The Mill on the Floss

Chapter 3

It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school; a day

quite in keeping with this severe phase of his destiny. If he had not

carried in his pocket a parcel of sugar-candy and a small Dutch doll

for little Laura, there would have been no ray of expected pleasure to

enliven the general gloom. But he liked to think how Laura would put

out her lips and her tiny hands for the bits of sugarcandy; and to

give the greater keenness to these pleasures of imagination, he took

out the parcel, made a small hole in the paper, and bit off a crystal

or two, which had so solacing an effect under the confined prospect

and damp odors of the gig-umbrella, that he repeated the process more

than once on his way.

"Well, Tulliver, we're glad to see you again," said Mr. Stelling,

heartily. "Take off your wrappings and come into the study till

dinner. You'll find a bright fire there, and a new companion."

Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollen

comforter and other wrappings. He had seen Philip Wakem at St. Ogg's,

but had always turned his eyes away from him as quickly as possible.

He would have disliked having a deformed boy for his companion, even

if Philip had not been the son of a bad man. And Tom did not see how a

bad man's son could be very good. His own father was a good man, and

he would readily have fought any one who said the contrary. He was in

a state of mingled embarrassment and defiance as he followed Mr.

Stelling to the study.

"Here is a new companion for you to shake hands with, Tulliver," said

that gentleman on entering the study,--"Master Philip Wakem. I shall

leave you to make acquaintance by yourselves. You already know

something of each other, I imagine; for you are neighbors at home."

Tom looked confused and awkward, while Philip rose and glanced at him

timidly. Tom did not like to go up and put out his hand, and he was

not prepared to say, "How do you do?" on so short a notice.

Mr. Stelling wisely turned away, and closed the door behind him; boys'

shyness only wears off in the absence of their elders.

Philip was at once too proud and too timid to walk toward Tom. He

thought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion to looking at him;

every one, almost, disliked looking at him; and his deformity was more

conspicuous when he walked. So they remained without shaking hands or

even speaking, while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, every

now and then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to be

drawing absently first one object and then another on a piece of paper

he had before him. He had seated himself again, and as he drew, was

thinking what he could say to Tom, and trying to overcome his own

repugnance to making the first advances.

Tom began to look oftener and longer at Philip's face, for he could

see it without noticing the hump, and it was really not a disagreeable

face,--very old-looking, Tom thought. He wondered how much older

Philip was than himself. An anatomist--even a mere physiognomist--

would have seen that the deformity of Philip's spine was not a

congenital hump, but the result of an accident in infancy; but you

do not expect from Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions;

to him, Philip was simply a humpback. He had a vague notion

that the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the lawyer's

rascality, of which he had so often heard his father talk with hot

emphasis; and he felt, too, a half-admitted fear of him as probably

a spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight you, had cunning

ways of doing you a mischief by the sly. There was a humpbacked

tailor in the neighborhood of Mr. Jacobs's academy, who was considered

a very unamiable character, and was much hooted after by public-spirited

boys solely on the ground of his unsatisfactory moral qualities; so

that Tom was not without a basis of fact to go upon. Still, no face

could be more unlike that ugly tailor's than this melancholy boy's

face,--the brown hair round it waved and curled at the ends like a

girl's; Tom thought that truly pitiable. This Wakem was a pale,

puny fellow, and it was quite clear he would not be able to play at

anything worth speaking of; but he handled his pencil in an enviable

manner, and was apparently making one thing after another without

any trouble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wanted

something new to be going forward. It was certainly more agreeable

to have an ill-natured humpback as a companion than to stand looking

out of the study window at the rain, and kicking his foot against

the washboard in solitude; something would happen every day,--

"a quarrel or something"; and Tom thought he should rather like to

show Philip that he had better not try his spiteful tricks on _him_.

He suddenly walked across the hearth and looked over Philip's paper.

"Why, that's a donkey with panniers, and a spaniel, and partridges in

the corn!" he exclaimed, his tongue being completely loosed by

surprise and admiration. "Oh my buttons! I wish I could draw like

that. I'm to learn drawing this half; I wonder if I shall learn to

make dogs and donkeys!"

"Oh, you can do them without learning," said Philip; "I never learned

drawing."

"Never learned?" said Tom, in amazement. "Why, when I make dogs and

horses, and those things, the heads and the legs won't come right;

though I can see how they ought to be very well. I can make houses,

and all sorts of chimneys,--chimneys going all down the wall,--and

windows in the roof, and all that. But I dare say I could do dogs and

horses if I was to try more," he added, reflecting that Philip might

falsely suppose that he was going to "knock under," if he were too

frank about the imperfection of his accomplishments.

"Oh, yes," said Philip, "it's very easy. You've only to look well at

things, and draw them over and over again. What you do wrong once, you

can alter the next time."

"But haven't you been taught _any_thing?" said Tom, beginning to have

a puzzled suspicion that Philip's crooked back might be the source of

remarkable faculties. "I thought you'd been to school a long while."

"Yes," said Philip, smiling; "I've been taught Latin and Greek and

mathematics, and writing and such things."

"Oh, but I say, you don't like Latin, though, do you?" said Tom,

lowering his voice confidentially.

"Pretty well; I don't care much about it," said Philip.

"Ah, but perhaps you haven't got into the _Propria qu* maribus_," said

Tom, nodding his head sideways, as much as to say, "that was the test;

it was easy talking till you came to _that_."

