midnight
He walked out of the yard as quickly as he could , in some amazement at the novelty of his situation . He had never been insulted on his own land before , and had been inclined to regard himself as a general favorite -LRB- we are all apt to do so , when we think of our own amiability more than of what other people are likely to want of us -RRB- . When he had quarrelled with Caleb Garth twelve years before he had thought that the tenants would be pleased at the landlord 's taking everything into his own hands . Some who follow the narrative of his experience may wonder at the midnight darkness of Mr. Dagley ; but nothing was easier in those times than for an hereditary farmer of his grade to be ignorant , in spite somehow of having a rector in the twin parish who was a gentleman to the backbone , a curate nearer at hand who preached more learnedly than the rector , a landlord who had gone into everything , especially fine art and social improvement , and all the lights of Middlemarch only three miles off . As to the facility with which mortals escape knowledge , try an average acquaintance in the intellectual blaze of London , and consider what that eligible person for a dinner-party would have been if he had learned scant skill in `` summing '' from the parish-clerk of Tipton , and read a chapter in the Bible with immense difficulty , because such names as Isaiah or Apollos remained unmanageable after twice spelling . Poor Dagley read a few verses sometimes on a Sunday evening , and the world was at least not darker to him than it had been before . Some things he knew thoroughly , namely , the slovenly habits of farming , and the awkwardness of weather , stock and crops , at Freeman 's End -- so called apparently by way of sarcasm , to imply that a man was free to quit it if he chose , but that there was no earthly `` beyond '' open to him .