Middlemarch
want the lads here not to do what will make things worse for
themselves. The cattle may have a heavy load, but it won’t help ’em to
throw it over into the roadside pit, when it’s partly their own
fodder.”
“We war on’y for a bit o’ foon,” said Hiram, who was beginning to see
consequences. “That war all we war arter.”
“Well, promise me not to meddle again, and I’ll see that nobody informs
against you.”
“I’n ne’er meddled, an’ I’n no call to promise,” said Timothy.
“No, but the rest. Come, I’m as hard at work as any of you to-day, and
I can’t spare much time. Say you’ll be quiet without the constable.”
“Aw, we wooant meddle—they may do as they loike for oos”—were the forms
in which Caleb got his pledges; and then he hastened back to Fred, who
had followed him, and watched him in the gateway.
They went to work, and Fred helped vigorously. His spirits had risen,
and he heartily enjoyed a good slip in the moist earth under the
hedgerow, which soiled his perfect summer trousers. Was it his
successful onset which had elated him, or the satisfaction of helping
Mary’s father? Something more. The accidents of the morning had helped
his frustrated imagination to shape an employment for himself which had
several attractions. I am not sure that certain fibres in Mr. Garth’s
mind had not resumed their old vibration towards the very end which now
revealed itself to Fred. For the effective accident is but the touch of
fire where there is oil and tow; and it always appeared to Fred that
the railway brought the needed touch. But they went on in silence
except when their business demanded speech. At last, when they had
finished and were walking away, Mr. Garth said—
“A young fellow needn’t be a B. A. to do this sort of work, eh, Fred?”
“I wish I had taken to it before I had thought of being a B. A.,” said
Fred. He paused a moment, and then added, more hesitatingly, “Do you
think I am too old to learn your business, Mr. Garth?”
“My business is of many sorts, my boy,” said Mr. Garth, smiling. “A
good deal of what I know can only come from experience: you can’t learn
it off as you learn things out of a book. But you are young enough to
lay a foundation yet.” Caleb pronounced the last sentence emphatically,
but paused in some uncertainty. He had been under the impression lately
that Fred had made up his mind to enter the Church.
“You do think I could do some good at it, if I were to try?” said Fred,
more eagerly.
“That depends,” said Caleb, turning his head on one side and lowering
his voice, with the air of a man who felt himself to be saying
something deeply religious. “You must be sure of two things: you must
love your work, and not be always looking over the edge of it, wanting
your play to begin. And the other is, you must not be ashamed of your
work, and think it would be more honorable to you to be doing something
else. You must have a pride in your own work and in learning to do it
well, and not be always saying, There’s this and there’s that—if I had
this or that to do, I might make something of it. No matter what a man
is—I wouldn’t give twopence for him”—here Caleb’s mouth looked bitter,
and he snapped his fingers—“whether he was the prime minister or the
rick-thatcher, if he didn’t do well what he undertook to do.”
“I can never feel that I should do that in being a clergyman,” said
Fred, meaning to take a step in argument.
“Then let it alone, my boy,” said Caleb, abruptly, “else you’ll never
be easy. Or, if you _are_ easy, you’ll be a poor stick.”
“That is very nearly what Mary thinks about it,” said Fred, coloring.
“I think you must know what I feel for Mary, Mr. Garth: I hope it does
not displease you that I have always loved her better than any one
else, and that I shall never love any one as I love her.”
The expression of Caleb’s face was visibly softening while Fred spoke.
But he swung his head with a solemn slowness, and said—
“That makes things more serious, Fred, if you want to take Mary’s
happiness into your keeping.”
“I know that, Mr. Garth,” said Fred, eagerly, “and I would do anything
for _her_. She says she will never have me if I go into the Church; and
I shall be the most miserable devil in the world if I lose all hope of
Mary. Really, if I could get some other profession, business—anything
that I am at all fit for, I would work hard, I would deserve your good
opinion. I should like to have to do with outdoor things. I know a good
deal about land and cattle already. I used to believe, you know—though
you will think me rather foolish for it—that I should have land of my
own. I am sure knowledge of that sort would come easily to me,
especially if I could be under you in any way.”
“Softly, my boy,” said Caleb, having the image of “Susan” before his
eyes. “What have you said to your father about all this?”
“Nothing, yet; but I must tell him. I am only waiting to know what I
can do instead of entering the Church. I am very sorry to disappoint
him, but a man ought to be allowed to judge for himself when he is
four-and-twenty. How could I know when I was fifteen, what it would be
right for me to do now? My education was a mistake.”
“But hearken to this, Fred,” said Caleb. “Are you sure Mary is fond of
you, or would ever have you?”
“I asked Mr. Farebrother to talk to her, because she had forbidden me—I
didn’t know what else to do,” said Fred, apologetically. “And he says
that I have every reason to hope, if I can put myself in an honorable
position—I mean, out of the Church. I dare say you think it
unwarrantable in me, Mr. Garth, to be troubling you and obtruding my
own wishes about Mary, before I have done anything at all for myself.
Of course I have not the least claim—indeed, I have already a debt to
you which will never be discharged, even when I have been able to pay
it in the shape of money.”
