prompt:
Chapter: In the Red Deeps

The family sitting-room was a long room with a window at each end; one
looking toward the croft and along the Ripple to the banks of the
Floss, the other into the mill-yard. Maggie was sitting with her work
against the latter window when she saw Mr. Wakem entering the yard, as
usual, on his fine black horse; but not alone, as usual. Some one was
with him,--a figure in a cloak, on a handsome pony. Maggie had hardly
time to feel that it was Philip come back, before they were in front
of the window, and he was raising his hat to her; while his father,
catching the movement by a side-glance, looked sharply round at them
both.

Maggie hurried away from the window and carried her work upstairs; for
Mr. Wakem sometimes came in and inspected the books, and Maggie felt
that the meeting with Philip would be robbed of all pleasure in the
presence of the two fathers. Some day, perhaps, she could see him when
they could just shake hands, and she could tell him that she
remembered his goodness to Tom, and the things he had said to her in
the old days, though they could never be friends any more. It was not
at all agitating to Maggie to see Philip again; she retained her
childish gratitude and pity toward him, and remembered his cleverness;
and in the early weeks of her loneliness she had continually recalled
the image of him among the people who had been kind to her in life,
often wishing she had him for a brother and a teacher, as they had
fancied it might have been, in their talk together. But that sort of
wishing had been banished along with other dreams that savored of
seeking her own will; and she thought, besides, that Philip might be
altered by his life abroad,--he might have become worldly, and really
not care about her saying anything to him now. And yet his face was
wonderfully little altered,--it was only a larger, more manly copy of
the pale, small-featured boy's face, with the gray eyes, and the
boyish waving brown hair; there was the old deformity to awaken the
old pity; and after all her meditations, Maggie felt that she really
_should_ like to say a few words to him. He might still be melancholy,
as he always used to be, and like her to look at him kindly. She
wondered if he remembered how he used to like her eyes; with that
thought Maggie glanced toward the square looking-glass which was
condemned to hang with its face toward the wall, and she half started
from her seat to reach it down; but she checked herself and snatched
up her work, trying to repress the rising wishes by forcing her memory
to recall snatches of hymns, until she saw Philip and his father
returning along the road, and she could go down again.

It was far on in June now, and Maggie was inclined to lengthen the
daily walk which was her one indulgence; but this day and the
following she was so busy with work which must be finished that she
never went beyond the gate, and satisfied her need of the open air by
sitting out of doors. One of her frequent walks, when she was not
obliged to go to St. Ogg's, was to a spot that lay beyond what was
called the "Hill,"--an insignificant rise of ground crowned by trees,
lying along the side of the road which ran by the gates of Dorlcote
Mill. Insignificant I call it, because in height it was hardly more
than a bank; but there may come moments when Nature makes a mere bank
a means toward a fateful result; and that is why I ask you to imagine
this high bank crowned with trees, making an uneven wall for some
quarter of a mile along the left side of Dorlcote Mill and the
pleasant fields behind it, bounded by the murmuring Ripple. Just where
this line of bank sloped down again to the level, a by-road turned off
and led to the other side of the rise, where it was broken into very
capricious hollows and mounds by the working of an exhausted
stone-quarry, so long exhausted that both mounds and hollows were now
clothed with brambles and trees, and here and there by a stretch of
grass which a few sheep kept close-nibbled. In her childish days
Maggie held this place, called the Red Deeps, in very great awe, and
needed all her confidence in Tom's bravery to reconcile her to an
excursion thither,--visions of robbers and fierce animals haunting
every hollow. But now it had the charm for her which any broken
ground, any mimic rock and ravine, have for the eyes that rest
habitually on the level; especially in summer, when she could sit on a
grassy hollow under the shadow of a branching ash, stooping aslant
from the steep above her, and listen to the hum of insects, like
tiniest bells on the garment of Silence, or see the sunlight piercing
the distant boughs, as if to chase and drive home the truant heavenly
blue of the wild hyacinths. In this June time, too, the dog-roses were
in their glory, and that was an additional reason why Maggie should
direct her walk to the Red Deeps, rather than to any other spot, on
the first day she was free to wander at her will,--a pleasure she
loved so well, that sometimes, in her ardors of renunciation, she
thought she ought to deny herself the frequent indulgence in it.

You may see her now, as she walks down the favorite turning and enters
the Deeps by a narrow path through a group of Scotch firs, her tall
figure and old lavender gown visible through an hereditary black silk
shawl of some wide-meshed net-like material; and now she is sure of
being unseen she takes off her bonnet and ties it over her arm. One
would certainly suppose her to be farther on in life than her
seventeenth year--perhaps because of the slow resigned sadness of the
glance from which all search and unrest seem to have departed; perhaps
because her broad-chested figure has the mould of early womanhood.
Youth and health have withstood well the involuntary and voluntary
hardships of her lot, and the nights in which she has lain on the hard
floor for a penance have left no obvious trace; the eyes are liquid,
the brown cheek is firm and round, the full lips are red. With her
dark coloring and jet crown surmounting her tall figure, she seems to
have a sort of kinship with the grand Scotch firs, at which she is
looking up as if she loved them well. Yet one has a sense of
uneasiness in looking at her,--a sense of opposing elements, of which
a fierce collision is imminent; surely there is a hushed expression,
such as one often sees in older faces under borderless caps, out of
keeping with the resistant youth, which one expects to flash out in a
sudden, passionate glance, that will dissipate all the quietude, like
a damp fire leaping out again when all seemed safe.

But Maggie herself was not uneasy at this moment. She was calmly
enjoying the free air, while she looked up at the old fir-trees, and
thought that those broken ends of branches were the records of past
storms, which had only made the red stems soar higher. But while her
eyes were still turned upward, she became conscious of a moving shadow
cast by the evening sun on the grassy path before her, and looked down
with a startled gesture to see Philip Wakem, who first raised his hat,
and then, blushing deeply, came forward to her and put out his hand.
Maggie, too, colored with surprise, which soon gave way to pleasure.
She put out her hand and looked down at the deformed figure before her
with frank eyes, filled for the moment with nothing but the memory of
her child's feelings,--a memory that was always strong in her. She was
the first to speak.

"You startled me," she said, smiling faintly; "I never meet any one
here. How came you to be walking here? Did you come to meet _me?_"

It was impossible not to perceive that Maggie felt herself a child
again.

"Yes, I did," said Philip, still embarrassed; "I wished to see you
very much. I watched a long while yesterday on the bank near your
house to see if you would come out, but you never came. Then I watched
again to-day, and when I saw the way you took, I kept you in sight and
came down the bank, behind there. I hope you will not be displeased
with me."

"No," said Maggie, with simple seriousness, walking on as if she meant
Philip to accompany her, "I'm very glad you came, for I wished very
much to have an opportunity of speaking to you. I've never forgotten
how good you were long ago to Tom, and me too; but I was not sure that
you would remember us so well. Tom and I have had a great deal of
trouble since then, and I think _that_ makes one think more of what
happened before the trouble came."

"I can't believe that you have thought of me so much as I have thought
of you," said Philip, timidly. "Do you know, when I was away, I made a
picture of you as you looked that morning in the study when you said
you would not forget me."

Philip drew a large miniature-case from his pocket, and opened it.
Maggie saw her old self leaning on a table, with her black locks
hanging down behind her ears, looking into space, with strange, dreamy
eyes. It was a water-color sketch, of real merit as a portrait.

"Oh dear," said Maggie, smiling, and flushed with pleasure, "what a
queer little girl I was! I remember myself with my hair in that way,
in that pink frock. I really _was_ like a gypsy. I dare say I am now,"
she added, after a little pause; "am I like what you expected me to
be?"

The words might have been those of a coquette, but the full, bright
glance Maggie turned on Philip was not that of a coquette. She really
did hope he liked her face as it was now, but it was simply the rising
again of her innate delight in admiration and love. Philip met her
eyes and looked at her in silence for a long moment, before he said
quietly, "No, Maggie."

The light died out a little from Maggie's face, and there was a slight
trembling of the lip. Her eyelids fell lower, but she did not turn
away her head, and Philip continued to look at her. Then he said
slowly:

"You are very much more beautiful than I thought you would be."

"Am I?" said Maggie, the pleasure returning in a deeper flush. She
turned her face away from him and took some steps, looking straight
before her in silence, as if she were adjusting her consciousness to
this new idea. Girls are so accustomed to think of dress as the main
ground of vanity, that, in abstaining from the looking-glass, Maggie
had thought more of abandoning all care for adornment than of
renouncing the contemplation of her face. Comparing herself with
elegant, wealthy young ladies, it had not occurred to her that she
could produce any effect with her person. Philip seemed to like the
silence well. He walked by her side, watching her face, as if that
sight left no room for any other wish. They had passed from among the
fir-trees, and had now come to a green hollow almost surrounded by an
amphitheatre of the pale pink dog-roses. But as the light about them
had brightened, Maggie's face had lost its glow.

She stood still when they were in the hollows, and looking at Philip
again, she said in a serious, sad voice:

"I wish we could have been friends,--I mean, if it would have been
good and right for us. But that is the trial I have to bear in
everything; I may not keep anything I used to love when I was little.
The old books went; and Tom is different, and my father. It is like
death. I must part with everything I cared for when I was a child. And
I must part with you; we must never take any notice of each other
again. That was what I wanted to speak to you for. I wanted to let you
know that Tom and I can't do as we like about such things, and that if
I behave as if I had forgotten all about you, it is not out of envy or
pride--or--or any bad feeling."

Maggie spoke with more and more sorrowful gentleness as she went on,
and her eyes began to fill with tears. The deepening expression of
pain on Philip's face gave him a stronger resemblance to his boyish
self, and made the deformity appeal more strongly to her pity.

"I know; I see all that you mean," he said, in a voice that had become
feebler from discouragement; "I know what there is to keep us apart on
both sides. But it is not right, Maggie,--don't you be angry with me,
I am so used to call you Maggie in my thoughts,--it is not right to
sacrifice everything to other people's unreasonable feelings. I would
give up a great deal for _my_ father; but I would not give up a
friendship or--or an attachment of any sort, in obedience to any wish
of his that I didn't recognize as right."

"I don't know," said Maggie, musingly. "Often, when I have been angry
and discontented, it has seemed to me that I was not bound to give up
anything; and I have gone on thinking till it has seemed to me that I
could think away all my duty. But no good has ever come of that; it
was an evil state of mind. I'm quite sure that whatever I might do, I
should wish in the end that I had gone without anything for myself,
rather than have made my father's life harder to him."

"But would it make his life harder if we were to see each other
sometimes?" said Philip. He was going to say something else, but
checked himself.

"Oh, I'm sure he wouldn't like it. Don't ask me why, or anything about
it," said Maggie, in a distressed tone. "My father feels so strongly
about some things. He is not at all happy."

"No more am I," said Philip, impetuously; "I am not happy."

"Why?" said Maggie, gently. "At least--I ought not to ask--but I'm
very, very sorry."

Philip turned to walk on, as if he had not patience to stand still any
longer, and they went out of the hollow, winding amongst the trees and
bushes in silence. After that last word of Philip's, Maggie could not
bear to insist immediately on their parting.

"I've been a great deal happier," she said at last, timidly, "since I
have given up thinking about what is easy and pleasant, and being
discontented because I couldn't have my own will. Our life is
determined for us; and it makes the mind very free when we give up
wishing, and only think of bearing what is laid upon us, and doing
what is given us to do."

"But I can't give up wishing," said Philip, impatiently. "It seems to
me we can never give up longing and wishing while we are thoroughly
alive. There are certain things we feel to be beautiful and good, and
we _must_ hunger after them. How can we ever be satisfied without them
until our feelings are deadened? I delight in fine pictures; I long to
be able to paint such. I strive and strive, and can't produce what I
want. That is pain to me, and always _will_ be pain, until my
faculties lose their keenness, like aged eyes. Then there are many
other things I long for,"--here Philip hesitated a little, and then
said,--"things that other men have, and that will always be denied me.
My life will have nothing great or beautiful in it; I would rather not
have lived."

"Oh, Philip," said Maggie, "I wish you didn't feel so." But her heart
began to beat with something of Philip's discontent.

"Well, then," said he, turning quickly round and fixing his gray eyes
entreatingly on her face, "I should be contented to live, if you would
let me see you sometimes." Then, checked by a fear which her face
suggested, he looked away again and said more calmly, "I have no
friend to whom I can tell everything, no one who cares enough about
me; and if I could only see you now and then, and you would let me
talk to you a little, and show me that you cared for me, and that we
may always be friends in heart, and help each other, then I might come
to be glad of life."

"But how can I see you, Philip?" said Maggie, falteringly. (Could she
really do him good? It would be very hard to say "good-by" this day,
and not speak to him again. Here was a new interest to vary the days;
it was so much easier to renounce the interest before it came.)

"If you would let me see you here sometimes,--walk with you here,--I
would be contented if it were only once or twice in a month. _That_
could injure no one's happiness, and it would sweeten my life.
Besides," Philip went on, with all the inventive astuteness of love at
one-and-twenty, "if there is any enmity between those who belong to
us, we ought all the more to try and quench it by our friendship; I
mean, that by our influence on both sides we might bring about a
healing of the wounds that have been made in the past, if I could know
everything about them. And I don't believe there is any enmity in my
own father's mind; I think he has proved the contrary."

Maggie shook her head slowly, and was silent, under conflicting
thoughts. It seemed to her inclination, that to see Philip now and
then, and keep up the bond of friendship with him, was something not
only innocent, but good; perhaps she might really help him to find
contentment as she had found it. The voice that said this made sweet
music to Maggie; but athwart it there came an urgent, monotonous
warning from another voice which she had been learning to obey,--the
warning that such interviews implied secrecy; implied doing something
she would dread to be discovered in, something that, if discovered,
must cause anger and pain; and that the admission of anything so near
doubleness would act as a spiritual blight. Yet the music would swell
out again, like chimes borne onward by a recurrent breeze, persuading
her that the wrong lay all in the faults and weaknesses of others, and
that there was such a thing as futile sacrifice for one to the injury
of another. It was very cruel for Philip that he should be shrunk
from, because of an unjustifiable vindictiveness toward his
father,--poor Philip, whom some people would shrink from only because
he was deformed. The idea that he might become her lover or that her
meeting him could cause disapproval in that light, had not occurred to
her; and Philip saw the absence of this idea clearly enough, saw it
with a certain pang, although it made her consent to his request the
less unlikely. There was bitterness to him in the perception that
Maggie was almost as frank and unconstrained toward him as when she
was a child.

"I can't say either yes or no," she said at last, turning round and
walking toward the way she come; "I must wait, lest I should decide
wrongly. I must seek for guidance."

"May I come again, then, to-morrow, or the next day, or next week?"

"I think I had better write," said Maggie, faltering again. "I have to
go to St. Ogg's sometimes, and I can put the letter in the post."

"Oh no," said Philip eagerly; "that would not be so well. My father
might see the letter--and--he has not any enmity, I believe, but he
views things differently from me; he thinks a great deal about wealth
and position. Pray let me come here once more. _Tell_ me when it shall
be; or if you can't tell me, I will come as often as I can till I do
see you."

"I think it must be so, then," said Maggie, "for I can't be quite
certain of coming here any particular evening."

Maggie felt a great relief in adjourning the decision. She was free
now to enjoy the minutes of companionship; she almost thought she
might linger a little; the next time they met she should have to pain
Philip by telling him her determination.

"I can't help thinking," she said, looking smilingly at him, after a
few moments of silence, "how strange it is that we should have met and
talked to each other, just as if it had been only yesterday when we
parted at Lorton. And yet we must both be very much altered in those
five years,--I think it is five years. How was it you seemed to have a
sort of feeling that I was the same Maggie? I was not quite so sure
that you would be the same; I know you are so clever, and you must
have seen and learnt so much to fill your mind; I was not quite sure
you would care about me now."

