That evening Tom observed to Maggie: “Oh
my! Maggie, aunt Glegg’s beginning to come
again; I’m glad I’m going to school. You’ll
catch it all now!”
Maggie was already so full of sorrow at the thought
of Tom’s going away from her, that this playful
exultation of his seemed very unkind, and she cried
herself to sleep that night.
Mr. Tulliver’s prompt procedure entailed on
him further promptitude in finding the convenient
person who was desirous of lending five hundred pounds
on bond. “It must be no client of Wakem’s,”
he said to himself; and yet at the end of a fortnight
it turned out to the contrary; not because Mr. Tulliver’s
will was feeble, but because external fact was stronger.
Wakem’s client was the only convenient person
to be found. Mr. Tulliver had a destiny as well
as Oedipus, and in this case he might plead, like
Oedipus, that his deed was inflicted on him rather
than committed by him.
School-Time
Tom’s “First Half”
Tom Tulliver’S sufferings during the first quarter
he was at King’s Lorton, under the distinguished
care of the Rev. Walter Stelling, were rather severe.
At Mr. Jacob’s academy life had not presented
itself to him as a difficult problem; there were plenty
of fellows to play with, and Tom being good at all
active games,—fighting especially,—had
that precedence among them which appeared to him inseparable
from the personality of Tom Tulliver. Mr. Jacobs
himself, familiarly known as Old Goggles, from his
habit of wearing spectacles, imposed no painful awe;
and if it was the property of snuffy old hypocrites
like him to write like copperplate and surround their
signatures with arabesques, to spell without forethought,
and to spout “my name is Norval” without
bungling, Tom, for his part, was glad he was not in
danger of those mean accomplishments. He was
not going to be a snuffy schoolmaster, he, but a substantial
man, like his father, who used to go hunting when
he was younger, and rode a capital black mare,—as
pretty a bit of horse-flesh as ever you saw; Tom had
heard what her points were a hundred times. He
meant to go hunting too, and to be generally respected.
When people were grown up, he considered, nobody inquired
about their writing and spelling; when he was a man,
he should be master of everything, and do just as
he liked. It had been very difficult for him
to reconcile himself to the idea that his school-time
was to be prolonged and that he was not to be brought
up to his father’s business, which he had always
thought extremely pleasant; for it was nothing but
riding about, giving orders, and going to market;
and he thought that a clergyman would give him a great
many Scripture lessons, and probably make him learn
the Gospel and Epistle on a Sunday, as well as the
Collect. But in the absence of specific information,
