The Mill on the Floss
Book III : The Downfall
Chapter VI
Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice
against
the Present of a Pocket-Knife
In that dark time of December, the sale of the household
furniture lasted beyond the middle of the second day. Mr. Tulliver,
who had begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to manifest an
irritability which often appeared to have as a direct effect the
recurrence of spasmodic rigidity and insensibility, had lain in
this living death throughout the critical hours when the noise of
the sale came nearest to his chamber. Mr. Turnbull had decided that
it would be a less risk to let him remain where he was than to
remove him to Luke’s cottage,—a plan which the good
Luke had proposed to Mrs. Tulliver, thinking it would be very bad
if the master were “to waken up” at the noise of the
sale; and the wife and children had sat imprisoned in the silent
chamber, watching the large prostrate figure on the bed, and
trembling lest the blank face should suddenly show some response to
the sounds which fell on their own ears with such obstinate,
painful repetition.
But it was over at last, that time of importunate certainty and
eye-straining suspense. The sharp sound of a voice, almost as
metallic as the rap that followed it, had ceased; the tramping of
footsteps on the gravel had died out. Mrs. Tulliver’s blond
face seemed aged ten years by the last thirty hours; the poor
woman’s mind had been busy divining when her favorite things
were being knocked down by the terrible hammer; her heart had been
fluttering at the thought that first one thing and then another had
gone to be identified as hers in the hateful publicity of the
Golden Lion; and all the while she had to sit and make no sign of
this inward agitation. Such things bring lines in well-rounded
faces, and broaden the streaks of white among the hairs that once
looked as if they had been dipped in pure sunshine. Already, at
three o’clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered
housemaid, who regarded all people that came to the sale as her
personal enemies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly vile
quality, had begun to scrub and swill with an energy much assisted
by a continual low muttering against “folks as came to buy up
other folk’s things,” and made light of
“scrazing” the tops of mahogany tables over which
better folks than themselves had had to—suffer a waste of
tissue through evaporation. She was not scrubbing indiscriminately,
for there would be further dirt of the same atrocious kind made by
people who had still to fetch away their purchases; but she was
bent on bringing the parlor, where that “pipe-smoking
pig,” the bailiff, had sat, to such an appearance of scant
comfort as could be given to it by cleanliness and the few articles
of furniture bought in for the family. Her mistress and the young
folks should have their tea in it that night, Kezia was
determined.
It was between five and six o’clock, near the usual
teatime, when she came upstairs and said that Master Tom was
wanted. The person who wanted him was in the kitchen, and in the
first moments, by the imperfect fire and candle light, Tom had not
even an indefinite sense of any acquaintance with the rather
broad-set but active figure, perhaps two years older than himself,
that looked at him with a pair of blue eyes set in a disc of
freckles, and pulled some curly red locks with a strong intention
of respect. A low-crowned oilskin-covered hat, and a certain shiny
deposit of dirt on the rest of the costume, as of tablets prepared
for writing upon, suggested a calling that had to do with boats;
but this did not help Tom’s memory.
“Sarvant, Master Tom,” said he of the red locks,
with a smile which seemed to break through a self-imposed air of
melancholy. “You don’t know me again, I doubt,”
he went on, as Tom continued to look at him inquiringly; “but
I’d like to talk to you by yourself a bit, please.”
“There’s a fire i’ the parlor, Master
Tom,” said Kezia, who objected to leaving the kitchen in the
crisis of toasting.
“Come this way, then,” said Tom, wondering if this
young fellow belonged to Guest & Co.‘s Wharf, for his
imagination ran continually toward that particular spot; and uncle
Deane might any time be sending for him to say that there was a
situation at liberty.
The bright fire in the parlor was the only light that showed the
few chairs, the bureau, the carpetless floor, and the one
table—no, not the one table; there was a second
table, in a corner, with a large Bible and a few other books upon
it. It was this new strange bareness that Tom felt first, before he
thought of looking again at the face which was also lit up by the
fire, and which stole a half-shy, questioning glance at him as the
entirely strange voice said:
“Why! you don’t remember Bob, then, as you gen the
pocket-knife to, Mr. Tom?”
The rough-handled pocket-knife was taken out in the same moment,
and the largest blade opened by way of irresistible
demonstration.
“What! Bob Jakin?” said Tom, not with any cordial
delight, for he felt a little ashamed of that early intimacy
symbolized by the pocket-knife, and was not at all sure that
Bob’s motives for recalling it were entirely admirable.
“Ay, ay, Bob Jakin, if Jakin it must be, ‘cause
there’s so many Bobs as you went arter the squerrils with,
that day as I plumped right down from the bough, and bruised my
shins a good un—but I got the squerril tight for all that,
an’ a scratter it was. An’ this littlish blade’s
broke, you see, but I wouldn’t hev a new un put in,
‘cause they might be cheatin’ me an’ givin’
me another knife instid, for there isn’t such a blade
i’ the country,—it’s got used to my hand, like.
