“And now, Poyser, as Satchell is laid up, I am intending to
let the Chase Farın to a respectable tenant.
let the Chase Farın to a respectable tenant.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v09 - Dra to Eme
Bless your sweet face!
” said Mrs.
Poyser, who was remarkable for the facility with which she could
relapse from her official objurgatory to one of fondness or of
friendly converse. Never mind! Mother's done her ironing
She's going to put the ironing things away. ”
"Munny, I tould 'ike to do into de barn to Tommy, to see
de whittawd. ”
"No, no, no; Totty 'ud get her feet wet,” said Mrs. Poyser,
carrying away her iron. “Run into the dairy and see Cousin
Hetty make the butter. ”
“I tould like a bit of pum-take,” rejoined Totty, who seemed
to be provided with several relays of requests; at the same time
taking the opportunity of her momentary leisure to put her
fingers into a bowl of starch and drag it down so as to empty
the contents with tolerable completeness on to the ironing-sheet.
“Did ever anybody see the like ? " screamed Mrs. Poyser, run-
ning towards the table when her eye had fallen on the blue
stream. “The child's allays i' mischief if your back's turned a
minute. What shall I do to you, you naughty, naughty gell? ”
Totty, however, had descended from her chair with great swift-
ness, and was already in retreat towards the dairy with a sort of
waddling run, and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck
which made her look like the metamorphosis of a white sucking
pig.
The starch having been wiped up by Molly's help, and the
ironing apparatus put by, Mrs. Poyser took up her knitting,
## p. 5397 (#573) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5397
Ah! your
which always lay ready at hand and was the work she liked best,
because she could carry it on automatically as she walked to and
fro. But now she came and sat down opposite Dinah, whom she
looked at in a meditative way, as she knitted her gray worsted
stocking
“You look th' image o' your Aunt Judith, Dinah, when you
sit a-sewing. I could almost fancy it was thirty years back, and
I was a little gell at home, looking at Judith as she sat at her
work after she'd done the house up; only it was a little cottage,
father's was, and not a big rambling house as gets dirty i one
corner as fast as you clean it in another; but for all that I could
fancy you was your Aunt Judith, only her hair was a deal darker
than yours, and she was stouter and broader i' the shoulders.
Judith and me allays hung together, though she had such queer
ways, but your mother and her never could agree.
mother little thought as she'd have a daughter just cut out after
the very pattern of Judith, and leave her an orphan too, for Judith
to take care on, and bring up with a spoon when she was in the
grave-yard at Stoniton. I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear
a pound weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce.
And she was just the same from the first o' my remembering
her; it made no difference in her, as I could see, when she took
to the Methodists, only she talked a bit different, and wore a
different sort o' cap; but she'd never in her life spent a penny
on herself more than keeping herself decent. ”
“She was a blessed woman,” said Dinah: "God had given her
a loving, self-forgetting nature, and he perfected it by grace.
And she was very fond of you too, Aunt Rachel. I've often
heard her talk of you in the same sort of way. When she had
that bad illness, and I was only eleven years old, she used to say,
(You'll have a friend on earth in your Aunt Rachel, if I'm taken
from you; for she has a kind heart;' and I'm sure I've found
it so. ”
“I don't know how, child; anybody 'ud be cunning to do any-
thing for you, I think; you're like the birds o'th' air, and live
nobody knows how. I'd ha' been glad to behave to you like a
mother's sister, if you'd come and live i' this country, where
there's some shelter and victual for man and beast, and folks
don't live on the naked hills, like poultry a-scratching on a gravel
bank. And then you might get married to some decent man,
and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off
## p. 5398 (#574) ###########################################
5398
GEORGE ELIOT
that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt
Judith ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a
poor wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a penny
beforehand, I know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very
like a cow, for he's allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all
they're poor, and made 'em welcome to the house; and 'ud do
for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do for Hetty, though
she's his own niece. And there's linen in the house as I could
well spare you, for I've got lots o' sheeting, and table-clothing,
and toweling, as isn't made up. There's a piece o' sheeting I
could give you as that squinting Kitty spun — she was a rare girl
to spin, for all she squinted and the children couldn't abide her;
and you know the spinning's going on constant, and there's new
linen wove twice as fast as the old wears out. But where's the
use o' talking, if ye wonna be persuaded, and settle down like
any other woman in her senses, . i'stead o' wearing yourself out
with walking and preaching, and giving away every penny you
get, so as you've nothing saved against sickness; and all the things
you've got i' the world, I verily believe, 'ud go into a bundle no
bigger nor a double cheese. And all because you've got notions
i' your head about religion more nor what's i' the Catechism and
the Prayer-book. ”
“But not more than what's in the Bible, Aunt,” said Dinah.
“Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter,” Mrs. Poyser re-
joined rather sharply; "else why shouldn't them as know best
what's in the Bible — the parsons and people as have got
nothing to do but learn it — do the same as you do? But for
the matter o’that, if everybody was to do like you, the world
must come to a standstill; for if everybody tried to do without
house and home, and with poor eating and drinking, and was
allays talking as we must despise the things o' the world, as you
say, I should like to know where the pick o' the stock, and the
corn, and the best new-milk cheeses 'ud have to go. Everybody
'ud be wanting bread made o' tail ends, and everybody 'ud be
running after everybody else to preach to 'em, istead o' bring-
ing up their families, and laying by against a bad harvest. It
stands to sense as that can't be the right religion. ”
“Nay, dear Aunt, you never heard me say that all people
are called to forsake their work and their families.
It's quite
right the land should be plowed and sowed, and the precious
corn stored, and the things of this life cared for, and right that
## p. 5399 (#575) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5399
people should rejoice in their families, and provide for them; so
that this is done in the fear of the Lord, and that they are not
unmindful of the soul's wants while they are caring for the body.
We can all be servants of God wherever our lot is cast, but he
gives us different sorts of work, according as he fits us for it and
calls us to it. I can no more help spending my life in trying to
do what I can for the souls of others, than you could help run-
ning if you heard little Totty crying at the other end of the
house; the voice would go to your heart, you would think the
dear child was in trouble or in danger, and you couldn't rest
without running to help her and comfort her. ”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door,
“I know it ’ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for
hours. You'd make me the same answer, at th' end. I might as
well talk to the running brook, and tell it to stan' still. ”
The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now
for Mrs. Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was
going on in the yard, the gray worsted stocking making a steady
progress in her hands all the while. But she had not been
standing there more than five minutes before she came in again,
and said to Dinah in rather a flurried, awe-stricken tone: -
“If there isn't Captain Donnithorne and Mr. Irwine a-coming
into the yard! I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your
preaching on the Green, Dinah; it's you must answer 'em, for
I'm dumb. I've said enough a'ready about your bringing such
disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I wouldn't ha' minded if
you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece — folks must put up wi’ their
own kin, as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own flesh
and blood. But to think of a niece o' mine being cause o' my
husband's being turned out of his farm, and me brought him no
fortin but my savins — ”
"Nay, dear Aunt Rachel,” said Dinah gently, "you've no
cause for such fears. I've strong assurance that no evil will
happen to you and my uncle and the children from anything
I've done. I didn't preach without direction. ”
<Direction! I know very well what you mean by direction,”
said Mrs. Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner.
“When there's a bigger maggot than usial in your head you call
it direction’; and then nothing can stir you — you look like the
statty o' the outside o' Treddles'on church, a-starin' and a-smilin'
whether it's fair weather or foul. I hanna common patience with
you. ”
## p. 5400 (#576) ###########################################
5400
GEORGE ELIOT
!
1
By this time the two gentlemen had reached the palings and
had got down from their horses: it was plain they meant to
come in. Mrs. Poyser advanced to the door to meet them, curt-
seying low, and trembling between anger with Dinah and anx-
iety to conduct herself with perfect propriety on the occasion.
For in those days the keenest of bucolic minds felt a whispering
awe at the sight of the gentry, such as of old men felt when
they stood on tiptoe to watch the gods passing by in tall human
shape.
“Well, Mrs. Poyser, how are you after this stormy morning ? »
said Mr. Irwine with his stately cordiality. “Our feet are quite
dry; we shall not soil your beautiful floor. ”
“Oh, sir, don't mention it,” said Mrs. Poyser. “Will you and
the captain please to walk into the parlor ? »
“No, indeed, thank you, Mrs. Poyser,” said the captain, look-
ing eagerly round the kitchen, as if his eye were seeking some-
thing it could not find. "I delight in your kitchen. I think it
is the most charming room I know. I should like every farmer's
wife to come and look at it for a pattern. "
"Oh, you're pleased to say so, sir. Pray take a seat,” said
Mrs. Poyser, relieved a little by this compliment and the captain's
evident good-humor, but still glancing anxiously at Mr. Irwine,
who she saw was looking at Dinah and advancing towards her.
Poyser is not at home, is he? ” said Captain Donnithorne,
seating himself where he could see along the short passage to
the open dairy door.
“No, sir, he isn't; he's gone to Rosseter to see Mr. West, the
factor, about the wool. But there's father i' the barn, sir, if
he'd be of any use. ”
"No, thank you; I'll just look at the whelps and leave a
message about them with your shepherd. I must come another
day and see your husband; I want to have a consultation with
him about horses. Do you know when he's likely to be at
liberty ? ”
"Why, sir, you can hardly miss him, except it's o' Treddles’on
market-day — that's of a Friday, you know. For if he's any-
where on the farm we can send for him in a minute. If we'd
got rid of the Scantlands we should have no outlying fields; and
I should be glad of it, for if ever anything happens he's sure to
be gone to the Scantlands. Things allays happen so contrairy, if
they've a chance; and it's an unnat'ral thing to have one bit o'
your farm in one county and all the rest in another. »
1
## p. 5401 (#577) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5401
“Ah, the Scantlands would go much better with Choyce's
farm, especially as he wants dairy land and you've got plenty. I
think yours is the prettiest farm on the estate, though; and do
you know, Mrs. Poyser, if I were going to marry and settle, I
should be tempted to turn you out, and do up this fine old
house, and turn farmer myself. ”
“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Poyser, rather alarmed, "you wouldn't
like it at all. As for farming, it's putting money into your
pocket wi' your right hand and fetching it out wi' your left. As
fur as I can see, it's raising victual for other folks, and just get-
ting a mouthful for yourself and your children as you go along:
Not as you'd be like a poor man as wants to get his bread: you
could afford to lose as much money as you liked i’ farming; but
it's poor fun losing money, I should think, though I understan'
it's what the great folks i' London play at more than anything.
For my husband heard at market as Lord Dacey's eldest son had
lost thousands upo' thousands to the Prince o' Wales, and they
say my lady was going to pawn her jewels to pay for him. But
you know more about that than I do, sir. But as for farm-
ing, sir, I canna think as you'd like it; and this house — the
draughts in it are enough to cut you through, and it's my opinion
the floors up-stairs are very rotten, and the rats i’ the cellar are
beyond anything. ”
«Why, that's a terrible picture, Mrs. Poyser. I think I should
be doing you a service to turn you out of such a place.
