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+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40603 ***
+
+                         THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL
+
+                          BY J. S. FLETCHER
+
+
+    NEW YORK
+    GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY
+
+    THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL
+
+    PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
+
+
+                 TO
+    SIR WILLIAM ROBERTSON NICOLL
+        WITH MUCH GRATITUDE
+
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS
+
+
+    Part the First: RISE
+
+    I APPLECROFT 11
+
+    II THE TIGHT LIP 23
+
+    III THE BROKEN MAN 35
+
+    IV THE DIPLOMATIC FATHER 47
+
+    V THE SHAKESPEARE LINE 59
+
+    VI THE GLOVES OFF 71
+
+    VII THE GOLDEN TEAPOT 83
+
+    VIII THE BATTLE BEGINS 95
+
+    IX THE IRON ROD 107
+
+    X THE ETERNAL FEMININE 119
+
+    XI HUMBLE PIE 131
+
+    XII THE TRIPLE CHANCE 142
+
+    XIII DEAD MEN'S SHOES 153
+
+
+    Part the Second: FALL
+
+    I AVARICE 165
+
+    II THE BIT OF BAD LAND 177
+
+    III COAL 189
+
+    IV BIRDS OF A FEATHER 201
+
+    V THE YORKSHIRE WAY 213
+
+    VI OBSESSION 225
+
+    VII THE LAST THROW 237
+
+    VIII THE COMMINATION SERVICE 248
+
+    IX THE BELL RINGS 260
+
+    X BLACK DEPTHS 271
+
+    XI THE SENTENCE 283
+
+    XII THE SECOND EXODUS 294
+
+    XIII THE LUSTRE JUG 307
+
+
+
+
+_Part the First: RISE_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_Applecroft_
+
+
+Half-way along the one straggling street of Savilestowe a narrow lane
+suddenly opened out between the cottages and turned abruptly towards the
+uplands which rose on the northern edge of the village. Its first course
+lay between high grey walls, overhung with ivy and snapdragon. When it
+emerged from their cool shadowings the church came in view on one hand
+and the school on the other, each set on its own green knoll and
+standing high above the meadows. Once past these it became narrower and
+more tortuous; the banks on either side rose steeply, and were crowned
+by ancient oaks and elms. In the proper season of the year these banks
+were thick with celandine and anemone, and the scent of hedge violets
+rose from the moss among the spreading roots of the trees. Here the ruts
+of the lane were deep, as if no man had any particular business to
+repair them. The lane was, in fact, a mere occupation road, and led to
+nothing but an out-of-the-way farmstead, which stood, isolated and
+forlorn, half a mile from the village. It bore a picturesque
+name--Applecroft--and an artist, straying by chance up the lane and
+coming suddenly upon it would have rejoiced in its queer gables, its
+twisted chimneys, in the beeches and chestnuts that towered above it,
+and in the old-world garden and orchard which flanked one side of its
+brick walls, mellowed by time to the colour of claret. But had such a
+pilgrim looked closer he would have seen that here were all the marks of
+ill-fortune and coming ruin--evident, at any rate, to practical eyes in
+the neglected gates and fences, in the empty fold, in the hingeless,
+tumble-down doors, in the lack of that stitch in time which by
+anticipation would have prevented nine more. He would have seen, in
+short, that this was one of those places, of which there are so many in
+rural England, whereat a feckless man, short of money, was vainly
+endeavouring to do what no man can do without brains and capital.
+
+Nevertheless--so powerfully will Nature assert her own wealth in the
+face of human poverty--the place looked bright and attractive enough on
+a certain morning, when, it then being May, the trees around it were in
+the first glory of their leafage, and the orchard was red and white with
+blossom of apple and plum and cherry. There was a scent of sweetbriar
+and mignonette around the broken wicket gate which admitted to the
+garden, and in the garden itself, ill-kept and neglected, a hundred
+flowers and weeds, growing together unchecked, made patches of vivid
+colour against the prevalent green. There were other patches of colour,
+of a different sort, about the place, too. Beyond the garden, and a
+little to the right of the house, a level sward, open to the full light
+of the sun, made an excellent drying ground for the family washing, and
+here, busily hanging out various garments on lines of cord, stretched
+between rough posts, were two young women, the daughters of William
+Farnish, the shiftless farmer, whose hold on his house and land was
+daily becoming increasingly feeble. If any shrewd observer able to
+render himself invisible had looked all round Applecroft--inside house
+and hedge, through granary and stable--he would have gone away saying
+with emphasis, that he had seen nothing worth having there, save the two
+girls whose print gowns fluttered about their shapely limbs as they
+raised their bare arms and full bosoms to the cords on which they were
+pegging out the wet linen.
+
+Farnish's wife had been dead some years, and since her death his two
+daughters had not only done all the work of the house, but much of what
+their father managed to carry out on his hundred acres of land. They
+bore strange names--selected by Farnish and his wife, after much
+searching and reflection, from the pages of the family Bible. The elder
+was named Jecholiah; the younger Jerusha. As time had gone on Jecholiah
+had become Jeckie; Jerusha had been shortened to Rushie. Everybody in
+the parish and the neighbourhood knew Jeckie and Rushie Farnish. They
+had always been inseparable, these sisters, yet it needed little
+particular observation to see that there was a difference of character
+and temperament between them. Jeckie, at twenty-five, was a tall,
+handsome, finely-developed young woman, generous in proportion, with a
+flashing, determined eye, and a mouth and chin which denoted purpose and
+obstinacy; she was the sort of woman that could love like fire, but whom
+it would be dangerous to cross in love. Already many of the young men of
+the district, catching one flash of her hawk-like eyes, had felt
+themselves warned, and it had been a matter of astonishment to some
+discerning folk when it became known that she was going to marry Albert
+Grice, the only son of old George Grice, the village grocer, a somewhat
+colourless, tame young man whose vices were non-existent and his virtues
+commonplace, and who had nothing to recommend him but a good-humoured,
+weak amiability and a rather good-looking, boyish face. Some said that
+Jeckie was thinking of Old Grice's money-bags, but the vicar's wife, who
+studied psychology in purely amateur fashion, said that Jeckie Farnish
+had taken up Albert Grice in precisely the same spirit which makes a
+child love a legless and faceless doll, and an old maid a miserable
+mongrel--just in response to the mothering instinct; whether Jeckie
+loved him, they said, nobody would ever know, for Jeckie, with her
+proud, scornful lips and eyes full of sombre passion, was not the sort
+to tell her heart's secrets to anybody. Not so, however, with her
+sister Rushie, a soft, pretty, lovable, kissable, cuddlesome slip of a
+girl, who was all for love, and would have been run after by every lad
+in the village and half the shop-boys in the neighbouring market town,
+if it had not been that Jeckie's mothering and grandmothering eye had
+always been on her. Rushie represented one thing in femininity; her
+sister typified its very opposite. Rushie was of the tribe of Venus, but
+Jeckie of the daughters of Minerva.
+
+Something of the circumstances and character of this family might have
+been gathered from the quality of the garments which the sisters were
+industriously hanging out to dry in the sun and wind. Most of them were
+their own, and in the bulk there was nothing of the frill and lace of
+the fine lady, but rather plain linen and calico. An expert housewife,
+fingering whatever there was, would have said that each separate article
+had been worn to thinness. Thus, too, were the sheets and pillow-cases
+and towels; and of such coarse stuff as belonged to Farnish himself--all
+represented the underwear and appointments of poor folk. But while there
+was patching and darning in plenty, there were no rags. If her father
+allowed a gate to fall off its posts rather than hunt up an old hinge
+and a few nails, Jeckie took good care that her needle and thread came
+out on the first sign of a rent; it was harder to replace than to
+repair, in her experience. And now, as she put the last peg in the last
+scrap of damp linen, it was with the proud consciousness that if the
+whole show was poverty-stricken it was at least whole and clean.
