The Mill on the Floss

by George Eliot

  Chapter VI

  The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming

  It was Easter week, and Mrs. Tulliver's cheesecakes were moreexquisitely light than usual. "A puff o' wind 'ud make 'em blow aboutlike feathers," Kezia the housemaid said, feeling proud to live undera mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season orcircumstances could have been more propitious for a family party, evenif it had not been advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pulletabout Tom's going to school.

  "I'd as lief not invite sister Deane this time," said Mrs. Tulliver,"for she's as jealous and having as can be, and's allays trying tomake the worst o' my poor children to their aunts and uncles."

  "Yes, yes," said Mr. Tulliver, "ask her to come. I never hardly get abit o' talk with Deane now; we haven't had him this six months. What'sit matter what she says? My children need be beholding to nobody."

  "That's what you allays say, Mr. Tulliver; but I'm sure there's nobodyo' your side, neither aunt nor uncle, to leave 'em so much as afive-pound note for a leggicy. And there's sister Glegg, and sisterPullet too, saving money unknown, for they put by all their owninterest and butter-money too; their husbands buy 'em everything."Mrs. Tulliver was a mild woman, but even a sheep will face about alittle when she has lambs.

  "Tchuh!" said Mr. Tulliver. "It takes a big loaf when there's many tobreakfast. What signifies your sisters' bits o' money when they've gothalf-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to divide it among? And your sisterDeane won't get 'em to leave all to one, I reckon, and make thecountry cry shame on 'em when they are dead?"

  "I don't know what she won't get 'em to do," said Mrs. Tulliver, "formy children are so awk'ard wi' their aunts and uncles. Maggie's tentimes naughtier when they come than she is other days, and Tom doesn'tlike 'em, bless him!--though it's more nat'ral in a boy than a gell.And there's Lucy Dean's such a good child,--you may set her on astool, and there she'll sit for an hour together, and never offer toget off. I can't help loving the child as if she was my own; and I'msure she's more like _my_ child than sister Deane's, for she'd allaysa very poor color for one of our family, sister Deane had."

  "Well, well, if you're fond o' the child, ask her father and mother tobring her with 'em. And won't you ask their aunt and uncle Moss too,and some o' _their_ children?"

  "Oh, dear, Mr. Tulliver, why, there'd be eight people besides thechildren, and I must put two more leaves i' the table, besidesreaching down more o' the dinner-service; and you know as well as I doas _my_ sisters and _your_ sister don't suit well together."

  "Well, well, do as you like, Bessy," said Mr. Tulliver, taking up hishat and walking out to the mill. Few wives were more submissive thanMrs. Tulliver on all points unconnected with her family relations; butshe had been a Miss Dodson, and the Dodsons were a very respectablefamily indeed,--as much looked up to as any in their own parish, orthe next to it. The Miss Dodsons had always been thought to hold uptheir heads very high, and no one was surprised the two eldest hadmarried so well,--not at an early age, for that was not the practiceof the Dodson family. There were particular ways of doing everythingin that family: particular ways of bleaching the linen, of making thecowslip wine, curing the hams, and keeping the bottled gooseberries;so that no daughter of that house could be indifferent to theprivilege of having been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or aWatson. Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety in theDodson family: the hat-bands were never of a blue shade, the glovesnever split at the thumb, everybody was a mourner who ought to be, andthere were always scarfs for the bearers. When one of the family wasin trouble or sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunatemember, usually at the same time, and did not shrink from uttering themost disagreeable truths that correct family feeling dictated; if theillness or trouble was the sufferer's own fault, it was not in thepractice of the Dodson family to shrink from saying so. In short,there was in this family a peculiar tradition as to what was the rightthing in household management and social demeanor, and the only bittercircumstance attending this superiority was a painful inability toapprove the condiments or the conduct of families ungoverned by theDodson tradition. A female Dodson, when in "strange houses," alwaysate dry bread with her tea, and declined any sort of preserves, havingno confidence in the butter, and thinking that the preserves hadprobably begun to ferment from want of due sugar and boiling. Therewere some Dodsons less like the family than others, that was admitted;but in so far as they were "kin," they were of necessity better thanthose who were "no kin." And it is remarkable that while no individualDodson was satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each wassatisfied, not only with him or her self, but with the Dodsonscollectively. The feeblest member of a family--the one who has theleast character--is often the merest epitome of the family habits andtraditions; and Mrs. Tulliver was a thorough Dodson, though a mildone, as small-beer, so long as it is anything, is only describable asvery weak ale: and though she had groaned a little in her youth underthe yoke of her elder sisters, and still shed occasional tears attheir sisterly reproaches, it was not in Mrs. Tulliver to be aninnovator on the family ideas. She was thankful to have been a Dodson,and to have one child who took after her own family, at least in hisfeatures and complexion, in liking salt and in eating beans, which aTulliver never did.

