Middlemarch by George Eliot (ebook and pdf reader TXT) 📕

Fred, delayed a few moments by having to find the gate, could not gallop up to the spot before the party in smock-frocks, whose work of turning the hay had not been too pressing after swallowing their midday beer, were driving the men in coats before them with their hayforks; while Caleb Garth’s assistant, a lad of seventeen, who had snatched up the spirit-level at Caleb’s order, had been knocked down and seemed to be lying helpless. The coated men had the advantage as runners, and Fred covered their retreat by getting in front of the smock-frocks and charging them suddenly enough to throw their chase into confusion. “What do you confounded fools mean?” shouted Fred, pursuing the divided group in a zigzag, and cutting right and left with his whip. “I’ll swear to every one of you before the magistrate. You’ve knocked the lad down and killed him, for what I know. You’ll every one of you be hanged at the next assizes, if you don’t mind,” said Fred, who afterwards laughed heartily as he remembered his own phrases.

The laborers had been driven through the gateway into their hayfield, and Fred had checked his horse, when Hiram Ford, observing himself at a safe challenging distance, turned back and shouted a defiance which he did not know to be Homeric.

“Yo’re a coward, yo are. Yo git off your horse, young measter, and I’ll have a round wi’ ye, I wull. Yo daredn’t come on wi’out your hoss an’ whip. I’d soon knock the breath out on ye, I would.”

“Wait a minute, and I’ll come back presently, and have a round with you all in turn, if you like,” said Fred, who felt confidence in his power of boxing with his dearly beloved brethren. But just now he wanted to hasten back to Caleb and the prostrate youth.

The lad’s ankle was strained, and he was in much pain from it, but he was no further hurt, and Fred placed him on the horse that he might ride to Yoddrell’s and be taken care of there.

“Let them put the horse in the stable, and tell the surveyors they can come back for their traps,” said Fred. “The ground is clear now.”

“No, no,” said Caleb, “here’s a breakage. They’ll have to give up for today, and it will be as well. Here, take the things before you on the horse, Tom. They’ll see you coming, and they’ll turn back.”

“I’m glad I happened to be here at the right moment, Mr. Garth,” said Fred, as Tom rode away. “No knowing what might have happened if the cavalry had not come up in time.”

“Ay, ay, it was lucky,” said Caleb, speaking rather absently, and looking towards the spot where he had been at work at the moment of interruption. “But⁠—deuce take it⁠—this is what comes of men being fools⁠—I’m hindered of my day’s work. I can’t get along without somebody to help me with the measuring-chain. However!” He was beginning to move towards the spot with a look of vexation, as if he had forgotten Fred’s presence, but suddenly he turned round and said quickly, “What have you got to do today, young fellow?”

“Nothing, Mr. Garth. I’ll help you with pleasure⁠—can I?” said Fred, with a sense that he should be courting Mary when he was helping her father.

“Well, you mustn’t mind stooping and getting hot.”

“I don’t mind anything. Only I want to go first and have a round with that hulky fellow who turned to challenge me. It would be a good lesson for him. I shall not be five minutes.”

“Nonsense!” said Caleb, with his most peremptory intonation. “I shall go and speak to the men myself. It’s all ignorance. Somebody has been telling them lies. The poor fools don’t know any better.”

“I shall go with you, then,” said Fred.

“No, no; stay where you are. I don’t want your young blood. I can take care of myself.”

Caleb was a powerful man and knew little of any fear except the fear of hurting others and the fear of having to speechify. But he felt it his duty at this moment to try and give a little harangue. There was a striking mixture in him⁠—which came from his having always been a hardworking man himself⁠—of rigorous notions about workmen and practical indulgence towards them. To do a good day’s work and to do it well, he held to be part of their welfare, as it was the chief part of his own happiness; but he had a strong sense of fellowship with them. When he advanced towards the laborers they had not gone to work again, but were standing in that form of rural grouping which consists in each turning a shoulder towards the other, at a distance of two or three yards. They looked rather sulkily at Caleb, who walked quickly with one hand in his pocket and the other thrust between the buttons of his waistcoat, and had his everyday mild air when he paused among them.

“Why, my lads, how’s this?” he began, taking as usual to brief phrases, which seemed pregnant to himself, because he had many thoughts lying under them, like the abundant roots of a plant that just manages to peep above the water. “How came you to make such a mistake as this? Somebody has been telling you lies. You thought those men up there wanted to do mischief.”

“Aw!” was the answer, dropped at intervals by each according to his degree of unreadiness.

“Nonsense! No such thing! They’re looking out to see which way the railroad is to take. Now, my lads, you can’t hinder the railroad: it will be made whether you like it or not. And if you go fighting against it, you’ll get yourselves into trouble. The law gives those men leave to come here on the land. The owner has nothing to say against it, and if you meddle with them you’ll have to do with the constable and Justice Blakesley, and with the handcuffs and Middlemarch jail. And