Books: The Mill on the Floss

G >> George Eliot >> The Mill on the Floss

Pages:
1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 | 16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 | 31 | 32 | 33 | 34 | 35 | 36 | 37 | 38 | 39 | 40 | 41 | 42 | 43 | 44 | 45

Mrs. Tulliver's thoughts had been temporarily diverted from the
quarrel with Mrs. Glegg by millinery and maternal cares, but now the
great theme of the bonnet was thrown into perspective, and the
children were out of the way, yesterday's anxieties recurred.

"It weighs on my mind so as never was," she said, by way of opening
the subject, "sister Glegg's leaving the house in that way. I'm sure
I'd no wish t' offend a sister."

"Ah," said aunt Pullet, "there's no accounting for what Jane 'ull do.
I wouldn't speak of it out o' the family, if it wasn't to Dr.
Turnbull; but it's my belief Jane lives too low. I've said so to
Pullet often and often, and he knows it."

"Why, you said so last Monday was a week, when we came away from
drinking tea with 'em," said Mr. Pullet, beginning to nurse his knee
and shelter it with his pocket-hand-kerchief, as was his way when the
conversation took an interesting turn.

"Very like I did," said Mrs. Pullet, "for you remember when I said
things, better than I can remember myself. He's got a wonderful
memory, Pullet has," she continued, looking pathetically at her
sister. "I should be poorly off if he was to have a stroke, for he
always remembers when I've got to take my doctor's stuff; and I'm
taking three sorts now."

"There's the 'pills as before' every other night, and the new drops at
eleven and four, and the 'fervescing mixture 'when agreeable,'"
rehearsed Mr. Pullet, with a punctuation determined by a lozenge on
his tongue.

"Ah, perhaps it 'ud be better for sister Glegg if _she'd_ go to the
doctor sometimes, instead o' chewing Turkey rhubard whenever there's
anything the matter with her," said Mrs. Tulliver, who naturally saw
the wide subject of medicine chiefly in relation to Mrs. Glegg.

"It's dreadful to think on," said aunt Pullet, raising her hands and
letting them fall again, "people playing with their own insides in
that way! And it's flying i' the face o' Providence; for what are the
doctors for, if we aren't to call 'em in? And when folks have got the
money to pay for a doctor, it isn't respectable, as I've told Jane
many a time. I'm ashamed of acquaintance knowing it."

"Well, _we've_ no call to be ashamed," said Mr. Pullet, "for Doctor
Turnbull hasn't got such another patient as you i' this parish, now
old Mrs. Sutton's gone."

"Pullet keeps all my physic-bottles, did you know, Bessy?" said Mrs.
Pullet. "He won't have one sold. He says it's nothing but right folks
should see 'em when I'm gone. They fill two o' the long store-room
shelves a'ready; but," she added, beginning to cry a little, "it's
well if they ever fill three. I may go before I've made up the dozen
o' these last sizes. The pill-boxes are in the closet in my
room,--you'll remember that, sister,--but there's nothing to show for
the boluses, if it isn't the bills."

"Don't talk o' your going, sister," said Mrs. Tulliver; "I should have
nobody to stand between me and sister Glegg if you was gone. And
there's nobody but you can get her to make it up with Mr. Tulliver,
for sister Deane's never o' my side, and if she was, it's not to be
looked for as she can speak like them as have got an independent
fortin."

"Well, your husband _is_ awk'ard, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,
good-naturedly ready to use her deep depression on her sister's
account as well as her own. "He's never behaved quite so pretty to our
family as he should do, and the children take after him,--the boy's
very mischievous, and runs away from his aunts and uncles, and the
gell's rude and brown. It's your bad luck, and I'm sorry for you,
Bessy; for you was allays my favorite sister, and we allays liked the
same patterns."

"I know Tulliver's hasty, and says odd things," said Mrs. Tulliver,
wiping away one small tear from the corner of her eye; "but I'm sure
he's never been the man, since he married me, to object to my making
the friends o' my side o' the family welcome to the house."

"_I_ don't want to make the worst of you, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet,
compassionately, "for I doubt you'll have trouble enough without that;
and your husband's got that poor sister and her children hanging on
him,--and so given to lawing, they say. I doubt he'll leave you poorly
off when he dies. Not as I'd have it said out o' the family."