But
there's no chance of that. I'm not likely to settle for the next
twenty years, till I'm a stout gentleman of forty; and my grand-
father would never consent to part with such good tenants as
you. ”
you
“Well, sir, if he thinks so well o' Mr. Poyser for a tenant, I
wish could put in a word for him to allow us some new gates
for the Five Closes, for my husband's been asking and asking till
he's tired; and to think o what he's done for the farm; and's
never had a penny allowed him, be the times bad or good. And
as I've said to my husband often and often, I'm sure if the cap-
tain had anything to do with it, it wouldn't be so. Not as I
wish to speak disrespectful o' them as have got the power i'
their hands, but it's more than flesh and blood 'ull bear some-
times, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late,
and hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as
the cheese may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the
## p. 5402 (#578) ###########################################
5402
GEORGE ELIOT
1
wheat may grow green again i' the sheaf- and after all, at th'
end o' the year, it's like as if you'd been cooking a feast and had
got the smell of it for your pains.
Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed
along without any check from her preliminary awe of the gen.
try.
The confidence she felt in her own powers of exposition
was a motive force that overcame all resistance.
“I'm afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were
to speak about the gates, Mrs. Poyser,” said the captain; “though
I assure you there's no man on the estate I would sooner say a
word for than your husband. I know his farm is in better order
than any other within ten miles of us; and as for the kitchen,"
he added, smiling, "I don't believe there's one in the kingdom
to beat it. By-the-by, I've never seen your dairy: I must see
your dairy, Mrs. Poyser. ”
"Indeed, sir, it's not fit for you to go in, for Hetty's in the
middle o' making the butter, for the churning was thrown late,
and I'm quite ashamed. ” This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and
believing that the captain was really interested in her milk-
pans, and would adjust his opinion of her to the appearance of
her dairy.
“Oh, I've no doubt it's in capital order. Take me in,” said
the captain, leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.
MRS. POYSER (HAS HER SAY OUT »
From (Adam Bede)
S
OMETHING unwonted must clearly be in the wind, for the old
Squire's visits to his tenantry were rare; and though Mrs.
Poyser had during the last twelvemonth recited many imagi-
nary speeches, meaning even more than met the ear, which she
was quite determined to make to him the next time he appeared
within the gates of the Hall Farm, the speeches had always re-
mained imaginary.
* Good-day, Mrs. Poyser,” said the old Squire, peering at her
with his short-sighted eyes — a mode of looking at her which,
as Mrs. Poyser observed, “allays aggravated her: it was as if
you was a insect, and he was going to dab his finger-nail on
you. ”
## p. 5403 (#579) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5403
ser.
However, she said, “Your servant, sir,” and curtsied with an
air of perfect deference as she advanced towards him; she was
not the woman to misbehave towards her betters, and fly in the
face of the Catechism, without severe provocation.
"Is your husband at home, Mrs. Poyser ? »
“Yes, sir; he's only i’ the rick-yard. I'll send for him in a
minute, if you'll please to get down and step in. ”
« Thank you; I will do so. I want to consult him about a
little matter; but you are quite as much concerned in it, if not
more. I must have your opinion too. ”
“Hetty, run and tell your uncle to come in,” said Mrs. Poy-
ser as they entered the house, and the old gentleman bowed low
in answer to Hetty's curtsy; while Totty, conscious of a pina-
fore stained with gooseberry jam, stood hiding her face against
the clock, and peeping round furtively.
“What a fine old kitchen this is ! ” said Mr. Donnithorne,
looking round admiringly. He always spoke in the same delib-
erate, well-chiseled, polite way, whether his words were sugary
or venomous. “And you keep it so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poy-
I like these premises, do you know, beyond any on the
estate. "
“Well, sir, since you're fond of 'em, I should be glad if you'd
let a bit o' repairs be done to 'em, for the boarding's i' that
state as we're like to be eaten up wi' rats and mice; and the
cellar, you may stan' up to your knees i’ water in 't, if you like
to go down; but perhaps you'd rather believe my words. Won't
you please to sit down, sir ?
“Not yet; I must see your dairy. I have not seen it for
years, and I hear on all hands about your fine cheese and but-
ter,” said the Squire, looking politely unconscious that there
could be any question on which he and Mrs. Poyser might hap-
pen to disagree. "I think I see the door open there: you must
not be surprised if I cast a covetous eye on your cream and
butter. I don't expect that Mrs. Satchell's cream and butter will
bear comparison with yours. ”
"I can't say, sir, I'm sure. It's seldom I see other folks'
butter, though there's some on it as one's no need to see the
smell's enough. "
«Ah, now this I like,” said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round
at the damp temple of cleanliness, but keeping near the door.
“I'm sure I should like my breakfast better if I knew the butter
## p. 5404 (#580) ###########################################
5404
GEORGE ELIOT
« Do
and cream came from this dairy. Thank you, that really is a
pleasant sight. Unfortunately, my slight tendency to rheumatism
makes me afraid of damp; I'll sit down in your comfortable
kitchen. Ah, Poyser, how do you do? In the midst of business,
I see, as usual.
I've been looking at your wife's beautiful dairy:
the best manager in the parish, is she not?
Mr. Poyser had just entered in shirt-sleeves and open waist-
coat, with a face a shade redder than usual, from the exertion
of “pitching. ” As he stood, red, rotund, and radiant, before the
small, wiry, cool old gentleman, he looked like a prize apple
by the side of a withered crab.
“Will you please to take this chair, sir ? ” he said, lifting his
father's arm-chair forward a little; "you'll find it easy. ”
“No, thank you, I never sit in easy-chairs," said the old gen-
tleman, seating himself on a small chair near the door.
you know, Mrs. Poyser - sit down, pray, both of you — I've been
far from contented, for some time, with Mrs. Satchell's dairy
management. I think she has not a good method, as you have. ”
Indeed, sir, I can't speak to that,” said Mrs. Poyser, in a
hard voice, rolling and unrolling her knitting, and looking icily
out of the window, as she continued to stand opposite the
Squire. Poyser might sit down if he liked, she thought: she
wasn't going to sit down, as if she'd give in to any such
smooth-tongued palaver. Mr. Poyser, who looked and felt the
reverse of icy, did sit down in his three-cornered chair.
“And now, Poyser, as Satchell is laid up, I am intending to
let the Chase Farın to a respectable tenant. I'm tired of having
a farm on my own hands — nothing is made the best of in such
cases, as you know. A satisfactory bailiff is hard to find; and I
think you and I, Poyser, and your excellent wife here, can enter
into a little arrangement in consequence, which will be to our
mutual advantage. ”
"Oh," said Mr. Poyser, with a good-natured blankness of
imagination as to the nature of the arrangement.
“If I'm called upon to speak, sir,” said Mrs. Poyser, after
glancing at her husband with pity at his softness, you know
better than me; but I don't see what the Chase Farm is t' us
we've cumber enough wi' our own farm. Not but what I'm glad
to hear o' anybody respectable coming into the parish: there's
some as ha' been brought in as hasn't been looked on i' that
character. ”
## p. 5405 (#581) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5405
“You're likely to find Mr. Thurle an excellent neighbor, I
assure you: such a one as you will feel glad to have accommo-
dated by the little plan I'm going to mention; especially as I
hope you will find it as much to your own advantage as his. ”
«Indeed, sir, if it's anything tour advantage, it'll be the
first offer o' the sort I've heared on. It's them as take advan-
tage that get advantage i' this world, I think: folks have to
wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em. ”
“The fact is, Poyser," said the Squire, ignoring Mrs. Poyser's
theory of worldly prosperity, “there is too much dairy land, and
too little plow land, on the Chase Farm, to suit Thurle's pur-
pose - indeed, he will only take the farm on condition of some
change in it: his wife, it appears, is not a clever dairywoman
like yours. Now, the plan I'm thinking of is to effect a little
exchange. If you were to have the Hollow Pastures, you might
increase your dairy, which must be so profitable under your
wife's management; and I should request you, Mrs. Poyser, to
supply my house with milk, cream, and butter, at the market
prices. On the other hand, Poyser, you might let Thurle have
the Lower and Upper Ridges, which really, with our wet sea-
sons would be a good riddance for you. There is much less
risk in dairy land than corn land. ”
Mr. Poyser was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees,
his head on one side, and his mouth screwed up- apparently ab-
sorbed in making the tips of his fingers meet so as to represent
with perfect accuracy the ribs of a ship. He was much too acute
a man not to see through the whole business, and to foresee per-
fectly what would be his wife's view of the subject; but he dis-
liked giving unpleasant answers: unless it was on a point of
farming practice, he would rather give up than have a quarrel,
any day; and after all, it mattered more to his wife than to him.
So, after a few moments' silence, he looked up at her and said
mildly, "What dost say ?
Mrs. Poyser had had her eyes fixed on her husband with cold
severity during his silence, but now she turned away her head
with a toss, looked icily at the opposite roof of the cow-shed, and
spearing her knitting together with the loose pin, held it firmly
between her clasped hands.
"Say? Why, I say you may do as you like about giving up
any o' your corn land afore your lease is up, which it won't be
for a year come next Michaelmas, but I'll not consent to take
## p. 5406 (#582) ###########################################
5406
GEORGE ELIOT
more dairy work into my hands, either for love or money;
and there's nayther love nor money here, as I can see, on’y
other folks' love o' theirselves, and the money as is to go into
other folks' pockets. I know there's them as is born town
the land, and them as is born to sweat on 't ”- here Mrs. Poyser
paused to gasp a little —"and I know it's christened folks' duty
to submit to their betters as fur as flesh and blood 'ull bear it;
but I'll not make a martyr o' myself, and wear myself to skin and
bone, and worret myself as if I was a churn wi' butter a-coming
in 't, for no landlord in England, not if he was King George
himself. »
“No, no, my dear Mrs. Poyser, certainly not,” said the Squire,
still confident in his own powers of persuasion; "you must not
overwork yourself; but don't you think your work will rather be
lessened than increased in this way? There is so much milk re-
quired at the Abbey, that you will have little increase of cheese
and butter making from the addition to your dairy; and I believe
selling the milk is the most profitable way of disposing of dairy
produce, is it not ? »
“Ay, that's true,” said Mr. Poyser, unable to repress an opin-
ion on a question of farming profits, and forgetting that it was
not in this case a purely abstract question.
