The Mill on the Floss
“They’re such children for the water, mine are,” she said aloud,
without reflecting that there was no one to hear her; “they’ll be
brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish that river was far
enough.”
But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom
returning from the pool alone, this hovering fear entered and took
complete possession of her, and she hurried to meet him.
“Maggie’s nowhere about the pond, mother,” said Tom; “she’s gone away.”
You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the difficulty of
convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs Pullet observed
that the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there was no
knowing; and Mr Pullet, confused and overwhelmed by this revolutionary
aspect of things,—the tea deferred and the poultry alarmed by the
unusual running to and fro,—took up his spud as an instrument of
search, and reached down a key to unlock the goose-pen, as a likely
place for Maggie to lie concealed in.
Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone home (without
thinking it necessary to state that it was what he should have done
himself under the circumstances), and the suggestion was seized as a
comfort by his mother.
“Sister, for goodness’ sake let ’em put the horse in the carriage and
take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy can’t walk in
her dirty clothes,” she said, looking at that innocent victim, who was
wrapped up in a shawl, and sitting with naked feet on the sofa.
Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring
her premises to order and quiet, and it was not long before Mrs
Tulliver was in the chaise, looking anxiously at the most distant point
before her. What the father would say if Maggie was lost, was a
question that predominated over every other.
Chapter XI.
Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow
Maggie’s intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom
imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy
had walked away, was not so simple as that of going home. No! she would
run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any more.
That was by no means a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often told
she was like a gypsy, and “half wild,” that when she was miserable it
seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium, and being entirely
in harmony with circumstances, would be to live in a little brown tent
on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, would gladly receive her
and pay her much respect on account of her superior knowledge. She had
once mentioned her views on this point to Tom and suggested that he
should stain his face brown, and they should run away together; but Tom
rejected the scheme with contempt, observing that gypsies were thieves,
and hardly got anything to eat and had nothing to drive but a donkey.
To-day however, Maggie thought her misery had reached a pitch at which
gypsydom was her refuge, and she rose from her seat on the roots of the
tree with the sense that this was a great crisis in her life; she would
run straight away till she came to Dunlow Common, where there would
certainly be gypsies; and cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who
found fault with her, should never see her any more. She thought of her
father as she ran along, but she reconciled herself to the idea of
parting with him, by determining that she would secretly send him a
letter by a small gypsy, who would run away without telling where she
was, and just let him know that she was well and happy, and always
loved him very much.
Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time Tom got to
the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was on
the edge of the lane leading to the highroad. She stopped to pant a
little, reflecting that running away was not a pleasant thing until one
had got quite to the common where the gypsies were, but her resolution
had not abated; she presently passed through the gate into the lane,
not knowing where it would lead her, for it was not this way that they
came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she felt all the safer for
that, because there was no chance of her being overtaken. But she was
soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men coming along
the lane in front of her; she had not thought of meeting strangers, she
had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends coming after
her. The formidable strangers were two shabby-looking men with flushed
faces, one of them carrying a bundle on a stick over his shoulder; but
to her surprise, while she was dreading their disapprobation as a
runaway, the man with the bundle stopped, and in a half-whining,
half-coaxing tone asked her if she had a copper to give a poor man.
Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket,—her uncle Glegg’s present,—which
she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a polite smile,
hoping he would feel very kindly toward her as a generous person.
“That’s the only money I’ve got,” she said apologetically. “Thank you,
little miss,” said the man, in a less respectful and grateful tone than
Maggie anticipated, and she even observed that he smiled and winked at
his companion. She walked on hurriedly, but was aware that the two men
were standing still, probably to look after her, and she presently
heard them laughing loudly. Suddenly it occurred to her that they might
think she was an idiot; Tom had said that her cropped hair made her
look like an idiot, and it was too painful an idea to be readily
forgotten. Besides, she had no sleeves on,—only a cape and bonnet. It
was clear that she was not likely to make a favourable impression on
passengers, and she thought she would turn into the fields again, but
not on the same side of the lane as before, lest they should still be
uncle Pullet’s fields. She turned through the first gate that was not
locked, and felt a delightful sense of privacy in creeping along by the
hedgerows, after her recent humiliating encounter. She was used to
wandering about the fields by herself, and was less timid there than on
the highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, but that was
a small evil; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she should
probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common, or at least of some
other common, for she had heard her father say that you couldn’t go
very far without coming to a common. She hoped so, for she was getting
rather tired and hungry, and until she reached the gypsies there was no
definite prospect of bread and butter. It was still broad daylight, for
aunt Pullet, retaining the early habits of the Dodson family, took tea
at half-past four by the sun, and at five by the kitchen clock; so,
though it was nearly an hour since Maggie started, there was no
gathering gloom on the fields to remind her that the night would come.
