You aristocrats are very hard people underneath your manners.Ye love to lay a body out.But I've got the future all right.
HILLCRIST.[Meaningly] I've had the Dackmans here, Mr.Hornblower.
HORNBLOWER.Who are they--man with the little spitfire wife?
HILLCRIST.They're very excellent, good people, and they've been in that cottage quietly thirty years.
HORNBLOWER.[Throwing out his forefinger--a favourite gesture] Ah!
ye've wanted me to stir ye up a bit.Deepwater needs a bit o' go put into it.There's generally some go where I am.I daresay you wish there'd been no "come." [He laughs].
MRS.H.We certainly like people to keep their word, Mr.
Hornblower.
HILLCRIST.Amy!
HORNBLOWER.Never mind, Hillcrist; takes more than that to upset me.
[MRS.HILLCRIST exchanges a look with DAWKER who slips out unobserved.]
HILLCRIST.You promised me, you know, not to change the tenancies.
HORNBLOWER.Well, I've come to tell ye that I have.I wasn't expecting to have the need when I bought.Thought the Duke would sell me a bit down there; but devil a bit he will; and now I must have those cottages for my workmen.I've got important works, ye know.
HILLCRIST.[Getting heated] The Jackmans have their importance too, sir.Their heart's in that cottage.
HORNBLOWER.Have a sense of proportion, man.My works supply thousands of people, and my, heart's in them.What's more, they make my fortune.I've got ambitions--I'm a serious man.Suppose Iwere to consider this and that, and every little potty objection--where should I get to?--nowhere!
HILLCRIST.All the same, this sort of thing isn't done, you know.
HORNBLOWER.Not by you because ye've got no need to do it.Here ye are, quite content on what your fathers made for ye.Ye've no ambitions; and ye want other people to have none.How d'ye think your fathers got your land?
HILLCRIST.[Who has risen] Not by breaking their word.
HORNBLOWER.[Throwing out his, finger] Don't ye believe it.They got it by breaking their word and turnin' out Jackmans, if that's their name, all over the place.
MRS.H.That's an insult, Mr.Hornblower.
HORNBLOWER.No; it's a repartee.If ye think so much of these Jackmans, build them a cottage yourselves; ye've got the space.
HILLCRIST.That's beside the point.You promised me, and I sold on that understanding.
HORNBLOWER.And I bought on the understandin' that I'd get some more land from the Duke.
HILLCRIST.That's nothing to do with me.
HORNBLOWER.Ye'll find it has; because I'm going to have those cottages.
HILLCRIST.Well, I call it simply----
[He checks himself.]
HORNBLOWER.Look here, Hillcrist, ye've not had occasion to understand men like me.I've got the guts, and I've got the money;and I don't sit still on it.I'm going ahead because I believe in meself.I've no use for sentiment and that sort of thing.Forty of your Jackmans aren't worth me little finger.
HILLCRIST.[Angry] Of all the blatant things I ever heard said!
HORNBLOWER.Well, as we're speaking plainly, I've been thinkin'.
Ye want the village run your oldfashioned way, and I want it run mine.I fancy there's not room for the two of us here.
MRS.H.When are you going?
HORNBLOWER,.Never fear, I'm not going.
HILLCRIST.Look here, Mr.Hornblower--this infernal gout makes me irritable--puts me at a disadvantage.But I should be glad if you'd kindly explain yourself.
HORNBLOWER.[With a great smile] Ca' canny; I'm fra' the North.
HILLCRIST.I'm told you wish to buy the Centry and put more of your chimneys up ,there, regardless of the fact [He Points through the window] that it would utterly ruin the house we've had for generations, and all our pleasure here.
HORNBLOWER.How the man talks! Why! Ye'd think he owned the sky, because his fathers built him a house with a pretty view, where he's nothing to do but live.It's sheer want of something to do that gives ye your fine sentiments, Hillcrist.
HILLCRIST.Have the goodness not to charge me with idleness.
Dawker--where is he?----[He shows the bureau] When you do the drudgery of your works as thoroughly as I do that of my estate----Is it true about the Centry?
HORNBLOWER.Gospel true.If ye want to know, my son Chearlie is buyin' it this very minute.
MRS.H.[Turning with a start] What do you say?
HORNBLOWER.Ay, he's with the old lady she wants to sell, an'
she'll get her price, whatever it is.
HILLCRIST.[With deep anger] If that isn't a skin game, Mr.
Hornblower, I don't know what is.
HORNBLOWER.Ah! Ye've got a very nice expression there."Skin game!" Well, bad words break no bones, an' they're wonderful for hardenin' the heart.If it wasn't for a lady's presence, I could give ye a specimen or two.
MRS.H.Oh! Mr.Hornblower, that need not stop you, I'm sure.
HORNBLOWER.Well, and I don't know that it need.Ye're an obstruction--the like of you--ye're in my path.And anyone in my path doesn't stay there long; or, if he does, he stays there on my terms.And my terms are chimneys in the Centry where I need 'em.
It'll do ye a power of good, too, to know that ye're not almighty.
HILLCRIST.And that's being neighbourly!
HORNBLOWER.And how have ye tried bein' neighbourly to me? If Ihaven't a wife, I've got a daughter-in-law.Have Ye celled on her, ma'am? I'm new, and ye're an old family.Ye don't like me, ye think I'm a pushin' man.I go to chapel, an' ye don't like that.
I make things and I sell them, and ye don't like that.I buy land, and ye don't like that.It threatens the view from your windies.
Well, I don't lie you, and I'm not goin' to put up with your attitude.Ye've had things your own way too long, and now ye're not going to have them any longer.
HILLCRIST.Will you hold to your word over those cottages?
HORNBLOWER.I'm goin' to have the cottages.I need them, and more besides, now I'm to put up me new works.
HILLCRIST.That's a declaration of war.
HORNBLOWER.Ye never said a truer word.It's one or the other of us, and I rather think it's goin' to be me.I'm the risin' and you're the settin' sun, as the poet says.