The Mill on the Floss
begin to do a little in the same way, I might make some money. A large
interest is got in that way.”
“Large int’rest?” said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; “and what do you
call large int’rest?”
“Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid.”
“Then why wasn’t I let to know o’ such things before, Mr Glegg?” said
Mrs Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep grating tone of
reproach. “Haven’t you allays told me as there was no getting more nor
five per cent?”
“Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman,” said Mr Glegg. “You couldn’t go
into trade, could you? You can’t get more than five per cent with
security.”
“But I can turn a bit o’ money for you, an’ welcome, mum,” said Bob,
“if you’d like to risk it,—not as there’s any risk to speak on. But if
you’d a mind to lend a bit o’ money to Mr Tom, he’d pay you six or
seven per zent, an’ get a trifle for himself as well; an’ a
good-natur’d lady like you ’ud like the feel o’ the money better if
your nephey took part on it.”
“What do you say, Mrs G.?” said Mr Glegg. “I’ve a notion, when I’ve
made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps start Tom here with a bit
of a nest-egg,—he’ll pay me int’rest, you know,—an’ if you’ve got some
little sums lyin’ idle twisted up in a stockin’ toe, or that——”
“Mr Glegg, it’s beyond iverything! You’ll go and give information to
the tramps next, as they may come and rob me.”
“Well, well, as I was sayin’, if you like to join me wi’ twenty pounds,
you can—I’ll make it fifty. That’ll be a pretty good nest-egg, eh,
Tom?”
“You’re not counting on me, Mr Glegg, I hope,” said his wife. “You
could do fine things wi’ my money, I don’t doubt.”
“Very well,” said Mr Glegg, rather snappishly, “then we’ll do without
you. I shall go with you to see this Salt,” he added, turning to Bob.
“And now, I suppose, you’ll go all the other way, Mr Glegg,” said Mrs
G., “and want to shut me out o’ my own nephey’s business. I never said
I wouldn’t put money into it,—I don’t say as it shall be twenty pounds,
though you’re so ready to say it for me,—but he’ll see some day as his
aunt’s in the right not to risk the money she’s saved for him till it’s
proved as it won’t be lost.”
“Ay, that’s a pleasant sort o’risk, that is,” said Mr Glegg,
indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn’t avoid smiling. But Bob
stemmed the injured lady’s outburst.
“Ay, mum,” he said admiringly, “you know what’s what—you do. An’ it’s
nothing but fair. _You_ see how the first bit of a job answers, an’
then you’ll come down handsome. Lors, it’s a fine thing to hev good
kin. I got my bit of a nest-egg, as the master calls it, all by my own
sharpness,—ten suvreigns it was,—wi’ dousing the fire at Torry’s mill,
an’ it’s growed an’ growed by a bit an’ a bit, till I’n got a matter o’
thirty pound to lay out, besides makin’ my mother comfor’ble. I should
get more, on’y I’m such a soft wi’ the women,—I can’t help lettin’ ’em
hev such good bargains. There’s this bundle, now,” thumping it lustily,
“any other chap ’ud make a pretty penny out on it. But me!—lors, I
shall sell ’em for pretty near what I paid for ’em.”
“Have you got a bit of good net, now?” said Mrs Glegg, in a patronizing
tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her napkin.
“Eh, mum, not what you’d think it worth your while to look at. I’d
scorn to show it you. It ’ud be an insult to you.”
“But let me see,” said Mrs Glegg, still patronizing. “If they’re
damaged goods, they’re like enough to be a bit the better quality.”
“No, mum, I know my place,” said Bob, lifting up his pack and
shouldering it. “I’m not going t’ expose the lowness o’ my trade to a
lady like you. Packs is come down i’ the world; it ’ud cut you to th’
heart to see the difference. I’m at your sarvice, sir, when you’ve a
mind to go and see Salt.”
“All in good time,” said Mr Glegg, really unwilling to cut short the
dialogue. “Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?”
“No, sir; I left Stowe in my place.”
