The Mill on the Floss

Chapter XII

Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at Home

In order to see Mr. and Mrs. Glegg at home, we must enter the town ofSt. Ogg's,--that venerable town with the red fluted roofs and thebroad warehouse gables, where the black ships unlade themselves oftheir burthens from the far north, and carry away, in exchange, theprecious inland products, the well-crushed cheese and the soft fleeceswhich my refined readers have doubtless become acquainted with throughthe medium of the best classic pastorals.

It is one of those old, old towns which impress one as a continuationand outgrowth of nature, as much as the nests of the bower-birds orthe winding galleries of the white ants; a town which carries thetraces of its long growth and history like a millennial tree, and hassprung up and developed in the same spot between the river and the lowhill from the time when the Roman legions turned their backs on itfrom the camp on the hillside, and the long-haired sea-kings came upthe river and looked with fierce, eager eyes at the fatness of theland. It is a town ”familiar with forgotten years.” The shadow of theSaxon hero-king still walks there fitfully, reviewing the scenes ofhis youth and love-time, and is met by the gloomier shadow of thedreadful heathen Dane, who was stabbed in the midst of his warriors bythe sword of an invisible avenger, and who rises on autumn eveningslike a white mist from his tumulus on the hill, and hovers in thecourt of the old hall by the river-side, the spot where he was thusmiraculously slain in the days before the old hall was built. It wasthe Normans who began to build that fine old hall, which is, like thetown, telling of the thoughts and hands of widely sunderedgenerations; but it is all so old that we look with loving pardon atits inconsistencies, and are well content that they who built thestone oriel, and they who built the Gothic facade and towers of finestsmall brickwork with the trefoil ornament, and the windows andbattlements defined with stone, did not sacreligiously pull down theancient half-timbered body with its oak-roofed banqueting-hall.

But older even than this old hall is perhaps the bit of wall now builtinto the belfry of the parish church, and said to be a remnant of theoriginal chapel dedicated to St. Ogg, the patron saint of this ancienttown, of whose history I possess several manuscript versions. Iincline to the briefest, since, if it should not be wholly true, it isat least likely to contain the least falsehood. ”Ogg the son ofBeorl,” says my private hagiographer, ”was a boatman who gained ascanty living by ferrying passengers across the river Floss. And itcame to pass, one evening when the winds were high, that there satmoaning by the brink of the river a woman with a child in her arms;and she was clad in rags, and had a worn and withered look, and shecraved to be rowed across the river. And the men thereabout questionedher, and said, 'Wherefore dost thou desire to cross the river? Tarrytill the morning, and take shelter here for the night; so shalt thoube wise and not foolish.' Still she went on to mourn and crave. ButOgg the son of Beorl came up and said, 'I will ferry thee across; itis enough that thy heart needs it.' And he ferried her across. And itcame to pass, when she stepped ashore, that her rags were turned intorobes of flowing white, and her face became bright with exceedingbeauty, and there was a glory around it, so that she shed a light onthe water like the moon in its brightness. And she said, 'Ogg, the sonof Beorl, thou art blessed in that thou didst not question and wranglewith the heart's need, but wast smitten with pity, and didststraightway relieve the same. And from henceforth whoso steps into thyboat shall be in no peril from the storm; and whenever it puts forthto the rescue, it shall save the lives both of men and beasts.' Andwhen the floods came, many were saved by reason of that blessing onthe boat. But when Ogg the son of Beorl died, behold, in the partingof his soul, the boat loosed itself from its moorings, and was floatedwith the ebbing tide in great swiftness to the ocean, and was seen nomore. Yet it was witnessed in the floods of aftertime, that at thecoming on of eventide, Ogg the son of Beorl was always seen with hisboat upon the wide-spreading waters, and the Blessed Virgin sat in theprow, shedding a light around as of the moon in its brightness, sothat the rowers in the gathering darkness took heart and pulled anew.”

