Middlemarch

Three days after Houndsley, Diamond — before any sale could be completed — exhibited a vicious energy in the stable, nearly killed the groom, and lamed himself by catching his leg in a rope. Fred is left with fifty pounds. The bill for £160 falls due in five days. He cannot ask his father, who would angrily refuse. There is no one else. He rides to Caleb Garth's house. He arrives to find Caleb out on business. Mrs. Garth is in the kitchen: rolling pastry with her sleeves turned above the elbows, simultaneously teaching Ben and Letty their grammar — the concord of verbs and nouns of multitude — and checking the oven through the open door. It is a scene of such formidable competence that Fred, already miserable, dreads it more than facing the bill itself. The children argue about Cincinnatus. Mrs. Garth delivers judgment on all sides with fervid agreeable contralto. Caleb appears. Fred lays the fifty pounds on the desk and states the plain fact: he cannot meet the bill. He had been so unlucky with the horse — he had meant to pay it himself — he is very sorry. Caleb, blushing, is forced to admit to his wife that he signed the bill without telling her. Mrs. Garth's face changes below the surface like a change in deep water. She works out the figures quickly: she has saved ninety-two pounds for Alfred's apprenticeship premium; this will have to go. Mary's savings will be needed too. Her only comment to Fred: "Boys cannot well be apprenticed ultimately: they should be apprenticed at fifteen." Fred rushes out before he becomes more "womanish." Mrs. Garth tells Caleb he was a fool — "That you were" — with a nod and a smile — and that he must now teach Alfred himself, since Alfred cannot go to Mr. Hanmer's. To make up the deficit, Caleb must give up his "bad habit" of working without pay. Eliot pauses for a full portrait of Caleb Garth: a man whose virtual divinities are good practical schemes, accurate work, and the faithful completion of undertakings. His prince of darkness is a slack workman. He cannot manage finance; he knows values, but has no keenness for monetary results. "It is no wonder, then, that the Garths were poor, and 'lived in a small way.' However, they did not mind it."