“I don’t know what he could have against the lad,” said Mrs. Tulliver, with a slight touch of motherly indignation; “a nice fresh-skinned lad as anybody need wish to see.”
“But there’s one thing I’m thinking on,” said Mr. Tulliver, turning his head on one side and looking at Mr. Riley, after a long perusal of the carpet. “Wouldn’t a parson be almost too high-learnt to bring up a lad to be a man o’ business? My notion o’ the parsons was as they’d got a sort o’ learning as lay mostly out o’ sight. And that isn’t what I want for Tom. I want him to know figures, and write like print, and see into things quick, and know what folks mean, and how to wrap things up in words as aren’t actionable. It’s an uncommon fine thing, that is,” concluded Mr. Tulliver, shaking his head, “when you can let a man know what you think of him without paying for it.”
“Oh, my dear Tulliver,” said Mr. Riley, “you’re quite under a mistake about the clergy; all the best schoolmasters are of the clergy. The schoolmasters who are not clergymen are a very low set of men generally.”
“Ay, that Jacobs is, at the ’cademy,” interposed Mr. Tulliver.
“To be sure—men who have failed in other trades, most likely. Now, a clergyman is a gentleman by profession and education; and besides that, he has the knowledge that will ground a boy, and prepare him for entering on any career with credit. There may be some clergymen who are mere bookmen; but you may depend upon it, Stelling is not one of them—a man that’s wide awake, let me tell you. Drop him a hint, and that’s enough. You talk of figures, now; you have only to say to Stelling, ‘I want my son to be a thorough arithmetician,’ and you may leave the rest to him.”
Mr. Riley paused a moment, while Mr. Tulliver, somewhat reassured as to clerical tutorship, was inwardly rehearsing to an imaginary Mr. Stelling the statement, “I want my son to know ’rethmetic.”
“You see, my dear Tulliver,” Mr. Riley continued, “when you get a thoroughly educated man, like Stelling, he’s at no loss to take up any branch of instruction. When a workman knows the use of his tools, he can make a door as well as a window.”
“Ay, that’s true,” said Mr. Tulliver, almost convinced now that the clergy must be the best of schoolmasters.
“Well, I’ll tell you what I’ll do for you,” said Mr. Riley, “and I wouldn’t do it for everybody. I’ll see Stelling’s father-in-law, or drop him a line when I get back to Mudport, to say that you wish to place your boy with his son-in-law, and I dare say Stelling will write to you, and send you his terms.”
“But there’s no hurry, is there?” said Mrs. Tulliver; “for I hope, Mr. Tulliver, you won’t let Tom begin at his new school before Midsummer. He began at the ’cademy at the Lady-day quarter, and you see what good’s come of it.”
“Ay, ay, Bessy, never brew wi’ bad malt upo’ Michaelmas day, else you’ll have a poor tap,” said Mr. Tulliver, winking and smiling at Mr. Riley, with the natural pride of a man who has a buxom wife conspicuously his inferior in intellect. “But it’s true there’s no hurry; you’ve hit it there, Bessy.”
“It might be as well not to defer the arrangement too long,” said Mr. Riley, quietly, “for Stelling may have propositions from other parties, and I know he would not take more than two or three boarders, if so many. If I were you, I think I would enter on the subject with Stelling at once: there’s no necessity for sending the boy before Midsummer, but I would be on the safe side, and make sure that nobody forestalls you.”
“Ay, there’s summat in that,” said Mr. Tulliver.
“Father,” broke in Maggie, who had stolen unperceived to her father’s elbow again, listening with parted lips, while she held her doll topsy-turvy, and crushed its nose against the wood of the chair—“father, is it a long way off where Tom is to go? Sha’n’t we ever go to see him?”
“I don’t know, my wench,” said the father, tenderly. “Ask Mr. Riley; he knows.”
Maggie came round promptly in front of Mr. Riley, and said, “How far is it, please, sir?”
“Oh, a long, long way off,” that gentleman answered, being of opinion that children, when they are not naughty, should always be spoken to jocosely. “You must borrow the seven-leagued boots to get to him.”
“That’s nonsense!” said Maggie, tossing her head haughtily, and turning away, with the tears springing in her eyes. She began to dislike Mr. Riley; it was evident he thought her silly and of no consequence.
“Hush, Maggie! for shame of you, asking questions and chattering,” said her mother. “Come and sit down on 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 labour of suggesting some solution or compromise—a labour 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 neighbours 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 neutralised 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 recognisable 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.
