`I think my father wants Tom, mother,' said Maggie, `he must come into the parlour first.'

Tom entered with his usual saddened evening face, but his eyes fell immediately on the open Bible and the inkstand, and he glanced with a look of anxious surprise at his father, who was saying,

`Come, come, you're late - I want you.'

`Is there anything the matter, father?' said Tom.

`You sit down - all of you,' said Mr Tulliver, peremptorily. `And, Tom, sit down here, I've got something for you to write i' the Bible.'

They all three sat down, looking at him. He began to speak, slowly, looking first at his wife.

`I've made up my mind, Bessy, and I'll be as good as my word to you. There's the same grave made for us to lie down in, and we mustn't be bearing one another ill-will. I'll stop in the old place, and I'll serve under Wakem - and I'll serve him like an honest man - there's no Tulliver but what's honest, mind that, Tom' - here his voice rose: `they'll have it to throw up against me as I paid a dividend - but it wasn't my fault - it was because there's raskills in the world - They've been too many for me, and I must, give in. I'll put my neck in harness - for you've a right to say as I've brought you into trouble, Bessy - and I'll serve him as honest as if he was no raskill: I'm an honest man, though I shall never hold my head up no more - I'm a tree as is broke - a tree as is broke.'

He paused and looked on the ground. Then suddenly raising his head, he said in a louder yet deeper tone,

`But I won't forgive him! I know what they say - he never meant me any harm - that's the way Old Harry props up the raskills - he's been at the bottom of everything - but he's a fine gentleman - I know, I know. I shouldn't ha'gone to law, they say. But who made it so as there was no arbitratin', and no justice to be got? It signifies nothing to him - I know that - he's one o' them fine gentlemen as get money by doing business for poorer folks, and when he's made beggars of 'em, he'll give 'em charity. I won't forgive him! I wish he might be punished with shame till his own son 'ud like to forget him. I wish he may do summat as they'd make him work at the treadmill! But he won't - he's too big a raskill to let the law lay hold on him. And you mind this, Tom - you never forgive him, neither, if you mean to be my son. There'll may be come a time, when you may make him feel - it'll never come to me - I'n got my head under the yoke. Now write - write it i' the Bible.'

`O father, what?' said Maggie, sinking down by his knee, pale and trembling. `It's wicked to curse and bear malice.'

`It isn't wicked, I tell you,' said her father fiercely. `It's wicked as the raskills should prosper - it's the devil's doing. Do as I tell you, Tom. Write.'

`What am I to write, Father?' said Tom, with gloomy submission.

`Write as your father, Edward Tulliver, took service under John Wakem, the man as had helped to ruin him, because I'd promised my wife to make her what amends I could for her trouble, and because I wanted to die in th' old place, where I was born and my father was born. Put that i' the right words - you know how - and then write, as I don't forgive Wakem, for all that; and for all I'll serve him honest, I wish evil may befall him. Write that.'

There was a dead silence while Tom's pen moved along the paper: Mrs Tulliver looked scared, and Maggie trembled like a leaf.

`Now let me hear what you've wrote,' said Mr Tulliver. Tom read aloud, slowly.