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.
Chapter VII.
How a Hen Takes to Stratagem.
The days passed, and Mr. Tulliver showed, at least to the eyes of the medical man, stronger and stronger symptoms of a gradual return to his normal condition; the paralytic obstruction was, little by little, losing its tenacity, and the mind was rising from under it with fitful struggles, like a living creature making its way from under a great snowdrift, that slides and slides again, and shuts up the newly made opening.
Time would have seemed to creep to the watchers by the bed, if it had only been measured by the doubtful, distant hope which kept count of the moments within the chamber; but it was measured for them by a fast-approaching dread which made the nights come too quickly. While Mr. Tulliver was slowly becoming himself again, his lot was hastening toward its moment of most palpable change. The taxing-masters had done their work like any respectable gunsmith conscientiously preparing the musket, that, duly pointed by a brave arm, will spoil a life or two. Allocaturs, filing of bills in Chancery, decrees of sale, are legal chain-shot or bomb-shells that can never hit a solitary mark, but must fall with widespread shattering. So deeply inherent is it in this life of ours that men have to suffer for each other’s sins, so inevitably diffusive is human suffering, that even justice makes its victims, and we can conceive no retribution that does not spread beyond its mark in pulsations of unmerited pain.
By the beginning of the second week in January, the bills were out advertising the sale, under a decree of Chancery, of Mr. Tulliver’s farming and other stock, to be followed by a sale of the mill and land, held in the proper after-dinner hour at the Golden Lion. The miller himself, unaware of the lapse of time, fancied himself still in that first stage of his misfortunes when expedients might be thought of; and often in his conscious hours talked in a feeble, disjointed manner of plans he would carry out when he “got well.” The wife and children were not without hope of an issue that would at least save Mr. Tulliver from leaving the old spot, and seeking an entirely strange life. For uncle Deane had been induced to interest himself in this stage of the business. It would not, he acknowledged, be a bad speculation for Guest & Co. to buy Dorlcote Mill, and carry on the business, which was a good one, and might be increased by the addition of steam power; in which case Tulliver might be retained as manager. Still, Mr. Deane would say nothing decided about the matter; the fact that Wakem held the mortgage on the land might put it into his head to bid for the whole estate, and further, to outbid the cautious firm of Guest & Co., who did not carry on business on sentimental grounds. Mr. Deane was obliged to tell Mrs. Tulliver something to that effect, when he rode over to the mill to inspect the books in company with Mrs. Glegg; for she had observed that “if Guest &Co. would only think about it, Mr. Tulliver’s father and grandfather had been carrying on Dorlcote Mill long before the oil-mill of that firm had been so much as thought of.”
Mr. Deane, in reply, doubted whether that was precisely the relation between the two mills which would determine their value as investments. As for uncle Glegg, the thing lay quite beyond his imagination; the good-natured man felt sincere pity for the Tulliver family, but his money was all locked up in excellent mortgages, and he could run no risk; that would be unfair to his own relatives; but he had made up his mind that Tulliver should have some new flannel waistcoats which he had himself renounced in favor of a more elastic commodity, and that he would buy Mrs. Tulliver a pound of tea now and then; it would be a journey which his benevolence delighted in beforehand, to carry the tea and see her pleasure on being assured it was the best black.
Still, it was clear that Mr. Deane was kindly disposed toward the Tullivers. One day he had brought Lucy, who was come home for the Christmas holidays, and the little blond angel-head had pressed itself against Maggie’s darker cheek with many kisses and some tears. These fair slim daughters keep up a tender spot in the heart of many a respectable partner in a respectable firm, and perhaps Lucy’s anxious, pitying questions about her poor cousins helped to make uncle Deane more prompt in finding Tom a temporary place in the warehouse, and in putting him in the way of getting evening lessons in