 Book 2, Chapter 4 of the Mill on the Floss. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot. Book 2, School Time. Chapter 4, The Young Idea. The alterations of feeling in that first dialogue between Tom and Philip continued to make the intercourse even after many weeks of schoolboy intimacy. Tom never quite lost the feeling that Philip, being the son of a rascal, was his natural enemy. Never thoroughly overcame his repulsion to Philip's deformity. He was a boy who adhered tenaciously to impressions once received, as with all minds in which mere perception predominates over thought and emotion, the external remained to him rigidly what it was in the first instance. But then it was impossible not to like Philip's company when he was in a good humour. He could help one so well in one's Latin exercises which Tom regarded as a kind of puzzle that could only be found out by a lucky chance. And he could tell such wonderful fighting stories about hell of the wind, for instance, and other heroes who were special favourites with Tom because they laid about them with heavy strokes. He had small opinion of Saladin, whose scimitar could cut a cushion in two in an instant. Who wanted to cut cushions? That was a stupid story and he didn't care to hear it again. But when Robert Bruce, on the Black Pony, rose in his stirrups and lifting his good battle axe cracked at once the helmet and the skull of the two hasty knight at Bannockburn, then Tom felt all the exaltation of sympathy. And if he had had a coconut at hand, he would have cracked it at once with the poker. Philip, in his happier moods, indulged Tom to the top of his bent, heightening the crash and bang and fury of every fight with all the artillery of epithets and similes at his command. But he was not always in a good humour or happy mood. The slight spurt of PV susceptibility which had escaped him on their first interview was a symptom of a perpetually reoccurring mental ailment. Half of it nervous irritability, half of it the hard bitterness produced by the sense of his deformity. In these feats of susceptibility every glance seemed to him to be charged either with offensive pity or with ill repressed disgust. At the very least it was an indifferent glance, and Philip felt indifference as a child of the south feels the chill air of a northern spring. Poor Tom's blundering patronage when they were out of doors together would sometimes make him turn upon the well-meaning lead quite savagely, and his eyes, usually sail and quiet, would flash with anything but playful lightening. No wonder Tom retained his suspicions of the humpback. But Philip's self-taught skill in drawing was another link between them. For Tom found to his disgust that his new drawing master gave him no dogs and donkeys to draw, but brooks and rustic bridges and ruins, all with a general softness of black-lead surface indicating that nature, if anything, was rather certainly. And as Tom's feeling for the picturesque and landscape was at present quite latent, it is not surprising that Mr. Goodrich's productions seemed to him an interesting form of art. Mr. Tulliver, having a vague intention that Tom should be put to some business which included the drawing out of plans and maps, had complained to Mr. Riley, when he saw him at Mudport, that Tom seemed to be learning nothing of that sort, whereupon that obliging advisor had suggested that Tom should have drawing lessons. Mr. Tulliver must not mind paying extra for drawing, let Tom be made a good draftsman, and he would be able to turn his pencil to any purpose. So it was ordered that Tom should have drawing lessons, and whom should Mr. Stelling have selected as a master, if not Mr. Goodrich, who was considered quite at the head of his profession within a circle of 12 miles round King's Lawton, though which means Tom learned to make an extremely fine point to his pencil, and to represent landscape with a broad generality, which doubtless from a narrow tendency of his mind to details, he thought extremely dull. All this, you remember, happened in those dark ages when there were no schools of design, before school masters were invariably men of scrupless integrity, and before the clergy were all men of enlarged minds and varied culture. In those less favoured days it is no fable that there were other clergymen beside Mr. Stelling, who had narrow intellects and large wants, and whose income, by a logical confusion to which fortune, being a female as well as blindfold, is particularly liable, was proportioned not to their wants, but to their intellect, with which income has clearly no inherent relation. The problem these gentlemen had to solve was to readjust the proportion between their wants and their income, and since wants are not easily starved to death, the simpler method appeared to be to raise their income. There was but one way of doing this, any of those low callings in which men and obliges to do good work at a low price were forgiven to clergymen, was that their fault, if their only resource, was to turn out very poor work at a high price. Besides, how could Mr. Stelling be expected to know that education was a delicate and difficult business? Any more than an animal endowed with the power of boring a hole through a rock should be expected to have wide views of excavation. Mr. Stelling's faculties had been early trained to boring in a straight line, and he had no faculty to spare. But amongst Tom's contemporaries, whose fathers cast their sons on clerical instruction to find them ignorant after many days, there were many far less lucky than Tom Tullivan. Education was almost entirely a matter of luck, usually of ill luck in those distant days. The state of mind in which you take a billiard cue or a dice box in your hand is one of sober certainty compared with that of old fashioned fathers like Mr. Tullivan when they selected a school or a tutor for their sons. Excellent men who had been forced all their lives to spell on an impromptu phonetic system, and having carried on a successful business in spite of this disadvantage, had acquired money enough to give their sons a better start in life than they had had themselves, must necessarily take their chance as to the conscience and competence of the schoolmaster whose circular fell their way, and appeared to promise so much more than they would ever thought of asking for, including the return of linen fork and spoon. It was happy for them if some ambitious draper of their acquaintance had not brought up his son to the church, and if that young gentleman at the age of four and twenty had not closed his college dissipations by an imprudent marriage. Otherwise, these innocent fathers, desirous of doing the best for their offspring, could only escape the draper's son by happening to be on the foundation of a grammar school as yet unvisited by commissioners, where two or three boys could have all to themselves the advantages of a large and lofty building, together with a headmaster, toothless, dim-eyed and deaf, whose urethite indistinctness and inattention were engrossed by them at the rate of 300 pounds ahead. A ripe scholar, doubtless, went first appointed, but all ripeness beneath the sun had a further stage less esteemed in the market. Tom Tulliver then, compared with many other British youths of his time who have since had to scramble through life with some fragments of more or less relevant knowledge and a great deal of strictly relevant ignorance, was not so very unlucky. Mr. Stelling was a broad-chested, healthy man with the bearing of a gentleman, a conviction that a growing boy required a sufficiency of beef and a certain hearty kindness in him that made him like to see Tom looking well and enjoying his dinner. Not a man of refined conscience or with any deep sense of infinite issues belonging to everyday duties, not quite competent to his high officers, but incompetent gentleman must live, and without a private fortune, it is difficult to see how they could all live gently if they had nothing to do with education or government. Besides, it was the fault of Tom's mental constitution that his faculties could not be nourished on the sort of knowledge Mr. Stelling had to communicate. A boy, born with a deficient power of apprehending science and abstractions, must suffer the penalty of his congenital deficiency, just as if he had been born with one leg shorter than the other. A method of education sanctioned by the long practice of our venerable ancestors was not to give way before the exceptional dullness of a boy who was merely living at the time then present. And Mr. Stelling was convinced that a boy so stupid at science and abstractions must be stupid at everything else, even if that reverent gentleman could have taught him everything else. It was the practice of our venerable ancestors to apply that ingenuous instrument, the thumbscrew, and to tighten and tighten it in order to elicit non-existent facts. They had a fixed opinion to begin with that the facts were existent, and what had they to do but tighten the thumbscrew. In like manner Mr. Stelling had a fixed opinion that all boys with any capacity could learn when it was the only regular thing to teach. If that was slow the thumbscrew must be tightened, the exercises must be insisted upon with increased severity, and a page of verge will be awarded as a penalty to encourage and stimulate a too languid inclination to Latin verse. The thumbscrew was a little relaxed however during the second half year. Philip was so advanced in his studies and so apt that Mr. Stelling could obtain credit by his facility which required little help much more easily than by the troublesome process of overcoming Tom's dullness. Gentlemen with broad gist and ambitious intentions do sometimes disappoint