They can get them by paying for them,
and they know how to pay." He laughed a little, lifting his square
shoulders. "Balthamor's six thousand acres of grouse moor and Elsty's
salmon fishing are rented by the Chicago man. He doesn't care twopence
for them, and does not know a pheasant from a caper-cailzie, but his
wife wants to know men who do."
It must be confessed that Salter was of the English who were not pleased
with the American Invasion. In some of his views of the matter he was a
little prehistoric and savage, but the modern side of his character
was too intelligent to lack reason. He was by no means entirely modern,
however; a large part of his nature belonged to the age in which men
had fought fiercely for what they wanted to get or keep, and when the
amenities of commerce had not become powerful factors in existence.
"They're not a bad lot," he was thinking at this moment. "They are
rather fine in a way. They are clever and powerful and interesting--more
so than they know themselves. But it is all commerce. They don't come
and fight with us and get possession of us by force. They come and
buy us. They buy our land and our homes, and our landowners, for that
matter--when they don't buy them, they send their women to marry them,
confound it!"
He took half a dozen more strides and lifted his shoulders again.
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