"I have never had any doubt that you would be the same, whenever I
might see you," said Philip,--"I mean, the same in everything that made
me like you better than any one else. I don't want to explain that; I
don't think any of the strongest effects our natures are susceptible
of can ever be explained. We can neither detect the process by which
they are arrived at, nor the mode in which they act on us. The
greatest of painters only once painted a mysteriously divine child; he
couldn't have told how he did it, and we can't tell why we feel it to
be divine. I think there are stores laid up in our human nature that
our understandings can make no complete inventory of. Certain strains
of music affect me so strangely; I can never hear them without their
changing my whole attitude of mind for a time, and if the effect would
last, I might be capable of heroisms."

"Ah! I know what you mean about music; _I_ feel so," said Maggie,
clasping her hands with her old impetuosity. "At least," she added, in
a saddened tone, "I used to feel so when I had any music; I never have
any now except the organ at church."

"And you long for it, Maggie?" said Philip, looking at her with
affectionate pity. "Ah, you can have very little that is beautiful in
your life. Have you many books? You were so fond of them when you were
a little girl."

They were come back to the hollow, round which the dog-roses grew, and
they both paused under the charm of the faery evening light, reflected
from the pale pink clusters.

"No, I have given up books," said Maggie, quietly, "except a very,
very few."

Philip had already taken from his pocket a small volume, and was
looking at the back as he said:

"Ah, this is the second volume, I see, else you might have liked to
take it home with you. I put it in my pocket because I am studying a
scene for a picture."

Maggie had looked at the back too, and saw the title; it revived an
old impression with overmastering force.

"'The Pirate,'" she said, taking the book from Philip's hands. "Oh, I
began that once; I read to where Minna is walking with Cleveland, and
I could never get to read the rest. I went on with it in my own head,
and I made several endings; but they were all unhappy. I could never
make a happy ending out of that beginning. Poor Minna! I wonder what
is the real end. For a long while I couldn't get my mind away from the
Shetland Isles,--I used to feel the wind blowing on me from the rough
sea."

Maggie spoke rapidly, with glistening eyes.

"Take that volume home with you, Maggie," said Philip, watching her
with delight. "I don't want it now. I shall make a picture of you
instead,--you, among the Scotch firs and the slanting shadows."

Maggie had not heard a word he had said; she was absorbed in a page at
which she had opened. But suddenly she closed the book, and gave it
back to Philip, shaking her head with a backward movement, as if to
say "avaunt" to floating visions.

"Do keep it, Maggie," said Philip, entreatingly; "it will give you
pleasure."

"No, thank you," said Maggie, putting it aside with her hand and
walking on. "It would make me in love with this world again, as I used
to be; it would make me long to see and know many things; it would
make me long for a full life."

"But you will not always be shut up in your present lot; why should
you starve your mind in that way? It is narrow asceticism; I don't
like to see you persisting in it, Maggie. Poetry and art and knowledge
are sacred and pure."

"But not for me, not for me," said Maggie, walking more hurriedly;
"because I should want too much. I must wait; this life will not last
long."

"Don't hurry away from me without saying 'good-by,' Maggie," said
Philip, as they reached the group of Scotch firs, and she continued
still to walk along without speaking. "I must not go any farther, I
think, must I?"

"Oh no, I forgot; good-by," said Maggie, pausing, and putting out her
hand to him. The action brought her feeling back in a strong current
to Philip; and after they had stood looking at each other in silence
for a few moments, with their hands clasped, she said, withdrawing her
hand:

"I'm very grateful to you for thinking of me all those years. It is
very sweet to have people love us. What a wonderful, beautiful thing
it seems that God should have made your heart so that you could care
about a queer little girl whom you only knew for a few weeks! I
remember saying to you that I thought you cared for me more than Tom
did."

"Ah, Maggie," said Philip, almost fretfully, "you would never love me
so well as you love your brother."

"Perhaps not," said Maggie, simply; "but then, you know, the first
thing I ever remember in my life is standing with Tom by the side of
the Floss, while he held my hand; everything before that is dark to
me. But I shall never forget you, though we must keep apart."

"Don't say so, Maggie," said Philip. "If I kept that little girl in my
mind for five years, didn't I earn some part in her? She ought not to
take herself quite away from me."

"Not if I were free," said Maggie; "but I am not, I must submit." She
hesitated a moment, and then added, "And I wanted to say to you, that
you had better not take more notice of my brother than just bowing to
him. He once told me not to speak to you again, and he doesn't change
his mind--Oh dear, the sun is set. I am too long away. Good-by." She
gave him her hand once more.

"I shall come here as often as I can till I see you again, Maggie.
Have some feeling for _me_ as well as for others."

"Yes, yes, I have," said Maggie, hurrying away, and quickly
disappearing behind the last fir-tree; though Philip's gaze after her
remained immovable for minutes as if he saw her still.

Maggie went home, with an inward conflict already begun; Philip went
home to do nothing but remember and hope. You can hardly help blaming
him severely. He was four or five years older than Maggie, and had a
full consciousness of his feeling toward her to aid him in foreseeing
the character his contemplated interviews with her would bear in the
opinion of a third person. But you must not suppose that he was
capable of a gross selfishness, or that he could have been satisfied
without persuading himself that he was seeking to infuse some
happiness into Maggie's life,--seeking this even more than any direct
ends for himself. He could give her sympathy; he could give her help.
There was not the slightest promise of love toward him in her manner;
it was nothing more than the sweet girlish tenderness she had shown
him when she was twelve. Perhaps she would never love him; perhaps no
woman ever _could_ love him. Well, then, he would endure that; he
should at least have the happiness of seeing her, of feeling some
nearness to her. And he clutched passionately the possibility that she
_might_ love him; perhaps the feeling would grow, if she could come to
associate him with that watchful tenderness which her nature would be
so keenly alive to. If any woman could love him, surely Maggie was
that woman; there was such wealth of love in her, and there was no one
to claim it all. Then, the pity of it, that a mind like hers should be
withering in its very youth, like a young forest-tree, for want of the
light and space it was formed to flourish in! Could he not hinder
that, by persuading her out of her system of privation? He would be
her guardian angel; he would do anything, bear anything, for her
sake--except not seeing her.

Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb

While Maggie's life-struggles had lain almost entirely within her own
soul, one shadowy army fighting another, and the slain shadows forever
rising again, Tom was engaged in a dustier, noisier warfare, grappling
with more substantial obstacles, and gaining more definite conquests.
So it has been since the days of Hecuba, and of Hector, Tamer of
horses; inside the gates, the women with streaming hair and uplifted
hands offering prayers, watching the world's combat from afar, filling
their long, empty days with memories and fears; outside, the men, in
fierce struggle with things divine and human, quenching memory in the
stronger light of purpose, losing the sense of dread and even of
wounds in the hurrying ardor of action.

From what you have seen of Tom, I think he is not a youth of whom you
would prophesy failure in anything he had thoroughly wished; the
wagers are likely to be on his side, notwithstanding his small success
in the classics. For Tom had never desired success in this field of
enterprise; and for getting a fine flourishing growth of stupidity
there is nothing like pouring out on a mind a good amount of subjects
in which it feels no interest. But now Tom's strong will bound
together his integrity, his pride, his family regrets, and his
personal ambition, and made them one force, concentrating his efforts
and surmounting discouragements. His uncle Deane, who watched him
closely, soon began to conceive hopes of him, and to be rather proud
that he had brought into the employment of the firm a nephew who
appeared to be made of such good commercial stuff. The real kindness
of placing him in the warehouse first was soon evident to Tom, in the
hints his uncle began to throw out, that after a time he might perhaps
be trusted to travel at certain seasons, and buy in for the firm
various vulgar commodities with which I need not shock refined ears in
this place; and it was doubtless with a view to this result that Mr.
Deane, when he expected to take his wine alone, would tell Tom to step
in and sit with him an hour, and would pass that hour in much
lecturing and catechising concerning articles of export and import,
with an occasional excursus of more indirect utility on the relative
advantages to the merchants of St. Ogg's of having goods brought in
their own and in foreign bottoms,--a subject on which Mr. Deane, as a
ship-owner, naturally threw off a few sparks when he got warmed with
talk and wine.

Already, in the second year, Tom's salary was raised; but all, except
the price of his dinner and clothes, went home into the tin box; and
he shunned comradeship, lest it should lead him into expenses in spite
of himself. Not that Tom was moulded on the spoony type of the
Industrious Apprentice; he had a very strong appetite for
pleasure,--would have liked to be a Tamer of horses and to make a
distinguished figure in all neighboring eyes, dispensing treats and
benefits to others with well-judged liberality, and being pronounced
one of the finest young fellows of those parts; nay, he determined to
achieve these things sooner or later; but his practical shrewdness
told him that the means no such achievements could only lie for him in
present abstinence and self-denial; there were certain milestones to
be passed, and one of the first was the payment of his father's debts.
Having made up his mind on that point, he strode along without
swerving, contracting some rather saturnine sternness, as a young man
is likely to do who has a premature call upon him for self-reliance.
Tom felt intensely that common cause with his father which springs
from family pride, and was bent on being irreproachable as a son; but
his growing experience caused him to pass much silent criticism on the
rashness and imprudence of his father's past conduct; their
dispositions were not in sympathy, and Tom's face showed little
radiance during his few home hours. Maggie had an awe of him, against
which she struggled as something unfair to her consciousness of wider
thoughts and deeper motives; but it was of no use to struggle. A
character at unity with itself--that performs what it intends, subdues
every counteracting impulse, and has no visions beyond the distinctly
possible--is strong by its very negations.

You may imagine that Tom's more and more obvious unlikeness to his
father was well fitted to conciliate the maternal aunts and uncles;
and Mr. Deane's favorable reports and predictions to Mr. Glegg
concerning Tom's qualifications for business began to be discussed
amongst them with various acceptance. He was likely, it appeared, to
do the family credit without causing it any expense and trouble. Mrs.
Pullet had always thought it strange if Tom's excellent complexion, so
entirely that of the Dodsons, did not argue a certainty that he would
turn out well; his juvenile errors of running down the peacock, and
general disrespect to his aunts, only indicating a tinge of Tulliver
blood which he had doubtless outgrown. Mr. Glegg, who had contracted a
cautious liking for Tom ever since his spirited and sensible behavior
when the execution was in the house, was now warming into a resolution
to further his prospects actively,--some time, when an opportunity
offered of doing so in a prudent manner, without ultimate loss; but
Mrs. Glegg observed that she was not given to speak without book, as
some people were; that those who said least were most likely to find
their words made good; and that when the right moment came, it would
be seen who could do something better than talk. Uncle Pullet, after
silent meditation for a period of several lozenges, came distinctly to
the conclusion, that when a young man was likely to do well, it was
better not to meddle with him.

Tom, meanwhile, had shown no disposition to rely on any one but
himself, though, with a natural sensitiveness toward all indications
of favorable opinion, he was glad to see his uncle Glegg look in on
him sometimes in a friendly way during business hours, and glad to be
invited to dine at his house, though he usually preferred declining on
the ground that he was not sure of being punctual. But about a year
ago, something had occurred which induced Tom to test his uncle
Glegg's friendly disposition.

Bob Jakin, who rarely returned from one of his rounds without seeing
Tom and Maggie, awaited him on the bridge as he was coming home from
St. Ogg's one evening, that they might have a little private talk. He
took the liberty of asking if Mr. Tom had ever thought of making money
by trading a bit on his own account. Trading, how? Tom wished to know.
Why, by sending out a bit of a cargo to foreign ports; because Bob had
a particular friend who had offered to do a little business for him in
that way in Laceham goods, and would be glad to serve Mr. Tom on the
same footing. Tom was interested at once, and begged for full
explanation, wondering he had not thought of this plan before.

He was so well pleased with the prospect of a speculation that might
change the slow process of addition into multiplication, that he at
once determined to mention the matter to his father, and get his
consent to appropriate some of the savings in the tin box to the
purchase of a small cargo. He would rather not have consulted his
father, but he had just paid his last quarter's money into the tin
box, and there was no other resource. All the savings were there; for
Mr. Tulliver would not consent to put the money out at interest lest
he should lose it. Since he had speculated in the purchase of some
corn, and had lost by it, he could not be easy without keeping the
money under his eye.

Tom approached the subject carefully, as he was seated on the hearth
with his father that evening, and Mr. Tulliver listened, leaning
forward in his arm-chair and looking up in Tom's face with a sceptical
glance. His first impulse was to give a positive refusal, but he was
in some awe of Tom's wishes, and since he had the sense of being an
"unlucky" father, he had lost some of his old peremptoriness and
determination to be master. He took the key of the bureau from his
pocket, got out the key of the large chest, and fetched down the tin
box,--slowly, as if he were trying to defer the moment of a painful
parting. Then he seated himself against the table, and opened the box
with that little padlock-key which he fingered in his waistcoat pocket
in all vacant moments. There they were, the dingy bank-notes and the
bright sovereigns, and he counted them out on the table--only a
hundred and sixteen pounds in two years, after all the pinching.

"How much do you want, then?" he said, speaking as if the words burnt
his lips.

"Suppose I begin with the thirty-six pounds, father?" said Tom.

Mr. Tulliver separated this sum from the rest, and keeping his hand
over it, said:

"It's as much as I can save out o' my pay in a year."

"Yes, father; it is such slow work, saving out of the little money we
get. And in this way we might double our savings."

"Ay, my lad," said the father, keeping his hand on the money, "but you
might lose it,--you might lose a year o' my life,--and I haven't got
many."

Tom was silent.

"And you know I wouldn't pay a dividend with the first hundred,
because I wanted to see it all in a lump,--and when I see it, I'm sure
on't. If you trust to luck, it's sure to be against me. It's Old
Harry's got the luck in his hands; and if I lose one year, I shall
never pick it up again; death 'ull o'ertake me."

Mr. Tulliver's voice trembled, and Tom was silent for a few minutes
before he said:

"I'll give it up, father, since you object to it so strongly."

But, unwilling to abandon the scheme altogether, he determined to ask
his uncle Glegg to venture twenty pounds, on condition of receiving
five per cent. of the profits. That was really a very small thing to
ask. So when Bob called the next day at the wharf to know the
decision, Tom proposed that they should go together to his uncle
Glegg's to open the business; for his diffident pride clung to him,
and made him feel that Bobs' tongue would relieve him from some
embarrassment.

Mr. Glegg, at the pleasant hour of four in the afternoon of a hot
August day, was naturally counting his wall-fruit to assure himself
that the sum total had not varied since yesterday. To him entered Tom,
in what appeared to Mr. Glegg very questionable companionship,--that
of a man with a pack on his back,--for Bob was equipped for a new
journey,--and of a huge brindled bull-terrier, who walked with a slow,
swaying movement from side to side, and glanced from under his
eye-lids with a surly indifference which might after all be a cover to
the most offensive designs.

Mr. Glegg's spectacles, which had been assisting him in counting the
fruit, made these suspicious details alarmingly evident to him.

"Heigh! heigh! keep that dog back, will you?" he shouted, snatching up
a stake and holding it before him as a shield when the visitors were
within three yards of him.

"Get out wi' you, Mumps," said Bob, with a kick. "He's as quiet as a
lamb, sir,"--an observation which Mumps corroborated by a low growl as
he retreated behind his master's legs.

"Why, what ever does this mean, Tom?" said Mr. Glegg. "Have you
brought information about the scoundrels as cut my trees?" If Bob came
in the character of "information," Mr. Glegg saw reasons for
tolerating some irregularity.

"No, sir," said Tom; "I came to speak to you about a little matter of
business of my own."

"Ay--well; but what has this dog got to do with it?" said the old
gentleman, getting mild again.

