Book I: Boy and Girl
Chapter I: Outside Dorlcote Mill
A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and the loving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tide the black ships ā laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, or with the dark glitter of coal ā are borne along to the town of St. Oggās, which shows its aged, fluted red roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far away on each hand stretch the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the seed of broad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last yearās golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond the hedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the distant ships seem to be lifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreading ash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. How lovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion while I wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf and loving. I remember those large dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge.
And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, though the clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departing February it is pleasant to look at ā perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassy fringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicate bright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from under the bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping their heads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make in the drier world above.
The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems to heighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out from the world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home with sacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at this late hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses ā the strong, submissive, meek-eyed beasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he should crack his whip at them in that awful manner as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch their shoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near home. Look at their grand shaggy feet that seem to grasp the firm earth, at the patient strength of their necks, bowed under the heavy collar, at the mighty muscles of their struggling haunches! I should like well to hear them neigh over their hardly earned feed of corn, and see them, with their moist necks freed from the harness, dipping their eager nostrils into the muddy pond. Now they are on the bridge, and down they go again at a swifter pace, and the arch of the covered wagon disappears at the turning behind the trees.
Now I can turn my eyes toward the mill again, and watch the unresting wheel sending out its diamond jets of water. That little girl is watching it too; she has been standing on just the same spot at the edge of the water ever since I paused on the bridge. And that queer white cur with the brown ear seems to be leaping and barking in ineffectual remonstrance with the wheel; perhaps he is jealous because his playfellow in the beaver bonnet is so rapt in its movement. It is time the little playfellow went in, I think; and there is a very bright fire to tempt her: the red light shines out under the deepening gray of the sky. It is time, too, for me to leave off resting my arms on the cold stone of this bridge. . . .
Ah, my arms are really benumbed. I have been pressing my elbows on the arms of my chair, and dreaming that I was standing on the bridge in front of Dorlcote Mill, as it looked one February afternoon many years ago. Before I dozed off, I was going to tell you what Mr. and Mrs. Tulliver were talking about, as they sat by the bright fire in the left-hand parlor, on that very afternoon I have been dreaming of.
Chapter II: Mr. Tulliver, of Dorlcote Mill, Declares His Resolution about Tom
āWhat I want, you know,ā said Mr. Tulliver ā āwhat I want is to give Tom a good eddication; an eddication asāll be a bread to him. That was what I was thinking of when I gave notice for him to leave the academy at Lady-day. I mean to put him to a downright good school at Midsummer. The two years at thā academy āud haā done well enough, if Iād meant to make a miller and farmer of him, for heās had a fine sight more schoolinā nor I ever got. All the learninā my father ever paid for was a bit oā birch at one end and the alphabet at thā other. But I should like Tom to be a bit of a scholard, so as he might be up to the tricks oā these fellows as talk fine and write with a flourish. It āud be a help to me wiā these lawsuits, and arbitrations, and things. I wouldnāt make a downright lawyer oā the lad ā I should be sorry for him to be a raskill ā but a sort oā engineer, or a surveyor, or an auctioneer and vallyer, like Riley, or one oā them smartish businesses as are all profits and no outlay, only for a big watch-chain and a high stool. Theyāre pretty nigh all one, and theyāre not far off being even wiā the law, I believe; for Riley looks Lawyer Wakem iā the face as hard as one cat looks another. Heās none frightened at him.ā
Mr. Tulliver was speaking to his wife, a blond comely woman in a fan-shaped cap (I am afraid to think how long it is since fan-shaped caps were worn, they must be so near coming in again. At that time, when Mrs. Tulliver was nearly forty, they were new at St. Oggās, and considered sweet things).
āWell, Mr. Tulliver, you know best: Iāve no objections. But hadnāt I better kill a couple oā fowl, and have thā aunts and uncles to dinner next week, so as you may hear what sister Glegg and sister Pullet have got to say about it? Thereās a couple oā fowl wants killing!ā
āYou may kill every fowl iā the yard if you like, Bessy; but I shall ask neither aunt nor uncle what Iām to do wiā my own lad,ā said Mr. Tulliver, defiantly.
