Both Uses of
lien
in
Middlemarch
- Mr. Casaubon was out of the question, not merely because he declined duty of this sort, but because Featherstone had an especial dislike to him as the rector of his own parish, who had a lien on the land in the shape of tithe, also as the deliverer of morning sermons, which the old man, being in his pew and not at all sleepy, had been obliged to sit through with an inward snarl.†
Chpt 4
- He paid me the compliment of saying that he was very glad I had the living though you had come across his tactics, and had praised me up as a lien and a Tillotson, and that sort of thing, till Mrs. Casaubon would hear of no one else.†
Chpt 7 *
Definition:
-
(lien) the legal right to take another's property if a debt is not paid