Chapter VI

Tending to Refute the Popular Prejudice against the Present of a
Pocket-Knife


In that dark time of December, the sale of the household furniture
lasted beyond the middle of the second day. Mr. Tulliver, who had
begun, in his intervals of consciousness, to manifest an irritability
which often appeared to have as a direct effect the recurrence of
spasmodic rigidity and insensibility, had lain in this living death
throughout the critical hours when the noise of the sale came nearest
to his chamber. Mr. Turnbull had decided that it would be a less risk
to let him remain where he was than to remove him to Luke's
cottage,--a plan which the good Luke had proposed to Mrs. Tulliver,
thinking it would be very bad if the master were "to waken up" at the
noise of the sale; and the wife and children had sat imprisoned in the
silent chamber, watching the large prostrate figure on the bed, and
trembling lest the blank face should suddenly show some response to
the sounds which fell on their own ears with such obstinate, painful
repetition.

But it was over at last, that time of importunate certainty and
eye-straining suspense. The sharp sound of a voice, almost as metallic
as the rap that followed it, had ceased; the tramping of footsteps on
the gravel had died out. Mrs. Tulliver's blond face seemed aged ten
years by the last thirty hours; the poor woman's mind had been busy
divining when her favorite things were being knocked down by the
terrible hammer; her heart had been fluttering at the thought that
first one thing and then another had gone to be identified as hers in
the hateful publicity of the Golden Lion; and all the while she had to
sit and make no sign of this inward agitation. Such things bring lines
in well-rounded faces, and broaden the streaks of white among the
hairs that once looked as if they had been dipped in pure sunshine.
Already, at three o'clock, Kezia, the good-hearted, bad-tempered
housemaid, who regarded all people that came to the sale as her
personal enemies, the dirt on whose feet was of a peculiarly vile
quality, had begun to scrub and swill with an energy much assisted by
a continual low muttering against "folks as came to buy up other
folk's things," and made light of "scrazing" the tops of mahogany
tables over which better folks than themselves had had to--suffer a
waste of tissue through evaporation. She was not scrubbing
indiscriminately, for there would be further dirt of the same
atrocious kind made by people who had still to fetch away their
purchases; but she was bent on bringing the parlor, where that
"pipe-smoking pig," the bailiff, had sat, to such an appearance of
scant comfort as could be given to it by cleanliness and the few
articles of furniture bought in for the family. Her mistress and the
young folks should have their tea in it that night, Kezia was
determined.

It was between five and six o'clock, near the usual teatime, when she
came upstairs and said that Master Tom was wanted. The person who
wanted him was in the kitchen, and in the first moments, by the
imperfect fire and candle light, Tom had not even an indefinite sense
of any acquaintance with the rather broad-set but active figure,
perhaps two years older than himself, that looked at him with a pair
of blue eyes set in a disc of freckles, and pulled some curly red
locks with a strong intention of respect. A low-crowned
oilskin-covered hat, and a certain shiny deposit of dirt on the rest
of the costume, as of tablets prepared for writing upon, suggested a
calling that had to do with boats; but this did not help Tom's memory.

"Sarvant, Master Tom," said he of the red locks, with a smile which
seemed to break through a self-imposed air of melancholy. "You don't
know me again, I doubt," he went on, as Tom continued to look at him
inquiringly; "but I'd like to talk to you by yourself a bit, please."

"There's a fire i' the parlor, Master Tom," said Kezia, who objected
to leaving the kitchen in the crisis of toasting.

"Come this way, then," said Tom, wondering if this young fellow
belonged to Guest & Co.'s Wharf, for his imagination ran continually
toward that particular spot; and uncle Deane might any time be sending
for him to say that there was a situation at liberty.

The bright fire in the parlor was the only light that showed the few
chairs, the bureau, the carpetless floor, and the one table--no, not
the _one_ table; there was a second table, in a corner, with a large
Bible and a few other books upon it. It was this new strange bareness
that Tom felt first, before he thought of looking again at the face
which was also lit up by the fire, and which stole a half-shy,
questioning glance at him as the entirely strange voice said:

"Why! you don't remember Bob, then, as you gen the pocket-knife to,
Mr. Tom?"

The rough-handled pocket-knife was taken out in the same moment, and
the largest blade opened by way of irresistible demonstration.

"What! Bob Jakin?" said Tom, not with any cordial delight, for he felt
a little ashamed of that early intimacy symbolized by the
pocket-knife, and was not at all sure that Bob's motives for recalling
it were entirely admirable.

"Ay, ay, Bob Jakin, if Jakin it must be, 'cause there's so many Bobs
as you went arter the squerrils with, that day as I plumped right down
from the bough, and bruised my shins a good un--but I got the squerril
tight for all that, an' a scratter it was. An' this littlish blade's
broke, you see, but I wouldn't hev a new un put in, 'cause they might
be cheatin' me an' givin' me another knife instid, for there isn't
such a blade i' the country,--it's got used to my hand, like. An'
there was niver nobody else gen me nothin' but what I got by my own
sharpness, only you, Mr. Tom; if it wasn't Bill Fawks as gen me the
terrier pup istid o' drowndin't it, an' I had to jaw him a good un
afore he'd give it me."

