Chapter I
Tom's ”First Half”
Tom Tulliver's sufferings during the first quarter he was at King'sLorton, under the distinguished care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, wererather severe. At Mr. Jacob's academy life had not presented itself tohim as a difficult problem; there were plenty of fellows to play with,and Tom being good at all active games,--fighting especially,--hadthat precedence among them which appeared to him inseparable from thepersonality of Tom Tulliver. Mr. Jacobs himself, familiarly known asOld Goggles, from his habit of wearing spectacles, imposed no painfulawe; and if it was the property of snuffy old hypocrites like him towrite like copperplate and surround their signatures with arabesques,to spell without forethought, and to spout ”my name is Norval” withoutbungling, Tom, for his part, was glad he was not in danger of thosemean accomplishments. He was not going to be a snuffy schoolmaster,he, but a substantial man, like his father, who used to go huntingwhen he was younger, and rode a capital black mare,--as pretty a bitof horse-flesh as ever you saw; Tom had heard what her points were ahundred times. _He_ meant to go hunting too, and to be generallyrespected. When people were grown up, he considered, nobody inquiredabout their writing and spelling; when he was a man, he should bemaster of everything, and do just as he liked. It had been verydifficult for him to reconcile himself to the idea that hisschool-time was to be prolonged and that he was not to be brought upto his father's business, which he had always thought extremelypleasant; for it was nothing but riding about, giving orders, andgoing to market; and he thought that a clergyman would give him agreat many Scripture lessons, and probably make him learn the Gospeland Epistle on a Sunday, as well as the Collect. But in the absence ofspecific information, it was impossible for him to imagine that schooland a schoolmaster would be something entirely different from theacademy of Mr. Jacobs. So, not to be at a deficiency, in case of hisfinding genial companions, he had taken care to carry with him a smallbox of percussion-caps; not that there was anything particular to bedone with them, but they would serve to impress strange boys with asense of his familiarity with guns. Thus poor Tom, though he saw veryclearly through Maggie's illusions, was not without illusions of hisown, which were to be cruelly dissipated by his enlarged experience atKing's Lorton.
He had not been there a fortnight before it was evident to him thatlife, complicated not only with the Latin grammar but with a newstandard of English pronunciation, was a very difficult business, madeall the more obscure by a thick mist of bashfulness. Tom, as you haveobserved, was never an exception among boys for ease of address; butthe difficulty of enunciating a monosyllable in reply to Mr. or Mrs.Stelling was so great, that he even dreaded to be asked at tablewhether he would have more pudding. As to the percussion-caps, he hadalmost resolved, in the bitterness of his heart, that he would throwthem into a neighboring pond; for not only was he the solitary pupil,but he began even to have a certain scepticism about guns, and ageneral sense that his theory of life was undermined. For Mr. Stellingthought nothing of guns, or horses either, apparently; and yet it wasimpossible for Tom to despise Mr. Stelling as he had despised OldGoggles. If there were anything that was not thoroughly genuine aboutMr. Stelling, it lay quite beyond Tom's power to detect it; it is onlyby a wide comparison of facts that the wisest full-grown man candistinguish well-rolled barrels from mere supernal thunder.
Mr. Stelling was a well-sized, broad-chested man, not yet thirty, withflaxen hair standing erect, and large lightish-gray eyes, which werealways very wide open; he had a sonorous bass voice, and an air ofdefiant self-confidence inclining to brazenness. He had entered on hiscareer with great vigor, and intended to make a considerableimpression on his fellowmen. The Rev. Walter Stelling was not a manwho would remain among the ”inferior clergy” all his life. He had atrue British determination to push his way in the world,--as aschoolmaster, in the first place, for there were capital mastershipsof grammar-schools to be had, and Mr. Stelling meant to have one ofthem; but as a preacher also, for he meant always to preach in astriking manner, so as to have his congregation swelled by admirersfrom neighboring parishes, and to produce a great sensation wheneverhe took occasional duty for a brother clergyman of minor gifts. Thestyle of preaching he had chosen was the extemporaneous, which washeld little short of the miraculous in rural parishes like King'sLorton. Some passages of Massillon and Bourdaloue, which he knew byheart, were really very effective when rolled out in Mr. Stelling'sdeepest tones; but as comparatively feeble appeals of his own weredelivered in the same loud and impressive manner, they were oftenthought quite as striking by his hearers. Mr. Stelling's doctrine wasof no particular school; if anything, it had a tinge ofevangelicalism, for that was ”the telling thing” just then in thediocese to which King's Lorton belonged. In short, Mr. Stelling was aman who meant to rise in his profession, and to rise by merit,clearly, since he had no interest beyond what might be promised by aproblematic relationship to a great lawyer who had not yet become LordChancellor. A clergyman who has such vigorous intentions naturallygets a little into debt at starting; it is not to be expected that hewill live in the meagre style of a man who means to be a poor curateall his life; and if the few hundreds Mr. Timpson advanced toward hisdaughter's fortune did not suffice for the purchase of handsomefurniture, together with a stock of wine, a grand piano, and thelaying out of a superior flower-garden, it followed in the mostrigorous manner, either that these things must be procured by someother means, or else that the Rev. Mr. Stelling must go without them,which last alternative would be an absurd procrastination of thefruits of success, where success was certain. Mr. Stelling was sobroad-chested and resolute that he felt equal to anything; he wouldbecome celebrated by shaking the consciences of his hearers, and hewould by and by edit a Greek play, and invent several new readings. Hehad not yet selected the play, for having been married little morethan two years, his leisure time had been much occupied withattentions to Mrs. Stelling; but he had told that fine woman what hemeant to do some day, and she felt great confidence in her husband, asa man who understood everything of that sort.
