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
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 401
her eyes on objects more grateful than those worsted flowers
that were growing under her fingers.
" Some day next month, I believe," said Lucy. " But your
sisters are doing more for it than I am : they are to have the
largest stall."
"Ah yes; but they carry on their manufactures in their
own sitting-room, where I don't intrude on them. I see you
are not addicted to the fashionable vice of fancy-work, Miss
Tulliver," said Stephen, looking at Maggie's plain hemming.
" No," said Maggie, " I can do nothing more difficult or more
elegant than shirt-making."
" And your plain sewing is so beautiful, Maggie," said Lucy,
" that I think I shall beg a few specimens of you to show
as fancy-work. Your exquisite sewing is quite a mystery to
me — you used to dislike that sort of work so much in old
days."
" It is a mystery easily explained, dear," said Maggie, look-
ing up quietly. " Plain sewing was the only thing I could get
money by ; so I was obliged to try and do it well."
Lucy, good and simple as she was, could not help blushing a
little : she did not quite like that Stephen should know that
— Maggie need not have mentioned it. Perhaps there was
some pride in the confession : the pride of poverty that will
not be ashamed of itself. But if Maggie had been the queen
of coquettes she could hardly have invented a means of giving
greater piquancy to her beauty in Stephen's eyes : I am not
sure that the quiet admission of plain sewing and poverty
would have done alone, but assisted by the beauty, they made
Maggie more unlike other women even than she had seemed
at first.
" But I can knit, Lucy," Maggie went on, " if that will be of
any use for your bazaar."
" Oh yes, of infinite use. I shall set you to work with scarlet
wool to-morrow. But your sister is the most enviable person,"
continued Lucy, turning to Stephen, " to have the talent of
modelling. She is doing a wonderful bust of Dr. Kenn entirely
from memory."
"Why, if she can remember to put the eyes very near
VOL. II. ^3
402 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
together, and the corners of the mouth very far apart, tl
likeness can hardly fail to be striking in St. Ogg's."
" Now that is very wicked of you," said Lucy, looking rat)
hurt. "I didn't think you would speak disrespectfully
Dr. Kenn."
" I say anything disrespectful of Dr. Kenn ? Heaven for-
bid ! But I am not bound to respect a libellous bust of him.
I think Kenn one of the finest fellows in the world. I don't
care much about the tall candlesticks he has put on the
communion-table, and I shouldn't like to spoil my temper by
getting up to early prayers every morning. But he 's the only
man I ever knew personally who seems to me to have anything
of the real apostle in him — a man Avho has eight hundred
a-year and is contented with deal furniture and boiled beef
because he gives away two-thirds of his income. That was a
very fine thing of him — taking into his house that poor lad
Grattan who shot his mother by accident. He sacrifices more
time than a less busy mar could spare, to save the poor fellow
from getting into a morbid state of mind about it. He takes
the lad out with him constantly, I see."
"That is beautiful," said Maggie, who had let her work
fall, and was listening with keen interest. "I never knew
any one who did such things."
"And one admires that sort of action in Kenn all the
more," said Stephen, "because his manners in general are
rather cold and severe. There 's nothing sugary and maudlin
about him."
" Oh, I think he 's a perfect character ! " said Lucy, with
pretty enthusiasm.
"'No; there I can't agree with you," said Stephen, shaking
his head with sarcastic gravity.
" Now, what fault can you point out in him ? "
" He 's an Anglican."
"Well, those are the right views, I think," said Lucy,
gravely.
" That settles the question in the abstract," said Stephen,
"but not from a parliamentary point of view. He has set
the Dissenters and the Church people by the ears j and a
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 403
rising senator like myself, of whoso 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 I'arliament."
" 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 himself
up, and rubbed his large white hands over his hair with play-
ful self -admiration — ''gifts like mine involve great responsi-
bilities. Don't you think so. Miss Tulliver ? "
" Yes," said Maggie, smiling, but not looking up ; " so much
fluency and self-possession should not be wasted entirely on
private occasions."
" Ah, I see how much penetration you have," said Stephen.
"You have discovered already tliat I am talkative and impu-
dent. Now superficial people never discern that — owing to
my manner, I suppose."
" She does n't look at me when I talk of myself," he
thought, while his listeners were laughing. "I must try
other subjects."
Did Lucy intend to be present at the meeting of the Book
Club next week ? was the next question. Then followed the
recommendation to choose Southey's " Life of Cowper,"' unless
she were inclined to be philosophical, and startle the ladies of
St. Ogg's by voting for one of the Bridgewater Treatises. Of
course Lucy wished to know what these alarmingly learned
books were ; and as it is always pleasant to improve the minds
of ladies by talking to them at ease on subjects of which they
know nothing, Stephen became qiiite brilliant in an account of
Buckland's Treatise, which he had just been reading. He was
rewarded by seeing Maggie let her work fall, and gradually
get so absorbed in his wonderful geological story that she sat
looking at him, leaning forward with crossed arms, and with
an entire absence of self-consciousness, as if he had been the
snuffiest of old professors, and she a downy-lip])fd alumnus.
He was so fascinated by this clear, large gaze, that at last he
404 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
forgot to look away from it occasionally towards Lucy ; but
she, sweet child, was only rejoicing that Stephen was proving
to Maggie how clever he was, and that they would certainly
be good friends after all.
" I will bring you the book, shall I, Miss Tulliver ? " said
Stephen, when he found the stream of his recollections 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 : that is the holiday
she needs."
"Apropos!" said Stephen, looking at his watch. "Shall
we go out for a row on the river now ? The tide will suit for
us to 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 on her bonnet, Lucy lingered to give an order to the
servant, and took the opportunity of telling Stephen that
Maggie had no objection to seeing Philip, so that it was a
pity she had sent that note the day before yesterday. But she
would write another to-morrow and invite him.
" I '11 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 ivill like
Maggie, shan't you ?" she added, in a beseeching tone. " Is n'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 confidences to ladies concerning their unfavorable opin-
ion of sister fair ones. That is why so many vomeu have
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 405
the advantage of knowing that they are secretly repulsive to
men who have self-denyingiy 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 un-
favorable opinion of Stephen's, that he walked down to the
boat-house calculating, by the aid of a vivid imagination, that
Maggie must give him her hand at least twice in consequence
of this pleasant boating plan, and that a gentleman who wishes
ladies to look at him is advantageously situated when he ii
rowing them in a boat. What then ? Had he fallen in love
with this surprising daughter of Mrs. Tulliver at first sight ?
Certainly not. Such passions are never heard of in real life.
Besides, he was in love already, and half-engaged to the
dearest little creature in the world ; and he was not a man to
make a fool of himself in any way. But when one is five-and-
twenty, one has not chalk-stones at one's finger-ends that the
touch of a handsome girl should be entirely indifferent. It
was perfectly natural and safe to admire beauty and enjoy
looking at it — at least under such circumstances as the pres-
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,
Stephen admitted, he was not fond of women who had any
peculiarity of character — but here the peculiarity seemed
really of a superior kind ; and provided one is not obliged to
marry such women, why, they certainly make a variety in
social intercourse.
Maggie did not fulfil Stephen's hope by looking at him 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
406 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
appeared that she required much teaching, and she became am-
bitious. The exercise brought the warm blood into her cheeks,
and made her inclined to take her lesson merrily.
"I shall not be satisfied until I can manage both oars, and
row you and Lucy," she said, looking very bright as she
stepped out of the boat. Maggie, we know, was apt to for-
get the thing she was doing, and she had chosen an inoppor-
tune moment for her remark: her foot slipped, but happily
Mr. Stephen Guest held her hand, and kept her up with a firm
grasp.
*' You have not hurt yourself at all, I hope ? " he said, 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 again in the
evening.
" And pray bring with you the volume of Purcell that you
took away," said Lucy. " I want Maggie to hear your best
songs."
Aunt Pullet, under the certainty that Maggie would be in-
vited to go out with Lucy, probably to Park House, was much
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.
" Bat 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 alter-
ation ; and her arms are beyond everything," added Mrs.
Pullet, sorrowfully, as she lifted Maggie's large round arm,
"She'd never get my sleeves on."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 407
"Oh, never miud that, aunt: pray send us the dress,"? aaid
Lucy. " I don't mean Maggie to have long sleeves, and I ihavo
abundance of black lace for trimming. Her arms will lft)ok
beautiful."
"Maggie's arms are a pretty shape," said Mrs. Tulliver.
"They 're like mine used to be — only mine was never brown :
I wish she 'd had our family skin."
" Nonsense, avmty ! " said Lucy, patting her aunt Tulliver's
shoulder, " you don't understand those things. A painter
would think Maggie's complexion beautiful."
" Maybe, my dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, submissively. " You
know better than I do. Only when I was young a brown skin
was n't thought well on among respectable folks."
"No," said uncle Pullet, who took intense interest in the
ladies' conversation as he sucked his lozenges. " Though there
was a song about the ' Nut-brown Maid,' too ; I think she was
crazy — crazy Kate — but I can't justly remember."
" Oh dear, dear ! " said Maggie, laughing, but impatient ; " I
think that will be the end of 7ny brown skin, if it is always to
be talked about so much."
■ »■ ' ' ♦
CHAPTER III.
CONFIDENTIAL MOMENTS.
When Maggie went up to her bedroom that night, it 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.
408 I THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
jjafd anything remarkable happened ?
]sfr^ thing that you are not likely to consider in the highest
jgcr/ree unimportant. She had been hearing some fine music
gu'ug by a fine bass voice — but then it was sung in a provincial,
amateur fashion, such as would have left a critical ear much
to desire. And she was conscious of having been looked at a
great deal, in rather a furtive manner, from beneath a pair of
well-marked horizontal eyebrows, with a glance that seemed
somehow to have caught the vibratory influence of the voice.
Such thnigs could have had no perceptible effect on a thor-
oughly 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 na-
tions, have no history.
In poor Maggie's highly strung, hungry nature — just come
away from a third-rate schoolroom, with all its jarring sounds
and petty round of tasks — these apparently trivial causes
had the effect of rousing and exalting her imagination in a way
that was mysterious to herself. It was not that she thought
distinctly of Mr. Stephen Guest, or dwelt on the indications
that he looked at her with admiration ; it Avas rather that she
felt the half-remote presence of a world of love and beauty
and delight, made up of vague, mingled images from all the
poetry and romance she had ever read, or had ever woven in
her dreamy reveries. Her mind glanced back once or twice
to the time when she had courted privation, when she had
thought all longing, all impatience was subdued ; but that
condition seemed irrecoverably gone, and she recoiled from
the remembrance of it. No prayer, no striving now, would
bring back that negative peace : the battle of her life, it seemed,
was not to be decided in that short and easy way — by perfect
renunciation at the very threshold of her youth. The music
was vibrating in her still — Purcell's music, with its wild pas-
sion and fancy — and she could not stay in the recollection of
that bare, lonely past. She was in her brighter aerial world
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 409
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, iu astouishmeut. "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 uuplaited her long black hair over
her pink drapery, Lucy sat down near the toilet-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, have n't you,
Maggie ? "
" Oh yes, that is what prevents me from feeling sleepy. I
think I should have no other mortal wants, if I could always
have plenty of music. It seems to infuse strength into my
limbs, and ideas into my brain. Life seems to go on without
effort, when I am filled with music. At other times one is
conscious of carrying a weight."
" And Stephen has a splendid voice, has n't he ? "
" Well, perhaps we are neither of us judges of that," said
Maggie, laughing, as she seated herself and tossed her long
hair back. " You are not impartial, and / 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-coufident. He
ought to tremble more."
410 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Nonsense, Maggie ! As if any one could tremble at me !
You think lie 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, you dear thing ! " Maggie pinched Lucy's dimpled
chin.
" We shall have move 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 '11
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.
I 've thought before of asking him to absolve me from my prom-
ise, 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 j and the sweet face
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 411
bent towards 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 otienoe — 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 all — both for Tom's sake and Thilip's. And she could
not bear to tell Lucy of the last scene between her father and
Wakem, though it was this scene which she had ever since
felt to be a new barrier between herself and Philip. She
merely said, she saw now that Tom was, on the whole, right
in regarding any prospect of love and marriage between her
and Philip as put out of the question by the relation of the two
families. Of course Philip's father would never consent.
" There, Lucy, you have had iny story," said Maggie, smiling,
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
uucanniness," said Lucy.
She mused a little with her eyes downward, and then added,
looking at Maggie, " It is very beautiful that you should love
Philip: I never thought such a happiness would befall him.
And in my opinion, you ought not to give him up. There are
obstacles now ; but they may be done away with in time."
Maggie shook her head.
"Yes, yes," persisted Lucy; "I can't help being hopeful
about it. There is something romantic in it — out of the
common way — just what everything that happens to you
ought to be. And Philip will adore you like a husband in a
fairy tale. Oh, I shall puzzle my small brain to contrive some
plot that will bring everybody into the right mind, so that you
may marry Philip, when I marry — somebody else. Would n'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.
412 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Ah, deal, you are cold," said Lucy. " You must go to bed 5
and so must I. I dare not think what time it is."
They kissed each other, and Lucy went away — possessed of
a confidence which had a strong influence over her subsequent
impressions. Maggie had been thoroughly sincere : her nature
had never found it easy to be otherwise. But confidences are
sometimes blinding, even when they are sincere.
CHAPTER IV.
BROTHER AND SISTER.
Maggie was obliged to go to Tom's lodgings in the middle
of the day, when he would be coming in to dinner, else she
would not have found him at home. He was not lodging with
entire strangers. Our friend Bob Jakin had, with Mumps's
tacit consent, taken not only a wife about eight months ago,
but also one of those queer old houses, pierced with surprising
passages, by the water-side, where, as he observed, his wife
and mother could keep themselves out of mischief by letting
out two '' pleasure-boats," in which he had invested some of
his savings, and by taking in a lodger for the parlor and spare
bedroom. Under these circumstances, what could be better
for the interests of all parties, sanitary considerations apart,
than that the lodger should be Mr. Tom ?
It was Bob's wife who opened the door to Maggie. She was
a tiny woman, with the general physiognomy of a Dutch doll,
looking, in comparison with Bob's mother, who filled up the
passage in the rear, very much like one of those human figures
which the artist finds conveniently standing near a colossal
statue to show the proportions. The tiny woman curtsied and
looked up at Maggie with some awe as soon as she had opened
the door ; but the words, " Is my brother at home ? " which
Maggie uttered smilingly, made her turn round with sudden
excitement, and say —
'•' Eh, mother, mother — tell Bob ! — it 's Miss Maggie !
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 413
Come in, Miss, for goodness do," she went on, opening a side
door, and endeavoring to flatten her person against the wall to
make the utmost space for the visitor.
Sad recollections crowded on Maggie as she entered the
small parlor, which was now all that poor Tom had to call by
the name of "home" — that name which had once, so many-
years ago, meant for both of them the same sum of dear famil-
iar 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 memo-
ries. She stood without speaking.
" If you please to take the privilege o' sitting down, j\Iiss,"
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."
" He '11 be in before long, Miss. He 's doin' finely, Mr. Tom
is : he '11 be one o' the first men hereabouts — you '11 see that."
" Well, Bob, I 'm sure he '11 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 does n't
overshoot him as mine does. Lors ! I 'm no better nor a tilted
bottle, I arn't — I can't stop mysen when once I begin. But
414 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
you look rarely, Miss — it does me good to see you. What do
you say now, Prissy ? " — - here Bob turned to his wife. " Is n't
it all come true as I said ? Though there is n'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 towards 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 's been runnin' on you, like as if he was light-headed,
iver since first he come a-courtiu' on me."
" Well, well," said Bob, looking rather silly. " Go an' see
after the taters, else Mr. Tom 'nil 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, grinning, "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 is n't full-growed. But
about Mr. Tom, Miss," said Bob, speaking lower and looking
serious, " he 's as close as a iron biler, he is ; but I 'm a 'cutish
chap, an' when I 've left off carrying my pack, an' am at a
loose end, I 've got more brains nor I know what to do wi', an'
I 'm forced to busy myself wi' other folks's insides. An' it
worrets me as Mr. Tom '11 sit by himself so glumpish, a-knittin'
his brow, an' a-lookin' at the fire of a night. He should be a
bit livelier now — a fine young fellow like him. My wife says,
when she goes in sometimes, an' he takes no notice of her, he
sits lookin' into the fire, and frownin' as if he was watchin'
folks at work in it."
" He thinks so much about business," said Maggie.
" Ay," said Bob, speaking lower ; " but do you think it 's
nothin' else, Miss ? He 's close, Mr. Tom is ; but I 'm a 'cute
chap, I am, an' I thought tow'rt last Christmas as I 'd found
out a soft place in him. It was about a little black spaniel —
a rare bit o' breed — as he made a fuss to get. But since then
summat 's come over him, as he 's set his teeth again' thinge
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
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 415
him a bit, now you 're come. He 's a deal too lonely, and
does n'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 waa 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 cousinsluf 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 had left the room. " I must tell you at once wliat I came
about, else I shall be hindering you from taking your dinner,"
Tom stood with his back against the chimney-piece, and
Maggie was seated opposite the light. He noticed that she
was tremulous, and he had a presentiment of the subject she
was going to speak about. The presentiment made his voice
colder and harder as he said, " What is it ? "
This tone roused a spirit of resistance in Maggie, and she
put her request in quite a different form from the one she had
predetermined on. She rose from her seat, and, looking
straight at Tom, said —
" I want you to absolve me from my promise about Philip
Wakem. Or rather, I promised you not to see him without
telling you. I am come to tell you that I wish to see him."
" Very well," said Tom, still more coldly.
But Maggie had hardly finished speaking in that chill,
defiant manner, before she repented, and felt the dread of
alienation from her brother.
" Not for myself, dear Tom. Don't be angry. I should n't
have asked it, only that Philip, you know, is a friend of Lucy's,
and she wishes him to come — has invited him to come tliis
evening; and I told her I couldn't see him witliout 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 —
416 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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 should n'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 have kept my word to you — when — when . . . My
life has not been a happy one, any more than yours."
She was obliged to be childish — the tears would come.
When Maggie was not angry, she was as dependent on kind or
cold words as a daisy on the sunshine or the cloud : the need
of being loved would always subdue her, as, in old days, it
subdued her in the worm-eaten attic. The brother's goodness
came uppermost at this appeal, but it could only show itself
in Tom"s fashion. He put his hand gently on her arm, and
said, in the tone of a kind pedagogue —
" Now listen to me, Maggie. I '11 tell you what I mean.
You're always in extremes — you have no judgment and self-
command; and yet you think you know best, and will not
submit to be guided. You know I did n't wish you to take a
situation. My aunt Pullet was willing to give you a good
home, and you might have lived respectably amongst your
relations, until I could have provided a home for you with my
THE GREAT TEMl'TATION. 417
motiier. And that is what I should like to do. I wished my
sistsr to be a lady, and I would always have taken care of you,
as toy 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 tiie world and mixes with men, necessarily knows
better what is right and respectable for his sister than she
can know l.erself. You think I am not kind ; but my kind-
ness can Oiily be directed by what I believe to be good for
you,"
" Yes — [ know — dear Tom," said Maggie, still half-
sobbing, buti 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 judg«s for me — our natures are very different. You
don't know .low differently things affect me from what they
do you."
*' Yes, I av 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
receiving secret addresses from Philip Wakem. If it was
not disgusting to me in every other way, I should object to
my sister's name being associated for a moment with that of a
young man whose father must hate the very thought of us all,
and would spurn you. With any one but you, I should think
it quite certain that what you witnessed just before my
father's death would secure you from ever thinking again of
Philip Wakem as a lover. But I don't feel certain of it with
you — I never feel certain about anything with you. At one
time you take pleasure in a sort of perverse self-denial, and at
another you have not resolution to resist a thing that yoT.
know to be Avrong."
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 wiithed under this judg-
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
VOL. 11. 27
418 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 needs
which were often the source of the wrong-doing or absurdity
that made her life a planless riddle to him.
She did not answer directly : her heart was too full, and she
sat down, leaning her arm on the table. It was no use trying
to make Tom feel that she was near to him. He always re-
pelled her. Her feeling under his words was complicated by
the allusion to the last scene between her father and Wakem ;
and at length that painful, solemn memory surmounted the
immediate grievance. No ! She did not think of such things
with frivolous indifference, and Tom must not accuse her of
that. She looked up at him with a grave, earnest gaze, and
said —
" I can't make you think better of me, Tom, by anything I
can say. But I am not so shut out from all your feelings as you
believe me to be. I see as well as you do, that from our posi-
tion with regard to Philip's father — not on other grounds —
it would be unreasonable — it Avould 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 that 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 con-
sidered, it will be best for you to see Philip Wakem, if Lucy
wishes him to come to the house. I believe what you say —
at least you believe it yourself, I know : I can only warn you.
I wish to be as good a brother to you as you will let me."
There was a little tremor in Tom's voice as he uttered the
last words, and Maggie's ready affection came back with as
sudden a glow as when they were children, and bit their cako
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 419
together as a sacraineut of conciliation. She rose and laid hei
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 sliuuld
like to be a comfort to you — not to vex you. You don't tliink
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 '11 come to aunt Glegg's to-morrow ? We 're going all
to dine early, that we may go there to tea. You must come ;
Lucy told me to say so."
" Oh pooh ! I 've plenty else to do," said Tom, pulling his
bell violently, and bringing down the small bell-rope.
" I 'm frightened — I shall run away," said Maggie, making
a laughing retreat; while Tom, with masculine philosophy,
flung the bell-rope to the farther end of the room — not very
far either : a touch of human experience which I flatter myself
will come home to the bosoms of not a few substantial or dis-
tinguished men who were once at an early stage of their rise
in the world, and were cherishing very large hopes in very
small lodgings.
120 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
CHAPTER V.
SHOWING THAT TOM HAD OPENED THE OYSTER.
"And now we've settled this Newcastle business, Tom,"
said Mr. Deane, that same afternoon, as they were seated in
the private room at the Bank together, " there 's another mat-
ter I want to talk to you about. Since you 're likelj^ to have
rather a smoky, unpleasant time of it at Newcastle for the
next few weeks, you '11 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 did n'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. Ste-
phen Guest said at the anniversary dinner (lie hits these things
off wonderfully, considering he 's seen nothing of business). I
don't find fault with the change, as some people do. Trade,
sir, opens a man's eyes ; and if the population is to get thicker
upon the ground, as it 's doing, the world must use its wits at
inventions of one sort or other. I know I 've done my share
as an ordinary man of business. Somebody has said it 's a fine
thing to make two ears of corn grow where onl}^ one grew be-
fore ; but, sir, it 's a fine thing, too, to further the exchange of
commodities, and bring the grains of corn to the mouths that
are hungry. And that 's our line of business ; and I consider
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 421
it as honorable a position as a man can hold, to be comiected
with it."
Tom knew that the affair his uncle had to speak of was not
urgent; Mr. Deane was too shrewd and practical a m:ui to
allow either his reminiscences or his snuff to impede the prog-
ress 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 did n't succeed too, it was because of their own demerit.
He was rather surprised, then, when his uncle put a direct
question to him.
" Let me see — it 's going on for seven years now since you
applied to me for a situation — eh, Tom ? "
" Yes, sir ; I 'm three-and-twenty now," said Tom.
" Ah — it 's as well not to say that, though : for you 'd
pass for a good deal older, and age tells well in business. I
remember jonr coming very well : I remember I saw there
was some pluck in you, and that was what made me give yorf
encouragement. And I 'm happy to say, I was right — I'va
not often deceived. I was naturally a little shy at pushing
my nephew, but I 'm happy to say you 've done me credit, sir;
and if I 'd had a son o' my own, I should n't have been sorrj
to see him like you."
Mr. Deane tapped his box and opened it again, repeating in
a tone of some feeling — " No, I should n't have been sorry to
see him like you."
" I 'm very glad I 've given you satisfaction, sir ; I 've don»
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
422 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
no reason why it should n't go on growing ; there 's a growing
capital, and growing outlets for it ; but there 's another thing
that 's wanted for the prosperity of every concern, large or
small, and that's men to conduct it — men of the right habits ;
none o' your flashy fellows, but such as are to be depended
on. Now this is what ]\Ir. Guest and I see clear enough.