This legend, one sees, reflects from a far-off time the visitation ofthe floods, which, even when they left human life untouched, werewidely fatal to the helpless cattle, and swept as sudden death overall smaller living things. But the town knew worse troubles even thanthe floods,--troubles of the civil wars, when it was a continualfighting-place, where first Puritans thanked God for the blood of theLoyalists, and then Loyalists thanked God for the blood of thePuritans. Many honest citizens lost all their possessions forconscience' sake in those times, and went forth beggared from theirnative town. Doubtless there are many houses standing now on whichthose honest citizens turned their backs in sorrow,--quaint-gabledhouses looking on the river, jammed between newer warehouses, andpenetrated by surprising passages, which turn and turn at sharp anglestill they lead you out on a muddy strand overflowed continually by therushing tide. Everywhere the brick houses have a mellow look, and inMrs. Glegg's day there was no incongruous new-fashioned smartness, noplate-glass in shop-windows, no fresh stucco-facing or otherfallacious attempt to make fine old red St. Ogg's wear the air of atown that sprang up yesterday. The shop-windows were small andunpretending; for the farmers' wives and daughters who came to dotheir shopping on market-days were not to be withdrawn from theirregular well-known shops; and the tradesmen had no wares intended forcustomers who would go on their way and be seen no more. Ah! even Mrs.Glegg's day seems far back in the past now, separated from us bychanges that widen the years. War and the rumor of war had then diedout from the minds of men, and if they were ever thought of by thefarmers in drab greatcoats, who shook the grain out of theirsample-bags and buzzed over it in the full market-place, it was as astate of things that belonged to a past golden age when prices werehigh. Surely the time was gone forever when the broad river couldbring up unwelcome ships; Russia was only the place where the linseedcame from,--the more the better,--making grist for the great verticalmillstones with their scythe-like arms, roaring and grinding andcarefully sweeping as if an informing soul were in them. TheCatholics, bad harvests, and the mysterious fluctuations of trade werethe three evils mankind had to fear; even the floods had not beengreat of late years. The mind of St. Ogg's did not look extensivelybefore or after. It inherited a long past without thinking of it, andhad no eyes for the spirits that walk the streets. Since the centurieswhen St. Ogg with his boat and the Virgin Mother at the prow had beenseen on the wide water, so many memories had been left behind, and hadgradually vanished like the receding hilltops! And the present timewas like the level plain where men lose their belief in volcanoes andearthquakes, thinking to-morrow will be as yesterday, and the giantforces that used to shake the earth are forever laid to sleep. Thedays were gone when people could be greatly wrought upon by theirfaith, still less change it; the Catholics were formidable becausethey would lay hold of government and property, and burn men alive;not because any sane and honest parishioner of St. Ogg's could bebrought to believe in the Pope. One aged person remembered how a rudemultitude had been swayed when John Wesley preached in thecattle-market; but for a long while it had not been expected ofpreachers that they should shake the souls of men. An occasional burstof fervor in Dissenting pulpits on the subject of infant baptism wasthe only symptom of a zeal unsuited to sober times when men had donewith change. Protestantism sat at ease, unmindful of schisms, carelessof proselytism: Dissent was an inheritance along with a superior pewand a business connection and Churchmanship only wonderedcontemptuously at Dissent as a foolish habit that clung greatly tofamilies in the grocery and chandlering lines, though not incompatiblewith prosperous wholesale dealing. But with the Catholic Question hadcome a slight wind of controversy to break the calm: the elderlyrector had become occasionally historical and argumentative; and Mr.Spray, the Independent minister, had begun to preach politicalsermons, in which he distinguished with much subtlety between hisfervent belief in the right of the Catholics to the franchise and hisfervent belief in their eternal perdition. Most of Mr. Spray'shearers, however, were incapable of following his subtleties, and manyold-fashioned Dissenters were much pained by his ”siding with theCatholics”; while others thought he had better let politics alone.Public spirit was not held in high esteem at St. Ogg's, and men whobusied themselves with political questions were regarded with somesuspicion, as dangerous characters; they were usually persons who hadlittle or no business of their own to manage, or, if they had, werelikely enough to become insolvent.

This was the general aspect of things at St. Ogg's in Mrs. Glegg'sday, and at that particular period in her family history when she hadhad her quarrel with Mr. Tulliver. It was a time when ignorance wasmuch more comfortable than at present, and was received with all thehonors in very good society, without being obliged to dress itself inan elaborate costume of knowledge; a time when cheap periodicals werenot, and when country surgeons never thought of asking their femalepatients if they were fond of reading, but simply took it for grantedthat they preferred gossip; a time when ladies in rich silk gowns worelarge pockets, in which they carried a mutton-bone to secure themagainst cramp. Mrs. Glegg carried such a bone, which she had inheritedfrom her grandmother with a brocaded gown that would stand up empty,like a suit of armor, and a silver-headed walking-stick; for theDodson family had been respectable for many generations.

