The Mill on the Floss
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 pretended to a knowledge of what occurred
at the siege of Badajos 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 military matters than Mr Poulter’s personal
experience.
“And General Wolfe, Mr Poulter,—wasn’t he a wonderful fighter?” said
Tom, who held the notion that all the martial heroes commemorated on
the public-house signs were engaged in the war with Bony.
“Not at all!” said Mr Poulter, contemptuously. “Nothing 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 significant manner
at this request, 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 battles, 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. “_I_ 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 as became an
Englishman, “let me go and call Philip. He’ll like to see you, you
know.”
“What! the humpbacked lad?” said Mr Poulter, contemptuously; “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’ll show him something different from his bows
and arrows,” said Mr Poulter, coughing and drawing himself up, while he
gave a little preliminary play to his wrist.
Tom ran in to Philip, who was enjoying his afternoon’s holiday at the
piano, in the drawing-room, picking out tunes for himself and singing
them. He was supremely happy, perched like an amorphous bundle on the
high stool, with his head thrown back, his eyes fixed on the opposite
cornice, and his lips wide open, sending forth, with all his might,
impromptu syllables to a tune of Arne’s which had hit his fancy.
“Come, Philip,” said Tom, bursting in; “don’t stay roaring ‘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, you lumbering idiot! Don’t come bellowing at me; you’re not
fit to speak to anything but a cart-horse!”
It was not the first time Philip had been made angry by him, but Tom
had never before been assailed with verbal 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 cessation 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 Tulliver 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 favourite of the two pupils; he was less obliging
than Tom, who was made useful in many ways. Still, his father paid more
than Mr Tulliver did, and she meant him to feel that she behaved
exceedingly well to him. Philip, however, met her advances toward a
good understanding very much as a caressed mollusk meets an invitation
to show himself 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 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 Poulter’s 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 wouldn’t; I’m sure I’d take care and not hurt myself. I
shouldn’t take it out of the sheath much, but I could ground arms with
it, and all that.”
“No, no, it won’t do, I tell you; it won’t do,” said Mr Poulter,
preparing to depart. “What ’ud Mr Stelling say to me?”
“Oh, I say, do, Mr Poulter! I’d give you my five-shilling piece if
you’d let me keep the sword a week. Look here!” said Tom, reaching out
the attractively large round of silver. The young dog calculated the
effect as well as if he had been a philosopher.
“Well,” said Mr Poulter, with still deeper gravity, “you must keep it
out of sight, you know.”
“Oh yes, I’ll keep it under the bed,” said Tom, eagerly, “or else at
the bottom of my large box.”
“And let me see, now, whether you can draw it out of the sheath without
hurting yourself.” That process having been gone through more than
once, Mr Poulter felt that he had acted with scrupulous
conscientiousness, and said, “Well, now, Master Tulliver, if I take the
crown-piece, it is to make sure as you’ll do no mischief with the
sword.”
“Oh no, indeed, Mr Poulter,” said Tom, delightedly handing him the
crown-piece, and grasping the sword, which, he thought, might have been
lighter with advantage.
“But if Mr Stelling catches you carrying it in?” said Mr Poulter,
pocketing the crown-piece provisionally while he raised this new doubt.
“Oh, he always keeps in his upstairs study on Saturday afternoon,” 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 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 childish, you
must be an exceptionally wise man, who, although you are devoted to a
civil calling, requiring you to look bland rather than formidable, yet
never, since you had a beard, threw 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.”
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 objects 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