+
+"That's the lot, Rushie!" she said, turning to her sister as she picked
+up the empty linen basket. "A good drying wind, too. We'll be able to
+get to mangling and ironing by tea-time."
+
+Rushie, who had no such love of labour as her sister, made no answer.
+She followed Jeckie across the drying-ground and into the house; it was
+indicative of her nature that she immediately dropped into the nearest
+chair. The washing had been going on since a very early hour in the
+morning, broken only by a hastily-snatched breakfast; on the table in
+the one living-room the dirty cups and plates still lay spread about in
+confusion. And Jeckie, who had eyes all round her head, glanced at them,
+and at the old clock in the corner, and at her sister, sitting down, all
+at once.
+
+"Nay, child!" she exclaimed. "It's over soon for that game! Eleven
+already, and naught done for dinner. Get those pots washed up, Rushie,
+and then see to the potatoes. Father'll none be so long before he's
+home; and there'll be Doadie Bartle and him for their dinners at twelve
+o'clock. Come on, now!"
+
+"I'm tired," said Rushie, as she slowly rose, and began to clear up the
+untidy table. "We've never done in this house!"
+
+"So'm I," retorted Jeckie. "But what's that to do with it when there's
+things to be done? Hurry up now, while I look after those fowls; they've
+never been seen to this morning."
+
+She caught up a sieve as she spoke, filled it with waste stuff from a
+tub in the scullery, and, going out through the back of the house,
+walked into the fold behind, calling as she went to the cocks and hens
+which were endeavouring to find something for themselves amongst its
+boulders. None knew better than Jeckie the importance and value of that
+feathered brood. For three years she had kept things going with her
+poultry and eggs, and with the milk and butter which she got from the
+four cows that formed Farnish's chief property. The money that she made
+in this fashion had found the family in food and clothing, and gone some
+way towards paying the rent. And as she stood there throwing handfuls of
+food to the fowls, scurring and snatching about her feet, she had a
+curious sense that outside them and the cows feeding in the adjacent
+meadow there was literally nothing about the whole farmstead but
+poverty. The fold was destitute of manure; half a stack of straw stood
+desolate in the adjoining stack-garth; there was no hay in the loft nor
+corn in the granary; whatever produce he raised Farnish was always
+obliged to sell at once. The few pigs which he possessed were at that
+moment rooting in the lane for something to swell out their lank sides;
+his one horse was standing disconsolate by the trough near the well,
+mournfully regarding its emptiness. And Jeckie, as she threw away the
+last contents of her sieve and went over to the pump, had a vision of
+what other possibilities there were on the farm--certain acres of wheat
+and barley, of potatoes and turnips, the welfare of which, to be sure,
+depended upon the weather. She had a pretty keen idea of what they would
+bring in that coming autumn in the way of money; she had an equally good
+one of what Farnish would have to do with it.
+
+The horse, a fairly decent animal, drank greedily when Jeckie had pumped
+water into the trough, and as soon as he had taken his fill of this
+cheap commodity she opened the gate of the fold and let him out into the
+lane to pick up whatever he could get--that was an equally cheap way of
+feeding stock. Then, always with an eye to snatching up the
+potentialities of profit, she began to go round the farm buildings,
+looking for eggs. Hens, as all hen-wives know, are aggravating
+creatures, and will lay their eggs in any nook or corner. Jeckie knew
+where eggs were to be found--in beds of nettles, or under the stick-cast
+in the orchard, or behind the worn-out implements in the barn. Twice a
+day she or Rushie searched the precincts of Applecroft high and low
+rather than lose one of the precious things which went to make up so
+many dozen for market every Saturday, and when they had finished their
+labours it was always with the uneasy feeling that some perverse Black
+Spanish or Cochin China had successfully hidden away what would have
+brought in at any rate a few pence. But a few pence meant much. Though
+there were always eggs by the score in the wicker baskets in Jeckie's
+dairy, none were ever eaten by the family nor used for cooking purposes.
+That, indeed, would have been equivalent to eating money. Eggs meant
+other things--beef, bread, rent.
+
+Jeckie's search after the morning's eggs took her up into the old
+pigeon-cote of the farm--an octagon building on the roof of the
+granary--wherein there had been no pigeons for a long time. Approached
+by a narrow, much-worn stone stairway, set between the walls of barn and
+granary, this cobwebbed and musty place was honeycombed from the broken
+floor to the dilapidated roof by nests of pigeon-holes. There were
+scores upon scores of them, and Jeckie never knew in which she might not
+find an egg. Consequently, in order to make an exhaustive search, it was
+necessary to climb all round the place, examining every row and every
+separate chamber. In doing this she had to pass the broken window, long
+destitute of the thick glass which had once been there. Looking through
+it, she saw her father coming up the lane from the village. At this,
+leaving her search to be resumed later, she went down to the fold again,
+carefully carrying her eggs before her in her bunched-up apron; for
+Jeckie knew that Farnish had been into Sicaster, the neighbouring
+market-town, that morning on a question that had to do with money, and
+whenever money was concerned her instincts were immediately aroused.
+
+Farnish was riding into the fold as she regained it, and he got off his
+pony as she went towards him, and silently removing its saddle and
+bridle, turned it loose in the lane, to keep the horse company and find
+its dinner for itself. Carrying its furniture, he advanced in the
+direction of his daughter--a tall, lank, shambling man, with a wisp of
+yellowish-grey whisker on either side of a thin, weak face--and shook
+his head as he turned into the stable, where Jeckie silently followed
+him. He flung saddle and bridle into an empty manger, seated himself on
+a corn-bin, and, swinging his long legs, shook his head again.
+
+"Well?" demanded Jeckie.
+
+Farnish, for a long time, had found it difficult to encounter his elder
+daughter's steady and questioning gaze, and he did not meet it now. His
+eyes wandered restlessly about the stable, as if wondering out of which
+particular hole the next rat would look, and he made no show of speech.
+
+"You may as well out with it," said Jeckie. "What is it, now?"
+
+There was an emphasis on the last word that made Farnish look at his
+daughter for a brief second; he looked away just as quickly, and began
+to drum his fingers on his bony knees.
+
+"Aye, well, mi lass!" he answered, in a low tone. "As ye say--now! Ye
+may as well hear now as later. It's just like this here. Things is about
+at an end! That's the long and that's the short, as the saying goes."
+
+"You'll have to be plainer than that," retorted Jeckie. "What is it?
+Money, of course! But--who's wanting it?"
+
+Farnish made as if he swallowed something with an effort, and he kept
+his eyes steadily averted.
+
+"I didn't make ye acquainted wi' it at the time," he said, after a brief
+silence. "But ye see, Jeckie, my lass, at t'last back-end I had to
+borrow money fro' one o' them money-lendin' fellers at Clothford--them
+'at advertises, like, i' t'newspapers. I were forced to it!--couldn't
+ha' gone on, nohow, wi'out it at t'time. And so, course, why, its
+owin'!"
+
+"How much?" demanded Jeckie.
+
+"It were a matter o' two hundred 'at I borrowed," replied Farnish.
+"But--there's a bit o' interest, of course. It's that there
+interest----"
+
+"What are they going to do?" asked Jeckie. Her whole instinct was to get
+at the worst--to come to grips. "Let's be knowing!" she said
+impatiently. "What's the use of keeping it back?"
+
+"They can sell me up," answered Farnish in a low tone. "They can sell
+aught there is. I signed papers, d'ye see, mi lass. I had to. There were
+no two ways about it."
+
+Jeckie made no answer. She saw the whole of Applecroft and its hundred
+acres as in a vision. Sold up! There was, indeed, she thought, with
+bitter and ironic contempt, a lot to sell! Household furniture, live
+stock, dead stock, growing crops--was the whole lot worth two hundred
+pounds? Perhaps; but, then there would be nothing left. Now, out of the
+cows and the poultry a living could be scratched together, but....