But the immediate step to future success was to bring on Tom Tulliverduring this first half-year; for, by a singular coincidence, there hadbeen some negotiation concerning another pupil from the sameneighborhood and it might further a decision in Mr. Stelling's favor,if it were understood that young Tulliver, who, Mr. Stelling observedin conjugal privacy, was rather a rough cub, had made prodigiousprogress in a short time. It was on this ground that he was severewith Tom about his lessons; he was clearly a boy whose powers wouldnever be developed through the medium of the Latin grammar, withoutthe application of some sternness. Not that Mr. Stelling was aharsh-tempered or unkind man; quite the contrary. He was jocose withTom at table, and corrected his provincialisms and his deportment inthe most playful manner; but poor Tom was only the more cowed andconfused by this double novelty, for he had never been used to jokesat all like Mr. Stelling's; and for the first time in his life he hada painful sense that he was all wrong somehow. When Mr. Stelling said,as the roast-beef was being uncovered, ”Now, Tulliver! which would yourather decline, roast-beef or the Latin for it?” Tom, to whom in hiscoolest moments a pun would have been a hard nut, was thrown into astate of embarrassed alarm that made everything dim to him except thefeeling that he would rather not have anything to do with Latin; ofcourse he answered, ”Roast-beef,” whereupon there followed muchlaughter and some practical joking with the plates, from which Tomgathered that he had in some mysterious way refused beef, and, infact, made himself appear ”a silly.” If he could have seen afellow-pupil undergo these painful operations and survive them in goodspirits, he might sooner have taken them as a matter of course. Butthere are two expensive forms of education, either of which a parentmay procure for his son by sending him as solitary pupil to aclergyman: one is the enjoyment of the reverend gentleman's undividedneglect; the other is the endurance of the reverend gentleman'sundivided attention. It was the latter privilege for which Mr.Tulliver paid a high price in Tom's initiatory months at King'sLorton.
That respectable miller and maltster had left Tom behind, and drivenhomeward in a state of great mental satisfaction. He considered thatit was a happy moment for him when he had thought of asking Riley'sadvice about a tutor for Tom. Mr. Stelling's eyes were so wide open,and he talked in such an off-hand, matter-of-fact way, answering everydifficult, slow remark of Mr. Tulliver's with, ”I see, my good sir, Isee”; ”To be sure, to be sure”; ”You want your son to be a man whowill make his way in the world,”--that Mr. Tulliver was delighted tofind in him a clergyman whose knowledge was so applicable to theevery-day affairs of this life. Except Counsellor Wylde, whom he hadheard at the last sessions, Mr. Tulliver thought the Rev. Mr Stellingwas the shrewdest fellow he had ever met with,--not unlike Wylde, infact; he had the same way of sticking his thumbs in the armholes ofhis waistcoat. Mr. Tulliver was not by any means an exception inmistaking brazenness for shrewdness; most laymen thought Stellingshrewd, and a man of remarkable powers generally; it was chiefly byhis clerical brethren that he was considered rather a full fellow. Buthe told Mr. Tulliver several stories about ”Swing” and incendiarism,and asked his advice about feeding pigs in so thoroughly secular andjudicious a manner, with so much polished glibness of tongue, that themiller thought, here was the very thing he wanted for Tom. He had nodoubt this first-rate man was acquainted with every branch ofinformation, and knew exactly what Tom must learn in order to become amatch for the lawyers, which poor Mr. Tulliver himself did _not_ know,and so was necessarily thrown for self-direction on this wide kind ofinference. It is hardly fair to laugh at him, for I have known muchmore highly instructed persons than he make inferences quite as wide,and not at all wiser.
As for Mrs. Tulliver, finding that Mrs. Stelling's views as to theairing of linen and the frequent recurrence of hunger in a growing boyentirely coincided with her own; moreover, that Mrs. Stelling, thoughso young a woman, and only anticipating her second confinement, hadgone through very nearly the same experience as herself with regard tothe behavior and fundamental character of the monthly nurse,--sheexpressed great contentment to her husband, when they drove away, atleaving Tom with a woman who, in spite of her youth, seemed quitesensible and motherly, and asked advice as prettily as could be.
