The Mill on the Floss (23 page)

If Tom had had a worse disposition, he would certainly have
hated the little cherub Laura, but he was too kind-hearted a lad
for that; there was too much in him of the fibre that turns to true
manliness, and to protecting pity for the weak. I am afraid he
hated Mrs. Stelling, and contracted a lasting dislike to pale blond
ringlets and broad plaits, as directly associated with haughtiness
of manner, and a frequent reference to other people's "duty." But
he couldn't help playing with little Laura, and liking to amuse
her; he even sacrificed his percussion-caps for her sake, in
despair of their ever serving a greater purpose,–thinking the small
flash and bang would delight her, and thereby drawing down on
himself a rebuke from Mrs. Stelling for teaching her child to play
with fire. Laura was a sort of playfellow–and oh, how Tom longed
for playfellows! In his secret heart he yearned to have Maggie with
him, and was almost ready to dote on her exasperating acts of
forgetfulness; though, when he was at home, he always represented
it as a great favor on his part to let Maggie 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 come and stay with her brother; so when Mr. Tulliver drove
over to King's Lorton late in October, Maggie came too, with the
sense that she was taking 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 think too much about home.

"Well, my lad," he said to Tom, when Mr. Stelling had left the
room to announce the arrival to his wife, and Maggie had begun to
kiss Tom freely, "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, I think."

(The toothache was the only malady to which Tom had ever been
subject.)

"Euclid, my lad,–why, what's that?" said Mr. Tulliver.

"Oh, I don't know; it's definitions, and axioms, and triangles,
and things. 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.
You must learn what your master tells you. He knows what it's right
for you to learn."

"
I'll
help you now, Tom," said Maggie, with a little
air of patronizing 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 high spirits at this announcement that he quite enjoyed the
idea of confounding Maggie by showing her a page of Euclid. "I
should like to see you doing one of
my
lessons! Why, I
learn Latin too! Girls never learn such things. They're too
silly."

"I know what Latin is very well," said Maggie, confidently,
"Latin's a language. There are Latin words in the Dictionary.
There's bonus, a gift."

"Now, you're just wrong there, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, secretly
astonished. "You think you're very wise! But 'bonus' means 'good,'
as it 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 stuff
pocket-handkerchiefs are made of."

"Well done, little 'un," said Mr. Tulliver, laughing, while Tom
felt rather disgusted with Maggie's knowingness, though beyond
measure cheerful at the thought that she was going to stay with
him. Her conceit would soon be overawed by the actual inspection of
his books.

Mrs. Stelling, in her pressing invitation, did not mention a
longer time than a week for Maggie's stay; but Mr. Stelling, who
took her between his knees, and asked her where she stole her dark
eyes from, insisted that she must stay a fortnight. Maggie thought
Mr. Stelling was a charming man, and Mr. Tulliver was quite proud
to leave his little wench where she would have an opportunity of
showing her cleverness to appreciating strangers. So it was agreed
that she should not be fetched home till the end of the
fortnight.

"Now, then, come with me into the study, Maggie," said Tom, as
their father drove away. "What do you shake and toss your head now
for, you silly?" he continued; for though her hair was now under a
new dispensation, and was brushed smoothly behind her ears, she
seemed still in imagination to be tossing it out of her eyes. "It
makes you look 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're all Latin."

"No, they aren't," said Maggie. "I can read the back of
this,–'History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.'"

"Well, what does that mean?
You
don't know," said Tom,
wagging his head.

"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
the volume. "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 her small round nose.

Tom, in the gladness of his heart at having dear old Maggie to
dispute with and crow over again, seized her round the waist, and
began to jump with her round the large library table. Away they
jumped with more and more vigor, till Maggie's hair flew from
behind her ears, and twirled about like an animated mop. But the
revolutions round the table became more and more irregular in their
sweep, till at last reaching Mr. Stelling's reading stand, they
sent it thundering down with 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 the downfall made no alarming resonance,
though Tom stood dizzy and aghast for a few minutes, dreading the
appearance of Mr. or Mrs. Stelling.

"Oh, I say, Maggie," said Tom at last, lifting up the stand, "we
must keep quiet here, you know. If we break anything Mrs.
Stelling'll make us cry peccavi."

"What's that?" said Maggie.

"Oh, it's the Latin for a good scolding," said Tom, not without
some pride 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 a great deal crosser than uncle Glegg, and mother scolds me
more than father does."

"Well,
you'll
be a woman some day," said Tom, "so
you
needn't talk."