  In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom, and he wasas far from appreciating his "kin" on the mother's side as Maggieherself, generally absconding for the day with a large supply of themost portable food, when he received timely warning that his aunts anduncles were coming,--a moral symptom from which his aunt Glegg deducedthe gloomiest views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie thatTom always absconded without letting her into the secret, but theweaker sex are acknowledged to be serious _impedimenta_ in cases offlight.

  On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, therewere such various and suggestive scents, as of plumcakes in the ovenand jellies in the hot state, mingled with the aroma of gravy, that itwas impossible to feel altogether gloomy: there was hope in the air.Tom and Maggie made several inroads into the kitchen, and, like othermarauders, were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowedto carry away a sufficient load of booty.

  "Tom," said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-tree,eating their jam-puffs, "shall you run away to-morrow?"

  "No," said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and was eyingthe third, which was to be divided between them,--"no, I sha'n't."

  "Why, Tom? Because Lucy's coming?"

  "No," said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it over the puff,with his head on one side in a dubitative manner. (It was a difficultproblem to divide that very irregular polygon into two equal parts.)"What do _I_ care about Lucy? She's only a girl,--_she_ can't play atbandy."

  "Is it the tipsy-cake, then?" said Maggie, exerting her hypotheticpowers, while she leaned forward toward Tom with her eyes fixed on thehovering knife.

  "No, you silly, that'll be good the day after. It's the pudden. I knowwhat the pudden's to be,--apricot roll-up--O my buttons!"

  With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff, and it was intwo, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for he still eyed thehalves doubtfully. At last he said,--

  "Shut your eyes, Maggie."

  "What for?"

  "You never mind what for. Shut 'em when I tell you."

  Maggie obeyed.

  "Now, which'll you have, Maggie,--right hand or left?"

  "I'll have that with the jam run out," said Maggie, keeping her eyesshut to please Tom.

  "Why, you don't like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes toyou fair, but I sha'n't give it you without. Right or left,--youchoose, now. Ha-a-a!" said Tom, in a tone of exasperation, as Maggiepeeped. "You keep your eyes shut, now, else you sha'n't have any."

  Maggie's power of sacrifice did not extend so far; indeed, I fear shecared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible amount of puff,than that he should be pleased with her for giving him the best bit.So she shut her ey
es quite close, till Tom told her to "say which,"and then she said, "Left hand."

  "You've got it," said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.

  "What! the bit with the jam run out?"

  "No; here, take it," said Tom, firmly, handing, decidedly the bestpiece to Maggie.

  "Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don't mind--I like the other; please takethis."

  "No, I sha'n't," said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on his owninferior piece.

  Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began too, and ateup her half puff with considerable relish as well as rapidity. But Tomhad finished first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her lastmorsel or two, feeling in himself a capacity for more. Maggie didn'tknow Tom was looking at her; she was seesawing on the elder-bough,lost to almost everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.

  "Oh, you greedy thing!" said Tom, when she had swallowed the lastmorsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought sheought to have considered this, and made up to him for it. He wouldhave refused a bit of hers beforehand, but one is naturally at adifferent point of view before and after one's own share of puff isswallowed.