An’ there was niver nobody else gen me nothin’ but what
I got by my own sharpness, only you, Mr. Tom; if it wasn’t
Bill Fawks as gen me the terrier pup istid o’
drowndin’t it, an’ I had to jaw him a good un afore
he’d give it me.”
Bob spoke with a sharp and rather treble volubility, and got
through his long speech with surprising despatch, giving the blade
of his knife an affectionate rub on his sleeve when he had
finished.
“Well, Bob,” said Tom, with a slight air of
patronage, the foregoing reminscences having disposed him to be as
friendly as was becoming, though there was no part of his
acquaintance with Bob that he remembered better than the cause of
their parting quarrel; “is there anything I can do for
you?”
“Why, no, Mr. Tom,” answered Bob, shutting up his
knife with a click and returning it to his pocket, where he seemed
to be feeling for something else. “I shouldn’t
ha’ come back upon you now ye’re i’ trouble,
an’ folks say as the master, as I used to frighten the birds
for, an’ he flogged me a bit for fun when he catched me
eatin’ the turnip, as they say he’ll niver lift up his
head no more,—I shouldn’t ha’ come now to ax you
to gi’ me another knife ‘cause you gen me one afore. If
a chap gives me one black eye, that’s enough for me; I
sha’n’t ax him for another afore I sarve him out;
an’ a good turn’s worth as much as a bad un, anyhow. I
shall niver grow down’ards again, Mr. Tom, an’ you war
the little chap as I liked the best when I war a little
chap, for all you leathered me, and wouldn’t look at me
again. There’s Dick Brumby, there, I could leather him as
much as I’d a mind; but lors! you get tired o’
leatherin’ a chap when you can niver make him see what you
want him to shy at. I’n seen chaps as ‘ud stand
starin’ at a bough till their eyes shot out, afore
they’d see as a bird’s tail warn’t a leaf.
It’s poor work goin’ wi’ such raff. But you war
allays a rare un at shying, Mr. Tom, an’ I could trusten to
you for droppin’ down wi’ your stick in the nick
o’ time at a runnin’ rat, or a stoat, or that, when I
war a-beatin’ the bushes.”
Bob had drawn out a dirty canvas bag, and would perhaps not have
paused just then if Maggie had not entered the room and darted a
look of surprise and curiosity at him, whereupon he pulled his red
locks again with due respect. But the next moment the sense of the
altered room came upon Maggie with a force that overpowered the
thought of Bob’s presence. Her eyes had immediately glanced
from him to the place where the bookcase had hung; there was
nothing now but the oblong unfaded space on the wall, and below it
the small table with the Bible and the few other books.
“Oh, Tom!” she burst out, clasping her hands,
“where are the books? I thought my uncle Glegg said he would
buy them. Didn’t he? Are those all they’ve left
us?”
“I suppose so,” said Tom, with a sort of desperate
indifference. “Why should they buy many books when they
bought so little furniture?”
“Oh, but, Tom,” said Maggie, her eyes filling with
tears, as she rushed up to the table to see what books had been
rescued. “Our dear old Pilgrim’s Progress that you
colored with your little paints; and that picture of Pilgrim with a
mantle on, looking just like a turtle—oh dear!” Maggie
went on, half sobbing as she turned over the few books, “I
thought we should never part with that while we lived; everything
is going away from us; the end of our lives will have nothing in it
like the beginning!”
Maggie turned away from the table and threw herself into a
chair, with the big tears ready to roll down her cheeks, quite
blinded to the presence of Bob, who was looking at her with the
pursuant gaze of an intelligent dumb animal, with perceptions more
perfect than his comprehension.
“Well, Bob,” said Tom, feeling that the subject of
the books was unseasonable, “I suppose you just came to see
me because we’re in trouble? That was very good-natured of
you.”
“I’ll tell you how it is, Master Tom,” said
Bob, beginning to untwist his canvas bag. “You see, I’n
been with a barge this two ‘ear; that’s how I’n
been gettin’ my livin’,—if it wasn’t when I
was tentin’ the furnace, between whiles, at Torry’s
mill. But a fortni’t ago I’d a rare bit o’
luck,—I allays thought I was a lucky chap, for I niver set a
trap but what I catched something; but this wasn’t trap, it
was a fire i’ Torry’s mill, an’ I doused it, else
it ‘ud set th’ oil alight, an’ the genelman gen
me ten suvreigns; he gen me ’em himself last week. An’
he said first, I was a sperrited chap,—but I knowed that
afore,—but then he outs wi’ the ten suvreigns,
an’ that war summat new. Here they are, all but one!”
Here Bob emptied the canvas bag on the table. “An’ when
I’d got ’em, my head was all of a boil like a kettle
o’ broth, thinkin’ what sort o’ life I should
take to, for there war a many trades I’d thought on; for as
for the barge, I’m clean tired out wi’t, for it pulls
the days out till they’re as long as pigs’
chitterlings. An’ I thought first I’d ha’ ferrets
an’ dogs, an’ be a rat-catcher; an’ then I
thought as I should like a bigger way o’ life, as I
didn’t know so well; for I’n seen to the bottom
o’ rat-catching; an’ I thought, an’ thought, till
at last I settled I’d be a packman,—for they’re
knowin’ fellers, the packmen are,—an’ I’d
carry the lightest things I could i’ my pack; an’
there’d be a use for a feller’s tongue, as is no use
neither wi’ rats nor barges. An’ I should go about the
country far an’ wide, an’ come round the women
wi’ my tongue, an’ get my dinner hot at the
public,—lors! it ‘ud be a lovely life!”
