"That is a beautiful mysticism—it is a—"
"Please not to call it by any name," said Dorothea, putting out herhands entreatingly. "You will say it is Persian, or something elsegeographical. It is my life. I have found it out, and cannot part with it. Ihave always been finding out my religion since I was a little girl. I usedto pray so much—now I hardly ever pray. I try not to have desiresmerely for myself, because they may not be good for others, and I havetoo much already. I only told you, that you might know quite well howmy days go at Lowick."
"God bless you for telling me!" said Will, ardently, and ratherwondering at himself. They were looking at each other like two fondchildren who were talking confidentially of birds.
"What is your religion?" said Dorothea. "I mean—not what you knowabout religion, but the belief that helps you most?"
"To love what is good and beautiful when I see it," said Will. "But Iam a rebel: I don't feel bound, as you do, to submit to what I don't like."
"But if you like what is good, that comes to the same thing," saidDorothea, smiling.
"Now you are subtle," said Will.
"Yes; Mr. Casaubon often says I am too subtle. I don't feel as if Iwere subtle," said Dorothea, playfully. "But how long my uncle is! I mustgo and look for him. I must really go on to the Hall. Celia is expectingme."
Will offered to tell Mr. Brooke, who presently came and said that hewould step into the carriage and go with Dorothea as far as Dagley's, tospeak about the small delinquent who had been caught with the leveret.Dorothea renewed the subject of the estate as they drove along, but Mr.Brooke, not being taken unawares, got the talk under his own control.
"Chettam, now," he replied; "he finds fault with me, my dear; but Ishould not preserve my game if it were not for Chettam, and he can't saythat that expense is for the sake of the tenants, you know. It's a littleagainst my feeling:—poaching, now, if you come to look into it—I haveoften thought of getting up the subject. Not long ago, Flavell, theMethodist preacher, was brought up for knocking down a hare that cameacross his path when he and his wife were walking out together. He waspretty quick, and knocked it on the neck."
"That was very brutal, I think," said Dorothea
"Well, now, it seemed rather black to me, I confess, in a Methodistpreacher, you know. And Johnson said, 'You may judge what a hypocritehe is.' And upon my word, I thought Flavell looked very little like 'thehighest style of man'—as somebody calls the Christian—Young, the poetYoung, I think—you know Young? Well, now, Flavell in his shabby blackgaiters, pleading that he thought the Lord had sent him and his wife agood dinner, and he had a right to knock it down, though not a mightyhunter before the Lord, as Nimrod was—I assure you it was rathercomic: Fielding would have made something of it—or Scott, now—Scottmight have worked it up. But really, when I came to think of it, Icouldn't help liking that the fellow should have a bit of hare to say graceover. It's all a matter of prejudice—prejudice with the law on its side,you know—about the stick and the gaiters, and so on. However, itdoesn't do to reason about things; and law is law. But I got Johnson to bequiet, and I hushed the matter up. I doubt whether Chettam would nothave been more severe, and yet he comes down on me as if I were thehardest man in the county. But here we are at Dagley's."
Mr. Brooke got down at a farmyard-gate, and Dorothea drove on. Itis wonderful how much uglier things will look when we only suspect thatwe are blamed for them. Even our own persons in the glass are apt tochange their aspect for us after we have heard some frank remark ontheir less admirable points; and on the other hand it is astonishing howpleasantly conscience takes our encroachments on those who nevercomplain or have nobody to complain for them. Dagley's homesteadnever before looked so dismal to Mr. Brooke as it did today, with hismind thus sore about the fault-finding of the "Trumpet," echoed by SirJames.