”They must be very well off, though,” said Mrs. Tulliver, ”foreverything's as nice as can be all over the house, and that wateredsilk she had on cost a pretty penny. Sister Pullet has got one likeit.”
”Ah,” said Mr. Tulliver, ”he's got some income besides the curacy, Ireckon. Perhaps her father allows 'em something. There's Tom 'ull beanother hundred to him, and not much trouble either, by his ownaccount; he says teaching comes natural to him. That's wonderful,now,” added Mr. Tulliver, turning his head on one side, and giving hishorse a meditative tickling on the flank.
Perhaps it was because teaching came naturally to Mr. Stelling, thathe set about it with that uniformity of method and independence ofcircumstances which distinguish the actions of animals understood tobe under the immediate teaching of nature. Mr. Broderip's amiablebeaver, as that charming naturalist tells us, busied himself asearnestly in constructing a dam, in a room up three pair of stairs inLondon, as if he had been laying his foundation in a stream or lake inUpper Canada. It was ”Binny's” function to build; the absence of wateror of possible progeny was an accident for which he was notaccountable. With the same unerring instinct Mr. Stelling set to workat his natural method of instilling the Eton Grammar and Euclid intothe mind of Tom Tulliver. This, he considered, was the only basis ofsolid instruction all other means of education were merecharlatanism, and could produce nothing better than smatterers. Fixedon this firm basis, a man might observe the display of various orspecial knowledge made by irregularly educated people with a pityingsmile; all that sort of thing was very well, but it was impossiblethese people could form sound opinions. In holding this conviction Mr.Stelling was not biassed, as some tutors have been, by the excessiveaccuracy or extent of his own scholarship; and as to his views aboutEuclid, no opinion could have been freer from personal partiality. Mr.Stelling was very far from being led astray by enthusiasm, eitherreligious or intellectual; on the other hand, he had no secret beliefthat everything was humbug. He thought religion was a very excellentthing, and Aristotle a great authority, and deaneries and prebendsuseful institutions, and Great Britain the providential bulwark ofProtestantism, and faith in the unseen a great support to afflictedminds; he believed in all these things, as a Swiss hotel-keeperbelieves in the beauty of the scenery around him, and in the pleasureit gives to artistic visitors. And in the same way Mr. Stellingbelieved in his method of education he had no doubt that he was doingthe very best thing for Mr. Tulliver's boy. Of course, when the millertalked of ”mapping” and ”summing” in a vague and diffident manner, MrStelling had set his mind at rest by an assurance that he understoodwhat was wanted; for how was it possible the good man could form anyreasonable judgment about the matter? Mr Stelling's duty was to teachthe lad in the only right way,--indeed he knew no other; he had notwasted his time in the acquirement of anything abnormal.
He very soon set down poor Tom as a thoroughly stupid lad; for thoughby hard labor he could get particular declensions into his brain,anything so abstract as the relation between cases and terminationscould by no means get such a lodgment there as to enable him torecognize a chance genitive or dative. This struck Mr. Stelling assomething more than natural stupidity; he suspected obstinacy, or atany rate indifference, and lectured Tom severely on his want ofthorough application. ”You feel no interest in what you're doing,sir,” Mr. Stelling would say, and the reproach was painfully true. Tomhad never found any difficulty in discerning a pointer from a setter,when once he had been told the distinction, and his perceptive powerswere not at all deficient. I fancy they were quite as strong as thoseof the Rev. Mr. Stelling; for Tom could predict with accuracy whatnumber of horses were cantering behind him, he could throw a stoneright into the centre of a given ripple, he could guess to a fractionhow many lengths of his stick it would take to reach across theplayground, and could draw almost perfect squares on his slate withoutany measurement. But Mr. Stelling took no note of these things; heonly observed that Tom's faculties failed him before the abstractionshideously symbolized to him in the pages of the Eton Grammar, and thathe was in a state bordering on idiocy with regard to the demonstrationthat two given triangles must be equal, though he could discern withgreat promptitude and certainty the fact that they _were_ equal.Whence Mr. Stelling concluded that Tom's brain, being peculiarlyimpervious to etymology and demonstrations, was peculiarly in need ofbeing ploughed and harrowed by these patent implements; it was hisfavorite metaphor, that the classics and geometry constituted thatculture of the mind which prepared it for the reception of anysubsequent crop. I say nothing against Mr. Stelling's theory; if weare to have one regimen for all minds, his seems to me as good as anyother. I only know it turned out as uncomfortably for Tom Tulliver asif he had been plied with cheese in order to remedy a gastric weaknesswhich prevented him from digesting it. It is astonishing what adifferent result one gets by changing the metaphor! Once call thebrain an intellectual stomach, and one's ingenious conception of theclassics and geometry as ploughs and harrows seems to settle nothing.But then it is open to some one else to follow great authorities, andcall the mind a sheet of white paper or a mirror, in which case one'sknowledge of the digestive process becomes quite irrelevant. It wasdoubtless an ingenious idea to call the camel the ship of the desert,but it would hardly lead one far in training that useful beast. OAristotle! if you had had the advantage of being ”the freshest modern”instead of the greatest ancient, would you not have mingled yourpraise of metaphorical speech, as a sign of high intelligence, with alamentation that intelligence so rarely shows itself in speech withoutmetaphor,--that we can so seldom declare what a thing is, except bysaying it is something else?
