Much rumination had Mr. Tulliver on these puzzling
subjects during his rides on the gray horse; much
turning of the head from side to side, as the scales
dipped alternately; but the probable result was still
out of sight, only to be reached through much hot argument
and iteration in domestic and social life. That
initial stage of the dispute which consisted in the
narration of the case and the enforcement of Mr. Tulliver’s
views concerning it throughout the entire circle of
his connections would necessarily take time; and at
the beginning of February, when Tom was going to school
again, there were scarcely any new items to be detected
in his father’s statement of the case against
Pivart, or any more specific indication of the measures
he was bent on taking against that rash contravener
of the principle that water was water. Iteration,
like friction, is likely to generate heat instead
of progress, and Mr. Tulliver’s heat was certainly
more and more palpable. If there had been no new
evidence on any other point, there had been new evidence
that Pivart was as “thick as mud” with
Wakem.
“Father,” said Tom, one evening near the
end of the holidays, “uncle Glegg says Lawyer
Wakem is going to send his son to Mr. Stelling.
It isn’t true, what they said about his going
to be sent to France. You won’t like me
to go to school with Wakem’s son, shall you?”
“It’s no matter for that, my boy,”
said Mr. Tulliver; “don’t you learn anything
bad of him, that’s all. The lad’s
a poor deformed creatur, and takes after his mother
in the face; I think there isn’t much of his
father in him. It’s a sign Wakem thinks
high o’ Mr. Sterling, as he sends his son to
him, and Wakem knows meal from bran.”
Mr. Tulliver in his heart was rather proud of the
fact that his son was to have the same advantages
as Wakem’s; but Tom was not at all easy on the
point. It would have been much clearer if the
lawyer’s son had not been deformed, for then
Tom would have had the prospect of pitching into him
with all that freedom which is derived from a high
moral sanction.
Chapter III
The New Schoolfellow
It was a cold, wet January day on which Tom went back
to school; a day quite in keeping with this severe
phase of his destiny. If he had not carried in
his pocket a parcel of sugar-candy and a small Dutch
doll for little Laura, there would have been no ray
of expected pleasure to enliven the general gloom.
But he liked to think how Laura would put out her
lips and her tiny hands for the bits of sugarcandy;
and to give the greater keenness to these pleasures
of imagination, he took out the parcel, made a small
hole in the paper, and bit off a crystal or two, which
had so solacing an effect under the confined prospect
and damp odors of the gig-umbrella, that he repeated
the process more than once on his way.
“Well, Tulliver, we’re glad to see you
again,” said Mr. Stelling, heartily. “Take
off your wrappings and come into the study till dinner.
You’ll find a bright fire there, and a new companion.”
