ealth to either of their thriving towns;
and a beginning in Gershom would amount to very little in such a case.

And then the river bank on the Varney place was not, in Mr Holt's
opinion, the best place for the new mills and the new village. It was
not to be compared to the point just below which Bear's Creek, or, as
the Flemings called it, Ythan Brae, flowed into the Beaver, and this
also belonged to Mr Fleming. Jacob would have liked to make his
beginning there. He knew, for he had taken advice on the matter, that
at the Varney place no dam of sufficient capacity to answer all the
purposes which were contemplated by the company could be made, without
at certain seasons of the year so flooding the land above it as to
render it useless for any purpose. He might have taken the risk of
probable lawsuits, and gone on with the work, if it had depended on him
alone to decide the matter. But it did not. Or he would have bought
it, but that it belonged to David Fleming, who would listen to no
proposal from his "enemy."

It was not that Mr Fleming was not satisfied with the terms offered.
He would listen to no terms. Indeed he refused to discuss the matter
with his neighbours, not only with those who might be suspected of
wishing for one reason or another to convince him of the folly of not
taking advantage of a good offer for his land, but with those who
sympathised with him in his dislike to Jacob Holt, who went further than
he did even, and called the rich man not only avaricious, but worse. He
would listen to nothing about it, but rose and turned his back on the
bold man who ventured to approach the subject in his presence.

In all this Jacob Holt felt himself to be hardly used. He declared to
himself that he wished to do the right thing by Mr Fleming. He was
willing to give him the full value of every foot of his land, and above
its value. That the advancement of the interests of the town and the
welfare of the whole community should be interfered with, because of an
obstinate old man's whim, seemed to him intolerable; he did not want the
land. Let Mr Fleming treat with the company--there was no company as
yet, however--and let him pay him his just debt, that was all he asked
of him.

He did not speak often about this to any one--not a man in Gershom but
had more to say about it than he. But he thought about it continually.
If it had been any other man in Gershom who had so withstood him, he
would long ago