Free The Mill on the Floss by George Eliot

an' it 'ud be better fun a'most
nor seein' two chaps fight,–if it wasn't them chaps as sold cakes
an' oranges at the Fair, as the things flew out o' their baskets,
an' some o' the cakes was smashed–But they tasted just as good,"
added Bob, by way of note or addendum, after a moment's pause.
    "But, I say, Bob," said Tom, in a tone of deliberation, "ferrets
are nasty biting things,–they'll bite a fellow without being set
on."
    "Lors! why that's the beauty on 'em. If a chap lays hold o' your
ferret, he won't be long before he hollows out a good un,
he
won't."
    At this moment a striking incident made the boys pause suddenly
in their walk. It was the plunging of some small body in the water
from among the neighboring bulrushes; if it was not a water-rat,
Bob intimated that he was ready to undergo the most unpleasant
consequences.
    "Hoigh! Yap,–hoigh! there he is," said Tom, clapping his hands,
as the little black snout made its arrowy course to the opposite
bank. "Seize him, lad! seize him!"
    Yap agitated his ears and wrinkled his brows, but declined to
plunge, trying whether barking would not answer the purpose just as
well.
    "Ugh! you coward!" said Tom, and kicked him over, feeling
humiliated as a sportsman to possess so poor-spirited an animal.
Bob abstained from remark and passed on, choosing, however, to walk
in the shallow edge of the overflowing river by way of change.
    "He's none so full now, the Floss isn't," said Bob, as he kicked
the water up before him, with an agreeable sense of being insolent
to it. "Why, last 'ear, the meadows was all one sheet o' water,
they was."
    "Ay, but," said Tom, whose mind was prone to see an opposition
between statements that were really accordant,–"but there was a big
flood once, when the Round Pool was made.
I
know there
was, 'cause father says so. And the sheep and cows all drowned, and
the boats went all over the fields ever such a way."
    "
I
don't care about a flood comin'," said Bob; "I don't
mind the water, no more nor the land. I'd swim,
I
would."
    "Ah, but if you got nothing to eat for ever so long?" said Tom,
his imagination becoming quite active under the stimulus of that
dread. "When I'm a man, I shall make a boat with a wooden house on
the top of it, like Noah's ark, and keep plenty to eat in
it,–rabbits and things,–all ready. And then if the flood came, you
know, Bob, I shouldn't mind. And I'd take you in, if I saw you
swimming," he added, in the tone of a benevolent patron.
    "I aren't frighted," said Bob, to whom hunger did not appear so
appalling. "But I'd get in an' knock the rabbits on th' head when
you wanted to eat 'em."
    "Ah, and I should have halfpence, and we'd play at
heads-and-tails," said Tom, not contemplating the possibility that
this recreation might have fewer charms for his mature age. "I'd
divide fair to begin with, and then we'd see who'd win."
    "I've got a halfpenny o' my own," said Bob, proudly, coming out
of the water and tossing his halfpenny in the air. "Yeads or
tails?"
    "Tails," said Tom, instantly fired with the desire to win.
    "It's yeads," said Bob, hastily, snatching up the halfpenny as
it fell.
    "It wasn't," said Tom, loudly and peremptorily. "You give me the
halfpenny; I've won it fair."
    "I sha'n't," said Bob, holding it tight in his pocket.
    "Then I'll make you; see if I don't," said Tom.
    "Yes, I can."
    "You can't make me do nothing, you can't," said Bob.
    "No, you can't."
    "I'm master."
    "I don't care for you."
    "But I'll make you care, you cheat," said Tom, collaring Bob and
shaking him.
    "You get out wi' you," said Bob, giving Tom a kick.
    Tom's blood was thoroughly up: he went at Bob with a lunge and
threw him down, but Bob seized hold and kept it like a cat, and
pulled Tom down after him. They struggled fiercely on the ground
for a moment or two, till Tom, pinning Bob down by the shoulders,
thought he had the mastery.
    "
You
, say you'll give me the halfpenny now," he said,
with difficulty, while he exerted himself to keep