+
+"I been into Sicaster to see Mr. Burstlewick, th' bank manager,"
+continued Farnish. "I telled him all t'tale. He said he were very sorry,
+and he couldn't do naught. Naught at all! So, you see, my lass, that's
+where it is. An' it's a rare pity," he concluded, with a burst of
+sentimental self-condolence, "for it's a good year for weather, and I
+reckon 'at what we have on our land'll be worth three or four hundred
+pound this back-end. And all for t'want of a hundred pounds, Jeckie, mi
+lass!"
+
+"What do you mean by a hundred pound?" exclaimed Jeckie. "You said two!"
+
+"Aye, but ye don't understand, mi lass," answered Farnish. "If I could
+give 'em half on it d'ye see, and sign a paper to pay t'other half when
+harvest's been and gone--what?"
+
+"Would that satisfy 'em?" asked Jeckie suspiciously.
+
+"So they telled me, t'last time I saw 'em," replied Farnish in apparent
+sincerity. "'Give us half on it, Mr. Farnish,' they said, 'and t'other
+half and t'interest can run on.' So they said; but it's three weeks
+since, is that."
+
+Jeckie meditated for a moment; then she suddenly turned, left the
+stable, and, crossing the empty fold, got rid of her eggs. She went into
+the kitchen; took something from its place in the delf-ledge, and, with
+another admonition to Rushie to see to the dinner, walked out into the
+garden, and set off down the lane outside. Farnish, from the fold, saw
+her going, and as her print gown vanished he turned into the house with
+a sigh of mingled relief and anticipation. But as he came in sight of
+the delf-ledge the sigh changed to a groan. Jeckie, he saw, had carried
+away the key of the beer barrel, and whereas he might have had a quart
+in her certain absence he would now get nothing but a mere glass on her
+problematical return.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_The Tight Lip_
+
+
+Ever since her mother's death, ten years before the events of that
+morning, Jeckie, as responsible manager of household affairs, had
+cultivated an instinct which had been born in her--the instinct, if a
+thing had to be done to do it there and then. As soon as Farnish
+unburdened himself of his difficulty, his daughter's quick brain began
+to revolve schemes of salvation. There was nothing new in her father's
+situation; she had helped him out of similar ones more than once. More
+than once, too, she had borrowed money for him--money to pay an
+extra-pressing bill; money to make up the rent; money to satisfy the
+taxes or rates--and she had always taken good care to see that what she
+had borrowed was punctually repaid when harvest came round--a time of
+the year when Farnish usually had something to sell. Accordingly, what
+she had just heard in the stable did not particularly alarm her; she
+took her father's story in all good faith, and believed that if he could
+stave off the Clothford money-lender with a hundred pounds on account
+all would go on in the old way until autumn, when money would be coming
+in. And her sole idea in setting off to the village was to borrow the
+necessary sum. Once borrowed, she would see to it that it was at once
+forwarded to the importunate creditor; she would see to it, too, that it
+was repaid to whomever it was that she got it from. As to that last
+particular, she was canvassing certain possibilities as she walked
+quickly down the lane. There was Mr. Stubley, the biggest farmer in the
+place, who was also understeward for the estate. She had more than once
+borrowed twenty or thirty pounds from him, and he had always had it
+back. Then there was Mr. Merritt, almost as well-to-do as Mr. Stubley.
+The same reflections applied to him, and he was a good natured man. And
+there was old George Grice, Albert's father, who was as warm a man as
+any tradesman of the neighbourhood. One or other of these three would
+surely lend her a hundred pounds; she was, indeed, so certain of it that
+she felt no doubt on the matter, and her only regret at the moment was
+that her visit to the village might make her a little late for her
+dinner--no unimportant matter to her, a healthy young woman of good
+appetite, who had breakfasted scantily at six o'clock. Jeckie took a
+short cut across the churchyard and down the church lane, and came out
+upon the village street a little above the cross roads. There, talking
+to the landlord of the "Coach-and-Four," who stood in his open doorway
+holding a tray and a glass, she saw Mr. Stubley a comfortable man, who
+spent all his mornings on a fat old pony, ambling about his land.
+Stubley saw her coming along the street, and, with a nod to the
+landlord, touched the pony with his ash-plant switch and steered him in
+her direction. Jeckie, who had a spice of the sanguine in her
+temperament, took this as a good omen; she had an idea that in five more
+minutes she would be with this prosperous elderly farmer in his cozy
+parlour, close by, watching him laboriously writing out a cheque. And
+she smiled almost gaily as the pony and its burden came to the side of
+the road along which she walked.
+
+"Now, mi lass!" said Mr. Stubley, looking her closely over out of his
+sharp eyes. "What're you doing down town this time o' day? Going to
+Grice's, I reckon? I were wanting a word or two wi' you," he went on,
+before Jeckie could get in a word of her own. "A word or two i' private,
+you understand. You're aware, of course, mi lass," he continued, bending
+down from his saddle. "You're aware 'at t'rent day's none so far off?
+What?"
+
+A sudden sense of fear sent the warm flush out of Jeckie's cheeks, and
+left her pale. Her dark eyes grew darker as she looked at the man who
+was regarding her so steadily and inquiringly.
+
+"What about the rent-day Mr. Stubley?" she asked. "What do you mean?"
+
+"I had a line from t'steward this morning," answered Stubley. "He just
+mentioned a matter--'at he hoped Farnish 'ud be ready with the rent; and
+t'last half-year's an' all. What?"
+
+The hot blood came back to Jeckie's cheeks in a fierce wave. She felt,
+somehow, as if some man's hand had smitten her, right and left.
+
+"The last half-year's rent!" she repeated. "Do--do you mean that father
+didn't pay it?"
+
+Stubley looked at her for an instant with speculation in his shrewd
+eyes. Then he nodded his head. There was a world of meaning in the nod.
+
+"Paid nowt!" he answered. "Nowt at all. Not a penny piece, mi lass."
+
+Jeckie's hands fell limply to her sides.
+
+"I didn't know," she answered, helplessly. "He--he never told me. I'd no
+idea of it; Mr. Stubley."
+
+"Dare say not, mi lass," said the farmer. "It 'ud be better for Farnish
+if he'd to tell a young woman like you more nor what he does, seemin'ly.
+But, now--is he going to be ready this time?"
+
+Jeckie made no answer. She stood looking up and down the street, seeing
+all manner of things, real and unreal. And suddenly a look of sullen
+anger came into her eyes and round her red lips.
+
+"How can I tell?" she said. "He--as you say--he doesn't tell me!"
+
+Stubley bent still lower, and, from sheer force of habit, glanced right
+and left before he spoke.
+
+"Aye, well, Jeckie, mi lass!" he said in low tones. "Then I'll tell you
+summat. Look to yourself--you an' yon sister o' yours! There's queer
+talk about Farnish. I've heard it, time and again, at market and where
+else. He'll none last so long, my lass--can't! It's my opinion there'll
+be no rent for t'steward; nowt but excuses and begging off, and such
+like; he's hard up, is your father! It 'ud be a deal better for him to
+give up, Jeckie; he'll never carry on! Now, you're a sensible young
+woman; what say you?"
+
+There was a strong, almost mulish sense of obstinacy in the Farnish
+blood, and it was particularly developed in Farnish's elder daughter.
+Jeckie stood for a moment staring across the road. She looked as if she
+were gazing at the sign of the "Coach-and-Four," which had recently been
+done up and embellished with a new frame. In reality she saw neither it
+nor the ancient hostelry behind it. What she did see was a vision of her
+own!
+
+"I don't know, Mr. Stubley," she answered suddenly. "My father's like
+all little farmers--no capital and always short o' ready money. But
+there's money to come in; come harvest and winter! And I know that if
+I'd that farm on my hands, I'd make it pay. I could make it pay now if
+I'd all my own way with it. But----"
+
+Then, just as suddenly as she had spoken, she moved off, and went
+rapidly down the street in the direction of Grice's shop. The
+conversation with Stubley had given a new turn to her thoughts. What was
+the use of borrowing a hundred pounds to stave off a money-lender, when
+the last half-year's rent was owing and another half-year's nearly due?
