And as he was walking and thinking Ezra Topham
met him. Now, then, Ezra and your father were chief friends, even from
their boyhood, and their fathers before them good friends, and indeed,
as you know the Yorkshire way in friendship, it might go back of that
and that again. And Ezra said these very words,
"'Stephen, I'm going to America. My heart and hands were never made for
trading and cotton-spinning. I hev been raised on the land. I hev lived
on the land and eaten and drunk what the land gave me. All my
forefathers did the same, and the noise and smell of these new-fangled
factories takes the heart out of me. I hev a bit of brass left, and
while I hev it I am going to buy me a farm where good land is sold by
the acre and not by feet and inches. Now, then, I'll sell thee my mill,
and its fifty looms, and heppen it may do cheerfully for thee what it
will not do anyway for me. Will tha buy it?'"
"Poor chap!" interrupted Harry. "I know just how he felt. I am sorry for
him."
"You needn't be anything of that sort, Harry.
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