Philip felt some bitter complacency in the promising stupidity of this

well-made, active-looking boy; but made polite by his own extreme

sensitiveness, as well as by his desire to conciliate, he checked his

inclination to laugh, and said quietly,--

"I've done with the grammar; I don't learn that any more."

"Then you won't have the same lessons as I shall?" said Tom, with a

sense of disappointment.

"No; but I dare say I can help you. I shall be very glad to help you

if I can."

Tom did not say "Thank you," for he was quite absorbed in the thought

that Wakem's son did not seem so spiteful a fellow as might have been

expected.

"I say," he said presently, "do you love your father?"

"Yes," said Philip, coloring deeply; "don't you love yours?"

"Oh yes--I only wanted to know," said Tom, rather ashamed of himself,

now he saw Philip coloring and looking uncomfortable. He found much

difficulty in adjusting his attitude of mind toward the son of Lawyer

Wakem, and it had occurred to him that if Philip disliked his father,

that fact might go some way toward clearing up his perplexity.

"Shall you learn drawing now?" he said, by way of changing the

subject.

"No," said Philip. "My father wishes me to give all my time to other

things now."

"What! Latin and Euclid, and those things?" said Tom.

"Yes," said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and was resting

his head on one hand, while Tom was learning forward on both elbows,

and looking with increasing admiration at the dog and the donkey.

"And you don't mind that?" said Tom, with strong curiosity.

"No; I like to know what everybody else knows. I can study what I like

by-and-by."

"I can't think why anybody should learn Latin," said Tom. "It's no

good."

"It's part of the education of a gentleman," said Philip. "All

gentlemen learn the same things."

"What! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the harriers, knows

Latin?" said Tom, who had often thought he should like to resemble Sir

John Crake.

"He learned it when he was a boy, of course," said Philip. "But I dare

say he's forgotten it."

"Oh, well, I can do that, then," said Tom, not with any epigrammatic

intention, but with serious satisfaction at the idea that, as far as

Latin was concerned, there was no hindrance to his resembling Sir John

Crake. "Only you're obliged to remember it while you're at school,

else you've got to learn ever so many lines of 'Speaker.' Mr.

Stelling's very particular--did you know? He'll have you up ten times

if you say 'nam' for 'jam,'--he won't let you go a letter wrong, _I_

can tell you."

"Oh, I don't mind," said Philip, unable to choke a laugh; "I can

remember things easily. And there are some lessons I'm very fond of.

I'm very fond of Greek history, and everything about the Greeks. I

should like to have been a Greek and fought the Persians, and then

have come home and have written tragedies, or else have been listened

to by everybody for my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a grand

death." (Philip, you perceive, was not without a wish to impress the

well-made barbarian with a sense of his mental superiority.)

"Why, were the Greeks great fighters?" said Tom, who saw a vista in

this direction. "Is there anything like David and Goliath and Samson

in the Greek history? Those are the only bits I like in the history of

the Jews."

"Oh, there are very fine stories of that sort about the Greeks,--about

the heroes of early times who killed the wild beasts, as Samson did.

And in the Odyssey--that's a beautiful poem--there's a more wonderful

giant than Goliath,--Polypheme, who had only one eye in the middle of

his forehead; and Ulysses, a little fellow, but very wise and cunning,

got a red-hot pine-tree and stuck it into this one eye, and made him

roar like a thousand bulls."

"Oh, what fun!" said Tom, jumping away from the table, and stamping

first with one leg and then the other. "I say, can you tell me all

about those stories? Because I sha'n't learn Greek, you know. Shall

I?" he added, pausing in his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest the

contrary might be possible. "Does every gentleman learn Greek? Will

Mr. Stelling make me begin with it, do you think?"

"No, I should think not, very likely not," said Philip. "But you may

read those stories without knowing Greek. I've got them in English."

"Oh, but I don't like reading; I'd sooner have you tell them me. But

only the fighting ones, you know. My sister Maggie is always wanting

to tell me stories, but they're stupid things. Girls' stories always

are. Can you tell a good many fighting stories?"

"Oh yes," said Philip; "lots of them, besides the Greek stories. I can

tell you about Richard C***-de-Lion and Saladin, and about William

Wallace and Robert Bruce and James Douglas,--I know no end."

"You're older than I am, aren't you?" said Tom.

"Why, how old are _you?_ I'm fifteen."

"I'm only going in fourteen," said Tom. "But I thrashed all the

fellows at Jacob's--that's where I was before I came here. And I beat

'em all at bandy and climbing. And I wish Mr. Stelling would let us go

fishing. _I_ could show you how to fish. You _could_ fish, couldn't

you? It's only standing, and sitting still, you know."

Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his favor. This

hunchback must not suppose that his acquaintance with fighting stories

put him on a par with an actual fighting hero, like Tom Tulliver.

Philip winced under this allusion to his unfitness for active sports,

and he answered almost peevishly,--

"I can't bear fishing. I think people look like fools sitting watching

a line hour after hour, or else throwing and throwing, and catching

nothing."

"Ah, but you wouldn't say they looked like fools when they landed a

big pike, I can tell you," said Tom, who had never caught anything

that was "big" in his life, but whose imagination was on the stretch

with indignant zeal for the honor of sport. Wakem's son, it was plain,

had his disagreeable points, and must be kept in due check. Happily

for the harmony of this first interview, they were now called to

dinner, and Philip was not allowed to develop farther his unsound

views on the subject of fishing. But Tom said to himself, that was

just what he should have expected from a hunchback.