+No; she would see if she could not do better than that! Now was the
+moment; she would try to take things clean into her own hands. Farnish,
+she knew, was afraid of her--afraid of her superior common sense, her
+grasp of things, her almost masculine powers of contrivance and
+management. She could put him on one side as easily as a child can push
+aside the reeds on the river bank, and then she could have her own way,
+and pull things round, and ... she paused at that point, remembering
+that all this could only be done with money.
+
+Noon was just striking from the church clock as Jeckie came up to the
+front of Grice's shop. She never looked at this establishment without
+remembering how it had grown within her own recollection. When she was a
+child of five, and had gone down the street to spend a Saturday penny on
+sweets, Grice's shop had been housed in one of the rooms of the old
+timber-fronted house from which the new stores now projected in
+shameless disregard of the antiquities surrounding them. Nothing,
+indeed, could be in greater contrast than Grice's shop and Grice's
+house. The house had stood where it was since the time of Queen Anne;
+the shop, built out from one corner of it, bore the date 1897, and on
+its sign--a blue ground with gilt lettering--appeared the significant
+announcement: "Diamond Jubilee Stores. George Grice & Son." There were
+fine things about the house, within and without: old furniture in old
+rooms, and trim hedges and gay flowers on the smooth, velvety lawns; a
+mere glance at the high, sloping roof was sufficient to make one think
+of Old England in its days of calm and leisure; but around the shop door
+and in the shop itself there were the sights and sounds of buying and
+selling; boxes and packing-cases from Chicago and San Francisco; the
+scent of spices and of soap; it always seemed to Jeckie, who had highly
+susceptible nostrils, that Albert Grice, however much he spruced and
+scented himself on Sundays, was never free of the curious mingling
+odours associated with a grocer's apron.
+
+Albert was in the shop when she marched in, busied in taking down an
+order from Mrs. Aislabie, the curate's wife, who, seated in a chair at
+the counter, was meditatively examining a price list and wondering how
+to make thirty shillings go as far as forty. He glanced smilingly but
+without surprise at Jeckie, and inclined his head and the pen behind his
+large right ear towards a certain door at the back of the shop. Jeckie
+knew precisely what he meant--which was that his father had just gone to
+dinner. They had a custom there at Grice's--the old man went to dinner
+at twelve; Albert at one; there was thus always one of them in the shop
+to look after things in general and the assistant and two shop lads in
+particular. And Albert, who knew that since Jeckie was there in her
+morning gown and without headgear it must be because she wanted to see
+his father, added a word or two to his signal.
+
+"Only just gone in," he said. "Go forward."
+
+Jeckie went down the shop to the door, tapped at the glass of the upper
+panel, pushed aside a heavy curtain that hung behind, and entered upon
+old Grice as he sat down to his dinner. He was a biggish, round-faced,
+bald-headed man, bearded, save for his upper lip, which was very large
+and very tight--folk who knew George Grice well, and went to him seeking
+favours, watched that tight lip, and knew from it whether he was going
+to accede or not. He was a prosperous-looking man, too; plump and
+well-fed; and there was a fine round of cold beef and a bowl of smoking
+potatoes before him, to say nothing of a freshly-cut salad, a big piece
+of prime Cheddar and a tankard of foaming ale. The buxom servant-lass
+who attended to the wants of the widowed father and the bachelor son,
+was just going out of the room by one door as Jeckie entered by the
+other. She glanced wonderingly at the visitor, but George Grice, picking
+up the carving knife and fork, showed no surprise. He had long since
+graduated in the school of life, and well knew the signs when man or
+woman came wanting something.
+
+"Hallo!" he said in sharp, businesslike tones. "Queer time o' day to
+come visiting, mi lass! What's in the wind, now?"
+
+Jeckie, uninvited, sat down in one of the two easy chairs which flanked
+the hearth, and went straight to her subject.
+
+"Mr. Grice!" she said, having ascertained by a glance that the door
+leading to the kitchen was safely closed. "I came down to see you. Now,
+look here, Mr. Grice; you know me, and you know I'm going to marry your
+Albert."
+
+"Humph!" muttered Grice, busied in carving thin slices of beef for
+himself. "Aye, and what then?"
+
+"And you know I shall make him a rare good wife, too," continued Jeckie.
+"The best wife he could find anywhere in these parts!"
+
+"When I were a lad," remarked Grice, with the ghost of a thin smile
+about his top lip, "we used to write a certain saying in the
+copybook--'Self-praise is no recommendation.' I'm not so certain of it
+myself, though. Some folks knows the value of their own goods better
+than anybody."
+
+"I know the value of mine!" asserted Jeckie solemnly. "You couldn't find
+a better wife for Albert than I shall make him if you went all through
+Yorkshire with a small-tooth comb! And you know it, Mr. Grice!"
+
+"Well, mi lass," said Grice, "and what then?"
+
+"I want you to do something for me," answered Jeckie. She pulled the
+chair nearer to the table, and went on talking while the grocer steadily
+ate and drank. "I'll be plain with you, Mr. Grice. There's nobody knows
+I've come here, nor why. But it's this--I've come to the conclusion that
+it's no use my father going on any longer. He isn't fit; he's no good.
+I've found things out. He's been borrowing money from some, or one, o'
+them money-lenders at Clothford. He owes half a year's rent, and there's
+another nearly due. There's others wanting money. I think you want a
+bit, yourself. Well, it's all got to stop. I'm going to stop it! And as
+I'm going to be your daughter-in-law, I want you to help me!"
+
+Grice, carefully selecting the ripest of some conservatory-grown
+tomatoes from the bowl in front of him, stuck a fork into it, and began
+to peel it with a small silver knife which he picked up from beside his
+plate. His tight lip pursed itself while he was engaged; it was not
+until he had put the peeled tomato on his plate, and added the heart of
+a lettuce to it, that he looked at his caller.
+
+"What d'ye want, mi lass?" he asked.
+
+"I want you to lend me--me!--five or six hundred pounds, just now,"
+replied Jeckie readily. "Me, mind, Mr. Grice--not him. Me!"
+
+"What for?" demanded Grice, stolidly and with no sign of surprise. "What
+for, now?"
+
+"I'll tell you," answered Jeckie, gaining in courage. "I want to pay off
+every penny he owes. Then I'll be master! I shall have him under my
+thumb, and I'll make him do. I'll see to every penny that comes in and
+goes out; and you mark my words, Mr. Grice, I can make that farm pay! If
+you'll lend me what I want I'll pay you back in three years, and it'll
+be then a good going concern. I know what I'm saying."
+
+"In less nor three years you and my son Albert'll be wed," remarked
+Grice.
+
+"I can keep an eye on it, and on my father and Rushie when we are wed,"
+retorted Jeckie.
+
+"And there's another thing," said Grice. "When I gave my consent to your
+weddin' my son, it were an agreed thing between me an' Farnish, a
+bargain, that you should have five hundred pound from him as a portion.
+Where's that?"
+
+Jeckie gave him a swift meaning look.
+
+"I might have yet, if I took hold o' things," she answered. "But it 'ud
+be me 'at would find it, Mr. Grice. My father--Lord bless you--he'd
+never find five hundred pence! But--trust me!"
+
+Grice carved himself some more cold beef, and as he seemed to be
+considering her proposal, Jeckie resumed her arguments.
+
+"There'll be a good bit of money to come in this back-end," she said.
+"And if we'd more cows, as I'd have, we should do better. And pigs--I'd
+go in for pigs. Let me only clear off what debt he's got into, and----"
+
+Grice suddenly laughed quietly, and, seizing his tankard, looked
+knowingly at her as he lifted it to his lips.
