BOOK 3 CHAPTER 1

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    What Had Happe Home

    WHEN Mr Tulliver first khe fact that the lawsuit was decided against him and that Pivart and Wakem were triumphant, every one who happeo observe him at the time thought that for so fident and hot-tempered a man he bore the blow remarkably well. He thought so himself: he thought he was going to show that if Wakem or anybody else sidered him crushed, they would find themselves mistaken. He could not refuse to see that the costs of this protracted suit would take more than he possessed to pay them, but he appeared to himself to be full of expedients by which he could ward off as but such as were tolerable, and could avoid the appearance of breaking down in the world. All the obstinad defiance of his nature, driven out of their old el, found a vent for themselves in the immediate formation of plans by which he would meet his difficulties and remain Mr Tulliver of Dorlill in spite of them. There was such a rush of projects in his brain, that it was no wonder his face was flushed when he came away from his talk with his attorney, Mr Gore, and mounted his horse to ride home from Lindum. There was Furley, who held the me on the land - a reasonable felloould see his own i, Mr Tulliver was vinced, and who would be glad not only to purchase the whole estate including the mill and homestead, but would accept Mr Tulliver as tenant, and be willing to advance moo be repaid with high i out of the profits of the business which would be made over to him, Mr Tulliver only taking enough barely to maintain himself and his family. Who would  such a<u>藏书网</u> profitable iment? Certainly not Furley, for Mr Tulliver had determihat Furley should meet his plans with the utmost alacrity; and there are men whose brains have not yet been dangerously heated by the loss of a lawsuit who are apt to see in their own i or desires a motive for other mens as. There was no doubt (in the millers mind) that Furley would do just what was desirable; and if he did - why, things would not be so very much worse. Mr Tulliver and his family must live more meagrely and humbly, but it would only be till the profits of the business had paid off Furleys advances, and that might be while Mr Tulliver had still a good many years of life before him. It was clear that the costs of the suit could be paid without his being obliged to turn out of his old plad look like a ruined man. It was certainly an awkward moment in his affairs. There was that suretyship for poor Riley, who had died suddenly last April, a his friend saddled with a debt of two hundred and fifty pounds: a fact which had helped to make Mr Tullivers banking book less pleasant reading than a man might desire towards Christmas. Well! he had never been one of those poor-spirited sneaks who would refuse to give a helping hand to a fellow-traveller in this puzzling world. The really vexatious business was the fact that some months ago the creditor who had lent him the five hundred pounds to repay Mrs Glegg, had bee uneasy about his money (set on by Wakem, of course), and Mr Tulliver, still fident that he should gain his suit, and finding it emily inveo raise the said sum until that desirable issue had taken place, had rashly acceded to the demand that he should give a bill of sale on his house-hold furniture and some other effects as security in lieu of the bond. It was all one, he had said to himself: he should soon pay off the money, and there was no harm in giving that security any more than another. But now the sequences of this bill of sale occurred to him in a new light, and he remembered that the term was close at hand when it would be enforced uhe money were repaid. Two months ago he would have declared stoutly that he would never be beholding to his wifes friends; but now he told himself as stoutly, that it was nothing but right and natural that Bessy should go to the Pullets and explaihing to them: they would hardl<details>.99lib.</details>y let Bessys furniture be sold, and it might be security to Pullet, if he advahe mohere would, after all, be no gift or favour iter. Mr Tulliver would never have asked for anything from so poor-spirited a fellow for himself, but Bessy might do so if she liked. It is precisely the proudest and most obstinate men who are the most liable to shift their position and tradict themselves in this sudden manner: everything is easier to them than to face the simple fact, that they have been thhly defeated and must begin life anew. And Mr Tulliver, you perceive, though nothing more than a superior miller and maltster, roud and obstinate as if he had been a very lofty personage, in whom such dispositions might be a source of that spicuous, far-eg tragedy which sweeps the stage in regal robes, and makes the dullest icler sublime. The pride and obstinaillers and other insignifit people, whom you pass unnotigly on the road every day, have their tragedy too, but it is of that u, hidden sort, that goes eion to geion and leaves no record - such tragedy, perhaps, as lies in the flicts of young souls, hungry for joy, under a lot made suddenly hard to them, uhe dreariness of a home where the m brings no promise with it, and where the uant distent of worn and disappointed parents weighs on the children like a damp, thick air in which all the funs of life are depressed; or such tragedy as lies in the slow or suddeh that follows on a bruised passion, though it may be a death that finds only a parish funeral. There are certain animals to which tenacity of position is a law of life - they ever flourish again after a single wrench: and there are certain human beings to whom predominance is a law of life and who  only sustain humiliation so long as they  refuse to believe in it, and, in their own ception, predomiill.

    Mr Tulliver was still predominating in his own imagination as he approached St Oggs, through which he had to pass on his way homeward. But what was it that suggested to him as he saw the Laceham coatering the town, to follow it to the coach office, ahe clerk there to write a letter requiring Maggie to e home the very  day? Mr Tullivers own hand shook too muder his excitement for him to write himself, and he wahe letter to be given to the an to deliver at Miss Firnisss school in the m. There was a craving which he would not at for to himself, to have Maggie near him - without delay - she must e back by the coaorrow.

    To Mrs Tulliver whe home, he would admit no difficulties, and scolded down her burst of grief on hearing that the lawsuit was lost, by angry assertions that there was nothing to grieve about. He said nothing to her that night about the bill of sale, and the application to Mrs Pullet, for he had kept her in ignorance of the nature of that transa and had explaihe y for taking an iory of the goods as a matter ected with his Will. The possession of a wife spicuously ones inferior in intellect, is, like h privileges, attended with a few inveniences, and among the rest with the occasional y for using a little deception.