This view of her position was naturally far from cheering to Mrs.
Tulliver. Her imagination was not easily acted on, but she could not
help thinking that her case was a hard one, since it appeared that
other people thought it hard.

"I'm sure, sister, I can't help myself," she said, urged by the fear
lest her anticipated misfortunes might be held retributive, to take
comprehensive review of her past conduct. "There's no woman strives
more for her children; and I'm sure at scouring-time this Lady-day as
I've had all the bedhangings taken down I did as much as the two gells
put together; and there's the last elder-flower wine I've
made--beautiful! I allays offer it along with the sherry, though
sister Glegg will have it I'm so extravagant; and as for liking to
have my clothes tidy, and not go a fright about the house, there's
nobody in the parish can say anything against me in respect o'
backbiting and making mischief, for I don't wish anybody any harm; and
nobody loses by sending me a porkpie, for my pies are fit to show with
the best o' my neighbors'; and the linen's so in order as if I was to
die to-morrow I shouldn't be ashamed. A woman can do no more nor she
can."

"But it's all o' no use, you know, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, holding
her head on one side, and fixing her eyes pathetically on her sister,
"if your husband makes away with his money. Not but what if you was
sold up, and other folks bought your furniture, it's a comfort to
think as you've kept it well rubbed. And there's the linen, with your
maiden mark on, might go all over the country. It 'ud be a sad pity
for our family." Mrs. Pullet shook her head slowly.

"But what can I do, sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver. "Mr. Tulliver's not a
man to be dictated to,--not if I was to go to the parson and get by
heart what I should tell my husband for the best. And I'm sure I don't
pretend to know anything about putting out money and all that. I could
never see into men's business as sister Glegg does."

"Well, you're like me in that, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet; "and I think
it 'ud be a deal more becoming o' Jane if she'd have that pier-glass
rubbed oftener,--there was ever so many spots on it last
week,--instead o' dictating to folks as have more comings in than she
ever had, and telling 'em what they're to do with their money. But
Jane and me were allays contrairy; she _would_ have striped things,
and I like spots. You like a spot too, Bessy; we allays hung together
i' that."

"Yes, Sophy," said Mrs. Tulliver, "I remember our having a blue ground
with a white spot both alike,--I've got a bit in a bed-quilt now; and
if you would but go and see sister Glegg, and persuade her to make it
up with Tulliver, I should take it very kind of you. You was allays a
good sister to me."

"But the right thing 'ud be for Tulliver to go and make it up with her
himself, and say he was sorry for speaking so rash. If he's borrowed
money of her, he shouldn't be above that," said Mrs. Pullet, whose
partiality did not blind her to principles; she did not forget what
was due to people of independent fortune.

"It's no use talking o' that," said poor Mrs. Tulliver, almost
peevishly. "If I was to go down on my bare knees on the gravel to
Tulliver, he'd never humble himself."

"Well, you can't expect me to persuade _Jane_ to beg pardon," said
Mrs. Pullet. "Her temper's beyond everything; it's well if it doesn't
carry her off her mind, though there never _was_ any of our family
went to a madhouse."

"I'm not thinking of her begging pardon," said Mrs. Tulliver. "But if
she'd just take no notice, and not call her money in; as it's not so
much for one sister to ask of another; time 'ud mend things, and
Tulliver 'ud forget all about it, and they'd be friends again."

Mrs. Tulliver, you perceive, was not aware of her husband's
irrevocable determination to pay in the five hundred pounds; at least
such a determination exceeded her powers of belief.

"Well, Bessy," said Mrs. Pullet, mournfully, "_I_ don't want to help
you on to ruin. I won't be behindhand i' doing you a good turn, if it
is to be done. And I don't like it said among acquaintance as we've
got quarrels in the family. I shall tell Jane that; and I don't mind
driving to Jane's tomorrow, if Pullet doesn't mind. What do you say,
Mr. Pullet?"

"I've no objections," said Mr. Pullet, who was perfectly contented
with any course the quarrel might take, so that Mr. Tulliver did not
apply to _him_ for money. Mr. Pullet was nervous about his
investments, and did not see how a man could have any security for his
money unless he turned it into land.