+
+"The question is, mi lass," he said, "the question is--how deep has he
+got? You don't know that, you know!"
+
+"Most of it, at any rate," said Jeckie. "I'll lay four or five hundred
+'ud clear it all off, Mr. Grice."
+
+"Five hundred pound," observed Grice, "is a big, a very big sum o'
+money. It were a long time," he added reflectively, "before I could
+truly say that I were worth it!"
+
+"You're worth a lot more now, anyway," remarked Jeckie. "And you'll be
+doing a good deed if you help me. After all, I want to set things going
+right; they're my own flesh and blood up yonder. Now, come, Mr. Grice!"
+
+Grice pushed away the remains of the more solid portion of his dinner,
+and thoroughly dug into the prime old cheese. After eating a little and
+nibbling at a radish he turned to his visitor.
+
+"I'll not say 'at I will, and I'll not say 'at I willn't," he announced.
+"It's a matter to be considered about. But I'll say this here--I'll take
+a ride up Applecroft way this afternoon, and just see how things
+stands, like. And then----"
+
+He waved Jeckie towards the door, and she, knowing his moods and
+temperament, took the hint, and with no more than a word of thanks,
+hastened to leave him. In the shop Albert was still busily engaged with
+Mrs. Aislabie, who found it hard to determine on Irish roll or
+Wiltshire. With him Jeckie exchanged no more than a glance. She felt a
+sense of relief when she got out into the street; and when, five minutes
+later, she was crossing the churchyard she muttered to herself certain
+words which showed that her conversation with Stubley was still in her
+mind.
+
+"Yes, that's the only way--to clear him out altogether, and let me take
+hold! I'll put things to rights if only George Grice'll find the money!"
+
+At that moment George Grice, having finished his dinner, was taking out
+of a cupboard certain of his account books. Before he did anything for
+anybody, he wanted to know precisely how much was owing to him at
+Applecroft.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_The Broken Man_
+
+
+While Jeckie was busied in the village and Farnish, sighing after the
+key of the beer barrel, was aimlessly wandering about the farm
+buildings, there came into the kitchen, where Rushie was making ready
+the dinner, a tall, blue-eyed, broadly-built youngster, whose first
+action was to glance inquiringly at the clock and whose second was to go
+to the sink in the corner to wash his brown hands. This was Joe, or
+Doadie Bartle, about whom nobody in those parts knew more than that he
+had turned up as a lad of fifteen at Applecroft some six or seven years
+previously; had been taken in by Farnish to do a bit of work for his
+meat, drink and lodging, and had remained there ever since. According to
+his own account, he was an orphan, from Lincolnshire, who had run away
+from his last place and gone wandering about the country in search of a
+better. Something in the atmosphere of Applecroft had suited him, and
+there he had stayed, and was now, in fact, Farnish's sole help on the
+farm outside the occasional assistance of the two girls. There were folk
+in the village who said that Farnish got his labour for naught, but
+Jeckie knew that he had had twenty pounds a year ever since he was
+eighteen, and had regularly put by one-half of his wages under her
+supervision. Doadie Bartle, chiefly conspicuous for his air of simple
+good nature, had come to be a fixture. Without him and Jeckie the place
+would have gone to wrack and ruin long since, for Farnish had a trick of
+sitting down when he should have been afoot, and gossiping in
+public-houses when his presence was wanted elsewhere. It was because of
+this--a significant indication, had there been anyone to notice it--that
+Doadie was always treated to a pint of ale at dinner and supper, while
+his master was rigorously restricted to a glass.
+
+Doadie Bartle looked again at the clock as he finished wiping his hands
+on the rough towel which hung from its roller behind the door. His
+glance ended at Rushie, who was sticking a fork into the potatoes on the
+hob.
+
+"By gow, it's a warm 'un, this mornin'!" he said. "Where's Jeckie, like?
+I could do wi' my pint now better nor later."
+
+"You'll have to wait," answered Rushie, who had seen her father's
+despairing glance at the delf-ledge. "She's gone out, and taken the key
+with her."
+
+Doadie looked disappointedly in the direction of the beer barrel, which
+stood on its gantry just within the open door of the larder. Resigning
+himself to the unavoidable, he walked out into the fold, where Farnish
+leaned against the wall of the pig-stye, hands in pockets.
+
+"I shall have to do a bit o' mendin' up this afternoon," said Doadie.
+"Merritt's cows has been i' our clover; there's a bad place i'
+t'hedge."
+
+"Aye!" assented Farnish. There was no interest in his tone, and little
+more seemed to be awakened when Rushie appeared at the kitchen window
+and announced that dinner was ready. He shambled indoors, and, without
+removing his hat, sat down at the head of his table, and began to cut
+slices off the big lump of cold bacon, which, with boiled potatoes and
+greens, made up the dinner. "Jeckie's no reight to run off wi' t'key o'
+t'ale barrel," he grumbled. "Them 'at tews hes a reight to sup!"
+
+"It's not much tewin' 'at you've been doin', I'll lay!" retorted Rushie,
+who had long since learned the art of homely repartee from her elder
+sister. "Ridin' about like a lord!"
+
+"Now then, never mind!" growled Farnish. "Happen I done more tewin' nor
+ye're aware on, mi lass! There's more sorts o' hard work than one."
+
+Then, all three being liberally supplied, the three pairs of jaws set to
+work, and the steady eating went on in silence until the sheep-cur,
+chained outside the door to a dilapidated kennel, gave a short, sharp
+bark. Rushie, who knew this to be a declaration of friendliness rather
+than of enmity, ran and put the potatoes and greens on the hob to warm
+up.
+
+"Jeckie!" she said. "None been so long, after all."
+
+Jeckie came bustling into the kitchen as Farnish, who knew her appetite,
+pushed a well-filled plate towards her place. Without a word she took a
+big earthenware jug from its hook, went to the larder, and rummaged in
+her pocket for the key of the beer barrel. Presently the sound of the
+gurgling ale was heard in the kitchen. Doadie Bartle's big blue eyes
+glistened as he went on steadily munching. Farnish looked down at the
+cloth, wondering if his elder daughter meant to be generous. The roseate
+hopes set up in Jeckie's mind by her interview with George Grice
+inclined her for once to laxity. When she came back with the ale she
+gave her father a pint instead of a glass, and Farnish made an
+involuntary mutter of appreciation. He and his man seized their measures
+and drank deep. Jeckie, pouring out glasses for herself and her sister,
+gave them a half-whimsical look; she had been obliged to tilt the barrel
+a little to draw that ale, and she knew that its contents were running
+low, and that the brewer's man was not due for two days yet.
+
+The dinner went on to its silent end; the bacon, greens, and potatoes
+finished. Rushie cleared the plates in a heap, and, setting clean ones
+before each diner, produced a huge jam tart, hot and smoking from the
+oven. Jeckie cut this into great strips and distributed them. Bartle,
+still hungry, took a mouthful of his, turned scarlet, and reached for
+his pot of beer.
+
+"Gum! that's a hot 'un!" he said drinking heartily. "Like to take t'skin
+offen your tongue, is that!" Then, with an apologetic glance in Rushie's
+direction, and, as if to excuse his manners, he murmured, "Jam's allus
+hotter nor owt 'at iver comes out o' t'oven, I think, and I allus
+forget it; you mun excuse me!"
+
+"Save toffee," remarked Farnish, with the air of superior knowledge.
+"There's nowt as hot as what toffee is. I rek'lect 'at I once burnt
+t'roof o' my mouth varry bad wi' some toffee 'at mi mother made; they
+hed to oil my mouth same as they oil machines--wi' a feather."
+
+When the last of the jam tart had vanished the two girls put their
+elbows on the table, propped their chins on their interlaced fingers,
+and seemed to study the pattern of the coarse linen cloth. Farnish got
+up slowly; took down his pipe from the corner of the mantlepiece, and,
+drawing some loose tobacco from his waistcoat pocket, began to smoke.