    The  day Mr Tulliver was again on horseba the afternoon, on his way tores office at St Oggs. Gore was to have seen Furley in the m, and to have sounded him iion to Mr Tullivers affairs. But he had not gone halfway whe a clerk frores office, who was bringing a letter to Mr Tulliver. Mr Gore had beeed by a sudden call of business from waiting at his office to see Mr Tulliver acc to<bdi>九九藏书</bdi> appoi, but would be at his office at eleven to-morrow m, and meanwhile had sent some important information by letter.

    `O! said Mr Tulliver, taking the letter, but not opening it. `Then tell Gore Ill see him tomorrow at eleven. Aurned his horse.

    The clerk, struck with Mr Tullivers glistenied glance, looked after him for a few moments, and then rode away. The reading of a letter was not the affair of an instant to Mr Tulliver: he took in the sense of a statement very slowly through the medium of written or even printed characters; so he had put the letter in his pocket, thinking he would open it in his armchair at home. But by and by it occurred to him that there might be something iter Mrs Tulliver must not know about, and if so, it would be better to keep it out of her sight altogether. He stopped his horse, took out the letter and read it. It was only a short letter: the substance was, that Mr Gore had ascertained o but sure authority that Furley had been lately much straitened for money, and had parted with his securities, among the rest, the me on Mr Tullivers property, which he had transferred to - Wakem.

    In half an hour after this, Mr Tullivers own waggoner found him lying by the roadside insensible, with an opeer  him, and his grey horse snuffing uneasily about him.

    When Maggie reached home that evening in obedieo her fathers call, he was no longer insensible. About an hour before, he had bee scious, and after vague, vat looks around him, had muttered something about `a letter, which he presently repeated impatiently. At the instanr Turnbull, the medical man, Gores letter was brought and laid on the bed, and the previous impatience seemed to be allayed. The stri man lay for some time with his eyes fixed oter, as if he were trying to knit up his thoughts by its help. But presently a new wave of memory seemed to have e and swept the other away: he turned his eyes from the letter to the door and after looking uneasily, as if striving to see something his eyes were too dim for, he said, `The little wench.

    He repeated the words impatiently from time to time, appeariirely unscious of everything except this one importunate want, and giving no sign of knowing his wife or any one else, and poor Mrs Tulliver, her feeble faculties almost paralysed by this sudden accumulation of troubles, went backwards and forwards to the gate to see if the Laceham coach were ing, though it was not yet time.

    But it came at last a down the poor anxious girl, no lohe `little wench except to her fathers fond memory.

    `O mother, what is the matter? Maggie said, with pale lips, as her mother came towards her g. She didnt think her father was ill, because the letter had e at his dictation from the office at St Oggs.

    But Mr Turnbull came now to meet her: a medical man is the good angel of the troubled house, and Maggie ran towards the kind old friend whom she remembered as long as she could remember anything, with a trembling, questioning look.

    `Dont alarm yourself too much, my dear, he said, taking her hand. `Your father has had a sudden attack, and has not quite recovered his memory. But he has been asking for you, and it will do him good to see you. Keep as quiet as you : take off your things and e upstairs with me.

    Maggie obeyed, with that terrible beating of the heart which makes existence seem simply a painful pulsation. The very quietness with which Mr Turnbull spoke, had frightened her susceptible imagination. Her fathers eyes were still turned uneasily towards the door wheered ahe strange, yearning, helpless look that had been seeking her in vain. With a sudden flash and movement, he raised himself in the bed - she rushed towards him, and clasped him with agonised kisses.

    Poor child! it was very early for her to know one of those supreme moments in life when all we have hoped or delighted in, all we  dread or endure, falls away from ard as insignifit, - is lost, like a trivial memory, in that simple, primitive love whiits us to the beings who have been o us, iimes of helplessness or of anguish.

    But that flash nition had been too great a strain ohers bruised, enfeebled powers. He sank back again in renewed insensibility and rigidity which lasted for many hours, and was only broken by flickeriurns of sciousness, in which he took passively everything that was given to him and seemed to have a sort o<strike></strike>f infaisfa in Maggies near presence - such satisfa as a baby has when it is returo the nurses lap.

    Mrs Tulliver sent for her sisters, and there was much wailing and lifting up of hands below stairs: both uncles and aunts saw that the ruin of Bessy and her family was as plete as they had ever foreboded it, and there was a general family sehat a judgment had fallen on Mr Tulliver, which it would be an impiety to teract by too much kindness. But Maggie heard little of this, scarcely ever leaving her fathers bedside, where she sat opposite him with her hand on his. Mrs Tullive<big></big>r wao have Tom fetched home, and seemed to be thinking more of her boy even than of her husband; but the aunts and uncles opposed this - Tom was better at school, since Mr Turnbull said there was no immediate danger, he believed. But at the end of the sed day, when Maggie had beore aced to her fathers fits of insensibility, and to the expectation that he would revive from them, the thought of Tom had bee urgent with her too, and when her mother sate g at night and saying, `My poor lad... its nothing but right he should e home, Maggie said, `Let me go for him, and tell him, mother: Ill go tomorrow m if father doesnt know me and wa would be so hard for Tom to e home and not know anything about it beforehand.

    And the  m Maggie went, as we have seen. Sitting on the coa their way home, the brother and sister talked to each other in sad, interrupted whispers.

    `They say Mr Wakem has got a me or something on the land, Tom, said Maggie. `It was the letter with that news in it that made father ill, they think.

    `I believe that sdrels been planning all along to ruin my father, said Tom, leaping from the vaguest impressions to a definite clusion. `Ill make him feel for it when Im a man. Mind you never speak to Philip again.

    `O Tom! said Maggie, in a tone of sad remonstrance; but she had no spirit to dispute anything then, still less to vex Tom by opposing him.

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