"It's my dog, sir," said the ready Bob. "An' it's me as put Mr. Tom up
to the bit o' business; for Mr. Tom's been a friend o' mine iver since
I was a little chap; fust thing iver I did was frightenin' the birds
for th' old master. An' if a bit o' luck turns up, I'm allays thinkin'
if I can let Mr. Tom have a pull at it. An' it's a downright roarin'
shame, as when he's got the chance o' making a bit o' money wi'
sending goods out,--ten or twelve per zent clear, when freight an'
commission's paid,--as he shouldn't lay hold o' the chance for want o'
money. An' when there's the Laceham goods,--lors! they're made o'
purpose for folks as want to send out a little carguy; light, an' take
up no room,--you may pack twenty pound so as you can't see the
passill; an' they're manifacturs as please fools, so I reckon they
aren't like to want a market. An' I'd go to Laceham an' buy in the
goods for Mr. Tom along wi' my own. An' there's the shupercargo o' the
bit of a vessel as is goin' to take 'em out. I know him partic'lar;
he's a solid man, an' got a family i' the town here. Salt, his name
is,--an' a briny chap he is too,--an' if you don't believe me, I can
take you to him."

Uncle Glegg stood open-mouthed with astonishment at this unembarrassed
loquacity, with which his understanding could hardly keep pace. He
looked at Bob, first over his spectacles, then through them, then over
them again; while Tom, doubtful of his uncle's impression, began to
wish he had not brought this singular Aaron, or mouthpiece. Bob's talk
appeared less seemly, now some one besides himself was listening to
it.

"You seem to be a knowing fellow," said Mr. Glegg, at last.

"Ay, sir, you say true," returned Bob, nodding his head aside; "I
think my head's all alive inside like an old cheese, for I'm so full
o' plans, one knocks another over. If I hadn't Mumps to talk to, I
should get top-heavy an' tumble in a fit. I suppose it's because I
niver went to school much. That's what I jaw my old mother for. I
says, 'You should ha' sent me to school a bit more,' I says, 'an' then
I could ha' read i' the books like fun, an' kep' my head cool an'
empty.' Lors, she's fine an' comfor'ble now, my old mother is; she
ates her baked meat an' taters as often as she likes. For I'm gettin'
so full o' money, I must hev a wife to spend it for me. But it's
botherin,' a wife is,--and Mumps mightn't like her."

Uncle Glegg, who regarded himself as a jocose man since he had retired
from business, was beginning to find Bob amusing, but he had still a
disapproving observation to make, which kept his face serious.

"Ah," he said, "I should think you're at a loss for ways o' spending
your money, else you wouldn't keep that big dog, to eat as much as two
Christians. It's shameful--shameful!" But he spoke more in sorrow than
in anger, and quickly added:

"But, come now, let's hear more about this business, Tom. I suppose
you want a little sum to make a venture with. But where's all your own
money? You don't spend it all--eh?"

"No, sir," said Tom, coloring; "but my father is unwilling to risk it,
and I don't like to press him. If I could get twenty or thirty pounds
to begin with, I could pay five per cent for it, and then I could
gradually make a little capital of my own, and do without a loan."

"Ay--ay," said Mr. Glegg, in an approving tone; "that's not a bad
notion, and I won't say as I wouldn't be your man. But it 'ull be as
well for me to see this Salt, as you talk on. And then--here's this
friend o' yours offers to buy the goods for you. Perhaps you've got
somebody to stand surety for you if the money's put into your hands?"
added the cautious old gentleman, looking over his spectacles at Bob.

"I don't think that's necessary, uncle," said Tom. "At least, I mean
it would not be necessary for me, because I know Bob well; but perhaps
it would be right for you to have some security."

"You get your percentage out o' the purchase, I suppose?" said Mr.
Glegg, looking at Bob.

"No, sir," said Bob, rather indignantly; "I didn't offer to get a
apple for Mr. Tom, o' purpose to hev a bite out of it myself. When I
play folks tricks, there'll be more fun in 'em nor that."

"Well, but it's nothing but right you should have a small percentage,"
said Mr. Glegg. "I've no opinion o' transactions where folks do things
for nothing. It allays looks bad."

"Well, then," said Bob, whose keenness saw at once what was implied,
"I'll tell you what I get by't, an' it's money in my pocket in the
end,--I make myself look big, wi' makin' a bigger purchase. That's
what I'm thinking on. Lors! I'm a 'cute chap,--I am."

"Mr. Glegg, Mr. Glegg!" said a severe voice from the open parlor
window, "pray are you coming in to tea, or are you going to stand
talking with packmen till you get murdered in the open daylight?"

"Murdered?" said Mr. Glegg; "what's the woman talking of? Here's your
nephey Tom come about a bit o' business."

"Murdered,--yes,--it isn't many 'sizes ago since a packman murdered a
young woman in a lone place, and stole her thimble, and threw her body
into a ditch."

"Nay, nay," said Mr. Glegg, soothingly, "you're thinking o' the man
wi' no legs, as drove a dog-cart."

"Well, it's the same thing, Mr. Glegg, only you're fond o'
contradicting what I say; and if my nephey's come about business, it
'ud be more fitting if you'd bring him into the house, and let his
aunt know about it, instead o' whispering in corners, in that
plotting, underminding way."

"Well, well," said Mr. Glegg, "we'll come in now."

"You needn't stay here," said the lady to Bob, in a loud voice,
adapted to the moral, not the physical, distance between them. "We
don't want anything. I don't deal wi' packmen. Mind you shut the gate
after you."

"Stop a bit; not so fast," said Mr. Glegg; "I haven't done with this
young man yet. Come in, Tom; come in," he added, stepping in at the
French window.

"Mr. Glegg," said Mrs. G., in a fatal tone, "if you're going to let
that man and his dog in on my carpet, before my very face, be so good
as to let me know. A wife's got a right to ask that, I hope."

"Don't you be uneasy, mum," said Bob, touching his cap. He saw at once
that Mrs. Glegg was a bit of game worth running down, and longed to be
at the sport; "we'll stay out upo' the gravel here,--Mumps and me
will. Mumps knows his company,--he does. I might hish at him by th'
hour together, before he'd fly at a real gentlewoman like you. It's
wonderful how he knows which is the good-looking ladies; and's
partic'lar fond of 'em when they've good shapes. Lors!" added Bob,
laying down his pack on the gravel, "it's a thousand pities such a
lady as you shouldn't deal with a packman, i' stead o' goin' into
these newfangled shops, where there's half-a-dozen fine gents wi'
their chins propped up wi' a stiff stock, a-looking like bottles wi'
ornamental stoppers, an' all got to get their dinner out of a bit o'
calico; it stan's to reason you must pay three times the price you pay
a packman, as is the nat'ral way o' gettin' goods,--an' pays no rent,
an' isn't forced to throttle himself till the lies are squeezed out on
him, whether he will or no. But lors! mum, you know what it is better
nor I do,--_you_ can see through them shopmen, I'll be bound."

"Yes, I reckon I can, and through the packmen too," observed Mrs.
Glegg, intending to imply that Bob's flattery had produced no effect
on _her;_ while her husband, standing behind her with his hands in his
pockets and legs apart, winked and smiled with conjugal delight at the
probability of his wife's being circumvented.

"Ay, to be sure, mum," said Bob. "Why, you must ha' dealt wi' no end
o' packmen when you war a young lass--before the master here had the
luck to set eyes on you. I know where you lived, I do,--seen th' house
many a time,--close upon Squire Darleigh's,--a stone house wi'
steps----"

"Ah, that it had," said Mrs. Glegg, pouring out the tea. "You know
something o' my family, then? Are you akin to that packman with a
squint in his eye, as used to bring th' Irish linen?"

"Look you there now!" said Bob, evasively. "Didn't I know as you'd
remember the best bargains you've made in your life was made wi'
packmen? Why, you see even a squintin' packman's better nor a shopman
as can see straight. Lors! if I'd had the luck to call at the stone
house wi' my pack, as lies here,"--stooping and thumping the bundle
emphatically with his fist,--"an' th' handsome young lasses all
stannin' out on the stone steps, it ud' ha' been summat like openin' a
pack, that would. It's on'y the poor houses now as a packman calls on,
if it isn't for the sake o' the sarvant-maids. They're paltry times,
these are. Why, mum, look at the printed cottons now, an' what they
was when you wore 'em,--why, you wouldn't put such a thing on now, I
can see. It must be first-rate quality, the manifactur as you'd
buy,--summat as 'ud wear as well as your own faitures."

"Yes, better quality nor any you're like to carry; you've got nothing
first-rate but brazenness, I'll be bound," said Mrs. Glegg, with a
triumphant sense of her insurmountable sagacity. "Mr. Glegg, are you
going ever to sit down to your tea? Tom, there's a cup for you."

"You speak true there, mum," said Bob. "My pack isn't for ladies like
you. The time's gone by for that. Bargains picked up dirt cheap! A bit
o' damage here an' there, as can be cut out, or else niver seen i' the
wearin', but not fit to offer to rich folks as can pay for the look o'
things as nobody sees. I'm not the man as 'ud offer t' open my pack to
_you_, mum; no, no; I'm a imperent chap, as you say,--these times
makes folks imperent,--but I'm not up to the mark o' that."

"Why, what goods do you carry in your pack?" said Mrs. Glegg.
"Fine-colored things, I suppose,--shawls an' that?"

"All sorts, mum, all sorts," said Bob,--thumping his bundle; "but let
us say no more about that, if _you_ please. I'm here upo' Mr. Tom's
business, an' I'm not the man to take up the time wi' my own."

"And pray, what _is_ this business as is to be kept from me?" said
Mrs. Glegg, who, solicited by a double curiosity, was obliged to let
the one-half wait.

"A little plan o' nephey Tom's here," said good-natured Mr. Glegg;
"and not altogether a bad 'un, I think. A little plan for making
money; that's the right sort o' plan for young folks as have got their
fortin to make, eh, Jane?"

"But I hope it isn't a plan where he expects iverything to be done for
him by his friends; that's what the young folks think of mostly
nowadays. And pray, what has this packman got to do wi' what goes on
in our family? Can't you speak for yourself, Tom, and let your aunt
know things, as a nephey should?"

"This is Bob Jakin, aunt," said Tom, bridling the irritation that aunt
Glegg's voice always produced. "I've known him ever since we were
little boys. He's a very good fellow, and always ready to do me a
kindness. And he has had some experience in sending goods out,--a
small part of a cargo as a private speculation; and he thinks if I
could begin to do a little in the same way, I might make some money. A
large interest is got in that way."

"Large int'rest?" said aunt Glegg, with eagerness; "and what do you
call large int'rest?"

"Ten or twelve per cent, Bob says, after expenses are paid."

"Then why wasn't I let to know o' such things before, Mr. Glegg?" said
Mrs. Glegg, turning to her husband, with a deep grating tone of
reproach. "Haven't you allays told me as there was no getting more nor
five per cent?"

"Pooh, pooh, nonsense, my good woman," said Mr. Glegg. "You couldn't
go into trade, could you? You can't get more than five per cent with
security."

"But I can turn a bit o' money for you, an' welcome, mum," said Bob,
"if you'd like to risk it,--not as there's any risk to speak on. But
if you'd a mind to lend a bit o' money to Mr. Tom, he'd pay you six or
seven per zent, an' get a trifle for himself as well; an' a
good-natur'd lady like you 'ud like the feel o' the money better if
your nephey took part on it."

"What do you say, Mrs. G.?" said Mr. Glegg. "I've a notion, when I've
made a bit more inquiry, as I shall perhaps start Tom here with a bit
of a nest-egg,--he'll pay me int'rest, you know,--an' if you've got
some little sums lyin' idle twisted up in a stockin' toe, or that----"

"Mr. Glegg, it's beyond iverything! You'll go and give information to
the tramps next, as they may come and rob me."

"Well, well, as I was sayin', if you like to join me wi' twenty
pounds, you can--I'll make it fifty. That'll be a pretty good
nest-egg, eh, Tom?"

"You're not counting on me, Mr. Glegg, I hope," said his wife. "You
could do fine things wi' my money, I don't doubt."

"Very well," said Mr. Glegg, rather snappishly, "then we'll do without
you. I shall go with you to see this Salt," he added, turning to Bob.

"And now, I suppose, you'll go all the other way, Mr. Glegg," said
Mrs. G., "and want to shut me out o' my own nephey's business. I never
said I wouldn't put money into it,--I don't say as it shall be twenty
pounds, though you're so ready to say it for me,--but he'll see some
day as his aunt's in the right not to risk the money she's saved for
him till it's proved as it won't be lost."

"Ay, that's a pleasant sort o'risk, that is," said Mr. Glegg,
indiscreetly winking at Tom, who couldn't avoid smiling. But Bob
stemmed the injured lady's outburst.

"Ay, mum," he said admiringly, "you know what's what--you do. An' it's
nothing but fair. _You_ see how the first bit of a job answers, an'
then you'll come down handsome. Lors, it's a fine thing to hev good
kin. I got my bit of a nest-egg, as the master calls it, all by my own
sharpness,--ten suvreigns it was,--wi' dousing the fire at Torry's
mill, an' it's growed an' growed by a bit an' a bit, till I'n got a
matter o' thirty pound to lay out, besides makin' my mother
comfor'ble. I should get more, on'y I'm such a soft wi' the women,--I
can't help lettin' 'em hev such good bargains. There's this bundle,
now," thumping it lustily, "any other chap 'ud make a pretty penny out
on it. But me!--lors, I shall sell 'em for pretty near what I paid for
'em."

"Have you got a bit of good net, now?" said Mrs. Glegg, in a
patronizing tone, moving from the tea-table, and folding her napkin.

"Eh, mum, not what you'd think it worth your while to look at. I'd
scorn to show it you. It 'ud be an insult to you."

"But let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, still patronizing. "If they're
damaged goods, they're like enough to be a bit the better quality."

"No, mum, I know my place," said Bob, lifting up his pack and
shouldering it. "I'm not going t' expose the lowness o' my trade to a
lady like you. Packs is come down i' the world; it 'ud cut you to th'
heart to see the difference. I'm at your sarvice, sir, when you've a
mind to go and see Salt."

"All in good time," said Mr. Glegg, really unwilling to cut short the
dialogue. "Are you wanted at the wharf, Tom?"

"No, sir; I left Stowe in my place."

"Come, put down your pack, and let me see," said Mrs. Glegg, drawing a
chair to the window and seating herself with much dignity.

"Don't you ask it, mum," said Bob, entreatingly.

"Make no more words," said Mrs. Glegg, severely, "but do as I tell
you."

"Eh mum, I'm loth, that I am," said Bob, slowly depositing his pack on
the step, and beginning to untie it with unwilling fingers. "But what
you order shall be done" (much fumbling in pauses between the
sentences). "It's not as you'll buy a single thing on me,--I'd be
sorry for you to do it,--for think o' them poor women up i' the
villages there, as niver stir a hundred yards from home,--it 'ud be a
pity for anybody to buy up their bargains. Lors, it's as good as a
junketing to 'em when they see me wi' my pack, an' I shall niver pick
up such bargains for 'em again. Least ways, I've no time now, for I'm
off to Laceham. See here now," Bob went on, becoming rapid again, and
holding up a scarlet woollen Kerchief with an embroidered wreath in
the corner; "here's a thing to make a lass's mouth water, an' on'y two
shillin'--an' why? Why, 'cause there's a bit of a moth-hole 'i this
plain end. Lors, I think the moths an' the mildew was sent by
Providence o' purpose to cheapen the goods a bit for the good-lookin'
women as han't got much money. If it hadn't been for the moths, now,
every hankicher on 'em 'ud ha' gone to the rich, handsome ladies, like
you, mum, at five shillin' apiece,--not a farthin' less; but what does
the moth do? Why, it nibbles off three shillin' o' the price i' no
time; an' then a packman like me can carry 't to the poor lasses as
live under the dark thack, to make a bit of a blaze for 'em. Lors,
it's as good as a fire, to look at such a hankicher!"