I dare say,” said Mrs. Poyser bitterly, turning her head half-
way towards her husband, and looking at the vacant arm-chair-
“I dare say it's true for men as sit i' th' chimney-corner and
make believe as everything's cut wi' ins an' outs to fit int' every-
thing else. If you could make a pudding wi' thinking o' the bat-
ter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner. How do I know whether the
milk 'ull be wanted constant? What's to make me sure
house won't be put o' board wage afore we're many months older,
and then I may have to lie awake o' nights wi' twenty gallons o'
milk on my mind — and Dingall ’ull take no more butter, let alone
paying for it; and we must fat pigs till we're obliged to beg the
butcher on our knees to buy 'em, and lose half of 'em wi' the
measles. And there's the fetching and carrying, as 'ud be welly
half a day's work for a man an' hoss — that's to be took out o'
the profits, I reckon ? But there's folks 'ud hold a sieve under
the pump and expect to carry away the water. ”
« That difficulty - about the fetching and carrying - you will
not have, Mrs. Poyser,” said the Squire, who thought that this
entrance into particulars indicated a distant inclination to com-
(C
as the
## p. 5407 (#583) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5407
promise on Mrs. Poyser's part — "Bethell will do that regularly
with the cart and pony. "
“Oh, sir, begging your pardon, I've never been used t having
gentlefolks' servants coming about my back places, a-making love
to both the gells at once, and keeping 'em with their hands on
their hips listening to all manner o' gossip when they should be
down on their knees a-scouring. If we're to go to ruin, it shanna
be wi' having our back kitchen turned into a public. ”
"Well, Poyser," said the Squire, shifting his tactics, and look-
ing as if he thought Mrs. Poyser had suddenly withdrawn from
the proceedings and left the room, “you can turn the Hollows
into feeding land. I can easily make another arrangement about
supplying my house. And I shall not forget your readiness to
accommodate your landlord as well as a neighbor. I know you
will be glad to have your lease renewed for three years when
the present one expires; otherwise, I dare say, Thurle, who is a
man of some capital, would be glad to take both the farms, as
they could be worked so well together. But I don't want to part
with an old tenant like you. "
To be thrust out of the discussion in this way would have
been enough to complete Mrs. Poyser's exasperation, even with-
out the final threat. Her husband, really alarmed at the possi-
bility of their leaving the old place where he had been bred and
born — for he believed the old Squire had small spite enough
for anything — was beginning a mild remonstrance explanatory
of the inconvenience he should find in having to buy and sell
more stock, with —
“Well, sir, I think as it's rather hard — ” when Mrs. Poyser
burst in with the desperate determination to have her say out
this once, though it were to rain notices to quit, and the only
shelter were the workhouse.
«Then, sir, if I may speak — as, for all I'm a woman, and
there's folks as thinks a woman's fool enough to stan' by an'
look on while the men sign her soul away, I've a right to speak,
for I make one quarter o’ the rent, and save another quarter-
I say, if Mr. Thurle's so ready to take farms under you, it's a
pity but what he should take this, and see if he likes to live in
a house wi' all the plagues o' Egypt in 't-wi' the cellar full o'
water, and frogs and toads hoppin' up the steps by dozens—and
the floors rotten, and the rats and mice gnawing every bit o'
cheese, and runnin' over our heads as we lie i’ bed till we expect
## p. 5408 (#584) ###########################################
5408
GEORGE ELIOT
'em to eat us up alive as it's a mercy they hanna eat the child.
ren long ago. I should like to see if there's another tenant
besides Poyser as 'ud put up wi' never having a bit o' repairs
done till a place tumbles down — and not then, on'y wi' begging
and praying, and having to pay half — and being strung up wi’
the rent as it's much if he gets enough out o' the land to pay,
for all he's put his own money into the ground beforehand. See
if you'll get a stranger to lead such a life here as that: a mag-
got must be born i’ the rotten cheese to like it, I reckon. You
may run away from my words, sir,” continued Mrs. Poyser, fol-
lowing the old Squire beyond the door - for after the first mo-
ments of stunned surprise he had got up, and waving his hand
towards her with a smile, had walked out towards his pony. But
it was impossible for him to get away immediately, for John was
walking the pony up and down the yard, and was some distance
from the causeway when his master beckoned —
“You may run away from my words, sir, and you may go
spinnin' underhand ways o' doing us a mischief, for you've got
Old Harry to your friend, though nobody else is; but I tell you
for once
as we're not dumb creatures to be abused and made
money on by them as ha' got the lash i’ their hands, for want
o' knowing how t' undo the tackle. An' if I'm th' only one as
speaks my mind, there's plenty o' the same way o' thinking i’
this parish and the next to 't, for your name 's no better than a
brimstone match in everybody's nose — if it isna two-three old
folks as you think o' saving your soul by giving 'em a bit o' flan-
nel and a drop o' porridge. An' you may be right i' thinking
it'll take but little to save your soul, for it'll be the smallest
savin' y' iver made, wi' all your scrapin'. "
There are occasions on which two servant-girls and a wagoner
may be a formidable audience, and as the Squire rode away on
his black pony, even the gift of short-sightedness did not pre-
vent him from being aware that Molly and Nancy and Tim were
grinning not far from him. Perhaps he suspected that sour old
John was grinning behind him - which was also the fact.
Mean-
while the bull-dog, the black-and-tan terrier, Alick's sheep-dog,
and the gander hissing at a safe distance from the pony's heels,
carried out the idea of Mrs. Poyser's solo in an impressive
quartet.
Mrs. Poyser, however, had no
seen the pony moved
off than she turned round, gave the two hilarious damsels a look
sooner
## p. 5409 (#585) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5409
which drove them into the back kitchen, and unspearing her
knitting, began to knit again with her usual rapidity, as she re-
entered the house.
“Thee'st done it now,” said Mr. Poyser, a little alarmed and
uneasy, but not without some triumphant amusement at his wife's
outbreak.
« Yes, I know I've done it,” said Mrs. Poyser; but I've had
my say out, and I shall be th' easier for 't all my life. There's
no pleasure i' living if you're to be corked up forever, and only
dribble your mind out by the sly like a leaky barrel. I shan't
repent saying what I think, if I live to be as old as th' old
Squire; and there's little likelihoods — for it seems as if them as
aren't wanted here are th’ only folks as aren't wanted i'th' other
world. ”
“But thee wutna like moving from th' old place, this Mich-
aelmas twelvemonth,” said Mr. Poyser, “and going into a strange
parish, where thee know'st nobody. It'll be hard upon us both,
and upo' father too. ”
“Eh, it's no use worreting; there's plenty o' things may hap-
pen between this and Michaelmas twelvemonth. The captain
may be master afore then, for what we know," said Mrs. Poyser,
inclined to take an unusually hopeful view of an embarrassment
which had been brought about by her own merit, and not by
other people's fault.
"I'm none for worreting,” said Mr. Poyser, rising from his
three-cornered chair, and walking slowly towards the door; but
I should be loath to leave th’ old place, and the parish where I
was bred and born, and father afore me. We should leave our
roots behind us, I doubt, and niver thrive again. ”
THE PRISONERS
From (Romola)
II
N 1493 the rumor spread and became louder and louder that
Charles the Eighth of France was about to cross the Alps
with a mighty army; and the Italian populations, accustomed,
since Italy had ceased to be the heart of the Roman empire, to
look for an arbitrator from afar, began vaguely to regard his
coming as a means of avenging their wrongs and redressing their
grievances.
IX—339
## p. 5410 (#586) ###########################################
5410
GEORGE ELIOT
And in that rumor Savonarola had heard the assurance that
his prophecy was being verified. What was it that filled the ears
of the prophets of old but the distant tread of foreign armies,
coming to do the work of justice ? He no longer looked vaguely
to the horizon for the coming storm: he pointed to the rising
cloud. The French army was that new deluge which was to pu-
rify the earth from iniquity; the French King, Charles VIII. , was
the instrument elected by God as Cyrus had been of old, and all
men who desired good rather than evil were to rejoice in his
coming. For the scourge would fall destructively on the impeni-
tent alone. Let any city of Italy, let Florence above all - Flor-
ence beloved of God, since to its ear the warning voice had been
specially sent — repent and turn from its ways like Nineveh of
old, and the storm cloud would roll over it and leave only refresh-
ing rain-drops.
Fra Girolamo's word was powerful; yet now that the new
Cyrus had already been three months in Italy, and was not far
from the gates of Florence, his presence was expected there with
mixed feelings, in which fear and distrust certainly predominated.
At present it was not understood that he had redressed any
grievances; and the Florentines clearly had nothing to thank him
for. He held their strong frontier fortresses, which Piero de'
Medici had given up to him without securing any honorable terms
in return; he had done nothing to quell the alarming revolt of
Pisa, which had been encouraged by his presence to throw off
the Florentine yoke; and “orators,” even with a prophet at their
head, could win no assurance from him, except that he would
settle everything when he was once within the walls of Florence.
Still, there was the satisfaction of knowing that the exasperating
Piero de' Medici had been fairly pelted out for the ignominious
surrender of the fortresses, and in that act of energy the spirit
of the Republic had recovered some of its old fire.
The preparations for the equivocal guest were not entirely
those of a city resigned to submission. Behind the bright dra-
pery and banners symbolical of joy, there were preparations of
another sort made with common accord by government and
people. Well hidden within walls there were hired soldiers of
the Republic, hastily called in from the surrounding districts;
there were old arms duly furbished, and sharp tools and heavy
cudgels laid carefully at hand, to be snatched up on short notice;
there were excellent boards and stakes to form barricades upon
## p. 5411 (#587) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5411
occasion, and a good supply of stones to make a surprising hail
from the upper windows. Above all, there were people very
strongly in the humor for fighting any personage who might be
supposed to have designs of hectoring over them, they having
lately tasted that new pleasure with much relish. This humor
was not diminished by the sight of occasional parties of French-
men, coming beforehand to choose their quarters, with a hawk,
perhaps, on their left wrist, and metaphorically speaking, a piece
of chalk in their right hand to mark Italian doors withal; espe-
cially as creditable historians imply that many sons of France
were at that time characterized by something approaching to a
swagger, which must have whetted the Florentine appetite for a
little stone-throwing.
And this was the temper of Florence on the morning of the
17th of November, 1494.
The sky was gray, but that made little difference in the
Piazza del Duomo, which was covered with its holiday sky of
blue drapery, and its constellations of yellow lilies and coats of
arms. The sheaves of banners were unfurled at the angles of
the Baptistery, but there was no carpet yet on the steps of the
Duomo, for the marble was being trodden by numerous feet that
were not at all exceptional. It was the hour of the Advent ser-
mons, and the very same reasons which had flushed the streets
with holiday color were reasons why the preaching in the Duomo
could least of all be dispensed with.
But not all the feet in the Piazza were hastening towards the
steps. People of high and low degree were moving to and fro
with the brisk pace of men who had errands before them; groups
of talkers were thickly scattered, some willing to be late for the
sermon, and others content not to hear it at all.
The expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was
not that of men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an
opening holiday. Some were in close and eager discussion; others
were listening with keen interest to a single spokesman, and yet
from time to time turned round with a scanning glance at any new
passer-by. At the corner looking towards the Via de' Cerrettani -
just where the artificial rainbow light of the Piazza ceased, and
the gray morning fell on the sombre stone houses — there was a
remarkable cluster of the working people, most of them bearing
## p. 5412 (#588) ###########################################
5412
GEORGE ELIOT
on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labor, and
almost all of them carrying some weapon, or some tool which
might serve as a weapon upon occasion. Standing in the gray
light of the street, with bare brawny arms and soiled garments,
they made all the more striking the transition from the bright-
ness of the Piazza. They were listening to the thin notary, Ser
Cioni, who had just paused on his way to the Duomo. His bit-
ing words could get only a contemptuous reception two years and
a half before in the Mercato; but now he spoke with the more
complacent humor of a man whose party is uppermost, and who
is conscious of some influence with the people.
“Never talk to me,” he was saying in his incisive voice,
“never talk to me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce French infantry;
they might as well be in the narrow passes of the mountains as
in our streets; and peasants have destroyed the finest armies of
our condottieri in time past, when they had once got them
between steep precipices. I tell you, Florentines need be afraid
of no army in their own streets. ”
« That's true, Ser Cioni,” said a man whose arms and hands
were discolored by crimson dye, which looked like blood-stains,
and who had a small hatchet stuck in his belt; "and those French
cavaliers who came in squaring themselves in their smart doub-
lets the other day, saw a sample of the dinner we could serve
up for them. I was carrying my cloth in Ognissanti, when I
saw my fine Messeri going by, looking round as if they thought
the houses of the Vespucci and the Agli a poor pick of loadings
for them, and eyeing us Fiorentines, like top-knotted cocks as
they are, as if they pitied us because we didn't know how to
strut. Yes, my fine Galli, says I, stick out your stomachs;
I've got a meat-axe in my belt that will
go
inside
you all the
easier;' when presently the old cow lowed,* and I knew some-
thing had happened — no matter what. So I threw my cloth in
at the first doorway, and took hold of my meat-axe and ran
after my fine cavaliers towards the Vigna Nuova. And, 'What
is it, Guccio ? ) said I, when he came up with me. I think it's
the Medici coming back,' said Guccio. Bembè! I expected so!
And up we reared a barricade, and the Frenchmen looked be-
hind and saw themselves in a trap; and up comes a good swarın
1
i
*«La vacca muglia” was the phrase for the sounding of the great bell
in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.
## p. 5413 (#589) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5413
*
« San
of our Ciompi,* and one of them with a big scythe he had in his
hand mowed off one of the fine cavaliers' feathers: — it's true!
And the lasses peppered a few stones down to frighten them.
However, Piero de' Medici wasn't come after all; and it was a
pity; for we'd have left him neither legs nor wings to go away
with again. "
Well spoken, Oddo,” said a young butcher, with his knife
at his belt; "and it's my belief Piero will be a good while before
he wants to come back, for he looked as frightened as a hunted
chicken when we hustled and pelted him in the piazza. He's a
coward, else he might have made a better stand when he'd got
his horsemen. But we'll swallow no Medici any more, whatever
else the French king wants to make us swallow. ”
“But I like not those French cannon they talk of,” said Goro,
none the less fat for two years' additional grievances.
Giovanni defend us! If Messer Domeneddio means so well by
us as your Frate says he does, Ser Cioni, why shouldn't he have
sent the French another way to Naples ? ”
“Ay, Goro," said the dyer; “that's a question worth putting.
Thou art not such a pumpkin-head as I took thee for. Why,
they might have gone to Naples by Bologna, eh, Ser Cioni? - or
if they'd gone to Arezzo -- we wouldn't have minded their going
to Arezzo. ”
“Fools! It will be for the good and glory of Florence,” Ser
Cioni began. But he was interrupted by the exclamation, “Look
there! ” which burst from several voices at once, while the faces
were all turned to a party who were advancing along the Via
de' Cerretani.
“It's Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and one of the French noblemen
who are in his house,” said Ser Cioni, in some contempt at this
interruption. “He pretends to look well satisfied — that deep
Tornabuoni — but he's a Medicean in his heart; mind that. ”
The advancing party was rather a brilliant one, for there was
not only the distinguished presence of Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and
the splendid costume of the Frenchman with his elaborately dis-
played white linen and gorgeous embroidery; there were two
other Florentines of high birth, in handsome dresses donned
for the coming procession, and on the left hand of the French-
was a figure that was not to be eclipsed by any amount of
* The poorer artisans connected with the wool trade – wool-beaters, carders,
washers, etc.
man
## p. 5414 (#590) ###########################################
5414
GEORGE ELIOT
intention or brocade - a figure we have often seen before. He
wore nothing but black, for he was in mourning; but the black
was presently to be covered by a red mantle, for he too was to
walk in procession as Latin Secretary to the Ten. Tito Melema
had become conspicuously serviceable in the intercourse with the
French guests, from his familiarity with Southern Italy and his
readiness in the French tongue, which he had spoken in his early
youth; and he had paid more than one visit to the French camp
at Signa. The lustre of good fortune was upon him; he was
smiling, listening, and explaining, with his usual graceful unpre-
tentious ease, and only a very keen eye bent on studying him
could have marked a certain amount of change in him which
was not to be accounted for by the lapse of eighteen months.
It was that change which comes from the final departure of
moral youthfulness — from the distinct self-conscious adoption of
a part in life.
The lines of the face were as soft as ever, the
eyes as pellucid; but something was gone — something as in-
definable as the changes in the morning twilight.
The Frenchman was gathering instructions concerning cere-
monial before riding back to Signa, and now he was going to
have a final survey of the Piazza del Duomo, where the royal
procession was to pause for religious purposes. The distinguished
party attracted the notice of all eyes as it entered the Piazza,
but the gaze was not entirely cordial and admiring; there were
remarks not altogether allusive and mysterious to the French-
man's hoof-shaped shoes - delicate flattery of royal superfluity in
toes; and there was no care that certain snarlings at «Mediceans ”
should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo Tornabuoni possessed
that power of dissembling annoyance which is demanded in a
man who courts popularity, and Tito, besides his natural disposi-
tion to overcome ill-will by good-humor, had the unimpassioned
feeling of the alien towards names and details that move the
deepest passions of the native.
Arrived where they could get a good oblique view of the
Duomo, the party paused. The festoons and devices placed over
the central doorway excited some demur, and Tornabuoni beck-
oned to Piero di Cosimo, who, as was usual with him at this
hour, was lounging in front of Nello's shop. There was soon an
animated discussion, and it became highly amusing from the
Frenchman's astonishment at Piero's odd pungency of statement,
which Tito translated literally. Even snarling onlookers became
## p. 5415 (#591) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5415
curious, and their faces began to wear the half-smiling, half-
humiliated expression of people who are not within hearing of
the joke which is producing infectious laughter. It was a de-
lightful moment for Tito, for he was the only one of the party
who could have made so amusing an interpreter, and without
any disposition to triumphant self-gratulation he reveled in the
sense that he was an object of liking — he basked in approving
glances. The rainbow light fell about the laughing group, and
the grave church-goers had all disappeared within the walls. It
seemed as if the Piazza had been decorated for a real Florentine
holiday.
Meanwhile in the gray light of the unadorned streets there
were on-comers who made no show of linen and brocade, and
whose humor was far from merry. Here too the French dress
and hoofed shoes were conspicuous, but they were being pressed
upon by a large and larger number of non-admiring Florentines.
In the van of the crowd were three men in scanty clothing; each
had his hands bound together by a cord, and a rope was fastened
round his neck and body in such a way that he who held the
extremity of the rope might easily check any rebellious move-
ment by the threat of throttling. The men who held the ropes
were French soldiers, and by broken Italian phrases and strokes
from the knotted end of the rope, they from time to time stim-
ulated their prisoners to beg. Two of them were obedient, and
to every Florentine they had encountered had held out their
bound hands and said in piteous tones:
« For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us some-
thing towards our ransom! We are Tuscans; we were made
prisoners in Lunigiana. ”
But the third man remained obstinately silent under all the
strokes of the knotted cord. He was very different in aspect
from his two fellow prisoners. They were young and hardy,
and in the scant clothing which the avarice of their captors had
left them, looked like vulgar, sturdy mendicants. But he had
passed the boundary of old age, and could hardly be less than
four or five and sixty. His beard, which had grown long in
neglect, and the hair which fell thick and straight round his
baldness, were nearly white. His thick-set figure was still firm
and upright, though emaciated, and seemed to express energy in
spite of age - an expression that was partly carried out in the
dark eyes and strong dark eyebrows, which had a strangely
## p. 5416 (#592) ###########################################
5416
GEORGE ELIOT
isolated intensity of color in the midst of his yellow, bloodless,
deep-wrinkled face with its lank gray hairs. And yet there was
something fitful in the eyes which contradicted the occasional
flash of energy; after looking round with quick fierceness at
windows and faces, they fell again with a lost and wandering
look. But his lips were motionless, and he held his hands reso-
lutely down.
He would not beg.
This sight had been witnessed by the Florentines with grow-
ing exasperation. Many standing at their doors or passing
quietly along had at once given money -- some in half-automatic
response to an appeal in the name of God, others in that unques-
tioning awe of the French soldiery which had been created by
the reports of their cruel warfare, and on which the French
themselves counted as a guarantee of immunity in their acts of
insolence. But as the group had proceeded farther into the
heart of the city, that compliance had gradually disappeared, and
the soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering troop of
men and boys, who kept up a chorus of exclamations sufficiently
intelligible to foreign ears without any interpreter. The soldiers
themselves began to dislike their position, for with a strong
inclination to use their weapons, they were checked by the
necessity for keeping a secure hold on their prisoners, and they
were now hurrying along in the hope of finding shelter in a
hostelry.
« French dogs! ” « Bullock-feet! » "Snatch their pikes from
them! « Cut the cords and make them run for their prisoners.
They'll run as fast as geese - don't you see they're web-footed ? "
These were the cries which the soldiers vaguely understood to
be jeers, and probably threats.
Poyser, who was remarkable for the facility with which she could
relapse from her official objurgatory to one of fondness or of
friendly converse. Never mind! Mother's done her ironing
She's going to put the ironing things away. ”
"Munny, I tould 'ike to do into de barn to Tommy, to see
de whittawd. ”
"No, no, no; Totty 'ud get her feet wet,” said Mrs. Poyser,
carrying away her iron. “Run into the dairy and see Cousin
Hetty make the butter. ”
“I tould like a bit of pum-take,” rejoined Totty, who seemed
to be provided with several relays of requests; at the same time
taking the opportunity of her momentary leisure to put her
fingers into a bowl of starch and drag it down so as to empty
the contents with tolerable completeness on to the ironing-sheet.