"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 I shall 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
very good to you, and I shall be good to everybody. You won't hate
me really, 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 him and showing her his theorem, while she pushed her hair
behind her ears, and prepared herself to prove her capability of
helping him in Euclid. She began to read with full confidence in
her own powers, but presently, becoming quite bewildered, her face
flushed with irritation. It was unavoidable; she must confess her
incompetency, and she was not fond of humiliation.

"It's nonsense!" she said, "and very ugly stuff; nobody need
want to make it out."

"Ah, there, now, Miss Maggie!" said Tom, drawing the book away,
and wagging his head at her, "You see you're not so clever as you
thought you were."

"Oh," said Maggie, pouting, "I dare say I could make it out, if
I'd learned what goes before, as you have."

"But that's what you just couldn't, Miss Wisdom," said Tom. "For
it's all the harder when you know what goes before; for then you've
got to say what definition 3 is, and what axiom V. is. But get
along with you now; I must go on with this. Here's the Latin
Grammar. See what you can make of that."

Maggie found the Latin Grammar quite soothing after her
mathematical mortification; for she delighted in new words, and
quickly found that there was an English Key at the end, which would
make her very wise about Latin, at slight expense. She presently
made up her mind to skip the rules in the Syntax, the examples
became so absorbing. These mysterious sentences, snatched from an
unknown context,–like strange horns of beasts, and leaves of
unknown plants, brought from some far-off region,–gave boundless
scope to her imagination, and were all the more fascinating because
they were in a peculiar tongue of their own, which she could learn
to interpret. It was really very interesting, the Latin Grammar
that Tom had said no girls could learn; and she was proud because
she found it interesting. The most fragmentary examples were her
favourites.
Mors omnibus est communis
would have been
jejune, only she liked to know the Latin; but the fortunate
gentleman whom every one congratulated because he had a son
"endowed with
such
a disposition" afforded her a great
deal of pleasant conjecture, and she was quite lost in the "thick
grove penetrable 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 the large arm-chair to give it him; "it's much prettier than the
Dictionary. I could learn Latin very soon. I don't think it's at
all hard."

"Oh, I know what you've been doing," said Tom; "you've been
reading the English at the end. Any donkey can do that."

Tom seized the book and opened it with a determined and
business-like air, as much as to say that he had a lesson to learn
which no donkeys would find themselves equal to. Maggie, rather
piqued, turned to the bookcases to amuse herself with puzzling out
the titles.

Presently Tom called to her: "Here, Magsie, come and hear if I
can say this. Stand at that end of the table, where Mr. Stelling
sits when he hears me."

Maggie obeyed, and took the open book.

"Where do you begin, Tom?"

"Oh, I begin at
'Appellativa arborum,'
because I say
all over again what I've been learning this week."

Tom sailed along pretty well for three lines; and Maggie was
beginning to forget her office of prompter in speculating as to
what
mas
could mean, which came twice over, when he stuck
fast at
Sunt etiam volucrum
.

"Don't tell me, Maggie;
Sunt etiam volucrum
–
Sunt
etiam volucrum
–
ut ostrea, cetus
––"

"No," said Maggie, opening her mouth and shaking her head.

"
Sunt etiam volucrum
," said Tom, very slowly, as if the
next words might be expected to come sooner when he gave them this
strong hint that 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 hard dots 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'd forgotten:
ut tigris, volupes; et
Piscium
."

With some further stammering and repetition, Tom got through the
next few lines.

"Now, then," he said, "the next is what I've just learned for
to-morrow. Give me hold of the book a minute."

After some whispered gabbling, assisted by the beating of his
fist on the table, Tom returned the book.

"
Mascula nomina in a
," he began.

"No, Tom," said Maggie, "that doesn't come next. It's
Nomen
non creskens genittivo
––"

"
Creskens genittivo!
" exclaimed Tom, with a derisive
laugh, for Tom had learned this omitted passage for his yesterday's
lesson, and a young gentleman does not require an intimate or
extensive acquaintance with Latin before he can feel the pitiable
absurdity of a false quantity. "
Creskens genittivo!
What a
little silly you are, Maggie!"

"Well, you needn't laugh, Tom, for you didn't remember it at
all. I'm sure it's spelt so; how was I to know?"

"Phee-e-e-h! I told you girls couldn't learn Latin. It's
Nomen non crescens genitivo
."

"Very well, then," said Maggie, pouting. I can say that as well
as you can. And you don't mind your stops. For you ought to stop
twice as long at a semicolon as you do at a comma, and you make the
longest stops 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
the drawing-room, and Maggie became so animated with Mr. Stelling,
who, she felt sure, admired her cleverness, that Tom was rather
amazed and alarmed at her audacity. But she was suddenly subdued by
Mr. Stelling's alluding to a little girl of whom he had heard that
she once ran away to the gypsies.