In the evening, when Caleb, rather tired with his day’s work, was seated in silence with his pocket-book open on his knee, while Mrs. Garth and Mary were at their sewing, and Letty in a corner was whispering a dialogue with her doll, Mr. Farebrother came up the orchard walk, dividing the bright August lights and shadows with the tufted grass and the apple-tree boughs.  We know that he was fond of his parishioners the Garths, and had thought Mary worth mentioning to Lydgate.  He used to the full the clergyman’s privilege of disregarding the Middlemarch discrimination of ranks, and always told his mother that Mrs. Garth was more of a lady than any matron in the town.  Still, you see, he spent his evenings at the Vincys’, where the matron, though less of a lady, presided over a well-lit drawing-room and whist.  In those days human intercourse was not determined solely by respect.  But the Vicar did heartily respect the Garths, and a visit from him was no surprise to that family.  Nevertheless he accounted for it even while he was shaking hands, by saying, “I come as an envoy, Mrs. Garth:  I have something to say to you and Garth on behalf of Fred Vincy.  The fact is, poor fellow,” he continued, as he seated himself and looked round with his bright glance at the three who were listening to him, “he has taken me into his confidence.”

Mary’s heart beat rather quickly:  she wondered how far Fred’s confidence had gone.

“We haven’t seen the lad for months,” said Caleb.  “I couldn’t think what was become of him.”

“He has been away on a visit,” said the Vicar, “because home was a little too hot for him, and Lydgate told his mother that the poor fellow must not begin to study yet.  But yesterday he came and poured himself out to me.  I am very glad he did, because I have seen him grow up from a youngster of fourteen, and I am so much at home in the house that the children are like nephews and nieces to me.  But it is a difficult case to advise upon.  However, he has asked me to come and tell you that he is going away, and that he is so miserable about his debt to you, and his inability to pay, that he can’t bear to come himself even to bid you good by.”

“Tell him it doesn’t signify a farthing,” said Caleb, waving his hand.  “We’ve had the pinch and have got over it.  And now I’m going to be as rich as a Jew.”

“Which means,” said Mrs. Garth, smiling at the Vicar, “that we are going to have enough to bring up the boys well and to keep Mary at home.”

“What is the treasure-trove?” said Mr. Farebrother.

“I’m going to be agent for two estates, Freshitt and Tipton; and perhaps for a pretty little bit of land in Lowick besides:  it’s all the same family connection, and employment spreads like water if it’s once set going.  It makes me very happy, Mr. Farebrother”—­ here Caleb threw back his head a little, and spread his arms on the elbows of his chair—­“that I’ve got an opportunity again with the letting of the land, and carrying out a notion or two with improvements.  It’s a most uncommonly cramping thing, as I’ve often told Susan, to sit on horseback and look over the hedges at the wrong thing, and not be able to put your hand to it to make it right.  What people do who go into politics I can’t think:  it drives me almost mad to see mismanagement over only a few hundred acres.”