Bob spoke with a sharp and rather treble volubility, and got through
his long speech with surprising despatch, giving the blade of his
knife an affectionate rub on his sleeve when he had finished.

"Well, Bob," said Tom, with a slight air of patronage, the foregoing
reminscences having disposed him to be as friendly as was becoming,
though there was no part of his acquaintance with Bob that he
remembered better than the cause of their parting quarrel; "is there
anything I can do for you?"

"Why, no, Mr. Tom," answered Bob, shutting up his knife with a click
and returning it to his pocket, where he seemed to be feeling for
something else. "I shouldn't ha' come back upon you now ye're i'
trouble, an' folks say as the master, as I used to frighten the birds
for, an' he flogged me a bit for fun when he catched me eatin' the
turnip, as they say he'll niver lift up his head no more,--I shouldn't
ha' come now to ax you to gi' me another knife 'cause you gen me one
afore. If a chap gives me one black eye, that's enough for me; I
sha'n't ax him for another afore I sarve him out; an' a good turn's
worth as much as a bad un, anyhow. I shall niver grow down'ards again,
Mr. Tom, an' you war the little chap as I liked the best when _I_ war
a little chap, for all you leathered me, and wouldn't look at me
again. There's Dick Brumby, there, I could leather him as much as I'd
a mind; but lors! you get tired o' leatherin' a chap when you can
niver make him see what you want him to shy at. I'n seen chaps as 'ud
stand starin' at a bough till their eyes shot out, afore they'd see as
a bird's tail warn't a leaf. It's poor work goin' wi' such raff. But
you war allays a rare un at shying, Mr. Tom, an' I could trusten to
you for droppin' down wi' your stick in the nick o' time at a runnin'
rat, or a stoat, or that, when I war a-beatin' the bushes."

Bob had drawn out a dirty canvas bag, and would perhaps not have
paused just then if Maggie had not entered the room and darted a look
of surprise and curiosity at him, whereupon he pulled his red locks
again with due respect. But the next moment the sense of the altered
room came upon Maggie with a force that overpowered the thought of
Bob's presence. Her eyes had immediately glanced from him to the place
where the bookcase had hung; there was nothing now but the oblong
unfaded space on the wall, and below it the small table with the Bible
and the few other books.

"Oh, Tom!" she burst out, clasping her hands, "where are the books? I
thought my uncle Glegg said he would buy them. Didn't he? Are those
all they've left us?"

"I suppose so," said Tom, with a sort of desperate indifference. "Why
should they buy many books when they bought so little furniture?"

"Oh, but, Tom," said Maggie, her eyes filling with tears, as she
rushed up to the table to see what books had been rescued. "Our dear
old Pilgrim's Progress that you colored with your little paints; and
that picture of Pilgrim with a mantle on, looking just like a
turtle--oh dear!" Maggie went on, half sobbing as she turned over the
few books, "I thought we should never part with that while we lived;
everything is going away from us; the end of our lives will have
nothing in it like the beginning!"

Maggie turned away from the table and threw herself into a chair, with
the big tears ready to roll down her cheeks, quite blinded to the
presence of Bob, who was looking at her with the pursuant gaze of an
intelligent dumb animal, with perceptions more perfect than his
comprehension.

"Well, Bob," said Tom, feeling that the subject of the books was
unseasonable, "I suppose you just came to see me because we're in
trouble? That was very good-natured of you."

"I'll tell you how it is, Master Tom," said Bob, beginning to untwist
his canvas bag. "You see, I'n been with a barge this two 'ear; that's
how I'n been gettin' my livin',--if it wasn't when I was tentin' the
furnace, between whiles, at Torry's mill. But a fortni't ago I'd a
rare bit o' luck,--I allays thought I was a lucky chap, for I niver
set a trap but what I catched something; but this wasn't trap, it was
a fire i' Torry's mill, an' I doused it, else it 'ud set th' oil
alight, an' the genelman gen me ten suvreigns; he gen me 'em himself
last week. An' he said first, I was a sperrited chap,--but I knowed
that afore,--but then he outs wi' the ten suvreigns, an' that war
summat new. Here they are, all but one!" Here Bob emptied the canvas
bag on the table. "An' when I'd got 'em, my head was all of a boil
like a kettle o' broth, thinkin' what sort o' life I should take to,
for there war a many trades I'd thought on; for as for the barge, I'm
clean tired out wi't, for it pulls the days out till they're as long
as pigs' chitterlings. An' I thought first I'd ha' ferrets an' dogs,
an' be a rat-catcher; an' then I thought as I should like a bigger way
o' life, as I didn't know so well; for I'n seen to the bottom o'
rat-catching; an' I thought, an' thought, till at last I settled I'd
be a packman,--for they're knowin' fellers, the packmen are,--an' I'd
carry the lightest things I could i' my pack; an' there'd be a use for
a feller's tongue, as is no use neither wi' rats nor barges. An' I
should go about the country far an' wide, an' come round the women wi'
my tongue, an' get my dinner hot at the public,--lors! it 'ud be a
lovely life!"