“Come, put down your pack, and let me see,” said Mrs Glegg, drawing a
chair to the window and seating herself with much dignity.
“Don’t you ask it, mum,” said Bob, entreatingly.
“Make no more words,” said Mrs Glegg, severely, “but do as I tell you.”
“Eh mum, I’m loth, that I am,” said Bob, slowly depositing his pack on
the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling fingers. “But what
you order shall be done” (much fumbling in pauses between the
sentences). “It’s not as you’ll buy a single thing on me,—I’d be sorry
for you to do it,—for think o’ them poor women up i’ the villages
there, as niver stir a hundred yards from home,—it ’ud be a pity for
anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, it’s as good as a junketing to
’em when they see me wi’ my pack, an’ I shall niver pick up such
bargains for ’em again. Least ways, I’ve no time now, for I’m off to
Laceham. See here now,” Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and holding
up a scarlet woollen Kerchief with an embroidered wreath in the corner;
“here’s a thing to make a lass’s mouth water, an’ on’y two shillin’—an’
why? Why, ’cause there’s a bit of a moth-hole ’i this plain end. Lors,
I think the moths an’ the mildew was sent by Providence o’ purpose to
cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin’ women as han’t got much
money. If it hadn’t been for the moths, now, every hankicher on ’em ’ud
ha’ gone to the rich, handsome ladies, like you, mum, at five shillin’
apiece,—not a farthin’ less; but what does the moth do? Why, it nibbles
off three shillin’ o’ the price i’ no time; an’ then a packman like me
can carry ’t to the poor lasses as live under the dark thack, to make a
bit of a blaze for ’em. Lors, it’s as good as a fire, to look at such a
hankicher!”
Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs Glegg said sharply:
“Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o’ year. Put these coloured
things by; let me look at your nets, if you’ve got ’em.”
“Eh, mum, I told you how it ’ud be,” said Bob, flinging aside the
coloured things with an air of desperation. “I knowed it ud’ turn
again’ you to look at such paltry articles as I carry. Here’s a piece
o’ figured muslin now, what’s the use o’ you lookin’ at it? You might
as well look at poor folks’s victual, mum; it ’ud on’y take away your
appetite. There’s a yard i’ the middle on’t as the pattern’s all
missed,—lors, why, it’s a muslin as the Princess Victoree might ha’
wore; but,” added Bob, flinging it behind him on to the turf, as if to
save Mrs Glegg’s eyes, “it’ll be bought up by the huckster’s wife at
Fibb’s End,—that’s where _it’ll_ go—ten shillin’ for the whole lot—ten
yards, countin’ the damaged un—five-an’-twenty shillin’ ’ud ha’ been
the price, not a penny less. But I’ll say no more, mum; it’s nothing to
you, a piece o’ muslin like that; you can afford to pay three times the
money for a thing as isn’t half so good. It’s nets _you_ talked on;
well, I’ve got a piece as ’ull serve you to make fun on——”
“Bring me that muslin,” said Mrs Glegg. “It’s a buff; I’m partial to
buff.”
“Eh, but a _damaged_ thing,” said Bob, in a tone of deprecating
disgust. “You’d do nothing with it, mum, you’d give it to the cook, I
know you would, an’ it ’ud be a pity,—she’d look too much like a lady
in it; it’s unbecoming for servants.”
“Fetch it, and let me see you measure it,” said Mrs Glegg,
authoritatively.
Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance.
“See what there is over measure!” he said, holding forth the extra
half-yard, while Mrs Glegg was busy examining the damaged yard, and
throwing her head back to see how far the fault would be lost on a
distant view.
“I’ll give you six shilling for it,” she said, throwing it down with
the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum.
