The Mill on the Floss

Chapter III

The New Schoolfellow

It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back to school; a dayquite in keeping with this severe phase of his destiny. If he had notcarried in his pocket a parcel of sugar-candy and a small Dutch dollfor little Laura, there would have been no ray of expected pleasure toenliven the general gloom. But he liked to think how Laura would putout her lips and her tiny hands for the bits of sugarcandy; and togive the greater keenness to these pleasures of imagination, he tookout the parcel, made a small hole in the paper, and bit off a crystalor two, which had so solacing an effect under the confined prospectand damp odors of the gig-umbrella, that he repeated the process morethan 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 tilldinner. You'll find a bright fire there, and a new companion.”

Tom felt in an uncomfortable flutter as he took off his woollencomforter 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, evenif Philip had not been the son of a bad man. And Tom did not see how abad man's son could be very good. His own father was a good man, andhe would readily have fought any one who said the contrary. He was ina 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,” saidthat gentleman on entering the study,--”Master Philip Wakem. I shallleave you to make acquaintance by yourselves. You already knowsomething of each other, I imagine; for you are neighbors at home.”

Tom looked confused and awkward, while Philip rose and glanced at himtimidly. Tom did not like to go up and put out his hand, and he wasnot 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. Hethought, or rather felt, that Tom had an aversion to looking at him;every one, almost, disliked looking at him; and his deformity was moreconspicuous when he walked. So they remained without shaking hands oreven speaking, while Tom went to the fire and warmed himself, everynow and then casting furtive glances at Philip, who seemed to bedrawing absently first one object and then another on a piece of paperhe had before him. He had seated himself again, and as he drew, wasthinking what he could say to Tom, and trying to overcome his ownrepugnance to making the first advances.

Tom began to look oftener and longer at Philip's face, for he couldsee it without noticing the hump, and it was really not a disagreeableface,--very old-looking, Tom thought. He wondered how much olderPhilip was than himself. An anatomist--even a mere physiognomist--would have seen that the deformity of Philip's spine was not acongenital hump, but the result of an accident in infancy; but youdo not expect from Tom any acquaintance with such distinctions;to him, Philip was simply a humpback. He had a vague notionthat the deformity of Wakem's son had some relation to the lawyer'srascality, of which he had so often heard his father talk with hotemphasis; and he felt, too, a half-admitted fear of him as probablya spiteful fellow, who, not being able to fight you, had cunningways of doing you a mischief by the sly. There was a humpbackedtailor in the neighborhood of Mr. Jacobs's academy, who was considereda very unamiable character, and was much hooted after by public-spiritedboys solely on the ground of his unsatisfactory moral qualities; sothat Tom was not without a basis of fact to go upon. Still, no facecould be more unlike that ugly tailor's than this melancholy boy'sface,--the brown hair round it waved and curled at the ends like agirl'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 atanything worth speaking of; but he handled his pencil in an enviablemanner, and was apparently making one thing after another withoutany trouble. What was he drawing? Tom was quite warm now, and wantedsomething new to be going forward. It was certainly more agreeableto have an ill-natured humpback as a companion than to stand lookingout of the study window at the rain, and kicking his foot againstthe washboard in solitude; something would happen every day,--”a quarrel or something”; and Tom thought he should rather like toshow 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 inthe corn!” he exclaimed, his tongue being completely loosed bysurprise and admiration. ”Oh my buttons! I wish I could draw likethat. I'm to learn drawing this half; I wonder if I shall learn tomake dogs and donkeys!”

”Oh, you can do them without learning,” said Philip; ”I never learneddrawing.”

”Never learned?” said Tom, in amazement. ”Why, when I make dogs andhorses, 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,--andwindows in the roof, and all that. But I dare say I could do dogs andhorses if I was to try more,” he added, reflecting that Philip mightfalsely suppose that he was going to ”knock under,” if he were toofrank about the imperfection of his accomplishments.

”Oh, yes,” said Philip, ”it's very easy. You've only to look well atthings, and draw them over and over again. What you do wrong once, youcan alter the next time.”

