100 Gender and Space in Rural Britain, 1840–1920
mobility to recast the position of women in the rural landscape. While Adam
Bede ultimately remains caught within the restrictions of rural gender codes,
Th e Mill on the Floss goes further in rewriting spaces of mobility as sites where
women carve out a relationship to the rural landscape away from typical gen-
dered expectations.
Th is idea is initially signalled in an early episode in the novel in which Mag-
gie takes her fi rst journey alone by running away ‘to the g ypsies’, a movement
marked by both the joy of escaping from what she perceives as the cruel con-
demnation of her family, as well as, in her walk, fi nding ‘a delighted sense of
privacy in creeping along by the hedgerows’.^64 Th is need for privacy comes in
part as the result of a ‘humiliating encounter’ with two men on the road who
have humoured her escapade, but it is nonetheless notable that the narrative pays
heed to Maggie’s sense of ‘delight’, suggestive of an enjoyment in privacy not just
because of the escape from others (as with Hetty), but also for the sheer personal
pleasure that comes in ‘creeping along’ the hedgerows. In a similar vein we are
told that ‘she was used to wandering about the fi elds by herself, and was less
timid there than on the high-road’, suggesting that the habit of ‘wandering like
a wild thing’ so criticized by her mother is also a signifi cant act of independence
giving self-confi dence to the ‘less timid’ Maggie.^65
Th is idea becomes reiterated at a later stage in the narrative when Maggie
fi rst visits the Red Deeps in the previously discussed episode that is marked by its
allusions to sexuality and the landscape; but before Philip arrives on the scene,
the narrative takes a few moments to describe the pleasure that Maggie experi-
ences in this space. A sense of privacy away from the eyes of others again comes
to the forefront: Maggie’s fi rst thought, ‘now she is sure of being unseen’, is to
remove her bonnet, thus freeing herself from the trappings of femininity in a
space where she feels herself to be invisible from the eyes of others.^66 Th is sense
of privacy is extended to explore the pleasure that comes from walking alone:
the daily walk Maggie takes here is ‘her one indulgence’, and the Red Deeps in
particular ‘had [a] charm for her’, providing space to sit and ‘listen to the hum of
insects ... or see the sunlight piercing the distant boughs’; it is a space in which
she fi nds herself ‘not uneasy’, ‘calmly enjoying the free air’.^67 Maggie’s enjoy-
ment of this ‘indulgence’ is one that she actively pursues whenever she can: she
heads outdoors directly that she is ‘free to wander at her will’, and is ‘inclined to
lengthen’ her daily walk.^68
It is a brief episode, but in centring upon language of ‘indulgence’ and ‘charm’
the text indicates a deep personal pleasure in this moment, and the delight of
being ‘free to wander at her will’ is expressed as a rare freedom. In the immersion
in the positivity of Maggie’s enjoyment, the text creates a moment in which it
recasts rurality and mobility away from negative gendered associations: Mag-
gie carves out here a space of her own, one in which she can move freely and