Books: The Mill on the Floss

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Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of
hearing, making her way toward the great attic that run under the old
high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black locks as she ran,
like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggie's
favorite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; here
she fretted out all her ill humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten
floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with
cobwebs; and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her
misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which once
stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of cheeks; but was
now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three
nails driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie's
nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been
suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old
Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than
usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg. But
immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if she drove many
nails in she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt
when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make
believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg
would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly
humiliated, so as to beg her niece's pardon. Since then she had driven
no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and
beating the wooden head against the rough brick of the great chimneys
that made two square pillars supporting the roof. That was what she
did this morning on reaching the attic, sobbing all the while with a
passion that expelled every other form of consciousness,--even the
memory of the grievance that had caused it. As at last the sobs were
getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of
sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten
shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun
was really breaking out; the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again;
the granary doors were open; and there was Yap, the queer
white-and-brown terrier, with one ear turned back, trotting about and
sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a companion. It was
irresistible. Maggie tossed her hair back and ran downstairs, seized
her bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then dashed along the
passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was quickly out in
the yard, whirling round like a Pythoness, and singing as she whirled,
"Yap, Yap, Tom's coming home!" while Yap danced and barked round her,
as much as to say, if there was any noise wanted he was the dog for
it.

"Hegh, hegh, Miss! you'll make yourself giddy, an' tumble down i' the
dirt," said Luke, the head miller, a tall, broad-shouldered man of
forty, black-eyed and black-haired, subdued by a general mealiness,
like an auricula.

Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little, "Oh no,
it doesn't make me giddy, Luke; may I go into the mill with you?"

Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came
out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness that made her
dark eyes flash out with new fire. The resolute din, the unresting
motion of the great stones, giving her a dim, delicious awe as at the
presence of an uncontrollable force; the meal forever pouring,
pouring; the fine white powder softening all surfaces, and making the
very spidernets look like a faery lace-work; the sweet, pure scent of
the meal,--all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little
world apart from her outside every-day life. The spiders were
especially a subject of speculation with her. She wondered if they had
any relatives outside the mill, for in that case there must be a
painful difficulty in their family intercourse,--a fat and floury
spider, accustomed to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer
a little at a cousin's table where the fly was _au naturel_, and the
lady spiders must be mutually shocked at each other's appearance. But
the part of the mill she liked best was the topmost story,--the
corn-hutch, where there were the great heaps of grain, which she could
sit on and slide down continually. She was in the habit of taking this
recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very
communicative, wishing him to think well of her understanding, as her
father did.

Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the
present occasion for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near
which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was
requisite in mill-society,--

"I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?"

"Nay, Miss, an' not much o' that," said Luke, with great frankness.
"I'm no reader, I aren't."

"But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I've not got any _very_
pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there's 'Pug's
Tour of Europe,'--that would tell you all about the different sorts of
people in the world, and if you didn't understand the reading, the
pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the people,
and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you
know, and one sitting on a barrel."

"Nay, Miss, I'n no opinion o' Dutchmen. There ben't much good i'
knowin' about _them_."

"But they're our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our
fellow-creatures."

"Not much o' fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss; all I know--my old
master, as war a knowin' man, used to say, says he, 'If e'er I sow my
wheat wi'out brinin', I'm a Dutchman,' says he; an' that war as much
as to say as a Dutchman war a fool, or next door. Nay, nay, I aren't
goin' to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There's fools enoo, an' rogues
enoo, wi'out lookin' i' books for 'em."

"Oh, well," said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke's unexpectedly decided
views about Dutchmen, "perhaps you would like 'Animated Nature'
better; that's not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos,
and the civet-cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail,--I
forget its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead
of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn't you like to know about them,
Luke?"

"Nay, Miss, I'n got to keep count o' the flour an' corn; I can't do
wi' knowin' so many things besides my work. That's what brings folks
to the gallows,--knowin' everything but what they'n got to get their
bread by. An' they're mostly lies, I think, what's printed i' the
books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i' the
streets."

