“My house! Chillacot?” He was still absent in mind. He could not at once withdraw his thoughts from where they had strayed to matters so closely concerning himself.
“It is true; Tamsine came running to me to tell me about it. Your son managed to get into the house and bring his mother out, and Marianne is like one in a fit, she cannot speak—_that_, if you wish it, is a miracle. The men have set picks and crowbars to work to tumble the stones down on your house and garden, and bury them. Slates and windows are smashed already, and the shrubs broken down in your garden.”
“Why? Because you won’t let the railway come along there, and the parish is angry, and thinks the station will be set further from the village. The fellows say you, with your obstinacy, are standing in the way of improvement, and driving trade and money out of the place.”
Stephen Saltren looked at Mrs. Kite with dazed eyes. He could not receive all she said, but he allowed her to lead him through the woods in the direction of Chillacot. He came out with her at the spot where he had stood before and looked on whilst the body of Lord Lamerton was removed from the place where it had fallen.
He stood there now, and looked again, and saw the destruction of the house he loved. A crowd of men and boys were on the down, shouting, laughing, some working, others encouraging them. Those who had crowbars drove them into the turf, and worked through to the rock that came up close to the surface; then they levered the stones through clefts and faults, out of place, and sent them plunging over the edge of the precipice, accompanied by clouds of dust, and avalanches of rubble. As each piece went leaping and rolling down it was saluted with a cheer, and the men leaned over the edge of the cliff to see where it fell, and what amount of damage was done by it.
The roof of Chillacot was broken through in several places; the slates at the top of the chimney, set on edge to divert the draught from blowing down it, were knocked off. One huge block had overleaped the house, torn a track through the flower-bed in front, had beat down the entrance gate and there halted, seated on the shattered gate.
Saltren stood looking on with apparent indifference, because he was still unable to realise what was being done; but the full importance of the fact that his home was being wrecked came on him with a sudden rush, the blood flew into his face, he uttered a shout of rage, plunged through the bushes, down the hill-side, dashed through the stream below in the valley, ran up to his cottage, and for a moment stood shaking his fist in inarticulate wrath at the men who looked down on him, laughing and jeering from the cliff.