It is true that an observer, under that softening influence of the finearts which makes other people's hardships picturesque, might have beendelighted with this homestead called Freeman's End: the old house haddormer-windows in the dark red roof, two of the chimneys were chokedwith ivy, the large porch was blocked up with bundles of sticks, and halfthe windows were closed with gray worm-eaten shutters about which thejasmine-boughs grew in wild luxuriance; the mouldering garden wall withhollyhocks peeping over it was a perfect study of highly mingled subduedcolor, and there was an aged goat (kept doubtless on interestingsuperstitious grounds) lying against the open back-kitchen door. Themossy thatch of the cow-shed, the broken gray barn-doors, the pauperlaborers in ragged breeches who had nearly finished unloading a wagonof corn into the barn ready for early thrashing; the scanty dairy of cowsbeing tethered for milking and leaving one half of the shed in brownemptiness; the very pigs and white ducks seeming to wander about theuneven neglected yard as if in low spirits from feeding on a too meagrequality of rinsings,—all these objects under the quiet light of a skymarbled with high clouds would have made a sort of picture which wehave all paused over as a "charming bit," touching other sensibilities thanthose which are stirred by the depression of the agricultural interest,with the sad lack of farming capital, as seen constantly in thenewspapers of that time. But these troublesome associations were justnow strongly present to Mr. Brooke, and spoiled the scene for him. Mr.Dagley himself made a figure in the landscape, carrying a pitchfork andwearing his milking-hat—a very old beaver flattened in front. His coatand breeches were the best he had, and he would not have been wearingthem on this weekday occasion if he had not been to market andreturned later than usual, having given himself the rare treat of dining atthe public table of the Blue Bull. How he came to fall into thisextravagance would perhaps be matter of wonderment to himself on themorrow; but before dinner something in the state of the country, a slightpause in the harvest before the Far Dips were cut, the stories about thenew King and the numerous handbills on the walls, had seemed towarrant a little recklessness. It was a maxim about Middlemarch, andregarded as self-evident, that good meat should have good drink, whichlast Dagley interpreted as plenty of table ale well followed up by rum-and-water. These liquors have so far truth in them that they were notfalse enough to make poor Dagley seem merry: they only made hisdiscontent less tongue-tied than usual. He had also taken too much inthe shape of muddy political talk, a stimulant dangerously disturbing tohis farming conservatism, which consisted in holding that whatever is, isbad, and any change is likely to be worse. He was flushed, and his eyeshad a decidedly quarrelsome stare as he stood still grasping hispitchfork, while the landlord approached with his easy shuffling walk,one hand in his trouser-pocket and the other swinging round a thinwalking-stick.
"Dagley, my good fellow," began Mr. Brooke, conscious that he wasgoing to be very friendly about the boy.
"Oh, ay, I'm a good feller, am I? Thank ye, sir, thank ye," saidDagley, with a loud snarling irony which made Fag the sheep-dog stirfrom his seat and prick his ears; but seeing Monk enter the yard aftersome outside loitering, Fag seated himself again in an attitude ofobservation. "I'm glad to hear I'm a good feller."
Mr. Brooke reflected that it was market-day, and that his worthytenant had probably been dining, but saw no reason why he should notgo on, since he could take the precaution of repeating what he had to sayto Mrs. Dagley.
"Your little lad Jacob has been caught killing a leveret, Dagley: I havetold Johnson to lock him up in the empty stable an hour or two, just tofrighten him, you know. But he will be brought home by-and-by, beforenight: and you'll just look after him, will you, and give him a reprimand,you know?"
"No, I woon't: I'll be dee'd if I'll leather my boy to please you oranybody else, not if you was twenty landlords istid o' one, and that abad un."
Dagley's words were loud enough to summon his wife to the back-kitchen door—the only entrance ever used, and one always open exceptin bad weather—and Mr. Brooke, saying soothingly, "Well, well, I'llspeak to your wife—I didn't mean beating, you know," turned to walk tothe house. But Dagley, only the more inclined to "have his say" with agentleman who walked away from him, followed at once, with Fagslouching at his heels and sullenly evading some small and probablycharitable advances on the part of Monk.
"How do you do, Mrs. Dagley?" said Mr. Brooke, making some haste."I came to tell you about your boy: I don't want you to give him thestick, you know." He was careful to speak quite plainly this time.
Overworked Mrs. Dagley—a thin, worn woman, from whose lifepleasure had so entirely vanished that she had not even any Sundayclothes which could give her satisfaction in preparing for church—hadalready had a misunderstanding with her husband since he had comehome, and was in low spirits, expecting the worst. But her husband wasbeforehand in answering.
"No, nor he woon't hev the stick, whether you want it or no,"pursued Dagley, throwing out his voice, as if he wanted it to hit hard."You've got no call to come an' talk about sticks o' these primises, as youwoon't give a stick tow'rt mending. Go to Middlemarch to ax for yourcharrickter."
"You'd far better hold your tongue, Dagley," said the wife, "and notkick your own trough over. When a man as is father of a family has beenan' spent money at market and made himself the worse for liquor, he'sdone enough mischief for one day. But I should like to know what myboy's done, sir."
