Maggie turned quite pale. `O Tom, why didnt you ask me?

With his interjection, the knife descended on the puff and it was in two, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for he still eyed the halves doubtfully. At last he said,

`O dear, Mr Tulliver, why, thered be eight people besides the children, and I must put two more leaves i the table, besides reaching down more o the dinner service. And you know as well as I do, as my sisters and your sister dont suit well together.

`Go along wi you, then, wi your drownded dog - I wouldnt own such a dog, I wouldnt, said Bob, getting louder, in a last effort to sustain his defiance. But Tom was not to be provoked into turning round, and Bobs voice began to falter a little as she said,

Maggies power of sacrifice did not extend so far, indeed I fear she cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible amount of puff than that he should be pleased with her for giving him the best bit. So she shut her eyes quite close, till Tom told her to `say which, and then she said, `Left-hand.

`No, you cant.

On Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, there were such various and suggestive scents, as of plumcakes in the oven and jellies in the hot state, mingled with the aroma of gravy, that it was impossible to feel altogether gloomy: there was hope in the air. Tom and Maggie made several inroads into the kitchen, and, like other marauders, were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowed to carry away a sufficient load of booty.

`No: here, take it, said Tom firmly, handing decidedly the best piece to Maggie.

`You may let it alone, then, Bob called out after him. `I shall cheat if I like - theres no fun i playing, else. And I know where theres goldfinchs nest, but Ill take care you dont... . An youre a nasty fightin turkey-cock, you are... .

The Aunts and Uncles Are Coming

`Yes, but I wasnt going to do what wasnt fair, like Spouncer. He always takes the best bit, if you dont punch him for it, and if you choose the best with your eyes shut, he changes his hands. But if I go halves Ill go em fair - only I wouldnt be a greedy.

`You give me the half-penny now, said Tom.

`But, I say, Bob, said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, `ferrets are nasty biting things - theyll bite a fellow without being set on.

But Tom, you perceive, was rather a Rhadamanthinepersonage, having more than the usual share of boys justice in him - the justice that desires to hurt culprits as much as they deserve to be hurt, and is troubled with no doubts concerning the exact amount of their deserts. Maggie saw a cloud on his brow when he came home, which checked her joy at his coming so much sooner than she had expected, and she dared hardly speak to him as he stood silently throwing the small gravel stones into the mill-dam. It is not pleasant to give up a rat-catching when you have set your mind on it. But if Tom had told his strongest feeling at that moment, he would have said, `Id do just the same again. That was his usual mode of viewing his past actions; whereas Maggie was always wishing she had done something different.

Yap, feeling the withering influence of this scorn, tucked his tail in and shrank close to Toms leg, who felt a little hurt for him, but had not the superhuman courage to seem behindhand with Bob in contempt for a dog who made so poor a figure.

`You never mind what for. Shut em when I tell you.

`You get out wi you, said Bob, giving Tom a kick.

Tom loosed his hold and left Bob to rise.

`Ah, and I should have half-pence, and wed play at heads and tails, said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that this recreation might have fewer charms for his mature age. `Id divide fair to begin with, and then wed see whod win.

`Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long? said Tom, his imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that dread. `When Im a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on the top of it, like Noahs ark, and keep plenty to eat in it - rabbits and things - all ready. And then if the flood came, you know, Bob, I shouldnt mind... Ahttp://www.99lib.netnd Id take you in, if I saw you swimming, he added, in the tone of a benelovent patron.

With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough and threw a stone, with a `hoigh! as a friendly attention to Yap, who had also been looking on while the eatables vanished with an agitation of his ears and feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet the excellent dog accepted Toms attention with as much alacrity as if he had been treated quite generously.

`O, you greedy thing! said Tom, when she had swallowed the last morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought she ought to have considered this and made up to him for it. He would have refused a bit of hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a different point of view before and after ones own share of puff is swallowed.

`No, no, he said, `Yaps no good at sport. Ill have reg-ular good dogs for rats and everything, when Ive done school.