+Bartle, after rising and stretching himself, went over to a drawer in
+the delf-ledge, and presently came back from it with a paper packet,
+which he began to unfold. An odour of peppermint rose above the
+lingering smell of the bacon and greens.
+
+"Humbugs!" he said, with a broad grin, as he offered the packet to the
+two girls. "I bowt three-pennorth t'last time I were i' Sicaster, and
+I'd forgotten all abowt 'em. They're t'reight sort, these is--tasty
+'uns."
+
+Munching the brown and white bull's eyes, the sisters began to clear
+away the dinner things into the scullery. Presently Rushie called to
+Bartle to bring her the kettle and help her to wash up. When he had gone
+into the scullery Jeckie, who was folding up the cloth, turned to her
+father.
+
+"About what you told me this morning," she said, in low tones.
+"Something's got to be done, and, of course, as usual, I've got to do
+it. I've been down to see George Grice."
+
+Farnish started, and his thin face flushed a little. He was mortally
+afraid of George Grice, who represented money and power and will force.
+
+"Aye, well, mi lass!" he muttered slowly. "Of course there's no doubt
+'at Mr. George Grice has what they call th' ability to help a body--no
+doubt at all. But as to whether he's gotten the will, you know, why----"
+
+"Less talk!" commanded Jeckie. "If he helps anybody it'll be me! And you
+listen here; we're not going on as we have done. You're letting things
+go from bad to worse. And you don't tell me t'truth, neither. I met
+Stubley, and he says you never paid t'last half-year's rent. Now, then!"
+
+"I arranged it wi' t'steward," protested Farnish. "Him an' me understand
+each other; Mr. Stubley's nowt to do wi' it."
+
+"You had the money," asserted Jeckie. "What did you do with it?"
+
+"It went to them money-lendin' fellers," answered Farnish. "That's where
+it went; they would have it, choose how! Ye see mi lass----"
+
+"I'll tell you what it is," interrupted Jeckie. "You'll have to let me
+take hold! I can pull things round. Now, you listen! Mr. George Grice is
+coming up here this very afternoon, and him and me's going to get at a
+right idea of how matters stand. And if he helps me to pay all off and
+get a fresh start I'm going to be master, d'ye see? You'll just have to
+do all 'at I say in future. You can be master in name if you like, but I
+shall be t'real one. If you don't agree to that, I shall do no more! If
+I put you right, in future I shall manage things; I shall take all that
+comes in, and pay all that goes out. Do you understand that?"
+
+Farnish accepted this ultimatum with an almost tipsy gravity. He
+continued to puff at his pipe while his daughter talked, and when she
+had finished he bowed solemnly, as if he had been a judge assenting to
+an arrangement made between contending litigants.
+
+"Now then," he said, in almost unctuous accents, "owt 'at suits you'll
+suit me! If so be as you can put me on my legs again, Jecholiah, mi
+lass, I'm agreeable to any arrangement as you're good enough to mak'.
+You can tek' t'reins o' office, as the sayin' is, wi' pleasure, and do
+all t'paying out and takin' in. Of course," he added, with a covert
+glance in his daughter's direction, "you'll not be against givin' your
+poor father a few o' shillin's a week to buy a bit o' 'bacca wi?--it 'ud
+be again Nature, and religion, an' all, if I were left----"
+
+"You've never been without beer or 'bacca yet, that I know of," retorted
+Jeckie, with a flash of her eye. "Trust you! But now, when George Grice
+comes, mind there's no keeping aught back. We shall want to know----"
+
+Just then Rushie called from the scullery that the grocer was at the
+garden gate in his trap, and Farnish immediately got out of his easy
+chair, ill at ease.
+
+"Happen I'd better go walk i' t'croft a bit while you hev your talk to
+him, Jeckie?" he suggested. "Two's company, and three's----"
+
+"And happen you'd better do naught o' t'sort!" retorted Jeckie. "You
+bide where you are till you're wanted."
+
+She went out to the gate to meet Grice, who, being one of those men who
+never walk where they can ride, had driven up to Applecroft in one of
+his grocery carts, and was now hitching his pony to a ring in the outer
+wall. He nodded silently to Jeckie as he moved heavily towards her.
+
+"Much obliged to you for coming, Mr. Grice," she said eagerly. "I take
+it very kind of you. I've spoken to him," she went on, lowering her
+voice and nodding in the direction of the kitchen. "I've told him,
+straight, that if you and me help him out o' this mess that he's got
+into, I shall be master, so----"
+
+"Take your time, mi lass, take your time!" said the grocer. "Before I
+think o' helping anybody I want to know where I am! Now," he continued,
+as they walked into the fold and he looked round him with appraising
+eyes, "it may seem a queer thing me living in t'same place, my lass, but
+I've never been near this house o' yours for many a long year--never
+sin' you were a bairn, I should think--it's out o' t'way, d'ye see! And
+dear, dear, I see a difference! What!--there's naught about t'place! No
+straw--no manure--no cattle--a pig or two--a few o' fowls!--Why, there's
+nowt! Looks bad, my lass, looks very, very bad. Farnish has
+nowt--nowt!"
+
+Jeckie's heart sank like lead in a well, and a sickened feeling came
+over her. "I know it looks pretty bad, Mr. Grice," she admitted, almost
+humbly. "But it's not so bad as it looks. There's four right good cows,
+and over a hundred and fifty head o' poultry. I know what the butter and
+milk and eggs bring in!--and there's more pigs nor what you see, and
+there's the crops. Come through the croft, and look at 'em. If there's
+no manure in the fold, it's on the land, anyway--we've never sold
+neither straw nor manure off this place. Come this way."
+
+It was mainly owing to Jeckie, Rushie, and Doadie Bartle that what
+arable land Farnish held was clear and free of weeds. The grocer was
+bound to admit that the crops looked well; his long acquaintance with a
+farming district had taught him how to estimate values; he agreed with
+Jeckie that, granted the right sort of weather for the rest of the
+summer and part of autumn, there was money in what he was shown.
+
+"But then, you know, mi lass," he said as they returned to the house,
+"it all depends on what Farnish is owing. This here money-lender 'at you
+spoke of--he ought to be cleared off, neck and crop! Then there's a
+year's rent. And there'll be other things. There's forty pounds due to
+me. Before ever I take into consideration doing aught at all for
+you--'cause I wouldn't do it for Farnish, were it ever so!--I shall want
+to know how matters stands, d'ye see? I must know of every penny 'at's
+owing--otherwise it 'ud be throwin' good money after bad. I'll none deny
+that if what he owes is nowt much--two or three hundred or so--things
+might be pulled round under your management. But, there it is! What does
+he owe?--that's what we want to be getting at."
+
+"I'll make him tell," said Jeckie. "We'll have it put down on paper.
+Come in, Mr. Grice." Then, as they went towards the door of the house,
+she added in confidential, hospitable tones, "I've a bottle o' good old
+whisky put away, that nobody knows naught about--you shall have a
+glass."
+
+Grice muttered something about no need for his prospective
+daughter-in-law to trouble herself, but he followed her into the
+kitchen, where Farnish stood nervously awaiting them. The grocer, who
+felt that he could afford to be facetious as well as magnanimous, gave
+Farnish a sly look.
+
+"Now then, mi lad!" he said. "We've come to hear a bit about what you've
+been doing o' late! You seem to ha' let things run down,
+Farnish--there's nowt much to show outside. How is it, like?"
+
+"Why, you see, Mr. Grice," answered Farnish with a weak smile, "there's
+times, as you'll allow, sir, when a man gets a bit behindhand, and----"
+
+He suddenly paused, and his worn face turned white, and Grice, following
+his gaze, which was fixed on the garden outside, saw what had checked
+his speech. Two men were coming to the front door; in one of them Grice
+recognised a Sicaster auctioneer who was also a sheriff's officer. He
+let out a sharp exclamation which made Jeckie, who was unlocking a
+corner cupboard, swing herself round in an agony of fear.