“Yes, my boy, you have a claim,” said Caleb, with much feeling in his
voice. “The young ones have always a claim on the old to help them
forward. I was young myself once and had to do without much help; but
help would have been welcome to me, if it had been only for the
fellow-feeling’s sake. But I must consider. Come to me to-morrow at the
office, at nine o’clock. At the office, mind.”
Mr. Garth would take no important step without consulting Susan, but it
must be confessed that before he reached home he had taken his
resolution. With regard to a large number of matters about which other
men are decided or obstinate, he was the most easily manageable man in
the world. He never knew what meat he would choose, and if Susan had
said that they ought to live in a four-roomed cottage, in order to
save, he would have said, “Let us go,” without inquiring into details.
But where Caleb’s feeling and judgment strongly pronounced, he was a
ruler; and in spite of his mildness and timidity in reproving, every
one about him knew that on the exceptional occasions when he chose, he
was absolute. He never, indeed, chose to be absolute except on some one
else’s behalf. On ninety-nine points Mrs. Garth decided, but on the
hundredth she was often aware that she would have to perform the
singularly difficult task of carrying out her own principle, and to
make herself subordinate.
“It is come round as I thought, Susan,” said Caleb, when they were
seated alone in the evening. He had already narrated the adventure
which had brought about Fred’s sharing in his work, but had kept back
the further result. “The children _are_ fond of each other—I mean, Fred
and Mary.”
Mrs. Garth laid her work on her knee, and fixed her penetrating eyes
anxiously on her husband.
“After we’d done our work, Fred poured it all out to me. He can’t bear
to be a clergyman, and Mary says she won’t have him if he is one; and
the lad would like to be under me and give his mind to business. And
I’ve determined to take him and make a man of him.”
“Caleb!” said Mrs. Garth, in a deep contralto, expressive of resigned
astonishment.
“It’s a fine thing to do,” said Mr. Garth, settling himself firmly
against the back of his chair, and grasping the elbows. “I shall have
trouble with him, but I think I shall carry it through. The lad loves
Mary, and a true love for a good woman is a great thing, Susan. It
shapes many a rough fellow.”
“Has Mary spoken to you on the subject?” said Mrs Garth, secretly a
little hurt that she had to be informed on it herself.
“Not a word. I asked her about Fred once; I gave her a bit of a
warning. But she assured me she would never marry an idle
self-indulgent man—nothing since. But it seems Fred set on Mr.
Farebrother to talk to her, because she had forbidden him to speak
himself, and Mr. Farebrother has found out that she is fond of Fred,
but says he must not be a clergyman. Fred’s heart is fixed on Mary,
that I can see: it gives me a good opinion of the lad—and we always
liked him, Susan.”
“It is a pity for Mary, I think,” said Mrs. Garth.
“Why—a pity?”
“Because, Caleb, she might have had a man who is worth twenty Fred
Vincy’s.”
“Ah?” said Caleb, with surprise.
“I firmly believe that Mr. Farebrother is attached to her, and meant to
make her an offer; but of course, now that Fred has used him as an
envoy, there is an end to that better prospect.” There was a severe
precision in Mrs. Garth’s utterance. She was vexed and disappointed,
but she was bent on abstaining from useless words.
Caleb was silent a few moments under a conflict of feelings. He looked
at the floor and moved his head and hands in accompaniment to some
inward argumentation. At last he said—
“That would have made me very proud and happy, Susan, and I should have
been glad for your sake. I’ve always felt that your belongings have
never been on a level with you. But you took me, though I was a plain
man.”
“I took the best and cleverest man I had ever known,” said Mrs. Garth,
convinced that _she_ would never have loved any one who came short of
that mark.
“Well, perhaps others thought you might have done better. But it would
have been worse for me. And that is what touches me close about Fred.
The lad is good at bottom, and clever enough to do, if he’s put in the
right way; and he loves and honors my daughter beyond anything, and she
has given him a sort of promise according to what he turns out. I say,
that young man’s soul is in my hand; and I’ll do the best I can for
him, so help me God! It’s my duty, Susan.”
Mrs. Garth was not given to tears, but there was a large one rolling
down her face before her husband had finished. It came from the
pressure of various feelings, in which there was much affection and
some vexation. She wiped it away quickly, saying—
“Few men besides you would think it a duty to add to their anxieties in
that way, Caleb.”
“That signifies nothing—what other men would think. I’ve got a clear
feeling inside me, and that I shall follow; and I hope your heart will
go with me, Susan, in making everything as light as can be to Mary,
poor child.”
Caleb, leaning back in his chair, looked with anxious appeal towards
his wife. She rose and kissed him, saying, “God bless you, Caleb! Our
children have a good father.”
But she went out and had a hearty cry to make up for the suppression of
her words. She felt sure that her husband’s conduct would be
misunderstood, and about Fred she was rational and unhopeful. Which
would turn out to have the more foresight in it—her rationality or
Caleb’s ardent generosity?
When Fred went to the office the next morning, there was a test to be
gone through which he was not prepared for.
“Now Fred,” said Caleb, “you will have some desk-work. I have always
done a good deal of writing myself, but I can’t do without help, and as
I want you to understand the accounts and get the values into your