their friends by failing to carry the world before them. Perhaps it is that high achievements demand some another unusual qualification, beside an unusual desire for high prizes. Perhaps it is that these stalwart gentlemen are rather indolent, their divinia particulam ore being obstructed from soaring by a too hearty appetite. Some reason there was one Mr. Stelling deferred the execution of many spirited projects while he did not begin the editing of his Greek play or any other work of his scholarship in his leisure hours. But after turning the key of his private study with much resolution sat down to one of Theodore Hook's novels. Tom was gradually allowed to shuffle through his lessons with less rigor and having Philip to help him he was able to make some show of having applied his mind in a confused and blundering way without being cross-examined into a betrayal that his mind had been entirely neutral in the matter. He thought school much more bearable under this modification of circumstances and he went on contentedly enough picking up a promiscuous education chiefly from things that were not intended as education at all. What was understood to be his education was simply the practice of reading, writing and spelling carried on by an elaborate appraise of unintelligible ideas and by much failure in the effort to learn by rote. Nevertheless there was a visible improvement in Tom under this training perhaps because he was not a boy in the abstract existing solely to illustrate the evils of a mistaken education but a boy made a flesh and blood with dispositions not entirely at the mercy of circumstances. There was a great improvement in his bearing for example and some credit on this score was due to Mr. Poulter the village schoolmaster who being an old peninsula soldier was employed to drill Tom a source of high mutual pleasure. Mr. Poulter who was understood by the company at the Black Swan to have once struck terror into the hearts of the French was no longer personally formidable. He had rather a shrunken appearance and was tremulous in the morning not from age but from the extreme perversity of the king's lord and boys which nothing but gin could enable him to sustain with any firmness. Still he carried himself with martial aggressiveness, had his clothes scrupulously brushed and his trousers tightly strapped and on the Wednesday and Saturday afternoons when he came to Tom he was always inspired with gin and old memories which gave him an exceptionally spirited air as of a superannuated charger who hears the drum. The drilling exercises were always protected by episodes of warlike narrative much more interesting to Tom than Philip's stories out of the Iliad. For there were no cannon in the Iliad and besides Tom had felt some disgust by learning that Hector and Achilles might possibly never have existed but the Duke of Wellington was really alive and Boney had not been long dead therefore Mr. Polter's reminiscences of the Peninsula War were removed from all suspicion of being mythical. Mr. Polter, it appeared, had been a conspicuous figure at Talavera and had contributed not a little to the peculiar terror with which his regiment of infantry was regarded by the enemy. On afternoons when his memory was more stimulated than usual he remembered that the Duke of Wellington had in strict privacy less jealousies be awaited expressed his esteem for that fine fellow Polter. The very surgeon who attended him in the hospital after he had received his gunshot wound had been profoundly impressed with the superiority of Mr. Polter's flesh. No other flesh would have held in anything like the same time. Unless personal matters connected with the important warfare with which he had been engaged Mr. Polter was more reticent only taking care not to give a weight of his authority to any loose notions concerning military history. Anyone who pretended to a knowledge of what occurred at the Siege of Podogus was especially an object of silent pity to Mr. Polter. He wished that prating person had been run down and had the breath trampled out of him in the first go off as he himself had. He might talk about the Siege of Podogus then. Tom did not escape irritating his drilling master occasionally by his curiosity concerning other military matters than Mr. Polter's personal experience. And General Wolfe, Mr. Polter, 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 Boney. Not at all, said Mr. Polter contemptuously. Nothing of the sort. Heads up, he said, 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. Polter would continue on becoming to a pause in his discipline. They'd better not talk to me about General Wolfe. He did nothing but dive his wound. That's a poor action, I consider. Any other man would have died of the wounds I've had. One of my sword cuts could have killed a fellow like General Wolfe. Mr. Polter, 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. Polter only shook his head in a significant manner at this request, and smiled patring nisingly, as Jupiter might have done when Somerli urged her two ambitious requests. But one afternoon, when a sudden shower of heavy rain had detained Mr. Polter 20 minutes longer than usual in the Black Swan, the sword was bought, just for Tom to look at. And is this the real sword that you fought with in all the battles, Mr. Polter, said Tom, handling the hill, has it ever cut a Frenchman's head off? Head off? I, and would have if he'd had three heads. But you have a gun and bayonet, besides, said Tom. I should like the gun and the bayonet best, because you could shoot on first and spear them after. Bang! 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. Polter, involuntary falling in with Tom's enthusiasm, and drawing the sword so suddenly that Tom let back with much agility. Oh, but Mr. Polter, if you're going to do the exercise, said Tom, a little conscious that he had not stood his ground as we came in Englishmen, let me go and call Philip. He'd like to see you, you know. What? The hunchback led, said Mr. Polter 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. Polter, coughing and drawing himself up, while he gave a little preliminary play to his wrist. Tom ran into Philip, who was enjoying his afternoon's holiday at the piano in the drawing room, picking out for 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 corners, and his lips wide open, sending forth with all his might, impromptu syllables to a tune of irons which had hit his fancy. Come, Philip, said Tom, bursting in. Don't stay roaring, lala there. Come and see old Polter 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 Mr. Polter, the drilling master. And Tom, in the hurry of seizing something to say to prevent Mr. Polter from thinking he was afraid of the sword when he sprang away from it, had a lighted 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 for his music. Then, turning red, he said with violent passion, go 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 know 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 the slammed doors within the hearing of Mrs. Delling, who was probably not far off, was an offence only to be wiped out by twenty lines of Virgil. In fact, the 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 hassec and crying bitterly. What's the matter, Waken? 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. Delling. 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 towards a good understanding, very much as a caressed mollusk meets an invitation to show himself out of his shell. Mrs. Delling 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 crime. He had to accept Oda 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. Polter, with a fixed and earnest eye, wasting the perfections of his sword exercise, unprobably observant, but inappreciative, rats. But Mr. Polter 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. Polter's fixed eye and hungry-looking sword, which seemed impatient for something else to cut beside the air, admired the performance from as great a distance as possible. It was not until Mr. Polter paused and wiped the perspiration from his forehead that Tom felt the full charm of the sword exercise and wished it could be repeated. Mr. Polter said, Tom, when the sword was being finely sheathed, I wish you'd lend me your sword a little while to keep. No, no, young gentleman, said Mr. Polter, shaking his head decidedly. You might do yourself some mischief with it. No, I'm sure I wouldn't. I'd 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. Polter, preparing to depart. What did Mr. Sterling say to me? Oh, I say do, Mr. Polter. I'll give you my five-shelling piece if you'll 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'd been a philosopher. Well, said Mr. Polter, 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. Polter felt that he had acted with scrupulous conscientiousness and said, No, now, Master Toliver, if I take the crown piece, it is to make sure you'll do no mischief with the sword. Oh no, indeed, Mr. Polter, said Tom, delightedly handing him the crown piece and grasping the sword which he thought might have been lighter with advantage. But if Mr. Steller catches you carrying it in, said Mr. Polter, pocketing the crown piece provisionally while he raised his new dam. 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 and 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 headed in the closet behind some hanging clothes. That night he fell asleep with 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 no one 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 13 would 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 liked to fancy themselves soldiers. War, like other dramatic spectacles, might possibly cease for want of a public. End of Chapter 4. 