The Mill on the Floss
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 everyday affairs of life, through the medium of this
language; and still longer to make him understand why he should be
called upon to learn it, when its connection with those affairs had
become entirely latent. So far as Tom had gained any acquaintance with
the Romans at Mr Jacob’s academy, his knowledge was strictly correct,
but it went no farther than the fact that they were “in the New
Testament”; and Mr Stelling was not the man to enfeeble and emasculate
his pupil’s mind by simplifying and explaining, or to reduce the tonic
effect of etymology by mixing it with smattering, extraneous
information, such as is given to girls.
Yet, strange to say, under this vigorous treatment Tom 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
susceptibility. He was of a very firm, not to say obstinate, disposition,
but there was no brute-like rebellion and recklessness in his nature;
the human 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 of learning supines, he would have
to regret it when he became a man,—Tom, more miserable than usual,
determined to try his sole resource; and that evening, after his usual
form of prayer for his parents and “little sister” (he had begun to
pray for Maggie when she was a baby), and that he might be able always
to keep God’s commandments, he added, in the same low whisper, “and
please to make me always remember my Latin.” He paused a little to
consider how he should pray about Euclid—whether he should ask to see
what it meant, or whether there was any other mental state which would
be more applicable to the case. But at last he added: “And make Mr
Stelling say I sha’n’t do Euclid any more. Amen.”
The fact that he got through his supines without mistake the next day,
encouraged him to persevere in this appendix to his prayers, and
neutralised any scepticism that might have arisen from Mr Stelling’s
continued demand for Euclid. But his faith broke down under the
apparent absence of all help when he got into the irregular verbs. It
seemed clear that Tom’s despair under the caprices of the present tense
did not constitute a _nodus_ worthy of interference, and since this was
the climax of his difficulties, where was the use of praying for help
any longer? He made up his mind to this conclusion in one of his dull,
lonely evenings, which he spent in the study, preparing his lessons for
the morrow. His eyes were apt to get dim over the page, though he hated
crying, and was ashamed of it; he couldn’t help thinking with some
affection even of Spouncer, whom he used to fight and quarrel with; he
would have felt at home with Spouncer, and in a condition of
superiority. And then the mill, and the river, and Yap 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 irregular verbs his spirit was further depressed
by a new means of mental development which had been thought of for him
out 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 toward Tom, I beg him to
consider that there are feminine virtues which are with difficulty
combined, even if they are not incompatible. When the wife of a poor
curate contrives, under all her disadvantages, to dress extremely well,
and to have a style of coiffure which requires that her nurse shall
occasionally 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 fortunate than the bulk of his
fellow-men, he had entirely given up that of having his own way in his
own house. What then? He had married “as kind a little soul as ever
breathed,” according to Mr Riley, who had been acquainted with Mrs
Stelling’s blond ringlets and smiling demeanour throughout her 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
contracted a lasting dislike to pale blond ringlets and broad plaits,
as directly associated with haughtiness of manner, and a frequent
reference to other people’s “duty.” But he couldn’t help playing with
little Laura, and liking to amuse her; he even sacrificed his
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 himself 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 favour 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 _am_ well, father,” said Tom; “I wish you’d ask Mr
Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the toothache, I think.”
(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been subject.)
“Euclid, my lad,—why, what’s that?” said Mr Tulliver.
“Oh, I don’t know; it’s definitions, and axioms, and triangles, 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 mustn’t say so. You must
learn what your master tells you. He knows what it’s right for you to
learn.”
“_I’ll_ help you now, Tom,” said Maggie, with a little air of
patronizing consolation. “I’m come to stay ever so long, if Mrs
Stelling asks me. I’ve brought my box and my pinafores, haven’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 you 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 Dictionary. 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, that’s no reason why it shouldn’t mean ‘gift,’” said Maggie,
stoutly. “It may mean several things; almost every word does. There’s
‘lawn,’—it means the grass-plot, as well as the stuff pocket
handkerchiefs are made of.”
“Well done, little ’un,” said Mr Tulliver, laughing, while Tom felt
rather disgusted with Maggie’s knowingness, though beyond measure
cheerful at the thought that she was going to stay with him. Her
conceit would soon be overawed by the actual inspection of his books.
Mrs Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a longer time
than a week for Maggie’s stay; but Mr Stelling, who took her between
his knees, and asked her where she stole her dark eyes from, insisted
that she must stay a fortnight. Maggie thought Mr Stelling was a
charming man, and Mr Tulliver was quite proud to leave his little wench
where she would have an opportunity of showing her cleverness to