IT was Easter week and Mrs Tullivers cheese-cakes were more exquisitely light than usual: `a puff o wind ud make em blow about like feathers, kezia, the house-maid said, feeling proud to live under a mistress who could make such pastry; so that no season or circumstances could have been more propitious for a family party, even if it had not been advisable to consult sister Glegg and sister Pullet about Toms going to school. `Id as lief not invite sister Deane this time, said Mrs Tulliver, `for shes as jealous and having as can be, and s allays trying to make the worst o my poor children to their aunts and uncles.

At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly in their walk. It was the plunging of some small body in the water from among the neighbouring bulrushes - if it was not a water-rat Bob intimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasant consequences.

`In got a half-penny o my own, said Bob, proudly, coming out of the water and tossing his half-penny in the air. `Yeads or tails?

`Then Ill make you - see if I dont, said Tom.

`Youve got it, said Tom, in rather a bitter tone.

`No, I shant, said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on his own inferior piece.

It must be owned that Tom was fond of Bobs company. How could it be otherwise? Bob knew, directly he saw a birds egg, whether it was a swallows or a tomtits or a yellowhammers; he found out all the wasps nests and could set all sorts of traps; he could climb the trees like a squirrel, and had quite a magical power of detecting hedge-hogs and stoats; and he had courage to do things that were rather naughty, such as making gaps in the hedge-rows, throwing stones after sheep, and killing a cat that was wandering incognito. Such qualities in an inferior who could always be treated with authority in spite of his superior knowingness, had necessarily a fatal fascination for Tom; and every holiday-time Maggie was sure to have days of grief because he had gone off with Bob.

`Why, you dont like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes to you fair, but I shant give it you without. Right or left - you choose, now. Ha-a-a! said Tom, in a tone of exasperation, as Maggie peeped. `You keep your eyes shut, now, else you shant have any.

`You cant make me do nothing, you cant, said Bob.

`Now, Whichll you have Maggie - right hand or left?

`Is it the tipsy-cake, then? said Maggie, exerting her hypothetic powers, while she leaned forward towards Tom with her eyes fixed on the hovering knife.

`Ugh! you coward! said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling humiliated as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal. Bob abstained from remark and passed on, choosing however to walk in the shallow edge of the overflowing river by way of change.

`Hoigh! Yap - hoigh! there he is, said Tom, clapping his hands, as the little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite bank. `Seize him, lad, seize him!

`No, said Tom, opening his pocket-knife and holding it over the puff, with his head on one side in a dubitative manner. (It was a difficult problem to divide that very irregular polygon into two equal parts.) `What do I c99lib.netare about Lucy? Shes only a girl - she cant play at bandy.

`What, the bit with the jam run out?

`I arent frighted, said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear so appalling. `But Id get in, an knock the rabbits on th head when you wanted to eat em.

`Ay, but, said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition between statements that were really quite accordant, `but there was a big flood once when the Round Pool was made. I know there was, cause father says so. And the sheep and cows were all drowned, and the boats went all over the fields ever such a way.

`Yes, I can.

`But I wanted you to have it - you know I did, said Maggie in an injured tone.

`I shant, said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.

Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began too, and ate up her half-puff with considerable relish as well as rapidity. But Tom had finished first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last morsel or two, feeling in himself a capacity for more. Maggie didnt know Tom was looking at her: she was seesawing on the elder bough, lost to almost everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.

`It wasnt, said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. `You give me the half-penny - Ive won it fair.

Bob took the half-penny out of his pocket and threw it away from him on the ground.

`I wasnt going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit.