Mrs. Glegg had both a front and a back parlor in her excellent houseat St. Ogg's, so that she had two points of view from which she couldobserve the weakness of her fellow-beings, and reinforce herthankfulness for her own exceptional strength of mind. From her frontwindow she could look down the Tofton Road, leading out of St. Ogg's,and note the growing tendency to ”gadding about” in the wives of mennot retired from business, together with a practice of wearing wovencotton stockings, which opened a dreary prospect for the cominggeneration and from her back windows she could look down the pleasantgarden and orchard which stretched to the river, and observe the follyof Mr. Glegg in spending his time among ”them flowers and vegetables.”For Mr. Glegg, having retired from active business as a wool-staplerfor the purpose of enjoying himself through the rest of his life, hadfound this last occupation so much more severe than his business, thathe had been driven into amateur hard labor as a dissipation, andhabitually relaxed by doing the work of two ordinary gardeners. Theeconomizing of a gardener's wages might perhaps have induced Mrs.Glegg to wink at this folly, if it were possible for a healthy femalemind even to simulate respect for a husband's hobby. But it is wellknown that this conjugal complacency belongs only to the weakerportion of the sex, who are scarcely alive to the responsibilities ofa wife as a constituted check on her husband's pleasures, which arehardly ever of a rational or commendable kind.

Mr. Glegg on his side, too, had a double source of mental occupation,which gave every promise of being inexhaustible. On the one hand, hesurprised himself by his discoveries in natural history, finding thathis piece of garden-ground contained wonderful caterpillars, slugs,and insects, which, so far as he had heard, had never before attractedhuman observation and he noticed remarkable coincidences betweenthese zoological phenomena and the great events of that time,--as, forexample, that before the burning of York Minster there had beenmysterious serpentine marks on the leaves of the rose-trees, togetherwith an unusual prevalence of slugs, which he had been puzzled to knowthe meaning of, until it flashed upon him with this melancholyconflagration. (Mr. Glegg had an unusual amount of mental activity,which, when disengaged from the wool business, naturally made itself apathway in other directions.) And his second subject of meditation wasthe ”contrairiness” of the female mind, as typically exhibited in Mrs.Glegg. That a creature made--in a genealogical sense--out of a man'srib, and in this particular case maintained in the highestrespectability without any trouble of her own, should be normally in astate of contradiction to the blandest propositions and even to themost accommodating concessions, was a mystery in the scheme of thingsto which he had often in vain sought a clew in the early chapters ofGenesis. Mr. Glegg had chosen the eldest Miss Dodson as a handsomeembodiment of female prudence and thrift, and being himself of amoney-getting, money-keeping turn, had calculated on much conjugalharmony. But in that curious compound, the feminine character, it mayeasily happen that the flavor is unpleasant in spite of excellentingredients; and a fine systematic stinginess may be accompanied witha seasoning that quite spoils its relish. Now, good Mr. Glegg himselfwas stingy in the most amiable manner; his neighbors called him”near,” which always means that the person in question is a lovableskinflint. If you expressed a preference for cheese-parings, Mr. Gleggwould remember to save them for you, with a good-natured delight ingratifying your palate, and he was given to pet all animals whichrequired no appreciable keep. There was no humbug or hypocrisy aboutMr. Glegg; his eyes would have watered with true feeling over the saleof a widow's furniture, which a five-pound note from his side pocketwould have prevented; but a donation of five pounds to a person ”in asmall way of life” would have seemed to him a mad kind of lavishnessrather than ”charity,” which had always presented itself to him as acontribution of small aids, not a neutralizing of misfortune. And Mr.Glegg was just as fond of saving other people's money as his own; hewould have ridden as far round to avoid a turnpike when his expenseswere to be paid for him, as when they were to come out of his ownpocket, and was quite zealous in trying to induce indifferentacquaintances to adopt a cheap substitute for blacking. Thisinalienable habit of saving, as an end in itself, belonged to theindustrious men of business of a former generation, who made theirfortunes slowly, almost as the tracking of the fox belongs to theharrier,--it constituted them a ”race,” which is nearly lost in thesedays of rapid money-getting, when lavishness comes close on the backof want. In old-fashioned times an ”independence” was hardly ever madewithout a little miserliness as a condition, and you would have foundthat quality in every provincial district, combined with characters asvarious as the fruits from which we can extract acid. The trueHarpagons were always marked and exceptional characters; not so theworthy tax-payers, who, having once pinched from real necessity,retained even in the midst of their comfortable retirement, with theirwallfruit and wine-bins, the habit of regarding life as an ingeniousprocess of nibbling out one's livelihood without leaving anyperceptible deficit, and who would have been as immediately promptedto give up a newly taxed luxury when they had had their clear fivehundred a year, as when they had only five hundred pounds of capital.Mr. Glegg was one of these men, found so impracticable by chancellorsof the exchequer; and knowing this, you will be the better able tounderstand why he had not swerved from the conviction that he had madean eligible marriage, in spite of the too-pungent seasoning thatnature had given to the eldest Miss Dodson's virtues. A man with anaffectionate disposition, who finds a wife to concur with hisfundamental idea of life, easily comes to persuade himself that noother woman would have suited him so well, and does a little dailysnapping and quarrelling without any sense of alienation. Mr. Glegg,being of a reflective turn, and no longer occupied with wool, had muchwondering meditation on the peculiar constitution of the female mindas unfolded to him in his domestic life; and yet he thought Mrs.Glegg's household ways a model for her sex. It struck him as apitiable irregularity in other women if they did not roll up theirtable-napkins with the same tightness and emphasis as Mrs. Glegg did,if their pastry had a less leathery consistence, and their damsoncheese a less venerable hardness than hers; nay, even the peculiarcombination of grocery and druglike odors in Mrs. Glegg's privatecupboard impressed him as the only right thing in the way of cupboardsmells. I am not sure that he would not have longed for thequarrelling again, if it had ceased for an entire week; and it iscertain that an acquiescent, mild wife would have left his meditationscomparatively jejune and barren of mystery.