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 in the most inventive 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 made part of his feeling as to the relation between himself and his dubious school fellow, who he could neither like nor dislike, that the mere utterance did not make such an epoch to him as it did to Philip. And he had a right to say so when Philip hectored over him, and called him names. But perceiving that his first advances toward Amity were not met, he relapsed into his least favorable disposition toward Philip, and resolved never to appeal to him either about drawing or exercise again. They were only so far civil to each other as was necessary to prevent their state of feud from being observed by Mr. Stelling, who would have put down such nonsense with great vigor. When Maggie came, however, she could not help looking with growing interest at the new school fellow, although he was the son of that wicked lawyer Wacom, who made her father so angry. She had arrived in the middle of school hours, and had sat by while Philip went through his lessons with Mr. Stelling. Tom some weeks ago had sent her word that Philip knew no end of stories, not stupid stories like hers, and she was convinced now from her own observation that he must be very clever. She hoped he would think her rather clever, too, when she came to talk to him. Maggie, moreover, had rather a tenderness for to form things. She preferred the Rhinect lambs, because it seemed to her that the lambs, which were quite strong and well made, wouldn't mind so much about being petted. And she was especially fond of petting objects that would think it very delightful to be petted by her. She loved Tom very dearly, but she often wished that he cared more about her loving him. I think Philip Wacom seems a nice boy, Tom, she said, when they went out of the study together into the garden to pass the interval before dinner. He couldn't choose his father, you know, and I've read of very bad men who had good sons, as well as good parents who had bad children. And if Philip is good, I think we ought to be the more sorry for him because his father is not a good man. You like him, don't you? Oh, he's a queer fellow, said Tom curtly, and he's as sulky as can be with me, because I told him his father was a rogue, and I had a right to tell him so, for it was true, and he began it with calling me names. But you stop here by yourself a bit, Maggie, will you? I've got something I want to do upstairs. Can't I go too, said Maggie, who in this first day of meeting again loved Tom's shadow. No, it's something I'll tell you about by and by. Not yet, said Tom, skipping away. In the afternoon the boys read their books in the study, preparing the morrow's lessons that they might have a holiday in the evening in honor of Maggie's arrival. Tom was hanging over his Latin grammar, moving his lips inaudibly like a strict but impatient Catholic, repeating his tale of pattern-osters, and Philip, at the other end of the room, was busy with two volumes, with a look of contented diligence that excited Maggie's curiosity. He did not look at all as if he were learning a lesson. She sat on a low stool at nearly a right angle with the two boys, watching first one and then the other, and Philip, looking off his book once toward the fireplace, caught the pair of questioning dark eyes fixed upon him. He thought this sister of Tulliver's seemed a nice little thing, quite unlike her brother. He wished he had a little sister. What was it he wondered that made Maggie's dark eyes remind him of the stories about princesses being turned into animals? I think it was that her eyes were full of unsatisfied intelligence and unsatisfied beseeching affection. I say, Magsy, said Tom at last, shutting his books and putting them away with the energy and decision of a perfect master in the art of leaving off. I've done my lessons now, come upstairs with me. What is it, said Maggie, when they were outside the door, a slight suspicion crossing her mind as she remembered Tom's preliminary visit upstairs. It isn't a trick you're going to play me now. No, no, Maggie, said Tom in his most coaxing tone. It's something you'll like ever so. He put his arm round her neck and she put hers round his waist and twined together in this way they went upstairs. I say, Magsy, you must not tell anybody you know, said Tom, else I shall get fifty lines. Is it alive, said Maggie, whose imagination had settled for the moment on the idea that Tom kept a ferret clandestinely? Oh, I shan't tell you, said he. Now you go into that corner and hide your face while I reach it out. He added as he locked the bedroom door behind them. I'll tell you when to turn round. You mustn't squeal out, you know. Oh, but if you frighten me, I shall, said Maggie, beginning to look rather serious. You won't be frightened, you silly thing, said Tom. Go and hide your face and mind you don't peep. Of course I shan't, peep, said Maggie, disdainfully, and she buried her face in the pillow like a person of strict honour. But Tom looked round warily as he walked to the closet. Then he stepped into the narrow space and almost closed the door. Maggie kept her face buried without the aid of principle, for in that dream suggestive attitude she had soon forgotten where she was and her thoughts were busy with the poor deformed boy who was so clever when Tom called out. Now then, Magsy, nothing but long meditation and preconcerted arrangement of effects could have enabled Tom to present so striking a figure as he did to Maggie when she looked up. Disatisfied with the pacific aspect of a face which had no more than the faintest tint of flaxen eyebrow, together with a pair of amiable blue-gray eyes and round pink cheeks that refused to look formidable, led him frown as he would before the looking-glass. Philip had once told him of a man who had a horseshoe frown and Tom had tried with all his frowning might to make a horseshoe on his forehead. He had had recourse to that unfailing source of the terrible burnt cork and had made himself a pair of black eyebrows that met in a satisfactory manner over his nose and were matched by a less carefully adjusted blackness about the chin. He had wound a red handkerchief round his cloth cap to give it the air of a turban and his red comforter across his breast as a scarf. An amount of red which, with tremendous frown on his brow and the decision with which he grasped the sword as he held it with its point resting on the ground, would suffice to convey an approximate idea of his fierce and bloodthirsty disposition. Maggie looked bewildered for a moment and Tom enjoyed that moment keenly, but in the next she laughed, clapped her hands together and said, Oh, Tom, you've made yourself like Bluebeard at the show. It was clear she had not been struck with the presence of the sword. It was not unsheathed. Her frivolous mind required a more direct appeal to its sense of the terrible and Tom prepared for his master's stroke. Frowning with a double amount of intention, if not of corrugation, he carefully drew the sword from its sheath and pointed it at Maggie. Oh, Tom, please don't, exclaimed Maggie in a tone of suppressed dread, shrinking away from him into the opposite corner. I shall scream, I'm sure I shall. Oh, don't I wish I'd never come upstairs? The corners of Tom's mouth showed an inclination to a smile of complacency that was immediately checked as inconsistent with the severity of a great warrior. Slowly he let down the scabbard on the floor, lest it should make too much noise, and then said sternly, I'm the Duke of Wellington, March. Stamping forward with the right leg a little bent and the sword still pointing toward Maggie, who, trembling and with tear-filled eyes, got upon the bed as the only means of widening the space between them. Tom, happy in this spectator of his military performances, even though the spectator was only Maggie, proceeded, with the utmost exertion of his force, to such an exhibition of the cut and thrust as would necessarily be expected of the Duke of Wellington. Tom, I will not bear it, I will scream, said Maggie at the first movement of the sword. You'll hurt yourself, you'll cut your head off. One, two, said Tom, resolutely, though at two his wrist trembled a little. Three came more slowly, and with it the sword swung downward, and Maggie gave a loud shriek. The sword had fallen with its edge on Tom's foot, and in a moment after he had fallen too. Maggie leaped from the bed, still shrieking, and immediately there was a rush of footsteps toward the room. Mr. Stelling from his upstairs study was the first to enter. He found both the children on the floor. Tom had fainted and Maggie was shaking him by the collar of his jacket, screaming with wild eyes. She thought he was dead, poor child, and yet she shook him as if that would bring him back to life. In another minute she was sobbing with joy because Tom opened his eyes. She couldn't sorrow yet that he had hurt his foot, as seemed as if all happiness lay in his being alive. End of Book 2, Chapter 5, Recording by Leanne Howlett. Book 2, Chapter 6, Of the Mill on the Floss This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott. Book 2, Chapter 6, A Love Scene Poor Tom bore his severe pain heroically and was resolute in not telling of Mr. Polter more than was unavoidable. The five shilling piece remained a secret even to Maggie, but there was a terrible dread weighing on his mind, so terrible that he dared not even ask the question which might bring the fatal yes. He dared not ask the surgeon or Mr. Stelling. Shall I be lame, sir? He mastered himself so as not to cry out at the pain, but when his foot had been dressed and he was left alone with Maggie seated by his