"Why, you're like my brother Tom, Luke," said Maggie, wishing to turn
the conversation agreeably; "Tom's not fond of reading. I love Tom so
dearly, Luke,--better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up
I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell
him everything he doesn't know. But I think Tom's clever, for all he
doesn't like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit-pens."

"Ah," said Luke, "but he'll be fine an' vexed, as the rabbits are all
dead."

"Dead!" screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn.
"Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe that Tom
spent all his money to buy?"

"As dead as moles," said Luke, fetching his comparison from the
unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.

"Oh dear, Luke," said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big tears
rolled down her cheek; "Tom told me to take care of 'em, and I forgot.
What _shall_ I do?"

"Well, you see, Miss, they were in that far tool-house, an' it was
nobody's business to see to 'em. I reckon Master Tom told Harry to
feed 'em, but there's no countin' on Harry; _he's_ an offal creatur as
iver come about the primises, he is. He remembers nothing but his own
inside--an' I wish it'ud gripe him."

"Oh, Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day;
but how could I, when they didn't come into my head, you know? Oh, he
will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his
rabbits, and so am I sorry. Oh, what _shall_ I do?"

"Don't you fret, Miss," said Luke, soothingly; "they're nash things,
them lop-eared rabbits; they'd happen ha' died, if they'd been fed.
Things out o' natur niver thrive: God A'mighty doesn't like 'em. He
made the rabbits' ears to lie back, an' it's nothin' but contrairiness
to make 'em hing down like a mastiff dog's. Master Tom 'ull know
better nor buy such things another time. Don't you fret, Miss. Will
you come along home wi' me, and see my wife? I'm a-goin' this minute."

The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie's grief, and
her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke's side to
his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and
with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the
Mill fields. Mrs. Moggs, Luke's wife, was a decidely agreeable
acquaintance. She exhibited her hospitality in bread and treacle, and
possessed various works of art. Maggie actually forgot that she had
any special cause of sadness this morning, as she stood on a chair to
look at a remarkable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son
in the costume of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might have
been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like
that accomplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispense
with a wig. But the indefinable weight the dead rabbits had left on
her mind caused her to feel more than usual pity for the career of
this weak young man, particularly when she looked at the picture where
he leaned against a tree with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches
unbuttoned and his wig awry, while the swine apparently of some
foreign breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their
feast of husks.

"I'm very glad his father took him back again, aren't you, Luke?" she
said. "For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldn't do wrong again."

"Eh, Miss," said Luke, "he'd be no great shakes, I doubt, let's
feyther do what he would for him."

That was a painful thought to Maggie, and she wished much that the
subsequent history of the young man had not been left a blank.

Chapter V

Tom Comes Home

Tom was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another
fluttering heart besides Maggie's when it was late enough for the
sound of the gig-wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a
strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound
came,--that quick light bowling of the gig-wheels,--and in spite of
the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to
respect Mrs. Tulliver's curls and cap-strings, she came outside the
door, and even held her hand on Maggie's offending head, forgetting
all the griefs of the morning.

"There he is, my sweet lad! But, Lord ha' mercy! he's got never a
collar on; it's been lost on the road, I'll be bound, and spoilt the
set."

Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg
and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said,
with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions, "Hallo! Yap--what!
are you there?"

Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie
hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray
eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he
promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing to-morrow
morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and
at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings,--a
lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips,
indeterminate nose and eyebrows,--a physiognomy in which it seems
impossible to discern anything but the generic character to boyhood;
as different as possible from poor Maggie's phiz, which Nature seemed
to have moulded and colored with the most decided intention. But that
same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the
appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see
through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a
refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish
physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals
some of her most rigid, inflexible purposes, some of her most
unmodifiable characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious
girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this
pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.

"Maggie," said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon
as his mother was gone out to examine his box and the warm parlor had
taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, "you don't know
what I've got in _my_ pockets," nodding his head up and down as a
means of rousing her sense of mystery.

"No," said Maggie. "How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles)
or cobnuts?" Maggie's heart sank a little, because Tom always said it
was "no good" playing with _her_ at those games, she played so badly.