Bob held it at a distance for admiration, but Mrs. Glegg said sharply:

"Yes, but nobody wants a fire this time o' year. Put these colored
things by; let me look at your nets, if you've got 'em."

"Eh, mum, I told you how it 'ud be," said Bob, flinging aside the
colored things with an air of desperation. "I knowed it ud' turn
again' you to look at such paltry articles as I carry. Here's a piece
o' figured muslin now, what's the use o' you lookin' at it? You might
as well look at poor folks's victual, mum; it 'ud on'y take away your
appetite. There's a yard i' the middle on't as the pattern's all
missed,--lors, why, it's a muslin as the Princess Victoree might ha'
wore; but," added Bob, flinging it behind him on to the turf, as if to
save Mrs. Glegg's eyes, "it'll be bought up by the huckster's wife at
Fibb's End,--that's where _it'll_ go--ten shillin' for the whole
lot--ten yards, countin' the damaged un--five-an'-twenty shillin' 'ud
ha' been the price, not a penny less. But I'll say no more, mum; it's
nothing to you, a piece o' muslin like that; you can afford to pay
three times the money for a thing as isn't half so good. It's nets
_you_ talked on; well, I've got a piece as 'ull serve you to make fun
on----"

"Bring me that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "It's a buff; I'm partial to
buff."

"Eh, but a _damaged_ thing," said Bob, in a tone of deprecating
disgust. "You'd do nothing with it, mum, you'd give it to the cook, I
know you would, an' it 'ud be a pity,--she'd look too much like a lady
in it; it's unbecoming for servants."

"Fetch it, and let me see you measure it," said Mrs. Glegg,
authoritatively.

Bob obeyed with ostentatious reluctance.

"See what there is over measure!" he said, holding forth the extra
half-yard, while Mrs. Glegg was busy examining the damaged yard, and
throwing her head back to see how far the fault would be lost on a
distant view.

"I'll give you six shilling for it," she said, throwing it down with
the air of a person who mentions an ultimatum.

"Didn't I tell you now, mum, as it 'ud hurt your feelings to look at
my pack? That damaged bit's turned your stomach now; I see it has,"
said Bob, wrapping the muslin up with the utmost quickness, and
apparently about to fasten up his pack. "You're used to seein' a
different sort o' article carried by packmen, when you lived at the
stone house. Packs is come down i' the world; I told you that; _my_
goods are for common folks. Mrs. Pepper 'ull give me ten shillin' for
that muslin, an' be sorry as I didn't ask her more. Such articles
answer i' the wearin',--they keep their color till the threads melt
away i' the wash-tub, an' that won't be while _I'm_ a young un."

"Well, seven shilling," said Mrs. Glegg.

"Put it out o' your mind, mum, now do," said Bob. "Here's a bit o'
net, then, for you to look at before I tie up my pack, just for you to
see what my trade's come to,--spotted and sprigged, you see, beautiful
but yallow,--'s been lyin' by an' got the wrong color. I could niver
ha' bought such net, if it hadn't been yallow. Lors, it's took me a
deal o' study to know the vally o' such articles; when I begun to
carry a pack, I was as ignirant as a pig; net or calico was all the
same to me. I thought them things the most vally as was the thickest.
I was took in dreadful, for I'm a straightforrard chap,--up to no
tricks, mum. I can only say my nose is my own, for if I went beyond, I
should lose myself pretty quick. An' I gev five-an'-eightpence for
that piece o' net,--if I was to tell y' anything else I should be
tellin' you fibs,--an' five-an'-eightpence I shall ask of it, not a
penny more, for it's a woman's article, an' I like to 'commodate the
women. Five-an'-eightpence for six yards,--as cheap as if it was only
the dirt on it as was paid for.'"

"I don't mind having three yards of it,'" said Mrs. Glegg.

"Why, there's but six altogether," said Bob. "No, mum, it isn't worth
your while; you can go to the shop to-morrow an' get the same pattern
ready whitened. It's on'y three times the money; what's that to a lady
like you?" He gave an emphatic tie to his bundle.

"Come, lay me out that muslin," said Mrs. Glegg. "Here's eight
shilling for it."

"You _will_ be jokin'," said Bob, looking up with a laughing face; "I
see'd you was a pleasant lady when I fust come to the winder."

"Well, put it me out," said Mrs. Glegg, peremptorily.

"But if I let you have it for ten shillin', mum, you'll be so good as
not tell nobody. I should be a laughin'-stock; the trade 'ud hoot me,
if they knowed it. I'm obliged to make believe as I ask more nor I do
for my goods, else they'd find out I was a flat. I'm glad you don't
insist upo' buyin' the net, for then I should ha' lost my two best
bargains for Mrs. Pepper o' Fibb's End, an' she's a rare customer."

"Let me look at the net again," said Mrs. Glegg, yearning after the
cheap spots and sprigs, now they were vanishing.

"Well, I can't deny _you_, mum," said Bob handing it out.

"Eh!, see what a pattern now! Real Laceham goods. Now, this is the
sort o' article I'm recommendin' Mr. Tom to send out. Lors, it's a
fine thing for anybody as has got a bit o' money; these Laceham goods
'ud make it breed like maggits. If I was a lady wi' a bit o'
money!--why, I know one as put thirty pounds into them goods,--a lady
wi' a cork leg, but as sharp,--you wouldn't catch _her_ runnin' her
head into a sack; _she'd_ see her way clear out o' anything afore
she'd be in a hurry to start. Well, she let out thirty pound to a
young man in the drapering line, and he laid it out i' Laceham goods,
an' a shupercargo o' my acquinetance (not Salt) took 'em out, an' she
got her eight per zent fust go off; an' now you can't hold her but she
must be sendin' out carguies wi' every ship, till she's gettin' as
rich as a Jew. Bucks her name is, she doesn't live i' this town. Now
then, mum, if you'll please to give me the net----"

"Here's fifteen shilling, then, for the two," said Mrs. Glegg. "But
it's a shameful price."

"Nay, mum, you'll niver say that when you're upo' your knees i' church
i' five years' time. I'm makin' you a present o' th' articles; I am,
indeed. That eightpence shaves off my profits as clean as a razor. Now
then, sir," continued Bob, shouldering his pack, "if you please, I'll
be glad to go and see about makin' Mr. Tom's fortin. Eh, I wish I'd
got another twenty pound to lay out _my_sen; I shouldn't stay to say
my Catechism afore I knowed what to do wi't."

"Stop a bit, Mr. Glegg," said the lady, as her husband took his hat,
"you never _will_ give me the chance o' speaking. You'll go away now,
and finish everything about this business, and come back and tell me
it's too late for me to speak. As if I wasn't my nephey's own aunt,
and the head o' the family on his mother's side! and laid by guineas,
all full weight, for him, as he'll know who to respect when I'm laid
in my coffin."

"Well, Mrs. G., say what you mean," said Mr. G., hastily.

"Well, then, I desire as nothing may be done without my knowing. I
don't say as I sha'n't venture twenty pounds, if you make out as
everything's right and safe. And if I do, Tom," concluded Mrs. Glegg,
turning impressively to her nephew, "I hope you'll allays bear it in
mind and be grateful for such an aunt. I mean you to pay me interest,
you know; I don't approve o' giving; we niver looked for that in _my_
family."

"Thank you, aunt," said Tom, rather proudly. "I prefer having the
money only lent to me."

"Very well; that's the Dodson sperrit," said Mrs. Glegg, rising to get
her knitting with the sense that any further remark after this would
be bathos.

Salt--that eminently "briny chap"--having been discovered in a cloud
of tobacco-smoke at the Anchor Tavern, Mr. Glegg commenced inquiries
which turned out satisfactorily enough to warrant the advance of the
"nest-egg," to which aunt Glegg contributed twenty pounds; and in this
modest beginning you see the ground of a fact which might otherwise
surprise you; namely, Tom's accumulation of a fund, unknown to his
father, that promised in no very long time to meet the more tardy
process of saving, and quite cover the deficit. When once his
attention had been turned to this source of gain, Tom determined to
make the most of it, and lost no opportunity of obtaining information
and extending his small enterprises. In not telling his father, he was
influenced by that strange mixture of opposite feelings which often
gives equal truth to those who blame an action and those who admire
it,--partly, it was that disinclination to confidence which is seen
between near kindred, that family repulsion which spoils the most
sacred relations of our lives; partly, it was the desire to surprise
his father with a great joy. He did not see that it would have been
better to soothe the interval with a new hope, and prevent the
delirium of a too sudden elation.

At the time of Maggie's first meeting with Philip, Tom had already
nearly a hundred and fifty pounds of his own capital; and while they
were walking by the evening light in the Red Deeps, he, by the same
evening light, was riding into Laceham, proud of being on his first
journey on behalf of Guest & Co., and revolving in his mind all the
chances that by the end of another year he should have doubled his
gains, lifted off the obloquy of debt from his father's name, and
perhaps--for he should be twenty-one--have got a new start for
himself, on a higher platform of employment. Did he not desire it? He
was quite sure that he did.

The Wavering Balance

I said that Maggie went home that evening from the Red Deeps with a
mental conflict already begun. You have seen clearly enough, in her
interview with Philip, what that conflict was. Here suddenly was an
opening in the rocky wall which shut in the narrow valley of
humiliation, where all her prospect was the remote, unfathomed sky;
and some of the memory-haunting earthly delights were no longer out of
her reach. She might have books, converse, affection; she might hear
tidings of the world from which her mind had not yet lost its sense of
exile; and it would be a kindness to Philip too, who was
pitiable,--clearly not happy. And perhaps here was an opportunity
indicated for making her mind more worthy of its highest service;
perhaps the noblest, completest devoutness could hardly exist without
some width of knowledge; _must_ she always live in this resigned
imprisonment? It was so blameless, so good a thing that there should
be friendship between her and Philip; the motives that forbade it were
so unreasonable, so unchristian! But the severe monotonous warning
came again and again,--that she was losing the simplicity and
clearness of her life by admitting a ground of concealment; and that,
by forsaking the simple rule of renunciation, she was throwing herself
under the seductive guidance of illimitable wants. She thought she had
won strength to obey the warning before she allowed herself the next
week to turn her steps in the evening to the Red Deeps. But while she
was resolved to say an affectionate farewell to Philip, how she looked
forward to that evening walk in the still, fleckered shade of the
hollows, away from all that was harsh and unlovely; to the
affectionate, admiring looks that would meet her; to the sense of
comradeship that childish memories would give to wiser, older talk; to
the certainty that Philip would care to hear everything she said,
which no one else cared for! It was a half-hour that it would be very
hard to turn her back upon, with the sense that there would be no
other like it. Yet she said what she meant to say; she looked firm as
well as sad.

"Philip, I have made up my mind; it is right that we should give each
other up, in everything but memory. I could not see you without
concealment--stay, I know what you are going to say,--it is other
people's wrong feelings that make concealment necessary; but
concealment is bad, however it may be caused. I feel that it would be
bad for me, for us both. And then, if our secret were discovered,
there would be nothing but misery,--dreadful anger; and then we must
part after all, and it would be harder, when we were used to seeing
each other."

Philip's face had flushed, and there was a momentary eagerness of
expression, as if he had been about to resist this decision with all
his might.

But he controlled himself, and said, with assumed calmness: "Well,
Maggie, if we must part, let us try and forget it for one half hour;
let us talk together a little while, for the last time."

He took her hand, and Maggie felt no reason to withdraw it; his
quietness made her all the more sure she had given him great pain, and
she wanted to show him how unwillingly she had given it. They walked
together hand in hand in silence.

"Let us sit down in the hollow," said Philip, "where we stood the last
time. See how the dog-roses have strewed the ground, and spread their
opal petals over it."

They sat down at the roots of the slanting ash.

"I've begun my picture of you among the Scotch firs, Maggie," said
Philip, "so you must let me study your face a little, while you
stay,--since I am not to see it again. Please turn your head this
way."

This was said in an entreating voice, and it would have been very hard
of Maggie to refuse. The full, lustrous face, with the bright black
coronet, looked down like that of a divinity well pleased to be
worshipped, on the pale-hued, small-featured face that was turned up
to it.

"I shall be sitting for my second portrait then," she said, smiling.
"Will it be larger than the other?"

"Oh yes, much larger. It is an oil-painting. You will look like a tall
Hamadryad, dark and strong and noble, just issued from one of the
fir-trees, when the stems are casting their afternoon shadows on the
grass."

"You seem to think more of painting than of anything now, Philip?"

"Perhaps I do," said Philip, rather sadly; "but I think of too many
things,--sow all sorts of seeds, and get no great harvest from any one
of them. I'm cursed with susceptibility in every direction, and
effective faculty in none. I care for painting and music; I care for
classic literature, and mediaeval literature, and modern literature; I
flutter all ways, and fly in none."

"But surely that is a happiness to have so many tastes,--to enjoy so
many beautiful things, when they are within your reach," said Maggie,
musingly. "It always seemed to me a sort of clever stupidity only to
have one sort of talent,--almost like a carrier-pigeon."

"It might be a happiness to have many tastes if I were like other
men," said Philip, bitterly. "I might get some power and distinction
by mere mediocrity, as they do; at least I should get those middling
satisfactions which make men contented to do without great ones. I
might think society at St. Ogg's agreeable then. But nothing could
make life worth the purchase-money of pain to me, but some faculty
that would lift me above the dead level of provincial existence. Yes,
there is one thing,--a passion answers as well as a faculty."

Maggie did not hear the last words; she was struggling against the
consciousness that Philip's words had set her own discontent vibrating
again as it used to do.

"I understand what you mean," she said, "though I know so much less
than you do. I used to think I could never bear life if it kept on
being the same every day, and I must always be doing things of no
consequence, and never know anything greater. But, dear Philip, I
think we are only like children that some one who is wiser is taking
care of. Is it not right to resign ourselves entirely, whatever may be
denied us? I have found great peace in that for the last two or three
years, even joy in subduing my own will."

"Yes, Maggie," said Philip, vehemently; "and you are shutting yourself
up in a narrow, self-delusive fanaticism, which is only a way of
escaping pain by starving into dulness all the highest powers of your
nature. Joy and peace are not resignation; resignation is the willing
endurance of a pain that is not allayed, that you don't expect to be
allayed. Stupefaction is not resignation; and it is stupefaction to
remain in ignorance,--to shut up all the avenues by which the life of
your fellow-men might become known to you. I am not resigned; I am not
sure that life is long enough to learn that lesson. _You_ are not
resigned; you are only trying to stupefy yourself."

Maggie's lips trembled; she felt there was some truth in what Philip
said, and yet there was a deeper consciousness that, for any immediate
application it had to her conduct, it was no better than falsity. Her
double impression corresponded to the double impulse of the speaker.
Philip seriously believed what he said, but he said it with vehemence
because it made an argument against the resolution that opposed his
wishes. But Maggie's face, made more childlike by the gathering tears,
touched him with a tenderer, less egotistic feeling. He took her hand
and said gently:

"Don't let us think of such things in this short half-hour, Maggie. Let
us only care about being together. We shall be friends in spite of
separation. We shall always think of each other. I shall be glad to
live as long as you are alive, because I shall think there may always
come a time when I can--when you will let me help you in some way."