+
+"Good God!" he said. "Bailiffs!"
+
+The door was open to the sunshine and the scent of the garden, and the
+sheriff's officer, after a glance within, stepped across the threshold
+and pulled out a paper.
+
+"Afternoon, Mr. Grice!" he said cheerfully. "Fine day, sir. Now, Mr.
+Farnish, sorry to come on an unpleasant business, but I dare say you've
+been expecting me any time this last ten days, eh? Levinstein's suit,
+Mr. Farnish--execution. Four hundred and eighty-three pounds, five
+shillings, and sixpence. Not convenient to settle, I dare say, so I'll
+have to leave my man."
+
+Jeckie, who had grown as white as the linen on the lines outside, stood
+motionless for a moment. Then she turned on her father.
+
+"You said it was only two hundred!" she exclaimed hoarsely. "You
+said----" She paused, hearing Grice laugh, and turned to see him clap
+his hat on his head and stride out by the back door. In an instant she
+was after him, her hand, trembling like a leaf, on his arm.
+
+"Mr. Grice! You're not going? Stand by us--by me! Before God, I'll see
+you're right!" she cried. "Mr. Grice!"
+
+But Grice strode on towards his trap; the tight lip tighter than ever.
+
+"Nay!" he said. "Nay! It's no good, my lass. It's done wi'."
+
+"Mr. Grice!" she cried again. "Why--I'm promised to your Albert! Mr.
+Grice!"
+
+But Mr. Grice made no answer; another moment and he had climbed into his
+cart and was driving away, and Jeckie, after one look at his broad back,
+muttered something to herself and went back into the house.
+
+An hour later she and Rushie were mangling and ironing, in dead silence.
+They went on working, still in silence, far into the evening, and Doadie
+Bartle, after supper, turned the mangle for them. Towards dark Farnish,
+who had already become fast friends with the man in possession, stole up
+to his elder daughter, and whispered to her. Jeckie pulled the key of
+the beer barrel from her pocket, and flung it at him.
+
+"Tek it, and drink t'barrel dry!" she said, fiercely. "It's t'last
+'at'll ever be tapped i' this place--by you at any rate!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_The Diplomatic Father_
+
+
+Grice drove away down the lane in a curious temper. He was angry with
+himself for wasting a couple of hours of his valuable time; angry with
+Jeckie for having induced him to do so; angry with Farnish for his
+incapacity and idleness; still more angry to find that it was hopeless
+to do what he might have done. He knew well enough that Jeckie had been
+right when she said that he would never find a better wife for Albert;
+he also knew that after what he had just witnessed he would never allow
+Albert to marry her. Jeckie alone would have been all right, but Jeckie,
+saddled with an incompetent parent, was impossible. "And if you can't
+get t'best," he muttered to himself, "you must take what comes nearest
+to t'best! There's more young women i' t'world than Jecholiah Farnish,
+and I mun consider about findin' one. That 'at I've left behind
+yonder'll never do!"
+
+Half-way down the lane he came across Doadie Bartle, busily engaged in
+mending the fence. Grice's shrewd eyes saw how the youngster was
+working; here, at any rate, was no slacker. He pulled up his pony and
+gave Doadie a friendly nod.
+
+"Now, mi lad!" he said. "Doin' a bit o' repairing, like?"
+
+"Merritt's cows were in there this mornin'," answered Bartle. "They come
+up t'lane and got in to our clover, Mr. Grice."
+
+"Aye, why," remarked Grice. "It'll none matter much to you how oft
+Merritt's cows or anybody else's gets in to Farnish's clover in a day or
+two, my lad. It's over and done wi' up yonder at Applecroft."
+
+Bartle's blue eyes looked a question, and Grice laughed as he answered
+it.
+
+"T'bailiffs is in!" he said. "Come in just now. It's all up, lad.
+Farnish'll be selled up--lock, stock, and barrel--within a week."
+
+Bartle drove the fork with which he had been gathering thorns together
+into the ground at his feet, and leaning on its handle, stared fixedly
+at Grice.
+
+"Aw!" he said. "Why, I knew things were bad, but I didn't know they were
+as bad as that, mister. Selled up, now! Come!"
+
+"There'll be nowt left, mi lad, neither in house nor barn, stye nor
+stable, in another week!" affirmed Grice. Then, waiting until he saw
+that his announcement had gone home with due effect, he added, "So
+you'll be out of a place, d'ye see?"
+
+Bartle let his gaze wander from the old grocer's face up the lane. From
+where he stood he could see Applecroft, and at that moment he saw Jeckie
+and Rushie standing together in the orchard, evidently in close and deep
+conversation.
+
+"Aye," he said slowly. "If it's as you say, I reckon I shall. And I
+been there six or seven year, an' all!"
+
+"And for next to nowt, no doubt," remarked Grice, with a sly look. "Now,
+look here, mi lad, I'm wanting a young feller like you to go out wi' my
+cart--'liverin' goods, d'ye understand? If you like to take t'job on ye
+can start next Monday. I'll gi' you thirty shillin' a week."
+
+He was quick to see the sudden sparkle in Bartle's eyes, and he went on
+to deepen the impression.
+
+"And there's pickin's an' all," he said. "Ye can buy owt you like out o'
+my shop at cost price, and t'job's none a heavy 'un. Two horses to look
+after and this here pony, and go round wi' t'goods. What do you say,
+now, Bartle?"
+
+"Much obliged to you, mister; I'll consider on it, and tell you
+to-morrow," answered Bartle. "But"--he looked doubtfully at Grice, and
+then nodded towards the farm--"these here folks, what's goin' to become
+o' them? I've been, as it were, one o' t'family, d'ye see, Mr. Grice?"
+
+"There's no fear about t'lasses," declared Grice, emphatically. "They're
+both capable o' doin' well for theirsens, and I've no doubt Jeckie's
+gotten a bit o' brass put away safe, somewhere or other. As for Farnish,
+he mun turn to, and do summat 'at he hasn't done for years--he mun work.
+What ha' ye to do with that, Bartle? Look to yersen, mi lad! Come and
+see me to-morrow."
+
+He shook up his pony's reins and drove on. The encounter with Farnish's
+man had improved his temper; he had been wanting a stout young fellow
+like Bartle for some time, a fellow that would lift heavy packing cases
+and make himself useful. Bartle was just the man. So he had, after all,
+got or was likely to get, something out of his afternoon's
+excursion--satisfactory, that, for he was a man who objected to doing
+anything without profit.
+
+But now there was Albert to consider. Of one thing George Grice was
+certain--there was going to be no marriage between Albert and Jecholiah
+Farnish. True, they were engaged; true, Albert, following the fashion of
+his betters, had, despite his father's sneers, given her an engagement
+ring. But that was neither here nor there. Despite the fact that
+Albert's name appeared in company with his father's on the powder-blue
+and gold sign above the Diamond Jubilee Stores, Albert had no legal
+share in the business--there was no partnership; Albert was as much a
+paid servant as the shop-boy. Now, in old Grice's opinion, the man who
+holds the purse-strings is master of the situation, and he had the pull
+over Albert in more ways than one. Moreover, a shrewd and astute man
+himself, he believed Albert to be a bit of a fool; a good-natured,
+amiable, weak sort of chap, easily come round. He had half a suspicion
+that Jeckie had come round him at some time or other. And now he would
+have to come round him himself, and at once.
+
+"There'll have to be no chance of her gettin' at him," he mused as he
+drove slowly down the village street. "He's that soft and sentimental,
+is our Albert, 'at if she had five minutes wi' him, he'd be givin' way
+to her. I mun use a bit of statesmanship."
+
+Occasion was never far to seek where George Grice was concerned, and
+before he had passed the "Coach-and-Four" he had conceived a plan of
+getting Albert out of the way until nightfall. As soon as he arrived at
+the shop he bustled in, went straight to his desk, and drawing out a
+letter, turned to his son.