”But haven't you been taught _any_thing?” said Tom, beginning to havea puzzled suspicion that Philip's crooked back might be the source ofremarkable faculties. ”I thought you'd been to school a long while.”

”Yes,” said Philip, smiling; ”I've been taught Latin and Greek andmathematics, 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 quae maribus_,” saidTom, 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 thiswell-made, active-looking boy; but made polite by his own extremesensitiveness, as well as by his desire to conciliate, he checked hisinclination 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 asense of disappointment.

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

Tom did not say ”Thank you,” for he was quite absorbed in the thoughtthat Wakem's son did not seem so spiteful a fellow as might have beenexpected.

”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 muchdifficulty in adjusting his attitude of mind toward the son of LawyerWakem, 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 thesubject.

”No,” said Philip. ”My father wishes me to give all my time to otherthings now.”

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

”Yes,” said Philip, who had left off using his pencil, and was restinghis 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 likeby-and-by.”

”I can't think why anybody should learn Latin,” said Tom. ”It's nogood.”

”It's part of the education of a gentleman,” said Philip. ”Allgentlemen learn the same things.”

”What! do you think Sir John Crake, the master of the harriers, knowsLatin?” said Tom, who had often thought he should like to resemble SirJohn Crake.

”He learned it when he was a boy, of course,” said Philip. ”But I daresay he's forgotten it.”

”Oh, well, I can do that, then,” said Tom, not with any epigrammaticintention, but with serious satisfaction at the idea that, as far asLatin was concerned, there was no hindrance to his resembling Sir JohnCrake. ”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 timesif 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 canremember things easily. And there are some lessons I'm very fond of.I'm very fond of Greek history, and everything about the Greeks. Ishould like to have been a Greek and fought the Persians, and thenhave come home and have written tragedies, or else have been listenedto by everybody for my wisdom, like Socrates, and have died a granddeath.” (Philip, you perceive, was not without a wish to impress thewell-made barbarian with a sense of his mental superiority.)

”Why, were the Greeks great fighters?” said Tom, who saw a vista inthis direction. ”Is there anything like David and Goliath and Samsonin the Greek history? Those are the only bits I like in the history ofthe Jews.”

”Oh, there are very fine stories of that sort about the Greeks,--aboutthe 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 wonderfulgiant than Goliath,--Polypheme, who had only one eye in the middle ofhis 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 himroar like a thousand bulls.”

”Oh, what fun!” said Tom, jumping away from the table, and stampingfirst with one leg and then the other. ”I say, can you tell me allabout those stories? Because I sha'n't learn Greek, you know. ShallI?” he added, pausing in his stamping with a sudden alarm, lest thecontrary might be possible. ”Does every gentleman learn Greek? WillMr. Stelling make me begin with it, do you think?”

”No, I should think not, very likely not,” said Philip. ”But you mayread 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. Butonly the fighting ones, you know. My sister Maggie is always wantingto tell me stories, but they're stupid things. Girls' stories alwaysare. Can you tell a good many fighting stories?”

”Oh yes,” said Philip; ”lots of them, besides the Greek stories. I cantell you about Richard Coeur-de-Lion and Saladin, and about WilliamWallace 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 thefellows 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 gofishing. _I_ could show you how to fish. You _could_ fish, couldn'tyou? It's only standing, and sitting still, you know.”

Tom, in his turn, wished to make the balance dip in his favor. Thishunchback must not suppose that his acquaintance with fighting storiesput 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 watchinga line hour after hour, or else throwing and throwing, and catchingnothing.”

”Ah, but you wouldn't say they looked like fools when they landed abig pike, I can tell you,” said Tom, who had never caught anythingthat was ”big” in his life, but whose imagination was on the stretchwith indignant zeal for the honor of sport. Wakem's son, it was plain,had his disagreeable points, and must be kept in due check. Happilyfor the harmony of this first interview, they were now called todinner, and Philip was not allowed to develop farther his unsoundviews on the subject of fishing. But Tom said to himself, that wasjust what he should have expected from a hunchback.