Three years ago, we took Gell into the concern : we gave him
a share in the oil-mill. And why ? Why, because Gell was
a fellow whose services were worth a premium. So it will
always be, sir. So it was with me. And though Gell is
pretty near ten years older than you, there are other points in
your favor."
Tom was getting a little nervous as Mr. Deane went on
speaking : he was conscious of something he had in his mind
to say, which might not be agreeable to his uncle, simply
because it was a new suggestion rather than an acceptance of
the proposition he foresaw.
"It stands to reason," Mr. Deane went on, when he had
finished his new pinch, " that your being my nephew weighs
in your favor ; but I don't deny that if you 'd been no relation
of mine at all, yoar 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,
which we shall be glad to increase as the years go on. We
think that '11 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 busi-
ness, and have taken a good deal of pains with me since."
THE GREAT TEMPTATrON. 428
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 '11 be of any use. I gave myself some trouble with
Gell — else he would n't have been what he is."
'• But there 's one thing I should like to mention to you,
uncle. I 've never spoken to you of it before. If you 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 his mind to that. He 's rather fond of carrying
everything over other people's heads."
" Perhaps it 's of no use my mentioning it at present," Tom
went on, " but I wish you to know what I have in my mind
about the Mill. I 've a strong feeling about it. It was my
father's dying wish that I should try and get it back again
whenever I could : it was in his family for five generations.
I promised my father ; and besides that, I 'm attached to the
place. I shall never like any other so well. And if it should
ever suit your views to buy it for the firm, I should have a
better chance of fulfilling my father's wish. I shouldn't have,
liked to mention the thing to you, only you 've been kind
enough to say my services have been of some value. And
I 'd give up a much greater chance in life for the sake of
having the Mill again — I mean, having it in my own hands,
and gradually working off the price."
Mr. Deane had listened attentively, and now looked
thoughtful.
" I see, I see," he said, after a while ; " the thing would be
possible, if there were any chance of Wakem's parting with
the property. But that I dont see. He 's ])ut that young
Jetsome in the place ; and he had his reasons when he bought
it, I '11 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
424 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
shan't stay unless there 's an alteration. I was thinking, if
things went on in 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 '11 turn it over, Tom. I must inquire into the mat-
ter, and go into it with Mr. Guest. But, you see, it 's rather
striking out a new branch, and putting you to that, instead of
keeping you where you are, which was what we 'd wanted."
"I should be able to manage more than the Mill when things
were once set properly going, sir. I want to have plenty of
work. There's nothing else I care about much."
There was something rather sad in that speech from a young
man of three-and-twenty, even in uncle Deane's business-loving
ears.
" Pooh, pooh ! you '11 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 '11 talk of it again. I am going to dinner now. Come and
breakfast with us to-morrow morning, and say good-by to your
mother and sister before you start.'*
CHAPTER VI.
ILLUSTRATING THE LAWS OF ATTRACTION.
It is evident to you now, that Maggie had arrivea 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 fa-
tigued his facial muscles more than usual in order that " the
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 425
dark-eyed girl there, in the corner," might see him in all the
additional style conferred by his eye-glass ; and several young
ladies went home intending to have short sleeves with blaok
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 conscious-
ness of a painful past and her presentiment of a troublous
future, was on the way to become an object of some envy —
a topic of discussion in the newly established billiard-room,
and between fair friends who had no secrets from each other
on the subject of trimmings. The Miss Guests, who asso-
ciated chiefly on terms of condescension with the families of
St. Ogg's, and were the glass of fashion there, took some ex-
ception to Maggie's manners. She had a way of not assenting
at once to the observations current in good society, and of
saying that she did n't know whether those observations were
true or not, which gave her an air of gaucherie, and impeded
the even flow of conversation ; but it is a fact capable of an
amiable interpretation, that ladies are not the worst disposed
towards a new acquaintance of their own sex because she has
points of inferiority. And Maggie was so entirely without
those pretty airs of coquetry which have the traditional repu-
tation of driving gentlemen to despair, that she won some
feminine pity for being so ineffective in spite of her beauty.
She had not had many advantages, poor thing ! and it must
be admitted there was no pretension about her : her abrupt-
ness and unevenness of manner were plainly the result of
her secluded and lowly circumstances. It was only a Avon-
der that there was no tinge of vulgarity about her, consider-
ing what the rest of poor Lucy's relations were : an allusion
which always made the Miss Guests shudder a little. It was
not agreeable to think of any connection by marriage with
such people as the Gleggs and the Pullets ; but it was of no
use to contradict Stephen, when once he had set his mind on
anything, and certainly there was no possible objection to Lucy
in herself — no one could help liking her. She would naturally
desire that the Miss Guests should behave kindly to this cousin
of whom she was so fond, and Stephen would make a great
426 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
fuss if they were deficient in civility. Under these circum-
stances the invitations to Park House were not wanting ; and
elsewhere, also, Miss Deane was too popular and too distin-
guished a member of society in St. Ogg's for any attention
towards her to be neglected.
Thus Maggie was introduced for the first time to the young
lady's life, and knew what it was to get up in the morning
without any imperative reason for doing one thing more than
another. This new sense of leisure and unchecked enjoyment
amidst the soft-breathing airs and garden-scents of advancing
spring — amidst the new abundance of music, and lingering
strolls in the sunshine, and the delicious dreaminess of glid-
ing on the river — could hardly be without some intoxicating
effect on her, after her years of privation ; and even in the
first week Maggie began to be less haunted by her sad memo-
ries and anticipations. Life was certainly very pleasant just
now : it was becoming very pleasant to dress in the evening,
"ind 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 fin-
gers and the keys remained, and revived, like a sympathetic
kinship not to be worn out by separation — to get the tunes
she had heard the evening before, and repeat them again and
again until she had found out a way of producing them so as to
make them a more pregnant, passionate language to her. The
mere concord of octaves was a delight to Maggie, and she
would often take up a book of studies rather than any melody,
that she might taste more keenly by abstraction the more
primitive sensation of intervals. Not that her enjoyment of
music was of the kind that indicates a great specific talent ; it
was rather that her sensibility to the supreme excitement of
music was only one form of that passionate sensibility which
belonged to her whole nature, and made her faults and virtues
all merge in each other — iLade her affections sometimes an
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 4zi
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 lier his-
tory, which is a thing hardly to be predicted even from the
completest knowledge of characteristics. For the tragedy
of our lives is not created entirely from within. <' Character "
says Novalis, in one of his questionable aphorisms — "cliarac-
ter is destiny." But not the whole of our destiny. Hamlet,
Prince of Denmark, was speculative and irresolute, and we
have a great tragedy in consequence. But if his father had
lived to a good old age, and his uncle had died an early death,
we can conceive Hamlet's having married Ophelia, and got
through life with a reputation of sanity, notwithstanding many
soliloquies, and some moody sarcasms towards the fair daugh-
ter 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 wae
not sorry that the interview had been deferred.
Por 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
428 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
attitudes of her mind. The early days of an acquaintance al-
most 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 excur-
sion . his attentions were clearly becoming more assiduous ;
and that was what every one had expected. Lucy was very
happy . all the happier because Stephen's society seemed to
have become much more interesting and amusing since Maggie
had been there. Playful discussions — sometimes serious ones
— were going forward, in which both Stephen and Maggie re-
vealed themselves, to the admiration of the gentle unobtrusive
Lucy ; and it more than once crossed her mind what a charm-
ing quartet they should have through life when Maggie mar-
ried 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 ti-anquil-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
towards 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 compara-
tively slight, and there had even sprung up an apparent dis-
tance 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
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 429
other: Stephen, perhaps, seemed to be examining books on
music, and Maggie bent her head assiduously over her work.
Each was oppressively conscious of the other's presence, even
to the finger-ends. Yet each looked and longed for the same
thing to happen the next day. Neither of them had begun to
reflect on the matter, or silently to ask, " To what does all
this tend ? " Maggie only felt that life was revealing some-
thing quite new to her ; and she was absorbed in the direct,
immediate experience, without any energy left for taking ac-
count of it and reasoning about it. Stephen wilfully abstained
from self-questioning, and would not admit to himself that he
felt an influence which was to have any determining effect on
his conduct. And when Lucy came into the room again, they
were once more unconstrained: Maggie could contradict Ste-
phen, and laugh at him, and he could recommend to her con-
sideration the example of that most charming heroine. Miss
Sophia Western, who had a great " respect for the understand-
ings of men." Maggie could look at Stephen — which, for
some reason or other, she always avoided when they were
alone ; and he could even ask her to play his accompaniment
for him, since Lucy's fingers were so busy with that bazaar-
work ; and lecture her on hurrying the tempo, which was cer-
tainly Maggie's weak point.
One day — it was the day of Philip's return — Lucy had
formed a sudden engagement to spend the evening with Mrs.
Kenn, whose delicate state of health, threatening to become
confirmed illness through an attack of bronchitis, obliged her
to resign her functions at the coming bazaar into the hands of
other ladies, of whom she wished Lucy to be one. The 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 Tony 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
430 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 did n'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."
" I 'm sure he approves you,'' said Stephen, smiling at her
affectionately ; " your conduct in going out to-night looks
vicious, I own, but I know there is benevolence at the bottom
of it."
'^Oh, you think too well of me," said Lucy, shaking her
head, with a pretty blush, and there the subject ended. But
it was tacitly understood that Stephen would not como in the
evening, and on the strength of that tacit understanding he
made his morning visit the longer, not saying good-by until
after four.
Maggie was seated in the drawing-room alone, shortly after
dinner, with Minny on her lap, having left her uncle to his
wine and his nap, and her mother to the compromise between
knitting and nodding, which, when there was no company, she
always carried on in the dining-room till tea-time. Maggie
was stooping to caress the tiny silken pet, and comforting him
for his mistress's absence, when the sound of a footstep on the
gravel made her look up, and she saw Mr. Stephen Guest walk-
ing up the garden, as if he had come straight from the river.
It was very unusual to see him so soon after dinner! He
often complained that their dinner-hour was late at Park
House. Nevertheless, there he was, in his black dress : he
had evidently been home, and must have come again by the
river. Maggie felt her cheeks glowing and her heart beating :
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 431
it was natural she sliould be nervous, for she was not accus-
tomed to receive visitors alone. He liad seen her look up
through the open window, and raised his hat as he walked
towards it, to enter that way instead of by the door. He
blushed too, and certainly looked as foolish as a young man
of some wit and self-possession can be expected to look, as he
walked in with a roll of music in his hand, and said, with an
air of hesitating improvisation —
"You are surprised to see me again, MissTulliver — I ought
to apologize for coming upon you by surprise, but I wanted to
come into the town, and I got our man to row me ; so I thought
I would bring these things from the ' Maid of Artois ' for your
cousin : I forgot them this morning. Will you give them to
her ? "
" Yes," said Maggie, who had risen confusedly with Minny
in her arms, and now, not quite knowing what else to do, sat
down again.
Stephen laid down his hat, with the music, which rolled on
the floor, and sat down in the chair close by her. He had
never done so before, and both he and Maggie were quite
aware that it was an entirely new position.
"Well, you pampered minion!" said Stephen, leaning to
pull the long curly ears that drooped over Maggie's arm. It
was not a suggestive remark, and as the speaker did not follow
it up by further development, it naturally left the conversation
at a stand-still. It seemed to Stephen like some action in a
dream, that he was obliged to do, and wonder at himself all
the while — to go on stroking Minny's head. Yet it was very
pleasant : he only wished he dared look at Maggie, and that
she would look at him — let him have one long look into those
deep strange eyes of hers, and then he would be satisfied, and
quite reasonable after that. He thought it was becoming a
sort of monomania with him, to want that long look from
Maggie ; and he was racking his invention continually to find
out some means by which he could have it without its appear-
ing singular and entailing subsequent embarrassment. As for
Maggie, she had no distinct thought — only the sense of a
presence like that of a closely hovering broad-winged bird in
432 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 ; shan'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 suf-
ficient insight not to be grateful for it — to growl rather.
" Do you like sitting alone ? "
A rather arch look came over Maggie's face, and, just glanc-
ing 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
cushion, went to reach Lucy's large work-basket from its
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 433
corner. Stephen was vexed and disappointed: he thought,
perhaps Maggie did n't like the name of Wakem to be men-
tioned 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 disagree-
able and ridiculous. Of course it was jjalpable to Maggie's
thinking, that he had dined hastily in his own room for the
sake of setting off again and finding her alone.
A boyish state of mind for an accomplished young gentleman
of five-and-twenty, not without legal knowledge ! But a refer-
ence to history, perhaps, may make it not incredible.
At this moment Maggie's ball of knitting-wool rolled along
the ground, and she started up to reach it. Stephen rose too,
and, picking up the ball, met her with a vexed complaining
look that gave his eyes quite a new expression to Maggie,
whose own eyes met them as he presented the ball to her.
" Good-by," said Stephen, in a tone that had the same be-
seeching discontent as his eyes. He dared not put out his
hand — he thrust both hands into his tail-pockets as he spoke,
Maggie thought she had perhaps been rude.
" Won't you stay ? " she said timidly, not looking away, for
that would have seemed rude again.
"No, thank you," said Stephen, looking still into the half-
unwilling, half-fascinated eyes, as a thirsty man looks towards
the track of the distant brook. " The boat is waiting for me.
. . . You '11 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 to-
wards the open window, and he was obliged to take his hat and
VOL. II. 28
434 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
walk by her side. But be thought of something to make
him amends.
" Do take my arm," he said, in a low tone, as if it were a.
secret.
There is something strangely winning to most women in that
offer of the firm arm : the help is not wanted physically at
that moment, but the sense of help — the presence of strength
that is outside them and yet theirs — meets a continual want
of the imagination. Either on that ground or some other,
Maggie took the arm. And they walked together round the
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 she to be there ? — why had she
come out ? Not a word was spoken. If it had been, each
would have been less intensely conscious of the other.
" Take care of this step," said Stephen, at last.
" Oh, I will go in now," said Maggie, feeling that the step
had come like a rescue. " Good evening."
In an instant she had withdrawn her arm, and was running
back to the house. She did not reflect that this sudden action
would only add to the embarrassing recollections of the last
half-hour. She had no thought left for that. She only threw
herself into the low arm-chair, and burst into tears.
" Oh, Philip, Philip, I wish we were together again — so
quietly — in the Red Deeps."
Stephen looked after her a moment, then went on to the
boat, and was soon landed at the v/harf. He spent the evening
in the billiard-room, smoking one cigar after another, and los-
ing " 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 detej-jnining that he would never trust himself
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 435
alone with Maggie again. It was all madness : he was iu love,
thoroughly attached to Lucy, and engaged — engaged as
strongly as an honorable man need be. He wished he had never
seen this Maggie Tulliver, to be thrown into a fever by her
in this way : she would make a sweet, strange, troublesome,
adorable wife to some man or other, but he would never have
chosen her himself. Did she feel as he did ? He hoped sho
did — not. He ought not to have gone. He would master
himself in future. He would make himself disagreeable to
her — quarrel with her perhaps. Quarrel with her ? Was it
possible to quarrel with a creature who had such eyes — defy-
ing and deprecating, contradicting and clinging, imperious and
beseeching — full of delicious opposites. To see such a crea-
ture 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-
dictory kind.
CHAPTEE yn.
PHILIP RE-ENTERS.
The next morning was very wet ; the sort of morning on
which male neighbors who have no imperative occupation at
home are likely to pay their fair friends an illimitable visit.
The rain, which has been endurable enough for the walk or
ride one way, is sure to become so heavy, and at the same
time so certain to clear up by-and-by, that nothing but an open
quarrel can abbreviate the visit : latent detestation will not do
at all. And if people happen to be lovers, what can be so de-
lightful, in England, as a rainy morning ? English ^ sunshine
is dubious ; bonnets are never quite secure ; and if you sit
down on the grass, it may lead to catarrhs. But the rain is to
be depended on. You gallop through it in a mackintosh, and
436 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
presently find yourself in tlie seat you like best — a little
above or a little below the one on which your goddess sits (it
is the same thing to the metaphysical mind, and that is the
reason why women are at once worshipped and looked down
upon), with a satisfactory confidence that there will be no
lady-callers.
" Stephen will come earlier this morning, I know," said
Lucy ; " he always does when it 's rainy."
Maggie made no answer. She was angry with Stephen :
she began to think she should dislike him ; and if it had not
been for the rain, she would have gone to her aunt Glegg's
this morning, and so have avoided him altogether. As it was,
she must find some reason for remaining out of the room with
her mother.
But Stephen did not come earlier, and there was another
visitor — a nearer neighbor — who preceded him. When
Philip entered the room, he was going merely to bow to
Maggie, feeling that their acquaintance was a secret which he
was bound not to betray ; but when she advanced towards
him and put out her hand, he guessed at once that Lucy had
been taken into her confidence. It was a moment of some
agitation to both, though Philip had spent many hours in
preparing for it ; but like all persons who have passed through
life with little expectation of sympathy, he seldom lost his
self-control, and shrank with the most sensitive pride from
any noticeable betrayal of emotion. A little extra paleness,
a little tension of the nostril when he spoke, and the voice
pitched in rather a higher key, that to strangers would seem
expressive of cold indifference, were all the signs Philip
usually gave of an inward drama that was not without its
fierceness. But Maggie, who had little more power of con-
cealing the impressions made upon her than if she had been
constructed of musical strings, felt her eyes getting larger
with tears as they took each other's hands in silence. They
were not painful tears : they had rather something of the same
origin as the tears women and children shed when they have
found some protection to cling to, and look back on the threat-
ened danger. For Philip, who a little while ago was asso-
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 437
dated continually in Maggie's mind with the sense that Tom
might reproach her with some justice, had now, in this short
space, become a sort of outward conscience to her, that she
might fly to for rescue and strength. Her tranquil, tender
affection for Philip, with its root deep down in her childhood,
and its memories of long quiet talk confirming by distinct
successive impressions the first instinctive bias — the fact that
in him the appeal was more strongly to her pity and womanly
devotedness than to her vanity or other egoistic excitability
of her nature, seemed now to make a sort of sacred place, a
sanctuary where she could find refuge from an alluring iniluence
which the best part of herself must resist, which must bring
horrible tumult within, wretchedness without. This new
sense of her relation to Philip nullified the anxious scruples
she would otherwise have felt, lest she should overstep the
limit of intercourse with him that Tom would sanction ; and
she put out her hand to him, and felt the tears in her eyes
without any consciousness of ap inward check. The scene
was just what Lucy expected, aid her kind heart delighted
in bringing Philip and Maggie together again ; though, even
with all her regard for Philip, she could not resist the impres-
sion that her cousin Tom had some excuse for feeling shocked
at the physical incongruity between the two — a prosaic per-
son like cousin Tom, who did n't like poetry and fairy tales.
But she began to speak as Boon as possible, to set them at
ease.
" This was very good and virtuous of you," she said, in her
pretty treble, like the low conversational notes of little birds,
"to come so soon after your arrival. And as it is, I tliink 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 mis-
demeanors by the certainty that you will be indulgent."
Lucy gave some playful contradiction, but Philip did not
4B8 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
hear what it was, for lie had naturally turned towards Maggie,
and she was looking at him with that open, affectionate
scrutiny which we give to a friend from whom we have been
long separated. What a moment their parting had been!
And Philip felt as if he were only in the morrow of it. He
felt this so keenly — with such intense, detailed remembrance
— with such passionate revival of all that had been said and
looked in their last conversation — that with that jealousy
and distrust which in diffident natures is almost inevitably
linked with a strong feeling, he thought he read in Maggie's
glance and manner the evidence of a change. The very fact
that he feared and half expected it, would be sure to make
this thought rush in, in the absence of positive proof to the
contrary.
" I am having a great holiday, am I not ? " said Maggie.
" Lucy is like a fairy godmother : she has turned me from a
drudge into a princess in no time. I do nothing but indulge
myself all day long, and she always finds out what I want
before 1 know it myself."
"I am sure she is the happier for having you, then," said
Philip. ''You must be better than a whole menagerie of
pets to her. And you look well — you are benefiting by the
change."
Artificial conversation of this sort went on a little while,
till Lucy, determined to put an end to it, exclaimed, with a
good imitation of annoyance, that she had forgotten 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."
Maggie, in her impulsiveness, wanted Philip to know at
once the position they must hold towards 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 beinsr the first to allude to them. It seemed almost like
an injury towards Philip even to mention her brother — her
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 489
brother who had insulted him. But lie was thinking too
entirely of her to be sensitive on any other point at that
moment.
" Then we can at least be friends, Maggie ? There is noth-
ing to hinder that now ? "
"Will not your father object?" said Maggie, withdrawing
her hand.
"I should not give you up on any ground but your own
wish, Maggie," said Philip, coloring. '^ There are points on
which I should always resist my father, as I used to tell you.
That is one."
"Then there is nothing to hinder our being friends, Philip
— seeing each other and talking to each other while I am
here : I shall soon go away again. I mean to go very soon —
to a new situation."
" Is that inevitable, Maggie ? "
" Yes : T must not stay here long. It would unfit me for
the life I must begin again at last. I can't live in dependence
— I can't live with my brother — though he is very good to
me. He would like to provide for me j but that would be
intolerable to me."
Philip was silent a few moments, and then said, in that
high, feeble voice which with him indicated the resolute 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 ? "
"Yes, Philip," she said, looking at him pleadingly, as if she
entreated him to believe that she was compelled to this coarse.
" At least, as things are ; I don't know what may be in years
to come. But I begin to think there can never come much
happiness to me from loving : I have always had so much
pain mingled with it. I wish I could make myself a world
outside it, as men do."
" Now you are returning to your old thought in a new form,
Maggie — the thought I used to combat," said Philip, with a
slight tinge of bitterness. "You want to find out a mode
of renunciation that will be an escape from pain. I tell you
440 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
again, there is no such escape possible except by perverting
or mutilating one's nature. What would become of me, if I
tried to escape from pain ? Scorn and cynicism would be my
only opium ; unless I could fall into some kind of conceited
madness, and fancy myself a favorite of Heaven because I am
not a favorite with men."
The bitterness had taken on some impetuosity as Philip
went on speaking: the words were evidently an outlet for
some immediate feeling of his own, as well as an answer to
Maggie. There was a pain pressing on him at that moment.
He shrank with proud delicacy from the faintest allusion to
the words of love — of plighted love that had passed between
them. It would have seemed to him like reminding Maggie
of a promise ; it would have had for him something of the
baseness of compulsion. He could not dwell on the fact that
he himself had not changed ; for that too would have had the
air of an appeal. His love for Maggie was stamped, even
more than the rest of his experience, with the exaggerated
sense that he was an exception — that she, that every one,
saw him in the light of an exception.
But Maggie was conscience-stricken.
"Yes, Philip," she said, with her childish contrition when
he used to chide her, ''you are right, I know. I do always
think too much of my own feelings, and not enough of others'
— not enough of yours. I had need have you always to find
fault with me and teach me : so many things have come true
that you used to tell me."
Maggie was resting her elbow on the table, leaning her head
on her hand and looking at Philip with half-penitent 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 to
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
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. Ill
oppression at the heart that sometimes aceomijanies a sudden
mental pang.
" What is the matter, Maggie ? Has something hap-
pened?" Philip said, in inexpressible anxiety — his imagi-
nation being only too ready to weave everything that was
fatal to them both.
" No — nothing," said Maggie, rousing her latent will.
Philip must not have that odious thought in his mind : she
would banish it from her own. "Nothing," she repeated,
" except in my own mind. You used to say I should feel the
effect of my starved life, as you called it, and I do. I am too
eager in my enjoyment of music and all luxuries, now they
are come to me."
She took up her work and occupied herself resolutely, while
Philip watched her, really in doubt whether she had anything
more than this general allusion in her mind. It was quite in
Maggie's character to be agitated by vague self-reproach. But
soon there came a violent well-known ring at the door-bell re-
sounding through the house.
" Oh, what a startling announcement ! " said Maggie, quite
mistress of herself, though not without some inward flutter.
"I wonder where Lucy is."
