The bailiff grinned. "Mebbe he'll take a stick same as before."
"He'd best not!" Thomas said, with an ugly look. "He'd best take care, or----"
"Whist! Whist! lad. You be playing for trouble. Here be Squire."
The Squire glared at them, but he did not stop. He stalked into the house and, passing through it, went out by the front door. He intended to turn right-handed, and enter the high-terraced garden facing south, in which he was wont to take, even in winter, a few turns of a morning. But something caught his eye, and he paused. "Who's this?" he muttered, and shading his eyes made out a moment later that the stranger was Ovington. A visit from him was rare enough to be a portent, and the figure of his bank balance passed through the Squire's mind. Had he been rash? Ovington's was a new concern; was anything wrong? Then another idea, hardly more welcome, occurred to him: had the banker come on his nephew's account?
If so--however, he would soon know, for the visitor was by this time half-way up the winding drive, sunk between high banks, which, leaving the road a third of a mile from the house, presently forked, the left branch swerving through a grove of beech trees to the front entrance, the right making straight for the stables.
The Squire met his visitor at the gate and, raising his voice, shouted for Thomas. "I am sorry to trespass on you so early," Ovington said as he dismounted. "A little matter of business, Mr. Griffin, if I may trouble you."
The old man did not say that it was no trespass, but he stood aside punctiliously for the other to precede him through the gate. Then, "You'll stay to eat something after your ride?" he said.
"No, I thank you. I must be in town by noon."
"A glass of Madeira?"
"Nothing, Squire, I thank you. My business will not take long."
By this time they stood in the room in which the Squire lived and did his business. He pointed courteously to a chair. He was shabby, in well-worn homespun and gaiters, and the room was shabby, walled with bound Quarterlies and old farm books, and littered with spurs and dog leashes--its main window looked into the stable yard. But there was about the man a dignity implied rather than expressed, which the spruce banker in his shining Hessians owned and envied. The Squire could look at men so that they grew uneasy under his eye, and for a moment, owning his domination, the visitor doubted of success. But then again the room was so shabby. He took heart of grace.
"I shouldn't trouble you, Mr. Griffin," he said, sitting back with an assumption of ease, while the Squire from his old leather chair observed him warily, "except on a matter of importance. You will have heard that there is a scheme on foot to increase the value of the woollen industry by introducing a steam railroad. This is a new invention which, I admit, has not yet been proved, but I have examined it as a business man, and I think that much is to be expected from it.
A limited company is being formed to carry out the plan, if it prove to be feasible. Sir Charles Woosenham has agreed to be Chairman, Mr.
Acherley and other gentlemen of the county are taking part, and I am commissioned by them to approach you. I have the plans here----"
"What do you want?" The Squire's tone was uncompromising. He made no movement towards taking the plans.
"If you will allow me to explain?"
The old man sat back in his chair.
"The railroad will be a continuation of the Birmingham and Aldersbury railroad, which is in strong hands at Birmingham. Such a scheme would be too large for us. That, again, is a continuation of the London and Birmingham railroad."
"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."