"Marls! no; I've swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and
cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see
here!" He drew something half out of his right-hand pocket.

"What is it?" said Maggie, in a whisper. "I can see nothing but a bit
of yellow."

"Why, it's--a--new--guess, Maggie!"

"Oh, I _can't_ guess, Tom," said Maggie, impatiently.

"Don't be a spitfire, else I won't tell you," said Tom, thrusting his
hand back into his pocket and looking determined.

"No, Tom," said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was
held stiffly in the pocket. "I'm not cross, Tom; it was only because I
can't bear guessing. _Please_ be good to me."

Tom's arm slowly relaxed, and he said, "Well, then, it's a new
fish-line--two new uns,--one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. I
wouldn't go halves in the toffee and gingerbread on purpose to save
the money; and Gibson and Spouncer fought with me because I wouldn't.
And here's hooks; see here--I say, _won't_ we go and fish to-morrow
down by the Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie and
put the worms on, and everything; won't it be fun?"

Maggie's answer was to throw her arms round Tom's neck and hug him,
and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly
unwound some of the line, saying, after a pause,--

"Wasn't I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You
know, I needn't have bought it, if I hadn't liked."

"Yes, very, very good--I _do_ love you, Tom."

Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks
one by one, before he spoke again.

"And the fellows fought me, because I wouldn't give in about the
toffee."

"Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn't fight at your school, Tom. Didn't it
hurt you?"

"Hurt me? no," said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a
large pocket-knife, and slowly opening the largest blade, which he
looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he
added,--

"I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that's what he got by wanting to
leather _me;_ I wasn't going to go halves because anybody leathered
me."

"Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you're like Samson. If there came
a lion roaring at me, I think you'd fight him, wouldn't you, Tom?"

"How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There's no
lions, only in the shows."

"No; but if we were in the lion countries--I mean in Africa, where
it's very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the
book where I read it."

"Well, I should get a gun and shoot him."

"But if you hadn't got a gun,--we might have gone out, you know, not
thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run
toward us roaring, and we couldn't get away from him. What should you
do, Tom?"

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, "But the
lion _isn't_ coming. What's the use of talking?"

"But I like to fancy how it would be," said Maggie, following him.
"Just think what you would do, Tom."

"Oh, don't bother, Maggie! you're such a silly. I shall go and see my
rabbits."

Maggie's heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad
truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he
went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at
once his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie dreaded Tom's anger of all
things; it was quite a different anger from her own.

"Tom," she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, "how much money
did you give for your rabbits?"

"Two half-crowns and a sixpence," said Tom, promptly.

"I think I've got a great deal more than that in my steel purse
upstairs. I'll ask mother to give it you."

"What for?" said Tom. "I don't want _your_ money, you silly thing.
I've got a great deal more money than you, because I'm a boy. I always
have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I
shall be a man, and you only have five-shilling pieces, because you're
only a girl."

"Well, but, Tom--if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a
sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know,
and buy some more rabbits with it?"

"More rabbits? I don't want any more."

"Oh, but, Tom, they're all dead."

Tom stopped immediately in his walk and turned round toward Maggie.
"You forgot to feed 'em, then, and Harry forgot?" he said, his color
heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. "I'll pitch into Harry.
I'll have him turned away. And I don't love you, Maggie. You sha'n't
go fishing with me to-morrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits
every day." He walked on again.

"Yes, but I forgot--and I couldn't help it, indeed, Tom. I'm so very
sorry," said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.

"You're a naughty girl," said Tom, severely, "and I'm sorry I bought
you the fish-line. I don't love you."

"Oh, Tom, it's very cruel," sobbed Maggie. "I'd forgive you, if _you_
forgot anything--I wouldn't mind what you did--I'd forgive you and
love you."

"Yes, you're silly; but I never _do_ forget things, _I_ don't."

"Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break," said Maggie,
shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom's arm, and laying her wet cheek on
his shoulder.

Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone,
"Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren't I a good brother to you?"

"Ye-ye-es," sobbed Maggie, her chin rising and falling convulsedly.