Lucy had not been deaf to the signal, and after an interval
long enough for a few solicitous but not hurried inquiries, she
herself ushered Stephen in.
" Well, old fellow," he said, going straight up to Philip and
shaking him heartily by the hand, bowing to Maggie in pass-
ing, " it 's glorious to have you back again ; only I wish you 'd
conduct yovirself a little less like a sparrow with a residence
on the house-top, and not go in and out constantly without
letting the servants know. This is about the twentieth time
I 've had to scamper up those countless stairs to that painting-
room of yours, all to no purpose, because your people thought
you were at home. Such incidents embitter friendshi})."'
" 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.
442 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Are you quite well this morning, Miss Tulliver ? " said
Stephen, turning to Maggie with stilt' politeness, and putting
out his hand, with the air of fulfilling a social duty.
Maggie gave the tips of her fingers, and said, " Quite well,
thank you," in a tone of proud indifference. Philip's eyes
were watching them keenly ; but Lucy was used to seeing
variations in their manner to each other, and only thought
with regret that there was some natural antipathy which every
now and then surmounted their mutual good-will. "Maggie
is not the sort of wojnan Stephen admires, and she is irritated
by something in him which she interprets as conceit," was the
silent observation that accounted for everything to guileless
Lucy. Stephen and Maggie had no sooner completed this
studied greeting than each felt hurt by the other's coldness.
And Stephen, while rattling on in questions to Philip about
his recent sketching expedition, was thinking all the more
about Maggie because he was not drawing her into the conver-
sation as he had invariably done before. " Maggie and Philip
are not looking happy," thought Lucy : " this first interview
has been saddening to them."
" I think we people who have not been galloping," she said
to Stephen, " are all a little damped by the rain. Let us have
some music. We ought to take advantage of having Philip
and you together. Give us the duet in ' Masaniello : ' Maggie
has not heard that, and I know it will suit her."
" Come, then," said Stephen, going towards the piano, and
giving a foretaste of the tune in his deep " brum-brum," very
pleasant to hear.
" You, please, Philip — you play the accompaniment," said
Lucy, " and then I can go on with my work. You will like to
play, shan't you ? " she added, with a pretty inquiring look,
anxious, as usual, lest she should have proposed what was not
pleasant to another ; but with yearnings towards 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 joent-up
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 448
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 tliem
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 !
— have n'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 alwaj^s to stand so that
he could look at her. But it was of no use : she soon threw her
work down, and all her intentions were lost in the vague state
of emotion produced by the inspiring duet — emotion that
seemed to make her at once strong and weak : strong for all
enjoyment, weak for all resistance. When the strain passed
into the minor, she half started from her seat with the sudden
thrill of that change. Poor Maggie ! She looked very beau
tiful when her soul was being played on in this way by the
inexorable power of sound. You might have seen the slight-
est 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 camo
444 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
back in her happiest moments. Lucy, who at other times had
always been at the piano when Maggie was looking in this
way, could not resist the impulse to steal up to her and kiss
her. Philip, too, caught a glimpse of her now and then round
the open book on the desk, and felt that he had never before
seen her under so strong an influence.
'' More, more ! " said Lucy, when the duet had been encored.
" Something spirited again. Maggie always says she likes a
great rush of sound."
" It must be * Let us take the road,' then," said Stephen —
" so suitable for a wet morning. But are you prepared to
abandon the most sacred duties of life, and come and sing
with us ? "
" Oh yes," said Lucy, laughing. " If you will look out the
'Beggar's Opera' from the large canterbury. It has a dingy
cover."
" That is a great clew, 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 ' Somnambula ' — ' Ah ! per-
che non posso odiarti.' I don't know the opera, but it appears
the tenor is telling the heroine that he shall always love her
though she may forsake him. You 've heard me sing it to the
English words, ' I love thee still.' "
It was not quite unintentionally that Philip had wandered
into this song, which might be an indirect expression to Maggie
of what he could not prevail on himself to say to her directly.
Her ears had been open to what he was saying, and when he
began to sing, she understood the plaintive passion of the mu-
sic. 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 Bed Deeps. There
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 445
seemed to be some reproach in the words — did Philip mean
that ? She wished she had assured him more distinctly in
their conversation that she desired not to renew the hope of
love between them, only because it clashed with her inevitable
circumstances. She was touched, not thrilled by the song:
it suggested distinct memories and thoughts, and brought
quiet regret in the place of excitement.
"That's the way with you tenors," said Stephen, who was
waiting with music in his hand while Philip finished the song.
" You demoralize the fair sex by warbling your sentimental
love and constancy under all sorts of vile treatment. Nothing
short of having your heads served up in a dish like that medi-
aeval tenor or troubadour, would prevent you from expressing
your entire resignation. I must administer an antidote, wliile
Miss Deane prepares to tear herself away from her bobbins."
Stephen rolled out, with saucy energy — •
" Shall I, wasting in despair,
Die because a woman 's fair 1 "
and seemed to make all the air in the room alive with a new
influence. Lucy, always proud of what Stephen did, went
towards 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
tvork, and went on making false stitches and pricking her
fingers with much perseverance, not looking up or taking no-
tice 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-
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
indifference to an irritating desire for some sign of inclination
from her — some interchange of subdued word or look with
her. It was not long before he found an opportunity, when
they had passed to the music of " The Tempest." Magr-ie?
446 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 grati-
tude. And then, to have the footstool placed carefully by a
too self-confident personage — not any self-confident personage,
but one in particular, who suddenly looks humble and anxious,
and lingers, bending still, to ask if there is not some draught
in that position between the window and the fireplace, and
if he may not be allowed to move the work-table for her
— these things will summon a little of the too ready, trai-
torous tenderness into a woman's eyes, compelled as she is in
her girlish time to learn her life-lessons in very trivial lan-
guage. And to Maggie such things had not been every-day
incidents, but were a new element in her life, and found her
keen appetite for homage quite fresh. That tone of gentle
solicitude obliged her to look at the face that was bent towards
her, and to say, "ISTo, thank you ;" and nothing could prevent
that mutual glance from being delicious to both, as it had been
the evening before.
It was but an ordinary act of politeness in Stephen ; it had
hardly taken two minutes ; and Lucy, who was singing,
scarcely noticed it. But to Philip's mind, filled already
with a vague anxiety that was likely to find a definite ground
for itself in any trivial incident, this sudden eagerness in
Stephen, and the change in Maggie's face, which was plainly
reflecting a beam from his, seemed so strong a contrast with
the previous overwrought signs of indifference, as to be charged
with painful meaning. Stephen's voice, pouring in again,
jarred upon his nervous susceptibility as if it had been the
clang of sheet-iron, and he felt inclined to make the piano
shriek in utter discord. He had really seen no communicable
ground for suspecting any unusual feeling between Stephen
and Maggie : his own reason told him so, and he wanted to go
home at once that he might reflect coolly on these false images,
till he had convinced himself of their nullity. But then, again,
he wanted to stay as long as Stephen stayed — always to be
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 447
present when Stephen was present with Maggie. It seemed
to poor Philip so natural, nay, inevitable, that any man who
was near Maggie should fall in love with her ! There was no
promise of happiness for her if she were beguiled into loving
Stephen Guest ; and this thought emboldened Philip to view
his own love for her in the light of a less unequal offering.
He was beginning to play very falsely uuder this deafening
inward tumult, and Lucy was looking at liim in astonish-
ment, when Mrs. Tulliver's entrance to summon them to lunch
came as an excuse for abruptly breaking off the music.
" Ah, Mr. Philip ! " said Mr. Deane, when they entered the
dining-room, " I 've not seen you for a long while. Your
father 's not at home, I think, is he ? I went after him to
the office the other day, and they said he was out of town."
" He 's been to Mudport on business for several days," said
Philip ; '' but he 's come back now."
" As fond of his farming hobby as ever, eh ? "
" I believe so," said Philip, rather wondering at this sudden
interest in his father's pursuits.
" Ah ! " said Mr. Deane, " he 's got some land in his own
hands on this side the river as well as the other, I think ? "
" Yes, he has."
" Ah ! " continued Mr. Deane, as he dispensed the pigeon
pie, " he must find farming a heavy item — an expensive
hobby. I never had a hobby m5^self — never would give in
to that. And the worst of all hobbies are those that people
think they can get money at. They shoot their money down
like corn out of a sack then."
Lucy felt a little nervous under her father's apparently
gratuitous criticism of Mr. Wakeni's expenditure. But it
ceased there, and Mr. Deane became unusually silent and
meditative during his luncheon. Lucy, accustomed to Avatch
all indications in her father, and having reasons, which had
recently become strong, for an extra iutt>rcst in Avhat referred
to the Wakems, felt an unusual curiosity to know what had
prompted her father's questions. His subsequent silence made
her suspect there had been some special reason for them in
his mind.
448 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
With this idea in her head, she resorted to her usual plan
when she wanted to tell or ask her father anything particular :
she found a reason for her aunt Tulliver to leave the dining-
room after dinner, and seated herself on a small stool at her
father's knee. Mr, Deane, under those circumstances, con-
sidered 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 yoii, 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
his hands, as if to repel intrusion into that mystery.
'' But, papa, you always say Mr. Wakem has brought Philip
up like a girl : how came you to think you should get any
business knowledge out of him ? Those abrupt questions
sounded rather oddly. Philip thought them queer."
" Nonsense, child ! " said Mr. Deane, willing to justify his
social demeanor, with which he had taken some pains in his
upward progress. " There 's a report that Wakem's mill and
farm on the other side of the river — Dorlcote Mill, your
uncle Tulliver's, you know — is n't answering so well as it
did. I wanted to see if your friend Philip would let anything
out about his father's being tired of farming."
" Why ? Would you buy the mill, papa, if he would part
with it?" said Lucy, eagerly. "Oh, tell me everything —
here, you shall have your snuff-box if you '11 tell me. Because
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 449
Maggie says all their hearts are set on Tom's getting back
the mill some time. It was one of the last things her father
said to Tom, that he must get back the mill."
"Hush, you little puss," said Mr. Deane, availing himself
of the restored snuff-box. " You must not say a word about
this thing — do you hear ? There 's very little chance of their
getting the mill, or of anybody 's getting it out of Wakem's
hands. And if he knew that we wanted it with a view to the
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 sud-
den penetrating look at his daughter, " You don't think the
poor lad's fond of you, and so you can make him do what
you like ? " (Mr. Deane felt quite safe about his daughter's
affections.)
" Xo, 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 teil 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.
" Yes, papa, quite sure. I 'm very wise ; I 've got all your
VOL. II. i^y
450 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
business talents. Did n't you admire my accouut-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
Philii^ 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 Mag-
gie, and removing at least one obstacle between them. He
laid his plan and calculated all his moves with the fervid de-
liberation 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 terribl}- 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, is n'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 pro-
vided the accommodation. He had been a good father. Emily
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 451
would have nothing to reproach him with tliere, if she camo
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 ho
rested, "you've got a famous show here. Upon my wonl. T
don't see that your things are n't as good as that London ar-
tist's — what's his name — that Leyburn gave so much money
for."
Philip shook his head and smiled. He had seated himself
on his painting-stool, and had taken a lead pencil in his hand,
with which he was making strong marks to counteract the
sense of treraulousness. 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 landscajie
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 turiied round fiercely, with a flushed face, letting
his eye-glass fall, and looking at his son with a savage expres-
sion for a moment, as if he was ready to strike that daring
feebleness from the stool. But he threw himself into the arm-
chair again, and thrust his hands into his trouser-pockets, still
looking angrily at his son, however^ Philip ilid not rrturn
the look, but sat quietly watching the point of his pencil.
"And do you mean to say, then, that you have had any
acquaintance with her since you came from abroad ? " said
Wakem, at last, with that vain effort which rage always makes
452 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
to throw as much puuishment as it desires to inflict into words
and tones, since blows are forbidden.
" Yes : I saw a great deal of her for a whole year before
her father's death. We met often in that thicket — the Red
Deeps — near Dorlcote Mill. I love her dearly : I shall never
•love any other woman. I have thought of her ever since she
was a little girl."
" Go on, sir ! — and you have corresponded with her all this
while ? "
"No. I never told her I loved her till just before we
parted, and she promised her brother not to see me again or
to correspond with me. I am not sure that she loves me, or
would consent to marry me. But if she would consent — if
she did love me well enough — I should marry her."
'• And this is the return you make me for all the indulgences
I 've heaped on you ? " said Wakem, getting white, and 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
indulgent father to me ; but I have always felt that it was
because you had an affectionate wish to give me as much hap-
piness as my unfortunate lot would admit of — not that it
was a debt j^ou expected me to pay by sacrificing all my
chances of happiness to satisfy feelings of yours, which I can
never share."
"I think most sons would share their father's feelings in
this case," said Wakem, bitterly. " The girl's father was an
ignorant mad brute, who was within an inch of murdering me.
The whole town knows it. And the brother is iust as insolent,
only in a cooler way. He forbade her seeing yau, you say ;
he '11 break every bone in your body, for your greater happi-
ness, if you don't take care. But you seem to have madt^ 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."
THE GKEAT TEMPTATION. 453
Wakem rose and walked towards the door, but something
held him back, and instead of leaving the room, he walked up
and down it. Philip was slow to reply, and when he spoke,
his tone had a more incisive quietness and clearness than
ever.
" No : I can't marry Miss Tulliver, even if she would have
me — if I have only my own resources to maintain her with.
I have been brought up to no profession. I can't offer her
poverty as well as deformity."
" Ah, there is a reason for your clinging to me, doubtless,"
said Wakem, still bitterly, though Philip's last words had
given him a pang : they had stirred a feeling wliich had been
a habit for a quarter of a century. He threw himself iuto the
chair again.
" I expected all this," said Philip. " I know these scenes
are often happening between father and son. If I were like
other men of my age, I might answer your angry words by
still angrier — we might part — I should marry the woman
I love, and have a chance of being as happy as the rest. But
if it will be a satisfaction to you to annihilate the very object
of everything you 've done for me, you have an advantage
over most fathers : you can completely deprive me of the only
thing that would make my life worth having."
Philip paused, but his father was silent.
" You know best what satisfaction you would have, beyond
that of gratifying a ridiculous rancor worthy only of wander-
ing savages."
"Ridiculous rancor!" Wakem burst out. "What do you
mean ? Damn it ! is a man to be horsewhipped by a boor and
love him for it ? Besides, there 's that cold, proud devil of a
son, who said a word to me I shall not forget when we had the
settling. He would be as pleasant a mark for a bullet as I
know — if he were worth the expense."
" I don't mean your resentment towards them," said Philip,
jwho had his reasons for some sympathy with this view of Tom,
"though a feeling of revenge is not worth much, that you
should care to keep it. I mean your extending the enmity to
helpless girl, who has too much sense and goodness to share
454 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
their narrow prejudices. She lias never entered into the family
quarrels."
" What does that signify ? We don't ask what a woman
does — we ask whom she belongs to. It 's altogether a de-
grading thing to you — to think of marrying old Tulliver's
daughter.''
For the first time in the dialogue, Philip lost some of his
self-coutrol, 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 amplification
of his last words —
"Find a single person in St. Ogg's who will not tell you
that a beautiful creature like her would be throwing herself
away on a pitiable object like me."
" Not she ! " said Wakem, rising again, and forgetting every-
thing else in a burst of resentful pride, half fatherly, half
personal. " It would be a deuced fine match for her. It 's all
stuff about an accidental deformity, when a girl's really 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 recover
his previous position, "if she does n'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 con-
sent 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 liad expected, by what had
passed ; but the sceue had jarred upon his nerves, which were
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 455
as sensitive as a woman's. He determined not to go down to
dinner : he could n'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 — of ten as early as half-past seven; and as it
was far on in the afternoon now, Philip locked up liis room
and went out for a long ramble, thinking he would not return
until his father was out of the house again. He got into a
boat, and went down the river to a favorite village, where he
dined, and lingered till it was late enough for him to return.
He had never had any sort of quarrel with his father before,
and had a sickening fear that this contest, just begun, might
go on for weeks — and what might not happen in that time ?
He would not allow himself to deiine what that involuntary
question meant. But if he could once be in the position of
Maggie's accepted, acknowledged lover, there would be less
room for vague dread. He went up to his painting-room again,
and threw himself with a sense of fatigue into the arm-chair,
looking round absently at the views of water and rock that
were ranged around, till he fell into a doze, in which he fan-
cied Maggie was slipping down a glistening, green, slimy chan-
nel of a waterfall, and he was looking on helpless, till he was
awakened by what seemed a sudden, awful crash.
It was the opening of the door, and he could hardly have
dozed more than a few moments, for there was no perceptible
change in the evening light. It was his father who entered j
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 would n'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
456 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
had hurt his foot. She had kept that in her memory, and
thought of me as a friend of a long while ago. She didn't
think of me as a lover when she met me."
" Well, but you made love to her at last. What did she say
then ? " said Wakem, walking about again.
" She said she did love me then."
" Confound it, then, what else do you want ? Is she a
jilt?"
" She was very young then," said Philip, hesitatingly. " I 'm
afraid she hardly knew what she felt. I 'm afraid our long
separation, and the idea that events must always divide us,
may have made a difference."
" But she 's in the town. I 've seen her at church. Have n't
you spoken to her since you came back ? "
" Yes, at Mr. Deane's. But I could n'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, should n't you be glad for me to have the same sort
of happiness, father — to sweeten my life for me ? There can
never be another tie so strong to you as that which began
eight-and-twenty years ago, when you married my mother, and
you have been tightening it ever since."
" Ah, Phil — you 're the only fellow that knows the best of
me," said Wakem, giving his hand to his son. "We must
keep together if we can. And now, what am I to do ? You
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 4r>7
must come dowu-stairs and tell me. Am I to go aud call on
this dark-eyed damsel ? "
The barrier once thrown down in this way. I'liilip could talk
freely to his lather of their entire relation with the Tullivcrs
— of the desire to get the mill and laud back mt,. the family —
and of its transfer to Guest & Co. as an mtermediate step. Tie
could venture now to be persuasive and urgent, and liis father
yielded with more readiness than he had calculated 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 improvements, that 's
all. But there 's one thing you need n't ask me. I shall have
no direct transactions Avith 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 IMr. 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 W'hich 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 m this case the
bearing appeared to be entirely propitious.
CHAPTER IX.
CHARITY IN FULL-DRESS.
The culmination of Maggie's career as an admired member
of society in St. Ogg's was certainly the day of the bazaar,
when her simple noble beauty, clad in a white muslin of some
soft-floating kind, which I suspect must have come from the
458 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
stores of auut Pullet's wardrobe, appeared with marked dis-
tiuction among the more adorned and conventional women
around her. We perhaps never detect how much of our social
demeanor is made up of artificial airs, until we see a person
who is at once beautiful and simple : without the beauty, we
are apt to call simplicity awkwardness. The Miss Guests
were much too well-bred to have any of the grimaces and
affected tones that belong to pretentious vulgarity ; but their
stall being next to the one where Maggie sat, it seemed newly
obvious to-day that Miss Guest held her chin too high, and
that Miss Laura spoke and moved continually with a view to
effect.
All well-drest St. Ogg's and its neighborhood were there ;
and it would have been worth while to come even from a
distance, to see the fine old hall, with its open roof and carved
oaken rafters, and great oaken folding-doors, and light shed
down from a height on the many-colored show beneath : a
very quaint place, with broad faded stripes painted on the
walls, and here and there a show of heraldic animals of a
bristly, long-snouted character, the cherished emblems of a
noble family once the seigniors of this now civic hall. A
grand arch, cut in the upper wall at one end, surmounted an
oaken orchestra, with an open room behind it, where 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 commo-
dious 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. Keun. Maggie had begged to sit at
the open end of the stall, and to have the sale of these articles
ratbfir than of bead-mats and other elaborate products, of
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 4'>^
which she had but a dim understanding. JJut it noon appeared
that the gentlemen's dressing-gowns, which were among lier
commodities, were objects of such general attention and in-
quiry, and excited so troublesome a curiosity as to their lining
and comparative merits, together with a determination to test
them by trying on, as to make her post a very conspicuous
one. The ladies who had commodities of their own to sell,
and did not want dressing-gowns, saw at once the frivolity
and bad taste of this masculine preference for goods which
any tailor could furnish ; and it is possible that the emi)hatic
notice of various kinds which was drawn towards Miss TuUi-
ver on this public occasion, threw a very strong and unmis-
takable 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 con-
trast ; and also, that to-day Maggie's conspicuous position, for
the first time, made evident certain characteristics which were
subsequently felt to have an explanatory bearing. There was
something rather bold in Miss Tulliver's direct gaze, and
something undefinably coarse in the style of her beaut}', which
placed her, in the opinion of all feminine judges, far below
her cousin Miss Deane ; for the ladies of St. Ogg's had now
completely ceded to Lucy their hypothetic claims on the
admiration of Mr. Stephen Guest.
As for dear little Lucy herself, her late benevolent triumph
about the Mill, and all the affectionate projects she was
cherishing for Maggie and Philip, helped to give her the
highest spirits to-day, and she felt nothing but pleasure in
the evidence of Maggie's attractiveness. It is true, she was
looking very charming herself, and Stephen was paying her
the utmost attention on this public occasion ; jealously buying
up the articles he had seen under her fingyrs in the process of
making, and gayly helping her to cajole the male customers
into the purchase of the most effeminate futilities. He chose
to lay aside his hat and wear a scarlet fez of her embroid-
ering ; but by superficial observers this was necessarily liable
460 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
to be interpreted less as a compliment to Lucy than as a maris
of coxcombry. " Guest is a great coxcomb," young Torry
observed ; '•' but then he is a privileged person in St. Ogg's —
he carries all before him : if another fellow did such things,
everybody Avould say he made a fool of himself."
And Stephen purchased absolutely nothing from Maggie,
until Lucy said, in rather a vexed undertone —
" See, now ; all the things of Maggie's knitting will be
gone, and you will not have bought one. There are those
deliciously soft warm things for the wrists — do buy them."
" Oh no," said Stephen, " they must be intended for imagi-
native 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 does n'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 towards Maggie,
to see how she went through this first interview, since a sadly
memorable time, with a man towards 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 towards Maggie's end, handling trifles and standing aloof
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 461
nntil 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 reproach him for his shabby conduct."
She returned his smile and bow without speaking, and he
turned away, only then observing Stephen, and nodding to
him. Maggie, conscious that Stephen was still there, busied
herself with counting money, and avoided looking up. She
had been well pleased that he had devoted himself to Lucy
to-day, and had not come near her. They had begun the
morning with an indifferent salutation, and both had rejoiced
in being aloof from each other, like a patient who has actually
done without his opium, in spite of former failures in resolu-
tion. And during the last few days they had even been
making up their minds to failures, looking to the outward
events that must soon come to separate them, as a reason for
dispensing with self -con quest 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, " Are n't you very tired ? Do let me bring you
something — some fruit or jelly — may n'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 look-
ing 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 could n't take it."
" Are you angry with me ? What have I done ? Bo 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
462 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS,
the old faded green curtain. Maggie had no sooner uttered
this entreaty than she was wretched at the admission it im-
plied ; 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 between Philip aud Maggie beyond that
childish one of which he had heard. More than one impulse
made him immediately leave the hall and go up-stairs to the
refreshment-room, where, walking up to Philip, he sat down
behind him, and put his hand on his shoulder.
" Are you studying for a portrait, Phil," he said, " or for a
sketch of that oriel window ? By George, it makes a capital
bit from this dark corner, with the curtain just marking
it off."
"I have been studying expression," said Philip, curtly.
" What ! Miss Tulliver's ? It 's rather of the savage-
moody order to-day, I think — something of the fallen prin-
cess serving behind a counter. Her cousin sent me to her
with a civil offer to get her some refreshment, but I have been
snubbed, as usual. There 's 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
disturbing force here."
" I am going," said Philip, rising abruptly.
" So am I — to get a breath of fresh air ; this place gets
oppressive. I think I have done suit and service long
enough."