“Did ever anybody see the like ? " screamed Mrs. Poyser, run-
ning towards the table when her eye had fallen on the blue
stream. “The child's allays i' mischief if your back's turned a
minute. What shall I do to you, you naughty, naughty gell? ”
Totty, however, had descended from her chair with great swift-
ness, and was already in retreat towards the dairy with a sort of
waddling run, and an amount of fat on the nape of her neck
which made her look like the metamorphosis of a white sucking
pig.
The starch having been wiped up by Molly's help, and the
ironing apparatus put by, Mrs. Poyser took up her knitting,
## p. 5397 (#573) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5397
Ah! your
which always lay ready at hand and was the work she liked best,
because she could carry it on automatically as she walked to and
fro. But now she came and sat down opposite Dinah, whom she
looked at in a meditative way, as she knitted her gray worsted
stocking
“You look th' image o' your Aunt Judith, Dinah, when you
sit a-sewing. I could almost fancy it was thirty years back, and
I was a little gell at home, looking at Judith as she sat at her
work after she'd done the house up; only it was a little cottage,
father's was, and not a big rambling house as gets dirty i one
corner as fast as you clean it in another; but for all that I could
fancy you was your Aunt Judith, only her hair was a deal darker
than yours, and she was stouter and broader i' the shoulders.
Judith and me allays hung together, though she had such queer
ways, but your mother and her never could agree.
mother little thought as she'd have a daughter just cut out after
the very pattern of Judith, and leave her an orphan too, for Judith
to take care on, and bring up with a spoon when she was in the
grave-yard at Stoniton. I allays said that o' Judith, as she'd bear
a pound weight any day to save anybody else carrying a ounce.
And she was just the same from the first o' my remembering
her; it made no difference in her, as I could see, when she took
to the Methodists, only she talked a bit different, and wore a
different sort o' cap; but she'd never in her life spent a penny
on herself more than keeping herself decent. ”
“She was a blessed woman,” said Dinah: "God had given her
a loving, self-forgetting nature, and he perfected it by grace.
And she was very fond of you too, Aunt Rachel. I've often
heard her talk of you in the same sort of way. When she had
that bad illness, and I was only eleven years old, she used to say,
(You'll have a friend on earth in your Aunt Rachel, if I'm taken
from you; for she has a kind heart;' and I'm sure I've found
it so. ”
“I don't know how, child; anybody 'ud be cunning to do any-
thing for you, I think; you're like the birds o'th' air, and live
nobody knows how. I'd ha' been glad to behave to you like a
mother's sister, if you'd come and live i' this country, where
there's some shelter and victual for man and beast, and folks
don't live on the naked hills, like poultry a-scratching on a gravel
bank. And then you might get married to some decent man,
and there'd be plenty ready to have you, if you'd only leave off
## p. 5398 (#574) ###########################################
5398
GEORGE ELIOT
that preaching, as is ten times worse than anything your Aunt
Judith ever did. And even if you'd marry Seth Bede, as is a
poor wool-gathering Methodist, and's never like to have a penny
beforehand, I know your uncle 'ud help you with a pig, and very
like a cow, for he's allays been good-natur'd to my kin, for all
they're poor, and made 'em welcome to the house; and 'ud do
for you, I'll be bound, as much as ever he'd do for Hetty, though
she's his own niece. And there's linen in the house as I could
well spare you, for I've got lots o' sheeting, and table-clothing,
and toweling, as isn't made up. There's a piece o' sheeting I
could give you as that squinting Kitty spun — she was a rare girl
to spin, for all she squinted and the children couldn't abide her;
and you know the spinning's going on constant, and there's new
linen wove twice as fast as the old wears out. But where's the
use o' talking, if ye wonna be persuaded, and settle down like
any other woman in her senses, . i'stead o' wearing yourself out
with walking and preaching, and giving away every penny you
get, so as you've nothing saved against sickness; and all the things
you've got i' the world, I verily believe, 'ud go into a bundle no
bigger nor a double cheese. And all because you've got notions
i' your head about religion more nor what's i' the Catechism and
the Prayer-book. ”
“But not more than what's in the Bible, Aunt,” said Dinah.
“Yes, and the Bible too, for that matter,” Mrs. Poyser re-
joined rather sharply; "else why shouldn't them as know best
what's in the Bible — the parsons and people as have got
nothing to do but learn it — do the same as you do? But for
the matter o’that, if everybody was to do like you, the world
must come to a standstill; for if everybody tried to do without
house and home, and with poor eating and drinking, and was
allays talking as we must despise the things o' the world, as you
say, I should like to know where the pick o' the stock, and the
corn, and the best new-milk cheeses 'ud have to go. Everybody
'ud be wanting bread made o' tail ends, and everybody 'ud be
running after everybody else to preach to 'em, istead o' bring-
ing up their families, and laying by against a bad harvest. It
stands to sense as that can't be the right religion. ”
“Nay, dear Aunt, you never heard me say that all people
are called to forsake their work and their families.
It's quite
right the land should be plowed and sowed, and the precious
corn stored, and the things of this life cared for, and right that
## p. 5399 (#575) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5399
people should rejoice in their families, and provide for them; so
that this is done in the fear of the Lord, and that they are not
unmindful of the soul's wants while they are caring for the body.
We can all be servants of God wherever our lot is cast, but he
gives us different sorts of work, according as he fits us for it and
calls us to it. I can no more help spending my life in trying to
do what I can for the souls of others, than you could help run-
ning if you heard little Totty crying at the other end of the
house; the voice would go to your heart, you would think the
dear child was in trouble or in danger, and you couldn't rest
without running to help her and comfort her. ”
“Ah,” said Mrs. Poyser, rising and walking towards the door,
“I know it ’ud be just the same if I was to talk to you for
hours. You'd make me the same answer, at th' end. I might as
well talk to the running brook, and tell it to stan' still. ”
The causeway outside the kitchen door was dry enough now
for Mrs. Poyser to stand there quite pleasantly and see what was
going on in the yard, the gray worsted stocking making a steady
progress in her hands all the while. But she had not been
standing there more than five minutes before she came in again,
and said to Dinah in rather a flurried, awe-stricken tone: -
“If there isn't Captain Donnithorne and Mr. Irwine a-coming
into the yard! I'll lay my life they're come to speak about your
preaching on the Green, Dinah; it's you must answer 'em, for
I'm dumb. I've said enough a'ready about your bringing such
disgrace upo' your uncle's family. I wouldn't ha' minded if
you'd been Mr. Poyser's own niece — folks must put up wi’ their
own kin, as they put up wi' their own noses; it's their own flesh
and blood. But to think of a niece o' mine being cause o' my
husband's being turned out of his farm, and me brought him no
fortin but my savins — ”
"Nay, dear Aunt Rachel,” said Dinah gently, "you've no
cause for such fears. I've strong assurance that no evil will
happen to you and my uncle and the children from anything
I've done. I didn't preach without direction. ”
<Direction! I know very well what you mean by direction,”
said Mrs. Poyser, knitting in a rapid and agitated manner.
“When there's a bigger maggot than usial in your head you call
it direction’; and then nothing can stir you — you look like the
statty o' the outside o' Treddles'on church, a-starin' and a-smilin'
whether it's fair weather or foul. I hanna common patience with
you. ”
## p. 5400 (#576) ###########################################
5400
GEORGE ELIOT
!
1
By this time the two gentlemen had reached the palings and
had got down from their horses: it was plain they meant to
come in. Mrs. Poyser advanced to the door to meet them, curt-
seying low, and trembling between anger with Dinah and anx-
iety to conduct herself with perfect propriety on the occasion.
For in those days the keenest of bucolic minds felt a whispering
awe at the sight of the gentry, such as of old men felt when
they stood on tiptoe to watch the gods passing by in tall human
shape.
“Well, Mrs. Poyser, how are you after this stormy morning ? »
said Mr. Irwine with his stately cordiality. “Our feet are quite
dry; we shall not soil your beautiful floor. ”
“Oh, sir, don't mention it,” said Mrs. Poyser. “Will you and
the captain please to walk into the parlor ? »
“No, indeed, thank you, Mrs. Poyser,” said the captain, look-
ing eagerly round the kitchen, as if his eye were seeking some-
thing it could not find. "I delight in your kitchen. I think it
is the most charming room I know. I should like every farmer's
wife to come and look at it for a pattern. "
"Oh, you're pleased to say so, sir. Pray take a seat,” said
Mrs. Poyser, relieved a little by this compliment and the captain's
evident good-humor, but still glancing anxiously at Mr. Irwine,
who she saw was looking at Dinah and advancing towards her.
Poyser is not at home, is he? ” said Captain Donnithorne,
seating himself where he could see along the short passage to
the open dairy door.
“No, sir, he isn't; he's gone to Rosseter to see Mr. West, the
factor, about the wool. But there's father i' the barn, sir, if
he'd be of any use. ”
"No, thank you; I'll just look at the whelps and leave a
message about them with your shepherd. I must come another
day and see your husband; I want to have a consultation with
him about horses. Do you know when he's likely to be at
liberty ? ”
"Why, sir, you can hardly miss him, except it's o' Treddles’on
market-day — that's of a Friday, you know. For if he's any-
where on the farm we can send for him in a minute. If we'd
got rid of the Scantlands we should have no outlying fields; and
I should be glad of it, for if ever anything happens he's sure to
be gone to the Scantlands. Things allays happen so contrairy, if
they've a chance; and it's an unnat'ral thing to have one bit o'
your farm in one county and all the rest in another. »
1
## p. 5401 (#577) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5401
“Ah, the Scantlands would go much better with Choyce's
farm, especially as he wants dairy land and you've got plenty. I
think yours is the prettiest farm on the estate, though; and do
you know, Mrs. Poyser, if I were going to marry and settle, I
should be tempted to turn you out, and do up this fine old
house, and turn farmer myself. ”
“Oh, sir,” said Mrs. Poyser, rather alarmed, "you wouldn't
like it at all. As for farming, it's putting money into your
pocket wi' your right hand and fetching it out wi' your left. As
fur as I can see, it's raising victual for other folks, and just get-
ting a mouthful for yourself and your children as you go along:
Not as you'd be like a poor man as wants to get his bread: you
could afford to lose as much money as you liked i’ farming; but
it's poor fun losing money, I should think, though I understan'
it's what the great folks i' London play at more than anything.
For my husband heard at market as Lord Dacey's eldest son had
lost thousands upo' thousands to the Prince o' Wales, and they
say my lady was going to pawn her jewels to pay for him. But
you know more about that than I do, sir. But as for farm-
ing, sir, I canna think as you'd like it; and this house — the
draughts in it are enough to cut you through, and it's my opinion
the floors up-stairs are very rotten, and the rats i’ the cellar are
beyond anything. ”
«Why, that's a terrible picture, Mrs. Poyser. I think I should
be doing you a service to turn you out of such a place.