bedside, the children sobbed together with their heads laid on the same pillow. Tom was thinking of himself walking about on crutches, like the Wheelwright's son, and Maggie, who did not guess what was in his mind, sobbed for company. It had not occurred to the surgeon or to Mr. Stelling to anticipate this dread in Tom's mind and to reassure him by hopeful words, but Philip watched the surgeon out of the house and way-laid Mr. Stelling to ask the very question that Tom had not dared to ask for himself. I beg your pardon, sir, but does Mr. Asker and say Tullerville will be lame? Oh no, oh no, said Mr. Stelling, not permanently, only for a little while. Did he tell Tullerville so, sir, do you think? No, nothing was said to him on the subject. Then may I go and tell him, sir? Yes, to be sure. Now you mention it. I dare say he may be troubling about that. Go to his bedroom, but be very quiet at present. It had been Philip's first thought when he heard of the accident. Will Tullerville be lame? It would be very hard for him if he is. And Tom's hitherto unforgiven offenses were washed out by that pity. Philip felt that they were no longer in a state of repulsion what were being drawn into a common current of suffering and sad privation. His imagination did not dwell on the outward calamity and its future effect on Tom's life, but it made vividly present to him the probable state of Tom's feeling. Philip had only lived fourteen years, but those years had, most of them, been steeped in the sense of a lot, irremediably hard. Mr. Askern says you'll soon be all right again, Tulliver. Did you know? He said rather timidly as he stepped gently up to Tom's bed. I've just been to ask Mr. Stelling, and he says you'll walk as well as ever again by and day. Tom looked up with that momentary stopping of the breath which comes with a sudden joy. Then he gave a long sigh and turned his blue-gray eyes straight on Philip's face as he had not done for a fortnight or more. As for Maggie, this intimation of a possibility she had not thought of before affected her as a new trouble. The bare idea of Tom's being always lame overpowered the assurance that such a misfortune was not likely to befall him, and she clung to him and cried afresh. Don't be a little silly, Magsy, said Tom, tenderly, feeling very brave now. I shall soon get well. Good-bye, Tulliver, said Philip, putting out his small, delicate hand, which Tom clasped immediately with his more substantial fingers. I say, said Tom, ask Mr. Stelling to let you come and sit with me sometimes till I get up again, wake him, and tell me about Robert Bruce, you know. After that, Philip spent all his time out of school hours with Tom and Maggie. Tom liked to hear fighting stories as much as ever, but he assisted strongly on the fact that those great fighters, who did so many wonderful things and came off unhurt, wore excellent armor from head to foot, which made fighting easy work, he considered. He should not have hurt his foot if he had had an iron shoe on. He listened with great interest to a new story of Philip's about a man who had a very bad wound in his foot and cried out so dreadfully with the pain that his friends could bear with him no longer, but put him ashore on a desert island with nothing but some wonderful poisoned arrows to kill animals with for food. I didn't roar out a bit, you know, Tom said, and I dare say my foot was as bad as his. It's cowardly to roar. But Maggie would have it that when anything hurt you very much, it was quite permissible to cry out, and it was cruel of people not to bear it. She wanted to know if Philip Tadeis had a sister and why she didn't go with him on the desert island and take care of him. One day, soon after Philip had told this story, he and Maggie were in the study alone together while Tom's foot was being dressed. Philip was at his books, and Maggie, after sauntering idly round the room, not caring to do anything in particular, because she would soon go to Tom again, went and leaned on the table near Philip to see what he was doing, for they were quite old friends now and perfectly at home with each other. What are you reading about in Greek, she said? It's poetry, I can see that, because the lines are so short. It's about Philip Tadeis. The lame man I was telling you of yesterday, he answered, resting his head on his hand, and looking at her as if you were not at all sorry to be interrupted. Maggie, in her absent way, continued to lean forward, resting on her arms and moving her feet about, while her dark eyes got more and more fixed and vacant, as if she had quite forgotten Philip and his book. Maggie, said Philip, after a minute or two, still leaning on his elbow and looking at her, if you had had a brother like me, do you think you should have loved him as well as Tom? Maggie started a little on being roused from her reverie and said, what? Philip repeated his question. Oh, yes, better, she answered immediately. No, not better, because I don't think I could love you better than Tom, but I should be so sorry, so sorry for you. Philip colored. He had meant to imply, which she loved him as well in spite of his deformity, and yet when she alluded to it so plainly, he winced under her pity. Maggie, young as she was, felt her mistake. Hitherto, she had instinctively behaved as if she were quite unconscious of Philip's deformity. Her own keen sensitiveness and experience under family criticism suffice to teach her this as well as if she had been directed by the most finished breeding. But you are so very clever, Philip, and you can play and sing, she added quickly. I wish you were, my brother. I'm very fond of you, and you would stay at home with me when Tom went out, and you would teach me everything, wouldn't you? Greek and everything? But you'll go away soon and go to school, Maggie, said Philip, and then you'll forget all about me and not care for me any more, and then I shall see you when you're grown up and you'll hardly take any notice of me. Oh, no, I shan't forget you, I'm sure, said Maggie, shaking her head very seriously. I never forget anything, and I think about everybody when I'm away from them. I think about poor Yap. He's got a lump in his throat, and Luke says he'll die. Only don't you tell Tom, because it will vex him so. You never saw Yap. He's a queer little dog. Nobody cares about him but Tom and me. Do you care as much about me as you do about Yap, Maggie? said Philip, smiling rather sadly. Oh, yes, I should think so, said Maggie, laughing. I'm very fond of you, Maggie. I shall never forget you, said Philip, and when I'm very unhappy, I shall always think of you and wish I had a sister with dark eyes, just like yours. Why do you like my eyes? said Maggie, well pleased. She had never heard anyone but her father speak of her eyes as if they had merit. I don't know, said Philip. They're not like any other eyes. They seem trying to speak, trying to speak kindly. I don't like other people to look at me much, but I like you to look at me, Maggie. Why, I think you're fonder of me than Tom is, said Maggie, rather sorrowfully. Then, wondering how she could convince Philip that she could like him just as well, although he was crooked, she said. Should you like me to kiss you as I do, Tom? I will, if you like. Yes, very much, nobody kisses me. Maggie put her arm round his neck and kissed him quite earnestly. There, now, she said, I shall always remember you and kiss you when I see you again, if it's ever so long. But I'll go now, because I think Mr. Asker is dumb with Tom's foot. When their father came the second time, Maggie said to him, Oh, Father, Philip Wakeham is so very good to Tom. He is such a clever boy, and I do love him. And you love him too, Tom, don't you? Say you love him, she added, and treatingly. Tom colored a little as he looked at his father and said, I shan't be friends with him when I leave school, Father, but we've made it up now, since my foot has been bad, and he's taught me to play at droughts, and I can beat him. Well, well, said Mr. Tulliver, if he's good to you, try and make him amends and be good to him. He's a poor, crooked creature and takes after his dead mother. But don't you be getting too thick with him? He's got his father's blood in him too. I, I, the gray colt may chance to kick like his black sire. The jarring natures of the two boys affected what Mr. Tulliver's admonition alone might have failed to affect, in spite of Philip's new kindness, and Tom's answering regard in this time of his trouble. They never became close friends. When Maggie was gone, and when Tom by and by began to walk about as usual, the friendly warmth that had been kindled by pity and gratitude died out by degrees, and left them in their old relation to each other. Philip was often peevish and contemptuous, and Tom's more specific and kindly impressions gradually melted into the old background of suspicion and dislike toward him as a queer fellow, a humpback and the son of a rogue. If boys and men are to be welded together in the glow of transient feeling, they must be made of metal that will mix, else they inevitably fall asunder when the heat dies out. End of Book 2, Chapter 6, Recording by Leanne Howlett Book 2, Chapter 7 of The Mill on the Floss This is the LibriVox Recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott Book 2, School Time Chapter 7, The Golden Gates Are Past So Tom went on, even to the fifth half year, till he was turned sixteen at King's Lorton, while Maggie was growing with a rapidity, which her aunts considered highly reprehensible, at Miss Furness' boarding school in the ancient town of Laysum on the Floss, with cousin Lucy for her companion. In her early letters to Tom, she had always sent her love to Philip and asked many questions about