The two friends walked down-stairs together without speak-
ing. Philip turned through the outer door into the courtyard,
but Stephen, saying, " Oh, by the bye, I must call in here,"
went on along the passage to one of the rooms at the other
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 403
end of the building, which were approi.riatod to the town
library. He had the room all to himself, and a man recjuires
nothing less than this, when he wants to dasli his can on the
table, throw himself astride a chair, and stare at a higli brick
wall with a frown which would not have been beneath the
occasion if he had been slaying ^' the giant Pvthon." The con
duct that issues from a moral conflict has often so close a
resemblance to vice, that the distinction escapes all outward
judgments, founded on a mere comparison of actions It is
clear to you, I hope, that Stephen was not a hypocrite -
capable of deliberate doubleness for a selfish end; and yet his
fluctuations between the indulgence of a feeling and the
systematic concealment of it, might have made a good case in
support of Philip's accusation.
Meanwhile, Maggie sat at her stall cold and trembling, with
that painful sensation in the eyes which comes from resolutely
repressed tears. Was her life to be always like this ? —
always bringing some new source of inward strife? She
heard confusedly the busy indifferent voices around her, and
wished her mind could flow into that easy babbling current.
It was at this moment that Dr. Kenn, who had quite lately
come into the hall, and was now walking down the middle
with his hands behind him, taking a general view, fixed his
eyes on Maggie for the first time, and was struck with the
expression of pain on her beautiful face. She was sitting
quite still, for the stream of customers had lessened at this
late hour in the afternoon : the gentlemen had chiefly chosen
the middle of the day, and Maggie's stall was looking rather
bare. This, with her absent, pained expression, finished the
contrast between her and her companions, who were all bright,
eager, and busy. He was strongly arrested. Her face had
I naturally drawn his attention as a new and striking one at
j church, and he had been introduced to her during a short call
!on business at Mr. Deane's, but he had never spoken more
I than three words to her. He walked towards her now, and
I Maggie, perceiving some one approaching, roused herself to
'look up and be prepared to speak. She felt a childlike, in-
stinctive relief from the sense of uneasiness in this exertion.
464 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
when she saw it was Dr. Kenn's face that was looking at her ;
that plain, middle-aged face, with a grave, penetrating kind-
ness in it, seeming to tell of a human being who had reached
a firm, safe strand, but was looking with helpful pity towards
the strugglers still tossed by the waves, had an effect on
Maggie at this moment which was afterwards 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 con-
templative, should surely be a sort of natural priesthood,
whom life has disciplined and consecrated to be the refuge
and rescue of early stumblers and victims of self-despair.
Most of us, at some moment in our young lives, would have
welcomed a priest of that natural order in any sort of canoni-
cals or uncanonicals, but had to scramble upwards into all the
difficulties of nineteen entirely without such aid, as Maggie
did.
" You find your office rather a fatiguing one, I fear, Miss
Tulliver ? " said Dr. Kenn.
" It is, rather," said Maggie, simply, not being accustomed
to simper amiable denials of obvious facts.
" But I can tell Mrs. Kenn that you have disposed of her
goods very quickly," he added ; " she will be very much
obliged to you."
" Oh, I have done nothing : the gentlemen came very fast
to buy the dressing-gowns and embroidered waistcoats, but I
think any of the other ladies would have sold more : I did n't]
know what to say about them."
Dr. Kenn smiled. " I hope I 'm going to have you as I
a permanent parishioner now. Miss Tulliver — am I ? You ]
have been at a distance from us hitherto."
" I have been a teacher in a school, and I 'ra going into j
another situation of the same kind very soon."
"Ah ? I was hoping you would remain among your friends,,
who are all in this neighborhood, I believe."
" Oh, I must go,''^ said Maggie, earnestly, looking at Dr.
Kenn with an expression of reliance, as if she had told hiui
her history in those three words. It was one of those momenta
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. Jfirj
of implicit revelation wliich will sometimes happen even be-
tween people who meet quite transiently — on a mile's jour-
ney, perhaps, or when resting by the wayside. There is
always this possibility of a word or look from a stranger to
keep alive the sense of human brotherhood.
Dr. Kenn's ear and eye took in all the signs that this brief
confidence of Maggie's was charged with meaning.
" I understand," he said ; " you feel it right to go. But
that will not prevent our meeting again, I hope : it will not
prevent my knowing you better, if I can be of any service
to you."
He put out his hand and pressed hers kindly before he
turned away.
" She has some trouble or other at heart," he thought.
" Poor child ! she looks as if she might turn out to be one of
* The souls by nature pitched too high,
By suffering plunged too low.'
There 's something wonderfully honest in those beautiful
eyes."
It may be surprising that Maggie, among whose many im-
perfections an excessive delight in admiration and acknowl-
edged supremacy were not absent now, any more than when
she was instructing the gypsies with a view towards achieving
a royal position among them, was not more elated on a day
when she had had the tribute of so many looks and smiles,
together with that satisfactory consciousness which had 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 possibili-
ties of culture at her command. But there were things in her
stronger than vanity — passion, and affection, and long deep
memories of early discipline and effort^ of early claims on her
VOL. II 80
466 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
love and pity ; and the stream of vanity was soon swept along
and mingled imperceptibly with that wider current which was
at its highest force 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's
cherubs, poured forth her triumphant revelation; and Lucy
could hardly be surprised that she could do little more than
cry with gladness at the thought of her father's wish being
fulfilled, and of Tom's getting the Mill again in reward for
all his hard striving. The details of preparation for the
bazaar had then come to usurp Lucy's attention for the next
few days, and nothing had been said by the cousins on sub-
jects that were likely to rouse deeper feelings. Philip had
been to the house more than once, but Maggie had had no
private conversation with him, and thus she had been left to
fight her inward battle without interference.
But when the bazaar was fairly ended, and the cousins were
alone again, resting together at home, Lucy said —
"You must give up going to stay with your aunt Moss the
day after to-morrow, Maggie : write a note to her, and tell her
you have put it off at my request, and I '11 send the man with
it. She won't be displeased ; you '11 have plenty of time to
go by-and-by ; and I don't want you to go out of the way just
now."
" Yes, indeed I must go, dear ; I can't put it off. I would n'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 did n't tell you, dear," said Maggie, making a great effort
to command herself, "because you've been so busy. But
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 467
some time ago I wrote to our old governess, Miss Firniss, to
ask her to let me kuow if she met with iiny situation that i
could fill, and the other day I had a letter from her telling
me that I could take three orphan pupils of hers to the coast
during the holidays, and then make trial of a situation with
her as teacher. I wrote yesterday to accept the offer,"
Lucy felt so hurt that for some moments she was unable to
speak.
" Maggie," she said at last, " how could you be so unkind to
me — not to tell me — to take such a step — and now ! " She
hesitated a little, and then added — " And Philip ? I thought
everything was going to be so happy. Oh Maggie — what is
the reason ? Give it up ; let me write. There is nothing now
to keep you and Philip apart."
" Yes," said Maggie, faintly. " There is Tom's feeling.
He said I must give him up if I married Philip. And I know
he will not change — at least not for a long while — unless
something happened to soften him."
" But I will talk to him : he 's coming back this week. And
this good news about the Mill will soften him. And I '11 talk
to him about Philip. Tom 's always very compliant to me : I
don't think he 's so obstinate."
" But I must go," said Maggie, in a distressed voice. " I
must leave some time to 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
I away, and wait. Pray don't speak to me again about it."
468 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Lucy obeyed in pain and wonder. The next word she said
was —
'' Well, dear Maggie, at least you will go to the dance at
Park House to-morrow, and have some music and brightness,
before you go to pay these dull dutiful visits. Ah ! here come
aunty and the tea."
CHAPTER X.
THE SPELL SEEMS BROKEN.
The suite of rooms opening into each other at Park House
looked duly brilliant with lights and flowers and the personal
splendors of sixteen couples, with attendant parents and guard-
ians. The focus of brilliancy was the long drawing-room,
where the dancing went forward, under the inspiration of the
grand piano ; the library, into which it opened at one end, had
the more sober illumination of maturity, with caps and cards ;
and at the other end, the pretty sitting-room with a conserva-
tory attached, was left as an occasional cool retreat. Lucy, who
had laid aside her black for the first time, and had her pretty
slimness set off by an abundant dress of white crape, was the
acknowledged queen of the occasion ; for this was one of the
Miss Guests' thoroughly condescending parties, including no
member of any aristocracy higher than that of St. Ogg's, and]
stretching to the extreme limits of commercial and professional]
gentility.
Maggie at first refused to dance, saying that she had forgot-j
ten 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 I
dancing with a heavy heart. But at length the music wrought!
in her young limbs, and the longing came ; even though it was!
the horrible young Torry, who walked up a second time to try
and persuade her. She warned him that she could not dance I
anything but a country-dance ; but he, of course, was willing
to wait for that high felicity, meaning only to be complimentary
when he assured her at several intervals that it was a "great]
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 469
bore "that she couldn't waltz -he would have liked so much
o 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 m it, and Maggie quite forgot her troublous life in
a childlike enjoyment of that half-rustic rhythnt whi.-h sccu.s
to banish pretentious etiquette. She felt quite charitably to-
wards young Tony, as his hand bore her along and h.dd her
up m the dance; her eyes and cheeks had that fire of youn^r
joy m 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 cousciousness
had been half screened by the image of Philip Wakem which
came across it like a blot : there was some attachment between
her and Philip ; at least there was an attachment on his side
which made her feel in some bondage. Here then, Stephen
told himself, was another claim of honor which called on him
to resist the attraction that was continually threatening to
overpower him. He told himself so ; and yet he had once or
twice felt a certain savage resistance, and at another moment
a shuddering repugnance, to this intrusion of Philip's image,
which almost made it a new incitement to rush towards .Alaggie
and claim her for himself. Nevertheless he had done what he
meant to do this evening : he had kept aloof from her ; he luul
hardly looked at her ; and he had been gayly assiduous to Lucy.
But now his eyes were devouring Maggie : he felt inclined to
kick young Torry out of the dance, and take his place. Then
he wanted the dance to end that he might get rid of his i)art-
ner. The possibility that he too should dance with I\raggie,
and have her hand in his so long, was beginning to possess him
like a thirst. But even now their hands were meeting in the
dance — were meeting still to the very end of it, though they
were far off each other.
Stephen hardly knew what happened, or in what automatic
way he got through the duties of politeness in the interval,
until he was free and saw Maggie seated alone again, at the
470 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
farther end of the room. He made his way towards 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 conscious-
ness poised above pleasure or pain. This one, this last night,
she might expand unrestrainedly in the warmth of the pres-
ent, without those chill eating thoughts of the past and the
future.
" They 're going to waltz again," said Stephen, bending to
speak to her, with that glance and tone of subdued tenderness
which young dreams create to themselves in the summer woods
when low cooing voices fill the air. Such glances and tones
bring the breath of poetry with them into a room that is half
stifling with glaring gas and hard flirtation.
" They are going to waltz again : it is rather dizzy work
to look on, and the room is very warm. Shall we walk about
a little ? "
He took her hand and placed it within his arm, and they
walked on into the sitting-room, where the tables were strewn
with engravings for the accommodation of visitors who would
not want to look at them. But no visitors were here at this
moment. They passed on into the conservatory.
" How strange and unreal the trees and flowers look Avith
the lights among them ! " said Maggie, in a low voice. " They'j
look as if they belonged to an enchanted land, and woulc
never fade away : — I could fancy they were all made ol
jewels."
She was looking at the tier of geraniums as she spoke, anc
Stephen made no answer : but he was looking at her — and|
does not a supreme poet blend light and sound into one, call-;
ing darkness mute, and light eloquent ? Something strangelyl
powerful there was in the light of Stephen's long gaze, fori
it made Maggie's face turn towards it and look upward at i%
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 471
— 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 mu-
tual gaze which has the solemnity belonging to all deep luunau
passion. The hovering thought that they must and would re-
nounce each other made this moment of mute coufession 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
fitill 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 towards the
large half-opened rose that had attracted her. Who has not felt
the beauty of a woman's arm ? — the unspeakable suggestions
of tenderness that lie in the dimpled elbow, and all the varied
gently lessening curves, down to the delicate wrist, with its
tiniest, almost imperceptible nicks in the firm softness. A wo-
man's arm touched the soul of a great sculptor two thousand
years ago, so that he wrought an image of it for the Parthe-
non 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 towards the
arm, and showered kisses on it, clasping the wrist.
But the next moment Maggie snatched it from him. and
glared at him like a wounded war-goddess, quivering with
rage and humiliation.
"How dare you?" — she spoke in a deeply shaken half-
smothered voice. "What right have I given you to insult
me?''
472 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
She darted from him into the adjoining room, and threw
herself on the sofa, panting and trembling.
A horrible punishment was come upon her for the sin of
allowing a moment's happiness that was treachery to Lucy, to
Philip — to her own better soul. That momentary happiness
had been smitten with a blight — a leprosy : Stephen thought
more lightly of her than he did of Lucy.
As for Stephen, he leaned back against the framework of
the conservatory, dizzy with the conflict of passions — love,
rage, and confused despair : despair at his want of self-mastery,
and despair that he had offended Maggie.
The last feeling surmounted every other : to be by her side
again and entreat forgiveness was the only thing that had the
force of a motive for him, and she had not been seated more
than a few minutes when he came and stood humbly before
her. But Maggie's bitter rage was unspent.
" Leave me to myself, if you please," she said, with impetuous
haughtiness, " and for the future avoid me."
Stephen turned away, and walked backwards and forwards
at the other end of the room. There was the dire necessity of
going back into the dancing-room again, and he was beginning
to be conscious of that. They had been absent so short a
time, that when he went in again the waltz was not ended.
Maggie, too, was not long before she re-entered. All the
pride of her nature was stung into activity : the hateful weak-
ness which had dragged her within reach of this wound to her
self-respect, had at least wrought its own cure. The thoughts
and temptations of the last month should all be flung away
into an un visited chamber of memory : there was nothing to
allure 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
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 473
fhat would have the stamp of treachery towards 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 W de-
spatched 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 wrap-
ping 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 that 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 church-yard, with my mother."
'' I have been there — I go there — continually," said Philip.
" I have nothing but the past to live upon."
A keen remembrance and keen pity impelled Maggie to
put her hand in Philip's. They had so often walked hand in
hand !
" I remember all the spots," she said — " just where you
told me of particular things — beautiful stories tliat 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 haa
not told you, perhaps ? "
474 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS-
" 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 sin-
cere gaze.
<'That book never will be closed, Philip," she said, with
grave sadness ; " I desire no future that will break the ties of
the past. But the tie to my brother is one of the strongest.
I can do nothing willingly that will divide me always from
him."
" Is that the only reason that would keep us apart forever,
Maggie ? " said Philip, with a desperate determination to
have a definite auswer.
" 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
speaking for a few minutes : in Maggie's mind the first scenes
of love and parting were more present than the actual mo-
ment, and she was looking at Philip in the Red Deeps.
Philip felt that he ought to have been thoroughly happy
in that answer of hers : she was as open and transparent as a
rock-pool. Why was he not thoroughly happy ? Jealousy is
never satisfied with anything short of an omniscience that
would detect the subtlest fold of the heart.
CHAPTER XL
IN THE LANE.
Maggie had been four days at her aunt Moss's, giving the
early June sunshine quite anew brightness in the care-dimmed
eyes of that affectionate woman, and making an epoch for her
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. • 475
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
tumble-down as ever, but over the old garden-wall the straggling
rose-bushes were beginning to toss their summer weight, and
the gray wood and old bricks of the house, on its higher level,
had a look of sleepy age in the broad afternoon sunlight, that
suited the quiescent time. Maggie, with her bonnet over her
arm, was smiling down at the hatch of small tiulf}^ chickens,
when her aunt exclaimed —
" Goodness me ! who is that gentleman coming in at the
gate ? "
It was a gentleman on a tall bay horse ; and the flanks and
neck of the horse were streaked black with fast riding. 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's
face the evidence that she knew.
"It is Mr. Stephen Guest," said Maggie, rather faintly.
"My cousin Lucy's — a gentleman who is very intimate at
my cousin's."
Stephen was already close to them, had jumped off his
horse, and now raised his hat as he advanced.
" Hold the horse, Willy," said Mrs. Moss to the twelve-year-
old boy.
" No, thank you," said Stephen, pulling at the horse's im-
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
476 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 towards
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 Ste-
phen, 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 strong-
est passion a man can feel, because I try to be true to other
claims — but you must treat me as if I were a coarse brute,
who would willingly offend you. And when, if I had my own
choice, I should ask you to take my hand, and my fortune, and
my whole life, and do what you liked with them ! I know I
forgot myself. I took an unwarrantable liberty. I hate 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
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 477
is to have pained you — that I would give the worhl to recall
the error."
Maggie dared not speak — dared not turn her head. The
strength that had come from resentment was all gone, and lier
lips were quivering visibly. She could not trust herself to
utter the full forgiveness that rose in answer to that con-
fession.
They were come nearly in front of the gate again, and she
paused, trembling.
" You must not say these things — T must not hear them,**
she said, looking down in misery, as Stephen came in front
of her, to prevent her from going farther towards 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 did n'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, ten-
derest 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 Ste-
phen, 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, 1
can live on that. You see plairdy enough that your anger luia
only made me ten times more unreasonable."
478 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Maggie turned. But Tancred, the bay horse, began to make
such spirited remoustrances against this frequent change of
direction, that Stephen, catching sight of Willy Moss peeping
through the gate, called out, ''Here! just come and hold my
horse for five minutes."
" Oh no," said Maggie, hurriedly, " my aunt will think it so
strange."
" Never mind," Stephen answered, impatiently ; " they don't
know the people at St. Ogg's. Lead him up and down just
here, for five minutes," he added to Willy, who was now close
to them ; and then he turned to Maggie's side, atid they
walked on. It was clear that she jnust go on now.
'' Take my arm," said Stephen, entreatingiy ; and she took
it, feeling all the while as if she were sliding downwards in
a nightmare.
" There is no end to this misery," she began, struggling to
repel the influence by speech. "It is wicked — base — ever
allowing a word or look that Lucy — that others might not
have seen. Think of Lucy."
"I do think of her — bless her. If I didn't — " Stephen
had laid his hand on Maggie's that rested on his arm, and they
both felt it difhcult to speak.
"And I have other ties," Maggie went on, at last, with a
desperate effort, — " even if Lucy did not exist."
" You are engaged to Philip Wakem ? " said Stephen, hastily.
« Is it so ? "
" I consider myself engaged to him — I don't mean to marry
any one else."
Steplien was silent again until they had turned out of the
sun into a side lane, all grassy and sheltered. Then he burst
out impetuously —
" It is unnatural — it is horrible. Maggie, if you loved me
as I love you. we should throw everything else to the winds
for the sake of belonging to each other. We should break all
these mistaken ties that were made in blindness, and determine
to marry each other."
•'I would rather die than fall into that temptation," said
Maggie, with deep, slow distinctness — all the gathered spirit-
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 479
ual force of painful years coming to her aiil in thifi extroniity.
She drew her arm from his as she spoke.
'' Tell me, then, that you don't care for me," he said, almost
x-iolently. " Tell me that you love some one else better."
It darted through IMaggie's mind that here was a mode of
releasing herself from outward struggl- — 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 lielp
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 look entreat-
ingly in her face. " What could we care about in the whole
world beside, if we belonged to each other ? "
Her breath was on his face — his lips were very near hers —
but there was a great dread dwelling in his love for her.
Her lips and eyelids quivered ; she opened her eyes full on
his for an instant, like a lovely wild animal timid and strug-
gling under caresses, and then turned sharp round towards
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 arc not abs(jlutely
pledged to Philip, we are neither of us bound."
"You don't believe that — it is not your real feeling," said
Maggie, earnestly. "You feel, as I do, that the real tie lies in
the feelings and expectations we have raised in other mintls.
480 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 j
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 canH be fulfilled," he said, with impetuous in-
sistance. " It is unnatural : we can only pretend to give our-
selves to any one else. There is wrong in that too — there
may be misery in it for them as well as for us. Maggie, you
must see that — you do see that."
He was looking eagerly at her face for the least sign of
compliance ; his large, firm, gentle grasp was on her hand.
She was silent for a few moments, with her eyes fixed on the
ground ; then she drew a deep breath, and said, looking up at
him with solemn sadness —
" Oh, it is difficult — life is very difficult ! It seems right
to me sometimes that we should follow our strongest feeling ;
— but then, such feelings continually come across the ties that
all our former life has made for us — the ties that have made
others dependent on us — and would cut them in two. If life
were quite easy and simple, as it might have been in Paradise,
and we could always see that one being first towards whom . . .
I mean, if life did not make duties for us before love comes,
love would be a sign that two people ought to belong to each
other. But I see — I feel it is not so now : there are things
we must renounce in life ; some of us must resign love. Many
things are difficult and dark to me ; but I see one thing quite
clearly — that I must not, cannot, seek my own happiness by
sacrificing others. Love is natural ; but surely pity and faith-
fulness and memory are natural too. And they would live in
me still, and punish me if I did not obey them. I should be
haunted by the suffering I had caused. Our love would be
poisoned. Don't urge me ; help me — help me, because I love
you."
Maggie had become more and more earnest as she went on ;
her face had become flushed, and her eyes fuller and fuller of
appealing love. Stephen had the fibre of nobleness in him that
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 481
vibrated to lier 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 '11 do, I '11 bear anything 30U wish.
But — one kiss — one — the last — before we part."
One kiss — and then a long look — until Maggie said tremu-
lously, " Let me go — let us make haste back."
She hurried along, and not another w^ord was spoken.
Stephen stood still and beckoned when they came within sight
of Willy and the horse, and Maggie went on through the gate.
Mrs. Moss was standing alone at the door of the old porch :
she had sent all the cousins in, with kind thoughtfulness. It
might be a joyful thing that Maggie had a rich and handsome
lover, but she would naturally feel embarrassed at coming in
again : — and it might not be joyful. In either case, Mrs. Moss
waited anxiously to receive Maggie by herself. The speaking
face told plainly enough that, if there was joy, it was of a very
agitating, dubious sort.
" Sit down here a bit, my dear." She drew Maggie into the
porch, and sat down on the bench by her; — there was no
privacy in the house.
" Oh, aunt Gritty, I 'm very wretched. I wish I could have
died when I was fifteen. It seemed so easy to give things up
then — it is so hard now."
The poor child threw her arms round her aunt's neck, and
fell into long, deep sobs.
CHAPTER XII.
A FAMILY PARTY.
Maggie left her good aunt Gritty at the end of the week,
and went to Garum Firs to pay her visit to aunt Pullet accord-
ing to agreement. In the mean time very unexpected things
had happened, and there was to be a family party at Garum
VOT-. II. 81-
482 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
to discuss and celebrate a change in the fortunes of the Tul-
livers, 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 splen-
dor. It is pleasant to know that a new ministry just come
into office are not the only fellow-men who enjoy a period of
high appreciation and full-blown eulogy : in many respectable
families throughout this realm, relatives becoming creditable
meet with a similar cordiality of recognition, which, in its fine
freedom from the coercion of any antecedents, suggests the
hopeful possibility that we may some day without any notice
find ourselves iti 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 con-
spiring now to make pool" dear aunt Tulliver, and cousin Tom,
and naughty Maggie too, if she were not obstinately bent on
the contrary, as happy as they deserved to be after all their
troubles. To think that the very day — the very day — after
Tom had come back from Newcastle, that unfortunate young
Jetsome, whom Mr. Wakem had placed at the Mill, had been
pitched off his horse in a drunken fit, and was lying at St.
Ogg's in a dangerous state, so that Wakem had signified his
wish that the new purchasers should enter on the premises at
once ! It was very dreadful for that unhapp}^ 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 tbe 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 Luc}^ in the matter of household comfort;
but then, to think of poor aunty being in her old place again,
and gradually getting comforts about her there !
On this last point LuCy had hfel- dunning ptojects, and when
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 488
she and Maggie had made thpir dangerous way down the
bright stairs into the handsome parlor, where the very sun-
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 towards housekeeping ; because you are always so
generous — you give such nice things, you know ; and if you
set the example, aunt Glegg will follow."
"That she never can, my dear," said Mrs. Pullet, with
unusual vigor, " for she has n'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 diamont among
"em. But it 's poor work, dividing one's linen before one dies
— I 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 diamont, the first flax
iver we 'd spun — and the Lord knows where yours is gone."