  Maggie turned quite pale. "Oh, Tom, why didn't you ask me?"

  "I wasn't going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might havethought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit."

  "But I wanted you to have it; you know I did," said Maggie, in aninjured tone.

  "Yes, but I wasn't going to do what wasn't fair, like Spouncer. Healways takes the best bit, if you don't punch him for it; and if youchoose the best with your eyes shut, he changes his hands. But if I gohalves, I'll go 'em fair; only I wouldn't be a greedy."

  With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough, and threwa stone with a "hoigh!" as a friendly attention to Yap, who had alsobeen looking on while the eatables vanished, with an agitation of hisears and feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yetthe excellent dog accepted Tom's attention with as much alacrity as ifhe had been treated quite generously.

  But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery whichdistinguishes the human being, and places him at a proud distance fromthe most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gaveherself up to the keen sense of unmerited reproach. She would havegiven the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved someof it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie'spalate was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without it manytimes over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross withher. And he had said he wouldn't have it, and she ate it withoutthinking; how could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully thatMaggie saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; but by thattime resentment began to give way to the desire of reconciliation, andshe jumped from her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer in thepaddock behind the rickyard; where was he likely to be gone, and Yapwith him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly-tree,where she could see far away toward the Floss. There was Tom; but herheart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to the greatriver, and that he had another companion besides Yap,--naughty BobJakin, whose official, if not natural, function of frightening thebirds was just now at a standstill. Maggie felt sure that Bob waswicked, without very distinctly knowing why; unless it was becauseBob's mother was a dreadfully large fat woman, who lived at a queerround house down the river; and once, when Maggie and Tom had wanderedthither, there rushed out a brindled dog that wouldn't stop barking;and when Bob's mother came out after it, and screamed above thebarking to tell them not to be frightened, Maggie thought she wasscolding them fiercely, and her heart beat with terror. Maggie thoughtit very likely that the round house had snakes on the floor, and batsin the bedroom; for she had seen Bob take off his cap to show Tom alittle snake that was inside it, and another time he had a handful ofyoung bats: altogether, he was an irregular character, perhaps evenslightly diabolical, judging from his intimacy with snakes and bats;and to crown all, when Tom had Bob for a companion, he didn't mindabout Maggie, and would never let her go with him.

  It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bob's company. How could it beotherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a bird's egg, whether it was aswallow's, or a tomtit's, or a yellow-hammer's; he found out all thewasps' nests, and could set all sort of traps; he could climb thetrees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of detectinghedgehogs and stoats; and he had courage to do things that were rathernaughty, such as making gaps in the hedgerows, throwing stones afterthe sheep, and killing a cat that was wandering _incognito_.

  Such qualities in an inferior, who could always be treated withauthority in spite of his superior knowingness, had necessarily afatal fascination for Tom; and every holiday-time Maggie was sure tohave days of grief because he had gone off with Bob.

  Well! there was no hope for it; he was gone now, and Maggie couldthink of no comfort but to sit down by the hollow, or wander by thehedgerow, and fancy it was all different, refashioning her littleworld into just what she should like it to be.

  Maggie's was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she tookher opium.

  Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting of reproachwhich he had left in her heart, was hurrying along with Bob, whom hehad met accidentally, to the scene of a great rat-catching in aneighboring barn. Bob knew all about this particular affair, and spokeof the sport with an enthusiasm which no one who is not eitherdivested of all manly feeling, or pitiably ignorant of rat-catching,can fail to imagine. For a person suspected of preternaturalwickedness, Bob was really not so very villanous-looking; there waseven something agreeable in his snub-nosed face, with its close-curledborder of red hair. But then his trousers were always rolled up at theknee, for the convenience of wading on the slightest notice; and hisvirtue, supposing it to exist, was undeniably "virtue in rags," which,on the authority even of bilious philosophers, who think allwell-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remainunrecognized (perhaps because it is seen so seldom).