Mr. Glegg's unmistakable kind-heartedness was shown in this, that itpained him more to see his wife at variance with others,--even withDolly, the servant,--than to be in a state of cavil with her himself;and the quarrel between her and Mr. Tulliver vexed him so much that itquite nullified the pleasure he would otherwise have had in the stateof his early cabbages, as he walked in his garden before breakfast thenext morning. Still, he went in to breakfast with some slight hopethat, now Mrs. Glegg had ”slept upon it,” her anger might be subduedenough to give way to her usually strong sense of family decorum. Shehad been used to boast that there had never been any of those deadlyquarrels among the Dodsons which had disgraced other families; that noDodson had ever been ”cut off with a shilling,” and no cousin of theDodsons disowned; as, indeed, why should they be? For they had nocousins who had not money out at use, or some houses of their own, atthe very least.

There was one evening-cloud which had always disappeared from Mrs.Glegg's brow when she sat at the breakfast-table. It was her fuzzyfront of curls; for as she occupied herself in household matters inthe morning it would have been a mere extravagance to put on anythingso superfluous to the making of leathery pastry as a fuzzy curledfront. By half-past ten decorum demanded the front; until then Mrs.Glegg could economize it, and society would never be any the wiser.But the absence of that cloud only left it more apparent that thecloud of severity remained; and Mr. Glegg, perceiving this, as he satdown to his milkporridge, which it was his old frugal habit to stemhis morning hunger with, prudently resolved to leave the first remarkto Mrs. Glegg, lest, to so delicate an article as a lady's temper, theslightest touch should do mischief. People who seem to enjoy their illtemper have a way of keeping it in fine condition by inflictingprivations on themselves. That was Mrs. Glegg's way. She made her teaweaker than usual this morning, and declined butter. It was a hardcase that a vigorous mood for quarrelling, so highly capable of usingan opportunity, should not meet with a single remark from Mr. Glegg onwhich to exercise itself. But by and by it appeared that his silencewould answer the purpose, for he heard himself apostrophized at lastin that tone peculiar to the wife of one's bosom.