But
there's no chance of that. I'm not likely to settle for the next
twenty years, till I'm a stout gentleman of forty; and my grand-
father would never consent to part with such good tenants as
you. ”
you
“Well, sir, if he thinks so well o' Mr. Poyser for a tenant, I
wish could put in a word for him to allow us some new gates
for the Five Closes, for my husband's been asking and asking till
he's tired; and to think o what he's done for the farm; and's
never had a penny allowed him, be the times bad or good. And
as I've said to my husband often and often, I'm sure if the cap-
tain had anything to do with it, it wouldn't be so. Not as I
wish to speak disrespectful o' them as have got the power i'
their hands, but it's more than flesh and blood 'ull bear some-
times, to be toiling and striving, and up early and down late,
and hardly sleeping a wink when you lie down for thinking as
the cheese may swell, or the cows may slip their calf, or the
## p. 5402 (#578) ###########################################
5402
GEORGE ELIOT
1
wheat may grow green again i' the sheaf- and after all, at th'
end o' the year, it's like as if you'd been cooking a feast and had
got the smell of it for your pains.
Mrs. Poyser, once launched into conversation, always sailed
along without any check from her preliminary awe of the gen.
try.
The confidence she felt in her own powers of exposition
was a motive force that overcame all resistance.
“I'm afraid I should only do harm instead of good, if I were
to speak about the gates, Mrs. Poyser,” said the captain; “though
I assure you there's no man on the estate I would sooner say a
word for than your husband. I know his farm is in better order
than any other within ten miles of us; and as for the kitchen,"
he added, smiling, "I don't believe there's one in the kingdom
to beat it. By-the-by, I've never seen your dairy: I must see
your dairy, Mrs. Poyser. ”
"Indeed, sir, it's not fit for you to go in, for Hetty's in the
middle o' making the butter, for the churning was thrown late,
and I'm quite ashamed. ” This Mrs. Poyser said blushing, and
believing that the captain was really interested in her milk-
pans, and would adjust his opinion of her to the appearance of
her dairy.
“Oh, I've no doubt it's in capital order. Take me in,” said
the captain, leading the way, while Mrs. Poyser followed.
MRS. POYSER (HAS HER SAY OUT »
From (Adam Bede)
S
OMETHING unwonted must clearly be in the wind, for the old
Squire's visits to his tenantry were rare; and though Mrs.
Poyser had during the last twelvemonth recited many imagi-
nary speeches, meaning even more than met the ear, which she
was quite determined to make to him the next time he appeared
within the gates of the Hall Farm, the speeches had always re-
mained imaginary.
* Good-day, Mrs. Poyser,” said the old Squire, peering at her
with his short-sighted eyes — a mode of looking at her which,
as Mrs. Poyser observed, “allays aggravated her: it was as if
you was a insect, and he was going to dab his finger-nail on
you. ”
## p. 5403 (#579) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5403
ser.
However, she said, “Your servant, sir,” and curtsied with an
air of perfect deference as she advanced towards him; she was
not the woman to misbehave towards her betters, and fly in the
face of the Catechism, without severe provocation.
"Is your husband at home, Mrs. Poyser ? »
“Yes, sir; he's only i’ the rick-yard. I'll send for him in a
minute, if you'll please to get down and step in. ”
« Thank you; I will do so. I want to consult him about a
little matter; but you are quite as much concerned in it, if not
more. I must have your opinion too. ”
“Hetty, run and tell your uncle to come in,” said Mrs. Poy-
ser as they entered the house, and the old gentleman bowed low
in answer to Hetty's curtsy; while Totty, conscious of a pina-
fore stained with gooseberry jam, stood hiding her face against
the clock, and peeping round furtively.
“What a fine old kitchen this is ! ” said Mr. Donnithorne,
looking round admiringly. He always spoke in the same delib-
erate, well-chiseled, polite way, whether his words were sugary
or venomous. “And you keep it so exquisitely clean, Mrs. Poy-
I like these premises, do you know, beyond any on the
estate. "
“Well, sir, since you're fond of 'em, I should be glad if you'd
let a bit o' repairs be done to 'em, for the boarding's i' that
state as we're like to be eaten up wi' rats and mice; and the
cellar, you may stan' up to your knees i’ water in 't, if you like
to go down; but perhaps you'd rather believe my words. Won't
you please to sit down, sir ?
“Not yet; I must see your dairy. I have not seen it for
years, and I hear on all hands about your fine cheese and but-
ter,” said the Squire, looking politely unconscious that there
could be any question on which he and Mrs. Poyser might hap-
pen to disagree. "I think I see the door open there: you must
not be surprised if I cast a covetous eye on your cream and
butter. I don't expect that Mrs. Satchell's cream and butter will
bear comparison with yours. ”
"I can't say, sir, I'm sure. It's seldom I see other folks'
butter, though there's some on it as one's no need to see the
smell's enough. "
«Ah, now this I like,” said Mr. Donnithorne, looking round
at the damp temple of cleanliness, but keeping near the door.
“I'm sure I should like my breakfast better if I knew the butter
## p. 5404 (#580) ###########################################
5404
GEORGE ELIOT
« Do
and cream came from this dairy. Thank you, that really is a
pleasant sight. Unfortunately, my slight tendency to rheumatism
makes me afraid of damp; I'll sit down in your comfortable
kitchen. Ah, Poyser, how do you do? In the midst of business,
I see, as usual.
I've been looking at your wife's beautiful dairy:
the best manager in the parish, is she not?
Mr. Poyser had just entered in shirt-sleeves and open waist-
coat, with a face a shade redder than usual, from the exertion
of “pitching. ” As he stood, red, rotund, and radiant, before the
small, wiry, cool old gentleman, he looked like a prize apple
by the side of a withered crab.
“Will you please to take this chair, sir ? ” he said, lifting his
father's arm-chair forward a little; "you'll find it easy. ”
“No, thank you, I never sit in easy-chairs," said the old gen-
tleman, seating himself on a small chair near the door.
you know, Mrs. Poyser - sit down, pray, both of you — I've been
far from contented, for some time, with Mrs. Satchell's dairy
management. I think she has not a good method, as you have. ”
Indeed, sir, I can't speak to that,” said Mrs. Poyser, in a
hard voice, rolling and unrolling her knitting, and looking icily
out of the window, as she continued to stand opposite the
Squire. Poyser might sit down if he liked, she thought: she
wasn't going to sit down, as if she'd give in to any such
smooth-tongued palaver. Mr. Poyser, who looked and felt the
reverse of icy, did sit down in his three-cornered chair.
“And now, Poyser, as Satchell is laid up, I am intending to
let the Chase Farın to a respectable tenant. I'm tired of having
a farm on my own hands — nothing is made the best of in such
cases, as you know. A satisfactory bailiff is hard to find; and I
think you and I, Poyser, and your excellent wife here, can enter
into a little arrangement in consequence, which will be to our
mutual advantage. ”
"Oh," said Mr. Poyser, with a good-natured blankness of
imagination as to the nature of the arrangement.
“If I'm called upon to speak, sir,” said Mrs. Poyser, after
glancing at her husband with pity at his softness, you know
better than me; but I don't see what the Chase Farm is t' us
we've cumber enough wi' our own farm. Not but what I'm glad
to hear o' anybody respectable coming into the parish: there's
some as ha' been brought in as hasn't been looked on i' that
character. ”
## p. 5405 (#581) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5405
“You're likely to find Mr. Thurle an excellent neighbor, I
assure you: such a one as you will feel glad to have accommo-
dated by the little plan I'm going to mention; especially as I
hope you will find it as much to your own advantage as his. ”
«Indeed, sir, if it's anything tour advantage, it'll be the
first offer o' the sort I've heared on. It's them as take advan-
tage that get advantage i' this world, I think: folks have to
wait long enough afore it's brought to 'em. ”
“The fact is, Poyser," said the Squire, ignoring Mrs. Poyser's
theory of worldly prosperity, “there is too much dairy land, and
too little plow land, on the Chase Farm, to suit Thurle's pur-
pose - indeed, he will only take the farm on condition of some
change in it: his wife, it appears, is not a clever dairywoman
like yours. Now, the plan I'm thinking of is to effect a little
exchange. If you were to have the Hollow Pastures, you might
increase your dairy, which must be so profitable under your
wife's management; and I should request you, Mrs. Poyser, to
supply my house with milk, cream, and butter, at the market
prices. On the other hand, Poyser, you might let Thurle have
the Lower and Upper Ridges, which really, with our wet sea-
sons would be a good riddance for you. There is much less
risk in dairy land than corn land. ”
Mr. Poyser was leaning forward, with his elbows on his knees,
his head on one side, and his mouth screwed up- apparently ab-
sorbed in making the tips of his fingers meet so as to represent
with perfect accuracy the ribs of a ship. He was much too acute
a man not to see through the whole business, and to foresee per-
fectly what would be his wife's view of the subject; but he dis-
liked giving unpleasant answers: unless it was on a point of
farming practice, he would rather give up than have a quarrel,
any day; and after all, it mattered more to his wife than to him.
So, after a few moments' silence, he looked up at her and said
mildly, "What dost say ?
Mrs. Poyser had had her eyes fixed on her husband with cold
severity during his silence, but now she turned away her head
with a toss, looked icily at the opposite roof of the cow-shed, and
spearing her knitting together with the loose pin, held it firmly
between her clasped hands.
"Say? Why, I say you may do as you like about giving up
any o' your corn land afore your lease is up, which it won't be
for a year come next Michaelmas, but I'll not consent to take
## p. 5406 (#582) ###########################################
5406
GEORGE ELIOT
more dairy work into my hands, either for love or money;
and there's nayther love nor money here, as I can see, on’y
other folks' love o' theirselves, and the money as is to go into
other folks' pockets. I know there's them as is born town
the land, and them as is born to sweat on 't ”- here Mrs. Poyser
paused to gasp a little —"and I know it's christened folks' duty
to submit to their betters as fur as flesh and blood 'ull bear it;
but I'll not make a martyr o' myself, and wear myself to skin and
bone, and worret myself as if I was a churn wi' butter a-coming
in 't, for no landlord in England, not if he was King George
himself. »
“No, no, my dear Mrs. Poyser, certainly not,” said the Squire,
still confident in his own powers of persuasion; "you must not
overwork yourself; but don't you think your work will rather be
lessened than increased in this way? There is so much milk re-
quired at the Abbey, that you will have little increase of cheese
and butter making from the addition to your dairy; and I believe
selling the milk is the most profitable way of disposing of dairy
produce, is it not ? »
“Ay, that's true,” said Mr. Poyser, unable to repress an opin-
ion on a question of farming profits, and forgetting that it was
not in this case a purely abstract question.
