 the Reform Bill or the imminent horrors of
Cholera, and those who held the most decided views on the subject were women and
landholders. Women both old and young regarded travelling by steam as
presumptuous and dangerous, and argued against it by saying that nothing should
induce them to get into a railway carriage; while proprietors, differing from
each other in their arguments as much as Mr. Solomon Featherstone differed from
Lord Medlicote, were yet unanimous in the opinion that in selling land, whether
to the Enemy of mankind or to a company obliged to purchase, these pernicious
agencies must be made to pay a very high price to landowners for permission to
injure mankind.
    But the slower wits, such as Mr. Solomon, and Mrs. Waule, who both occupied
land of their own, took a long time to arrive at this conclusion, their minds
halting at the vivid conception of what it would be to cut the Big Pasture in
two, and turn it into three-cornered bits, which would be »nohow;« while
accommodation-bridges and high payments were remote and incredible.
    »The cows will all cast their calves, brother,« said Mrs. Waule, in a tone
of deep melancholy, »if the railway comes across the Near Close; and I shouldn't
wonder at the mare too, if she was in foal. It's a poor tale if a widow's
property is to be spaded away, and the law say nothing to it. What's to hinder
'em from cutting right and left if they begin? It's well known, I can't fight.«
    »The best way would be to say nothing, and set somebody on to send 'em away
with a flea in their ear, when they came spying and measuring,« said Solomon.
»Folks did that about Brassing, by what I can understand. It's all a pretence,
if the truth was known, about their being forced to take one way. Let 'em go
cutting in another parish. And I don't believe in any pay to make amends for
bringing a lot of ruffians to trample your crops. Where's a company's pocket?«
    »Brother Peter, God forgive him, got money out of a company,« said Mrs.
Waule. »But that was for the manganese. That wasn't for railways to blow you to
pieces right and left.«
    »Well, there's this to be said, Jane,« Mr. Solomon concluded, lowering his
voice in a cautious manner - »