Tom Tulliver, being abundant in no form of speech, did not use anymetaphor to declare his views as to the nature of Latin; he nevercalled it an instrument of torture; and it was not until he had got onsome way in the next half-year, and in the Delectus, that he wasadvanced enough to call it a ”bore” and ”beastly stuff.” At present,in relation to this demand that he should learn Latin declensions andconjugations, Tom was in a state of as blank unimaginativenessconcerning the cause and tendency of his sufferings, as if he had beenan innocent shrewmouse imprisoned in the split trunk of an ash-tree inorder to cure lameness in cattle. It is doubtless almost incredible toinstructed minds of the present day that a boy of twelve, notbelonging strictly to ”the masses,” who are now understood to have themonopoly of mental darkness, should have had no distinct idea howthere came to be such a thing as Latin on this earth; yet so it waswith Tom. It would have taken a long while to make conceivable to himthat there ever existed a people who bought and sold sheep and oxen,and transacted the every-day affairs of life, through the medium ofthis language; and still longer to make him understand why he shouldbe called upon to learn it, when its connection with those affairs hadbecome entirely latent. So far as Tom had gained any acquaintance withthe Romans at Mr. Jacob's academy, his knowledge was strictly correct,but it went no farther than the fact that they were ”in the NewTestament”; and Mr. Stelling was not the man to enfeeble andemasculate his pupil's mind by simplifying and explaining, or toreduce the tonic effect of etymology by mixing it with smattering,extraneous information, such as is given to girls.
Yet, strange to say, under this vigorous treatment Tom became morelike a girl than he had ever been in his life before. He had a largeshare of pride, which had hitherto found itself very comfortable inthe world, despising Old Goggles, and reposing in the sense ofunquestioned rights; but now this same pride met with nothing butbruises and crushings. Tom was too clear-sighted not to be aware thatMr. Stelling's standard of things was quite different, was certainlysomething higher in the eyes of the world than that of the people hehad been living amongst, and that, brought in contact with it, he, TomTulliver, appeared uncouth and stupid; he was by no means indifferentto this, and his pride got into an uneasy condition which quitenullified his boyish self-satisfaction, and gave him something of thegirl's susceptibility. He was a very firm, not to say obstinate,disposition, but there was no brute-like rebellion and recklessness inhis nature; the human sensibilities predominated, and if it hadoccurred to him that he could enable himself to show some quickness athis lessons, and so acquire Mr. Stelling's approbation, by standing onone leg for an inconvenient length of time, or rapping his headmoderately against the wall, or any voluntary action of that sort, hewould certainly have tried it. But no; Tom had never heard that thesemeasures would brighten the understanding, or strengthen the verbalmemory; and he was not given to hypothesis and experiment. It didoccur to him that he could perhaps get some help by praying for it;but as the prayers he said every evening were forms learned by heart,he rather shrank from the novelty and irregularity of introducing anextempore passage on a topic of petition for which he was not aware ofany precedent. But one day, when he had broken down, for the fifthtime, in the supines of the third conjugation, and Mr. Stelling,convinced that this must be carelessness, since it transcended thebounds of possible stupidity, had lectured him very seriously,pointing out that if he failed to seize the present golden opportunityof learning supines, he would have to regret it when he became aman,--Tom, more miserable than usual, determined to try his soleresource; and that evening, after his usual form of prayer for hisparents and ”little sister” (he had begun to pray for Maggie when shewas a baby), and that he might be able always to keep God'scommandments, he added, in the same low whisper, ”and please to makeme always remember my Latin.” He paused a little to consider how heshould pray about Euclid--whether he should ask to see what it meant,or whether there was any other mental state which would be moreapplicable to the case. But at last he added: ”And make Mr. Stellingsay I sha'n't do Euclid any more. Amen.”
The fact that he got through his supines without mistake the next day,encouraged him to persevere in this appendix to his prayers, andneutralized any scepticism that might have arisen from Mr. Stelling'scontinued demand for Euclid. But his faith broke down under theapparent absence of all help when he got into the irregular verbs. Itseemed clear that Tom's despair under the caprices of the presenttense did not constitute a _nodus_ worthy of interference, and sincethis was the climax of his difficulties, where was the use of prayingfor help any longer? He made up his mind to this conclusion in one ofhis dull, lonely evenings, which he spent in the study, preparing hislessons for the morrow. His eyes were apt to get dim over the page,though he hated crying, and was ashamed of it; he couldn't helpthinking with some affection even of Spouncer, whom he used to fightand quarrel with; he would have felt at home with Spouncer, and in acondition of superiority. And then the mill, and the river, and Yappricking up his ears, ready to obey the least sign when Tom said,”Hoigh!” would all come before him in a sort of calenture, when hisfingers played absently in his pocket with his great knife and hiscoil of whipcord, and other relics of the past.