āDear heart!ā said Mrs. Tulliver, shocked at this sanguinary rhetoric, āhow can you talk so, Mr. Tulliver? But itās your way to speak disrespectful oā my family; and sister Glegg throws all the blame upoāme, though Iām sure Iām as innocent as the babe unborn. For nobodyās ever heard me say as it wasnāt lucky for my children to have aunts and uncles as can live independent. Howiver, if Tomās to go to a new school, I should like him to go where I can wash him and mend him; else he might as well have calico as linen, for theyād be one as yallow as thā other before theyād been washed half-a-dozen times. And then, when the box is goinā backāard and forrard, I could send the lad a cake, or a pork-pie, or an apple; for he can do with an extry bit, bless him! whether they stint him at the meals or no. My children can eat as much victuals as most, thank God!ā
āWell, well, we wonāt send him out oā reach oā the carrierās cart, if other things fit in,ā said Mr. Tulliver. āBut you mustnāt put a spoke iā the wheel about the washin,ā if we canāt get a school near enough. Thatās the fault I have to find wiā you, Bessy; if you see a stick iā the road, youāre allays thinkinā you canāt step over it. Youād want me not to hire a good wagoner, ācause heād got a mole on his face.ā
āDear heart!ā said Mrs. Tulliver, in mild surprise, āwhen did I iver make objections to a man because heād got a mole on his face? Iām sure Iām rether fond oā the moles; for my brother, as is dead anā gone, had a mole on his brow. But I canāt remember your iver offering to hire a wagoner with a mole, Mr. Tulliver. There was John Gibbs hadnāt a mole on his face no more nor you have, anā I was all for having you hire him; anā so you did hire him, anā if he hadnāt died oā thā inflammation, as we paid Dr. Turnbull for attending him, heād very like haā been drivinā the wagon now. He might have a mole somewhere out oā sight, but how was I to know that, Mr. Tulliver?ā
āNo, no, Bessy; I didnāt mean justly the mole; I meant it to stand for summat else; but niver mind ā itās puzzling work, talking is. What Iām thinking on, is how to find the right sort oā school to send Tom to, for I might be taāen in again, as Iāve been wiā thā academy. Iāll have nothing to do wiā a ācademy again: whativer school I send Tom to, it shaānāt be a ācademy; it shall be a place where the lads spend their time iā summat else besides blacking the familyās shoes, and getting up the potatoes. Itās an uncommon puzzling thing to know what school to pick.ā
Mr. Tulliver paused a minute or two, and dived with both hands into his breeches pockets as if he hoped to find some suggestion there. Apparently he was not disappointed, for he presently said, āI know what Iāll do: Iāll talk it over wiā Riley; heās coming to-morrow, tā arbitrate about the dam.ā
āWell, Mr. Tulliver, Iāve put the sheets out for the best bed, and Keziaās got āem hanging at the fire. They arenāt the best sheets, but theyāre good enough for anybody to sleep in, be he who he will; for as for them best Holland sheets, I should repent buying āem, only theyāll do to lay us out in. Anā if you was to die to-morrow, Mr. Tulliver, theyāre mangled beautiful, anā all ready, anā smell oā lavender as it āud be a pleasure to lay āem out; anā they lie at the left-hand corner oā the big oak linen-chest at the back: not as I should trust anybody to look āem out but myself.ā
As Mrs. Tulliver uttered the last sentence, she drew a bright bunch of keys from her pocket, and singled out one, rubbing her thumb and finger up and down it with a placid smile while she looked at the clear fire. If Mr. Tulliver had been a susceptible man in his conjugal relation, he might have supposed that she drew out the key to aid her imagination in anticipating the moment when he would be in a state to justify the production of the best Holland sheets. Happily he was not so; he was only susceptible in respect of his right to water-power; moreover, he had the marital habit of not listening very closely, and since his mention of Mr. Riley, had been apparently occupied in a tactile examination of his woollen stockings.
āI think Iāve hit it, Bessy,ā was his first remark after a short silence. āRileyās as likely a man as any to know oā some school; heās had schooling himself, anā goes about to all sorts oā places, arbitratinā and vallyinā and that. And we shall have time to talk it over to-morrow night when the business is done. I want Tom to be such a sort oā man as Riley, you know ā as can talk pretty nigh as well as if it was all wrote out for him, and knows a good lot oā words as donāt mean much, so as you canāt lay hold of āem iā law; and a good solid knowledge oā business too.ā
āWell,ā said Mrs. Tulliver, āso far as talking proper, and knowing everything, and walking with a bend in his back, and setting his hair up, I shouldnāt mind the lad being brought up to that. But them fine-talking men from the big towns mostly wear the false shirt-fronts; they wear a frill till itās all a mess, and then hide it with a bib; I know Riley does. And then, if Tomās to go and live at Mudport, like Riley, heāll have a house with a kitchen hardly big enough to turn in, anā niver get a fresh egg for his breakfast, anā sleep up three pair oā stairs ā or four, for what I know ā and be burnt to death before he can get down.ā
āNo, no,ā said Mr. Tulliver, āIāve no thoughts of his going to Mudport: I mean him to set up his office at St. Oggās, close by us, anā live at home. But,ā continued Mr. Tulliver after a pause, āwhat Iām a bit afraid on is, as Tom hasnāt got the right sort oā brains for a smart fellow. I do...