him, which were answered by brief sentences about Tom's toothache and a turf house which he was helping to build in the garden with other items of that kind. She was pained to hear Tom say in the holidays that Philip was as queer as ever again and often cross. They were no longer very good friends, she perceived, and when she reminded Tom that he ought always to love Philip for being so good to him when his foot was bad, he answered, Well, it isn't my fault, I don't do anything to him. She hardly ever saw Philip during the remainder of their school life, in the mid-summer holidays he was always away at the seaside, and at Christmas she could only meet him at long intervals in the street of St. Augs. When they did meet, she remembered her promise to kiss him, but as a young lady who had been at a boarding school, she knew now that such a greeting was out of the question, and Philip would not expect it. The promise was void, like so many other sweet illusory promises of our childhood. Void as promises made in Eden before the seasons were divided, and when the starry blossoms grew side by side with the ripening peach, impossible to be fulfilled when the golden gates had been passed. But when their father was actually engaged in the long-threatened lawsuit, and Wacom, as the agent at once of Piverton old Harry, was acting against him, even Maggie felt with some sadness that they were not likely ever to have any intimacy with Philip again. The very name of Wacom made her father angry, and she had once heard him say that if that crook-backed son lived to inherit his father's ill-gotten gains there would be a curse upon him. Have as little to do with him at school as you can, my lad, he said to Tom. And the command was obeyed the more easily because Mr. Sterling by this time had two additional pupils. For though this gentleman's rise in the world was not of that meteor-like rapidity which the admirers of his extemporaneous eloquence had expected for a preacher whose voice demanded so wide a sphere, he had yet enough of growing prosperity to enable him to increase his expenditure and continue disproportion to his income. As for Tom's school course, it went on with mill-like monotony, his mind continuing to move with a slow half-stifled pulse, and a medium uninteresting or unintelligible ideas. But each vacation he brought home larger and larger drawings with a satin-y rendering of landscape and watercolors and vivid greens, together with manuscript books full of exercises and problems, in which the handwriting was all the finer because he gave his whole mind to it. Each vacation he brought home a new book or two, indicating his progress through different stages of history, Christian doctrine, and Latin literature, and that passage was not entirely without results, besides the possession of the books. Tom's ear and tongue had become accustomed to a great many words and phrases which are understood to be signs of an educated condition, and though he had never really applied his mind to any one of his lessons, the lessons had left a deposit of vague, fragmentary, ineffectual notions. Mr. Tulliver, seeing signs of acquirement beyond the reach of his own criticism, thought it was probably all right with Tom's education. He observed, indeed, that there were no maps and not enough summing, but he made no formal complaint to Mr. Stelling. It was a puzzling business, this schooling, and if he took Tom away, where could he send him with better effect? By the time Tom had reached his last quarter at King's Lorton, the years had made striking changes in him since the day we saw him returning from Mr. Jacob's Academy. He was a tall youth now, carrying himself without the least awkwardness, and speaking without more shyness than was a becoming symptom of blended diffidence and pride. He wore his tailcoat in his stand-up collars and watched the down on his lip with eager impatience, looking every day at his virgin razor with which he had provided himself in the last holidays. Philip had already left, at the autumn quarter, that he might go to the south for the winter, for the sake of his help, and this change helped to give Tom the unsettled, exultant feeling that usually belongs to the last months before leaving school. This quarter, too, there was some hope of his father's lawsuit being decided. That made the prospect of home more entirely pleasurable. For Tom, who had gathered his view of the case from his father's conversation, had no doubt that Pivot would be beaten. Tom had not heard anything from home for some weeks, a fact which did not surprise him, for his father and mother were not apt to manifest their affection and unnecessary letters. When, to his great surprise, on the morning of a dark, cold day near the end of November, he was told, soon after entering the study at nine o'clock, that his sister was in the drawing room. It was Mrs. Telling who had come into the study to tell him, and she left him to enter the drawing room alone. Maggie, too, was tall now with braided and coiled hair. She was almost as tall as Tom, though she was only thirteen, and she really looked older than he did at that moment. She had thrown off her bonnet, her heavy braids were pushed back from her forehead, as if it would not bear that extra load, and her young face had a strangely worn look as her eyes turned anxiously toward the door. When Tom entered, she did not speak, but only went up to him, put her arms around his neck, and kissed him earnestly. He was used to various moods of hers, and felt no alarm at the unusual seriousness of her greeting. Why, how is it you come so early this cold morning, Maggie? Did you come in the gig? said Tom, as she backed toward the sofa and drew him to her side. No, I came by the coach. I've walked from the turnpike. But how is it you're not at school? The holidays have not begun yet. Father wanted me at home, said Maggie, with a slight trembling of the lip. I came home three or four days ago. Isn't my father well? said Tom, rather anxiously. Not quite, said Maggie. He's very unhappy, Tom. The lawsuit has ended, and I came to tell you, because I thought it would be better for you to know it before you came home, and I didn't like only to send you a letter. My father hasn't lost, said Tom hastily, springing from the sofa and standing before Maggie with his hands suddenly thrust into his pockets. Yes, dear Tom, said Maggie, looking up at him with trembling. Tom was silent a minute or two with his eyes fixed on the floor, then he said. My father will have to pay a great deal of money then? Yes, said Maggie rather faintly. Well, it can't be helped, said Tom bravely, not translating the loss of a large sum of money into any tangible results. But my father is very much vexed, I dare say. He added, looking at Maggie and thinking that her agitated face was only part of her girlish way of taking things. Yes, said Maggie again faintly. Then, urged to fuller speech by Tom's freedom from apprehension, she said loudly and rapidly as if the words would burst from her. Oh, Tom, he will lose the mill and the land and everything. He will have nothing left. Tom's eyes flashed out one look of surprise at her before he turned pale and trembled visibly. He said nothing but sat down on the sofa again, looking vaguely out of the opposite window. Anxiety about the future had never entered Tom's mind. His father had always ridden a good horse, kept a good house, and had the cheerful confident air of a man who was plenty of property to fall back upon. Tom had never dreamed that his father would fail. That was a form of misfortune which he had always heard spoken of as a deep disgrace, and disgrace was an idea that he could not associate with any of his relations, least of all with his father. A proud sense of family respectability was part of the very air Tom had been born and brought up in. He knew there were people in St. Augs who made a show without money to support it, and he had always heard such people spoken of by his own friends with contempt and reprobation. He had a strong belief, which was a lifelong habit, and required no definite evidence to rest on, that his father could spend a great deal of money if he chose. And since his education at Mr. Stellings had given him a more expensive view of life, he had often thought that when he got older he would make a figure in the world, with his horse and dogs and saddle, and other accoutrements of a fine young man, and show himself equal to any of his contemporaries at St. Augs, who might consider themselves a great above him in society because their fathers were professional men or had large oil mills. As to the prognostics and head shaking of his aunts and uncles, they had never produced the least effect on him, except to make him think that aunts and uncles were disagreeable society. He had heard them find fault in much the same way as long as he could remember. His father knew better than they did. The down had come on Tom's lip, yet his thoughts and expectations had been hitherto only the reproduction and changed forms of the boyish dreams in which he had lived three years ago. He was awakened now with a violent shock. Maggie was frightened at Tom's pale, trembling silence. There was something else to tell him, something worse. She threw her arms round him at last and said with a half sob, Oh, Tom, dear, dear, Tom, don't fret too much. Try and bear it well. Tom turned his cheek passively to meet her in treating kisses, and there gathered a moisture in his eyes, which he just rubbed away with his hand. The action seemed to rouse him, for he shook himself and said, I shall go home with you, Maggie. Didn't my father say I was to go? No, Tom. Father didn't wish it, said Maggie. Her anxiety about his feeling, helping her to master