  "I know the chap as owns the ferrets," said Bob, in a hoarse treblevoice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river,like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. "Helives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Ogg's, he does. He's the biggestrot-catcher anywhere, he is. I'd sooner, be a rot-catcher noranything, I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you munha' ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, there's that dog, now!" Bobcontinued, pointing with an air of disgust toward Yap, "he's no moregood wi' a rot nor nothin'. I see it myself, I did, at therot-catchin' i' your feyther's barn."

  Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked his tail inand shrank close to Tom's leg, who felt a little hurt for him, but hadnot the superhuman courage to seem behindhand with Bob in contempt fora dog who made so poor a figure.

  "No, no," he said, "Yap's no good at sport. I'll have regular gooddogs for rats and everything, when I've done school."

  "Hev ferrets, Measter Tom," said Bob, eagerly,--"them white ferretswi' pink eyes; Lors, you might catch your own rots, an' you might puta rot in a cage wi' a ferret, an' see 'em fight, you might. That'swhat I'd do, I know, an' it 'ud be better fun a'most nor seein' twochaps fight,--if it wasn't them chaps as sold cakes an' oranges at theFair, as the things flew out o' their baskets, an' some o' the cakeswas smashed--But they tasted just as good," added Bob, by way of noteor addendum, after a moment's pause.

  "But, I say, Bob," said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, "ferrets arenasty biting things,--they'll bite a fellow without being set on."

  "Lors! why that's the beauty on 'em. If a chap lays hold o' yourferret, he won't be long before he hollows out a good un, _he_ won't."

  At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly intheir walk. It was the plunging of some small body in the water fromamong the neighboring bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat, Bobintimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasantconsequences.

  "Hoigh! Yap,--hoigh! there he is," said Tom, clapping his
hands, asthe little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite bank."Seize him, lad! seize him!"

  Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge,trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well.

  "Ugh! you coward!" said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling humiliatedas a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal. Bob abstainedfrom remark and passed on, choosing, however, to walk in the shallowedge of the overflowing river by way of change.

  "He's none so full now, the Floss isn't," said Bob, as he kicked thewater up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent to it."Why, last 'ear, the meadows was all one sheet o' water, they was."

  "Ay, but," said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition betweenstatements that were really accordant,--"but there was a big floodonce, when the Round Pool was made. _I_ know there was, 'cause fathersays so. And the sheep and cows all drowned, and the boats went allover the fields ever such a way."

  "_I_ don't care about a flood comin'," said Bob; "I don't mind thewater, no more nor the land. I'd swim, _I_ would."

  "Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long?" said Tom, hisimagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that dread."When I'm a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on the top ofit, like Noah's ark, and keep plenty to eat in it,--rabbits andthings,--all ready. And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, Ishouldn't mind. And I'd take you in, if I saw you swimming," he added,in the tone of a benevolent patron.

  "I aren't frighted," said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear soappalling. "But I'd get in an' knock the rabbits on th' head when youwanted to eat 'em."

  "Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we'd play at heads-and-tails,"said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that this recreation mighthave fewer charms for his mature age. "I'd divide fair to begin with,and then we'd see who'd win."

  "I've got a halfpenny o' my own," said Bob, proudly, coming out of thewater and tossing his halfpenny in the air. "Yeads or tails?"

  "Tails," said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.

  "It's yeads," said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as itfell.

  "It wasn't," said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. "You give me thehalfpenny; I've won it fair."

  "I sha'n't," said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.

  "Then I'll make you; see if I don't," said Tom.

  "Yes, I can."

  "You can't make me do nothing, you can't," said Bob.

  "No, you can't."

  "I'm master."

  "I don't care for you."

  "But I'll make you care, you cheat," said Tom, collaring Bob andshaking him.

  "You get out wi' you," said Bob, giving Tom a kick.

  Tom's blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and threwhim down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and pulled Tomdown after him. They struggled fiercely on the ground for a moment ortwo, till Tom, pinning Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had themastery.

