CHAPTER 4
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Tom Is ExpectedIT was a heavy disappoio Maggie that she was not allowed to go with her father in the gig when he went to fet home from the Academy; but the m was too wet, Mrs Tulliver said, for a little girl to go out in her best bo. Maggie took the opposite view very strongly, and it was a direct sequence of this difference of opinion, that when her mother was i of brushing out the relut black aggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, - in the vindictive determination that there should be no more ce of curls that day. `Maggie, Maggie, exclaimed Mrs Tulliver, sitting stout and helpless with the brushes on her lap, `what is to bee of you, if youre so naughty? Ill tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt Pullet when they e week, and theyll never love you any more. O dear, O dear, look at your pinafore, wet from top to bottom. Folks ull think its a judgment on me as Ive got such a child - theyll think Ive done summat wicked.
Before this remonstrance was finished Maggie was already out of hearing, making her way towards the great attic that ran uhe old high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggies favourite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold: here she fretted out all her ill-humours, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and the worm-eaten shelves and the dark rafters festooned with cobwebs, and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her misfortuhis was the trunk of a large wooden doll, whice stared with the rou of eyes above the reddest of cheeks, but was irely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head orated as many crises in Maggies nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg. But immediately afterwards Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in, she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt when she k against the wall, nor to fort it, and make believe to poultice it when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thhly humiliated, so as to beg her nieces pardon. Sihen, she had driven no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding aing the wooden head against the rough brick of the great eys that made two square pillars supp the roof. That was what she did this m on reag the attic, sobbing all the while with a passion that expelled every other form of sciousness - even the memory of the g<figure></figure>rievahat had caused it. As at last the sobs were getting quieter and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun was really breaking out, the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again, the granary doors were open, and there was Yap, the queer white and brown terrier with ourned back, trotting about and sniffing vaguely as if he were in search of a panion. It was irresistible: Maggie tossed her hair bad ran downstairs, seized her bo without putting it on, peeped and then dashed along the passage lest she should enter her mother, and was quickly out in the yard, whirling round like a Pythoness and singing as she whirled, `Yap, Yap, Toms ing home, while Yap pranced and barked round her, as much as to say, if there was any noise wanted, he was the dog for it.
`Hegh, hegh, Miss, youll make yourself giddy an tumble down i the dirt, said Luke, the head miller, a tall broad-shouldered man of forty, black-eyed and black-haired, subdued by a general mealiness, like an auricula.
Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little, `O no, it doesnt make me giddy. Luke, may I go into the mill with you?
Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft whitehat made her dark eyes flash out with new fire. The resolute din, the uing motion of the great stones giving her a dim delicious awe as at the presence of an untrollable force, the meal for ever p, p, the fine white powder softening all surfaces and making the very spider-s look like faery lace-work, the sweet pure st of the meal - all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little world apart from her outside everyday life. The spiders were especially a subject of speculation with her: she wondered if they had aions outside the mill, for in that case there must be a painful difficulty in their family intercourse: a fat and floury spider, aced to take his fly well dusted with meal, must suffer a little at a cousins table where the fly was au naturel, and the lady spiders must be mutually shocked at each others appearance. But the part of the mill she liked best was the topmost story - the -hutch where there were the great heaps of grain whi<bdi></bdi>ch she could sit on and slide down tinually. She was in the habit of taking this recreation as she versed with Luke, to whom she was very unicative, wishing him to think well of her uanding, as her father did.
Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the present occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was requisite in mill-society,
`I think you never read any book but the Bible, did you, Luke?
`Nay, Miss - an not much o that, said Luke, with great frankness. `Im no reader, I arnt.
`But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? Ive not got any very pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but theres "Pugs Tour of Europe" - that would tell you all about the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didnt uand the reading, the pictures would help you - they show the looks and ways of the people and what they do. There are the Dut, very fat, and smoking, you know - and oting on a barrel.
`Nay, Miss, In no opinion o Dut. There bent much good i knowin about them.