her agitation. What would he do when she told him all? But mother wants you to come. Poor mother. She cries so. Oh, Tom, it's very dreadful at home. Maggie's lips grew wider, and she began to tremble almost as Tom had done. The two poor things clung closer to each other, both trembling, the one at an unshapen fear, the other at the image of a terrible certainty, when Maggie spoke it was hardly above a whisper, and poor father. Maggie could not utter it, but the suspense was intolerable to Tom. A vague idea of going to prison as a consequence of debt was the shape his fears had begun to take. Where's my father, he said impatiently. Tell me, Maggie. He's at home, said Maggie, finding it easier to reply to that question. But, she added, after a pause. Not himself. He fell off his horse. He has known nobody but me ever since. He seems to have lost his senses. Oh, Father. Father. With these last words, Maggie's sobs burst forth with the more violence for the previous struggle against them. Tom felt that pressure of the heart which forbids tears. He had no distinct vision of their troubles as Maggie had, who had been at home. He only felt the crushing weight of what seemed unmitigated misfortune. He tightened his arm almost convulsively around Maggie as she sobbed, but his face looked rigid and tearless, his eyes blank, as if a black curtain of cloud had suddenly fallen on his path. But Maggie soon checked herself abruptly. A single thought had acted on her like a startling sound. We must set out, Tom. We must not stay. Father will miss me. We must be at the turnpike at ten to meet the coach. She said this with hasty decision, rubbing her eyes and rising to seize her bonnet. Tom at once felt the same impulse and rose too. Wait a minute, Maggie, he said. I must speak to Mr. Stelling and then we'll go. He thought he must go to the study where the pupils were, but on his way he met Mr. Stelling, who had heard from his wife that Maggie appeared to be in trouble when she asked for her brother, and now that he thought the brother and sister had been alone long enough, was coming to inquire and offer his sympathy. Please, sir, I must go home, Tom said abruptly as he met Mr. Stelling in the passage. I must go back with my sister directly. My father's lost his lawsuit, he's lost all his property, and he's very ill. Mr. Stelling felt like a kind-hearted man. He foresaw a probable money loss for himself, but this had no appreciable share in his feeling, while he looked with grave pity at the brother and sister for whom youth and sorrow had begun together. When he knew how Maggie had come, and how eager she was to get home again, he hurried their departure, only whispering something to Mrs. Stelling, who had followed him and who immediately left the room. Tom and Maggie were standing on the doorstep, ready to set out when Mrs. Stelling came with a little basket, which she hung on Maggie's arm, saying, Do remember to eat something on the way, dear. Maggie's heart went out toward this woman whom she had never liked, and she kissed her silently. It was the first sign within the poor child of that new sense, which is the gift of sorrow, that susceptibility to the bare offices of humanity, which raises them into a bond of loving fellowship, as to haggard men among the icebergs, the mere presence of an ordinary comrade, serves the deep fountains of affection. Mr. Stelling put his hand on Tom's shoulder and said, God bless you, my boy. Let me know how you get on. Then he pressed Maggie's hand, but there were no audible goodbyes. Tom had so often thought how joyful he should be the day he left school, for good, and now his school years seemed like a holiday that had come to an end. The two slight youthful figures soon grew indistinct on the distant road, were soon lost behind the projecting hedgerow. They had gone forth together into their life of sorrow, and they would never more see the sunshine undemmed by remembered cares. They had entered the thorny wilderness, and the golden gates of their childhood had forever closed behind them. End of Book II, Chapter VII. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Book III. Chapter I. OF THE MILLE ON THE FLOSS. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox dot org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott. Book III. The Downfall. Chapter I. What Had Happened at Home. When Mr. Tulliver first knew the fact that the lawsuit was decided against him, and that Pivart and Wacom were triumphant, everyone who happened to observe him at the time thought that, for so confident and hot tempered a man, he bore the blow remarkably well. He thought so himself. He thought he was going to show that if Wacom or anybody else considered him crushed, they would find themselves mistaken. He could not refuse to see that the costs of this protracted suit would take more than he possessed to pay them. But he appeared to himself to be full of expedience by which he could ward off any results but such as were tolerable, and could avoid the appearance of breaking down in the world. All the obstinacy and defiance of his nature, driven out of their old channel, found a vent for themselves in the immediate formation of plans by which he would meet his difficulties, and remain Mr. Tulliver of Doralcult Mill in spite of them. There was such a rush of projects in his brain that it was no wonder his face was flushed when he came away from his talk with his attorney, Mr. Gore, and mounted his horse to ride home from Lindem. There was Furley, who held the mortgage on the land, a reasonable fellow who would see his own interest, Mr. Tulliver was convinced, and he would be glad not only to purchase the whole estate, including the mill and homestead, but would accept Mr. Tulliver as tenant, and be willing to advance money to be repaid with high interest out of the profits of the business, which would be made over to him, Mr. Tulliver only taking enough barely to maintain himself and his family. Who would neglect such a profitable investment? Certainly not Furley, for Mr. Tulliver had determined that Furley should meet his plans with the utmost alacrity, and there are men whose brains have not yet been dangerously heated by the loss of a lawsuit who are apt to see in their own interest or desires a motive for other men's actions. There was no doubt in the miller's mind that Furley would do just what was desirable, and if he did, why things would not be so very much worse. Mr. Tulliver and his family must live more meagerly and humbly, but it would only be till the profits of the business had paid off Furley's advances, and that might be while Mr. Tulliver had still a good many years of life before him. It was clear that the costs of the suit could be paid without his being obliged to turn out of his old place and look like a roined man. It was certainly an awkward moment in his affairs. There was that surety ship for poor Riley, who had died suddenly last April and left his friend saddled with the debt of two hundred and fifty pounds, a fact which had helped to make Mr. Tulliver's banking book less pleasant reading that a man might desire toward Christmas. Well, he had never been one of those poor spirited sneaks who would refuse to give a helping hand to a fellow traveler in this puzzling world. The really vexatious business was the fact that some months ago the creditor who had lent him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs. Glag had become uneasy about his money, set on by Wakeham, of course, and Mr. Tulliver, still confident that he should gain his suit and finding it imminently inconvenient to raise the said sum until that desirable issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the demand that he should give a bill of sale on his household furniture and some other effects as security in lieu of the bond. It was all one, he had said to himself, he should soon pay off the money, and there was no harm in giving that security any more than another. But now the consequences of this bill of sale occurred to him in a new light, and he remembered that the time was close at hand when it would be enforced unless the money were repaid. Two months ago he would have declared stoutly that he would never be beholden to his wife's friends, but now he told himself as stoutly that it was nothing but right and natural that Bessie should go to the pullets and explain the thing to them. They would hardly let Bessie's furniture be sold, and it might be security to pull it if he advanced the money. There would, after all, be no gift or favor in the matter. Mr. Tulliver would never have asked for anything from so poor-spirited a fellow for himself, but Bessie might do so if she liked. It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most liable to shift their position and contradict themselves in this sudden manner. Everything is easier to them than to face the simple fact that they have been thoroughly defeated and must begin life anew. And Mr. Tulliver, you perceive, though nothing more than a superior Miller and Malster, was as proud and obstinate as if he had been a very lofty personage in whom such dispositions might be a source of that conspicuous, far-echoing tragedy which sweeps the stage in regal robes and makes the dullest chronicler sublime. The pride and obstinacy of Millers and other insignificant people, whom you pass unnoticingly on the road every day, have their tragedy too. But it is of that unwept, hidden sort that goes on from generation to generation and leaves no record. Such tragedy, perhaps, as lies in the conflicts of young souls, hungry for joy, under a lot made suddenly hard to them, under the dreariness of a home where the morning brings no promise with it, and where the unexpected discontent of worn and disappointed