Ralph almost wished sometimes that he had never discovered the lode. Men came to him for employment who scarcely knew how to handle a shovel, and he often had to take off his coat and show them the way. He was like a beggar who had found a diamond and did not know what to do with it. On all hands people spoke of his good fortune, but after a few weeks he began to be in doubt. Difficulties and worries and vexations began to gather like snowflakes in a winter's storm. Lord St. Goram put in a claim for a certain right of way. The District Council threatened legal proceedings if he interfered with a particular watercourse. Sir John Hamblyn's legal adviser raised a technical point on the question of transfer. The Chancellor of the Duchy sent a formidable list of questions relating to Crown rights, while Farmer Jenkins wanted compensation for the destruction of crops which had never been destroyed. "I've raised a perfect hornets' nest," Ralph said to William Menire one evening, in his little room at the back of the shop. "Everybody seems to consider me fair game. There isn't a man in the neighbourhood with any real or fancied right who has not put in some trumpery claim or other. The number of lawyers' letters I have received is enough to turn my hair grey." "Oh, never mind," William said cheerfully, "things will come out right in the end! I am sorry you have to face the music alone, but I'm as fast here as a thief in a mill." "I know you are," Ralph said sympathetically. "But to tell you the candid truth, I am not so sure that things will come out right." "Why not?" "Because everybody is up in arms against us." "Not everybody." "Everybody who thinks he can get something out of us. Our little dominion is surrounded by hostile tribes. I never realised till the last few days how completely we are hemmed in. On two sides the Hamblyn estates block our passage, on the third side Lord St. Goram's land abuts, and on the fourth side old Beecham has his fence and his barbed wire, and all these people have struck up a threatening attitude. Sir John is naturally as mad as a hatter that he sold the farm at all. Lord St. Goram is angry that a couple of plebeians should own land in what he regards as his parish; while old Beecham, who regards himself as an aristocrat, sides with his own class, and so between them our fate promises to be that of the pipkin between the iron pots." "But we need not go beyond the bounds of our own property," William said. "There you are mistaken," Ralph answered quickly. "Our small empire is not self-contained. There is no public road through it or even to it. Lord St. Goram threatens to block up the only entrance. And you know what going to law with a landed magnate means." William looked grave.