I dare say,” said Mrs. Poyser bitterly, turning her head half-
way towards her husband, and looking at the vacant arm-chair-
“I dare say it's true for men as sit i' th' chimney-corner and
make believe as everything's cut wi' ins an' outs to fit int' every-
thing else. If you could make a pudding wi' thinking o' the bat-
ter, it 'ud be easy getting dinner. How do I know whether the
milk 'ull be wanted constant? What's to make me sure
house won't be put o' board wage afore we're many months older,
and then I may have to lie awake o' nights wi' twenty gallons o'
milk on my mind — and Dingall ’ull take no more butter, let alone
paying for it; and we must fat pigs till we're obliged to beg the
butcher on our knees to buy 'em, and lose half of 'em wi' the
measles. And there's the fetching and carrying, as 'ud be welly
half a day's work for a man an' hoss — that's to be took out o'
the profits, I reckon ? But there's folks 'ud hold a sieve under
the pump and expect to carry away the water. ”
« That difficulty - about the fetching and carrying - you will
not have, Mrs. Poyser,” said the Squire, who thought that this
entrance into particulars indicated a distant inclination to com-
(C
as the
## p. 5407 (#583) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5407
promise on Mrs. Poyser's part — "Bethell will do that regularly
with the cart and pony. "
“Oh, sir, begging your pardon, I've never been used t having
gentlefolks' servants coming about my back places, a-making love
to both the gells at once, and keeping 'em with their hands on
their hips listening to all manner o' gossip when they should be
down on their knees a-scouring. If we're to go to ruin, it shanna
be wi' having our back kitchen turned into a public. ”
"Well, Poyser," said the Squire, shifting his tactics, and look-
ing as if he thought Mrs. Poyser had suddenly withdrawn from
the proceedings and left the room, “you can turn the Hollows
into feeding land. I can easily make another arrangement about
supplying my house. And I shall not forget your readiness to
accommodate your landlord as well as a neighbor. I know you
will be glad to have your lease renewed for three years when
the present one expires; otherwise, I dare say, Thurle, who is a
man of some capital, would be glad to take both the farms, as
they could be worked so well together. But I don't want to part
with an old tenant like you. "
To be thrust out of the discussion in this way would have
been enough to complete Mrs. Poyser's exasperation, even with-
out the final threat. Her husband, really alarmed at the possi-
bility of their leaving the old place where he had been bred and
born — for he believed the old Squire had small spite enough
for anything — was beginning a mild remonstrance explanatory
of the inconvenience he should find in having to buy and sell
more stock, with —
“Well, sir, I think as it's rather hard — ” when Mrs. Poyser
burst in with the desperate determination to have her say out
this once, though it were to rain notices to quit, and the only
shelter were the workhouse.
«Then, sir, if I may speak — as, for all I'm a woman, and
there's folks as thinks a woman's fool enough to stan' by an'
look on while the men sign her soul away, I've a right to speak,
for I make one quarter o’ the rent, and save another quarter-
I say, if Mr. Thurle's so ready to take farms under you, it's a
pity but what he should take this, and see if he likes to live in
a house wi' all the plagues o' Egypt in 't-wi' the cellar full o'
water, and frogs and toads hoppin' up the steps by dozens—and
the floors rotten, and the rats and mice gnawing every bit o'
cheese, and runnin' over our heads as we lie i’ bed till we expect
## p. 5408 (#584) ###########################################
5408
GEORGE ELIOT
'em to eat us up alive as it's a mercy they hanna eat the child.
ren long ago. I should like to see if there's another tenant
besides Poyser as 'ud put up wi' never having a bit o' repairs
done till a place tumbles down — and not then, on'y wi' begging
and praying, and having to pay half — and being strung up wi’
the rent as it's much if he gets enough out o' the land to pay,
for all he's put his own money into the ground beforehand. See
if you'll get a stranger to lead such a life here as that: a mag-
got must be born i’ the rotten cheese to like it, I reckon. You
may run away from my words, sir,” continued Mrs. Poyser, fol-
lowing the old Squire beyond the door - for after the first mo-
ments of stunned surprise he had got up, and waving his hand
towards her with a smile, had walked out towards his pony. But
it was impossible for him to get away immediately, for John was
walking the pony up and down the yard, and was some distance
from the causeway when his master beckoned —
“You may run away from my words, sir, and you may go
spinnin' underhand ways o' doing us a mischief, for you've got
Old Harry to your friend, though nobody else is; but I tell you
for once
as we're not dumb creatures to be abused and made
money on by them as ha' got the lash i’ their hands, for want
o' knowing how t' undo the tackle. An' if I'm th' only one as
speaks my mind, there's plenty o' the same way o' thinking i’
this parish and the next to 't, for your name 's no better than a
brimstone match in everybody's nose — if it isna two-three old
folks as you think o' saving your soul by giving 'em a bit o' flan-
nel and a drop o' porridge. An' you may be right i' thinking
it'll take but little to save your soul, for it'll be the smallest
savin' y' iver made, wi' all your scrapin'. "
There are occasions on which two servant-girls and a wagoner
may be a formidable audience, and as the Squire rode away on
his black pony, even the gift of short-sightedness did not pre-
vent him from being aware that Molly and Nancy and Tim were
grinning not far from him. Perhaps he suspected that sour old
John was grinning behind him - which was also the fact.
Mean-
while the bull-dog, the black-and-tan terrier, Alick's sheep-dog,
and the gander hissing at a safe distance from the pony's heels,
carried out the idea of Mrs. Poyser's solo in an impressive
quartet.
Mrs. Poyser, however, had no
seen the pony moved
off than she turned round, gave the two hilarious damsels a look
sooner
## p. 5409 (#585) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5409
which drove them into the back kitchen, and unspearing her
knitting, began to knit again with her usual rapidity, as she re-
entered the house.
“Thee'st done it now,” said Mr. Poyser, a little alarmed and
uneasy, but not without some triumphant amusement at his wife's
outbreak.
« Yes, I know I've done it,” said Mrs. Poyser; but I've had
my say out, and I shall be th' easier for 't all my life. There's
no pleasure i' living if you're to be corked up forever, and only
dribble your mind out by the sly like a leaky barrel. I shan't
repent saying what I think, if I live to be as old as th' old
Squire; and there's little likelihoods — for it seems as if them as
aren't wanted here are th’ only folks as aren't wanted i'th' other
world. ”
“But thee wutna like moving from th' old place, this Mich-
aelmas twelvemonth,” said Mr. Poyser, “and going into a strange
parish, where thee know'st nobody. It'll be hard upon us both,
and upo' father too. ”
“Eh, it's no use worreting; there's plenty o' things may hap-
pen between this and Michaelmas twelvemonth. The captain
may be master afore then, for what we know," said Mrs. Poyser,
inclined to take an unusually hopeful view of an embarrassment
which had been brought about by her own merit, and not by
other people's fault.
"I'm none for worreting,” said Mr. Poyser, rising from his
three-cornered chair, and walking slowly towards the door; but
I should be loath to leave th’ old place, and the parish where I
was bred and born, and father afore me. We should leave our
roots behind us, I doubt, and niver thrive again. ”
THE PRISONERS
From (Romola)
II
N 1493 the rumor spread and became louder and louder that
Charles the Eighth of France was about to cross the Alps
with a mighty army; and the Italian populations, accustomed,
since Italy had ceased to be the heart of the Roman empire, to
look for an arbitrator from afar, began vaguely to regard his
coming as a means of avenging their wrongs and redressing their
grievances.
IX—339
## p. 5410 (#586) ###########################################
5410
GEORGE ELIOT
And in that rumor Savonarola had heard the assurance that
his prophecy was being verified. What was it that filled the ears
of the prophets of old but the distant tread of foreign armies,
coming to do the work of justice ? He no longer looked vaguely
to the horizon for the coming storm: he pointed to the rising
cloud. The French army was that new deluge which was to pu-
rify the earth from iniquity; the French King, Charles VIII. , was
the instrument elected by God as Cyrus had been of old, and all
men who desired good rather than evil were to rejoice in his
coming. For the scourge would fall destructively on the impeni-
tent alone. Let any city of Italy, let Florence above all - Flor-
ence beloved of God, since to its ear the warning voice had been
specially sent — repent and turn from its ways like Nineveh of
old, and the storm cloud would roll over it and leave only refresh-
ing rain-drops.
Fra Girolamo's word was powerful; yet now that the new
Cyrus had already been three months in Italy, and was not far
from the gates of Florence, his presence was expected there with
mixed feelings, in which fear and distrust certainly predominated.
At present it was not understood that he had redressed any
grievances; and the Florentines clearly had nothing to thank him
for. He held their strong frontier fortresses, which Piero de'
Medici had given up to him without securing any honorable terms
in return; he had done nothing to quell the alarming revolt of
Pisa, which had been encouraged by his presence to throw off
the Florentine yoke; and “orators,” even with a prophet at their
head, could win no assurance from him, except that he would
settle everything when he was once within the walls of Florence.
Still, there was the satisfaction of knowing that the exasperating
Piero de' Medici had been fairly pelted out for the ignominious
surrender of the fortresses, and in that act of energy the spirit
of the Republic had recovered some of its old fire.
The preparations for the equivocal guest were not entirely
those of a city resigned to submission. Behind the bright dra-
pery and banners symbolical of joy, there were preparations of
another sort made with common accord by government and
people. Well hidden within walls there were hired soldiers of
the Republic, hastily called in from the surrounding districts;
there were old arms duly furbished, and sharp tools and heavy
cudgels laid carefully at hand, to be snatched up on short notice;
there were excellent boards and stakes to form barricades upon
## p. 5411 (#587) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5411
occasion, and a good supply of stones to make a surprising hail
from the upper windows. Above all, there were people very
strongly in the humor for fighting any personage who might be
supposed to have designs of hectoring over them, they having
lately tasted that new pleasure with much relish. This humor
was not diminished by the sight of occasional parties of French-
men, coming beforehand to choose their quarters, with a hawk,
perhaps, on their left wrist, and metaphorically speaking, a piece
of chalk in their right hand to mark Italian doors withal; espe-
cially as creditable historians imply that many sons of France
were at that time characterized by something approaching to a
swagger, which must have whetted the Florentine appetite for a
little stone-throwing.
And this was the temper of Florence on the morning of the
17th of November, 1494.
The sky was gray, but that made little difference in the
Piazza del Duomo, which was covered with its holiday sky of
blue drapery, and its constellations of yellow lilies and coats of
arms. The sheaves of banners were unfurled at the angles of
the Baptistery, but there was no carpet yet on the steps of the
Duomo, for the marble was being trodden by numerous feet that
were not at all exceptional. It was the hour of the Advent ser-
mons, and the very same reasons which had flushed the streets
with holiday color were reasons why the preaching in the Duomo
could least of all be dispensed with.
