The Mill on the Floss - George Eliot (100 books to read .txt) 📗

as never was. And you should hear her read⁠—straight off, as if she knowed it all beforehand. And allays at her book! But it’s bad⁠—it’s bad,” Mr. Tulliver added sadly, checking this blamable exultation. “A woman’s no business wi’ being so clever; it’ll turn to trouble, I doubt. But bless you!”⁠—here the exultation was clearly recovering the mastery⁠—“she’ll read the books and understand ’em better nor half the folks as are growed up.”

Maggie’s cheeks began to flush with triumphant excitement. She thought Mr. Riley would have a respect for her now; it had been evident that he thought nothing of her before.

Mr. Riley was turning over the leaves of the book, and she could make nothing of his face, with its high-arched eyebrows; but he presently looked at her, and said⁠—

“Come, come and tell me something about this book; here are some pictures⁠—I want to know what they mean.”

Maggie, with deepening colour, went without hesitation to Mr. Riley’s elbow and looked over the book, eagerly seizing one corner, and tossing back her mane, while she said⁠—

“Oh, I’ll tell you what that means. It’s a dreadful picture, isn’t it? But I can’t help looking at it. That old woman in the water’s a witch⁠—they’ve put her in to find out whether she’s a witch or no; and if she swims she’s a witch, and if she’s drowned⁠—and killed, you know⁠—she’s innocent, and not a witch, but only a poor silly old woman. But what good would it do her then, you know, when she was drowned? Only, I suppose, she’d go to heaven, and God would make it up to her. And this dreadful blacksmith with his arms akimbo, laughing⁠—oh, isn’t he ugly?⁠—I’ll tell you what he is. He’s the Devil really” (here Maggie’s voice became louder and more emphatic), “and not a right blacksmith; for the Devil takes the shape of wicked men, and walks about and sets people doing wicked things, and he’s oftener in the shape of a bad man than any other, because, you know, if people saw he was the Devil, and he roared at ’em, they’d run away, and he couldn’t make ’em do what he pleased.”

Mr. Tulliver had listened to this exposition of Maggie’s with petrifying wonder.

“Why, what book is it the wench has got hold on?” he burst out at last.

“The History of the Devil, by Daniel Defoe⁠—not quite the right book for a little girl,” said Mr. Riley. “How came it among your books, Mr. Tulliver?”

Maggie looked hurt and discouraged, while her father said⁠—

“Why, it’s one o’ the books I bought at Partridge’s sale. They was all bound alike⁠—it’s a good binding, you see⁠—and I thought they’d be all good books. There’s Jeremy Taylor’s Holy Living and Dying among ’em. I read in it often of a Sunday” (Mr. Tulliver felt somehow a familiarity with that great writer, because his name was Jeremy); “and there’s a lot more of ’em⁠—sermons mostly, I think⁠—but they’ve all got the same covers, and I thought they were all o’ one sample, as you may say. But it seems one mustn’t judge by th’ outside. This is a puzzlin’ world.”

“Well,” said Mr. Riley, in an admonitory, patronizing tone as he patted Maggie on the head, “I advise you to put by the History of the Devil, and read some prettier book. Have you no prettier books?”

“Oh, yes,” said Maggie, reviving a little in the desire to vindicate the variety of her reading. “I know the reading in this book isn’t pretty; but I like the pictures, and I make stories to the pictures out of my own head, you know. But I’ve got Aesop’s Fables, and a book about Kangaroos and things, and the Pilgrim’s Progress.⁠ ⁠…”

“Ah, a beautiful book,” said Mr. Riley; “you can’t read a better.”

“Well, but there’s a great deal about the Devil in that,” said Maggie, triumphantly, “and I’ll show you the picture of him in his true shape, as he fought with Christian.”

Maggie ran in an instant to the corner of the room, jumped on a chair, and reached down from the small bookcase a shabby old copy of Bunyan, which opened at once, without the least trouble of search, at the picture she wanted.

“Here he is,” she said, running back to Mr. Riley, “and Tom coloured him for me with his paints when he was at home last holidays⁠—the body all black, you know, and the eyes red, like fire, because he’s all fire inside, and it shines out at his eyes.”

“Go, go!” said Mr. Tulliver, peremptorily, beginning to feel rather uncomfortable at these free remarks on the personal appearance of a being powerful enough to create lawyers; “shut up the book, and let’s hear no more o’ such talk. It is as I thought⁠—the child ’ull learn more mischief nor good wi’ the books. Go, go and see after your mother.”

Maggie shut up the book at once, with a sense of disgrace, but not being inclined to see after her mother, she compromised the matter by going into a dark corner behind her father’s chair, and nursing her doll, toward which she had an occasional fit of fondness in Tom’s absence, neglecting its toilet, but lavishing so many warm kisses on it that the waxen cheeks had a wasted, unhealthy appearance.

“Did you ever hear the like on’t?” said Mr. Tulliver, as Maggie retired. “It’s a pity but what she’d been the lad⁠—she’d ha’ been a match for the lawyers, she would. It’s the wonderful’st thing”⁠—here he lowered his voice⁠—“as I picked the mother because she wasn’t o’er ’cute⁠—bein’ a good-looking woman too, an’ come of a rare family for managing; but I picked her from her sisters o’ purpose, ’cause she was a bit weak like; for I wasn’t agoin’ to be told the rights o’ things by my own fireside. But you see when a man’s got brains himself, there’s no knowing where they’ll run to; an’ a pleasant sort o’ soft woman may go on breeding you stupid lads and ’cute wenches, till it’s like as