“Well!” Mr. Bolton’s brows contracted heavily.

“Are you aware that his farm has the right of way through yours?”

“No, sir.”

“Such, however, let me assure you, is the case.  Mr. Halpin has no other avenue to the public road.”

“That’s his misfortune; but it gives him no license to trespass on my property.”

“It is not a trespass, Mr. Bolton.  He only uses a right purchased when he bought his farm, and one that he can and will sustain in the courts against you.”

“Let him go to court, then.  I bought this farm for my own private use, not as a highway; no such qualification is embraced in the deed.  The land is mine, and no one shall trespass upon it.”

“But, Mr. Bolton,” calmly replied the other, “in purchasing, you secured an outlet to the public road.”

“Certainly I did; but not through your farm, nor that of any one else.”

“Halpin was not so fortunate,” said Mr. Dix.  “In buying his farm, he had to take it with a guarantied right of way across this one.  There was no other outlet.”

“It was not a guarantee against my ownership,” doggedly replied Mr. Bolton.

“Pardon me for saying that in this you are in error,” returned the other.  “Originally both farms were in one; that was subsequently sold with a right of way across this.”

“There is no such concession in the deed I hold,” said Bolton.

“If you will take the trouble to make an examination in the clerk’s office in the county court, you’ll find it to be as I state.”

“I don’t care any thing about how it was originally,” returned Bolton, with the headiness of passionate men when excited.  “I look only to how it is now.  This is my farm; I bought it with no such concessions, and will not yield it unless by compulsion.  I wouldn’t be the owner of a piece of land that another man had the right to enter.”

“That little strip of ground,” said Mr. Dix, “which is of but trifling value, might be fenced off as a road.  This would take away all necessity for entering your ground.”

“What!” said Bolton, indignantly; “vacate the property I have bought and paid for?  I am not quite so generous as that.  If Mr. Halpin must have a right of way, let him obtain his right by purchase.  I’ll sell him a strip from off the south side of my farm, wide enough for a road, if that will suit him; but he shall not use one inch of my property as a common thoroughfare.”

Mr. Dix still tried to argue the matter with Bolton, but the latter had permitted himself to get angry, and angry men are generally deaf as an adder to the voice of reason.  So the neighbour, who called in the hope of turning the new occupant of the farm from his purpose, and thus saving trouble to both himself and Mr. Halpin, retired without effecting what he wished to accomplish.