Oliver Onions

“ Men had come to take the roadway up, and there were barriers, with red flags, and, at night, red lamps instead of the flags. They were doing something to the mains. Then, a week later still, the District Council’s men shovelled the heaps of clay back into the graves again, and carts threw hillocks of grey road-metal down. They were about to tackle the surface of the road.
Then, one morning, a road-engine appeared, with a man walking in front of it with a red flag. It began to pass slowly back and forth before Kerr's house. ”

“ He confesses that he has never thrown down and put up again, with his own hands, in the space of a single night, even a small cottage. On the other hand, he has spoken with a man who all but saw this thing of Kerr’s done. Therefore, since fiction, which must continue to be stranger than truth as long as ever it can, must nevertheless own itself beaten sometimes, let that man take up the tale of Kerr’s exploit for a moment. ”

“ Kerr had not built this house of his, but his four brothers had, himself, a boy of twelve, assisting: and on the death of the last brother he had claimed it.
Apparently Gruffydd Davies had found the claim unshakeable; but he had shaken something of greater stability than a title. He had stirred up a Lancashire man’s mistrust.
There is no need to trace the quarrel, year by year, for ten years. It was not now a question of price. It seemed, and in a way was, epic—one man against overwhelming forces ”

“ By three o'clock in the morning Kerr was neither sober nor drunk; he was a will and a piece of muscular apparatus, the two things quite dissociated, and yet working together with never a jerk to mar their harmony. As a worn-out old machine will continue to do its work provided it is not interrupted, so Kerr worked, in a state to which the only fatal thing would have been to stop. ”

“ It had been a score for Llanyglo when Kerr’s dwelling had been all but condemned as insanitary; but even Kerr’s enemies had had to smile when he had threatened that he would make those two splendid hotels, then a-building, pay for the support of his rickety old walls ”

“ No doubt in the end it was one man who believed he was right against another man who equally believed he was right. And it made no difference that the one protagonist was Chairman of the Council and a preacher who could make two tears flow where another preacher could hardly have started one, and the other a drunken vagabond of a harbour loafer who began the day with pints and finished it with quarts. ”

“ The ends near the two hotels were the danger-points; the most perilous point of all was the main beam under the newly-propped chimney. The chimney must be taken down first of all. “To lighten t’ beam,” Walter’s voice seemed to sound. “Nay, dinna fiddle about wi’ it; shove it over into th’ alley; we're pushed for time.”
So, whether you call it drink, or whatever you call it, Kerr did not set to work quite unassisted. ”

“ Kerr did so, zigzagging home at night, crying out against smiling, thievish Welshmen (devastate ’em!) —against their chapels (a snuffling lot!) —against their Kursaals (Curse-halls more like!) —against their Promenades and Bathing-places and Concerts Llanyglo. And he indulged to the full a vinegar-like humour. He carried a railway-ticket to Ratchet in his pocket, to show them. Deliberately he made his back yard a scandal to the Kursaal Gardens. He offered to give the cottage away to any Welshman who would repeat after him, word for word ... ”

“ Kerr was thinking how he hated the Welshman’s fine, small, regular teeth. They were false, but by no means the falsest thing about his mouth. He mumbled something, and was passing along, but Davies continued, smiling the smile that formerly had been Kerr’s.
“I hope William Morgan does not incommode you with the road-engine, Thomas Kerr. Indeed it would be a bad thing to disturb people who are sleeping peacefully in their beds. ‘Drive as gently as you can, William Morgan,’ was my orders. ... You are off to the Marine Hotel now, Thomas Kerr? ”