`But theyre our fellow-creatures, Luke - we ought to know about our fellow-creatures.
`Not much o fellow-creaturs, I think, Miss: all I know - my old master, as war a knowin man, used to say, says he, `If eer I sow my wheat wiout brinin, Im a Dut, says he; an that war as much as to say as a Dut war a fool, or door. Nay, nay, I arnt goin to bother mysen about Dut. Theres fools enoo - an rogues enoo - wiout lookin i books for em.
`O well, said Maggie, rather foiled by Lukes uedly decided views about Dut, `perhaps you would like "Animated Nature" better - thats not Dut, you know, but elephants, and kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sun-fish, and a bird sitting on its tail - I fet its here are tries full of those creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldnt you like to know about them, Luke?
`Nay, Miss, In got to keep t o the flour an - I t do wi knowin so many things besides my work. Thats what brings folk to the gallows - knowihing but what theyn got to get their bread by. An theyre mostly lies, I think, rinted i the books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i the streets.
`Why youre like my brother Tom, Luke, said Maggie, wishing to turn the versation agreeably, `Toms not fond of reading. I love Tom s<kbd>99ｌiｂ.</kbd>o dearly, Luke - better than any-body else in the world. When he grows up, I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I tell him everything he doesnt know. But I think Toms clever, for all he doesnt like books: he makes beautiful whip-cord and rabbit-pens.
`Ah, said Luke, `but hell be fine an vexed as the rabbits are all dead.
`Dead! screamed Maggie, jumping up from her slidi on the . `O, dear Luke! What, the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe, that Tom spent all his moo buy?
`As dead as moles, said Luke, fetg his parison from the unmistakable corpses o the stable wall.
`O dear Luke, said Maggie, in a piteous tone, while the big tears rolled down her cheek, `Tom told me to take care ofem, and I fot. What shall I do?
`Well, you see, Miss, they war in that far toolhouse, anit was nobodys busio see to em. I reaster Tom told Harry to feed em, but theres no tin on Harry - hes a offal creatur as iver e about the primises, he is. He remembers n<strike>九九藏书</strike>othin but his own inside - an I wish it ud gripe him.
`O Luke, Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day - but how could I, when they did not e into my head, you know? O, he will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his rabbits - and so am I sorry. O what shall I do?
`Dont you fret, Miss, said Luke, soothingly, `theyre nash things, them lop-eared rabbits - theyd happen hadied, if theyd beehings out o natur hrive. God Amighty doesnt like em. He made the rabbits ears to lie back, an its nothin but trairio make em hing down like a mastiff dogs. Master Tom ull know better nor buy such things aime. Dont you fret, Miss. Will you e along home wi me, and see my wife? Im agoin this minute.
The invitation offered an agreeable distra to Maggies grief, aears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Lukes side to his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple arees, and with the added dignity of a lean-to pig-sty, close by the brink of the Ripple. Mrs Moggs, Lukes wife, was a decidedly agreeable acquaintance: she exhibited her hospitality in bread and treacle and possessed various works of art. Maggie actually fot that she had any special cause of sadhis m, as she stood on a chair to look at a remar<q>藏书网</q>kable series of pictures representing the Prodigal Son in the e of Sir Charles Grandison, except that, as might have been expected from his defective moral character, he had not, like that aplished hero, the taste and strength of mind to dispeh a wig. But the indefinable weight the dead rabbits had left on her mind caused her to feel more than usual pity for the career of this weak young man, particularly when she looked at the picture where he leaned against a tree with a flaccid appearance, his knee-breeches unbuttoned and his wig awry, while the swine, apparently of some fn breed, seemed to insult him by their good spirits over their feast of husks.
`Im very glad his father took him back agai you, Luke? she said. `For he was very sorry, you know, and wouldnt d again.
`Eh, Miss, said Luke, `hed be no great shakes, I doubt, lets feyther do what he would for him.
That ainful thought to Maggie, and she wished much that the subsequent history of the young man had not bee a blank.
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