to listen even to news which he had heard before, feeling himself at an advantage over all narrators in partially disbelieving them.  One day, however, he got into a dialogue with Hiram Ford, a wagoner, in which he himself contributed information.  He wished to know whether Hiram had seen fellows with staves and instruments spying about:  they called themselves railroad people, but there was no telling what they were or what they meant to do.  The least they pretended was that they were going to cut Lowick Parish into sixes and sevens.

“Why, there’ll be no stirrin’ from one pla-ace to another,” said Hiram, thinking of his wagon and horses.

“Not a bit,” said Mr. Solomon.  “And cutting up fine land such as this parish!  Let ’em go into Tipton, say I. But there’s no knowing what there is at the bottom of it.  Traffic is what they put for’ard; but it’s to do harm to the land and the poor man in the long-run.”

“Why, they’re Lunnon chaps, I reckon,” said Hiram, who had a dim notion of London as a centre of hostility to the country.

“Ay, to be sure.  And in some parts against Brassing, by what I’ve heard say, the folks fell on ’em when they were spying, and broke their peep-holes as they carry, and drove ’em away, so as they knew better than come again.”

“It war good foon, I’d be bound,” said Hiram, whose fun was much restricted by circumstances.

“Well, I wouldn’t meddle with ’em myself,” said Solomon.  “But some say this country’s seen its best days, and the sign is, as it’s being overrun with these fellows trampling right and left, and wanting to cut it up into railways; and all for the big traffic to swallow up the little, so as there shan’t be a team left on the land, nor a whip to crack.”

“I’ll crack my whip about their ear’n, afore they bring it to that, though,” said Hiram, while Mr. Solomon, shaking his bridle, moved onward.

Nettle-seed needs no digging.  The ruin of this countryside by railroads was discussed, not only at the “Weights and Scales,” but in the hay-field, where the muster of working hands gave opportunities for talk such as were rarely had through the rural year.

One morning, not long after that interview between Mr. Farebrother and Mary Garth, in which she confessed to him her feeling for Fred Vincy, it happened that her father had some business which took him to Yoddrell’s farm in the direction of Frick:  it was to measure and value an outlying piece of land belonging to Lowick Manor, which Caleb expected to dispose of advantageously for Dorothea (it must be confessed that his bias was towards getting the best possible terms from railroad companies).  He put up his gig at Yoddrell’s, and in walking with his assistant and measuring-chain to the scene of his work, he encountered the party of the company’s agents, who were adjusting their spirit-level.  After a little chat he left them, observing that by-and-by they would reach him again where he was going to measure.  It was one of those gray mornings after light rains, which become delicious about twelve o’clock, when the clouds part a little, and the scent of the earth is sweet along the lanes and by the hedgerows.