  "_You_, say you'll give me the halfpenny now," he said, withdifficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bob'sarms.

  But at this moment Yap, who had been running on before, returnedbarking to the scene of action, and saw a favorable opportunity forbiting Bob's bare leg not only with inpunity but with honor. The painfrom Yap's teeth, instead of surprising Bob into a relaxation of hishold, gave it a fiercer tenacity, and with a new exertion of his forcehe pushed Tom backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could getno sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so thatBob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom, and, almostthrottling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time Tom was upagain, and before Bob had quite recovered his balance after the act ofswinging Yap, Tom fell upon him, threw him down, and got his kneesfirmly on Bob's chest.

  "You give me the halfpenny now," said Tom.

  "Take it," said Bob, sulkily.

  "No, I sha'n't take it; you give it me."

  Bob took the halfpenny out of his pocket, and threw it away from himon the ground.

  Tom loosed his hold, and left Bob to rise.

  "There the halfpenny lies," he said. "I don't want your halfpenny; Iwouldn't have kept it. But you wanted to cheat; I hate a cheat. Isha'n't go along with you any more," he added, turning round homeward,not without casting a regret toward the rat-catching and otherpleasures which he must relinquish along with Bob's society.

  "You may let it alone, then," Bob called out after him. "I shall cheatif I like; there's no fun i' playing else; and I know where there's agoldfinch's nest, but I'll take care _you_ don't. An' you're a nastyfightin' turkey-cock, you are----"

  Tom walked on without looking around, and Yap followed his example,the cold bath having moderated his passions.

  "Go along wi' you, then, wi' your drowned dog; I wouldn't own such adog--_I_ wouldn't," said Bob, getting louder, in a last effort tosustain his defiance. But Tom was not to be provoked into turninground, and Bob's voice began to falter a little as he said,--

  "An' I'n gi'en you everything, an' showed you everything, an' niverwanted nothin' from you. An' there's your horn-handed knife, then asyou gi'en me." Here Bob flung the knife as far as he could after Tom'sretreating footsteps. But it produced no effect, except the sense inBob's mind that there was a terrible void in his lot, now that knifewas gone.

  He stood still till Tom had passed through the gate and disappearedbehind the hedge. The knife would do not good on the ground there; itwouldn't vex Tom; and pride or resentment was a feeble passion inBob's mind compared with the love of a pocket-knife. His very fingerssent entreating thrills that he would go and clutch that familiarrough buck's-horn handle, which they had so often grasped for mereaffection, as it lay idle in his pocket. And there were two blades,and they had just been sharpened! What is life without a pocket-knifeto him who has once tasted a higher existence? No; to throw the handleafter the hatchet is a comprehensible act of desperation, but to throwone's pocket-knife after an implacable friend is clearly in everysense a hyperbole, or throwing beyond the mark. So Bob shuffled backto the spot where the beloved knife lay in the dirt, and felt quite anew pleasure in clutching it again after the temporary separation, inopening one blade after the other, and feeling their edge with hiswell-hardened thumb. Poor Bob! he was not sensitive on the point ofhonor, not a chivalrous character. That fine moral aroma would nothave been thought much of by the public opinion of Kennel Yard, whichwas the very focus or heart of Bob's world, even if it could have madeitself perceptible there; yet, for all that, he was not utterly asneak and a thief as our friend Tom had hastily decided.

  But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthine personage, havingmore than the usual share of boy's justice in him,--the justice thatdesires to hurt culprits as much as they deserve to be hurt, and istroubled with no doubts concerning the exact amount of their deserts.Maggie saw a cloud on his brow when he came home, which checked herjoy at his coming so much sooner than she had expected, and she daredhardly speak to him as he stood silently throwing the smallgravel-stones into the mill-dam. It is not pleasant to give up arat-catching when you have set your mind on it. But if Tom had toldhis strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said, "I'd do justthe same again." That was his usual mode of viewing his past actions;whereas Maggie was always wishing she had done something different.