parents weighs on the children like a damp thick air in which all the functions of life are depressed, or such tragedy as lies in the slow or sudden death that follows on a bruised passion, though it may be a death that finds only a parish funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity of position is a law of life. They can never flourish again after a single wrench, and there are certain human beings to whom predominance is a law of life. They can only sustain humiliation so long as they can refuse to believe in it, and in their own conception, predominates still. Mr. Tulliver was still predominating in his own imagination as he approached St. Augs through which he had to pass on his way homeward. But what was it that suggested to him, as he saw the lay some coach entering the town, to follow it to the coach office and get the clerk there to write a letter requiring Maggie to come home the very next day? Mr. Tulliver's own hand shook too much under his excitement for him to write himself, and he wanted the letter to be given to the coachman to deliver at Ms. Furness' school in the morning. There was a craving which he would not account for to himself, to have Maggie near him without delay. She must come back by the coach tomorrow. To Mrs. Tulliver, when he got home, he would admit no difficulties and scolded down her burst of grief on hearing that the lawsuit was lost by angry assertions that there was nothing to grieve about. He said nothing to her that night about the bill of sale and the application to Mrs. Pullett, for he had kept her in ignorance of the nature of that transaction, and had explained the necessity for taking an inventory of the goods as a matter connected with his will. The possession of a wife conspicuously one's inferior in intellect is, like other high privileges, attended with a few inconveniences, and among the rest with the occasional necessity for using a little deception. The next day Mr. Tulliver was again on horseback in the afternoon on his way to Mr. Gore's office at St. Augs. Gore was to have seen furly in the morning and to have sounded him in relation to Mr. Tulliver's affairs, but he had not gone halfway when he met a clerk from Mr. Gore's office, who was bringing a letter to Mr. Tulliver. Mr. Gore had been prevented by a sudden call of business from waiting at his office to see Mr. Tulliver, according to appointment, but would be at his office at eleven tomorrow morning, and meanwhile had sent some important information by letter. Oh! said Mr. Tulliver, taking the letter but not opening it, then tell Gore I'll see him tomorrow at eleven, and he churned his horse. The clerk, struck with Mr. Tulliver's glistening, excited glance, looked after him for a few moments, and then rode away. The reading of a letter was not the affair of an instant to Mr. Tulliver. He took in the sense of a statement very slowly through the medium of written or even printed characters, so he had put the letter in his pocket, thinking he would open it in his armchair at home. But by and by it occurred to him that there might be something in the letter Mrs. Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to keep it out of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse, took out the letter, and read it. It was only a short letter. The substance was that Mr. Gore had ascertained, on secret, but sure authority, that Furley had been lately much straightened for money and had parted with his securities, among the rest the mortgage on Mr. Tulliver's property, which he had transferred to, Wakeham. In half an hour after this, Mr. Tulliver's own wagoner found him lying by the roadside insensible, with an open letter near him and his gray horse snuffing uneasily about him. When Maggie reached home that evening in obedience to her father's call, he was no longer insensible. About an hour before he had become conscious, and after vague, vacant looks around him, had muttered something about a letter which he presently repeated impatiently. At the instance of Mr. Turnbull, the medical man, Gore's letter was brought and laid on the bed, and the previous impatient seemed to be allayed. The stricken man laid for some time with his eyes fixed on the letter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help. But presently a new wave of memory seemed to have come and swept the other away. He turned his eyes from the letter to the door, and after looking uneasily, as if striving to see something his eyes were too dim for, he said, the little winch. He repeated the words impatiently from time to time, appearing entirely unconscious of everything, except this one important want, and giving no sign of knowing his why for anyone else. And poor Mrs. Tulliver, her feeble faculties almost paralyzed by this sudden accumulation of troubles, went backward and forward to the gate to see if the lay some coach were coming, though it was not yet time. But it came at last and sat down the poor anxious girl, no longer the little winch, except to her father's fond memory. Oh, mother, what is the matter, Maggie said, with pale lips as her mother came toward her crying. She didn't think her father was ill, because the letter had come at his dictation from the office at St. Augs. But Mr. Turnbull came now to meet her, a medical man as the good angel of the troubled house, and Maggie ran toward the kind old friend, whom she remembered as long as she could remember anything, with a trembling, questioning look. Don't alarm yourself too much, my dear, he said, taking her hand. Your father has had a sudden attack, and has not quite recovered his memory, but he has been asking for you, and it will do him good to see you. Keep as quiet as you can, take off your things, and come upstairs with me. Maggie obeyed, with that terrible beating of the heart which makes existence seem simply a painful pulsation. The very quietness with which Mr. Turnbull spoke had frightened her susceptible imagination. Her father's eyes were still turned uneasily toward the door when she entered, and met the strange, yearning, helpless look that had been seeking her in vain. With a sudden flash and movement he raised himself in the bed. She rushed toward him, and clasped him with agonized kisses. Poor child, it was very early for her to know one of those supreme moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we can dread or endure, falls away from our regard as insignificant, is lost, like a trivial memory, and that simple primitive love which nits us to the beings who have been nearest to us in their times of helplessness or of anguish. But that flash of recognition had been too great a strain on the father's bruised and feeble powers. He sank back again in renewed insensibility and rigidity, which lasted for many hours, and was only broken by a flickering return of consciousness, in which he took passively everything that was given to him, and seemed to have a sort of infantile satisfaction in Maggie's near presence, such satisfaction as a baby has when it is returned to the nurse's lap. Mrs. Tullover sent for her sisters, and there was much wailing and lifting up of hands below stairs. Both uncles and aunts saw that the roine of Bessie and her family was as complete as they'd ever foreboded it, and there was a general family sense that a judgment had fallen on Mr. Tullover, which it would be an impiety to counteract by too much kindness. But Maggie heard little of this, scarcely ever leaving her father's bedside, where she sat opposite him with her hand on his. Mrs. Tullover wanted to have Tom fetched home, and seemed to be thinking more of her boy even than of her husband. But the aunts and uncles opposed this. Tom was better at school since Mr. Turnbull said there was no immediate danger, he believed. But at the end of the second day, when Maggie had become more accustomed to her father's fits of insensibility and to the expectation that he would revive from them, the thought of Tom had become urgent with her, too, and when her mother sat crying at night and saying, My poor lad, it's nothing but right he should come home. Maggie said, Let me go for him and tell him, mother. I'll go to-morrow morning if father doesn't know me and want me. It would be so hard for Tom to come home and not know anything about it beforehand. And the next morning Maggie went, as we have seen, sitting on the coach on their way home, the brother and sister talked to each other in sad, interrupted whispers. They say Mr. Wacom has got a mortgage or something on the land, Tom, said Maggie. It was the letter with that news in it that made father ill, they think. I believe that Scoundrel's been planning all along to ruin my father, said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite conclusion. I'll make him feel for it when I'm a man. Mind you, never speak to Philip again. Oh, Tom, said Maggie in a tone of sad remonstrance, but she had no spirit to dispute anything then, still less to vex Tom by opposing him. End of Book 3, Chapter 1, Recording by Leanne Howlett. Book 3, Chapter 2, of the Mill on the Floss. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Leanne Howlett. The Mill on the Floss by George Elliott. Book 3, The Downfall. Chapter 2, Mrs. Tulliver's Tariffum or Household Gods. When the coach set down Tom and Maggie, it was five hours since she had started from home and she was thinking with some trembling that her father had perhaps missed her and asked for the little winch in vain. She thought of no other change that might have happened. She hurried along the gravel walk and entered the house before Tom, but in the entrance she was startled by a strong smell of tobacco. The parlor door was a jar, that was where the smell came from. It was very strange, could any visitor be smoking at a time like this? Was her mother there? If so, she must be told that Tom was come. Maggie, after this pause of surprise, was only in the act of opening the door when Tom came up and they both looked into the parlor together. There was a coarse, dingy man of whose face Tom had some vague recollection, sitting in his father's chair smoking with a jug and glass beside him. The truth flashed on Tom's mind in an instant. To have the bailiff in the house and to be sold up were phrases which he had been used to, even as a little boy. They were part of the disgrace and misery of failing, of losing all one's money and being ruined, sinking into the condition of poor working people. It seemed only natural this should happen since his father had lost all his property and he thought of no more special cause for this particular form of misfortune than the loss of the lawsuit. But the immediate presence of this disgrace was so much keener and experienced to Tom in the worst form of apprehension that he felt at this moment as if his real trouble had only just begun. It was a touch on the irritated nerve compared with its spontaneous dull aching. How do you do, sir? Said the man, taking the pipe out of his mouth with rough embarrassed civility. The two young startled faces made him a little uncomfortable. But Tom turned away hastily without speaking. The sight was too hateful. Maggie had not understood the appearance of this stranger as Tom had. She followed him whispering, Who can it be, Tom? What is the matter? Then, with a sudden undefined dread, lest this stranger might have something to do with a change in her father, she rushed upstairs, checking herself at the bedroom door to throw off her bonnet and enter on tiptoe. All was silent there. Her father was lying, heathless of everything around him with his eyes closed as when she had left him. A servant was there, but not her mother. Where's my mother? She whispered. The servant did not know. Maggie hastened out and said to Tom, Father is lying quiet. Let us go and look for my mother. I wonder where she is. Mrs. Toliver was not downstairs, not in any of the bedrooms. There was but one room below the attic which Maggie had left unsearched. It was the store room where her mother kept all her linen and all the precious best things that were only unwrapped and brought out on special occasions. Tom, preceding Maggie, as every turned along the passage, opened the door of this room and immediately said, Mother, Mrs. Toliver was seated there with all her laid-up treasures. One of the linen chests was open. The silver teapot was unwrapped from its many folds of paper and the best china was laid out on the top of the closed linen chest. Spoons and skewers and ladles were spread and rose on the shelves and the poor woman was shaking her head and weeping with a bitter tension of the mouth over the mark. Elizabeth Dodson on the corner of some tablecloth she held in her lap. She dropped them and started up as Tom spoke. Oh, my boy, my boy, she said, clasping him round the neck. To think as I should live to see this day, we're roined. Everything's going to be sold up. To think as your father should have married me to bring me to this. We've got nothing. We shall be beggars. We must go to the workhouse. She kissed him then seated herself again and took another tablecloth on her lap, unfolding in a little way to look at the pattern while the children stood by in mute wretchedness. Their minds quite filled for the moment with the words beggars and workhouse. To think of these cloths as I spun myself, she went on, lifting things out and turning them over with an excitement to all the more strange and piteous because the stout blonde woman was usually so passive. If she had been ruffled before, it was at the surface merely. And Job, Haxie, Wovem, and brought the peace home on his back as I remember standing at the door and seeing him come before I ever thought of marrying your father. And the pattern as I chose myself and bleached so beautiful and I marked him so as nobody ever saw such marking. They must cut the cloth to get it out for it's a particular stitch. And they're all to be sold and go into strange people's houses and perhaps be cut with the knives and wore out before I'm dead. You'll never have one of them, my boy. She said, looking up at Tom with her eyes full of tears. And I meant him for you. I wanted you to have all of this pattern. Maggie could have had the large check. It never shows so well when the dishes are on it. Tom was touched to the quick, but there was an angry reaction immediately. His face flushed as he said. But will my aunt's let them be sold, mother? Do they know about it? They'll never let your linen go, will they? Haven't you sent to them? Yes. I sent Luke directly. They'd put the Baileys in and your aunt pull it spin. And oh dear, oh dear, she cries so and says your father's disgraced my family and made it the talk of the country. And she'll buy the spotted cloths for herself because she's never had so many as she wanted of that pattern and they shan't go to strangers. But she's got more checks already nor can she do with. Here Mrs. Tulliver began to lay back the tablecloth in the chest, folding and stroking them automatically. And your uncle Glegg's been too and he says things must be bought in for us to lie down on, but he must talk to your aunt and they're all coming to consult. But I know they'll none of them take my chainie. She added, turning toward the cups and saucers, for they all found fault with him when I bought him because of the small gold sprig all over him between the flowers. But there's none of them got better chainie, not even your aunt pulled it herself and I bought it with my own money as I'd saved ever since I was turned fifteen, and the silver teapot too, your father never paid for him and to think as he should have married me and brought me to this. Mrs. Tulliver burst out crying afresh and she sobbed with her handkerchief at her eyes a few moments. But then removing it she said in a deprecating way, still half sobbing as if she were called upon to speak before she could command her voice. And I did say to him times and times whatever you do don't go to law and what more could I do? I've had to sit by while my own fortune has been spent in what should have been my children's too. You'll have never a penny, my boy, but it isn't your poor mother's fault. She put out one arm toward Tom looking up at him piteously with her helpless childish blue eyes. The poor lad went to her and kissed her and she clung to him. For the first time Tom thought of his father with some reproach. His natural inclination to blame, hitherto kept entirely in abeyance toward his father by the predisposition to think him always right, simply on the grounds that he was Tom Tuller's father, was turned into this new channel by his mother's planes. And with his indignation against Wakeham there began to mingle some indignation of another sort. Perhaps his father might have helped bringing them all down in the world and making people talk of them with contempt, but no one should talk long of Tom Tuller with contempt. The natural strength and firmness of his nature was beginning to assert itself, urged by the double stimulus of resentment against his aunts and the sense that he must behave like a man and take care of his mother. Don't fret, mother, he said tenderly. I shall soon be able to get money. I'll get a situation of some sort. Bless you, my boy, said Mrs. Tuller a little soothed. Then, looking round sadly, but I shouldn't have minded so much if we could have kept the things with my name on them. Maggie had witnessed this scene with gathering anger, the implied reproaches against her father. Her father, who was lying there in a sort of living death, neutralized all her pity for griefs about tablecloths in China, and her anger on her father's account was heightened by some egoistic resentment at Tom's silent concurrence with her mother and shutting her out from the common calamity. She had become almost indifferent to her mother's habitual depreciation of her, but she was keenly alive to any sanction of it, however passive that she might suspect in Tom. Poor Maggie was by no means made up of unalloyed devotedness, but put forth large claims for herself where she loved strongly. She burst out at last in an agitated almost violent tone. Mother, how can you talk so as if you cared only for things with your name on it, and not for what has my father's name too, and to care about anything but dear father himself when he's lying there and may never speak to us again. Tom, you ought to say so too. You ought not to let anyone find fault with my father. Maggie almost choked with mingled grief and anger, left the room and took her old place on her father's bed. Her heart went out to him with a stronger movement than ever at the thought that people would blame him. Maggie hated blame. She had been blamed all her life, and nothing had come of it but evil tempers. Her father had always defended and excused her, and her loving remembrance of his tenderness was a force within her that would enable her to do or bear anything for his sake. Tom was a little shocked at Maggie's outburst, telling him as well as his mother what it was right to do. She ought to have learned better than have those hectoring assuming manners by this time. But he presently went into his father's room and the sight there touched him in a way that have faced the slighter impressions of the previous hour. When Maggie saw how he was moved, she went to him and put her arm round his neck as he sat by the bed, and the two children forgot everything else in the sense that they had one father and one sorrow. End of Book 3, Chapter 2, Recording by Leanne Howlett