Bob paused, and then said, with defiant decision, as if resolutely
turning his back on that paradisaic picture:

"But I don't mind about it, not a chip! An' I'n changed one o' the
suvreigns to buy my mother a goose for dinner, an' I'n bought a blue
plush wescoat, an' a sealskin cap,--for if I meant to be a packman,
I'd do it respectable. But I don't mind about it, not a chip! My yead
isn't a turnip, an' I shall p'r'aps have a chance o' dousing another
fire afore long. I'm a lucky chap. So I'll thank you to take the nine
suvreigns, Mr. Tom, and set yoursen up with 'em somehow, if it's true
as the master's broke. They mayn't go fur enough, but they'll help."

Tom was touched keenly enough to forget his pride and suspicion.

"You're a very kind fellow, Bob," he said, coloring, with that little
diffident tremor in his voice which gave a certain charm even to Tom's
pride and severity, "and I sha'n't forget you again, though I didn't
know you this evening. But I can't take the nine sovereigns; I should
be taking your little fortune from you, and they wouldn't do me much
good either."

"Wouldn't they, Mr. Tom?" said Bob, regretfully. "Now don't say so
'cause you think I want 'em. I aren't a poor chap. My mother gets a
good penn'orth wi' picking feathers an' things; an' if she eats
nothin' but bread-an'-water, it runs to fat. An' I'm such a lucky
chap; an' I doubt you aren't quite so lucky, Mr. Tom,--th' old master
isn't, anyhow,--an' so you might take a slice o' my luck, an' no harm
done. Lors! I found a leg o' pork i' the river one day; it had tumbled
out o' one o' them round-sterned Dutchmen, I'll be bound. Come, think
better on it, Mr. Tom, for old 'quinetance' sake, else I shall think
you bear me a grudge."

Bob pushed the sovereigns forward, but before Tom could speak Maggie,
clasping her hands, and looking penitently at Bob. said:

"Oh, I'm so sorry, Bob; I never thought you were so good. Why, I think
you're the kindest person in the world!"

Bob had not been aware of the injurious opinion for which Maggie was
performing an inward act of penitence, but he smiled with pleasure at
this handsome eulogy,--especially from a young lass who, as he
informed his mother that evening, had "such uncommon eyes, they looked
somehow as they made him feel nohow."

"No, indeed Bob, I can't take them," said Tom; "but don't think I feel
your kindness less because I say no. I don't want to take anything
from anybody, but to work my own way. And those sovereigns wouldn't
help me much--they wouldn't really--if I were to take them. Let me
shake hands with you instead."

Tom put out his pink palm, and Bob was not slow to place his hard,
grimy hand within it.

"Let me put the sovereigns in the bag again," said Maggie; "and you'll
come and see us when you've bought your pack, Bob."

"It's like as if I'd come out o' make believe, o' purpose to show 'em
you," said Bob, with an air of discontent, as Maggie gave him the bag
again, "a-taking 'em back i' this way. I _am_ a bit of a Do, you know;
but it isn't that sort o' Do,--it's on'y when a feller's a big rogue,
or a big flat, I like to let him in a bit, that's all."

"Now, don't you be up to any tricks, Bob," said Tom, "else you'll get
transported some day."

"No, no; not me, Mr. Tom," said Bob, with an air of cheerful
confidence. "There's no law again' flea-bites. If I wasn't to take a
fool in now and then, he'd niver get any wiser. But, lors! hev a
suvreign to buy you and Miss summat, on'y for a token--just to match
my pocket-knife."

While Bob was speaking he laid down the sovereign, and resolutely
twisted up his bag again. Tom pushed back the gold, and said, "No,
indeed, Bob; thank you heartily, but I can't take it." And Maggie,
taking it between her fingers, held it up to Bob and said, more
persuasively:

"Not now, but perhaps another time. If ever Tom or my father wants
help that you can give, we'll let you know; won't we, Tom? That's what
you would like,--to have us always depend on you as a friend that we
can go to,--isn't it, Bob?"

"Yes, Miss, and thank you," said Bob, reluctantly taking the money;
"that's what I'd like, anything as you like. An' I wish you good-by,
Miss, and good-luck, Mr. Tom, and thank you for shaking hands wi' me,
_though_ you wouldn't take the money."

Kezia's entrance, with very black looks, to inquire if she shouldn't
bring in the tea now, or whether the toast was to get hardened to a
brick, was a seasonable check on Bob's flux of words, and hastened his
parting bow.