But at this moment, Yap, who had been running on before, returned barking to the scene of action, and saw a favourable opportunity for biting Bobs bare leg not only with impunity but with honour. The pain from Yaps teeth, instead of surprising Bob into a relaxation of his hold, gave it a fiercer tenacity, and with a new exertion of his force he pushed Tom backward and got uppermost. But now Yap, who could get no sufficient purchase before, set his teeth in a new place, so that Bob, harassed in this way, let go his hold of Tom and almost throttling Yap, flung him into the river. By this time Tom was up again, and before Bob had quite recovered his balance after the act of swinging Yap, Tom fell upon him, threw him down and got his knee firmly on Bobs chest.

`Well, well, if youre fond o the child, ask her father and mother to bring her with em. And wont you ask their aunt and uncle Moss too? and some o their children?

Meanwhile Tom, forgetting all about Maggie and the sting of reproach which he had left in her heart, was hurrying along with Bob whom he had met accidentally, to the scene of a great rat-catching in a neighbouring barn. Bob knew all about this particular affair, and spoke of the sport with an enthusiasm which no one, who is not either divested of all manly feeling or pitiably ignorant of rat-catching, can fail to imagine. For a person suspected of preternatural wickedness, Bob was really not so very villainous-looking; there was even something agreeable in his snub-nosed face with its close-curled border of red hair. But then his trousers were always rolled up at the knee for the convenience of wading on the slightest notice, and his virtue, supposing it to exist, was undeniably `virtue in rags which, on the authority even of bilious philosophers, who think all well-dressed merit overpaid, is notoriously likely to remainrecognised (perhaps because it is seen so seldom).

`Why, Tom? Beause Lucys coming?

`Thats what you allays say, Mr Tulliver; but Im sure theres nobody o your side, neither aunt nor uncle, to leave em so much as a five-pound note for a leggicy. And theres sister Glegg, and sister Pullet too, saving money unknown - for they put by all their own interest and butter-money too - their husbands buy em everything. Mrs Tulliver was a mild woman, but even a sheep will face about a little when she has lambs.

Maggies was a troublous life, and this was the form in which she took her opium.

`Ill have that with the jam run out, said Maggie, keeping her eyes shut to please Tom.

`Hes none so full now, the Floss isnt, said Bob, as he kicked the water up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent to 九*九*藏*书*网it. `Why, last ear, the meadows was all one sheet o water, they was.

`Lors, why thats the beauty on em. If a chap lays hold o your ferret, he wont be long before he hollows out a good un - he wont.

`No, you silly, thatll be good the day after. Its the pudden. I know what the puddens to be - apricot roll-up - O my buttons!

`Shut your eyes, Maggie.

Tom walked on without looking round, and Yap followed his example, the cold bath having moderated his passions.

Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to plunge, trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as well.

`I dont know what she wont get em to do, said Mrs Tulliver, `for my children are so awkard wi their aunts and uncles. Maggies ten times naughtier when they come than she is other days, and Tom doesnt like em, bless him - though its more natral in a boy than a gell - And theres Lucy Deanes such a good child - you may set her on a stool, and there shell sit for an hour together and never offer to get off - I cant help loving the child as if she was my own, and Im sure shes more like my child than sister Deanes, for shed allays a very poor colour for one of our family, sister Deane had.

Maggie obeyed.

But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery which distinguishes the human being and places him at a proud distance from the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gave herself up to the keen sense of unmerited reproach. She would have given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggies palate was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without it many times over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross with her. And he had said he wouldnt have it - and she ate it without thinking - how could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that Maggie saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; but by that time resentment began to give way to the desire of reconciliation and she jumped from her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer in the paddock behind the rickyard - where was he likely to be gone, and Yap with him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly tree, where she could see far away towards the Floss. There was Tom; but her heart sank again as she saw how far off he was on his way to the great river and that he had another companion besides Yap - naughty Bob Jakin, whose official, if not natural function, of frightening the birds, was just now at a standstill. Maggie felt sure that Bob was wicked, without very distinctly knowing why: unless it was because Bobs mother was a dreadfully large fat woman, who lived at a queer round house down the river, and once, when Maggie and Tom had wandered thither there rushed out a brindled dog that wouldnt stop barking, and when Bobs mother came out after it, and screamed above the barking to tell them not to be frightened, Maggie though she was scolding them fiercely and her heart beat with terror. Maggie thought it very likely that the round house had snakes on the floor, and bats in the bedroom; for she had seen Bob take off his cap to show Tom a little snake that was inside it, and another time he had a handful of young bats: altogether, he was an irregular character, perhaps even slightly diabolical, judging from his intimacy with snakes and bats; and to crown all, when Tom had Bob for a companion he didnt mind about Maggie, and would never let her go with him.