Bob paused, and then said, with defiant decision, as if
resolutely turning his back on that paradisaic picture:
“But I don’t mind about it, not a chip! An’
I’n changed one o’ the suvreigns to buy my mother a
goose for dinner, an’ I’n bought a blue plush wescoat,
an’ a sealskin cap,—for if I meant to be a packman,
I’d do it respectable. But I don’t mind about it, not a
chip! My yead isn’t a turnip, an’ I shall
p’r’aps have a chance o’ dousing another fire
afore long. I’m a lucky chap. So I’ll thank you to take
the nine suvreigns, Mr. Tom, and set yoursen up with ’em
somehow, if it’s true as the master’s broke. They
mayn’t go fur enough, but they’ll help.”
Tom was touched keenly enough to forget his pride and
suspicion.
“You’re a very kind fellow, Bob,” he said,
coloring, with that little diffident tremor in his voice which gave
a certain charm even to Tom’s pride and severity, “and
I sha’n’t forget you again, though I didn’t know
you this evening. But I can’t take the nine sovereigns; I
should be taking your little fortune from you, and they
wouldn’t do me much good either.”
“Wouldn’t they, Mr. Tom?” said Bob,
regretfully. “Now don’t say so ‘cause you think I
want ’em. I aren’t a poor chap. My mother gets a good
penn’orth wi’ picking feathers an’ things;
an’ if she eats nothin’ but bread-an’-water, it
runs to fat. An’ I’m such a lucky chap; an’ I
doubt you aren’t quite so lucky, Mr. Tom,—th’ old
master isn’t, anyhow,—an’ so you might take a
slice o’ my luck, an’ no harm done. Lors! I found a leg
o’ pork i’ the river one day; it had tumbled out
o’ one o’ them round-sterned Dutchmen, I’ll be
bound. Come, think better on it, Mr. Tom, for old
‘quinetance’ sake, else I shall think you bear me a
grudge.”
Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before Tom could speak
Maggie, clasping her hands, and looking penitently at Bob.
said:
“Oh, I’m so sorry, Bob; I never thought you were so
good. Why, I think you’re the kindest person in the
world!”
Bob had not been aware of the injurious opinion for which Maggie
was performing an inward act of penitence, but he smiled with
pleasure at this handsome eulogy,—especially from a young
lass who, as he informed his mother that evening, had “such
uncommon eyes, they looked somehow as they made him feel
nohow.”
“No, indeed Bob, I can’t take them,” said Tom;
“but don’t think I feel your kindness less because I
say no. I don’t want to take anything from anybody, but to
work my own way. And those sovereigns wouldn’t help me
much—they wouldn’t really—if I were to take them.
Let me shake hands with you instead.”
Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to place his
hard, grimy hand within it.
“Let me put the sovereigns in the bag again,” said
Maggie; “and you’ll come and see us when you’ve
bought your pack, Bob.”
“It’s like as if I’d come out o’ make
believe, o’ purpose to show ’em you,” said Bob,
with an air of discontent, as Maggie gave him the bag again,
“a-taking ’em back i’ this way. I am a
bit of a Do, you know; but it isn’t that sort o’
Do,—it’s on’y when a feller’s a big rogue,
or a big flat, I like to let him in a bit, that’s
all.”
“Now, don’t you be up to any tricks, Bob,”
said Tom, “else you’ll get transported some
day.”
“No, no; not me, Mr. Tom,” said Bob, with an air of
cheerful confidence. “There’s no law again’
flea-bites. If I wasn’t to take a fool in now and then,
he’d niver get any wiser. But, lors! hev a suvreign to buy
you and Miss summat, on’y for a token—just to match my
pocket-knife.”
While Bob was speaking he laid down the sovereign, and
resolutely twisted up his bag again. Tom pushed back the gold, and
said, “No, indeed, Bob; thank you heartily, but I can’t
take it.” And Maggie, taking it between her fingers, held it
up to Bob and said, more persuasively:
“Not now, but perhaps another time. If ever Tom or my
father wants help that you can give, we’ll let you know;
won’t we, Tom? That’s what you would like,—to
have us always depend on you as a friend that we can go
to,—isn’t it, Bob?”
“Yes, Miss, and thank you,” said Bob, reluctantly
taking the money; “that’s what I’d like, anything
as you like. An’ I wish you good-by, Miss, and good-luck, Mr.
Tom, and thank you for shaking hands wi’ me, though
you wouldn’t take the money.”
Kezia’s entrance, with very black looks, to inquire if she
shouldn’t bring in the tea now, or whether the toast was to
get hardened to a brick, was a seasonable check on Bob’s flux
of words, and hastened his parting bow.