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 peepholes 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 hayfield, 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