After a little further discussion as to whether it would not be better
for Mrs. Tulliver to accompany them on a visit to sister Glegg, Mrs.
Pullet, observing that it was tea-time, turned to reach from a drawer
a delicate damask napkin, which she pinned before her in the fashion
of an apron. The door did, in fact, soon open, but instead of the
tea-tray, Sally introduced an object so startling that both Mrs.
Pullet and Mrs. Tulliver gave a scream, causing uncle Pullet to
swallow his lozenge--for the fifth time in his life, as he afterward
noted.

Chapter X

Maggie Behaves Worse Than She Expected

The startling object which thus made an epoch for uncle Pullet was no
other than little Lucy, with one side of her person, from her small
foot to her bonnet-crown, wet and discolored with mud, holding out two
tiny blackened hands, and making a very piteous face. To account for
this unprecedented apparition in aunt Pullet's parlor, we must return
to the moment when the three children went to play out of doors, and
the small demons who had taken possession of Maggie's soul at an early
period of the day had returned in all the greater force after a
temporary absence. All the disagreeable recollections of the morning
were thick upon her, when Tom, whose displeasure toward her had been
considerably refreshed by her foolish trick of causing him to upset
his cowslip wine, said, "Here, Lucy, you come along with me," and
walked off to the area where the toads were, as if there were no
Maggie in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance
looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped. Lucy was
naturally pleased that cousin Tom was so good to her, and it was very
amusing to see him tickling a fat toad with a piece of string when the
toad was safe down the area, with an iron grating over him. Still Lucy
wished Maggie to enjoy the spectacle also, especially as she would
doubtless find a name for the toad, and say what had been his past
history; for Lucy had a delighted semibelief in Maggie's stories about
the live things they came upon by accident,--how Mrs. Earwig had a
wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper,
for which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. Tom had
a profound contempt for this nonsense of Maggie's, smashing the earwig
at once as a superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire
unreality of such a story; but Lucy, for the life of her, could not
help fancying there was something in it, and at all events thought it
was very pretty make-believe. So now the desire to know the history of
a very portly toad, added to her habitual affectionateness, made her
run back to Maggie and say, "Oh, there is such a big, funny toad,
Maggie! Do come and see!"

Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a deeper frown. As
long as Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her, Lucy made part of his
unkindness. Maggie would have thought a little while ago that she
could never be cross with pretty little Lucy, any more than she could
be cruel to a little white mouse; but then, Tom had always been quite
indifferent to Lucy before, and it had been left to Maggie to pet and
make much of her. As it was, she was actually beginning to think that
she should like to make Lucy cry by slapping or pinching her,
especially as it might vex Tom, whom it was of no use to slap, even if
she dared, because he didn't mind it. And if Lucy hadn't been there,
Maggie was sure he would have got friends with her sooner.

Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amusement that
it is possible to exhaust, and Tom by and by began to look round for
some other mode of passing the time. But in so prim a garden, where
they were not to go off the paved walks, there was not a great choice
of sport. The only great pleasure such a restriction suggested was the
pleasure of breaking it, and Tom began to meditate an insurrectionary
visit to the pond, about a field's length beyond the garden.

"I say, Lucy," he began, nodding his head up and down with great
significance, as he coiled up his string again, "what do you think I
mean to do?"

"What, Tom?" said Lucy, with curiosity.

"I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if
you like," said the young sultan.

"Oh, Tom, _dare_ you?" said Lucy. "Aunt said we mustn't go out of the
garden."

"Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden," said Tom. "Nobody
'ull see us. Besides, I don't care if they do,--I'll run off home."

"But _I_ couldn't run," said Lucy, who had never before been exposed
to such severe temptation.

"Oh, never mind; they won't be cross with _you_," said Tom. "You say I
took you."

Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly enjoying the
rare treat of doing something naughty,--excited also by the mention of
that celebrity, the pike, about which she was quite uncertain whether
it was a fish or a fowl.

Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the impulse
to follow. Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their
objects than love, and that Tom and Lucy should do or see anything of
which she was ignorant would have been an intolerable idea to Maggie.
So she kept a few yards behind them, unobserved by Tom, who was
presently absorbed in watching for the pike,--a highly interesting
monster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and to have
such a remarkable appetite. The pike, like other celebrities, did not
show when he was watched for, but Tom caught sight of something in
rapid movement in the water, which attracted him to another spot on
the brink of the pond.

"Here, Lucy!" he said in a loud whisper, "come here! take care! keep
on the grass!--don't step where the cows have been!" he added,
pointing to a peninsula of dry grass, with trodden mud on each side of
it; for Tom's contemptuous conception of a girl included the attribute
of being unfit to walk in dirty places.

Lucy came carefully as she was bidden, and bent down to look at what
seemed a golden arrow-head darting through the water. It was a
water-snake, Tom told her; and Lucy at last could see the serpentine
wave of its body, very much wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie
had drawn nearer and nearer; she _must_ see it too, though it was
bitter to her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her
seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and Tom, who had been aware
of her approach, but would not notice it till he was obliged, turned
round and said,--

"Now, get away, Maggie; there's no room for you on the grass here.
Nobody asked _you_ to come."

There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a
tragedy, if tragedies were made by passion only; but the essential
[Greek text] which was present in the passion was wanting to the action;
the utmost Maggie could do, with a fierce thrust of her small brown arm,
was to push poor little pink-and-white Lucy into the cow-trodden mud.

Then Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two smart slaps
on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay crying helplessly.
Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a few yards off, and looked on
impenitently. Usually her repentance came quickly after one rash deed,
but now Tom and Lucy had made her so miserable, she was glad to spoil
their happiness,--glad to make everybody uncomfortable. Why should she
be sorry? Tom was very slow to forgive _her_, however sorry she might
have been.

"I shall tell mother, you know, Miss Mag," said Tom, loudly and
emphatically, as soon as Lucy was up and ready to walk away. It was
not Tom's practice to "tell," but here justice clearly demanded that
Maggie should be visited with the utmost punishment; not that Tom had
learned to put his views in that abstract form; he never mentioned
"justice," and had no idea that his desire to punish might be called
by that fine name. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil that had
befallen her,--the spoiling of her pretty best clothes, and the
discomfort of being wet and dirty,--to think much of the cause, which
was entirely mysterious to her. She could never have guessed what she
had done to make Maggie angry with her; but she felt that Maggie was
very unkind and disagreeable, and made no magnanimous entreaties to
Tom that he would not "tell," only running along by his side and
crying piteously, while Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and looked
after them with her small Medusa face.

"Sally," said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door, and Sally
looked at them in speechless amaze, with a piece of bread-and-butter
in her mouth and a toasting-fork in her hand,--"Sally, tell mother it
was Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud."

"But Lors ha' massy, how did you get near such mud as that?" said
Sally, making a wry face, as she stooped down and examined the _corpus
delicti_.

Tom's imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough to include
this question among the foreseen consequences, but it was no sooner
put than he foresaw whither it tended, and that Maggie would not be
considered the only culprit in the case. He walked quietly away from
the kitchen door, leaving Sally to that pleasure of guessing which
active minds notoriously prefer to ready-made knowledge.

Sally, as you are aware, lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlor
door, for to have so dirty an object introduced into the house at
Garum Firs was too great a weight to be sustained by a single mind.

"Goodness gracious!" aunt Pullet exclaimed, after preluding by an
inarticulate scream; "keep her at the door, Sally! Don't bring her off
the oil-cloth, whatever you do."

"Why, she's tumbled into some nasty mud," said Mrs. Tulliver, going up
to Lucy to examine into the amount of damage to clothes for which she
felt herself responsible to her sister Deane.

"If you please, 'um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in," said Sally;
"Master Tom's been and said so, and they must ha' been to the pond,
for it's only there they could ha' got into such dirt."

"There it is, Bessy; it's what I've been telling you," said Mrs.
Pullet, in a tone of prophetic sadness; "it's your children,--there's
no knowing what they'll come to."

