"Built?"
"Oh no. Not yet, of course."
"Begun, then?"
"No, but----"
"Projected?"
"Precisely, projected, the plans approved, the Bill in preparation."
"But nothing done?"
"Nothing actually done as yet," the banker admitted, somewhat dashed. "But if we wait until these works are finished we shall find ourselves anticipated.
"Ah!"
"We wish, therefore, to be early in the field. Much has appeared in the papers about this mode of transport, and you are doubtless familiar with it. I have myself inquired into it, and the opinion of financial men in London is that these railroads will be very lucrative, paying dividends of from ten to twenty-five per cent."
The Squire raised his eyebrows.
"I have the plans here," the banker continued, once more producing them. "Our road runs over the land of six small owners, who have all agreed to the terms offered. It then enters on the Woosenham outlying property, and thence, before reaching Mr. Acherley's, proceeds over the Garth estate, serving your mills, the tenant of one of which joins our board. If you will look at the plans?" Again Ovington held them out.
But the old man put them aside. "I don't want to see them," he said.
"But, Squire, if you would kindly glance----"
"I don't want to see them. What do you want?"
Ovington paused to consider the most favorable light in which he could place the matter. "First, Mr. Griffin, your presence on the Board. We attach the highest importance to that. Secondly, a way-leave over your land for which the Company will pay--pay most handsomely, although the value added to your mills will far exceed the immediate profit."
"You want to carry your railroad over Garth?"
"Yes."
"Not a yard!" The old man tapped the table before him. "Not a foot!"
"But our terms--if you would allow me to explain them?"
"I don't want to hear them. I am not going to sell my birthright, whatever they are. You don't understand me? Well, you can understand this." And abruptly the Squire sat up. "I'll have none of your d--d smoking, stinking steam-wagons on my land in my time! Oh, I've read about them in more places than the papers, sir, and I'll not sell my birthright and my people's birthright--of clean air and clean water and clean soil for any mess of pottage you can offer! That's my answer, Mr. Ovington."
"But the railroad will not come within a mile of Garth."
"It will not come on to my land! I am not blind, sir. Suppose you succeed. Suppose you drive the mails and coaches and the stage-wagons off the road. Where shall I sell my coach-horses and hackneys and my tenants their heavy nags? And their corn and their beans? No, by G--d," stopping Ovington, who wished to interrupt him. "You may delude some of my neighbors, sir, and you may know more about money-making, where it is no question how the money is made, than I do! But I'll see that you don't delude me! A pack of navigators upsetting the country, killing game and robbing hen-roosts, raising wages and teaching honest folks tricks? Not here! If Woosenham knew his own business, and Acherley were not up to his neck in debt, they'd not let themselves be led by the nose by----"
"By whom, sir?" Ovington was on his feet by this time, his eyes smoldering, his face paler than usual. They confronted each other. It was the meeting, the collision of two powers, of two worlds, the old and the new.
"By whom, sir?" the Squire replied sternly--he too had risen. "By one whose interests and breeding are wholly different from theirs and who looks at things from another standpoint! That's by whom, sir. And one word more, Mr. Ovington. You have the name of being a clever man and I never doubted it until to-day; but have a care that you are not over clever, sir. Have a care that you do not lead your friends and yourself into more trouble than you think for! I read the papers and I see that everybody is to grow rich between Saturday and Monday. Well, I don't know as much about money business as you do, but I am an old man, and I have never seen a time when everybody grew rich and nobody was the loser."
Ovington had controlled himself well; and he still controlled himself, but there was a dangerous light in his eyes. "I am sorry," he said, "that you can give me no better answer, Mr. Griffin. We hoped to have, and we set some value on your support. But there are, of course--other ways."
"You may take your railroad any way you like, so long as you don't bring it over Garth."
"I don't mean that. If the railroad is made at all it must pass over Garth--the property stretches across the valley. But the Bill, when presented, will contain the same powers which are given in the later Canal Acts--a single proprietor cannot be allowed to stand in the way of the public interests, Mr. Griffin."
"You mean--by G--d, sir," the Squire broke out, "you mean that you will take my land whether I will or no?"
"I am not using any threat."
"But you do use a threat!" roared the Squire, towering tall and gaunt above his opponent. "You do use a threat! You come here----"
"I came here--" the other answered--he was quietly drawing on his gloves--"to put an excellent business investment before you, Mr. Griffin. As you do not think it worth while to entertain it, I can only regret that I have wasted your time and my own."
"Pish!" said the Squire.
"Very good. Then with your permission I will seek my horse."
The old man turned to the window and opened it. "Thomas," he shouted violently. "Mr. Ovington's horse."
When he turned again. "Perhaps you may still think better of it," Ovington said. He had regained command of himself. "I ought to have mentioned that your nephew has consented to act as Secretary to the Company."
"The more fool he!" the Squire snarled. "My nephew! What the devil is he doing in your Company? Or for the matter of that in your bank either?"
"I think he sees more clearly than you that times are changed."
"Ay," the old man retorted, full of wrath, and well aware that the other had found a joint in his armor. "And he had best have a care that these fine times don't lead him into trouble!"
"I hope not, I hope not. Good-day, Mr. Griffin. I can find my way out. Don't let me trouble you."
"I will see you out, if you please. After you, sir." Then, with an effort which cost him much, but which he thought was due to his position, "You are sure that you will take nothing?"
"Nothing, I thank you."
The Squire saw his visitor to the door; but he did not stay to see him ride away. He went back to his room and to a side window at which it was his custom to spend much time. It looked over the narrow vale, little more than a glen, which the eminence, on which the house stood, cut off from the main valley. It looked on its green slopes, on the fern-fringed brook that babbled and tossed in its bottom, on the black and white mill that spanned the stream, and on the Thirty Acre covert that clothed the farther side and climbed to the foot of the great limestone wall that towered alike above house and glen and rose itself to the knees of the boundary hills. And looking on all this, the Squire in fancy saw the railroad scoring and smirching and spoiling his beloved acres. It was nothing to him, that in fact the railroad would pass up the middle of the broad vale behind him--he ignored that. He saw the hated thing sweep by below him, a long black ugly snake, spewing smoke and steam over the green meadows, fouling the waters, darkening the air.
"Not in my time, by G--d!" he muttered, his knees quivering a little under him--for he was an aging man and the scene had tried him. "Not in my time!" And at the thought that he, the owner of all, hill and vale, within his sight, and the descendant of generations of owners--that he had been threatened by this