”Well, Mr. Glegg! it's a poor return I get for making you the wifeI've made you all these years. If this is the way I'm to be treated,I'd better ha' known it before my poor father died, and then, when I'dwanted a home, I should ha' gone elsewhere, as the choice was offeredme.”

Mr. Glegg paused from his porridge and looked up, not with any newamazement, but simply with that quiet, habitual wonder with which weregard constant mysteries.

”Why, Mrs. G., what have I done now?”

”Done now, Mr. Glegg? _done now?_--I'm sorry for you.”

Not seeing his way to any pertinent answer, Mr. Glegg reverted to hisporridge.

”There's husbands in the world,” continued Mrs. Glegg, after a pause,”as 'ud have known how to do something different to siding witheverybody else against their own wives. Perhaps I'm wrong and you canteach me better. But I've allays heard as it's the husband's place tostand by the wife, instead o' rejoicing and triumphing when folksinsult her.”

”Now, what call have you to say that?” said Mr. Glegg, rather warmly,for though a kind man, he was not as meek as Moses. ”When did Irejoice or triumph over you?”

”There's ways o' doing things worse than speaking out plain, Mr.Glegg. I'd sooner you'd tell me to my face as you make light of me,than try to make out as everybody's in the right but me, and come toyour breakfast in the morning, as I've hardly slept an hour thisnight, and sulk at me as if I was the dirt under your feet.”

”Sulk at you?” said Mr. Glegg, in a tone of angry facetiousness.”You're like a tipsy man as thinks everybody's had too much buthimself.”

”Don't lower yourself with using coarse language to _me_, Mr. Glegg!It makes you look very small, though you can't see yourself,” saidMrs. Glegg, in a tone of energetic compassion. ”A man in your placeshould set an example, and talk more sensible.”

”Yes; but will you listen to sense?” retorted Mr. Glegg, sharply. ”Thebest sense I can talk to you is what I said last night,--as you're i'the wrong to think o' calling in your money, when it's safe enough ifyou'd let it alone, all because of a bit of a tiff, and I was in hopesyou'd ha' altered your mind this morning. But if you'd like to call itin, don't do it in a hurry now, and breed more enmity in the family,but wait till there's a pretty mortgage to be had without any trouble.You'd have to set the lawyer to work now to find an investment, andmake no end o' expense.”

Mrs. Glegg felt there was really something in this, but she tossed herhead and emitted a guttural interjection to indicate that her silencewas only an armistice, not a peace. And, in fact hostilities soonbroke out again.

”I'll thank you for my cup o' tea, now, Mrs. G.,” said Mr. Glegg,seeing that she did not proceed to give it him as usual, when he hadfinished his porridge. She lifted the teapot with a slight toss of thehead, and said,--

”I'm glad to hear you'll _thank_ me, Mr. Glegg. It's little thanks _I_get for what I do for folks i' this world. Though there's never awoman o' _your_ side o' the family, Mr. Glegg, as is fit to stand upwith me, and I'd say it if I was on my dying bed. Not but what I'veallays conducted myself civil to your kin, and there isn't one of 'emcan say the contrary, though my equils they aren't, and nobody shallmake me say it.”

”You'd better leave finding fault wi' my kin till you've left offquarrelling with you own, Mrs. G.,” said Mr. Glegg, with angrysarcasm. ”I'll trouble you for the milk-jug.”

”That's as false a word as ever you spoke, Mr. Glegg,” said the lady,pouring out the milk with unusual profuseness, as much as to say, ifhe wanted milk he should have it with a vengeance. ”And you know it'sfalse. I'm not the woman to quarrel with my own kin; _you_ may, forI've known you to do it.”

”Why, what did you call it yesterday, then, leaving your sister'shouse in a tantrum?”

”I'd no quarrel wi' my sister, Mr. Glegg, and it's false to say it.Mr. Tulliver's none o' my blood, and it was him quarrelled with me,and drove me out o' the house. But perhaps you'd have had me stay andbe swore at, Mr. Glegg; perhaps you was vexed not to hear more abuseand foul language poured out upo' your own wife. But, let me tell you,it's _your_ disgrace.”