"What a dear, good brother you would have been, Philip," said Maggie,
smiling through the haze of tears. "I think you would have made as
much fuss about me, and been as pleased for me to love you, as would
have satisfied even me. You would have loved me well enough to bear
with me, and forgive me everything. That was what I always longed that
Tom should do. I was never satisfied with a _little_ of anything. That
is why it is better for me to do without earthly happiness altogether.
I never felt that I had enough music,--I wanted more instruments
playing together; I wanted voices to be fuller and deeper. Do you ever
sing now, Philip?" she added abruptly, as if she had forgotten what
went before.

"Yes," he said, "every day, almost. But my voice is only middling,
like everything else in me."

"Oh, sing me something,--just one song. I _may_ listen to that before
I go,--something you used to sing at Lorton on a Saturday afternoon,
when we had the drawing-room all to ourselves, and I put my apron over
my head to listen."

"_I_ know," said Philip; and Maggie buried her face in her hands while
he sang _sotto voce_, "Love in her eyes sits playing," and then said,
"That's it, isn't it?"

"Oh no, I won't stay," said Maggie, starting up. "It will only haunt
me. Let us walk, Philip. I must go home."

She moved away, so that he was obliged to rise and follow her.

"Maggie," he said, in a tone of remonstrance, "don't persist in this
wilful, senseless privation. It makes me wretched to see you benumbing
and cramping your nature in this way. You were so full of life when
you were a child; I thought you would be a brilliant woman,--all wit
and bright imagination. And it flashes out in your face still, until
you draw that veil of dull quiescence over it."

"Why do you speak so bitterly to me, Philip?" said Maggie.

"Because I foresee it will not end well; you can never carry on this
self-torture."

"I shall have strength given me," said Maggie, tremulously.

"No, you will not, Maggie; no one has strength given to do what is
unnatural. It is mere cowardice to seek safety in negations. No
character becomes strong in that way. You will be thrown into the
world some day, and then every rational satisfaction of your nature
that you deny now will assault you like a savage appetite."

Maggie started and paused, looking at Philip with alarm in her face.

"Philip, how dare you shake me in this way? You are a tempter."

"No, I am not; but love gives insight, Maggie, and insight often gives
foreboding. _Listen_ to me,--let _me_ supply you with books; do let me
see you sometimes,--be your brother and teacher, as you said at
Lorton. It is less wrong that you should see me than that you should
be committing this long suicide."

Maggie felt unable to speak. She shook her head and walked on in
silence, till they came to the end of the Scotch firs, and she put out
her hand in sign of parting.

"Do you banish me from this place forever, then, Maggie? Surely I may
come and walk in it sometimes? If I meet you by chance, there is no
concealment in that?"

It is the moment when our resolution seems about to become
irrevocable--when the fatal iron gates are about to close upon
us--that tests our strength. Then, after hours of clear reasoning and
firm conviction, we snatch at any sophistry that will nullify our long
struggles, and bring us the defeat that we love better than victory.

Maggie felt her heart leap at this subterfuge of Philip's, and there
passed over her face that almost imperceptible shock which accompanies
any relief. He saw it, and they parted in silence.

Philip's sense of the situation was too complete for him not to be
visited with glancing fears lest he had been intervening too
presumptuously in the action of Maggie's conscience, perhaps for a
selfish end. But no!--he persuaded himself his end was not selfish. He
had little hope that Maggie would ever return the strong feeling he
had for her; and it must be better for Maggie's future life, when
these petty family obstacles to her freedom had disappeared, that the
present should not be entirely sacrificed, and that she should have
some opportunity of culture,--some interchange with a mind above the
vulgar level of those she was now condemned to live with. If we only
look far enough off for the consequence of our actions, we can always
find some point in the combination of results by which those actions
can be justified; by adopting the point of view of a Providence who
arranges results, or of a philosopher who traces them, we shall find
it possible to obtain perfect complacency in choosing to do what is
most agreeable to us in the present moment. And it was in this way
that Philip justified his subtle efforts to overcome Maggie's true
prompting against a concealment that would introduce doubleness into
her own mind, and might cause new misery to those who had the primary
natural claim on her. But there was a surplus of passion in him that
made him half independent of justifying motives. His longing to see
Maggie, and make an element in her life, had in it some of that savage
impulse to snatch an offered joy which springs from a life in which
the mental and bodily constitution have made pain predominate. He had
not his full share in the common good of men; he could not even pass
muster with the insignificant, but must be singled out for pity, and
excepted from what was a matter of course with others. Even to Maggie
he was an exception; it was clear that the thought of his being her
lover had never entered her mind.

Do not think too hardly of Philip. Ugly and deformed people have great
need of unusual virtues, because they are likely to be extremely
uncomfortable without them; but the theory that unusual virtues spring
by a direct consequence out of personal disadvantages, as animals get
thicker wool in severe climates, is perhaps a little overstrained. The
temptations of beauty are much dwelt upon, but I fancy they only bear
the same relation to those of ugliness, as the temptation to excess at
a feast, where the delights are varied for eye and ear as well as
palate, bears to the temptations that assail the desperation of
hunger. Does not the Hunger Tower stand as the type of the utmost
trial to what is human in us?

Philip had never been soothed by that mother's love which flows out to
us in the greater abundance because our need is greater, which clings
to us the more tenderly because we are the less likely to be winners
in the game of life; and the sense of his father's affection and
indulgence toward him was marred by the keener perception of his
father's faults. Kept aloof from all practical life as Philip had
been, and by nature half feminine in sensitiveness, he had some of the
woman's intolerant repulsion toward worldliness and the deliberate
pursuit of sensual enjoyment; and this one strong natural tie in his
life,--his relation as a son,--was like an aching limb to him. Perhaps
there is inevitably something morbid in a human being who is in any
way unfavorably excepted from ordinary conditions, until the good
force has had time to triumph; and it has rarely had time for that at
two-and-twenty. That force was present in Philip in much strength, but
the sun himself looks feeble through the morning mists.

Another Love-Scene

Early in the following April, nearly a year after that dubious parting
you have just witnessed, you may, if you like, again see Maggie
entering the Red Deeps through the group of Scotch firs. But it is
early afternoon and not evening, and the edge of sharpness in the
spring air makes her draw her large shawl close about her and trip
along rather quickly; though she looks round, as usual, that she may
take in the sight of her beloved trees. There is a more eager,
inquiring look in her eyes than there was last June, and a smile is
hovering about her lips, as if some playful speech were awaiting the
right hearer. The hearer was not long in appearing.

"Take back your _Corinne_," said Maggie, drawing a book from under her
shawl. "You were right in telling me she would do me no good; but you
were wrong in thinking I should wish to be like her."

"Wouldn't you really like to be a tenth Muse, then, Maggie?" said
Philip looking up in her face as we look at a first parting in the
clouds that promises us a bright heaven once more.

"Not at all," said Maggie, laughing. "The Muses were uncomfortable
goddesses, I think,--obliged always to carry rolls and musical
instruments about with them. If I carried a harp in this climate, you
know, I must have a green baize cover for it; and I should be sure to
leave it behind me by mistake."

"You agree with me in not liking Corinne, then?"

"I didn't finish the book," said Maggie. "As soon as I came to the
blond-haired young lady reading in the park, I shut it up, and
determined to read no further. I foresaw that that light-complexioned
girl would win away all the love from Corinne and make her miserable.
I'm determined to read no more books where the blond-haired women
carry away all the happiness. I should begin to have a prejudice
against them. If you could give me some story, now, where the dark
woman triumphs, it would restore the balance. I want to avenge Rebecca
and Flora MacIvor and Minna, and all the rest of the dark unhappy
ones. Since you are my tutor, you ought to preserve my mind from
prejudices; you are always arguing against prejudices."

"Well, perhaps you will avenge the dark women in your own person, and
carry away all the love from your cousin Lucy. She is sure to have
some handsome young man of St. Ogg's at her feet now; and you have
only to shine upon him--your fair little cousin will be quite quenched
in your beams."

"Philip, that is not pretty of you, to apply my nonsense to anything
real," said Maggie, looking hurt. "As if I, with my old gowns and want
of all accomplishments, could be a rival of dear little Lucy,--who
knows and does all sorts of charming things, and is ten times prettier
than I am,--even if I were odious and base enough to wish to be her
rival. Besides, I never go to aunt Deane's when any one is there; it
is only because dear Lucy is good, and loves me, that she comes to see
me, and will have me go to see her sometimes."

"Maggie," said Philip, with surprise, "it is not like you to take
playfulness literally. You must have been in St. Ogg's this morning,
and brought away a slight infection of dulness."

"Well," said Maggie, smiling, "if you meant that for a joke, it was a
poor one; but I thought it was a very good reproof. I thought you
wanted to remind me that I am vain, and wish every one to admire me
most. But it isn't for that that I'm jealous for the dark women,--not
because I'm dark myself; it's because I always care the most about the
unhappy people. If the blond girl were forsaken, I should like _her_
best. I always take the side of the rejected lover in the stories."

"Then you would never have the heart to reject one yourself, should
you, Maggie?" said Philip, flushing a little.

"I don't know," said Maggie, hesitatingly. Then with a bright smile,
"I think perhaps I could if he were very conceited; and yet, if he got
extremely humiliated afterward, I should relent."

"I've often wondered, Maggie," Philip said, with some effort, "whether
you wouldn't really be more likely to love a man that other women were
not likely to love."

"That would depend on what they didn't like him for," said Maggie,
laughing. "He might be very disagreeable. He might look at me through
an eye-glass stuck in his eye, making a hideous face, as young Torry
does. I should think other women are not fond of that; but I never
felt any pity for young Torry. I've never any pity for conceited
people, because I think they carry their comfort about with them."

"But suppose, Maggie,--suppose it was a man who was not conceited, who
felt he had nothing to be conceited about; who had been marked from
childhood for a peculiar kind of suffering, and to whom you were the
day-star of his life; who loved you, worshipped you, so entirely that
he felt it happiness enough for him if you would let him see you at
rare moments----"

Philip paused with a pang of dread lest his confession should cut
short this very happiness,--a pang of the same dread that had kept his
love mute through long months. A rush of self-consciousness told him
that he was besotted to have said all this. Maggie's manner this
morning had been as unconstrained and indifferent as ever.

But she was not looking indifferent now. Struck with the unusual
emotion in Philip's tone, she had turned quickly to look at him; and
as he went on speaking, a great change came over her face,--a flush
and slight spasm of the features, such as we see in people who hear
some news that will require them to readjust their conceptions of the
past. She was quite silent, and walking on toward the trunk of a
fallen tree, she sat down, as if she had no strength to spare for her
muscles. She was trembling.

"Maggie," said Philip, getting more and more alarmed in every fresh
moment of silence, "I was a fool to say it; forget that I've said it.
I shall be contented if things can be as they were."

The distress with which he spoke urged Maggie to say something. "I am
so surprised, Philip; I had not thought of it." And the effort to say
this brought the tears down too.

"Has it made you hate me, Maggie?" said Philip, impetuously. "Do you
think I'm a presumptuous fool?"

"Oh, Philip!" said Maggie, "how can you think I have such feelings? As
if I were not grateful for _any_ love. But--but I had never thought of
your being my lover. It seemed so far off--like a dream--only like one
of the stories one imagines--that I should ever have a lover."

"Then can you bear to think of me as your lover, Maggie?" said Philip,
seating himself by her, and taking her hand, in the elation of a
sudden hope. "_Do_ you love me?"

Maggie turned rather pale; this direct question seemed not easy to
answer. But her eyes met Philip's, which were in this moment liquid
and beautiful with beseeching love. She spoke with hesitation, yet
with sweet, simple, girlish tenderness.

"I think I could hardly love any one better; there is nothing but what
I love you for." She paused a little while, and then added: "But it
will be better for us not to say any more about it, won't it, dear
Philip? You know we couldn't even be friends, if our friendship were
discovered. I have never felt that I was right in giving way about
seeing you, though it has been so precious to me in some ways; and now
the fear comes upon me strongly again, that it will lead to evil."

"But no evil has come, Maggie; and if you had been guided by that fear
before, you would only have lived through another dreary, benumbing
year, instead of reviving into your real self."

Maggie shook her head. "It has been very sweet, I know,--all the
talking together, and the books, and the feeling that I had the walk
to look forward to, when I could tell you the thoughts that had come
into my head while I was away from you. But it has made me restless;
it has made me think a great deal about the world; and I have
impatient thoughts again,--I get weary of my home; and then it cuts me
to the heart afterward, that I should ever have felt weary of my
father and mother. I think what you call being benumbed was
better--better for me--for then my selfish desires were benumbed."

Philip had risen again, and was walking backward and forward
impatiently.

"No, Maggie, you have wrong ideas of self-conquest, as I've often told
you. What you call self-conquest--binding and deafening yourself to
all but one train of impressions--is only the culture of monomania in
a nature like yours."

He had spoken with some irritation, but now he sat down by her again
and took her hand.

"Don't think of the past now, Maggie; think only of our love. If you
can really cling to me with all your heart, every obstacle will be
overcome in time; we need only wait. I can live on hope. Look at me,
Maggie; tell me again it is possible for you to love me. Don't look
away from me to that cloven tree; it is a bad omen."

She turned her large dark glance upon him with a sad smile.

"Come, Maggie, say one kind word, or else you were better to me at
Lorton. You asked me if I should like you to kiss me,--don't you
remember?--and you promised to kiss me when you met me again. You
never kept the promise."

The recollection of that childish time came as a sweet relief to
Maggie. It made the present moment less strange to her. She kissed him
almost as simply and quietly as she had done when she was twelve years
old. Philip's eyes flashed with delight, but his next words were words
of discontent.

"You don't seem happy enough, Maggie; you are forcing yourself to say
you love me, out of pity."

"No, Philip," said Maggie, shaking her head, in her old childish way;
"I'm telling you the truth. It is all new and strange to me; but I
don't think I could love any one better than I love you. I should like
always to live with you--to make you happy. I have always been happy
when I have been with you. There is only one thing I will not do for
your sake; I will never do anything to wound my father. You must never
ask that from me."

"No, Maggie, I will ask nothing; I will bear everything; I'll wait
another year only for a kiss, if you will only give me the first place
in your heart."

"No," said Maggie, smiling, "I won't make you wait so long as that."
But then, looking serious again, she added, as she rose from her
seat,--

"But what would your own father say, Philip? Oh, it is quite
impossible we can ever be more than friends,--brother and sister in
secret, as we have been. Let us give up thinking of everything else."

"No, Maggie, I can't give you up,--unless you are deceiving me; unless
you really only care for me as if I were your brother. Tell me the
truth."

"Indeed I do, Philip. What happiness have I ever had so great as being
with you,--since I was a little girl,--the days Tom was good to me?
And your mind is a sort of world to me; you can tell me all I want to
know. I think I should never be tired of being with you."

They were walking hand in hand, looking at each other; Maggie, indeed,
was hurrying along, for she felt it time to be gone. But the sense
that their parting was near made her more anxious lest she should have
unintentionally left some painful impression on Philip's mind. It was
one of those dangerous moments when speech is at once sincere and
deceptive; when feeling, rising high above its average depth, leaves
floodmarks which are never reached again.

They stopped to part among the Scotch firs.

"Then my life will be filled with hope, Maggie, and I shall be happier
than other men, in spite of all? We _do_ belong to each other--for
always--whether we are apart or together?"

"Yes, Philip; I should like never to part; I should like to make your
life very happy."

"I am waiting for something else. I wonder whether it will come."

Maggie smiled, with glistening tears, and then stooped her tall head
to kiss the pale face that was full of pleading, timid love,--like a
woman's.

She had a moment of real happiness then,--a moment of belief that, if
there were sacrifice in this love, it was all the richer and more
satisfying.

She turned away and hurried home, feeling that in the hour since she
had trodden this road before, a new era had begun for her. The tissue
of vague dreams must now get narrower and narrower, and all the
threads of thought and emotion be gradually absorbed in the woof of
her actual daily life.

