hted from the train this was dangled before him at the end of a
long pole, with a pendant inscription, "Who left the key under the door?"

The promoters of the new undertaking, of which Mr. George Lewis became
first secretary, with offices in Oswald Chambers, Oswestry, had every
reason for satisfaction. Royal assent was given to their Bill in August,
1861, authorising a capital of 150,000 pounds in 10 pound shares, with
50,000 pounds on loan, the work to be completed within five years. There
were, however, still tough battles to be waged over subsequent efforts to
obtain sanction for certain deviations and extensions, against which the
Great Western continued to fight tooth and nail with a counter-offensive
of their own. No fewer than three distinct schemes were now before the
public, with all sorts of loops and junctions at Rednal or Mile End, near
Whittington, and branches from Bettisfield to Wem, or to Yorton, and from
Ellesmere to Ruabon. But it is an easier task to draw plans on a map
than to carry them out. The Wem branch never matured, the link with
Denbighshire only after many years, and then to Wrexham and not Ruabon.
So far as the main issue was concerned, however, the Great Western again
failed to prove their preamble, and another signal was given for local
rejoicings over the result. Not only at Oswestry and Ellesmere and other
places along the route of the new line, but as far afield as Montgomery
and Llanfyllin, where a branch line of their own was being promoted to
Llanymynech, hats were thrown into the air and healths were drunk to the
victory for local enterprise. Oswestry parish church bells rang for two
days, and the Rifle Corps band blew itself dry outside the houses of Mr.
Savin, Mr. George Owen and others. Mr. Savin himself, returning from
London, during these proceedings, met "with a reception at Oswestry such
as no man ever received before." Carried shoulder high through the
streets of the town, accompanied by a surging throng of cheering
admirers, armed with torches, to the tune of "See the Conquering Hero
comes," he was addressed in congratulatory vein by several of his
fellow-citizens, and it was only when a first and second attempt to fly
from the embarrassment of so tumultuous a welcome had failed, that he
succeeded, on a third, in making his escape. The "small haberdasher,"
who had been deemed incapable of organising railway schemes, had indeed
become something very like a railway k