" I 'd no choice, I 'm sure, sister," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,
accustomed to consider herself in the light of an accused
person. " I 'm sure it was no wish o' mine, iver, as I should
lie awake o' nights thinking o' my best bleached linen all
over the country."
" Take a peppermint, Mrs. Tulliver," said uncle Pullet, feel-
ing that he was offering a cheap and wholesome form of com-
fort, 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 I 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 notliing but right his friends should
look on him and help him. There 's the table-cloths I bought
at your sale, Bessy ; it was nothing bwt 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 ludy muslin
484 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
and tilings, if she 's to go into service again, when she might
stay and keep me company, and do mj sewing for me, if she
was n't wanted at her brother's."
" Going into service," was the expression by which the
Dodson mind represented to itself the position of teacher o.»-
governess, and Maggie's return to that menial condition, no\r
circumstances offered her more eligible prospects, was likelj
to be a sore point with all her relatives, besides Lucy. Mag-
gie in her crude form, with her hair down her back, and
altogether in a state of dubious promise, was a most unde-
sirable niece ; but now she was capable of being at once orna-
mental and useful. The subject was revived in aunt and
uncle Glegg's presence, over the tea and muffins.
"Hegh, hegh!" said Mr. Glegg, good-naturedly patting
Maggie on the back, " nonsense, nonsense ! Don't let us hear
of you taking a place again, Maggie. Why, you must ha'
picked up half-a-dozen sweethearts at the bazaar : is n't there
one of 'em the right sort of article ? Come, now ? "
"Mr. Glegg," said his wife, with that shade of increased
politeness in her severity which she always put on with her
crisper fronts, " you '11 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 con-
sulting us — not sweethearts, if I'm to use such a word,
though it was never beared in Tiiy 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 un-
delicate, 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 '11 trouble you for the muffineer, then, Mr. Glegg," said
Mrs. G., " if I may be so bold to interrupt your joking.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 485
Though it's other people must see the joko in a niece's put-
ting a slight ou her mother's eldest sister, as is the head o'
the family ; and only coming in and out on short visits, all
the time she 's been in the town, and then settling to go away
without my knowledge — as I 'd laid caps out on purpose for
her to make 'em up for me, — and me as have divided my
money so equal — "
" Sister," Mrs. Tulliver broke in, anxiously, " I 'm sure Mag-
gie 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 — bvit 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 j\Iaggie '11 have
before she 's fixed to go : she can stay at your house just as
well, and I '11 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 is n't above a quarter
of an hour's walk from Mr. Deane's. She can come the first
thing in the morning, and go back the last at night, and be
thankful she 's got a good aunt so close to her to come and sit
with. I know I should, when I was her age."
" La, Jane," said Mrs. Pullet, " it 'ud do your beds good to
have somebody to sleep in 'em. There 's that striped room
smells dreadful mouldy, and the glass mildewed like anytliing.
I 'm sure I thought I should be struck with death when you
took me in."
" Oh, there is Tom ! " exclaimed Lucy, clapping her hands.
'' He 's come on Sinbad, 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
ithe Mill had been opened to him ; and slie kept his hand, lead-
ing him to the chair by her side. To have no cloud between
herself and Tom was still a perpetual yearning in her, that had
tts root deeper than all change. He smiled at her very kindly
;his evening, and said, " Well, Magsie, how 's aunt Moss ? "
486 THE- MILL ON THE FLOSS.
"Come, come, sir," said Mr. Glegg, putting out Ins hand.
" Why, you 're such a big man, you carry all before you, it
seems. You 're come into your luck a good deal earlier then
us old folks did — but I wish you joy, I wish you joy. You '11
get the Mill all for your own again, some day, I '11 be bound.
You won't stop half-way up the hill."
" But I hope he '11 bear in mind as it 's his mother's family
as he owes it to," said Mrs. Glegg. " If he had n't had them
to take after, he 'd ha' been poorly off. There was never any
failures, nor lawing, nor wastefulness in our family — nor
dying without wills — "
"JSTo, 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 table-cloth 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 '11 bear it in mind — though you '11 bfe blunder-
ing with the keys, and never remember as that on the third
shelf o' the left-hand wardrobe, behind the night-<3aps with the
broad ties — not the narrow-frilled uns — is the key o' the
drawer in the Blue Eoom, where the key o' the Blue Closet is.
You '11 make a mistake, and I shall niver be worthy to know
it. You've a memory for my pills and draughts, wonderful
— I '11 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 I
go beyond your own family. There 's nobody can say I don't
lock up ; but I do what 's reasonable, and no more. And as]
for the linen, I shall look out what 's serviceable, to make
a present of to my nephey : I 've got cloth as has never been!
whittened, better worth having than other people's fine hol-j
land ; and I hope he '11 lie down in it and think of his aunt."
Tom thanked Mrs. Glegg, but evaded any promise tG meditate j
nightly on her virtues; and Mr Glegg effected a dispersion for
him by asking about Mr. Deane's intentions C(;ncerning steam.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 487
Lucy had had her far-sighted views in begging Tom to come
on Sinbad. It appeared, when it was time to go home, that
the man-servant was to ride the horse, and cousin Tom was to
drive home his mother and Lucy. " You must sit by yourself,
aunty," said that contriving young lady, " because I must sit
by Tom ; I 've a great deal to say to him."
In the eagerness of her affectionate anxiety for Maggie,
Lucy could not persuade herself to defer a conversation about
her with Tom, who, she thought, with such a cup of joy before
him as this rapid fulfilment of his wish about the Mill, must
become pliant and flexible. Her nature supplied her with
no key to Tom's ; and she was puzzled as well as pained to
notice the unpleasant change on his countenance when she
gave him the history of the way in which Philip had used his
influence with his father. She had counted on this revelation
as a great stroke of policy, which was to turn Tom 's heart
towards Philip at once, and, besides that, prove that the elder
Wakem was ready to receive Maggie with all the honors of
a daughter-in-law. Nothing was wanted, then, but for dear
Tom, who always had that pleasant smile when he looked at
cousin Lucy, to turn completely round, say the opposite of
what he had always said before, and declare that he, for his
part, was delighted that all the old grievances should be healed,
and that Maggie should have Philip with all suitable despatch :
in cousin Lucy's opinion nothing could be easier.
But to minds strongly marked by the positive and negative
qualities that create severity — strength of will, conscious 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 hear-
say, 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 sponta-
neous ideas, something to impose on others with the authority
of conscious right : it is at once a staff and a baton. Every
488 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
prejudice that will answer these purposes is self-evident. Our
good upright Tom Tulliver's miud 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
man of lax principle and lax life, and it was a meeting-point
for all the disappointed feelings of family and personal pride.
Other feelings added their force to produce Tom's bitter repug-
nance to Philip, and to Maggie's union with him ; and notwith-
standing Lucy's power over her strong-willed cousin, she got
nothing but a cold refusal ever to sanction such a marriage :
"but of course Maggie could do as she liked — she had de-
clared her determination to be independent. For Tom's part,
he held himself bound by his duty to his father's memory, and
by every manly feeling, never to consent to any relation with
the Wakems."
Thus, all that Lucy had effected by her zealous mediation
was to till Tom's mind with the expectation that Maggie's per-
verse 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 XIII.
BORNE ALONG BY THE TIDE.
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 companionship
in these last weeks, especially as there were preparations to
be thought of for Tom's housekeeping. But Lucy would hear
of no pretext for her remaining away in the evenings : she
must always come from aunt Glegg's before dinner — '•' else
what shall I have of you ? " said Lucy, with a tearful pout that
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 489
could not he resisted. And Mr. Stephen Guest had unaccount-
ably taken to dining at Mr. Ueane's as often as possible, in-
stead of avoiding that, as he used to do. At first he began
his mornings with a resolution that he would not dine there
— not even go in the evening, till Maggie was away. He had
even devised a plan of starting off on a journey in this agree-
able June weather : the headaches which he had constantly
been alleging as a ground for stupidity and silence were a suffi
cient ostensible motive. But the journey was not taken, and
by the fourth morning no distinct resolution was formed
about the evenings : they were only foreseen as times when
Maggie would still be present for a little while — when one
more touch, one more glance, might be snatched. For, why
not ? There was nothing to conceal between them : they
knew — they had confessed their love, and they had renounced
each other : they were going to part. Honor and conscience
wrere going to divide them : Maggie, with that appeal from
her inmost soul, had decided it; but surely they might cast
a lingering look at each other across the gulf, before they
turned away never to look again till that strange light had
forever faded out of their eyes.
Maggie, all this time, moved about with a quiescence and
even torpor of manner, so contrasted with her usual fitful
brightness and ardor, that Lucy would have had to seek some
other cause for such a change, if she had not been convinced
that the position in which Maggie stood between Philip and
her brother, and the prospect of her self-imposed wearisome
banishment, were quite enough to account for a large amount
of depression. But under this torpor there was a fierce battle of
emotions, such as Maggie in all her life of struggle had never
known or foreboded : it seemed to her as if all the worst evil
in her had lain in ambush till now, and had suddenly started
up full-armed, with hideous, overpowering strength ! There
were moments in which a cruel selfishness seemed to be getting
possession of her: why should not Lucy— why should not
Philip suffer ? She had had to suflfer through many years of
her life; and who had renounced anything for her? And
when something like that fulness of existence — love, wealth,
490 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ease, refinement, all that her nature craved — was brought
within her reach, why was she to forego it, that another might
have it — another, who perhaps needed it less ? But amidst
all this new passionate tumult there were the old voices mak-
ing themselves heard with rising power, till, from time to time,
the tumult seemed quelled. TVas that existence which tempted
her the full existence she dreamed ? Where, then, would be
all the memories of early striving — all the deep pity for an-
other's pain, which had been nurtured in her through years of
affection and hardship — all the divine presentiment of some-
thing higher than mere personal enjoyment, which had made
the sacredness of life ? She might as well hope to enjoy walk-
ing by maiming her feet, as hope to enjoy an existence in which
she set out by maiming the faith and sympathy that were the
best organs of her soul. And then, if pain were so hard to
her, what was it to others ? — " Ah, God ! preserve me from in-
flicting — 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
towards everything but the possibility of watching her. Could
she refuse sometimes to answer that beseeching look which
she felt to be following her like a low murmur of love and
pain ? She refused it less and less, till at last the evening for
them both was sometimes made of a moment's mutual gaze :
they thought of it till it came, and when it had come, they
thought of nothing else. One other thing Stephen seemed now
and then to care for, and that was to sing : it was a way of
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. l!tl
speaking to Maggie. Perhaps he was not cliKtinotly conscious
that he was impelled to it by a secret longing— running coun-
ter to all his self-coufessed resolves — to deepen the hold he
had on her. Watch your own speech, and notice how it is
guided by your less conscious purposes, and you will under-
stand that contradiction in Stephen.
Philip Wakem was a less frequent visitor, but he came
occasionally in the evening, and it happened that hu 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 tire-
some 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 hjlling backward in a
low garden-chair ; " else she will be selling her soul to that
ghostly boatman who haunts the Floss — only for the sake of
being drifted in a boat forever."
" Should you like to be her boatman ? " said Lucy. " Be-
cause, if you would, you can come with us and take an oar. If
the Ploss were but a quiet lake instead of a river, we should
be independent of any gentleman, for Maggie can row splen-
didly. 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 Avas sauntering
up and down, and was just singing in pianissimo falsetto —
" The thirst that from the soul doth rise,
Doth ask a drink divine."
He took no notice, but still kept aloof : he had done so fre-
quently during Pliilip's recent visits.
" You don't seem inclined for boating," said Lucy, when he
came to sit down by her on the bench. " Does n't rowing suit
you now ? "
" Oh, I hate a large party in a boat," he said, almost irritOr
bly. " I '11 come when you have no one else."
492 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
Lucy colored, fearing that Philip would be hurt : it was
quite a new thing for Stephen to speak in that way ; but he
had certainly not been well of late. Pliilip colored too, but
less from a feeling of personal offence than from a vague sus-
picion that Stephen's moodiness had some relation to Maggie,
who had started up from her chair as he spoke, and had
walked towards the hedge of laurels to look at the descending
sunlight on the river.
" As Miss Deane did n't know she was excluding others by
inviting me," said Philip, " I am bound to resign."
" No, indeed, you shall not," said Lucy, much vexed. " I
particularly wish for your company to-morrow. The tide
will suit at half-past ten : it will be a delicious time for a
couple of hours to row to Luckreth and walk back, before the
sun gets too hot. And how can you object to four people in
a boat ? " she added, looking at Stephen.
"I don't object to the people, but the number," said Stephen,
who had recovered himself, and was rather ashamed of his
rudeness. " If I voted for a fourth at all, of course it would
be you, Phil. But we won't divide the pleasure of escorting
the ladies ; we '11 take it alternately. I '11 go the next day."
This incident had the effect of drawing Philip's attention
with freshened solicitude towards Stephen and Maggie ; but
when they re-entered the house, music was proposed, and Mrs.
Tulliver and Mr. Deane being occupied with cribbage, Maggie
sat apart near the table where the books and work were
placed — doing nothing, however, but listening abstractedly
to the music. Stephen presently turned to a duet which he
insisted that Lucy and Philip should sing : he had often done
the same thing before ; but this evening Philip thought he
divined some double intention in every word and look of
Stephen's, and watched him keenly — angry with himself all
the while for this clinging suspicion. For had not Maggie
virtually denied any ground for his doubts on her side ? and
she was truth itself: it was impossible not to believe her
word and glance when they had last spoken together in the
garden. Stephen might be strongly fascinated by her, (what
was more natural ?) but Philip felt himself rather base for
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 40;]
intruding on what must be his friend's painful secret. Still
he watched. Stephen, moving away from the piano, sauntered
slowly towards the table near which Maggie sat, and turned
over the newspapers, apparently in mere idleness. Then he
seated himself with his back to tlie piano, dragging a news-
paper under his elbow, and tlirusting 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 approaeh. She
had always additional strength of resistance when I'hilip was
present, just as we can restrain our speech better in a spot
that we feel to be hallowed. But at last she heard the
word " dearest " uttered in the softest tone of pained entreaty,
like that of a patient who asks for something that ought to
have been given without asking. She had never heard that
word since the moments in the lane at Basset, when it had
come from Stephen again and again, almost as involuntarily
as if it had been an inarticulate cry. Philip could hear no
word, but he had moved to the opposite side of the piano, and
could see Maggie start and blush, raise her eyes an instant
towards Stephen's face, but immediately look appreliensively
towards himself. It was not evident to her that 3*hilip 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 min-
gled with wretched certainty. It was impossible for him now
to resist the conviction that there was some mutual conscious-
ness between Stephen and Maggie ; and for half the night
his irritable, susceptible nerves were pressed upon almost to
frenzy by that one wretched fact : he could attempt no expla-
nation 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
clew to all he had seen since his return. But athwart that
belief there came other possibilities tliat would not be driven
out of sight. His imagination wrought out the whole story :
494 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 towards him ?
When the morning came, Philip was too ill to think of
keeping his engagement to go in the boat. In his present
agitation he could decide on nothing : he could only alternate
between contradictory intentions. First, he thought he must
have an interview with Maggie, and entreat her to confide in
him ; then again, he distrusted his own interference. Had
he not been thrusting himself on Maggie all along ? She had
uttered words long ago in her young ignorance ; it was enough
to make her hate him that these should be continually present
with her as a bond. And had he any right to ask her for a
revelation of feelings which she had evidently intended to
withhold from him ? He would not trust himself to see her,
till he had assured himself that he could act from pure anxiety
for her, and not from egoistic irritation. He wrote a brief
note to Stephen, and sent it early by the servant, saying that
he was not well enough to fulfil his engagement to Miss
Deane. Would Stephen take his excuse, and fill his place ?
Lucy had arranged a charming plan, which had made her
quite content with Stephen's refusal to go in the boat. She
discovered that her father was to drive to Lindum this morn-
ing at ten : Lindum Avas the very place she wanted to go to,
to make purchases — important purchases, which must by no
means be put off to another opportunity ; and aunt Tulliver
must go too, because she was concerned in some of the
purchases.
"You will have your row in the boat just the same, you
know," she said to Maggie when they Avent out of the break-
fast-room and up-stairs 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 fair}'^ 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."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 495
ot^tn-^r' T'"' ^" °'^"^^^^"^- S^- -- almost ,lud
of the plan ; for perhaps it would bring her some stren.tl. a. d
cahnness to be alone with PhHip again: it was like r t t"'
the scene of a quieter life, in which the very struggle w^
repose, compared with the daily tumult of tlfe presen Z
wi^haiTacf .'^ door-bell was punctual, and she was thinking
with half-sad, affectionate pleasure of the surprise PluHp would
have in finding «iat he was to be w.th hex' alone, when he
distinguished a firm rapid step across the hall that was
certainly not Philip's: the door opened, and Stephen Gue"
In the first niomeni: they were both too much agitated to
speak; for Stephen had learned from the servant that the
others were gone out. Maggie had started up and sat down
again, with her heart beating violently ; and Stephen, throwing
down his cap and gloves, came and sat by her in silence. She
thought Philip would be coming soon ; and with great effort
-for she trembled visibly- she rose to go to a distant chair.
He IS not commg," said Stephen, in a low tone, "/am
going in the boat."
"Oh, we can't go," said Maggie, sinking into her chair
again. "Lucy did not expect — she would be hurt. Why is
not Philip come ? "
" He is not well ; he asked me to come instead.''
"Lucy is gone to Lindum," said Maggie, taking off her bon-
net, 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 '11 stay
here." "^
; He was looking into her deep, deep eyes — far off and
i mysterious as the starlit blackness, and yet very near, and
! timidly loving. Maggie sat perfectly still — perliaps for mo-
ments, perhaps for minutes —until the helpless trembling had
{ceased, and there was a warm glow on her cheek.
i "The man is waiting — he has taken the cushions," she
said. « Will you go and tell him ? "
496 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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, entreatinglj, 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.
They glided rapidly along, Stephen rowing, helped by the
backward-flowing tide, past the Tofton trees and houses — on
between the silent sunny fields and pastures, which seemed
filled with a natural joy that had no reproach for theirs. The
breath of the young, unwearied day, the delicious rhythmic
dip of the oars, the fragmentary song of a passing bird heard
now and then, as if it were only the overflowing of brim-full
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 row-
ing 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 be-
fore they reached Luckreth, where they always stopped and
left the boat. At all times she was so liable to fits of ab-
sence, that she was likely enough to let her way-marks pass
unnoticed.
But at last Stephen, who had been rowing more and more
Mi&sii: A5;» MfJ^ES-
THE GREAT TEMPl'ATION. 497
idly, ceased to row, laid down the oais, 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-streti^iing 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 round again,
with a look of distressed questioning at Stephen.
He went on watching the water, and said, in a strange,
dreamy, absent tone, "Yes — a long way."
" Oh, what shall I do ? " cried Maggie, in an agony. " We
shall not get home for hours — and Lucy — Oh, God, help
me : '■
She clasped her hands and broke into a sob, like a fright-
ened child : she thought of nothing but of meeting Lucy, and
seeing her look of pained surprise and doubt — perhaps of just
upbraiding.
Stephen moved and sat near her, and gently drew down the
clasped hands.
" Maggie," he said, in a deep tone of slow decision, " let us
never go home again — till no one can part us — till we are
married."
The unusual tone, the startling words, arrested Maggie's
sob, and she sat quite still — wondering: as if Stephen might
have seen some possibilities that would alter everything, and
annul the wretched facts.
" See, Maggie, how everything has come without our 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 unnatu-
ral bonds that we have been trying to make faster round us —
and trying in vain. It will carry us on to Torby, and we can
land there, and get some carriage, and hurry on to York and
then to Scotland — and never pause a moment till we are
bound to each other, so that only death can j.art us. It is the
only right thing, dearest : it is the only way of escaping from
VOL. II. ^^
498 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
this wretched eutauglement. Everything has concurred to
point it out to us. We have contrived nothing, we have
thought of nothing ourselves."
Stei^heu spoke with deep earnest pleading. Maggie listened
— pass-ing from her startled wonderment to the yearning after
that belief, that the tide was doing it all — that she might
glide along with the swift, silent stream, and not struggle any
more. But across that stealing influence came the terrible
shadow of past thoughts; and the sudden horror lest now, at
last, the moment of fatal intoxication was close upon her,
called up feelings of angry resistance towards Stephen.
" Let me go ! " she said, in an agitated tone, flashing an
indignant look at him, and trying to get her hands free.
" You have wanted to deprive me of any choice. You knew
we were come too far — you have dared to take advantage of
my thoughtlessness. It is unmanly to bring me into such a
position."
Stung by this reproach, he released her hands, moved back
to his former place, and folded his arms, in a sort of 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 towards
her. At last he said, in a tone of suppressed rage —
" I did n'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 '11 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 tehderaess than from this look of angry misery,
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 400
that seemed to place her in selfish isolation from him. H,.
had called up a state of feeling in whicli the reasons whicli
had acted on her conscience seemed to 1)(! transmuted into
mere self-regard. The indignant iire 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 yieldiiig,
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: everytliing
else was hopeless, confused, sickening misery. They glided
along in this way, both resting in that silence as in a haven,
both dreading lest their feelings should be divided again —
till they became aware that the clouds had gathered, and that
the slightest pei-ceptible 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 hoi
500 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
into acquiescence : that dreamy gliding in the boat, which had
lasted for four hours, and had brought some weariness and
exhaustion — the recoil of her fatigued sensations from the
impracticable difficulty of getting out of the boat at this un-
known 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 Ste-
phen seem the death of all joy, and made the thought of
wounding him like the first touch of the torturing iron before
which resolution shrank. And then there was the present
happiness of being with him, which was enough to absorb all
her languid energy.
Presently Stephen observed a vessel coming after them.
Several vessels, among them the steamer to Mudport, had
passed them with the early tide, but for the last hour they
had seen none. He looked more and more eagerly at this
vessel, as if a new thought had come into his mind along with
it, and then he looked at Maggie hesitatingly.
" Maggie, dearest," he said, at last, " if this vessel should be
going to Mudport, or to any convenient place on the coast
northward, it would be our best plan to get them to take us
on board. You are fatigued — and it may soon rain — it may
be a wretched business, getting to Torby in this boat. It 's
only a trading-vessel, but I dare say you can be made tolerably
comfortable. We '11 take the cushions out of the boat. It is
really our best plan. They '11 be glad enough to take us : I 've
got plenty of money about me ; I can pay them well."
Maggie's heart began to beat with reawakened alarm at this
new proposition ; but she was silent — one course seemed as
difficult as another.
Stephen hailed the vessel. It was a Dutch vessel going to
Mudport, the English mate informed him, and, if this wind
held, would be there in less than two days.
" We had got out too far with our boat," said Stephen. I
was trying to mako ."or 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 '11 pay you well."
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 501
Maggie, now really faint and trembling with fear, was taken
on board, making an interesting object of contemplation to ad-
miring Dutchmen. The mate feared the lady would liave a
poor time of it on board, for they had no acfommodation for
such entirely unlooked-for passengers - no private cal)in larger
than an old-fashioned church-pew. But at least they had
Dutch cleanliness, which makes all other inconveniences toler-
able ; and the boat-cushions were spread into a couch for Mag-
gie on the poop with all alacrity. But to pace up and down
the deck leaning on Stephen — being upheld by his strength
— was the first change that she needed : then came food, and
then quiet reclining on the cushions, with the sense that no new
resolution could be taken that day. Everything must wait till
to-morrow. Stephen sat beside her with her hand in his ; they
could only speak to each other in low tones; only look at
each other now and then, for it would take a long while to
dull the curiosity of the five men on board, and reduce these
handsome young strangers to that minor degree of interest
which belongs, in a sailor's regard, to all objects nearer than
the horizon. But Stephen was triumphantly happy. Every
other thought or care was thrown into unmarked perspective
by the certainty that Maggie must be his. The leap had been
taken now : he had been tortured by scruples, he had fought
fiercely with overmastering inclination, he had hesitated ; but
repentance was impossible. He murmured forth in fragnien
tary sentences his happiness — his adoration — his tenderness
— his belief that their life together must be heaven — that her
presence with him would give rapture to every common day —
that to satisfy her lightest wish was dearer to him than all
other bliss — that everything was easy for her sake, exee})t to
part with her : and now they never would part ; he would be-
long to her forever, and all that was his was hers — had no
value for him except as it was hers. Such things, uttered in
low broken tones by the one voice that has first stirred the
fibre of young passion, have only a feeble effect — on experi-
enced 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 -miisi be, then, a life for mortals here
502 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
below which was not hard and chill — in which affection would
no longer be self-sacrifice. Stephen's passionate words made the
vision of such a life more fully present to her than it had ever
been before ; and the vision for the time excluded all realities
— all except the returning sun-gleams which broke out on the
waters as the evening approached, and mingled with the vision-
ary 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 visions
of these last hours, which had flowed over her like a soft
stream, and made her entirely passive, there was the dim con-
sciousness that the condition was a transient one, and that the
morrow must bring back the old life of struggle — that there
were thoughts which would presently avenge themselves for
this oblivion. But now nothing was distinct to her : she was
being lulled to sleep with that soft stream still flowing over
her, with those delicious visions melting and fading like the
wondrous aerial land of the west.