The Cloven Tree

Secrets are rarely betrayed or discovered according to any programme
our fear has sketched out. Fear is almost always haunted by terrible
dramatic scenes, which recur in spite of the best-argued probabilities
against them; and during a year that Maggie had had the burthen of
concealment on her mind, the possibility of discovery had continually
presented itself under the form of a sudden meeting with her father or
Tom when she was walking with Philip in the Red Deeps. She was aware
that this was not one of the most likely events; but it was the scene
that most completely symbolized her inward dread. Those slight
indirect suggestions which are dependent on apparently trivial
coincidences and incalculable states of mind, are the favorite
machinery of Fact, but are not the stuff in which Imagination is apt
to work.

Certainly one of the persons about whom Maggie's fears were furthest
from troubling themselves was her aunt Pullet, on whom, seeing that
she did not live in St. Ogg's, and was neither sharp-eyed nor
sharp-tempered, it would surely have been quite whimsical of them to
fix rather than on aunt Glegg. And yet the channel of fatality--the
pathway of the lightning--was no other than aunt Pullet. She did not
live at St. Ogg's, but the road from Garum Firs lay by the Red Deeps,
at the end opposite that by which Maggie entered.

The day after Maggie's last meeting with Philip, being a Sunday on
which Mr. Pullet was bound to appear in funeral hatband and scarf at
St. Ogg's church, Mrs. Pullet made this the occasion of dining with
sister Glegg, and taking tea with poor sister Tulliver. Sunday was the
one day in the week on which Tom was at home in the afternoon; and
today the brighter spirits he had been in of late had flowed over in
unusually cheerful open chat with his father, and in the invitation,
"Come, Magsie, you come too!" when he strolled out with his mother in
the garden to see the advancing cherry-blossoms. He had been better
pleased with Maggie since she had been less odd and ascetic; he was
even getting rather proud of her; several persons had remarked in his
hearing that his sister was a very fine girl. To-day there was a
peculiar brightness in her face, due in reality to an undercurrent of
excitement, which had as much doubt and pain as pleasure in it; but it
might pass for a sign of happiness.

"You look very well, my dear," said aunt Pullet, shaking her head
sadly, as they sat round the tea-table. "I niver thought your girl 'ud
be so good-looking, Bessy. But you must wear pink, my dear; that blue
thing as your aunt Glegg gave you turns you into a crowflower. Jane
never _was_ tasty. Why don't you wear that gown o' mine?"

"It is so pretty and so smart, aunt. I think it's too showy for
me,--at least for my other clothes, that I must wear with it.

"To be sure, it 'ud be unbecoming if it wasn't well known you've got
them belonging to you as can afford to give you such things when
they've done with 'em themselves. It stands to reason I must give my
own niece clothes now and then,--such things as _I_ buy every year,
and never wear anything out. And as for Lucy, there's no giving to
her, for she's got everything o' the choicest; sister Deane may well
hold her head up,--though she looks dreadful yallow, poor thing--I
doubt this liver complaint 'ull carry her off. That's what this new
vicar, this Dr. Kenn, said in the funeral sermon to-day."

"Ah, he's a wonderful preacher, by all account,--isn't he, Sophy?"
said Mrs. Tulliver.

"Why, Lucy had got a collar on this blessed day," continued Mrs.
Pullet, with her eyes fixed in a ruminating manner, "as I don't say I
haven't got as good, but I must look out my best to match it."

"Miss Lucy's called the bell o' St. Ogg's, they say; that's a cur'ous
word," observed Mr. Pullet, on whom the mysteries of etymology
sometimes fell with an oppressive weight.

"Pooh!" said Mr. Tulliver, jealous for Maggie, "she's a small thing,
not much of a figure. But fine feathers make fine birds. I see nothing
to admire so much in those diminutive women; they look silly by the
side o' the men,--out o' proportion. When I chose my wife, I chose her
the right size,--neither too little nor too big."

The poor wife, with her withered beauty, smiled complacently.

"But the men aren't _all_ big," said uncle Pullet, not without some
self-reference; "a young fellow may be good-looking and yet not be a
six-foot, like Master Tom here.

"Ah, it's poor talking about littleness and bigness,--anybody may
think it's a mercy they're straight," said aunt Pullet. "There's that
mismade son o' Lawyer Wakem's, I saw him at church to-day. Dear, dear!
to think o' the property he's like to have; and they say he's very
queer and lonely, doesn't like much company. I shouldn't wonder if he
goes out of his mind; for we never come along the road but he's
a-scrambling out o' the trees and brambles at the Red Deeps."

This wide statement, by which Mrs. Pullet represented the fact that
she had twice seen Philip at the spot indicated, produced an effect on
Maggie which was all the stronger because Tom sate opposite her, and
she was intensely anxious to look indifferent. At Philip's name she
had blushed, and the blush deepened every instant from consciousness,
until the mention of the Red Deeps made her feel as if the whole
secret were betrayed, and she dared not even hold her tea-spoon lest
she should show how she trembled. She sat with her hands clasped under
the table, not daring to look round. Happily, her father was seated on
the same side with herself, beyond her uncle Pullet, and could not see
her face without stooping forward. Her mother's voice brought the
first relief, turning the conversation; for Mrs. Tulliver was always
alarmed when the name of Wakem was mentioned in her husband's
presence. Gradually Maggie recovered composure enough to look up; her
eyes met Tom's, but he turned away his head immediately; and she went
to bed that night wondering if he had gathered any suspicion from her
confusion. Perhaps not; perhaps he would think it was only her alarm
at her aunt's mention of Wakem before her father; that was the
interpretation her mother had put in it. To her father, Wakem was like
a disfiguring disease, of which he was obliged to endure the
consciousness, but was exasperated to have the existence recognized by
others; and no amount of sensitiveness in her about her father could
be surprising, Maggie thought.

But Tom was too keen-sighted to rest satisfied with such an
interpretation; he had seen clearly enough that there was something
distinct from anxiety about her father in Maggie's excessive
confusion. In trying to recall all the details that could give shape
to his suspicions, he remembered only lately hearing his mother scold
Maggie for walking in the Red Deeps when the ground was wet, and
bringing home shoes clogged with red soil; still Tom, retaining all
his old repulsion for Philip's deformity, shrank from attributing to
his sister the probability of feeling more than a friendly interest in
such an unfortunate exception to the common run of men. Tom's was a
nature which had a sort of superstitious repugnance to everything
exceptional. A love for a deformed man would be odious in any woman,
in a sister intolerable. But if she had been carrying on any kind of
intercourse whatever with Philip, a stop must be put to it at once;
she was disobeying her father's strongest feelings and her brother's
express commands, besides compromising herself by secret meetings. He
left home the next morning in that watchful state of mind which turns
the most ordinary course of things into pregnant coincidences.

That afternoon, about half-past three o'clock, Tom was standing on the
wharf, talking with Bob Jakin about the probability of the good ship
Adelaide coming in, in a day or two, with results highly important to
both of them.

"Eh," said Bob, parenthetically, as he looked over the fields on the
other side of the river, "there goes that crooked young Wakem. I know
him or his shadder as far off as I can see 'em; I'm allays lighting on
him o' that side the river."

A sudden thought seemed to have darted through Tom's mind. "I must go,
Bob," he said; "I've something to attend to," hurrying off to the
warehouse, where he left notice for some one to take his place; he was
called away home on peremptory business.

The swiftest pace and the shortest road took him to the gate, and he
was pausing to open it deliberately, that he might walk into the house
with an appearance of perfect composure, when Maggie came out at the
front door in bonnet and shawl. His conjecture was fulfilled, and he
waited for her at the gate. She started violently when she saw him.

"Tom, how is it you are come home? Is there anything the matter?"
Maggie spoke in a low, tremulous voice.

"I'm come to walk with you to the Red Deeps, and meet Philip Wakem,"
said Tom, the central fold in his brow, which had become habitual with
him, deepening as he spoke.

Maggie stood helpless, pale and cold. By some means, then, Tom knew
everything. At last she said, "I'm not going," and turned round.

"Yes, you are; but I want to speak to you first. Where is my father?"

"Out on horseback."

"And my mother?"

"In the yard, I think, with the poultry."

"I can go in, then, without her seeing me?"

They walked in together, and Tom, entering the parlor, said to Maggie,
"Come in here."

She obeyed, and he closed the door behind her.

"Now, Maggie, tell me this instant everything that has passed between
you and Philip Wakem."

"Does my father know anything?" said Maggie, still trembling.

"No," said Tom indignantly. "But he _shall_ know, if you attempt to
use deceit toward me any further."

"I don't wish to use deceit," said Maggie, flushing into resentment at
hearing this word applied to her conduct.

"Tell me the whole truth, then."

"Perhaps you know it."

"Never mind whether I know it or not. Tell me exactly what has
happened, or my father shall know everything."

"I tell it for my father's sake, then."

"Yes, it becomes you to profess affection for your father, when you
have despised his strongest feelings."

"You never do wrong, Tom," said Maggie, tauntingly.

"Not if I know it," answered Tom, with proud sincerity.

"But I have nothing to say to you beyond this: tell me what has passed
between you and Philip Wakem. When did you first meet him in the Red
Deeps?"

"A year ago," said Maggie, quietly. Tom's severity gave her a certain
fund of defiance, and kept her sense of error in abeyance. "You need
ask me no more questions. We have been friendly a year. We have met
and walked together often. He has lent me books."

"Is that all?" said Tom, looking straight at her with his frown.

Maggie paused a moment; then, determined to make an end of Tom's right
to accuse her of deceit, she said haughtily:

"No, not quite all. On Saturday he told me that he loved me. I didn't
think of it before then; I had only thought of him as an old friend."

"And you _encouraged_ him?" said Tom, with an expression of disgust.

"I told him that I loved him too."

Tom was silent a few moments, looking on the ground and frowning, with
his hands in his pockets. At last he looked up and said coldly,--

"Now, then, Maggie, there are but two courses for you to take,--either
you vow solemnly to me, with your hand on my father's Bible, that you
will never have another meeting or speak another word in private with
Philip Wakem, or you refuse, and I tell my father everything; and this
month, when by my exertions he might be made happy once more, you will
cause him the blow of knowing that you are a disobedient, deceitful
daughter, who throws away her own respectability by clandestine
meetings with the son of a man that has helped to ruin her father.
Choose!" Tom ended with cold decision, going up to the large Bible,
drawing it forward, and opening it at the fly-leaf, where the writing
was.

It was a crushing alternative to Maggie.

"Tom," she said, urged out of pride into pleading, "don't ask me that.
I will promise you to give up all intercourse with Philip, if you will
let me see him once, or even only write to him and explain
everything,--to give it up as long as it would ever cause any pain to
my father. I feel something for Philip too. _He_ is not happy."

"I don't wish to hear anything of your feelings; I have said exactly
what I mean. Choose, and quickly, lest my mother should come in."

"If I give you my word, that will be as strong a bond to me as if I
laid my hand on the Bible. I don't require that to bind me."

"Do what _I_ require," said Tom. "I can't trust you, Maggie. There is
no consistency in you. Put your hand on this Bible, and say, 'I
renounce all private speech and intercourse with Philip Wakem from
this time forth.' Else you will bring shame on us all, and grief on my
father; and what is the use of my exerting myself and giving up
everything else for the sake of paying my father's debts, if you are
to bring madness and vexation on him, just when he might be easy and
hold up his head once more?"

"Oh, Tom, _will_ the debts be paid soon?" said Maggie, clasping her
hands, with a sudden flash of joy across her wretchedness.

"If things turn out as I expect," said Tom. "But," he added, his voice
trembling with indignation, "while I have been contriving and working
that my father may have some peace of mind before he dies,--working
for the respectability of our family,--you have done all you can to
destroy both."

Maggie felt a deep movement of compunction; for the moment, her mind
ceased to contend against what she felt to be cruel and unreasonable,
and in her self-blame she justified her brother.

"Tom," she said in a low voice, "it was wrong of me; but I was so
lonely, and I was sorry for Philip. And I think enmity and hatred are
wicked."

"Nonsense!" said Tom. "Your duty was clear enough. Say no more; but
promise, in the words I told you."

"I _must_ speak to Philip once more."

"You will go with me now and speak to him."

"I give you my word not to meet him or write to him again without your
knowledge. That is the only thing I will say. I will put my hand on
the Bible if you like."

"Say it, then."

Maggie laid her hand on the page of manuscript and repeated the
promise. Tom closed the book, and said, "Now let us go."

Not a word was spoken as they walked along. Maggie was suffering in
anticipation of what Philip was about to suffer, and dreading the
galling words that would fall on him from Tom's lips; but she felt it
was in vain to attempt anything but submission. Tom had his terrible
clutch on her conscience and her deepest dread; she writhed under the
demonstrable truth of the character he had given to her conduct, and
yet her whole soul rebelled against it as unfair from its
incompleteness. He, meanwhile, felt the impetus of his indignation
diverted toward Philip. He did not know how much of an old boyish
repulsion and of mere personal pride and animosity was concerned in
the bitter severity of the words by which he meant to do the duty of a
son and a brother. Tom was not given to inquire subtly into his own
motives any more than into other matters of an intangible kind; he was
quite sure that his own motives as well as actions were good, else he
would have had nothing to do with them.

Maggie's only hope was that something might, for the first time, have
prevented Philip from coming. Then there would be delay,--then she
might get Tom's permission to write to him. Her heart beat with double
violence when they got under the Scotch firs. It was the last moment
of suspense, she thought; Philip always met her soon after she got
beyond them. But they passed across the more open green space, and
entered the narrow bushy path by the mound. Another turning, and they
came so close upon him that both Tom and Philip stopped suddenly
within a yard of each other. There was a moment's silence, in which
Philip darted a look of inquiry at Maggie's face. He saw an answer
there, in the pale, parted lips, and the terrified tension of the
large eyes. Her imagination, always rushing extravagantly beyond an
immediate impression, saw her tall, strong brother grasping the feeble
Philip bodily, crushing him and trampling on him.

"Do you call this acting the part of a man and a gentleman, sir?" Tom
said, in a voice of harsh scorn, as soon as Philip's eyes were turned
on him again.

"What do you mean?" answered Philip, haughtily.

"Mean? Stand farther from me, lest I should lay hands on you, and I'll
tell you what I mean. I mean, taking advantage of a young girl's
foolishness and ignorance to get her to have secret meetings with you.
I mean, daring to trifle with the respectability of a family that has
a good and honest name to support."

"I deny that," interrupted Philip, impetuously. "I could never trifle
with anything that affected your sister's happiness. She is dearer to
me than she is to you; I honor her more than you can ever honor her; I
would give up my life to her."

"Don't talk high-flown nonsense to me, sir! Do you mean to pretend
that you didn't know it would be injurious to her to meet you here
week after week? Do you pretend you had any right to make professions
of love to her, even if you had been a fit husband for her, when
neither her father nor your father would ever consent to a marriage
between you? And _you_,--_you_ to try and worm yourself into the
affections of a handsome girl who is not eighteen, and has been shut
out from the world by her father's misfortunes! That's your crooked
notion of honor, is it? I call it base treachery; I call it taking
advantage of circumstances to win what's too good for you,--what you'd
never get by fair means."

"It is manly of you to talk in this way to _me_," said Philip,
bitterly, his whole frame shaken by violent emotions. "Giants have an
immemorial right to stupidity and insolent abuse. You are incapable
even of understanding what I feel for your sister. I feel so much for
her that I could even desire to be at friendship with _you_."

"I should be very sorry to understand your feelings," said Tom, with
scorching contempt. "What I wish is that you should understand
_me_,--that I shall take care of _my_ sister, and that if you dare to
make the least attempt to come near her, or to write to her, or to
keep the slightest hold on her mind, your puny, miserable body, that
ought to have put some modesty into your mind, shall not protect you.
I'll thrash you; I'll hold you up to public scorn. Who wouldn't laugh
at the idea of _your_ turning lover to a fine girl?"

Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He burst out, in a
convulsed voice.

"Stay, Maggie!" said Philip, making a strong effort to speak. Then
looking at Tom, "You have dragged your sister here, I suppose, that
she may stand by while you threaten and insult me. These naturally
seemed to you the right means to influence me. But you are mistaken.
Let your sister speak. If she says she is bound to give me up, I shall
abide by her wishes to the slightest word."

"It was for my father's sake, Philip," said Maggie, imploringly. "Tom
threatens to tell my father, and he couldn't bear it; I have promised,
I have vowed solemnly, that we will not have any intercourse without
my brother's knowledge."

"It is enough, Maggie. _I_ shall not change; but I wish you to hold
yourself entirely free. But trust me; remember that I can never seek
for anything but good to what belongs to you."

"Yes," said Tom, exasperated by this attitude of Philip's, "you can
talk of seeking good for her and what belongs to her now; did you seek
her good before?"

"I did,--at some risk, perhaps. But I wished her to have a friend for
life,--who would cherish her, who would do her more justice than a
coarse and narrow-minded brother, that she has always lavished her
affections on."

"Yes, my way of befriending her is different from yours; and I'll tell
you what is my way. I'll save her from disobeying and disgracing her
father; I'll save her from throwing herself away on you,--from making
herself a laughing-stock,--from being flouted by a man like _your_
father, because she's not good enough for his son. You know well
enough what sort of justice and cherishing you were preparing for her.
I'm not to be imposed upon by fine words; I can see what actions mean.
Come away, Maggie."

He seized Maggie's right wrist as he spoke, and she put out her left
hand. Philip clasped it an instant, with one eager look, and then
hurried away.

Tom and Maggie walked on in silence for some yards. He was still
holding her wrist tightly, as if he were compelling a culprit from the
scene of action. At last Maggie, with a violent snatch, drew her hand
away, and her pent-up, long-gathered irritation burst into utterance.

"Don't suppose that I think you are right, Tom, or that I bow to your
will. I despise the feelings you have shown in speaking to Philip; I
detest your insulting, unmanly allusions to his deformity. You have
been reproaching other people all your life; you have been always sure
you yourself are right. It is because you have not a mind large enough
to see that there is anything better than your own conduct and your
own petty aims."

"Certainly," said Tom, coolly. "I don't see that your conduct is
better, or your aims either. If your conduct, and Philip Wakem's
conduct, has been right, why are you ashamed of its being known?
Answer me that. I know what I have aimed at in my conduct, and I've
succeeded; pray, what good has your conduct brought to you or any one
else?"

"I don't want to defend myself," said Maggie, still with vehemence: "I
know I've been wrong,--often, continually. But yet, sometimes when I
have done wrong, it has been because I have feelings that you would be
the better for, if you had them. If _you_ were in fault ever, if you
had done anything very wrong, I should be sorry for the pain it
brought you; I should not want punishment to be heaped on you. But you
have always enjoyed punishing me; you have always been hard and cruel
to me; even when I was a little girl, and always loved you better than
any one else in the world, you would let me go crying to bed without
forgiving me. You have no pity; you have no sense of your own
imperfection and your own sins. It is a sin to be hard; it is not
fitting for a mortal, for a Christian. You are nothing but a Pharisee.
You thank God for nothing but your own virtues; you think they are
great enough to win you everything else. You have not even a vision of
feelings by the side of which your shining virtues are mere darkness!"

"Well," said Tom, with cold scorn, "if your feelings are so much
better than mine, let me see you show them in some other way than by
conduct that's likely to disgrace us all,--than by ridiculous flights
first into one extreme and then into another. Pray, how have you shown
your love, that you talk of, either to me or my father? By disobeying
and deceiving us. I have a different way of showing my affection."

"Because you are a man, Tom, and have power, and can do something in
the world."

"Then, if you can do nothing, submit to those that can."

"So I _will_ submit to what I acknowledge and feel to be right. I will
submit even to what is unreasonable from my father, but I will not
submit to it from you. You boast of your virtues as if they purchased
you a right to be cruel and unmanly, as you've been to-day. Don't
suppose I would give up Philip Wakem in obedience to you. The
deformity you insult would make me cling to him and care for him the
more."

"Very well; that is your view of things." said Tom, more coldly than
ever; "you need say no more to show me what a wide distance there is
between us. Let us remember that in future, and be silent."

Tom went back to St. Ogg's, to fulfill an appointment with his uncle
Deane, and receive directions about a journey on which he was to set
out the next morning.

Maggie went up to her own room to pour out all that indignant
remonstrance, against which Tom's mind was close barred, in bitter
tears. Then, when the first burst of unsatisfied anger was gone by,
came the recollection of that quiet time before the pleasure which had
ended in to-day's misery had perturbed the clearness and simplicity of
her life. She used to think in that time that she had made great
conquests, and won a lasting stand on serene heights above worldly
temptations and conflict. And here she was down again in the thick of
a hot strife with her own and others' passions. Life was not so short,
then, and perfect rest was not so near as she had dreamed when she was
two years younger. There was more struggle for her, and perhaps more
falling. If she had felt that she was entirely wrong, and that Tom had
been entirely right, she could sooner have recovered more inward
harmony; but now her penitence and submission were constantly
obstructed by resentment that would present itself to her no otherwise
than as a just indignation. Her heart bled for Philip; she went on
recalling the insults that had been flung at him with so vivid a
conception of what he had felt under them, that it was almost like a
sharp bodily pain to her, making her beat the floor with her foot and
tighten her fingers on her palm.

And yet, how was it that she was now and then conscious of a certain
dim background of relief in the forced separation from Philip? Surely
it was only because the sense of a deliverance from concealment was
welcome at any cost.

The Hard-Won Triumph

Three weeks later, when Dorlcote Mill was at its prettiest moment in
all the year,--the great chestnuts in blossom, and the grass all deep
and daisied,--Tom Tulliver came home to it earlier than usual in the
evening, and as he passed over the bridge, he looked with the old
deep-rooted affection at the respectable red brick house, which always
seemed cheerful and inviting outside, let the rooms be as bare and the
hearts as sad as they might inside. There is a very pleasant light in
Tom's blue-gray eyes as he glances at the house-windows; that fold in
his brow never disappears, but it is not unbecoming; it seems to imply
a strength of will that may possibly be without harshness, when the
eyes and mouth have their gentlest expression. His firm step becomes
quicker, and the corners of his mouth rebel against the compression
which is meant to forbid a smile.

The eyes in the parlor were not turned toward the bridge just then,
and the group there was sitting in unexpectant silence,--Mr. Tulliver
in his arm-chair, tired with a long ride, and ruminating with a worn
look, fixed chiefly on Maggie, who was bending over her sewing while
her mother was making the tea.

They all looked up with surprise when they heard the well-known foot.

"Why, what's up now, Tom?" said his father. "You're a bit earlier than
usual."

"Oh, there was nothing more for me to do, so I came away. Well,
mother!"

Tom went up to his mother and kissed her, a sign of unusual good-humor
with him. Hardly a word or look had passed between him and Maggie in
all the three weeks; but his usual incommunicativeness at home
prevented this from being noticeable to their parents.

"Father," said Tom, when they had finished tea, "do you know exactly
how much money there is in the tin box?"

"Only a hundred and ninety-three pound," said Mr. Tulliver. "You've
brought less o' late; but young fellows like to have their own way
with their money. Though I didn't do as I liked before _I_ was of
age." He spoke with rather timid discontent.

"Are you quite sure that's the sum, father?" said Tom. "I wish you
would take the trouble to fetch the tin box down. I think you have
perhaps made a mistake."

"How should I make a mistake?" said his father, sharply. "I've counted
it often enough; but I can fetch it, if you won't believe me."

It was always an incident Mr. Tulliver liked, in his gloomy life, to
fetch the tin box and count the money.

"Don't go out of the room, mother," said Tom, as he saw her moving
when his father was gone upstairs.

"And isn't Maggie to go?" said Mrs. Tulliver; "because somebody must
take away the things."

"Just as she likes," said Tom indifferently.

That was a cutting word to Maggie. Her heart had leaped with the
sudden conviction that Tom was going to tell their father the debts
could be paid; and Tom would have let her be absent when that news was
told! But she carried away the tray and came back immediately. The
feeling of injury on her own behalf could not predominate at that
moment.

Tom drew to the corner of the table near his father when the tin box
was set down and opened, and the red evening light falling on them
made conspicuous the worn, sour gloom of the dark-eyed father and the
suppressed joy in the face of the fair-complexioned son. The mother
and Maggie sat at the other end of the table, the one in blank
patience, the other in palpitating expectation.

Mr. Tulliver counted out the money, setting it in order on the table,
and then said, glancing sharply at Tom:

"There now! you see I was right enough."

He paused, looking at the money with bitter despondency.

"There's more nor three hundred wanting; it'll be a fine while before
_I_ can save that. Losing that forty-two pound wi' the corn was a sore
job. This world's been too many for me. It's took four year to lay
_this_ by; it's much if I'm above ground for another four year. I must
trusten to you to pay 'em," he went on, with a trembling voice, "if
you keep i' the same mind now you're coming o' age. But you're like
enough to bury me first."

He looked up in Tom's face with a querulous desire for some assurance.

"No, father," said Tom, speaking with energetic decision, though there
was tremor discernible in his voice too, "you will live to see the
debts all paid. You shall pay them with your own hand."

His tone implied something more than mere hopefulness or resolution. A
slight electric shock seemed to pass through Mr. Tulliver, and he kept
his eyes fixed on Tom with a look of eager inquiry, while Maggie,
unable to restrain herself, rushed to her father's side and knelt down
by him. Tom was silent a little while before he went on.

"A good while ago, my uncle Glegg lent me a little money to trade
with, and that has answered. I have three hundred and twenty pounds in
the bank."

His mother's arms were round his neck as soon as the last words were
uttered, and she said, half crying:

"Oh, my boy, I knew you'd make iverything right again, when you got a
man."

But his father was silent; the flood of emotion hemmed in all power of
speech. Both Tom and Maggie were struck with fear lest the shock of
joy might even be fatal. But the blessed relief of tears came. The
broad chest heaved, the muscles of the face gave way, and the
gray-haired man burst into loud sobs. The fit of weeping gradually
subsided, and he sat quiet, recovering the regularity of his
breathing. At last he looked up at his wife and said, in a gentle
tone:

"Bessy, you must come and kiss me now--the lad has made you amends.
You'll see a bit o' comfort again, belike."

When she had kissed him, and he had held her hand a minute, his
thoughts went back to the money.

"I wish you'd brought me the money to look at, Tom," he said,
fingering the sovereigns on the table; "I should ha' felt surer."

"You shall see it to-morrow, father," said Tom. "My uncle Deane has
appointed the creditors to meet to-morrow at the Golden Lion, and he
has ordered a dinner for them at two o'clock. My uncle Glegg and he
will both be there. It was advertised in the 'Messenger' on Saturday."

"Then Wakem knows on't!" said Mr. Tulliver, his eye kindling with
triumphant fire. "Ah!" he went on, with a long-drawn guttural
enunciation, taking out his snuff-box, the only luxury he had left
himself, and tapping it with something of his old air of defiance.
"I'll get from under _his_ thumb now, though I _must_ leave the old
mill. I thought I could ha' held out to die here--but I can't----we've
got a glass o' nothing in the house, have we, Bessy?"

"Yes," said Mrs. Tulliver, drawing out her much-reduced bunch of keys,
"there's some brandy sister Deane brought me when I was ill."

"Get it me, then; get it me. I feel a bit weak."

"Tom, my lad," he said, in a stronger voice, when he had taken some
brandy-and-water, "you shall make a speech to 'em. I'll tell 'em it's
you as got the best part o' the money. They'll see I'm honest at last,
and ha' got an honest son. Ah! Wakem 'ud be fine and glad to have a
son like mine,--a fine straight fellow,--i'stead o' that poor crooked
creatur! You'll prosper i' the world, my lad; you'll maybe see the day
when Wakem and his son 'ull be a round or two below you. You'll like
enough be ta'en into partnership, as your uncle Deane was before
you,--you're in the right way for't; and then there's nothing to
hinder your getting rich. And if ever you're rich enough--mind
this--try and get th' old mill again."

Mr. Tulliver threw himself back in his chair; his mind, which had so
long been the home of nothing but bitter discontent and foreboding,
suddenly filled, by the magic of joy, with visions of good fortune.
But some subtle influence prevented him from foreseeing the good
fortune as happening to himself.

"Shake hands wi' me, my lad," he said, suddenly putting out his hand.
"It's a great thing when a man can be proud as he's got a good son.
I've had _that_ luck."

Tom never lived to taste another moment so delicious as that; and
Maggie couldn't help forgetting her own grievances. Tom _was_ good;
and in the sweet humility that springs in us all in moments of true
admiration and gratitude, she felt that the faults he had to pardon in
her had never been redeemed, as his faults were. She felt no jealousy
this evening that, for the first time, she seemed to be thrown into
the background in her father's mind.

There was much more talk before bedtime. Mr. Tulliver naturally wanted
to hear all the particulars of Tom's trading adventures, and he
listened with growing excitement and delight. He was curious to know
what had been said on every occasion; if possible, what had been
thought; and Bob Jakin's part in the business threw him into peculiar
outbursts of sympathy with the triumphant knowingness of that
remarkable packman. Bob's juvenile history, so far as it had come
under Mr. Tulliver's knowledge, was recalled with that sense of
astonishing promise it displayed, which is observable in all
reminiscences of the childhood of great men.

It was well that there was this interest of narrative to keep under
the vague but fierce sense of triumph over Wakem, which would
otherwise have been the channel his joy would have rushed into with
dangerous force. Even as it was, that feeling from time to time gave
threats of its ultimate mastery, in sudden bursts of irrelevant
exclamation.

It was long before Mr. Tulliver got to sleep that night; and the
sleep, when it came, was filled with vivid dreams. At half-past five
o'clock in the morning, when Mrs. Tulliver was already rising, he
alarmed her by starting up with a sort of smothered shout, and looking
round in a bewildered way at the walls of the bedroom.

"What's the matter, Mr. Tulliver?" said his wife. He looked at her,
still with a puzzled expression, and said at last:

"Ah!--I was dreaming--did I make a noise?--I thought I'd got hold of
him."

A Day of Reckoning

Mr. Tulliver was an essentially sober man,--able to take his glass and
not averse to it, but never exceeding the bounds of moderation. He had
naturally an active Hotspur temperament, which did not crave liquid
fire to set it aglow; his impetuosity was usually equal to an exciting
occasion without any such reinforcements; and his desire for the
brandy-and-water implied that the too sudden joy had fallen with a
dangerous shock on a frame depressed by four years of gloom and
unaccustomed hard fare. But that first doubtful tottering moment
passed, he seemed to gather strength with his gathering excitement;
and the next day, when he was seated at table with his creditors, his
eye kindling and his cheek flushed with the consciousness that he was
about to make an honorable figure once more, he looked more like the
proud, confident, warm-hearted, and warm-tempered Tulliver of old
times than might have seemed possible to any one who had met him a
week before, riding along as had been his wont for the last four years
since the sense of failure and debt had been upon him,--with his head
hanging down, casting brief, unwilling looks on those who forced
themselves on his notice. He made his speech, asserting his honest
principles with his old confident eagerness, alluding to the rascals
and the luck that had been against him, but that he had triumphed
over, to some extent, by hard efforts and the aid of a good son; and
winding up with the story of how Tom had got the best part of the
needful money. But the streak of irritation and hostile triumph seemed
to melt for a little while into purer fatherly pride and pleasure,
when, Tom's health having been proposed, and uncle Deane having taken
occasion to say a few words of eulogy on his general character and
conduct, Tom himself got up and made the single speech of his life. It
could hardly have been briefer. He thanked the gentlemen for the honor
they had done him. He was glad that he had been able to help his
father in proving his integrity and regaining his honest name; and,
for his own part, he hoped he should never undo that work and disgrace
that name. But the applause that followed was so great, and Tom looked
so gentlemanly as well as tall and straight, that Mr. Tulliver
remarked, in an explanatory manner, to his friends on his right and
left, that he had spent a deal of money on his son's education.