”Did ever anybody hear the like i' this parish?” said Mr. Glegg,getting hot. ”A woman, with everything provided for her, and allowedto keep her own money the same as if it was settled on her, and with agig new stuffed and lined at no end o' expense, and provided for whenI die beyond anything she could expect--to go on i' this way, bitingand snapping like a mad dog! It's beyond everything, as God A 'mightyshould ha' made women _so_.” (These last words were uttered in a toneof sorrowful agitation. Mr. Glegg pushed his tea from him, and tappedthe table with both his hands.)

”Well, Mr. Glegg, if those are your feelings, it's best they should beknown,” said Mrs. Glegg, taking off her napkin, and folding it in anexcited manner. ”But if you talk o' my being provided for beyond whatI could expect, I beg leave to tell you as I'd a right to expect amany things as I don't find. And as to my being like a mad dog, it'swell if you're not cried shame on by the county for your treatment ofme, for it's what I can't bear, and I won't bear----”

Here Mrs. Glegg's voice intimated that she was going to cry, andbreaking off from speech, she rang the bell violently.

”Sally,” she said, rising from her chair, and speaking in rather achoked voice, ”light a fire up-stairs, and put the blinds down. Mr.Glegg, you'll please to order what you'd like for dinner. I shall havegruel.”

Mrs. Glegg walked across the room to the small book-case, and tookdown Baxter's ”Saints' Everlasting Rest,” which she carried with herup-stairs. It was the book she was accustomed to lay open before heron special occasions,--on wet Sunday mornings, or when she heard of adeath in the family, or when, as in this case, her quarrel with Mr.Glegg had been set an octave higher than usual.

But Mrs. Glegg carried something else up-stairs with her, which,together with the ”Saints' Rest” and the gruel, may have had someinfluence in gradually calming her feelings, and making it possiblefor her to endure existence on the ground-floor, shortly beforetea-time. This was, partly, Mr. Glegg's suggestion that she would dowell to let her five hundred lie still until a good investment turnedup; and, further, his parenthetic hint at his handsome provision forher in case of his death. Mr. Glegg, like all men of his stamp, wasextremely reticent about his will; and Mrs. Glegg, in her gloomiermoments, had forebodings that, like other husbands of whom she hadheard, he might cherish the mean project of heightening her grief athis death by leaving her poorly off, in which case she was firmlyresolved that she would have scarcely any weeper on her bonnet, andwould cry no more than if he had been a second husband. But if he hadreally shown her any testamentary tenderness, it would be affecting tothink of him, poor man, when he was gone; and even his foolish fussabout the flowers and garden-stuff, and his insistence on the subjectof snails, would be touching when it was once fairly at an end. Tosurvive Mr. Glegg, and talk eulogistically of him as a man who mighthave his weaknesses, but who had done the right thing by her,not-withstanding his numerous poor relations; to have sums of interestcoming in more frequently, and secrete it in various corners, bafflingto the most ingenious of thieves (for, to Mrs. Glegg's mind, banks andstrong-boxes would have nullified the pleasure of property; she mightas well have taken her food in capsules); finally, to be looked up toby her own family and the neighborhood, so as no woman can ever hopeto be who has not the praeterite and present dignity comprised in beinga ”widow well left,”--all this made a flattering and conciliatory viewof the future. So that when good Mr. Glegg, restored to good humor bymuch hoeing, and moved by the sight of his wife's empty chair, withher knitting rolled up in the corner, went up-stairs to her, andobserved that the bell had been tolling for poor Mr. Morton, Mrs.Glegg answered magnanimously, quite as if she had been an uninjuredwoman: ”Ah! then, there'll be a good business for somebody to taketo.”

Baxter had been open at least eight hours by this time, for it wasnearly five o'clock; and if people are to quarrel often, it follows asa corollary that their quarrels cannot be protracted beyond certainlimits.

Mr. and Mrs. Glegg talked quite amicably about the Tullivers thatevening. Mr. Glegg went the length of admitting that Tulliver was asad man for getting into hot water, and was like enough to run throughhis property; and Mrs. Glegg, meeting this acknowledgment half-way,declared that it was beneath her to take notice of such a man'sconduct, and that, for her sister's sake, she would let him keep thefive hundred a while longer, for when she put it out on a mortgage sheshould only get four per cent.