Mrs. Tulliver was mute, feeling herself a truly wretched mother. As
usual, the thought pressed upon her that people would think she had
done something wicked to deserve her maternal troubles, while Mrs.
Pullet began to give elaborate directions to Sally how to guard the
premises from serious injury in the course of removing the dirt.
Meantime tea was to be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty
children were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen.
Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing
them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that
she found Tom leaning with rather a hardened, careless air against the
white paling of the poultry-yard, and lowering his piece of string on
the other side as a means of exasperating the turkey-cock.

"Tom, you naughty boy, where's your sister?" said Mrs. Tulliver, in a
distressed voice.

"I don't know," said Tom; his eagerness for justice on Maggie had
diminished since he had seen clearly that it could hardly be brought
about without the injustice of some blame on his own conduct.

"Why, where did you leave her?" said the mother, looking round.

"Sitting under the tree, against the pond," said Tom, apparently
indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey-cock.

"Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy. And how could
you think o' going to the pond, and taking your sister where there was
dirt? You know she'll do mischief if there's mischief to be done."

It was Mrs. Tulliver's way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his
misdemeanor, somehow or other, to Maggie.

The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused an habitual fear
in Mrs. Tulliver's mind, and she mounted the horse-block to satisfy
herself by a sight of that fatal child, while Tom walked--not very
quickly--on his way toward her.

"They're such children for the water, mine are," she said aloud,
without reflecting that there was no one to hear her; "they'll be
brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish that river was far
enough."

But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom
returning from the pool alone, this hovering fear entered and took
complete possession of her, and she hurried to meet him.

"Maggie's nowhere about the pond, mother," said Tom; "she's gone
away."

You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the difficulty
of convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs. Pullet
observed that the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there
was no knowing; and Mr. Pullet, confused and overwhelmed by this
revolutionary aspect of things,--the tea deferred and the poultry
alarmed by the unusual running to and fro,--took up his spud as an
instrument of search, and reached down a key to unlock the goose-pen,
as a likely place for Maggie to lie concealed in.

Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone home
(without thinking it necessary to state that it was what he should
have done himself under the circumstances), and the suggestion was
seized as a comfort by his mother.

"Sister, for goodness' sake let 'em put the horse in the carriage and
take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy can't walk
in her dirty clothes," she said, looking at that innocent victim, who
was wrapped up in a shawl, and sitting with naked feet on the sofa.

Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring
her premises to order and quiet, and it was not long before Mrs.
Tulliver was in the chaise, looking anxiously at the most distant
point before her. What the father would say if Maggie was lost, was a
question that predominated over every other.

Chapter XI

Maggie Tries to Run away from Her Shadow

Maggie's intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom
imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy
had walked away, was not so simple as that of going home. No! she
would run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any
more. That was by no means a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often
told she was like a gypsy, and "half wild," that when she was
miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium, and
being entirely in harmony with circumstances, would be to live in a
little brown tent on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, would
gladly receive her and pay her much respect on account of her superior
knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom and
suggested that he should stain his face brown, and they should run
away together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt, observing
that gypsies were thieves, and hardly got anything to eat and had
nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day however, Maggie thought her
misery had reached a pitch at which gypsydom was her refuge, and she
rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this
was a great crisis in her life; she would run straight away till she
came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gypsies; and
cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault with her,
should never see her any more. She thought of her father as she ran
along, but she reconciled herself to the idea of parting with him, by
determining that she would secretly send him a letter by a small
gypsy, who would run away without telling where she was, and just let
him know that she was well and happy, and always loved him very much.

Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time Tom got to
the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was
on the edge of the lane leading to the highroad. She stopped to pant a
little, reflecting that running away was not a pleasant thing until
one had got quite to the common where the gypsies were, but her
resolution had not abated; she presently passed through the gate into
the lane, not knowing where it would lead her, for it was not this way
that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she felt all the
safer for that, because there was no chance of her being overtaken.
But she was soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men
coming along the lane in front of her; she had not thought of meeting
strangers, she had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends
coming after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby-looking men
with flushed faces, one of them carrying a bundle on a stick over his
shoulder; but to her surprise, while she was dreading their
disapprobation as a runaway, the man with the bundle stopped, and in a
half-whining, half-coaxing tone asked her if she had a copper to give
a poor man. Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket,--her uncle Glegg's
present,--which she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a
polite smile, hoping he would feel very kindly toward her as a
generous person. "That's the only money I've got," she said
apologetically. "Thank you, little miss," said the man, in a less
respectful and grateful tone than Maggie anticipated, and she even
observed that he smiled and winked at his companion. She walked on
hurriedly, but was aware that the two men were standing still,
probably to look after her, and she presently heard them laughing
loudly. Suddenly it occurred to her that they might think she was an
idiot; Tom had said that her cropped hair made her look like an idiot,
and it was too painful an idea to be readily forgotten. Besides, she
had no sleeves on,--only a cape and bonnet. It was clear that she was
not likely to make a favorable impression on passengers, and she
thought she would turn into the fields again, but not on the same side
of the lane as before, lest they should still be uncle Pullet's
fields. She turned through the first gate that was not locked, and
felt a delightful sense of privacy in creeping along by the hedgerows,
after her recent humiliating encounter. She was used to wandering
about the fields by herself, and was less timid there than on the
highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, but that was a
small evil; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she should
probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common, or at least of some
other common, for she had heard her father say that you couldn't go
very far without coming to a common. She hoped so, for she was getting
rather tired and hungry, and until she reached the gypsies there was
no definite prospect of bread and butter. It was still broad daylight,
for aunt Pullet, retaining the early habits of the Dodson family, took
tea at half-past four by the sun, and at five by the kitchen clock;
so, though it was nearly an hour since Maggie started, there was no
gathering gloom on the fields to remind her that the night would come.
Still, it seemed to her that she had been walking a very great
distance indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not
come within sight. Hitherto she had been in the rich parish of Garum,
where was a great deal of pasture-land, and she had only seen one
laborer at a distance. That was fortunate in some respects, as
laborers might be too ignorant to understand the propriety of her
wanting to go to Dunlow Common; yet it would have been better if she
could have met some one who would tell her the way without wanting to
know anything about her private business. At last, however, the green
fields came to an end, and Maggie found herself looking through the
bars of a gate into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of
it. She had never seen such a wide lane before, and, without her
knowing why, it gave her the impression that the common could not be
far off; perhaps it was because she saw a donkey with a log to his
foot feeding on the grassy margin, for she had seen a donkey with that
pitiable encumbrance on Dunlow Common when she had been across it in
her father's gig. She crept through the bars of the gate and walked on
with new spirit, though not without haunting images of Apollyon, and a
highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth
from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers. For poor little
Maggie had at once the timidity of an active imagination and the
daring that comes from overmastering impulse. She had rushed into the
adventure of seeking her unknown kindred, the gypsies; and now she was
in this strange lane, she hardly dared look on one side of her, lest
she should see the diabolical blacksmith in his leathern apron
grinning at her with arms akimbo. It was not without a leaping of the
heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare legs sticking up,
feet uppermost, by the side of a hillock; they seemed something
hideously preternatural,--a diabolical kind of fungus; for she was too
much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes and the
dark shaggy head attached to them. It was a boy asleep, and Maggie
trotted along faster and more lightly, lest she should wake him; it
did not occur to her that he was one of her friends the gypsies, who
in all probability would have very genial manners. But the fact was
so, for at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little
semicircular black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, which
was to be her refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued
her in civilized life. She even saw a tall female figure by the column
of smoke, doubtless the gypsy-mother, who provided the tea and other
groceries; it was astonishing to herself that she did not feel more
delighted. But it was startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after
all, and not on a common; indeed, it was rather disappointing; for a
mysterious illimitable common, where there were sand-pits to hide in,
and one was out of everybody's reach, had always made part of Maggie's
picture of gypsy life. She went on, however, and thought with some
comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing about idiots, so there
was no danger of their falling into the mistake of setting her down at
the first glance as an idiot. It was plain she had attracted
attention; for the tall figure, who proved to be a young woman with a
baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her. Maggie looked up in the
new face rather tremblingly as it approached, and was reassured by the
thought that her aunt Pullet and the rest were right when they called
her a gypsy; for this face, with the bright dark eyes and the long
hair, was really something like what she used to see in the glass
before she cut her hair off.