“Didn’t I tell you now, mum, as it ’ud hurt your feelings to look at my
pack? That damaged bit’s turned your stomach now; I see it has,” said
Bob, wrapping the muslin up with the utmost quickness, and apparently
about to fasten up his pack. “You’re used to seein’ a different sort o’
article carried by packmen, when you lived at the stone house. Packs is
come down i’ the world; I told you that; _my_ goods are for common
folks. Mrs Pepper ’ull give me ten shillin’ for that muslin, an’ be
sorry as I didn’t ask her more. Such articles answer i’ the
wearin’,—they keep their colour till the threads melt away i’ the
wash-tub, an’ that won’t be while _I’m_ a young un.”
“Well, seven shilling,” said Mrs Glegg.
“Put it out o’ your mind, mum, now do,” said Bob. “Here’s a bit o’ net,
then, for you to look at before I tie up my pack, just for you to see
what my trade’s come to,—spotted and sprigged, you see, beautiful but
yallow,—’s been lyin’ by an’ got the wrong colour. I could niver ha’
bought such net, if it hadn’t been yallow. Lors, it’s took me a deal o’
study to know the vally o’ such articles; when I begun to carry a pack,
I was as ignirant as a pig; net or calico was all the same to me. I
thought them things the most vally as was the thickest. I was took in
dreadful, for I’m a straightforrard chap,—up to no tricks, mum. I can
only say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I should lose myself
pretty quick. An’ I gev five-an’-eightpence for that piece o’ net,—if I
was to tell y’ anything else I should be tellin’ you fibs,—an’
five-an’-eightpence I shall ask of it, not a penny more, for it’s a
woman’s article, an’ I like to ’commodate the women.
Five-an’-eightpence for six yards,—as cheap as if it was only the dirt
on it as was paid for.’”
“I don’t mind having three yards of it,’” said Mrs Glegg.
“Why, there’s but six altogether,” said Bob. “No, mum, it isn’t worth
your while; you can go to the shop to-morrow an’ get the same pattern
ready whitened. It’s on’y three times the money; what’s that to a lady
like you?” He gave an emphatic tie to his bundle.
“Come, lay me out that muslin,” said Mrs Glegg. “Here’s eight shilling
for it.”
“You _will_ be jokin’,” said Bob, looking up with a laughing face; “I
see’d you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to the winder.”
“Well, put it me out,” said Mrs Glegg, peremptorily.
“But if I let you have it for ten shillin’, mum, you’ll be so good as
not tell nobody. I should be a laughin’-stock; the trade ’ud hoot me,
if they knowed it. I’m obliged to make believe as I ask more nor I do
for my goods, else they’d find out I was a flat. I’m glad you don’t
insist upo’ buyin’ the net, for then I should ha’ lost my two best
bargains for Mrs Pepper o’ Fibb’s End, an’ she’s a rare customer.”
“Let me look at the net again,” said Mrs Glegg, yearning after the
cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing.
“Well, I can’t deny _you_, mum,” said Bob handing it out.
“Eh!, see what a pattern now! Real Laceham goods. Now, this is the sort
o’ article I’m recommendin’ Mr Tom to send out. Lors, it’s a fine thing
for anybody as has got a bit o’ money; these Laceham goods ’ud make it
breed like maggits. If I was a lady wi’ a bit o’ money!—why, I know one
as put thirty pounds into them goods,—a lady wi’ a cork leg, but as
sharp,—you wouldn’t catch _her_ runnin’ her head into a sack; _she’d_
see her way clear out o’ anything afore she’d be in a hurry to start.
Well, she let out thirty pound to a young man in the drapering line,
and he laid it out i’ Laceham goods, an’ a shupercargo o’ my
acquinetance (not Salt) took ’em out, an’ she got her eight per zent
fust go off; an’ now you can’t hold her but she must be sendin’ out
carguies wi’ every ship, till she’s gettin’ as rich as a Jew. Bucks her
name is, she doesn’t live i’ this town. Now then, mum, if you’ll please
to give me the net——”
“Here’s fifteen shilling, then, for the two,” said Mrs Glegg. “But it’s
a shameful price.”
“Nay, mum, you’ll niver say that when you’re upo’ your knees i’ church