George Eliot

The Mill on the Floss George Eliot

A wide plain, where the broadening Floss hurries on between its green banks to the sea, and theloving tide, rushing to meet it, checks its passage with an impetuous embrace. On this mighty tidethe black ships-laden with the fresh-scented fir-planks, with rounded sacks of oil-bearing seed, orwith the dark glitter of coal-are borne along to the town of St Ogg's, which shows its aged, flutedred roofs and the broad gables of its wharves between the low wooded hill and the river-brink, tingeing the water with a soft purple hue under the transient glance of this February sun. Far awayon each hand stretch the rich pastures, and the patches of dark earth made ready for the seed ofbroad-leaved green crops, or touched already with the tint of the tender-bladed autumn-sown corn. There is a remnant still of last year's golden clusters of beehive-ricks rising at intervals beyond thehedgerows; and everywhere the hedgerows are studded with trees; the distant ships seem to belifting their masts and stretching their red-brown sails close among the branches of the spreadingash. Just by the red-roofed town the tributary Ripple flows with a lively current into the Floss. Howlovely the little river is, with its dark changing wavelets! It seems to me like a living companion whileI wander along the bank, and listen to its low, placid voice, as to the voice of one who is deaf andloving. I remember those large dipping willows. I remember the stone bridge. And this is Dorlcote Mill. I must stand a minute or two here on the bridge and look at it, thoughthe clouds are threatening, and it is far on in the afternoon. Even in this leafless time of departingFebruary it is pleasant to look at, -perhaps the chill, damp season adds a charm to the trimly kept, comfortable dwelling-house, as old as the elms and chestnuts that shelter it from the northern blast. The stream is brimful now, and lies high in this little withy plantation, and half drowns the grassyfringe of the croft in front of the house. As I look at the full stream, the vivid grass, the delicatebright-green powder softening the outline of the great trunks and branches that gleam from underthe bare purple boughs, I am in love with moistness, and envy the white ducks that are dipping theirheads far into the water here among the withes, unmindful of the awkward appearance they make inthe drier world above. The rush of the water and the booming of the mill bring a dreamy deafness, which seems toheighten the peacefulness of the scene. They are like a great curtain of sound, shutting one out fromthe world beyond. And now there is the thunder of the huge covered wagon coming home withsacks of grain. That honest wagoner is thinking of his dinner, getting sadly dry in the oven at thislate hour; but he will not touch it till he has fed his horses, -the strong, submissive, meek-eyedbeasts, who, I fancy, are looking mild reproach at him from between their blinkers, that he shouldcrack his whip at them in that awful manner as if they needed that hint! See how they stretch theirshoulders up the slope toward the bridge, with all the more energy because they are so near h