“That would greatly depend upon the price.”
“I 'll not haggle about terms, nor I 'm sure would Keldrum,” said I, nodding over to his Lordship.
“You are only just to me, in that,” said he, smiling.
“That's all fine talking for you fellows who had the luck to be first on the list, but what are poor devils like Oxley and myself to do?” said Hammond. “Taxation comes down to second sons.”
“And the 'Times' says that's all right,” added Oxley.
“And I say it's all wrong; and I say more,” I broke in: “I say that of all the tyrannies of Europe, I know of none like that newspaper. Why, sir, whose station, I would ask, nowadays, can exempt him from its impertinent criticisms? Can Keldrum say—can I say—that to-morrow or next day we shall not be arraigned for this, that, or t'other? I choose, for instance, to manage my estate,—the property that has been in my family for centuries,—the acres that have descended to us by grants as old as Magna Charta. I desire, for reasons that seem sufficient to myself, to convert arable into grass land. I say to one of my tenant farmers—it's Hedgeworth—no matter, I shall not mention names, but I say to him—”
“I know the man,” broke in the priest; “you mean Hedgeworth Davis, of Mount Davis.”
“No, sir, I do not,” said I, angrily, for I resented this attempt to run me to earth.
“Hedgeworth! Hedgeworth! It ain't that fellow that was in the Rifles; the 2d battalion, is it?” said Ozley.
“I repeat,” said I, “that I will mention no names.”