Tom, as I said, had never been so much like a girl in his life before,and at that epoch of irregular verbs his spirit was further depressedby a new means of mental development which had been thought of for himout of school hours. Mrs. Stelling had lately had her second baby, andas nothing could be more salutary for a boy than to feel himselfuseful, Mrs. Stelling considered she was doing Tom a service bysetting him to watch the little cherub Laura while the nurse wasoccupied with the sickly baby. It was quite a pretty employment forTom to take little Laura out in the sunniest hour of the autumn day;it would help to make him feel that Lorton Parsonage was a home forhim, and that he was one of the family. The little cherub Laura, notbeing an accomplished walker at present, had a ribbon fastened roundher waist, by which Tom held her as if she had been a little dogduring the minutes in which she chose to walk; but as these were rare,he was for the most part carrying this fine child round and round thegarden, within sight of Mrs. Stelling's window, according to orders.If any one considers this unfair and even oppressive toward Tom, I beghim to consider that there are feminine virtues which are withdifficulty combined, even if they are not incompatible. When the wifeof a poor curate contrives, under all her disadvantages, to dressextremely well, and to have a style of coiffure which requires thather nurse shall occasionally officiate as lady's-maid; when, moreover,her dinner-parties and her drawing-room show that effort at eleganceand completeness of appointment to which ordinary women might imaginea large income necessary, it would be unreasonable to expect of herthat she should employ a second nurse, or even act as a nurse herself.Mr. Stelling knew better; he saw that his wife did wonders already,and was proud of her. It was certainly not the best thing in the worldfor young Tulliver's gait to carry a heavy child, but he had plenty ofexercise in long walks with himself, and next half-year Mr. Stellingwould see about having a drilling-master. Among the many means wherebyMr. Stelling intended to be more fortunate than the bulk of hisfellow-men, he had entirely given up that of having his own way in hisown house. What then? He had married ”as kind a little soul as everbreathed,” according to Mr. Riley, who had been acquainted with Mrs.Stelling's blond ringlets and smiling demeanor throughout her maidenlife, and on the strength of that knowledge would have been ready anyday to pronounce that whatever domestic differences might arise in hermarried life must be entirely Mr. Stelling's fault.
If Tom had had a worse disposition, he would certainly have hated thelittle cherub Laura, but he was too kind-hearted a lad for that; therewas too much in him of the fibre that turns to true manliness, and toprotecting pity for the weak. I am afraid he hated Mrs. Stelling, andcontracted a lasting dislike to pale blond ringlets and broad plaits,as directly associated with haughtiness of manner, and a frequentreference to other people's ”duty.” But he couldn't help playing withlittle Laura, and liking to amuse her; he even sacrificed hispercussion-caps for her sake, in despair of their ever serving agreater purpose,--thinking the small flash and bang would delight her,and thereby drawing down on himself a rebuke from Mrs. Stelling forteaching her child to play with fire. Laura was a sort ofplayfellow--and oh, how Tom longed for playfellows! In his secretheart he yearned to have Maggie with him, and was almost ready to doteon her exasperating acts of forgetfulness; though, when he was athome, he always represented it as a great favor on his part to letMaggie trot by his side on his pleasure excursions.
And before this dreary half-year was ended, Maggie actually came. Mrs.Stelling had given a general invitation for the little girl to comeand stay with her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove over to King'sLorton late in October, Maggie came too, with the sense that she wastaking a great journey, and beginning to see the world. It was Mr.Tulliver's first visit to see Tom, for the lad must learn not to thinktoo much about home.
”Well, my lad,” he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had left the room toannounce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie had begun to kiss Tomfreely, ”you look rarely! School agrees with you.”
Tom wished he had looked rather ill.
”I don't think I _am_ well, father,” said Tom; ”I wish you'd ask Mr.Stelling not to let me do Euclid; it brings on the toothache, Ithink.”
(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever beensubject.)
”Euclid, my lad,--why, what's that?” said Mr. Tulliver.
”Oh, I don't know; it's definitions, and axioms, and triangles, andthings. It's a book I've got to learn in--there's no sense in it.”
”Go, go!” said Mr. Tulliver, reprovingly; ”you mustn't say so. Youmust learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right foryou to learn.”
”_I'll_ help you now, Tom,” said Maggie, with a little air ofpatronizing consolation. ”I'm come to stay ever so long, if Mrs.Stelling asks me. I've brought my box and my pinafores, haven't I,father?”
”_You_ help me, you silly little thing!” said Tom, in such highspirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the idea ofconfounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. ”I should like tosee you doing one of _my_ lessons! Why, I learn Latin too! Girls neverlearn such things. They're too silly.”
”I know what Latin is very well,” said Maggie, confidently, ”Latin's alanguage. There are Latin words in the Dictionary. There's bonus, agift.”
”Now, you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie!” said Tom, secretlyastonished. ”You think you're very wise! But 'bonus' means 'good,' asit happens,--bonus, bona, bonum.”
”Well, that's no reason why it shouldn't mean 'gift,'” said Maggie,stoutly. ”It may mean several things; almost every word does. There's'lawn,'--it means the grass-plot, as well as the stuffpocket-handkerchiefs are made of.”
”Well done, little 'un,” said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while Tom feltrather disgusted with Maggie's knowingness, though beyond measurecheerful at the thought that she was going to stay with him. Herconceit would soon be overawed by the actual inspection of his books.
Mrs. Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a longertime than a week for Maggie's stay; but Mr. Stelling, who took herbetween his knees, and asked her where she stole her dark eyes from,insisted that she must stay a fortnight. Maggie thought Mr. Stellingwas a charming man, and Mr. Tulliver was quite proud to leave hislittle wench where she would have an opportunity of showing hercleverness to appreciating strangers. So it was agreed that she shouldnot be fetched home till the end of the fortnight.
”Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie,” said Tom, as theirfather drove away. ”What do you shake and toss your head now for, yousilly?” he continued; for though her hair was now under a newdispensation, and was brushed smoothly behind her ears, she seemedstill in imagination to be tossing it out of her eyes. ”It makes youlook as if you were crazy.”
”Oh, I can't help it,” said Maggie, impatiently. ”Don't tease me, Tom.Oh, what books!” she exclaimed, as she saw the bookcases in the study.”How I should like to have as many books as that!”
”Why, you couldn't read one of 'em,” said Tom, triumphantly. ”They'reall Latin.”
”No, they aren't,” said Maggie. ”I can read the back ofthis,--'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'”
”Well, what does that mean? _You_ don't know,” said Tom, wagging hishead.
”But I could soon find out,” said Maggie, scornfully.
”Why, how?”
”I should look inside, and see what it was about.”
”You'd better not, Miss Maggie,” said Tom, seeing her hand on thevolume. ”Mr. Stelling lets nobody touch his books without leave, and_I_ shall catch it, if you take it out.”
”Oh, very well. Let me see all _your_ books, then,” said Maggie,turning to throw her arms round Tom's neck, and rub his cheek with hersmall round nose.
Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie to disputewith and crow over again, seized her round the waist, and began tojump with her round the large library table. Away they jumped withmore and more vigor, till Maggie's hair flew from behind her ears, andtwirled about like an animated mop. But the revolutions round thetable became more and more irregular in their sweep, till at lastreaching Mr. Stelling's reading stand, they sent it thundering downwith its heavy lexicons to the floor. Happily it was the ground-floor,and the study was a one-storied wing to the house, so that thedownfall made no alarming resonance, though Tom stood dizzy and aghastfor a few minutes, dreading the appearance of Mr. or Mrs. Stelling.
”Oh, I say, Maggie,” said Tom at last, lifting up the stand, ”we mustkeep quiet here, you know. If we break anything Mrs. Stelling'll makeus cry peccavi.”
”What's that?” said Maggie.
”Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding,” said Tom, not without somepride in his knowledge.
”Is she a cross woman?” said Maggie.
”I believe you!” said Tom, with an emphatic nod.
”I think all women are crosser than men,” said Maggie. ”Aunt Glegg's agreat deal crosser than uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me more thanfather does.”
”Well, _you'll_ be a woman some day,” said Tom, ”so _you_ needn'ttalk.”
”But I shall be a _clever_ woman,” said Maggie, with a toss.
”Oh, I dare say, and a nasty conceited thing. Everybody'll hate you.”
”But you oughtn't to hate me, Tom; it'll be very wicked of you, for Ishall be your sister.”
”Yes, but if you're a nasty disagreeable thing I _shall_ hate you.”
”Oh, but, Tom, you won't! I sha'n't be disagreeable. I shall be verygood to you, and I shall be good to everybody. You won't hate mereally, will you, Tom?”
”Oh, bother! never mind! Come, it's time for me to learn my lessons.See here! what I've got to do,” said Tom, drawing Maggie toward himand showing her his theorem, while she pushed her hair behind herears, and prepared herself to prove her capability of helping him inEuclid. She began to read with full confidence in her own powers, butpresently, becoming quite bewildered, her face flushed withirritation. It was unavoidable; she must confess her incompetency, andshe was not fond of humiliation.
”It's nonsense!” she said, ”and very ugly stuff; nobody need want tomake it out.”
”Ah, there, now, Miss Maggie!” said Tom, drawing the book away, andwagging his head at her, ”You see you're not so clever as you thoughtyou were.”
”Oh,” said Maggie, pouting, ”I dare say I could make it out, if I'dlearned what goes before, as you have.”
