Thus the mind of Frick was exactly of the sort for Mr. Solomon
Featherstone to work upon, he having more plenteous ideas of the same
order, with a suspicion of heaven and earth which was better fed and
more entirely at leisure. Solomon was overseer of the roads at that
time, and on his slow-paced cob often took his rounds by Frick to look
at the workmen getting the stones there, pausing with a mysterious
deliberation, which might have misled you into supposing that he had
some other reason for staying than the mere want of impulse to move.
After looking for a long while at any work that was going on, he would
raise his eyes a little and look at the horizon; finally he would shake
his bridle, touch his horse with the whip, and get it to move slowly
onward. The hour-hand of a clock was quick by comparison with Mr.
Solomon, who had an agreeable sense that he could afford to be slow.
He was in the habit of pausing for a cautious, vaguely designing chat
with every hedger or ditcher on his way, and was especially willing 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.