"Niver do you mind what he's done," said Dagley, more fiercely, "it'smy business to speak, an' not yourn. An' I wull speak, too. I'll hev mysay—supper or no. An' what I say is, as I've lived upo' your ground frommy father and grandfather afore me, an' hev dropped our money into't,an' me an' my children might lie an' rot on the ground for top-dressin' aswe can't find the money to buy, if the King wasn't to put a stop."
"My good fellow, you're drunk, you know," said Mr. Brooke,confidentially but not judiciously. "Another day, another day," he added,turning as if to go.
But Dagley immediately fronted him, and Fag at his heels growledlow, as his master's voice grew louder and more insulting, while Monkalso drew close in silent dignified watch. The laborers on the wagon werepausing to listen, and it seemed wiser to be quite passive than to attempta ridiculous flight pursued by a bawling man.
"I'm no more drunk nor you are, nor so much," said Dagley. "I cancarry my liquor, an' I know what I meean. An' I meean as the King 'ullput a stop to 't, for them say it as knows it, as there's to be a Rinform,and them landlords as never done the right thing by their tenants 'ull betreated i' that way as they'll hev to scuttle off. An' there's them i'Middlemarch knows what the Rinform is—an' as knows who'll hev toscuttle. Says they, 'I know who your landlord is.' An' says I, 'I hopeyou're the better for knowin' him, I arn't.' Says they, 'He's a close-fistedun.' 'Ay ay,' says I. 'He's a man for the Rinform,' says they. That's whatthey says. An' I made out what the Rinform were—an' it were to sendyou an' your likes a-scuttlin' an' wi' pretty strong-smellin' things too. An'you may do as you like now, for I'm none afeard on you. An' you'd betterlet my boy aloan, an' look to yoursen, afore the Rinform has got upo'your back. That's what I'n got to say," concluded Mr. Dagley, striking hisfork into the ground with a firmness which proved inconvenient as hetried to draw it up again.
At this last action Monk began to bark loudly, and it was a momentfor Mr. Brooke to escape. He walked out of the yard as quickly as hecould, in some amazement at the novelty of his situation. He had neverbeen insulted on his own land before, and had been inclined to regardhimself as a general favorite (we are all apt to do so, when we think ofour own amiability more than of what other people are likely to want ofus). When he had quarrelled with Caleb Garth twelve years before he hadthought that the tenants would be pleased at the landlord's takingeverything into his own hands.
Some who follow the narrative of his experience may wonder at themidnight darkness of Mr. Dagley; but nothing was easier in those timesthan for an hereditary farmer of his grade to be ignorant, in spitesomehow of having a rector in the twin parish who was a gentleman tothe backbone, a curate nearer at hand who preached more learnedly thanthe rector, a landlord who had gone into everything, especially fine artand social improvement, and all the lights of Middlemarch only threemiles off. As to the facility with which mortals escape knowledge, try anaverage acquaintance in the intellectual blaze of London, and considerwhat that eligible person for a dinner-party would have been if he hadlearned scant skill in "summing" from the parish-clerk of Tipton, andread a chapter in the Bible with immense difficulty, because such namesas Isaiah or Apollos remained unmanageable after twice spelling. PoorDagley read a few verses sometimes on a Sunday evening, and the worldwas at least not darker to him than it had been before. Some things heknew thoroughly, namely, the slovenly habits of farming, and theawkwardness of weather, stock and crops, at Freeman's End—so calledapparently by way of sarcasm, to imply that a man was free to quit it ifhe chose, but that there was no earthly "beyond" open to him.
CHAPTER XL.
Wise in his daily work was he:
To fruits of diligence,
And not to faiths or polity,
He plied his utmost sense.
These perfect in their little parts,
Whose work is all their prize—
Without them how could laws, or arts,
Or towered cities rise?
In watching effects, if only of an electric battery, it is often necessaryto change our place and examine a particular mixture or group at somedistance from the point where the movement we are interested in was setup. The group I am moving towards is at Caleb Garth's breakfast-table inthe large parlor where the maps and desk were: father, mother, and fiveof the children. Mary was just now at home waiting for a situation, whileChristy, the boy next to her, was getting cheap learning and cheap fare inScotland, having to his father's disappointment taken to books instead ofthat sacred calling "business."
