"He won't build it."
"Of course not. Why didsta not speak to Paul?"
"No use in that," said Matthew, faintly.
"Nay, young Hugh is a gaffer," exclaimed the blacksmith.
"And Paul has no say in it except finding the brass, ey?"
"I mak' no doubt as you're reet, Dick," said Matthew, meekly.
"It's been just so since the day auld Allan died," said the blacksmith. "He hadn't been a week in his grave before Hugh bought up Mattha's royalty in the Hammer Hole, and began to sink for iron. He's never found much ore, as I've heard tell on, but he goes ahead laying down his pumping engines, and putting up his cranes, and boring his mill-races, just as if he was proper-ietor of a royal mine."
"Hugh is the chain-horse, and Paul's no'but the mare in the shafts," said Gubblum.
"And the money comes somehow," said Tom o' Dint, who had finished the knife and was testing its edge in whittling a stick.
Matthew got up from his seat.