Still, it seemed to her that she had been walking a very great distance
indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not come
within sight. Hitherto she had been in the rich parish of Garum, where
was a great deal of pasture-land, and she had only seen one labourer at
a distance. That was fortunate in some respects, as labourers might be
too ignorant to understand the propriety of her wanting to go to Dunlow
Common; yet it would have been better if she could have met some one
who would tell her the way without wanting to know anything about her
private business. At last, however, the green fields came to an end,
and Maggie found herself looking through the bars of a gate into a lane
with a wide margin of grass on each side of it. She had never seen such
a wide lane before, and, without her knowing why, it gave her the
impression that the common could not be far off; perhaps it was because
she saw a donkey with a log to his foot feeding on the grassy margin,
for she had seen a donkey with that pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow
Common when she had been across it in her father’s gig. She crept
through the bars of the gate and walked on with new spirit, though not
without haunting images of Apollyon, and a highwayman with a pistol,
and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth from ear to ear, and other
miscellaneous dangers. For poor little Maggie had at once the timidity
of an active imagination and the daring that comes from overmastering
impulse. She had rushed into the adventure of seeking her unknown
kindred, the gypsies; and now she was in this strange lane, she hardly
dared look on one side of her, lest she should see the diabolical
blacksmith in his leathern apron grinning at her with arms akimbo. It
was not without a leaping of the heart that she caught sight of a small
pair of bare legs sticking up, feet uppermost, by the side of a
hillock; they seemed something hideously preternatural,—a diabolical
kind of fungus; for she was too much agitated at the first glance to
see the ragged clothes and the dark shaggy head attached to them. It
was a boy asleep, and Maggie trotted along faster and more lightly,
lest she should wake him; it did not occur to her that he was one of
her friends the gypsies, who in all probability would have very genial
manners. But the fact was so, for at the next bend in the lane Maggie
actually saw the little semicircular black tent with the blue smoke
rising before it, which was to be her refuge from all the blighting
obloquy that had pursued her in civilised life. She even saw a tall
female figure by the column of smoke, doubtless the gypsy-mother, who
provided the tea and other groceries; it was astonishing to herself
that she did not feel more delighted. But it was startling to find the
gypsies in a lane, after all, and not on a common; indeed, it was
rather disappointing; for a mysterious illimitable common, where there
were sand-pits to hide in, and one was out of everybody’s reach, had
always made part of Maggie’s picture of gypsy life. She went on,
however, and thought with some comfort that gypsies most likely knew
nothing about idiots, so there was no danger of their falling into the
mistake of setting her down at the first glance as an idiot. It was
plain she had attracted attention; for the tall figure, who proved to
be a young woman with a baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her.
Maggie looked up in the new face rather tremblingly as it approached,
and was reassured by the thought that her aunt Pullet and the rest were
right when they called her a gypsy; for this face, with the bright dark
eyes and the long hair, was really something like what she used to see
in the glass before she cut her hair off.
“My little lady, where are you going to?” the gypsy said, in a tone of
coaxing deference.
It was delightful, and just what Maggie expected; the gypsies saw at
once that she was a little lady, and were prepared to treat her
accordingly.
“Not any farther,” said Maggie, feeling as if she were saying what she
had rehearsed in a dream. “I’m come to stay with _you_, please.”
“That’s pretty; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady you are, to be
sure!” said the gypsy, taking her by the hand. Maggie thought her very
agreeable, but wished she had not been so dirty.
There was quite a group round the fire when she reached it. An old
gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and
occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an
odorous steam; two small shock-headed children were lying prone and
resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes; and a placid
donkey was bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying on her back,
was scratching his nose and indulging him with a bite of excellent
stolen hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and the scene
was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped