The Squire's Daughter

by Silas K. Hocking

Since then things have further improved. A branch railway has been constructed, and two or three large hotels have been built, a Local Board has been formed, and the rates have been quadrupled. A "Town Band" plays during the season an accompaniment to the song the wild waves sing, and the picturesque sea-front has given place to an asphalted promenade. At the time of which we write, however, the promenade existed only in imagination, and some of the older houses were threatened by the persistently encroaching sea.

So a company was formed for the purpose of building a breakwater and a pier, and for the purpose of developing a large tract of land it had acquired along the sea-front, and tenders were invited for the carrying out of certain specified work.

None of the tenders, however, were accepted. There was no stone in the neighbourhood fit for the purpose, and to bring granite from the distant quarries meant an expense that was not to be thought of. The directors of the company began to feel sick. The debenture holders were eating up the capital, and the ordinary shareholders were clamouring for a dividend, while the sea threatened to eat up the land.

Meanwhile Ralph Penlogan had been looking at a huge heap of gravel and mica and blue clay which had been accumulating during three generations on the side of a hill some two or three miles inland. Every day and all the year round men pushed out small trucks and tipped their contents over the brow of this huge barrow. Every year the great heap extended its base, engulfing hedges and meadows and even plantations. There was no value in this waste whatever. In fact, it involved the company in a loss, for they had to pay for the land it continued to engulf. Anyone who liked to cart away a few loads for the purpose of gravelling his garden-path was at liberty to do so. The company would have been grateful if the whole mass of it could have been carted into the sea.

Ralph got a wheelbarrowful of the stuff and experimented with it. Then he wrote to the chairman of the company and asked permission to use some of the waste heap for building purposes—a permission which was at once granted. In fact, the chairman intimated that the more he could use the more he—the chairman—and his co-directors would be pleased.

Ralph's next step was to interview a local contractor who was very anxious to build the new sea-wall and pier. The result of that interview was that the contractor sent in a fresh tender, not to build the wall of granite, but with a newly discovered concrete, which could be manufactured at a very small cost, and which would serve the purposes of the company even better than granite itself.

Ralph registered his invention or discovery, got his concession from the Brick, Tile, and Clay Company into the best legal form possible, and then commenced operations.

Telfer, the contractor, who was delighted with the quality of the concrete, financed Ralph at the start, and helped him in every way in his power.

The Perranpool Pier and Land Company, after testing the new material in every way known to them, accepted Telfer's tender, and the great work was commenced forthwith.

In a couple of months Ralph had as many men at work as he had room for. Telfer had laid a light tram-line down the valley, and as fast as the blocks were manufactured they were run down to Perranpool.