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. G03
CHAPTER XIV.
WAKING.
When Maggie was gone to sleep, Stephen, -weary too with
his unaccustomed amount of rowing, and with the intense
inward life of the last twelve hours, but too restless to sleep,
walked and lounged about the deck with his cigar far on into
midnight, not seeing the dark water — hardly conscious there
were stars — living only in the near and distant future. At
last fatigue conquered restlessness, and he rolled himself up
in a piece of tarpaulin on the deck near Maggie's feet.
She had fallen asleep before nine, and had been sleeping
for six hours before the faintest hint of a midsummer day-
break was discernible. She awoke from that vivid dreaming
which makes the margin of our deeper rest. She was in a
boat on the wide water with Stephen, and in the gathering
darkness something like a star appeared, that grew and grew
till they saw it was the Virgin seated in St. Ogg's boat, and it
came nearer and nearer, till they saw the Virgin was Lucy
and the boatman was Philip — no, not Philip, but her brother,
who rowed past without looking at her ; and she rose to
stretch out her arms and call to him, and their own boat
turned over with the movement, and they began to sink, till
with one spasm of dread she seemed to awake, and find she
was a child again in the parlor at evening twilight, and Tom
was not really angry. From the soothed sense of that false
waking she passed to the real waking — to the plash of water
against the vessel, and the sound of a footstep on the deck,
and the awful starlit sky. There was a moment of utter
bewilderment before her mind could get disentangled from
the confused web of dreams; but soon the whole terrible
truth urged itseit 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 com-
mitted : she had brought sorrow into the lives of others —
504 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
into the lives tliat 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 mean-
ing to duty, and had made herself an outlawed soul, with no
guide but the wayward choice of her own passion. And
where would that lead her ? — where had it led her now ?
She had said she would rather die than fall into that temp-
tation. 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 ? Oh, 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 sacred-
ness; she must forever sink and wander vaguely, driven by
uncertain impulse ; for she had let go the clew of life — that
clew which once in the far-off years her young need had
clutched so strongly. She had renounced all delights then,
before she knew them, before they had come within her
reach. Philip had been right when he told her that she
knew nothing of renunciation : she had thought it was quiet
ecstasy ; she saw it face to face now — that sad patient lov-
ing strength which holds the clew of life — and saw that
the thorns were forever pressing on its brow. The yesterday,
which could never be revoked — if she could have changed it
now for any length of inward silent endurance, she would
have bowed beneath that cross with a sense of rest.
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.
She could see Stephen now lying on the deck still fast asleep,
and with the sight of him there came a wave of anguish that
found its way in a long-suppressed sob. The worst bitterness
of parting — the thought that urged the sharpest inward cry
for help, was the pain it must give to him. But surmounting
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 605
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. ilcr
eyelashes were still wet with tears, as, with her shawl over
lier head, she sat looking at the slowly rounding sun. Some-
thing roused Stephen too, and, getting up from his hard bed,
he came to sit beside her. The sharp instinct of anxious love
saw something to give him alarm in the very first glance. He
had a hovering dread of some resistance in Maggie's nature
that he would be unable to overcome. He had the uneasy
consciousness that he had robbed her of perfect freedom 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 Avound. 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 tigliton
her hold. Stephen was continually, through the morning,
expressing his anxiety at the fatigue and discomfort she wa.s
suffering, and alluded to landing and to the change of motion
and repose she would have in a carriage, wanting to assure
himself more completely by presupposing that everything
would be as he had arranged it. For a long while Maggie
contented herself with assuring him that she had had a good
506 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
night's rest, and that she did n't mind about being on the ves-
sel — 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 towards 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 '11 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 towards
her from that cluster as if he were coming to speak to her.
But she was hurried along, and was indifferent to everything
but the coming trial.
A porter guided them to the nearest inn and posting-house,
and Stephen gave the order for the chaise as they passed
through the yard. Maggie took no notice of this, and only
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. 507
said, " Ask them to show us into a room where we can sit
down."
When they entered, Maggie did not sit down, and Steplien,
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 towards her, and speaking
in the tones of a man who feels a process of torture beginning,
" do you mean to kill me ? What is the use of it now ? The
whole thing is done."
"No, it is not done," said Maggie. "Too much is done —
more than we can ever remove the trace of. But I will go
no farther. Don't try to prevail with me again. I could n'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-
wards and forwards in maddening perplexity.
" Maggie," he said at last, pausing before her, and speaking
in a tone of imploring wretchedness, " have some pity — hear
me — forgive me for what I did yesterday. I will obey you
now — I will do nothing without your full consent. But don't
blight our lives forever by a rash perversity that can answer
no good purpose to any one — that can only create new evils.
Sit down, dearest ; wait — think what you are going to do.
Don't treat me as if you couldn't trust me."
He had chosen the most effective appeal ; but Maggie's will
was fixed unswervingly on the coming wrench. She had made
up her mind to suffer.
"We must not wait," she said, in a low but distinct voice;
"we must part at once."
"We can't part, Maggie," said Stephen, more impetuously.
" I can't bear it. What is the use of inflicting that misery
on me ? the blow — whatever it may have been — lias been
struck now. Will it help any one else that you should drive
me mad ? "
" I will not begin any future, even for you," said Maggie,
tremulously, " with a deliberate consent to what ought not to
have been. What I told you at Basset I feel now : I would
508 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
ratter have died than fall into this temptation. It would
have been better if we had parted forever then. But we
must part now."
" We will not part," Stephen burst out, instinctively placing
his back against the door — forgetting everything he had said
a few moments before ; " I will not endure it. You '11 make
me desperate — I shan't know what 1 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.
" Kemember 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 inclina-
tion 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 towards each
other is too strong to be overcome : that natural law surmounts
every other ; we can't help what it clashes with."
" It is not so, Stephen — I 'm quite sure that is wrong. I
have tried to think it again and again ; but I see, if we judged
in that way, there would be a warrant for all treachery and
cruelty — we should justify breaking the most sacred ties
that can ever be formed on earth. If the past is not to bind
us, where can duty lie ? We should have no law but the
inclination of the moment."
" But there are ties that can't be kept by mere resolution,"
said Stephen, starting up and walking about again, "What
is outward faithfulness ? Would they have thanked us for
anything so hollow as constancy without love ? "
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. .OOO
Maggie did not answer immediately. Slie was undergoing
an inward as well as an outward contest. At last she said,
with a passionate assertion of her conviction, as much against
herself as against him —
" That seems right — at first ; but when I look further, I 'm
sure it is not right. Faithfulness and constancy mean some-
thing else besides doing what is easiest and pleasautest 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 shi ;uld have felt
them pressing on my heart so continually, just as they do now
in the moments when my conscience is awake — that the op.
posite 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 towards 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 canH 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
can'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 Thilip's wife
— of your ever being the wife of a man you didn't love.
We have both been rescued from a mistake."
A deep flush came over Maggie's face, and she couldn't
510 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
speak. Stephen saw this. He sat down again, taking; her
hand in his, and looking at her with passionate entreaty.
" Maggie ! Dearest ! If you love me, you are mine. Whc
can have so great a claim on you as I have ? My life is bound
up in your love. There is nothing in the past that can annul
our right to each other : it is the first time we have either of
us loved with our whole heart and soul."
Maggie was still silent for a little while — looking down.
Stephen was in a flutter of new hope : he was going to triumph.
But she raised her eyes and met his with a glance that was
filled with the anguish of regret — not with yielding.
" No — not with my whole heart and soul, Stephen," she
said, with timid resolution. "I have never consented to it
with my whole mind. There are memories, and affections,
and longings after perfect goodness, that have such a strong
hold on me ; they would never quit me for long ; they would
come back and be pain to me — repentance. I could n't live
in peace if I put the shadow of a wilful sin between myself
and God. I have caused sorrow already — I know — I feel
it ; but I have never deliberately consented to it : I have never
said, 'They shall suffer, that I may have joy.' It has never
been my will to marry you : if you were to win consent from
the momentary triumph of my feeling for you, you would not
have my whole soul. If I could wake back again into the
time before yesterday, I would choose to be true to my calmer
affections, and live without the joy of love."
Stephen loosed her hand, and, rising impatiently, walked up
and down the room in suppressed rage.
" Good God ! " he burst out at last, " what a miserable
thing a woman's love is to a man's ! I could commit crimes
for you — and you can balance and choose in that way. But
you don't love me : if you had a tithe of the feeling for me
that I have for you, it would be impossible to you to think
for a moment of sacrificing me. But it weighs nothing with
you that you are robbing me of my life's happiness."
Maggie pressed her fingers together almost convulsively as
she held them clasped on her lap. A great terror was upon
her, as if she were ever and anon seeing where she stood by
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. SH
great flashes of lightning, and then again stretched forth her
hands in the darkness.
" No — I don't sacrifice you — I could n'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 to-
wards others. We can't choose happiness eitlier for ourselves
or for another: we can't tell where that will lie. We can
only choose whether we will indulge ourselves in the present
moment, or whether we will renounce that, for the sake of
obeying the divine voice within us — for the sake of being
true to all the motives that sanctify our lives. I know this
belief is hard : it has slipped away from me again and again ;
but I have felt that if I let it go forever, I should have no
light through the darkness of this life."
"But, Maggie," said Stephen, seating himself by her again,
"is it possible you don't see that what happened yesterday
has altered the whole position of things ? What infatuation
is it — what obstinate prepossession that blinds you to that ?
It is too late to say what we might have done or what we
ought to have done. Admitting the very worst view of what
has been done, it is a fact we must act on now ; our position
is altered ; the right course is no longer Avhat it was before.
We must accept our own actions and start afresh from
them. Suppose we had been married yesterday ? It is nearly
the same thing. The effect on others would not have been
different. It would only have made this difference to our-
selves," 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 7iot prevail :
there are possibilities which our minds shrink from too com»
pletely for us to fear them.
" Dearest," he said, in his deepest, tenderest tone, leaniuf
towards her, and putting his arm round her, "you are mint
now — the world believes it — duty must spring out of that
now ; in a few hours you will be legally mine, and those wh;D
512 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
had claims on us will submit — they will see that there was «
force which declared against their claims."
Maggie's eyes opened wide in one terrified look at the face
that was close to hers, and she started up — pale again.
" Oh, I can't do it," she said, in a voice almost of agony ;
" Stephen — don't ask me — don't urge me. I can't argue any
longer — I don't know what is wise ; but my heart will not
(et me do it. I see — I feel their trouble now : it is as if it
were branded on my mind. / have suffered, and had no one
to pity me ; and now I have made others suffer. It would
iiever leave me ; it would embitter your love to me. I do care
.tbr 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 towards him
yearningly, in alarm at this sudden change. At last he said,
still without looking at her —
THE GREAT TEMPTATION. r,\:\
« Go, then — leave me — don't torture me any longer I
can't bear it."
Involuntarily she leaned towards him and put out her hand
to touch his. But he shrank from it as if it had been burning
iron, and said again —
-' Leave me."
Maggie was not conscious of a decision as she turned away
from that gloomy averted face, and walked out of the room :
it was like an automatic action that fulfils a forgotten 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 dart-
ing thought that that coach would take her away, perhaps
towards 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
towards 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 towards her in pas-
sionate, reproachful misery ; she lived through again all the
VOL. II. 23
514 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
tremulous delights of his presence with her that made exist-
ence 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
ot & deep thrilling voice that said, " Gone — forever gone."
BOOK VII.
THE FINAL RESCUK
CHAPTER I.
THE RETURN TO THE Mllilu
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 Tiilliver was standing on the gravel-walk outside
the old house at Dorlcote Mill. He was master there now :
he had half fulfilled his father's dying wish, and by years of
steady self-government and energetic work he had brought
himself near to the attainment of more than the old respecta-
bility which had been the proud inheritance of the Dodsons
and TuUivers.
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 liard-
est 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 liad
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 l^Fr.
Stephen Guest. Would the next news be that she was mar-
ried — or what ? Probably that she was not married : Tom's
mind was set to the expectation of the worst tliat could
happen — not death, but disgrace.
As he was walking with his back towards the entrance gate,
wad his face towards the rushing mill-stream, a tall dark-eyed
516 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
figure, that we know well, approached the gate, and paused to
look at him, with a fast-beating heart. Her brother was the
human being of whom she had been most afraid, from her
childhood upwards : afraid with that fear which springs in us
when we love one who is inexorable, unbending, unmodifiable
— with a mind that we can never mould ourselves upon, and
yet that we cannot endure to alienate from us. That deep-
rooted fear was shaking Maggie now ; but her mind was un-
swervingly bent on returning to her brother, as the natural
refuge that had been given her. In her deep humiliation
under the retrospect of her own weakness — in her anguish
at the injury she had inflicted — she almost desired to endure
the severity of Tom's reproof, to submit in patient silence
to that harsh disapproving judgment against which she had so
often rebelled : it seemed no more than just to her now — who
was weaker than she was ? She craved that outward help to
her better purpose which would come from complete, submis-
sive 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 con-
jectures. He paused, trembling and white with disgust and
indignation.
Maggie paused too — three yards before him. She felt the
hatred in his face : felt it rushing through her fibres ; but she
must speak.
" Tom," she began, faintly, " I am come back to you — I
am come back home — for refuge — to tell you everything."
" You will find no home with me," he answered, with tremu-
lous rage. "You have disgraced us all. You have disgraced
THE FINAL RESCUE. 517
my father's name. You have been a curse to your best friends.
You have been base — deceitful ; no motives are strong enough
to restrain you. I wash my hands of you forever. You don't
belong to me."
Their mother had come to the door now. She stood ])ara-
lyzed by the double shock of seeing Maggie and heariug Tom's
words.
"Tom," said Maggie, with more courage, "I am perhaps not
so guilty as you believe me to be. I never meant to give way
to my feelings. I struggled against tliem. 1 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 lirst 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 yow."
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
618 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
feelings, you say. Yes ! / liave had feelings to struggle with j
but I conquered them. I have had a harder life than you
have had ; but I have found my comfort in doing my duty.
But I will sanction no such character as yours : the world
shall know tha.t I feel the diif erence between right and wrong.
If you are in want, I will provide for you — let my mother
know. But you shall not come under my roof. It is enough
that I have to bear the thought of your disgrace : the sight of
you is hateful to me."
Slowly Maggie was turning away with despair in her heart.
But the poor frightened mother's love leaped out now, stronger
than all dread.
" My child ! I '11 go with you. You 've got a mother."
Oh the sweet rest of that embrace to the heart-stricken
Maggie ! More helpful than all wisdom is one draught of
simple human pity that will not forsake us.
Tom turned and walked into the house.
" Come in, my child," Mrs. TuUiver whispered. " He '11
let you stay and sleep in my bed. He won't deny that if I
ask him."
" No, mother," said Maggie, in a low tone, like a moan. " I
will never go in."
" Then wait for me outside. I '11 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 mother'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 ; his wife 's got so
THE FINAL RESCUE. 519
many children. I don't know where to go, if it is n't to one
o' your aunts ; and I hardly durst," said poor Mrs. Tulliver,
quite destitute of mental resources in this extremity.
Maggie was silent a little while, and then said —
" Let us go to Bob Jakin's, mother : his wife will have room
for us, if they have no other lodger."
So they went on their way to St. Ogg's — to the old house
by the river-side.
Bob himself was at home, with a heaviness at heart which
resisted even the new joy and pride of possessing a two
months' old baby, quite the liveliest of its age that had ever
been born to prince or packman. He would perhaps not so
thoroughly have understood all the dubiousness of IMaggie's
appearance with Mr. Stephen Guest on the quay at Mudport
if he had not witnessed the effect it produced on Tom when
he went to report it ; and since then, the circumstances which
in any case gave a disastrous character to her elopement, had
passed beyond the more polite circles of St. Ogg's, and had
become matter of common talk, accessible to the grooms and
errand-boys. So that when he opened the door and saw
Maggie standing before him in her sorrow and weariness, he
had no questions to ask, except one which he dared only ask
himself, where was Mr. Stephen Guest ? Bob, for his part,
hoped he might be in the warmest department of an asylum
understood to exist in the other world for gentlemen who are
likely to be in fallen circumstances there.
The lodgings were vacant, and both Mrs. Jakin the larger
and Mrs. Jakin the less were commanded to make all things
comfortable for " the old Missis and the young Miss " — alaa
that she was still " Miss " ! The ingenious Bob was sorely
perplexed as to how this result could have come about — how
Mr. Stephen Guest could have gone away from her, or could
have let her go away from him, when he had the chance of
keeping her with him. But he was silent, and would not allow
his wife to ask him a question ; would not present himself in the
room, lest it should appear like intrusion and a wish to pry ;
having the same chivalry towards dark-eyed Maggie, as in the
days when he had bought her the memorable present of books.
520 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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. Mag-
gie had wished this : after the first violent outburst of feeling
which came as soon as she had no longer any active purpose
to fulfil, she was less in need of her mother's presence ; she
even desired to be alone with her grief. But she had been
solitary only a little while in the old sitting-room that looked
on the river, when there came a tap at the door, and turning
round her sad face as she said " Come in," she saw Bob enter
with the baby in his arms and Mumps at his heels.
" We '11 go back, if it disturbs you, Miss," said Bob.
'•'No," said Maggie, in a low voice, wishing she could
smile.
Bob, closing the door behind him, came and stood before her.
" You see, we 've got a little un, Miss, and I wanted you to
look at it, and take it in your arms, if you 'd be so good. Por
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 si-
lence, finding his tongue unmanageable in quite a new fashion,
refusing to say what he wanted it to say.
" Bob," she said, after a few moments, looking down at the
baby, and holding it anxiously, as if she feared it might slip
from her mind and her fingers, "I have a favor to ask of
you."
" Don't you speak so. Miss," said Bob, grasping the skin of
Mumps's neck ; " if there 's anything I can do for you, I should
look upon it as a day's earnings."
" I want you to go to Dr. Kenn's, and ask to speak to him,
and tell him that I am here, and should be very grateful if he
would come to me while my mother is away. She will not
come back till evening"
THE FINAL RESCUE. 621
'< 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. 1 hardly like
to go a-nigh him yet."
" Oh no, Bob," said Maggie, " we must let it be — till after
a few days, perhaps — when you hear that he is going about
again. But perhaps he may be going out of town — to a dis-
tance," she added, with a new sense of despondency at this
idea.
" Not he, Miss," said Bob. " He 'II none go away. He is n't
one o' them gentlefolks as go to cry at waterin'-places when
their wives die : he 's got summat else to do. He looks fine
an' sharp after the parish — he does. He christened the little
un ; an' he was at me to know what I did of a Sunday, as I
did n't come to church. But I told him I was upo' the travel
three parts o' the Sundays — an' then I 'm so used to bein' on
my legs, I can't sit so long on end — ' an' lors, sir,' says I, ' a
packman can do wi' a small 'lowance o' church : it tastes
strong,' says I ; 'there 's no call to lay it on thick.' Eh, Miss,
how good the little un is wi' you ! It 's like as if it knowed
you : it partly does, I '11 be bound — like the birds know the
mornin'."
Bob's tongue was now evidently loosed from its unwonted
bondage, and might even be in danger of doing more work than
was required of it. But the subjects on which he longed to
be informed were so steep and difficult of approach, that his
tongue was likely to run on along the level rather than to carry
him on that unbeaten road. He felt this, and was silent again
for a little while, ruminating much on the possible forms in
which he might put a question. At last he said, in a more
timid voice than usual —
'' Will you give me leave to ask you only one thing, Miss ? "
Maggie was rather startled, but she answered, " Yes, Bob, if
it is about myself — not about any one els"-"
" Well, Miss, it 's this : Do you owe anybody a grudge ? "
" No, not any one," said Maggie, looking up at him inquir-
ingly. "Why?"
,
522 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" 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 could n't see — I would — an' the Justice might do
what he liked to me arter."
"Oh, Bob," said Maggie, smiling faintly, "you're a very
good friend to me. But I should n't like to punish any one,
even if they 'd done me wrong ; I 've done wrong myself too
often."
This view of things was puzzling to Bob, and threw more
obscurity than ever over what could possibly have happened
between Stephen and Maggie. But further questions would
have been too intrusive, even if he could have framed them
suitably, and he was obliged to carry baby away again to an
expectant mother.
" Happen you 'd like Mumps for company, Miss," he said
when he had taken the baby again. " He 's rare company —
Mumps is — he knows iverything, an' makes no bother about
it. If I tell him, he '11 lie before you an' watch you — as still
— just as he watches my pack. You 'd better let me leave
him a bit ; he '11 get fond on you. Lors, it 's a fine thing to
hev a dumb brute fond on you ; it '11 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 11.
ST. ogg's passes judgment.
It was soon known throughout St. Ogg's that Miss Tullivei
was come back : she had not, then, eloped in order to be
married to Mr. Stephen Guest — at all events, Mr. Stephen
THE FINAL RESCUE. 623
Guest had not married her — which came to the same thing,
so far as her culpability was concerned. We judge others
according to results ; how else ? — not knowing the process
by which results are arrived at. If Miss Tulliver, after a few
months of well-chosen travel, had returned as INIrs. Stei.hen
Guest — with a post-marital trousseau, and all the advantages
possessed even by the most unwelcome wife of an only son,
public opinion, which at St. Ogg's, as 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 gender — not the world, but the world's wife : and
she would have seen, that two handsome young people — tlie
gentleman of quite the first family in St. Ogg's — having
found themselves in a false position, had been led into a
course which, to say the least of it, was highly injudicious,
and productive of sad pain and disappointment, especially to
that sweet young thing, Miss Deane. Mr. Stephen Guest had
certainly not behaved well ; but then, young men were liable
to those sudden infatuated attachments ; and bad as it might
seem in Mrs. Stephen Guest to admit the faintest advances
from her cousin's lover (indeed it had been said that she was
actually engaged to young Wakem — old Wakem himself had
mentioned it), still she was very young — "and a deformed
young man, you know ! — and young Guest so very fascinat-
ing ; and, they say, he positively worships her (to be sure, that
can't last !) and he ran away with her in the boat quite against
her will — and what could she do ? She could n't come l)ack
then : no one would have spoken to her ; and how very well
that maize-colored satinette becomes her complexion! It
seems as if the folds in front were quite come in ; several of
her dresses are made so ; — they say he thinks nothing too
handsome to buy for her. Poor Miss Deane ! She is very
pitiable; but then, there was no positive engagement; and
the air at the coast will do her good. After all, if young
Guest felt no more for her than that, it was better for her not
_to marry him. What a wonderful marriage for a girl like
Miss Tulliver — quite romantic ! Why, young Guest will put
np for the borough at the next election. Kothing like com-
524 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
merce nowadaj'S ! 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 de-
formed young man. Miss Unit declares she will never visit
Mr, and Mrs. Stephen Guest — such nonsense ! pretending to
be better than other people. Society could n't be carried on
if we inquired into private conduct in that way — and Chris-
tianity tells us to think no evil — and my belief is, that Miss
Unit had no cards sent her."