`What for?

`Yes, yes, said Mr Tulliver. `Ask her to come. I never hardly get a bit o talk with Deane now: we havent had him this six months. Whats it matter what she says? - my children need be beholding to nobody.

`I dont care for you.

`Tails, said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.

He stood still till Tom had passed through the gate and disappeared behind the hedge. The knife would do no good on the ground there - it wouldnt vex Tom, and pride or resentment was a feeble passion in Bobs mind compared with the love of a pocket-knife. His very fingers sent entreating thrills that九九藏书 he would go and clutch that familiar rough bucks-horn handle, which they had so often grasped for mere affection as it lay idle in his pocket. And there were two blades - and they had just been sharpened. What is life without a pocket-knife to him who has once tasted a higher existence? No: to throw the handle after the hatchet is a comprehensible act of desperation, but to throw ones pocket-knife after an implacable friend is clearly in every sense a hyperbole or throwing beyond the mark. So Bob shuffled back to the spot where the beloved knife lay in the dirt, and felt quite a new pleasure in clutching it again after the temporary separation, in opening one blade after the other and feeling their edge with his well-hardened thumb. Poor Bob! he was not sensitive on the point of honour - not a chivalrous character. That fine moral aroma would not have been thought much of by the public opinion of Kennel Yard, which was the very focus or heart of Bobs world, even if it could have made itself perceptible there. Yet, for all that, he was not utterly a sneak and a thief, as our friend Tom had hastily decided.

Well! there was no hope for it: he was gone now, and Maggie could think of no comfort but to sit down by the holly or wander by the hedgerow, and fancy it was all different, refashioning her little world into just what she should like it to be.

`I know the chap as owns the ferrets, said Bob in a hoarse treble voice, as he shuffled along, keeping his blue eyes fixed on the river, like an amphibious animal who foresaw occasion for darting in. `He lives up the Kennel Yard at Sut Oggs - he does. Hes the biggest rot-catcher anywhere - he is. Id sooner be a rot-catcher nor anything - I would. The moles is nothing to the rots. But Lors! you mun ha ferrets. Dogs is no good. Why, theres that dog, now, Bob continued, pointing with an air of disgust towards Yap, `hes no more good wi a rot nor nothin. I see it myself - I did - at the rot-catchin i your feythers barn.

In other respects the true Dodson was partly latent in Tom, and he was as far from appreciating his `kin on the mothers side as Maggie herself, generally absconding for the day with a large supply of the most portable food when he received timely warning that his aunts and uncles were coming: a moral symptom from which his aunt Glegg deduced the gloomiest views of his future. It was rather hard on Maggie that Tom always absconded without letting her into the secret, but the weaker sex are acknowledged to be serious impedimenta in cases of flight.

`O, please, Tom, have it: I dont mind - I like the other: please take this.

Toms blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and threw him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and pulled Tom down after him. They struggled fiercely on the ground for a moment or two, till Tom, pinning Bob down by the shoulders, thought he had the mastery.

`Tom, said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder tree, eating their jam puffs, `shall you run away tomorrow?

`You say youll give me the half-penny now, he said, with difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep the command of Bobs arms.

`Hev ferrets, Measter Tom, said Bob, eagerly, `them white ferrets wi pink eyes - Lors, you might catch your own rots, an you might put a rot in a cage wi a ferret, ansee em fight - you might. Thats what Id do, I know. Anit ud be better fun amost nor seein two chaps fight - if it wasnt them chaps as sell cakes an oranges at the Fair, as the things flew out o their baskets, an some o the cakes was smashed... But they tasted just as good, added Bob, by way of note or addendum, after a moments pause.

