 the business of grown-up life could hardly be conducted without
a good deal of quarrelling. Now Tom was not fond of quarrelling, unless it could
soon be put an end to by a fair stand-up fight with an adversary whom he had
every chance of thrashing; and his father's irritable talk made him
uncomfortable, though he never accounted to himself for the feeling, or
conceived the notion that his father was faulty in this respect.
    The particular embodiment of the evil principle now exciting Mr. Tulliver's
determined resistance was Mr. Pivart, who, having lands higher up the Ripple,
was taking measures for their irrigation, which either were, or would be, or
were bound to be (on the principle that water was water), an infringement on Mr.
Tulliver's legitimate share of water-power. Dix, who had a mill on the stream,
was a feeble auxiliary of Old Harry compared with Pivart. Dix had been brought
to his senses by arbitration, and Wakem's advice had not carried him far; no:
Dix, Mr. Tulliver considered, had been as good as nowhere in point of law; and
in the intensity of his indignation against Pivart, his contempt for a baffled
adversary like Dix began to wear the air of a friendly attachment. He had no
male audience to-day except Mr. Moss, who knew nothing, as he said, of the
»natur' o' mills,« and could only assent to Mr. Tulliver's arguments on the a
priori ground of family relationship and monetary obligation; but Mr. Tulliver
did not talk with the futile intention of convincing his audience - he talked to
relieve himself; while good Mr. Moss made strong efforts to keep his eyes wide
open, in spite of the sleepiness which an unusually good dinner produced in his
hard-worked frame. Mrs. Moss, more alive to the subject, and interested in
everything that affected her brother, listened and put in a word as often as
maternal preoccupations allowed.
    »Why, Pivart's a new name hereabout, brother, isn't it?« she said: »he
didn't own the land in father's time, nor yours either, before I was married.«
    »New name? Yes - I should think it is a new name,« said Mr. Tulliver, with
angry emphasis. »Dorlcote Mill's been in our family a hundred year and better,
and nobody ever heard of a Pivart meddling with the river, till this fellow came
and bought Bincome's