"Didn't I think about your fish-line all this quarter, and mean to buy
it, and saved my money o' purpose, and wouldn't go halves in the
toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn't?"

"Ye-ye-es--and I--lo-lo-love you so, Tom."

"But you're a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my
lozenge-box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my
fish-line down when I'd set you to watch it, and you pushed your head
through my kite, all for nothing."

"But I didn't mean," said Maggie; "I couldn't help it."

"Yes, you could," said Tom, "if you'd minded what you were doing. And
you're a naughty girl, and you sha'n't go fishing with me to-morrow."

With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the
mill, meaning to greet Luke there, and complain to him of Harry.

Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two;
then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic,
where she sat on the floor and laid her head against the worm-eaten
shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had
thought how happy she should be; and now he was cruel to her. What use
was anything if Tom didn't love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn't she
wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She
knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to
Tom--had never _meant_ to be naughty to him.

"Oh, he is cruel!" Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in
the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the
attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was
too miserable to be angry.

These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange,
when hope has not yet got wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and
the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be
tea-time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her.
Well, then, she would stay up there and starve herself,--hide herself
behind the tub, and stay there all night,--and then they would all be
frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride
of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to
cry again at the idea that they didn't mind her being there. If she
went down again to Tom now--would he forgive her? Perhaps her father
would be there, and he would take her part. But then she wanted Tom to
forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No,
she would never go down if Tom didn't come to fetch her. This
resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the
tub; but then the need of being loved--the strongest need in poor
Maggie's nature--began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it.
She crept from behind her tub into the twilight of the long attic, but
just then she heard a quick foot-step on the stairs.

Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in going the
round of the premises, walking in and out where he pleased, and
whittling sticks without any particular reason,--except that he didn't
whittle sticks at school,--to think of Maggie and the effect his anger
had produced on her. He meant to punish her, and that business having
been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a
practical person. But when he had been called in to tea, his father
said, "Why, where's the little wench?" and Mrs. Tulliver, almost at
the same moment, said, "Where's your little sister?"--both of them
having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been together all the
afternoon.

"I don't know," said Tom. He didn't want to "tell" of Maggie, though
he was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver was a lad of honor.

"What! hasn't she been playing with you all this while?" said the
father. "She'd been thinking o' nothing but your coming home."

"I haven't seen her this two hours," says Tom, commencing on the
plumcake.

"Goodness heart; she's got drownded!" exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising
from her seat and running to the window.

"How could you let her do so?" she added, as became a fearful woman,
accusing she didn't know whom of she didn't know what.

"Nay, nay, she's none drownded," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've been
naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?"

"I'm sure I haven't, father," said Tom, indignantly. "I think she's in
the house."

"Perhaps up in that attic," said Mrs. Tulliver, "a-singing and talking
to herself, and forgetting all about meal-times."

"You go and fetch her down, Tom," said Mr. Tulliver, rather
sharply,--his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making
him suspect that the lad had been hard upon "the little un," else she
would never have left his side. "And be good to her, do you hear? Else
I'll let you know better."

Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man,
and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip-hand;
but he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and
not intending to reprieve Maggie's punishment, which was no more than
she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in
grammar and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open
questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one
point,--namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it. Why,
he wouldn't have minded being punished himself if he deserved it; but,
then, he never _did_ deserve it.

It was Tom's step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs, when her
need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with
her swollen eyes and dishevelled hair to beg for pity. At least her
father would stroke her head and say, "Never mind, my wench." It is a
wonderful subduer, this need of love,--this hunger of the heart,--as
peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to
the yoke, and change the face of the world.

But she knew Tom's step, and her heart began to beat violently with
the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs
and said, "Maggie, you're to come down." But she rushed to him and
clung round his neck, sobbing, "Oh, Tom, please forgive me--I can't
bear it--I will always be good--always remember things--do love
me--please, dear Tom!"

We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we
have quarrelled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this
way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one
side, and swallowing much grief on the other. We no longer approximate
in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but
conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized
society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and
so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random
sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been
used to answer to Maggie's fondling, so that he behaved with a
weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much
as she deserved. He actually began to kiss her in return, and say,--