`An In gien you everything an showed you everything, an niver wanted nothin from you... . An theres your horn-handed knife, then, as you gien me... . Here Bob flung the knife as far as he could after Toms retreating footsteps. But it produced no effect, except the sense in Bobs mind that there was a terrible void in his lot, now that knife was gone.

`But Ill make you care, you cheat, said Tom, collaring Bob and shaking him.

`Take it, sai九*九*藏*书*网d Bob, sulkily.

`There the half-penny lies, he said, `I dont want your half-penny; I wouldnt have kept it. But you wanted to cheat: I hate a cheat. I shant go along with you any more, he added, turning round homeward, not without casting a regret towards the rat-catching and other pleasures which he must relinquish along with Bobs society.

`Tchuh! said Mr Tulliver. `It takes a big loaf when theres many to breakfast. What signifies your sisters bits o money when theyve got half-a-dozen nevvies and nieces to divide it among? And your sister Deane wont get em to leave all to one, I reckon, and make the country cry shame on em when they are dead?

`Im master.

`Well, well, do as you like, Bessy, said Mr Tulliver, taking up his hat and walking out to the mill. Few wives were more submissive than Mrs Tulliver on all points unconnected with her family relations; but she had been a Miss Dodson, and the Dodsons were a very respectable family indeed - as much looked up to as any in their own parish or the next to it. The Miss Dodsons had always been thought to hold up their heads very high, and no one was surprised the two eldest had married so well: - not at an early age, for that was not the practice of the Dodson family. There were particular ways of doing everything in that family: particu-lar ways of bleaching the linen, of making the cowslip wine curing the hams and keeping the bottled gooseberries, so that no daughter of that house could be indifferent to the privilege of having been born a Dodson, rather than a Gibson or a Watson. Funerals were always conducted with peculiar propriety in the Dodson family: the hatbands were never of a blue shade, the gloves never split at the thumb, everybody was mourner who ought to be, and there were always scarfs for the bearers. When one of the family was in trouble or sickness, all the rest went to visit the unfortunate member, usually at the same time, and did not shrink from uttering the most disagreeable truths that correct family feeling dictated: if the illness or trouble was the sufferers own fault, it was not in the practice of the Dodson family to shrink from saying so. In short, there was in this family a peculiar tradition as to what was the right thing in house-hold management and social demeanour, and the only bitter circumstance attending this superiority was a painful inability to approve the condiments or the conduct of families ungoverned by the Dodson tradition. A female Dodson, when in `strange houses, always ate dry bread with her tea and declined any sort of preserves, having no confidence in the butter and thinking that the preserves had probably begun to ferment from want of due sugar and boiling. There were some Dodsons less like the family than others - that was admitted - but in so far as they were `kin, they were of necessity better than those who were `no kin. And it is remarkable that while no individual Dodson was satisfied with any other individual Dodson, each was satisfied, not only with him or herself, but with the Dodsons collectively. The feeblest member of a family - the one who has the least character - is often the merest epitome of the family habits and traditions, and Mrs Tulliver was a thorough Dodson, though a mild one, as small beer, so long as it is anything, is only describable as very weak ale. And though she had groaned a little in her youth under the yoke of her elder sisters, and still shed occasional tears at their sisterly reproaches, it was not in Mrs Tulliver to be an innovator on the family ideas: she was thankful to have been a Dodson, and to have one child who took after her own family, at least in his features and complexion, in liking salt, and in eating beans, which a Tulliver never did.

`No, I shant take it - you give it me.

`No, said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and was eyeing the third, which was to be divided between them. `No. I shant.

I dont care about a flood comin, said Bob, `I dont mind the water, no more nor the land. Id swim - I would.

`Its yeads, said Bob, hastily, snatching up the half-penny as it fell.