 farm out of hand, before anybody else could so much as say
snap. But I'll Pivart him!« added Mr. Tulliver, lifting his glass with a sense
that he had defined his resolution in an unmistakeable manner.
    »You won't be forced to go to law with him, I hope, brother?« said Mrs.
Moss, with some anxiety.
    »I don't know what I shall be forced to; but I know what I shall force him
to, with his dykes and erigations, if there's any law to be brought to bear o'
the right side. I know well enough who's at the bottom of it; he's got Wakem to
back him and egg him on. I know Wakem tells him the law can't touch him for it,
but there's folks can handle the law besides Wakem. It takes a big raskil to
beat him; but there's bigger to be found, as know more o' th' ins and outs o'
the law, else how came Wakem to lose Brumley's suit for him?«
    Mr. Tulliver was a strictly honest man, and proud of being honest, but he
considered that in law the ends of justice could only be achieved by employing a
stronger knave to frustrate a weaker. Law was a sort of cock-fight, in which it
was the business of injured honesty to get a game bird with the best pluck and
the strongest spurs.
    »Gore's no fool - you needn't tell me that,« he observed presently, in a
pugnacious tone, as if poor Gritty had been urging that lawyer's capabilities;
»but, you see, he isn't up to the law as Wakem is. And water's a very particular
thing - you can't pick it up with a pitchfork. That's why it's been nuts to Old
Harry and the lawyers. It's plain enough what's the rights and the wrongs of
water, if you look at it straightforrard; for a river's a river, and if you've
got a mill, you must have water to turn it; and it's no use telling me, Pivart's
erigation and nonsense won't stop my wheel; I know what belongs to water better
than that. Talk to me o' what th' engineers say! I say it's common sense, as
Pivart's dykes must do me an injury. But if that's their engineering