”But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom,” said Tom. ”For it'sall the harder when you know what goes before; for then you've got tosay what definition 3 is, and what axiom V. is. But get along with younow; I must go on with this. Here's the Latin Grammar. See what youcan make of that.”
Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her mathematicalmortification for she delighted in new words, and quickly found thatthere was an English Key at the end, which would make her very wiseabout Latin, at slight expense. She presently made up her mind to skipthe rules in the Syntax, the examples became so absorbing. Thesemysterious sentences, snatched from an unknown context,--like strangehorns of beasts, and leaves of unknown plants, brought from somefar-off region,--gave boundless scope to her imagination, and were allthe more fascinating because they were in a peculiar tongue of theirown, which she could learn to interpret. It was really veryinteresting, the Latin Grammar that Tom had said no girls could learn;and she was proud because she found it interesting. The mostfragmentary examples were her favourites. _Mors omnibus est communis_would have been jejune, only she liked to know the Latin; but thefortunate gentleman whom every one congratulated because he had a son”endowed with _such_ a disposition” afforded her a great deal ofpleasant conjecture, and she was quite lost in the ”thick grovepenetrable by no star,” when Tom called out,--
”Now, then, Magsie, give us the Grammar!”
”Oh, Tom, it's such a pretty book!” she said, as she jumped out of thelarge arm-chair to give it him; ”it's much prettier than theDictionary. I could learn Latin very soon. I don't think it's at allhard.”
”Oh, I know what you've been doing,” said Tom; ”you've been readingthe English at the end. Any donkey can do that.”
Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and business-likeair, as much as to say that he had a lesson to learn which no donkeyswould find themselves equal to. Maggie, rather piqued, turned to thebookcases to amuse herself with puzzling out the titles.
Presently Tom called to her: ”Here, Magsie, come and hear if I can saythis. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr. Stelling sits when hehears me.”
Maggie obeyed, and took the open book.
”Where do you begin, Tom?”
”Oh, I begin at _'Appellativa arborum,'_ because I say all over againwhat I've been learning this week.”
Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines; and Maggie was beginningto forget her office of prompter in speculating as to what _mas_ couldmean, which came twice over, when he stuck fast at _Sunt etiamvolucrum_.
”Don't tell me, Maggie; _Sunt etiam volucrum_--_Sunt etiamvolucrum_--_ut ostrea, cetus_----”
”No,” said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her head.
”_Sunt etiam volucrum_,” said Tom, very slowly, as if the next wordsmight be expected to come sooner when he gave them this strong hintthat they were waited for.
”C, e, u,” said Maggie, getting impatient.
”Oh, I know--hold your tongue,” said Tom. ”_Ceu passer, hirundo;Ferarum_--_ferarum_----” Tom took his pencil and made several harddots with it on his book-cover--”_ferarum_----”
”Oh dear, oh dear, Tom,” said Maggie, ”what a time you are! _Ut_----”
”_Ut ostrea_----”
”No, no,” said Maggie, ”_ut tigris_----”
”Oh yes, now I can do,” said Tom; ”it was _tigris, vulpes_, I'dforgotten: _ut tigris, volupes; et Piscium_.”
With some further stammering and repetition, Tom got through the nextfew lines.
”Now, then,” he said, ”the next is what I've just learned forto-morrow. Give me hold of the book a minute.”
After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of his fist onthe table, Tom returned the book.
”_Mascula nomina in a_,” he began.
”No, Tom,” said Maggie, ”that doesn't come next. It's _Nomen noncreskens genittivo_----”
”_Creskens genittivo!_” exclaimed Tom, with a derisive laugh, for Tomhad learned this omitted passage for his yesterday's lesson, and ayoung gentleman does not require an intimate or extensive acquaintancewith Latin before he can feel the pitiable absurdity of a falsequantity. ”_Creskens genittivo!_ What a little silly you are, Maggie!”
”Well, you needn't laugh, Tom, for you didn't remember it at all. I'msure it's spelt so; how was I to know?”
”Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin. It's _Nomen noncrescens genitivo_.”
”Very well, then,” said Maggie, pouting. ”I can say that as well as youcan. And you don't mind your stops. For you ought to stop twice aslong at a semicolon as you do at a comma, and you make the longeststops where there ought to be no stop at all.”
”Oh, well, don't chatter. Let me go on.”
They were presently fetched to spend the rest of the evening in thedrawing-room, and Maggie became so animated with Mr. Stelling, who,she felt sure, admired her cleverness, that Tom was rather amazed andalarmed at her audacity. But she was suddenly subdued by Mr.Stelling's alluding to a little girl of whom he had heard that sheonce ran away to the gypsies.
”What a very odd little girl that must be!” said Mrs. Stelling,meaning to be playful; but a playfulness that turned on her supposedoddity was not at all to Maggie's taste. She feared that Mr. Stelling,after all, did not think much of her, and went to bed in rather lowspirits. Mrs. Stelling, she felt, looked at her as if she thought herhair was very ugly because it hung down straight behind.
