“But I won’t forgive him! I know
what they say, he never meant me any harm. That’s
the way Old Harry props up the rascals. He’s
been at the bottom of everything; but he’s a
fine gentleman,—I know, I know. I
shouldn’t ha’ gone to law, they say.
But who made it so as there was no arbitratin’,
and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing
to him, I know that; he’s one o’ them
fine gentlemen as get money by doing business for
poorer folks, and when he’s made beggars of ’em
he’ll give ’em charity. I won’t
forgive him! I wish he might be punished with
shame till his own son ’ud like to forget him.
I wish he may do summat as they’d make him work
at the treadmill! But he won’t,—he’s
too big a raskill to let the law lay hold on him.
And you mind this, Tom,—you never forgive
him neither, if you mean to be my son. There’ll
maybe come a time when you may make him feel; it’ll
never come to me; I’n got my head under the
yoke. Now write—write it i’ the
Bible.”
“Oh, father, what?” said Maggie, sinking
down by his knee, pale and trembling. “It’s
wicked to curse and bear malice.”
“It isn’t wicked, I tell you,” said
her father, fiercely. “It’s wicked
as the raskills should prosper; it’s the Devil’s
doing. Do as I tell you, Tom. Write.”
“What am I to write?” said Tom, with gloomy
submission.
“Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took
service under John Wakem, the man as had helped to
ruin him, because I’d promised my wife to make
her what amends I could for her trouble, and because
I wanted to die in th’ old place where I was
born and my father was born. Put that i’
the right words—you know how—and
then write, as I don’t forgive Wakem for all
that; and for all I’ll serve him honest, I wish
evil may befall him. Write that.”
There was a dead silence as Tom’s pen moved
along the paper; Mrs. Tulliver looked scared, and
Maggie trembled like a leaf.
“Now let me hear what you’ve wrote,”
said Mr. Tulliver, Tom read aloud slowly.
“Now write—write as you’ll
remember what Wakem’s done to your father, and
you’ll make him and his feel it, if ever the
day comes. And sign your name Thomas Tulliver.”
“Oh no, father, dear father!” said Maggie,
almost choked with fear. “You shouldn’t
make Tom write that.”
