much more easily and cheaply than they had ever done before, to make
up roads and move things about that had formerly been esteemed too
heavy for locomotion, to join woodwork with iron nails instead of
wooden pegs, to achieve all sorts of mechanical possibilities, to
trade more freely and manufacture on a larger scale, to send goods
abroad in a wholesale and systematic way, to bring back commodities
from overseas, not simply spices and fine commodities, but goods in
bulk. The new influence spread to agriculture, iron appliances
replaced wooden, breeding of stock became systematic, paper-making
and printing increased and cheapened. Roofs of slate and tile
appeared amidst and presently prevailed over the original Bromstead
thatch, the huge space of Common to the south was extensively
enclosed, and what had been an ill-defined horse-track to Dover,
only passable by adventurous coaches in dry weather, became the
Dover Road, and was presently the route first of one and then of
several daily coaches. The High Street was discovered to be too
tortuous for these awakening energies, and a new road cut off its
worst contortions. Residential villas appeared occupied by retired
tradesmen and widows, who esteemed the place healthy, and by others
of a strange new unoccupied class of people who had money invested
in joint-stock enterprises. First one and then several boys'
boarding-schools came, drawing their pupils from London,--my
grandfather's was one of these. London, twelve miles to the north-
west, was making itself felt more and more.

But this was only the beginning of the growth period, the first
trickle of the coming flood of mechanical power. Away in the north
they were casting iron in bigger and bigger forms, working their way
to the production of steel on a large scale, applying power in
factories. Bromstead had almost doubted in size again long before