Nevertheless it was a very happy fortnight to Maggie, this visit toTom. She was allowed to be in the study while he had his lessons, andin her various readings got very deep into the examples in the LatinGrammar. The astronomer who hated women generally caused her so muchpuzzling speculation that she one day asked Mr. Stelling if allastronomers hated women, or whether it was only this particularastronomer. But forestalling his answer, she said,--
”I suppose it's all astronomers; because, you know, they live up inhigh towers, and if the women came there they might talk and hinderthem from looking at the stars.”
Mr. Stelling liked her prattle immensely, and they were on the bestterms. She told Tom she should like to go to school to Mr. Stelling,as he did, and learn just the same things. She knew she could doEuclid, for she had looked into it again, and she saw what A B Cmeant; they were the names of the lines.
”I'm sure you couldn't do it, now,” said Tom; ”and I'll just ask Mr.Stelling if you could.”
”I don't mind,” said the little conceited minx, ”I'll ask him myself.”
”Mr. Stelling,” she said, that same evening when they were in thedrawing-room, ”couldn't I do Euclid, and all Tom's lessons, if youwere to teach me instead of him?”
”No, you couldn't,” said Tom, indignantly. ”Girls can't do Euclid; canthey, sir?”
”They can pick up a little of everything, I dare say,” said Mr.Stelling. ”They've a great deal of superficial cleverness; but theycouldn't go far into anything. They're quick and shallow.”
Tom, delighted with this verdict, telegraphed his triumph by wagginghis head at Maggie, behind Mr. Stelling's chair. As for Maggie, shehad hardly ever been so mortified. She had been so proud to be called”quick” all her little life, and now it appeared that this quicknesswas the brand of inferiority. It would have been better to be slow,like Tom.
”Ha, ha! Miss Maggie!” said Tom, when they were alone; ”you see it'snot such a fine thing to be quick. You'll never go far into anything,you know.”
And Maggie was so oppressed by this dreadful destiny that she had nospirit for a retort.
But when this small apparatus of shallow quickness was fetched away inthe gig by Luke, and the study was once more quite lonely for Tom, hemissed her grievously. He had really been brighter, and had gotthrough his lessons better, since she had been there; and she hadasked Mr. Stelling so many questions about the Roman Empire, andwhether there really ever was a man who said, in Latin, ”I would notbuy it for a farthing or a rotten nut,” or whether that had only beenturned into Latin, that Tom had actually come to a dim understandingof the fact that there had once been people upon the earth who were sofortunate as to know Latin without learning it through the medium ofthe Eton Grammar. This luminous idea was a great addition to hishistorical acquirements during this half-year, which were otherwiseconfined to an epitomized history of the Jews.
But the dreary half-year _did_ come to an end. How glad Tom was to seethe last yellow leaves fluttering before the cold wind! The darkafternoons and the first December snow seemed to him far livelier thanthe August sunshine; and that he might make himself the surer aboutthe flight of the days that were carrying him homeward, he stucktwenty-one sticks deep in a corner of the garden, when he was threeweeks from the holidays, and pulled one up every day with a greatwrench, throwing it to a distance with a vigor of will which wouldhave carried it to limbo, if it had been in the nature of sticks totravel so far.
But it was worth purchasing, even at the heavy price of the LatinGrammar, the happiness of seeing the bright light in the parlor athome, as the gig passed noiselessly over the snow-covered bridge; thehappiness of passing from the cold air to the warmth and the kissesand the smiles of that familiar hearth, where the pattern of the rugand the grate and the fire-irons were ”first ideas” that it was nomore possible to criticise than the solidity and extension of matter.There is no sense of ease like the ease we felt in those scenes wherewe were born, where objects became dear to us before we had known thelabor of choice, and where the outer world seemed only an extension ofour own personality; we accepted and loved it as we accepted our ownsense of existence and our own limbs. Very commonplace, even ugly,that furniture of our early home might look if it were put up toauction an improved taste in upholstery scorns it; and is not thestriving after something better and better in our surroundings thegrand characteristic that distinguishes man from the brute, or, tosatisfy a scrupulous accuracy of definition, that distinguishes theBritish man from the foreign brute? But heaven knows where thatstriving might lead us, if our affections had not a trick of twininground those old inferior things; if the loves and sanctities of ourlife had no deep immovable roots in memory. One's delight in anelderberry bush overhanging the confused leafage of a hedgerow bank,as a more gladdening sight than the finest cistus or fuchsia spreadingitself on the softest undulating turf, is an entirely unjustifiablepreference to a nursery-gardener, or to any of those regulated mindswho are free from the weakness of any attachment that does not rest ona demonstrable superiority of qualities. And there is no better reasonfor preferring this elderberry bush than that it stirs an earlymemory; that it is no novelty in my life, speaking to me merelythrough my present sensibilities to form and color, but the longcompanion of my existence, that wove itself into my joys when joyswere vivid.