The party broke up in very sober fashion at five o'clock. Tom remained
in St. Ogg's to attend to some business, and Mr. Tulliver mounted his
horse to go home, and describe the memorable things that had been said
and done, to "poor Bessy and the little wench." The air of excitement
that hung about him was but faintly due to good cheer or any stimulus
but the potent wine of triumphant joy. He did not choose any back
street to-day, but rode slowly, with uplifted head and free glances,
along the principal street all the way to the bridge.

Why did he not happen to meet Wakem? The want of that coincidence
vexed him, and set his mind at work in an irritating way. Perhaps
Wakem was gone out of town to-day on purpose to avoid seeing or
hearing anything of an honorable action which might well cause him
some unpleasant twinges. If Wakem were to meet him then, Mr. Tulliver
would look straight at him, and the rascal would perhaps be forsaken a
little by his cool, domineering impudence. He would know by and by
that an honest man was not going to serve _him_ any longer, and lend
his honesty to fill a pocket already over-full of dishonest gains.
Perhaps the luck was beginning to turn; perhaps the Devil didn't
always hold the best cards in this world.

Simmering in this way, Mr. Tulliver approached the yardgates of
Dorlcote Mill, near enough to see a well-known figure coming out of
them on a fine black horse. They met about fifty yards from the gates,
between the great chestnuts and elms and the high bank.

"Tulliver," said Wakem, abruptly, in a haughtier tone than usual,
"what a fool's trick you did,--spreading those hard lumps on that Far
Close! I told you how it would be; but you men never learn to farm
with any method."

"Oh!" said Tulliver, suddenly boiling up; "get somebody else to farm
for you, then, as'll ask _you_ to teach him."

"You have been drinking, I suppose," said Wakem, really believing that
this was the meaning of Tulliver's flushed face and sparkling eyes.

"No, I've not been drinking," said Tulliver; "I want no drinking to
help me make up my mind as I'll serve no longer under a scoundrel."

"Very well! you may leave my premises to-morrow, then; hold your
insolent tongue and let me pass." (Tulliver was backing his horse
across the road to hem Wakem in.)

"No, I _sha'n't_ let you pass," said Tulliver, getting fiercer. "I
shall tell you what I think of you first. You're too big a raskill to
get hanged--you're----"

"Let me pass, you ignorant brute, or I'll ride over you."

Mr. Tulliver, spurring his horse and raising his whip, made a rush
forward; and Wakem's horse, rearing and staggering backward, threw his
rider from the saddle and sent him sideways on the ground. Wakem had
had the presence of mind to loose the bridle at once, and as the horse
only staggered a few paces and then stood still, he might have risen
and remounted without more inconvenience than a bruise and a shake.
But before he could rise, Tulliver was off his horse too. The sight of
the long-hated predominant man down, and in his power, threw him into
a frenzy of triumphant vengeance, which seemed to give him
preternatural agility and strength. He rushed on Wakem, who was in the
act of trying to recover his feet, grasped him by the left arm so as
to press Wakem's whole weight on the right arm, which rested on the
ground, and flogged him fiercely across the back with his riding-whip.
Wakem shouted for help, but no help came, until a woman's scream was
heard, and the cry of "Father, father!"

Suddenly, Wakem felt, something had arrested Mr. Tulliver's arm; for
the flogging ceased, and the grasp on his own arm was relaxed.

"Get away with you--go!" said Tulliver, angrily. But it was not to
Wakem that he spoke. Slowly the lawyer rose, and, as he turned his
head, saw that Tulliver's arms were being held by a girl, rather by
the fear of hurting the girl that clung to him with all her young
might.

"Oh, Luke--mother--come and help Mr. Wakem!" Maggie cried, as she
heard the longed-for footsteps.

"Help me on to that low horse," said Wakem to Luke, "then I shall
perhaps manage; though--confound it--I think this arm is sprained."

With some difficulty, Wakem was heaved on to Tulliver's horse. Then he
turned toward the miller and said, with white rage, "You'll suffer for
this, sir. Your daughter is a witness that you've assaulted me."

"I don't care," said Mr. Tulliver, in a thick, fierce voice; "go and
show your back, and tell 'em I thrashed you. Tell 'em I've made things
a bit more even i' the world."

"Ride my horse home with me," said Wakem to Luke. "By the Tofton
Ferry, not through the town."

"Father, come in!" said Maggie, imploringly. Then, seeing that Wakem
had ridden off, and that no further violence was possible, she
slackened her hold and burst into hysteric sobs, while poor Mrs.
Tulliver stood by in silence, quivering with fear. But Maggie became
conscious that as she was slackening her hold her father was beginning
to grasp her and lean on her. The surprise checked her sobs.

"I feel ill--faintish," he said. "Help me in, Bessy--I'm giddy--I've a
pain i' the head."

He walked in slowly, propped by his wife and daughter and tottered
into his arm-chair. The almost purple flush had given way to paleness,
and his hand was cold.

"Hadn't we better send for the doctor?" said Mrs. Tulliver.

He seemed to be too faint and suffering to hear her; but presently,
when she said to Maggie, "Go and seek for somebody to fetch the
doctor," he looked up at her with full comprehension, and said,
"Doctor? No--no doctor. It's my head, that's all. Help me to bed."

Sad ending to the day that had risen on them all like a beginning of
better times! But mingled seed must bear a mingled crop.

In half an hour after his father had lain down Tom came home. Bob
Jakin was with him, come to congratulate "the old master," not without
some excusable pride that he had had his share in bringing about Mr.
Tom's good luck; and Tom had thought his father would like nothing
better, as a finish to the day, than a talk with Bob. But now Tom
could only spend the evening in gloomy expectation of the unpleasant
consequences that must follow on this mad outbreak of his father's
long-smothered hate. After the painful news had been told, he sat in
silence; he had not spirit or inclination to tell his mother and
sister anything about the dinner; they hardly cared to ask it.
Apparently the mingled thread in the web of their life was so
curiously twisted together that there could be no joy without a sorrow
coming close upon it. Tom was dejected by the thought that his
exemplary effort must always be baffled by the wrong-doing of others;
Maggie was living through, over and over again, the agony of the
moment in which she had rushed to throw herself on her father's arm,
with a vague, shuddering foreboding of wretched scenes to come. Not
one of the three felt any particular alarm about Mr. Tulliver's
health; the symptoms did not recall his former dangerous attack, and
it seemed only a necessary consequence that his violent passion and
effort of strength, after many hours of unusual excitement, should
have made him feel ill. Rest would probably cure him.

Tom, tired out by his active day, fell asleep soon, and slept soundly;
it seemed to him as if he had only just come to bed, when he waked to
see his mother standing by him in the gray light of early morning.

"My boy, you must get up this minute; I've sent for the doctor, and
your father wants you and Maggie to come to him."

"Is he worse, mother?"

"He's been very ill all night with his head, but he doesn't say it's
worse; he only said suddenly, 'Bessy, fetch the boy and girl. Tell 'em
to make haste.'"

Maggie and Tom threw on their clothes hastily in the chill gray light,
and reached their father's room almost at the same moment. He was
watching for them with an expression of pain on his brow, but with
sharpened, anxious consciousness in his eyes. Mrs. Tulliver stood at
the foot of the bed, frightened and trembling, looking worn and aged
from disturbed rest. Maggie was at the bedside first, but her father's
glance was toward Tom, who came and stood next to her.

"Tom, my lad, it's come upon me as I sha'n't get up again. This
world's been too many for me, my lad, but you've done what you could
to make things a bit even. Shake hands wi' me again, my lad, before I
go away from you."

The father and son clasped hands and looked at each other an instant.
Then Tom said, trying to speak firmly,--

"Have you any wish, father--that I can fulfil, when----"

"Ay, my lad--you'll try and get the old mill back."

"Yes, father."

"And there's your mother--you'll try and make her amends, all you can,
for my bad luck--and there's the little wench----"

The father turned his eyes on Maggie with a still more eager look,
while she, with a bursting heart, sank on her knees, to be closer to
the dear, time-worn face which had been present with her through long
years, as the sign of her deepest love and hardest trial.

"You must take care of her, Tom--don't you fret, my wench--there'll
come somebody as'll love you and take your part--and you must be good
to her, my lad. I was good to _my_ sister. Kiss me, Maggie.--Come,
Bessy.--You'll manage to pay for a brick grave, Tom, so as your mother
and me can lie together."

He looked away from them all when he had said this, and lay silent for
some minutes, while they stood watching him, not daring to move. The
morning light was growing clearer for them, and they could see the
heaviness gathering in his face, and the dulness in his eyes. But at
last he looked toward Tom and said,--

"I had my turn--I beat him. That was nothing but fair. I never wanted
anything but what was fair."

"But, father, dear father," said Maggie, an unspeakable anxiety
predominating over her grief, "you forgive him--you forgive every one
now?"

He did not move his eyes to look at her, but he said,--

"No, my wench. I don't forgive him. What's forgiving to do? I can't
love a raskill----"

His voice had become thicker; but he wanted to say more, and moved his
lips again and again, struggling in vain to speak. At length the words
forced their way.

"Does God forgive raskills?--but if He does, He won't be hard wi' me."

His hands moved uneasily, as if he wanted them to remove some
obstruction that weighed upon him. Two or three times there fell from
him some broken words,--

"This world's--too many--honest man--puzzling----"

Soon they merged into mere mutterings; the eyes had ceased to discern;
and then came the final silence.

But not of death. For an hour or more the chest heaved, the loud, hard
breathing continued, getting gradually slower, as the cold dews
gathered on the brow.

At last there was total stillness, and poor Tulliver's dimly lighted
soul had forever ceased to be vexed with the painful riddle of this
world.

Help was come now; Luke and his wife were there, and Mr. Turnbull had
arrived, too late for everything but to say, "This is death."

Tom and Maggie went downstairs together into the room where their
father's place was empty. Their eyes turned to the same spot, and
Maggie spoke,--

"Tom, forgive me--let us always love each other"; and they clung and
wept together.

Book VI

_The Great Temptation_

Q: Can you write an appropriate summary of the above paragraphs?
A:

completion: In the Red Deeps Mr. Wakem comes on one of his usual visits, but this time he brings Philip with him. Maggie , seeing them approach, hurries upstairs so that she won't have to meet Philip in front of their fathers. Once she thinks they have left, she goes outside to walk and ends up coming upon Philip, who was waiting for her. Maggie is pleased to see Philip, but tells him that though she wishes it wasn't necessary, she will have to renounce his friendship because of their families. Philip protests that it wouldn't harm anyone for them to see each other every once in a while in secret, and that it would do him great good. Maggie tells him she must think about it so that she doesn't make the wrong decision. Chapter II - Aunt Glegg Learns the Breadth of Bob's Thumb Tom's determination at his job does not go unnoticed by Mr. Deane, who is very pleased with his progress. By his second year he has already gotten a raise, but he still puts all but what he needs for necessities into paying back his father's debts. Against his personality, he sacrifices all social activities and pleasure, for he fears that would lead to extra expenses. The aunts and uncles are all impressed with the growing evidence that Tom is more like a Dodson than a Tulliver. Bob Jakin tells Tom he could speculate in some trading with his savings, so Tom asks Mr. Tulliver if they might try to multiply some of what they have put away - only 116 pounds after two years of saving all they could. Mr. Tulliver is reluctant, having been unlucky speculating in the past, and Tom, seeing how unhappy the idea makes him, decides to ask Mr. Glegg to invest in the prospect and let Tom keep some of the gains until he has enough to invest himself. Tom brings Bob to explain the idea, and Mr. Glegg is pleased with both Bob and the plan. Mrs. Glegg, offended at being left out, says she'd like to participate too, provided she can trust she won't lose her money. Bob manages to talk her into buying some of his wares as well. Together the Gleggs lend Tom fifty pounds, which he successfully invests, and by the time of Maggie's first meeting with Philip, he has already amassed 150 pounds for himself. Chapter III - The Wavering Balance Maggie meets Philip again with the intention of telling him that she has decided they must give each other up as friends. She does so, and he asks only for one last conversation. Tom offers to be Maggie's tutor, to supply her with the books and knowledge she craved before renunciation. Maggie can't say yes. Before they part, he asks if he is forbidden to ever walk in that area where they might meet by chance, without it being secretive. She does not forbid it. Chapter IV - Another Love-Scene Almost a year later, Maggie goes to meet Philip in the woods, and it is clear they have been meeting regularly. Philip declares his love for Maggie, who says she can't imagine loving anyone else more than she loves him. However, she also insists that they can't have a future because she would never risk hurting her father, and his father would also disapprove. Chapter V - The Cloven Tree Mrs. Pullet stops by Dorlcote Mill to visit the Tullivers. She casually mentions having seen Philip about in the woods, and Maggie blushes aggressively in response, which Tom notices. Combined with the knowledge that Maggie had been often out in the woods, he becomes convinced that she is having secret meetings with Philip. The next day he confronts Maggie about it, and she doesn't deny it. He makes her tell him all the details, and then says she must vow to never have any contact with him again, or Tom will tell their father everything, breaking his heart and very likely causing him to lose his mind again. Maggie agrees to vow only that she will never contact Philip without Tom's knowledge. Tom takes Maggie to the woods where he confronts Philip, accusing him of taking advantage of Maggie's ignorance and loneliness caused by their circumstances. Tom also says many cruel things about his deformity. Philip cares only for what Maggie has to say, and she explains that she has agreed to only contact him with Tom's knowledge in order to protect her father, which he accepts. Philip leaves, and Maggie berates Tom for being so cruel to him, especially about his deformity, and tells him that he is always reproaching others because he has not enough imagination to realize that there are better aims and ways of living than his own. They fight and separate, and Maggie is distressed primarily by how cruel Tom's insults to Philip were, but she is also a slight bit relieved that she will be forced to be apart from him. Chapter VI - The Hard-Won Triumph Three weeks later, Tom comes home to the mill in a particularly good mood and tells his father that he has 320 pounds in the bank, which, combined with what Mr. Tulliver has put aside, is enough to pay back all of their debts. The family is thrilled, and Mr. Tulliver tells Tom he hopes he will buy back the mill one day, when he has made his fortune. Maggie puts aside her anger with Tom and celebrates. Chapter VII - A Day of Reckoning The next day, Tom and Mr. Tulliver have a lunch with all of the creditors to repay them. Everyone is very impressed with Tom. On his way home, Mr. Tulliver sits high in his saddle for the first time in years. He comes upon Mr. Wakem just leaving the mill and tells him that he will no longer work for him. Mr. Wakem tries to ride by him, but Mr. Tulliver spurs his horse towards him, and Mr. Wakem's horse throws him off. Before Mr. Wakem can get up, Mr. Tulliver jumps off his horse and attacks him. Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver run over from the house, and Maggie holds Mr. Tulliver back. Luke helps Mr. Wakem home, and Maggie and Mrs. Tulliver help Mr. Tulliver, who suddenly feels very faint, back to the house. Early the next morning, Mr. Tulliver calls for his children. He tells them he is dying, and asks Tom to try to get the mill back, and to take care of his mother and be good to Maggie, and to never forget the harm that Mr. Wakem did to them - despite Maggie's insistence that he forgive Mr. Wakem.