Lessons in Life, For All Who Will Read Them | Page 3

your man, a little
while ago, closing up the gate that opens from your farm into Mr.
Halpin's."
"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.
It would be doing injustice to the feelings of Mr. Bolton to say, that he
did not feel some emotions of regret for his precipitate action. But,
having assumed so decided a position in the matter, he could not think
of retracing a step that he had taken. Hasty and positive men are
generally weak-minded, and this weakness usually shows itself in a
pride of consistency. If they say a thing, they will persevere in doing it,
right or wrong, for fear that others may think them vacillating, or, what
they really are, weak-minded. Just such a man was Mr. Bolton.
"I've said it, and I'll do it!" That was one of his favourite expressions.
And he repeated it to himself, now, to drive off the repentant feelings
that came into his mind.
At dinner-time, when Mr. Bolton sat down to the table, he found,
placed just before him, a print of the golden butter sent to his wife on
that very morning by Mrs. Halpin. The sight annoyed and reproved him.
He felt that he had been hasty, unneighbourly, and, it might be, unjust;
for, as little gleams of reflection came breaking in one after another
upon his mind, he saw that a right of way for Mr. Halpin was
indispensable, and that if his deed gave it to him, it was a right of
which he could not deprive him without acting unjustly. Passion and

false reasonings would, it is true, quickly darken his mind again. But
they had, in turn, to give place to more correct views and feelings.
"Just try some of that butter. It is delicious!" said Mrs. Bolton, soon
after they were