I thought it would be better to
break the entail. You give me fifty thousand pounds as my share of
Hallam, and you can have the reversion and leave the estate to whom
you wish."
The squire fairly staggered. Break the entail! Sell Hallam! The young
man was either mad, or he was the most wicked of sons.
"Does ta know what thou is talking about! Hallam has been ours for
a thousand years. O Antony! Antony!"
"We have had it so long, father, that we have grown to it like
vegetables."
"Has ta no love for t' old place? Look at it. Is there a bonnier spot
in t' wide world? Why-a! There's an old saying,
"'When a' t' world is up aloft,
God's share will be fair Hallam-Croft.'
"Look at ta dear old home, and t' sweet old gardens, and t' great park
full o' oaks that hev sheltered Saxons, Danes, Normans--ivery race
that has gone to make up t' Englishman o' to-day."
"There are plenty of fairer spots than Hallam. I will build a house
far larger and more splendid than this. There shall be a Lord Hallam,
an Earl Hallam, perhaps. Gold will buy any thing that is in the
market."
"Get thee out o' my sight! And I'll tell Lord Eltham varry plainly
what I think o' his meddling in my affairs. In order to set up his
youngest son I must give up t' bond on t' home that was my fathers
when his fathers were driving swine, the born thralls of the Kerdics
of Kerdic Forest.
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