But the results, we know, were not of a kind to warrant
this extenuation of the past. Maggie had returned without
a trousseau, withovit a husband — in that degraded and out-
cast condition to which error is well known to lead ; and the
world's wife, with that fine instinct which is given her for the
preservation of Society, saw at once that Miss Tulliver's con-
duct 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 kin(J-
ness from the Deanes — to lay the design of winning a young
man's affections away from her own cousin, who had behaved j
like a sister to her ! Winning his affections ? That was not
the phrase for such a girl as Miss Tulliver ; it would h£,ve
been more correct to say that she had been actuated by m^ireJ
unwomanly boldness and unbridled passion. There was al-j
ways something questionable about her. That connectioi
with young Wakem, which, they said, had been carried on foi
years, looked very ill — disgusting, in fact ! But with a gir|
of that disposition ! — To the world's wife there had always
been something in Miss Tulliver's very physiqrie that a refinec
instinct felt to be prophetic of harm. As for poor Mr. Stephei
Guest, he was rather pitiable than otherwise : a young mai
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 ; in.|
deed, their having parted so soon looked very black indeed ■
for her. To be sure, he had written a letter, laying all the
blame on himself, and telling the story in a romantic fashioi
THE FINAL RESCUE. 525
so as to try and make her appear quite innocent : of course
he would do that ! But the refined instinet of the world's
wife was not to be deceived: provide,ntially ! — 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 respectaljle young man —
Mr. Tom Tulliver : quite likely to rise in the world ! His
sister's disgrace was naturally a heavy blow to him. It was
to be hoped that she would go out of the neighborhood — to
America, or anywhere — so as to purify the air of St. Ogg's
from the taint of her presence, extremely dangerous to daugh-
ters there ! Ko 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 be-
fore Stephen's letter came, telling his father the facts, and
adding that he was gone across to Holland — had drawn upon
the agent at Mudport for money — was incapable of any
resolution at present.
Maggie, all this while, was too entirely filled with a more
agonizing anxiety to spend any thought on the view tliat was
being taken of her conduct by the world of St. Ogg's : anxiety
about Stephen — Lucy — Philip — beat on her poor heart in
a hard, driving, ceaseless storm of mingled love, remorse, and
pity. If she had thought of rejection and injustice at all, it
would have seemed to her that they had done their worst —
that she could hardly feel any stroke from them intolerable
since the words she had heard from her brother's lips. Across
all her anxiety for the loved and the injured, those words
shot again and again, like a horrible pang that would have
brought misery and dread even into a heaven of delights.
The idea of ever recovering happiness never glimmered in her
mind for a moment ; it seemed as if every sensitive fibre in
her were too entirely preoccupied by pain ever to vibrate
again to another influence. Life stretched before her as one
act of penitence, and all she craved, as she dwelt on her
526 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
future lot, was something to guarantee her from more falling :
her own weakness haunted her like a vision of hideous possi- J
bilities, that made no peace conceivable except such as lay in
the sense of a sure refuge.
But she was not without practical intentions : the love of
independence was too strong an inheritance and a habit for
her not to remember that she must get her bread ; and when
other projects looked vague, she fell back on that of returning
to her plain sewing, and so getting enough to pay for her
lodging at Bob's. She meant to persuade her mother to return
to the Mill by-and-by, and live with Tom again ; and somehow
or other she would maintain herself at St. Ogg's. Dr. Kenn
would perhaps help her and advise her. She remembered his
parting words at the bazaar. She remembered the momentary
feeling of reliance that had sprung in her when he was talk-
ing with her, and she waited with yearning expectation for
the opportunity of confiding everything to him. Her mother
called every day at Mr. Deane's to learn how Lucy was : the
report was always sad — nothing had yet roused her from the
feeble passivity which had come on with the first shock. But
of Philip, Mrs. Tulliver had learned nothing : naturally, no
one whom she met would speak to her about what related to
her daughter. But at last she summoned courage to go and
see sister Glegg, who of course would know everything, and
had been even to see Tom at the Mill in Mrs. Tulliver's
absence, though he had said nothing of what had passed on
the occasion. 1
As soon as her mother was gone, Maggie put on her bonnet.
She had resolved on walking to the Eectory 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 ; neverthe-
less her mind was so bent on the purpose of her walk, that the
unpleasantness of meeting people on the way, and being stared
at, did not occur to her. But she had no sooner passed beyond
the narrower streets which she had to thread from Bob's dwell-
ing, than she became aware of unusual glances cast at her ; and
this consciousness made her hurry along nervously, afraid to
THE FINAL RESCUE. 527
look to right or left. Presently, liowevcr, she came full un
Mrs. and Miss Turnbull, old acquaintances of her family ; they
both looked at her strangely, and turned a little aside without
speaking. All hard looks were pain to Maggie, but her self-
reproach was too strong for resentment : no wonder they will
not speak to me, she thought — they are very fond of Lucy, liut
now she knew that she was about to pass a group of gentlemen,
■who were standing at the door of the billiard-rooms, and she
could not help seeing young Torry step out a little with his
glass at his eye, and bow to her with that air of nonchalance
which he might have bestowed on a friendly barmaid. Mag-
gie's pride was too intense for her not to feel that sting, even
in the midst of her sorrow ; and for the first time the thought
took strong hold of her that she would have other obloquy
cast on her besides that which was felt to be due to her breach
of faith towards Lucy. But she was at the Rectory now ;
there, perhaps, she would find something else than retribution.
Retribution may come from any voice : the hardest, crudest,
most imbruted urchin at the street-corner can inflict it : surely
help and pity are rarer things — more needful for the righteous
to bestow.
She was shown up at once, after being announced, into Dr.
Kenn's study, where he sat amongst piled-up books, for which
he had little appetite, leaning his cheek against the head of
his youngest child, a girl of three. The child was sent away
with the servant, and when the door was closed, Dr. Kenn
said, placing a chair for Maggie —
" I was coming to see you, Miss Tulliver ; you have 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."
528 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
In rather broken sentences, and with some effort at first,
but soon with the greater ease that came from a sense of relief
in the confidence, Maggie told the brief story of a struggle
that must be the beginning of a long sorrow. Only the day
before, Dr. Kenn had been made acquainted with the contents
of Stephen's letter, and he had believed them at once, without
the confirmation of Maggie's statement. That involuntary
plaint of hers, " Oh, I must go,^' had remained with him as the
sign that she was undergoing some inward conflict.
Maggie dwelt the longest on the feeling which had made her
come back to her mother and brother, which made her cling to
all the memories of the past. When she had ended. Dr. Kenn
was silent for some minutes : there was a difficulty on his mind.
He rose, and walked up and down the hearth with his hands
behind him. At last he seated himself again, and said, looking
at Maggie —
"Your prompting to go to your nearest friends — to remain
where all the ties of your life have been formed — is a true
prompting, to which the Church in its original constitution
and discipline responds — opening its arms to the penitent —
watching over its children to the last — never abandoning
them until they are hopelessly reprobate. And the Church
ought to represent the feeling of the community, so that every
parish should be a family knit together by Christian brother-
hood under a spiritual father. But the ideas of discipline and
Christian fraternity are entirely relaxed — they can hardly be
said to exist in the public mind : they hardly survive except in
the partial, contradictory form they have taken in the narrow
communities of schismatics ; and if I were not supported by
the firm faith that the Church must ultimately recover the full
force of that constitution which is alone fitted to human needs,
I should often lose heart at observing the want of fellowship
and sense of mutual responsibility among my own flock. At
present everything seems tending towards the relaxation of
ties — towards the substitution of wayward choice for the ad-
herence to obligation, which has its roots in the past. Your
conscience and your heart have given you true light on this
point, Miss Tulliver j and I have said all this that you may
THE FINAL RESCUE. r^og
know what my wish about you — what my advice to you —
would be, if they sprang from my own feeling and opinion un-
modified 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
will probably be formed concerning your conduct — concep-
tions which will have a baneful effect, even in spite of known
evidence to disprove them."
" Oh, I do — I begin to see," said Maggie, unable to repress
this utterance of her recent pain. " I know I shall be insulted-
I shall be thought worse than I am."
"You perhaps do not yet know," said Dr. Kenn, with a
touch of more personal pity, "that a letter is come which
ought to satisfy every one who has known anything of you,
that you chose the steep and difficult path of a return to
the right, at the moment when that return was most of all
difficult."
" Oh — where is he ? " said poor Maggie, with a flush and
tremor that no presence could have hindered.
" He is gone abroad : he has written of all that passed to
his father. He has vindicated you to the utmost ; and I hope
the communication of that letter to your cousin will have a
beneficial effect on her."
Dr. Kenn waited for her to get calm again before he went on.
" That letter, as I said, ought to suffice to prevent false 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
painful effect of false imputations. The persons who are th«
TOL. II. '^
530 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
most incapable of a conscientious struggle such as yours, are
precisely those who will be likely to shrink from you ; because
they will not believe in your struggle. I fear your life here
will be attended not only with much pain, but with many 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 inten-
tion. I will exert myself at once to obtain one for you."
" Oh, if I could but stop here ! " said Maggie. " I have no
heart to begin a strange life again. I should have no stay. I
should feel like a lonely wanderer — cut off from the past.
I have written to the lady who offered me a situation to ex-
cuse myself. If I remained here, I could perhaps atone in
some way to Lucy — to others : I could convince them that
I 'm sorry. And," she added, with some of the old proud fire
flashing out, "I will not go away because people say false
things of me. They shall learn to retract them. If I must
go away at last, because — because others wish it, I will not
go now."
"Well," said Dr. Kenn, after some consideration, "if you
determine on that, Miss Tulliver, you may rely on all the 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
general 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
THE FINAL RESCUE. 53I
evil ; and the impossibility of their proximity in St. O^r's on
any other supposition, until after years of separation, throw an
insurmountable prospective difficulty over ]\I aggie's ^tay tliere.
On the other hand, he entered with all the couiprehensiou of a
man who had known spiritual conflict, and lived thi-ough years
of devoted service to his fellow-men, into that state of Maggie's
heart and conscience which made the consent to the marriage
a desecration to her : her conscience must not be tampered
with : the principle on which she had acted was a safer guide
than any balancing of consequences. His experience told liim
that intervention was too dubious a responsibility to be lightly
incurred : the possible issue either of an endeavor to restore
the former relations with Lucy and Philip, or of counselling
submission to this irruption of a new feeling, was hidden in a
darkness all the more impenetrable because each immediate
step was clogged with evil.
The great problem of the shifting relation between passion
and duty is clear to no man who is capable of apprehending
it : the question whether the moment has come in which a
man has fallen below the possibility of a renunciation that
will carry any efficacy, and must accept the sway of a passion
against which he had struggled as a trespass, is one for which
we have no master-key that will fit all cases. The casuists
have become a byword of reproach ; but their perverted spirit
of minute discrimination was the shadow of a truth to which
eyes and hearts are too often fatally sealed — the truth, that
moral judgments must remain false and hollow, unless they
are checked and enlightened by a perpetual reference to the
special circumstances that mark the individual lot.
All people of broad, strong sense have an instinctive 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 inspira-
tions 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-
532 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
made patent method, without the trouble of exerting patience,
discrimination, impartiality — without any care to assure them-
selves whether they have the insight that comes from a hardly-
earned estimate of temptation, or from a life vivid and intense
enough to have created a wide fellow-feeling with all that is
human.
CHAPTER III.
SHOWING THAT OLD ACQUAINTANCES ARE CAPABLE OF
SURPRISING US.
When Maggie was at home again, her mother brought her
news of an unexpected line of conduct in aunt Glegg. As
long as Maggie had not been heard of, Mrs. Glegg had half
closed her shutters and drawn down her blinds : she felt as-
sured that Maggie was drowned : that was far more probable
than that her niece and legatee should have done anything to
wound the family honor in the tenderest point. When at last
she learned from Tom that Maggie had come home, and gath-
ered 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 attribu
table to them, pray what were you to stand by ? Lightly to
admit conduct in one of your own family that would force
you to alter your will, had never been the way of the Dod-
sons ; and though Mrs. Glegg had always augured ill of Mag-
gie's future at a time when other peojjle 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 ex-
perience — 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
THE FINAL RESCUE. 583
channel along with her fundamental ideas of clanship, as they
did in her lifelong regard to equity in money matters. She
quarrelled with Mr. Glegg, whose kindness, flowing entirely
into compassion for Lucy, made him as hard in his judgment
of Maggie as Mr. Deane himself was ; and, fuming against her
sister Tulliver because she did not at once come to her for
advice and help, shut herself up in her own room with Bax-
ter's ' Saints' Rest ' from morning till night, denying herself
to all visitors, till Mr. Glegg brought from Mr. Deane the
news of Stephen's letter. Then Mrs. Glegg felt that she had
adequate fighting-ground — then she laid aside Baxter, and
was ready to meet all comers. While Mrs. Pullet could do
nothing but shake her head and cry, and wish that cousin
Abbot had died, or any number of funerals had happened
rather than this, which had never happened before, so that
there was no knowing how to act, and Mrs. Pullet could never
enter St. Ogg's again, because " acquaintances " knew of it all,
— Mrs. Glegg only hoped that Mrs. Wooll, or any one else,
would come to her with their false tales about her own niece,
and she would know what to say to that ill-advised person !
Again she had a scene of remonstrance with Tom, all the
more severe in proportion to the greater strength of her 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 len-
iency : he would act on that demonstration at any cost ; but
the thought of it liiade his days bitter to him. Tom, like
every one of us, was imprisoned within the limits of his own
nature, and his education had simply glided over him, leaving
a slight deposit of polish : if you are inclined to be severe on
his severity, remember that the responsibility of tolerance lies
with those who have the wider vision. There had arisen in
Tom a repulsion towards Maggie that derived its very inten-
534 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
sity from their early claildish love in the time when they had
clasped tiny lingers together, and their later sense of nearness
in a common duty and a common sorrow : the sight of her, as
he had told her, was hateful to him. In this branch of the
Dodson family aunt Glegg found a stronger nature than her
own — a nature in which family feeling had lost the character
of clanship by taking on a doubly deep dye of personal pride.
Mrs. Glegg allowed that Maggie ought to be punished — she
was not a woman to deny that — she knew what conduct was;
but punished in proportion to the misdeeds proved against
her, not to those which were cast upon her by people outside
her own family, who might wish to show that their own kin
were better.
"Your aunt Glegg scolded me so as niver was, my dear,"
said poor Mrs. Tulliver, when she came back to Maggie, "as
I did n't go to her before — she said it was n'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 m her ways, you shall have a shelter in her
house, if you '11 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 could n't bear to see anybody but me,
you were so beat down with trouble; but she said, 'J won't
throw ill words at her — there 's them out o' th' family 'nil be
ready enough to do that. But I '11 give her good advice ; an'
she must be humble.' It 's wonderful o' Jane ; for I 'm sure
she used to throw everything I did wrong at me — if it was
the raisin-wine as turned out bad, or the pies too hot — or
whativer it was."
" Oh, mother," said poor Maggie, shrinking from the thought
of all the contact her bruised mind would have to bear, " tell
her I 'm very grateful — I '11 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 occupa"
tion. I can't live with any one, or be dependent on them, tell
THE FINAL RESCUE. mt)
aunt Glegg; I must get my own bread. But did you Lear
nothing of Philip — Philip Wakem ? Have you never seen
any one that has mentioned him ? "
"No, my dear: but I've been to Lucy's, and I saw your
uncle, and he says they got her to listen to the letter, and sljc
took notice o' Miss Guest, and asked questions, and the doetor
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 trouble^
some to you. And now you might have been happy if it
had n't been for me."
"Eh, my dear," said Mrs. Tulliver, leaning towards the
warm young cheek ; " I must put up wi' my children — I shall
never have no more ; and if they bring me bad luck, I must be
fond on it — there 's nothing else much to be fond on, for my
furnitur' went long ago. And you 'd got to be very good
once ; I can't think how it 's turned out the wrong way so ! "
Still two or three more days passed, and Maggie heard noth-
ing of Philip ; anxiety about him was becoming her predomi-
nant trouble, and she summoned courage at last to inquire
about him of Dr. Kenn, on his next visit to her. He did not
even know if Philip was at home. The elder Wakem was
made moody by an accumulation of annoyance : the disappoint-
ment in this young Jetsome, to whom, apparently, he was a
good deal attached, had been followed close by the catastrophe
to his son's hopes after he had done violence to his own strong
feeling by conceding to them, and had incautiously mentioned
this concession in St. Ogg's, — and he was almost fierce in his
brusqxieness when any one asked him a question about his soa
But Philip could hardly have been ill, or it would have been
known through the calling in of the medical man ; it was prob-
able that he was gone out of the town for a little while. Maggie
536 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
sickened under this suspense, and her imagination began to
live more and more persistently in what Philip was enduring.
What did he believe about her ?
At last Bob brought her a letter, without a post-mark, di-
rected in a hand which she knew familiarly in the letters of her
own name — a hand in which her name had been written long
ago, in a pocket Shakespeare which she possessed. Her mother
was in the room, and Maggie, in violent agitation, hurried up-
stairs that she might read the letter in solitude. She read it
with a throbbing brow.
" Maggie, — I believe in you — I know you never meant to deceive
me — I know you tried to keep faith to me, and to all. I believed this
before I had any othei- evidence of it than your own nature. The
night after I last parted from you I suffered torments. I had seen
what convinced me that you were not free; that there was another
whose presence had a power over you which mine never possessed;
but through all the suggestions — almost murderous suggestions — of
rage and jealousy, my mind made its way to believe in your truthful-
ness. I was sure that you meant to cleave to me, as you had said;
that you had rejected him ; that you struggled to renounce him, for
Lucy's sake and for mine. But I could see no issue that was not
fatal for you ; and that dread shut out the very thought of resignation.
I foresaw that he would not relinquish you, and I believed then, as 1
believe now, that the strong attraction which drew you together pro-
ceeded only from one side of your characters, and belonged to that par-
tial, divided action of our nature which makes half the tragedy of the
human lot. I have felt the vibration of chords in your nature that I
have continually felt the want of in his. But perhaps I am wrong;
perhaps I feel about you as the artist does about the scene over which
his soul has brooded with love : he would tremble to see it confided to
other hands ; he would never believe that it could bear for another all
the meaning ad the beauty it bears for him.
" I dared not trust myself to see you that morning: I was filled with
selfish passion ; I was shattered by a night of conscious delirium. '
told you long ago that I had never been resigned even to the medict-
rity of my powers: how could I be resigned to the loss of the one thing
which had ever come to me on earth, with the promise of such deep
joy as would give a new and blessed meaning to the foregoing pain —
the promise of another self that would lift my aching affection into the
divine rapture of an ever-springing, ever-satisfied want ?
I
THE FINAL RESCTJE. 537
"But the miseries of that night had prepared me for what came
before the next. It was no surprise to me. I was certain that he had
prevailed on you to sacrifice everything to him, and I waited with
equal certainty to hear of your marriage. I measured your love and
his by my own. But I was wrong, Maggie. There Is something
stronger in you than your love for him.
" 1 will not tell you what I went tln-ough in that interval. But even
in its utmost agony — even in those terrible throes that love must suf-
fer before it can be disembodied of selfish desire — my love for you
sufficed to withhold me from suicide, witliout the aid of any other mo-
tive. 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 miglit need me; it was part of
the faith I had vowed to you — to wait and endure. Maggie, that is a
proof of what I write now to assure you of — that no anguish I have
had to bear on your account has been too heavy a price to pay for the
new life into which I have entered in loving you. I want you to put
aside all grief because of the grief you have caused me. I was nur-
tured in the sense of privation; I never expected happiness; and in
knowing you, in loving you, I have had, and still have, what recon-
ciles me to life. You have been to my affections what light, what
color is to my eyes — what music is to the inward ear; you have raised
a dim unrest into a vivid consciousness. The new life I have found in
caring for your joy and sorrow more than for what is directly my own,
has transformed the spirit of rebellious murmuring into that willing en-
durance which is the birth of strong sympathy. I think nothing but
such complete and intense love could have initiated me into that en-
larged 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 traus-
ferj-ed life which has come to me in loving you, may be a new power
to me.
" Then — dear one — in spite of all, you have been the blessing of
my life. Let no self-reproach weigh on you because of me. It is I who
should rather reproach myself for having urged my feelings upon you,
and hurried you into words that you have felt as fetters. You meant
to be true to those words; you have been true. I can measure your
sacrifice by what I have known in only one half-hour of your presence
with me, when I dreamed that you might love me best. But, Maggie, I
have no just claim on you for more than affectionate remembrance.
" For some time I have shrunk from writing to you. because I have
shrunk even from the appearance of wishing to thrust myself before
638 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS-
you, and so repeating my original error. But you will not miscon-
strue me. I know that we must keep apart for a long while; cruel
tcmgues would force us apart, if nothing else did. But I shall not go
away. The place where you are is the one where my mind must live,
wherever I might travel. And remember that I am unchangeably
yours: yours — not with selfish wishes, but with a devotion that ex-
cludes such wishes.
"God comfort you, — my loving, large-souled Maggie. If every
one else has misconceived you, remember that you have never been
doubted by him whose heart recognized you ten years ago.
"Do not believe any one who says I am ill, because I am not seen
out of doors. I have only had nervous headaches — no worse than
I have sometimes had them before. But the overpowering heat in-
clines me to be perfectly quiescent in the daytime. I am strong
enough to obey any word which shall tell me that I can serve you by
word or deed.
" Yours to the last,
"Philip Wakem."
As Maggie knelt by the bed sobbing, with that letter pressed
under her, her feelings again and again gathered themselves
in a whispered cry, always in the same words : —
" Oh, God, is there any happiness in love that could make
me forget their pain ? "
CHAPTER IV.
MAGGIE AND LUCY.
Bt the end of the week Dr. Kenn had made up Ms 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 appealed to than
was quite agreeable to him ; but now, in attempting to open
the ears of women to reason, and their consciences to justice,
on behalf of Maggie Tulliver, he suddenly found himself as
THE FINAL RESCUE. 639
powerless as he was aware he would have been if he had at-
tempted to influence the shape of bonnets. Dr. Keun could
not be contradicted; he was listened to in silence; but when
he left the room, a comparison of opinions among his hearer*
yielded much the same result as before. Miss Tulliver had
undeniably acted in a blamablo manner; even Dr. Kenn did
not deny that : how, then, could he think so lisbtly of her as
to put that favorable interpretation on everytliing she had
done ? Even on the supposition that required the utmost
stretch of belief — namely, that none of the things said about
Miss Tulliver were true — still, since they had been said about
her, they had cast an odor round her which must cause her to
be shrunk from by every woman who had to take care of her
own reputation — and of Society. To have taken Maggie by
the hand and said, " I will not believe unproved evil of you :
my lips shall not utter it ; my ears shall be closed against it ;
I, too, am an erring mortal, liable to stumble, apt to come
short of my most earnest efforts ; your lot has been harder
than mine, your temptation greater; let us help each other to
stand and walk without more falling;" — to have done this
"would have demanded courage, deep pity, self-knowledge, gen-
erous trust — would have demanded a mind that tasted no
piquancy in evil-speaking, that felt no self-exaltation in con-
demning, that cheated itself with no large words into the belief
that life can have any moral end, any high religion, which ex-
cludes the striving after perfect truth, justice, and love towards
the individual men and women who come across our own path.
The ladies of St. Ogg's were not beguiled by any wide specula-
tive 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 speak-
ing the worst of Maggie Tulliver, and turning their backs upon
her. It; was naturally disappointing to Dr. Kenn, after two
years of superfluous incense from his feminine parishioners,
to find them suddenly maintaining their views in opposition
to his; but then, they maintained them in opposition to a
Higher Authority, which they had venerated longer. That
Authority had furnished a very explicit answer to persons who
540 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
might inquire where their social duties began, and might hb
inclined to take wide views as to the starting-point. The an-
swer 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-
fcion of human goodness in it as any other small trading town
of that day. But until every good man is brave, we must expect
to find many good women timid : too timid even to believe in
the correctness of their own best promptings, when these would
place them in a minority. And the men at St. Ogg's were not
all brave by any means : some of them were even fond of scan-
dal — and to an extent that might have given their conversa-
tion 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 em-
ployment 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 whis-
pered about.
