Page 566 - middlemarch

him, I arn’t.’ Says they, ‘He’s a close-fisted un.’ ‘Ay ay,’ says I.
‘He’s a man for the Rinform,’ says they. That’s what they says.
An’ I made out what the Rinform were— an’ it were to send
you an’ your likes a-scuttlin’ an’ wi’ pretty strong-smellin’
things too. An’ you may do as you like now, for I’m none
afeard on you. An’ you’d better let my boy aloan, an’ look to
yoursen, afore the Rinform has got upo’ your back. That’s
what I’n got to say,’ concluded Mr. Dagley, striking his fork
into the ground with a firmness which proved inconvenient
as he tried to draw it up again.
At this last action Monk began to bark loudly, and it was
a moment for Mr. Brooke to escape. He walked out of the
yard as quickly as he could, in some amazement at the nov-
elty of his situation. He had never been insulted on his own
land before, and had been inclined to regard himself as a
general favorite (we are all apt to do so, when we think of
our own amiability more than of what other people are like-
ly to want of us). When he had quarrelled with Caleb Garth
twelve years before he had thought that the tenants would
be pleased at the landlord’s taking everything into his own
hands.
Some who follow the narrative of his experience may
wonder at the midnight darkness of Mr. Dagley; but noth-
ing was easier in those times than for an hereditary farmer
of his grade to be ignorant, in spite somehow of having a
rector in the twin parish who was a gentleman to the back-
bone, a curate nearer at hand who preached more learnedly
than the rector, a landlord who had gone into everything,
especially fine art and social improvement, and all the lights