The Mill on the Floss Read Online Free PDF

your little
stool, and hold your tongue, do. But," added Mrs. Tulliver, who had
her own alarm awakened, "is it so far off as I couldn't wash him
and mend him?"
    "About fifteen miles; that's all," said Mr. Riley. "You can
drive there and back in a day quite comfortably. Or–Stelling is a
hospitable, pleasant man–he'd be glad to have you stay."
    "But it's too far off for the linen, I doubt," said Mrs.
Tulliver, sadly.
    The entrance of supper opportunely adjourned this difficulty,
and relieved Mr. Riley from the labor of suggesting some solution
or compromise,–a labor which he would otherwise doubtless have
undertaken; for, as you perceive, he was a man of very obliging
manners. And he had really given himself the trouble of
recommending Mr. Stelling to his friend Tulliver without any
positive expectation of a solid, definite advantage resulting to
himself, notwithstanding the subtle indications to the contrary
which might have misled a too-sagacious observer. For there is
nothing more widely misleading than sagacity if it happens to get
on a wrong scent; and sagacity, persuaded that men usually act and
speak from distinct motives, with a consciously proposed end in
view, is certain to waste its energies on imaginary game.
    Plotting covetousness and deliberate contrivance, in order to
compass a selfish end, are nowhere abundant but in the world of the
dramatist: they demand too intense a mental action for many of our
fellow-parishioners to be guilty of them. It is easy enough to
spoil the lives of our neighbors without taking so much trouble; we
can do it by lazy acquiescence and lazy omission, by trivial
falsities for which we hardly know a reason, by small frauds
neutralized by small extravagances, by maladroit flatteries, and
clumsily improvised insinuations. We live from hand to mouth, most
of us, with a small family of immediate desires; we do little else
than snatch a morsel to satisfy the hungry brood, rarely thinking
of seed-corn or the next year's crop.
    Mr. Riley was a man of business, and not cold toward his own
interest, yet even he was more under the influence of small
promptings than of far-sighted designs. He had no private
understanding with the Rev. Walter Stelling; on the contrary, he
knew very little of that M.A. and his acquirements,–not quite
enough, perhaps, to warrant so strong a recommendation of him as he
had given to his friend Tulliver. But he believed Mr. Stelling to
be an excellent classic, for Gadsby had said so, and Gadsby's first
cousin was an Oxford tutor; which was better ground for the belief
even than his own immediate observation would have been, for though
Mr. Riley had received a tincture of the classics at the great
Mudport Free School, and had a sense of understanding Latin
generally, his comprehension of any particular Latin was not ready.
Doubtless there remained a subtle aroma from his juvenile contact
with the "De Senectute" and the fourth book of the "Æneid," but it
had ceased to be distinctly recognizable as classical, and was only
perceived in the higher finish and force of his auctioneering
style. Then, Stelling was an Oxford man, and the Oxford men were
always–no, no, it was the Cambridge men who were always good
mathematicians. But a man who had had a university education could
teach anything he liked; especially a man like Stelling, who had
made a speech at a Mudport dinner on a political occasion, and had
acquitted himself so well that it was generally remarked, this
son-in-law of Timpson's was a sharp fellow. It was to be expected
of a Mudport man, from the parish of St. Ursula, that he would not
omit to do a good turn to a son-in-law of Timpson's, for Timpson
was one of the most useful and influential men in the parish, and
had a good deal of business, which he knew how to put into the
right hands. Mr. Riley liked such men, quite apart from any money
which might be diverted, through their good judgment, from less
worthy pockets into his own; and it would be a