But not all the feet in the Piazza were hastening towards the
steps. People of high and low degree were moving to and fro
with the brisk pace of men who had errands before them; groups
of talkers were thickly scattered, some willing to be late for the
sermon, and others content not to hear it at all.
The expression on the faces of these apparent loungers was
not that of men who are enjoying the pleasant laziness of an
opening holiday. Some were in close and eager discussion; others
were listening with keen interest to a single spokesman, and yet
from time to time turned round with a scanning glance at any new
passer-by. At the corner looking towards the Via de' Cerrettani -
just where the artificial rainbow light of the Piazza ceased, and
the gray morning fell on the sombre stone houses — there was a
remarkable cluster of the working people, most of them bearing
## p. 5412 (#588) ###########################################
5412
GEORGE ELIOT
on their dress or persons the signs of their daily labor, and
almost all of them carrying some weapon, or some tool which
might serve as a weapon upon occasion. Standing in the gray
light of the street, with bare brawny arms and soiled garments,
they made all the more striking the transition from the bright-
ness of the Piazza. They were listening to the thin notary, Ser
Cioni, who had just paused on his way to the Duomo. His bit-
ing words could get only a contemptuous reception two years and
a half before in the Mercato; but now he spoke with the more
complacent humor of a man whose party is uppermost, and who
is conscious of some influence with the people.
“Never talk to me,” he was saying in his incisive voice,
“never talk to me of bloodthirsty Swiss or fierce French infantry;
they might as well be in the narrow passes of the mountains as
in our streets; and peasants have destroyed the finest armies of
our condottieri in time past, when they had once got them
between steep precipices. I tell you, Florentines need be afraid
of no army in their own streets. ”
« That's true, Ser Cioni,” said a man whose arms and hands
were discolored by crimson dye, which looked like blood-stains,
and who had a small hatchet stuck in his belt; "and those French
cavaliers who came in squaring themselves in their smart doub-
lets the other day, saw a sample of the dinner we could serve
up for them. I was carrying my cloth in Ognissanti, when I
saw my fine Messeri going by, looking round as if they thought
the houses of the Vespucci and the Agli a poor pick of loadings
for them, and eyeing us Fiorentines, like top-knotted cocks as
they are, as if they pitied us because we didn't know how to
strut. Yes, my fine Galli, says I, stick out your stomachs;
I've got a meat-axe in my belt that will
go
inside
you all the
easier;' when presently the old cow lowed,* and I knew some-
thing had happened — no matter what. So I threw my cloth in
at the first doorway, and took hold of my meat-axe and ran
after my fine cavaliers towards the Vigna Nuova. And, 'What
is it, Guccio ? ) said I, when he came up with me. I think it's
the Medici coming back,' said Guccio. Bembè! I expected so!
And up we reared a barricade, and the Frenchmen looked be-
hind and saw themselves in a trap; and up comes a good swarın
1
i
*«La vacca muglia” was the phrase for the sounding of the great bell
in the tower of the Palazzo Vecchio.
## p. 5413 (#589) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5413
*
« San
of our Ciompi,* and one of them with a big scythe he had in his
hand mowed off one of the fine cavaliers' feathers: — it's true!
And the lasses peppered a few stones down to frighten them.
However, Piero de' Medici wasn't come after all; and it was a
pity; for we'd have left him neither legs nor wings to go away
with again. "
Well spoken, Oddo,” said a young butcher, with his knife
at his belt; "and it's my belief Piero will be a good while before
he wants to come back, for he looked as frightened as a hunted
chicken when we hustled and pelted him in the piazza. He's a
coward, else he might have made a better stand when he'd got
his horsemen. But we'll swallow no Medici any more, whatever
else the French king wants to make us swallow. ”
“But I like not those French cannon they talk of,” said Goro,
none the less fat for two years' additional grievances.
Giovanni defend us! If Messer Domeneddio means so well by
us as your Frate says he does, Ser Cioni, why shouldn't he have
sent the French another way to Naples ? ”
“Ay, Goro," said the dyer; “that's a question worth putting.
Thou art not such a pumpkin-head as I took thee for. Why,
they might have gone to Naples by Bologna, eh, Ser Cioni? - or
if they'd gone to Arezzo -- we wouldn't have minded their going
to Arezzo. ”
“Fools! It will be for the good and glory of Florence,” Ser
Cioni began. But he was interrupted by the exclamation, “Look
there! ” which burst from several voices at once, while the faces
were all turned to a party who were advancing along the Via
de' Cerretani.
“It's Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and one of the French noblemen
who are in his house,” said Ser Cioni, in some contempt at this
interruption. “He pretends to look well satisfied — that deep
Tornabuoni — but he's a Medicean in his heart; mind that. ”
The advancing party was rather a brilliant one, for there was
not only the distinguished presence of Lorenzo Tornabuoni, and
the splendid costume of the Frenchman with his elaborately dis-
played white linen and gorgeous embroidery; there were two
other Florentines of high birth, in handsome dresses donned
for the coming procession, and on the left hand of the French-
was a figure that was not to be eclipsed by any amount of
* The poorer artisans connected with the wool trade – wool-beaters, carders,
washers, etc.
man
## p. 5414 (#590) ###########################################
5414
GEORGE ELIOT
intention or brocade - a figure we have often seen before. He
wore nothing but black, for he was in mourning; but the black
was presently to be covered by a red mantle, for he too was to
walk in procession as Latin Secretary to the Ten. Tito Melema
had become conspicuously serviceable in the intercourse with the
French guests, from his familiarity with Southern Italy and his
readiness in the French tongue, which he had spoken in his early
youth; and he had paid more than one visit to the French camp
at Signa. The lustre of good fortune was upon him; he was
smiling, listening, and explaining, with his usual graceful unpre-
tentious ease, and only a very keen eye bent on studying him
could have marked a certain amount of change in him which
was not to be accounted for by the lapse of eighteen months.
It was that change which comes from the final departure of
moral youthfulness — from the distinct self-conscious adoption of
a part in life.
The lines of the face were as soft as ever, the
eyes as pellucid; but something was gone — something as in-
definable as the changes in the morning twilight.
The Frenchman was gathering instructions concerning cere-
monial before riding back to Signa, and now he was going to
have a final survey of the Piazza del Duomo, where the royal
procession was to pause for religious purposes. The distinguished
party attracted the notice of all eyes as it entered the Piazza,
but the gaze was not entirely cordial and admiring; there were
remarks not altogether allusive and mysterious to the French-
man's hoof-shaped shoes - delicate flattery of royal superfluity in
toes; and there was no care that certain snarlings at «Mediceans ”
should be strictly inaudible. But Lorenzo Tornabuoni possessed
that power of dissembling annoyance which is demanded in a
man who courts popularity, and Tito, besides his natural disposi-
tion to overcome ill-will by good-humor, had the unimpassioned
feeling of the alien towards names and details that move the
deepest passions of the native.
Arrived where they could get a good oblique view of the
Duomo, the party paused. The festoons and devices placed over
the central doorway excited some demur, and Tornabuoni beck-
oned to Piero di Cosimo, who, as was usual with him at this
hour, was lounging in front of Nello's shop. There was soon an
animated discussion, and it became highly amusing from the
Frenchman's astonishment at Piero's odd pungency of statement,
which Tito translated literally. Even snarling onlookers became
## p. 5415 (#591) ###########################################
GEORGE ELIOT
5415
curious, and their faces began to wear the half-smiling, half-
humiliated expression of people who are not within hearing of
the joke which is producing infectious laughter. It was a de-
lightful moment for Tito, for he was the only one of the party
who could have made so amusing an interpreter, and without
any disposition to triumphant self-gratulation he reveled in the
sense that he was an object of liking — he basked in approving
glances. The rainbow light fell about the laughing group, and
the grave church-goers had all disappeared within the walls. It
seemed as if the Piazza had been decorated for a real Florentine
holiday.
Meanwhile in the gray light of the unadorned streets there
were on-comers who made no show of linen and brocade, and
whose humor was far from merry. Here too the French dress
and hoofed shoes were conspicuous, but they were being pressed
upon by a large and larger number of non-admiring Florentines.
In the van of the crowd were three men in scanty clothing; each
had his hands bound together by a cord, and a rope was fastened
round his neck and body in such a way that he who held the
extremity of the rope might easily check any rebellious move-
ment by the threat of throttling. The men who held the ropes
were French soldiers, and by broken Italian phrases and strokes
from the knotted end of the rope, they from time to time stim-
ulated their prisoners to beg. Two of them were obedient, and
to every Florentine they had encountered had held out their
bound hands and said in piteous tones:
« For the love of God and the Holy Madonna, give us some-
thing towards our ransom! We are Tuscans; we were made
prisoners in Lunigiana. ”
But the third man remained obstinately silent under all the
strokes of the knotted cord. He was very different in aspect
from his two fellow prisoners. They were young and hardy,
and in the scant clothing which the avarice of their captors had
left them, looked like vulgar, sturdy mendicants. But he had
passed the boundary of old age, and could hardly be less than
four or five and sixty. His beard, which had grown long in
neglect, and the hair which fell thick and straight round his
baldness, were nearly white. His thick-set figure was still firm
and upright, though emaciated, and seemed to express energy in
spite of age - an expression that was partly carried out in the
dark eyes and strong dark eyebrows, which had a strangely
## p. 5416 (#592) ###########################################
5416
GEORGE ELIOT
isolated intensity of color in the midst of his yellow, bloodless,
deep-wrinkled face with its lank gray hairs. And yet there was
something fitful in the eyes which contradicted the occasional
flash of energy; after looking round with quick fierceness at
windows and faces, they fell again with a lost and wandering
look. But his lips were motionless, and he held his hands reso-
lutely down.
He would not beg.
This sight had been witnessed by the Florentines with grow-
ing exasperation. Many standing at their doors or passing
quietly along had at once given money -- some in half-automatic
response to an appeal in the name of God, others in that unques-
tioning awe of the French soldiery which had been created by
the reports of their cruel warfare, and on which the French
themselves counted as a guarantee of immunity in their acts of
insolence. But as the group had proceeded farther into the
heart of the city, that compliance had gradually disappeared, and
the soldiers found themselves escorted by a gathering troop of
men and boys, who kept up a chorus of exclamations sufficiently
intelligible to foreign ears without any interpreter. The soldiers
themselves began to dislike their position, for with a strong
inclination to use their weapons, they were checked by the
necessity for keeping a secure hold on their prisoners, and they
were now hurrying along in the hope of finding shelter in a
hostelry.
« French dogs! ” « Bullock-feet! » "Snatch their pikes from
them! « Cut the cords and make them run for their prisoners.
They'll run as fast as geese - don't you see they're web-footed ? "
These were the cries which the soldiers vaguely understood to
be jeers, and probably threats.
