The Mill on the Floss
’em, but there’s no countin’ on Harry; _he’s_ a 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 rabbits every day;
but how could I, when they didn’t come into my head, you know? Oh, he
will be so angry 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 doesn’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.”
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 very glad his father took him back again, aren’t you, Luke?” she
said. “For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn’t do wrong again.”
“Eh, Miss,” said Luke, “he’d be no great shakes, I doubt, let’s feyther
do what he 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 was another
fluttering heart besides Maggie’s when it was late enough for the sound
of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs Tulliver had a strong
feeling, it was fondness for her 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
Tulliver’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’ll 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, “Hallo! 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 toward 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 character to boyhood; as
different as possible from poor Maggie’s phiz, which Nature seemed to
have moulded and coloured with the most decided intention. But that
same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the
appearance 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
unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious
girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this
pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.
“Maggie,” said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon
as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlour had
taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, “you don’t know
what I’ve got in _my_ pockets,” nodding his head up and down as a means
of rousing her sense of mystery.
“No,” 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 _can’t_ guess, Tom,” said Maggie, impatiently.
“Don’t be a spitfire, else I won’t tell you,” said Tom, thrusting 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 wouldn’t
go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save the money;
and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn’t. And here’s
hooks; see here—I say, _won’t_ we go and fish to-morrow down by the
Round 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 throw 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 I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You
know, I needn’t have bought it, if I hadn’t liked.”
“Yes, very, very good—I _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 wouldn’t give in about the
toffee.”
“Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn’t fight at your school, Tom. Didn’t it
hurt you?”
“Hurt me? no,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large
pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he looked at
meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added,—
“I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that’s what he got by wanting to
leather _me;_ I wasn’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, wouldn’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 Africa, where it’s
very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book
where I read it.”
“Well, I should get a gun and shoot him.”
“But if you hadn’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 couldn’t get away from him. What should you
do, Tom?”
Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, “But the
lion _isn’t_ coming. What’s the use of talking?”
“But I like to fancy how it would be,” said Maggie, following 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 trembling silence as he went
out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once
his sorrow and his anger; for 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
upstairs. I’ll 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, because I’m a boy. I always have
half-sovereigns and sovereigns 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 toward Maggie.
“You forgot to feed ’em, then, and Harry forgot?” he said, his colour
heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. “I’ll pitch into Harry.
I’ll have him turned away. And I don’t love you, Maggie. You sha’n’t go
fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every
day.” He walked on again.
“Yes, but 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 _you_
forgot anything—I wouldn’t mind what you did—I’d forgive you and love
you.”
“Yes, you’re silly; but I never _do_ forget things, _I_ 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.
Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone,
“Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren’t I a good brother to you?”
“Ye-ye-es,” sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsedly.
“Didn’t I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy
it, and saved my money o’ purpose, and wouldn’t go halves in the
toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn’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 my
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 nothing.”
“But I didn’t mean,” said Maggie; “I couldn’t help it.”
“Yes, you could,” said Tom, “if you’d minded what you were doing. And
you’re a naughty girl, and you sha’n’t go fishing with me to-morrow.”
With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward 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