Dr. Kenn, having great natural firmness, began, in the pres-
ence of this opposition, as every firm man would have done, to
THE FINAL EESCUE. 541
contract a certain strength of determination over and above
what would have been called forth by the end in view. Ho
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
evenings would be a welcome rest. She no longer needed the
sacrifice her mother made in staying with her, and Mrs. Tulli-
ver was persuaded to go back to the Mill.
But now it began to be discovered that Dr. Kenn, exemplary
as he had hitherto appeared, had his crotchets — possibly his
weaknesses. The masculine mind of St. Ogg's smiled pleas-
antly, 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 Tulli-
ver ! It was not safe to be too confident, even about the best of
men : an apostle had fallen, and wept bitterly afterwards ; and
though Peter's denial was not a close precedent, his repentance
was likely to be.
Maggie had not taken her daily walks to the Rectory for
many weeks, before the dreadful possibility of her some time
or other becoming the Rector's wife had been talked of so often
in confidence, that ladies were beginning to discuss how they
should behave to her in that position. For Dr. Kenn, it had
been understood, had sat in the schoolroom half an hour one
morning, when Miss Tulliver was giving her lessons ; nay, he
had sat there every morning : he had once walked home with
her — he almost always walked home with her — and if not, he
went to see her in the evening. What an artful creature she
was ! What a mother for those children ! It was enough to
make poor Mrs. Kenn turn in her grave, that they should be
put under the care of this girl only a few weeks after her
death. Would he be so lost to propriety as to marry her before
542 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
the year was out ? The masculine mind was sarcastic, and
thought 'tiot.
The Miss Guests saw an alleviation to the sorrow of witness-
ing a folly in their Eector : at least their brother would be
safe ; and their knowledge of Stephen's tenacity was a con-
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
had shrunk rather from the elopement than from the marriage,
and that she lingered in St. Ogg's, relying on his return to her.
They had always thought her disagreeable ; they now thought
her artful and proud ; having quite as good grounds for that
judgment as you and I probably have for many strong opin-
ions of the same kind. Formerly they had not altogether de-
lighted 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 towards re-
covery, and her thoughts tended continually towards her uncle
Deane's house : she hungered for an interview with Lucy, if
it were only for five minutes — to utter a word of penitence,
to be assured by Lucy's own eyes and lips that she did not
believe in the willing treachery of those whom she had loved
and trusted. But she knew that even if her uncle's 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 relief ;
for Maggie was haunted by a face cruel in its very gentleness :
a face that had been turned on hers with glad sweet looks of
THE FINAL RESCUE. 543
trust and love from the twiliglit time of memory ; chaiig»«d
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 defi-
niteness under the avenging hand of remorse ; the soft luizel
eyes, in their look of pain, were bent forever on Maggie, and
pierced her the more because she could see no anger in tlu-iu.
But Lucy was not yet able to go to church, or any placi; whore
Maggie could see her ; and even the hope of that departed,
when the news was told her by aunt Glegg. that Lucy was
really going away in a few days to Scarborough with the ]\riss
Guests, who had been heard to say that they expected their
brother to meet them there.
Only those who have known what hardest inward conflict
is, can know what Maggie felt as she sat in her loneliness the
evening after hearing that news from Mrs. Glegg, — only
those who have known what it is to dread their own selfish
desires as the watching mother would dread the sleeping,
potion that was to still her own pain.
She sat without candle in the twilight, with the window
wide open towards 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 river, 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
that thrust itself between, and made darkness. Hearing the
door open, she thought Mrs. Jakiu was coming in with her
supper, as usual; and with that repugnance to trivial speech
which comes with languor and wretchedness, she shrank from
turning round and saying she wanted nothing: good little
Mrs. Jakin would be sure to make some well-meant remarks.
But the next moment, without her having discerned the sound
of a footstep, she felt a light hand on her shoulder, and heard
a voice close to her saying, " Maggie ! "
The face was there — changed, but all the sweeter: the
hazel eyes were there, with their heart-piercing tenderness.
644 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" Maggie ! " the soft voice said. " Lucy ! " answered a voice
with a sharp ring of anguish in it ; and Lucy threw her arms
round Maggie's neck, and leaned her pale cheek against the
burning brow.
" I stole out," said Lucy, almost in a whisper, while she
sat down close to Maggie and held her hand, '' when papa and
the rest were away. Alice is come with me. I asked her to
help me. But I must only stay a little while, because it is so
late."
It was easier to say that at first than to say anything else.
They sat looking at each other. It seemed as if the interview
must end without more speech, for speech was very difficult.
Each felt that there would be something scorching in the
words that would recall the irretrievable wrong. But soon, as
Maggie looked, every distinct thought began to be overflowed by
a wave of loving penitence, and words burst forth with a sob.
" God bless you for coming, Lucy."
The sobs came thick on each other after that.
" Maggie, dear, be comforted," said Lucy now, putting her
cheek against Maggie's again. '' Don't grieve." And she sat
still, hoping to soothe Maggie with that gentle caress.
" I did n't mean to deceive you, Lucy," said Maggie, as soon
as she could speak. " It always made me wretched that I felt
what I did n't like you to know. ... It was because I thought
it would all be conquered, and jon 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, " lie struggled too. He wanted
to be true to you. He Avill come back to you. Forgive him
— he will be happy then — "
These words were wrung forth from Maggie's deepest soul,
with an effort like the convulsed clutch of a drowning man.
Lucy trembled and was silent.
Lucy and >r»cTP..
THE FINAL RESCUE. 545
A gentle knock came at the door. It was Alice, tlie maid,
who entered and said —
« I dare n't stay any longer, Miss Deane. They '11 find it
out, and there '11 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 coinc back, and
am strong, they will let me do as I like. I shall come to you
when I please then."
" Lucy," said Maggie, with another great effort, « I pray to
God continually that I may never be the cause of sorrow to
you any more."
She pressed the little hand that she held between hers, and
looked up into the face that was bent over hers. Lucy never
forgot that look.
" Maggie," she said, in a low voice, that had the solemnity of
confession in it, " you are better than I am. I can't — "
She broke off there, and said no more. But they clasped
each other again in a last embrace.
CHAPTER V.
THE LAST CONFLICT.
In the second week of September, Maggie was again sitting
in her lonely room, battling with the old shadowy enemies
that were forever slain and rising again. It was past 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 cliange
in the weather : the heat and drought had given way to cold
variable winds, and heavy falls of rain at intervals ; aud 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
VOL. II.
546 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
two days, the rains on this lower course of the river had beeB
incessant, so that the old men had shaken their heads and
talked of sixty years ago, when the same sort of weather,
happening about the equinox, brought on the great floods,
which swept the bridge away, and reduced the town to great
misery. But the younger generation, who had seen several
small floods, thought lightly of these sombre recollections and
forebodings ; and Bob Jakin, naturally prone to take a hope-
ful view of his own luck, laughed at his mother when she
regretted their having taken a house by the riverside ; observ-
ing that but for that they would have had no boats, which
were the most lucky of j^ossessions in case of a flood that
obliged them to go to a distance for food.
But the careless and the fearful were alike sleeping in their
beds now. There was hope that the rain would abate by the
morrow ; threatenings of a worse kind, from sudden thaws
after falls of snow, had often passed off in the experience of
the younger ones ; and at the very worst, the banks would be
sure to break lower down the river when the tide came in
with violence, and so the waters would be carried off, without
causing more than temporary inconvenience, and losses that
would be felt only by the poorer sort, whom charity would
relieve.
All were in their beds now, for it was past midnight : all
except some solitary watchers such as Maggie. She was
seated in her little parlor towards the river with one candle,
that left everything dim in the room, except a letter which
lay before her on the table. That letter which had come to
her to-day, was one of the causes that had kept her up far
on into the night — unconscious how the hours were going —
careless of seeking rest — with no image of rest coming across
her mind, except of that far, far off rest, from which there
would be no more waking for her into this struggling earthly
life.
Two days before Maggie received that letter, she had been
to the 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
I
THE FINAL RESCUE. .'■)47
new turn which gossip and slander had taken in relation to
Maggie, had recently been made more fully aware of it by an
earnest remonstrance from one of his male parishioners against
the indiscretion of persisting in the attempt to overcome the
prevalent feeling in tlie parish by a course of resistance. Dr.
Kenn, having a conscience void of offence in the matter, was
still inclined to persevere — was still averse to give way
before a public sentiment that was odious and contemptible ;
but he was finally wrought upon by the consideration of the
peculiar responsibility attached to his office, of avoiding the
appearance of evil — an "appearance " that is always depend-
ent 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 succuml) :
conscientious people are apt to see their duty in that which
is the most painful course ; and to recede Avas always painful
to Dr. Kenn. He made up his mind that he must advise
Maggie to go away from St. Ogg's for a time ; and he per-
formed that difficult task with as much delicacy as he could,
only stating in vague terms that he found his attempt to
countenance her stay was a source of discord between himself
and his parishioners, that was likely to obstruct his usefulness
as a clergyman. He begged her to allow him to write to a
clerical friend of his, who might possibly take her into his
own family as governess ; and, if not, would probably know
of some other available position for a young woman in whose
welfare Dr. Kenn felt a strong interest.
Poor Maggie listened with a trembling lip : she could say
nothing but a faint " thank you — I shall be grateful ; " and
she walked back to her lodgings, through the driving rain,
with a new sense of desolation. She must be a lonely wan-
derer ; 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 unspeak-
ably, sickeningly weary ! There was no home, no help for the
erring : even those who pitied were constrained to hardness.
648 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
But ought she to complain ? Ought she to shrink in this way
from the long penance of life, which was all the possibility
she had of lightening the load to some other sufferers, and so
changing that passionate error into a new force of unseliish
human love ? All the next day she sat in her lonely room,
with a window darkened by the cloud and the driving rain,
thinking of that future, and wrestling for patience : — for what
repose could poor Maggie ever win except by wrestling ?
And on the third day — this day of which she had just sat
out the close — the letter had come which was lying on the
table before her.
The letter was from Stephen. He was come back from
Holland : he was at Mudport again, unknown to any of his
friends ; and had written to her from that place, enclosing the
letter to a person whom he trusted in St. Ogg's. From begin-
ning to end it was a passionate cry of reproach : an appeal
against her useless sacrifice of him — of herself : against that
perverted notion of right which led her to crush all his hopes,
for the sake of a mere idea, and not any substantial good —
his hopes, whom she loved, and who loved her with that single
overpowering passion, that worship, which a man never gives
to a woman more than once in his life.
" They have written to me that you are to marry Kenn. As
if I should believe that ! Perhaps they have told you some
such fables about me. Perhaps they tell you I've been
' travelling.' My body has been dragged about somewhere ;
but /have never travelled from the hideous place where you
left me — where I started up from the stupor of helpless rage
to find you gone.
" Maggie ! whose pain can have been like mine ? Whose
injury is like mine ? Who besides me has met that long look
of love that has burnt itself into my soul, so that no other
image can come there ? Maggie, call me back to you ! — call
me back to life and goodness ! I am banished from both now.
I have no motives : I am indifferent to everything. Two
months have only deepened the certainty that I can never
care for life without you. Write me one word — say ' Come ! '
In two days I should be with you. Maggie — have you for-
THE FINAL liESCUE. 549
gotten 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 immediate motives
are likely to be forgotten — till the pain has been escaped from.
For hours Maggie felt as if her struggle had been in vain.
For hours every other thought that she strove to summon was
thrust aside by the image of Stephen waiting for the single
word that would bring him to her. She did not read the
letter: she heard him uttering it, and the voice shook her
with its old strange power. All the day before she had been
filled with the vision of a lonely future through which she
must carry the burthen of regret, upheld only by clinging
faith. And here — close within her reach — urging itself
upon her even as a claim — was another future, in which hard
endurance and effort were to be exchanged for easy delicious
leaning on another's loving strength ! And yet that promise
of joy in the place of sadness did not make the dire force of
the temptation to Maggie. It was Stephen's tone of misery,
it was the doubt in the justice of her own resolve, that made
the balance tremble, and made her once start from her seat to
reach the pen and paper, and write " Come ! "
But close upon that decisive act, her mind recoiled ; and the
sense of contradiction with her past self in her moments of
strength and clearness, came upon her like a pang of conscious
degradation. No — she must wait; she must pray; the lii^lit
that had forsaken her would come again : she should feel again
what she had felt, when she had fled away, under an ins})ira-
tion 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.
550 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
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 : o / waiting for the light that
would surely come again. P >ame with the memories that no
passion could long quencb the long past came back to her,
and with it the fountains A self-renouncing pity and affection,
of faithfulness and rescive. The words that were marked by
the quiet hand in the little old book that she had long ago
learned by heart, rushed even to her lips, and found a vent
for themselves in a low murmur that was quite lost in the
loud driving of the rain against the window and the loud moan
and roar of the wind : " I have received the Cross, I have
received it from Thy hand ; I will bear it, and bear it till
death, as Thou hast laid it upon me."
But soon other words rose that could find no utterance but
in a sob : " Forgive me, Stephen ! It will pass away. You
will come back to her."
She took up the letter, held it to the candle, and let it burn
slowly on the hearth. To-morrow she would write to him the
;st word of parting.
" I will bear it, and bear it till death. . . . But how long
it will be before death comes ! I am so young, so healthy.
How shall I have patience and strength ? Am I to struggle
and fall and repent again ? — has life other trials as hard for
me still ? "
With that cry of self-despair, Maggie fell on her knees
against the table, and buried her sorrow-stricken face. Her
soul went out to the Unseen Pity that would be with her to
the end. Surely there was something being taught her by
this experience of great need ; and she must be learning a
secret of human tenderness and long-suffering, that the less
erring could hardly know ? " Oh, God, if my life is to be long,
let me live to bless and comfort — "
At that moment Maggie felt a startling sensation of sudden
cold about her knees and feet : it was water flowing under
her. She started up : the stream was flowing under the door
that led into the passage. She was not bewildered for an
instant — she knew ii .vas the flood !
THE FINAL RESCUE. rM
The tumult of emotion she had been enduring for the hist
twelve hours seemed to have left a great calm in her : without
screaming, she hurried with the candle up-stairs to Bob Jakiu'g
be^lroom. The door was ajar ; she went in and shook him by
the shoulder.
" Bob, the flood is come ! it is in the house ! let us see if we
can make the boats safe."
She lighted his candle, while the poor wife, snatching up
her baby, burst into screams ; and then she hurried down
again to see if the waters were rising fast. There was a step
down into the room at the door leading from the staircase ;
she saw that the water was already on a level with the step.
While she was looking, something came with a tremendous
crash against the window, and sent the leaded panes and the
old wooden framework inwards in shivers, — the water pour-
ing in after it.
"It is the boat ! " cried Maggie. "Bob, come down to get
the boats!"
And without a moment's shudder of fear, she plunged
through the water, which was rising fast to her knees, and by
the glimmering light of the candle she had left on the stairs,
she mounted on 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 is n't broke too, as well as the mooring."
In the excitement of getting into the other boat, unfastening
it, and mastering an oar, Bob was not struck with the danger
Maggie incurred. We are not apt to fear for the fearless,
when we are companions in their danger, and Bob's mind was
absorbed in possible expedients for the safety of the helpless
indoors. The fact that Maggie had been up, had waked him,
and bad taken the lead in activity, gave Bob a vague impression
of her as one who would help to protect, not need to be protected.
She too had got possession of an oar, and had pushed off, so
as to release the boat from the overhanging window-frame.
552 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
" The water 's rising so fast/' said Bob, " I doubt it '11 be
in at the chambers before long — th' house is so low. I 've
more mind to get Prissy and the child and the mother into
the boat, if I could, and trusten to the water — for th' old
house is none so safe. And if I let go the boat . . , but ?/o?i/'
he exclaimed, suddenly lifting the light of his lanthorn on
Maggie, as she stood in the rain with the oar in her hand and
her black hair streaming.
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.
The whole thing had been so rapid — so dreamlike — that
the threads of ordinary association were broken : she sank
down on the seat clutching the oar mechanically, and for a
long while had no distinct conception of her position. The
first thing that waked her to fuller consciousness was the
cessation of the rain, and a perception that the darkness was
divided by the faintest light, which parted the overhanging
gloom from the immeasurable watery level below. She was
driven out upon the flood : — that awful visitation of God
which her father used to talk of — which had made the night-
mare of her childish dreams. And with that thought there
rushed in the vision of the old home — and Tom — and her
mother — they had all listened together.
" Oh, God, where am I ? Which is the way home ? " she
cried out, in the dim loneliness.
What was happening to them at the Mill ? The flood had
once nearly destroyed it. They might be in danger — in
distress : her mother and her brother, alone there, beyond
reach of help ! Her M'^hole soul was strained now on that
thought ; and she saw the long-loved faces looking for help
into the darkness, and finding none.
THE FINAL RESCUE. .^53
She was floating in smooth water now — perhaps far on the
over-flooded 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 towards which alfher anx-
ieties tended.
Oh, how welcome, the widening of that dismal watery level
— the gradual uplifting of the cloudy firmament — the slowly
defining blackness of objects above the glassy dark ! Yes —
she must be out on the fields — those were the tops of hedge-
row trees. Which way did the river lie ? Looking beliind
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 grow-
ing twilight : her wet clothes clung round her, and her stream-
ing 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 be-
ings 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 towards her brother that swept away all the later im-
pressions 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-
554 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
known trees — the gray willows, the now yellowing chestnuts
— and above them the old roof ! But there was no color, no
shape yet : all was faint and dim. More and more strongly
the energies seemed to come and put themselves forth, as if
her life were a stored-up force that was being spent in this
hour, unneeded for any future.
She must get her boat into the current of the Floss, else
she would never be able to pass the Eipple and approach the
house : this was the thought that occurred to her, as she
imagined with more and more vividness the state of things
round the old home. But then she might be carried very far
down, and be unable to guide her boat out of the current
again. For the first time distinct ideas of danger began to
press upon her ; but there was no choice of courses, no room
for hesitation, and she floated into the current. Swiftly she
went now, without effort ; more and more clearly in the les-
sening distance and the growing light she began to discern
the objects that she knew must be the well-known trees and
roofs ; nay, she was not far off a rushing muddy current that
must be the strangely altered Ripple.
Great God ! there were floating masses in it, that might
dash against her boat as she passed, and cause her to perish
too soon. What were those masses ?
For the first time Maggie's heart began to beat in an agony of
dread. She sat helpless — dimly conscious that she was being
floated along — more intensely conscious of the anticipated
clash. But the horror was transient : it passed away before
the oncoming warehouses of St. Ogg's : she had passed the
mouth of the Ripple, then: notv, she must use all her skill
and power to manage the boat and get it if possible out of the
current. She could see now that the bridge was broken down :
she could see the masts of a stranded vessel far out over the
watery field. But no boats were to be seen moving on the
river — such as had been laid hands on were employed in
the flooded streets.
With new resolution, Maggie seized her oar, and stood up
Egain to paddle ; but the now ebbing tide added to the swift-
ness of the river, and she was carried along beyond the bridge.
THE FINAL RESCUE. 555
She could hear shouts from the windows overlooking tlie
river, as if the people there were calling to her. It was not
till she had passed on nearly to Tofton that she could get the
boat clear of the current. Then with one yearning look
towards her uncle Deane's house that lay farther down the
river, she took to both her oars and rowed with all her might
across the watery fields, back towards the j\Iill. Color waa
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 Hippie — wliat
had they meant ? But it w^as not the house — the house
stood firm : drowned up to the first story, but still firm — or
was it broken in at the end towards 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 up-stairs window. She called out
in a loud piercing voice —
" Tom, where are you ? Mother, where are you ? Here is
Maggie ! "
Soon, from the window of the attic in the central gable,
she heard Tom's voice :
" Who is it ? Have you brought a boat ? "
" It is I, Tom — Maggie. Where is mother ? "
" She is not here : she went to Garum, the day before yes-
terday. I '11 come down to the lower window."
" Alone, Maggie ? " said Tom, in a voice of deep astonishment,
as he opened the middle window on a level with the boat.
" Yes, Tom : God has taken care of me, to bring me to you.
Get in quickly. Is there no one else ? "
" No," said Tom, stepping into the boat, " I fear the man
is drowned : he was carried down the Eipple, 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 d»
answer. Give me the oars, Maggie."
556 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
It was not till Tom had pushed off and they were on the
wide water — he face to face with Maggie — that the full
meaning of what had happened rushed upon his mind. It
came with so overpowering a force — it was such a new reve-
lation to his spirit, of the depths in life, that had lain beyond
his vision which he had fancied so keen and clear — that he
WSiS unable to ask a question. They sat mutely gazing at each
other : Maggie with eyes of intense life looking out from
a weary, beaten face — Tom pale with a certain awe and
humiliation. Thought was busy though the lips were silent :
and though he could ask no question, he guessed a story of
almost miraculous divinely protected effort. But at last a
mist gathered over the blue-gray eyes, and the lips found a
■word they could utter : the old childish — " Magsie ! "
Maggie could make no answer but a long deep sob of that
mysterious wondrous happiness that is one with pain.
As soon as she could speak, she said, " We will go to Lucy,
Tom : we '11 go and see if she is safe, and then we can help
the rest."
Tom rowed with untired vigor, and with a different speed
from poor Maggie's. The boat was soon in the current of the
river again, and soon they would be at Tofton.
" Park House stands high up out of the flood," said Maggie.
" Perhaps they have got Lucy there."
Nothing else was said ; a new danger was being carried to-
wards them by the river. Some wooden machinery had just
given way on one of the wharves, and huge fragments were
being floated along. The sun was rising now, and the wide
area of watery desolation was spread out in dreadful clearness
around them — in dreadful clearness floated onwards the hur-
rying, threatening masses. A large company in a boat that
was working its way along under the Tofton houses, observed
their danger, and shouted, " Get out of the current ! "
But that could not be done at once, and Tom, looking before
him, saw death rushing on them. Huge fragments, clinging
together in fatal fellowship, made one wide mass across the
stream.
THE FINAL RESCUE. •''>''»7
^'It is coming, Maggie ! " Tom said, iu a deep lioarse vuiec,
loosing the oars, and clasping her.
The next instant the boat was no longer seen upon tlie
water — and the huge mass was hurrying on in hideous
triumph.
But soon the keel of the boat reappeared, a black speck on
the golden water.
The boat reappeared — but brother and sister had gone
down in an embrace never to be parted : living through again
in one supreme moment the days when they had clasped their
little hands in love, and roamed the daisied fields together.
CONCLUSION.
Nature repairs her ravages — repairs them with her sun
shine, and with human labor. Tae desolation wrought b^^
that flood had left little visible trace on the face of the earth,
five years after. The fifth autumn was rich in golden corn-
stacks, rising in thick clusters among the distant hedgerows ;
the wharves and warehouses on the Floss were busy again,
with echoes of eager voices, with hopeful lading and unlading.
And every man and woman mentioned in this history was
still living — except those whose end we know.
Nature repairs her ravages — but not all. The uptorn trees
are not rooted again; the parted hills are left scai-red : if
there is a new growth, the trees are not the same as the old,
and the hills underneath their green vesture bear the marks
of the past rending. To the eyes that have dwelt on the past,
there is no thorough repair.
Dorlcote Mill was rebuilt. And Dorlcote churchyard,—
where the brick grave that held a father whom we know, was
found with the stone laid prostrate upon it after the flood, —
had recovered all its grassy order and decent quiet.
Near that brick grave there was a tomb erected, very
-=oon after the flood, for two bodies that were found iu close
558 THE MILL ON THE FLOSS.
embrace ; and it was visited at different moments by two men
who both felt that their keenest joy and keenest sorrow were
forever buried there.
One of them visited the tomb again with a sweet face beside
him — but that was years after.
The other was always solitary. His great companionship
was among the trees of the Ked Deeps, where the buried joy
seemed still to hover — like a revisiting spirit.
The tomb bore the names of Tom and Maggie Tulliver, and
below the names it was written —
" In their death they were not divided."
IHB EirBw
UC SOUTHE RN RE GlONAl l iRRARv » Ar.. , » ,
AA 0(j.j-}/8 725 1;