+
+"Albert, mi lad!" he said, as if the matter was of urgent importance,
+"there's this letter here fro' yon man at Cornchester about that horse
+'at he has to sell. Now, we could do wi' a third horse--get yourself
+ready, and drive over there, and take a look at it. If it's all right,
+buy it--you can go up to forty pounds for it, and tell him we'll send
+t'cheque on to-morrow. Go now--t'trap's outside there, and you can give
+t'pony a feed at Cornchester while you get your tea. Here, take t'letter
+wi' you, and then you'll have t'man's address--somewhere i' Beechgate.
+It's nigh on to three o'clock now, so be off."
+
+Albert, who had no objection to a pleasant drive through the country
+lanes, was ready and gone within ten minutes, and old Grice was glad to
+think that he was safely absent until bed-time. During the afternoon and
+early evening various customers of the better sort, farmers and farmers'
+wives, dropped in at the shop, and to each he assiduously broke the news
+of the day--Farnish had gone smash. One of these callers was Stubley,
+and Stubley, when he heard the news, looked at the grocer with a
+speculative eye.
+
+"Then I reckon you'll not be for Farnish's lass weddin' yon lad o'
+yours?" he suggested. "Wouldn't suit your ticket, that, Grice, what?"
+
+"Now, then, what would you do if it were your case, Mr. Stubley?"
+demanded Grice. "Would you be for tying flesh and blood o' yours up to
+owt 'at belonged to Farnish?"
+
+"She's a fine lass, all t'same," said Stubley. "I've kept an eye on her
+this last year or two. Strikes me 'at things 'ud ha' come to an end
+sooner if it hadn't been for her. She's a grafter, Grice, and no waster,
+neither. She'd make a rare good wife for your Albert--where he'd make a
+penny she'd make a pound. I should think twice, mi lad, before I said
+owt."
+
+But Grice's upper lip grew tighter than before when Stubley had gone,
+and by the time of his son's return, with the new horse tied up behind
+the pony cart, he was ready for him. He waited until Albert had eaten
+his supper; then, when father and son were alone in the parlour, and
+each had got a tumbler of gin and water at his elbow, he opened his
+campaign.
+
+"Albert, mi lad!" he said, suavely, "there's been a fine to-do sin' you
+set off Cornchester way this afternoon. Yon man Farnish has gone clean
+broke!"
+
+Albert started and stared in surprise.
+
+"It's right, mi lad," continued Grice. "He's gotten t'bailiffs in--he'll
+be selled up i' less nor a week. Seems 'at he's been goin' to
+t'money-lenders, yonder i' Clothford--one feller's issued an execution
+again him. Four hundred and eighty-three pound, five shillings, and
+sixpence! Did ye ever hear t'like o' that? Him?"
+
+Albert began to twiddle his thumbs.
+
+"Nay!" he said, wonderingly. "I knew he were in a bad way, but I'd no
+idea it were as bad as that. Then he's nought to pay with, I reckon?"
+
+"Nowt--so to speak," declared Grice. "Nowt 'at 'll settle things,
+anyway. And I hear fro' Stubley 'at t'last half-year's rent were never
+paid, and now here's another just about due. And there's other folk. He
+owes me forty pound odd. If I'd ha' known o' this yesterday, I'd ha' had
+summat out o' Farnish for my brass--I'd ha' had a cow, or summat. Now,
+it's too late; I mun take my chance wi' t'rest o' t'creditors. And when
+t'landlord's been satisfied for t'rent, I lay there'll be nowt much for
+nobody, money-lender nor anybody else."
+
+"It's a bad job," remarked Albert.
+
+Grice turned to a shelf at the side of his easy chair, opened the lid of
+a cigar box, selected two cigars, and passed one to his son.
+
+"Aye!" he assented presently, "it is a bad job, mi lad. Farnish promised
+'at he'd gi' five hundred pound wi' Jecholiah. I think we mun ha' been
+soft i' wor heads, Albert, to believe 'at he'd ever do owt o' t'sort. He
+wor havin' us, as they say--havin' us for mugs!"
+
+Albert made no answer. He began to puff his cigar, watching his father
+through the blue smoke.
+
+"Every man for his-self!" said old Grice after a while. "It were an
+understood thing, were that, Albert, and now 'at there's no chance o'
+Farnish redeemin' his word, there's no need for you to stand by yours.
+There's plenty o' fine young women i' t'world beside yon lass o'
+Farnish's. My advice to you, mi lad, is to cast your eyes elsewhere."
+
+Albert began to wriggle in his chair. His experience of Jeckie Farnish
+was that she had a will of her own; he possessed sufficient mother-wit
+to know that she was cleverer than he was.
+
+"I don't know what Jecholiah 'ud say to that," he murmured. "We been
+keeping company this twelve-month, and----"
+
+"Pshaw!" exclaimed Grice. "What bi that! I'll tell you what it is, mi
+lad--yon lass were never after you. I'll lay owt there's never been much
+o' what they call love-makin' between you! She were after my brass,
+d'yer see? Now, if it had been me 'at had gone broke, i'stead o'
+Farnish, what then? D'ye think she'd ha' stucken to you? Nowt o'
+t'sort!"
+
+Albert sat reflecting. It was quite true that there had been little
+love-making between him and Jeckie. Jeckie was neither sentimental nor
+amorous. She and Albert had gone to church together; occasionally he had
+spent the evening at Farnish's fireside; once or twice he had taken her
+for an outing, to a statutes-hiring fair, or a travelling circus. And he
+was beginning to wonder.
+
+"I know she's very keen on money, is Jecholiah," he said at last.
+
+"Aye, well, she's goin' to have none o' mine!" affirmed old Grice. He
+was quick to see that Albert was as wax in his hands, and he accordingly
+brought matters to a climax. "I'll tell you what it is, mi lad!" he
+continued, replenishing his son's glass, and refilling his own. "We mun
+have done wi' that lot--it 'ud never do for you, a rising young feller,
+to wed into a broken man's family. It mun end, Albert!"
+
+"She'll have a deal to say," murmured Albert. "She's an awful temper,
+has Jecholiah, if things doesn't suit her, and----"
+
+"Now then, you listen to me," interrupted Grice. "We'll give her no
+chance o' sayin'--leastways, not to you, and what she says to me's
+neither here nor there. Now it's high time you were wed, mi lad, but you
+mun get t'right sort o' lass. And I'll tell you what--you know 'at I
+went last year to see mi brother John, 'at lives i' Nottingham--keep's a
+draper's shop there, does John, and he's a warm man an' all, as warm as
+what I am, and that's sayin' a bit! Now John has three rare fine
+lasses--your cousins, mi lad, though you've never seen 'em--and he'll
+give a nice bit wi' each o' 'em when they wed. I'll tell you what you
+shall do, mi lad--you shall take a fortnight's holiday, and go over
+there and see 'em; I'll write a letter to John to-night 'at you can take
+wi' you. And if you can't pick a wife o' t'three--why, it'll be a
+pity!--a good-lookin' young feller like you, wi' money behind you. Get
+your best things packed up to-night, and you shall drive into Sicaster
+first thing i' t'mornin' and be off to Nottingham. I'll see 'at you
+have plenty o' spendin' brass wi' you, and you can go and have your
+fling and make your choice. I tell yer there's three on 'em--fine,
+good-looking, healthy lasses--choose which you like, and me and her
+father'll settle all t'rest. And Nottingham's a fine place for a bit of
+holidayin'."
+
+Old Grice sat up two hours later than usual that night, writing to his
+brother, the Nottingham draper, and Albert went away before seven
+o'clock next morning with all his best clothes and with fifty pounds in
+his pocket. His father told him to do it like a gentleman, and Albert
+departed in the best of spirits. After all, he had no tender memories of
+Jeckie, and he remembered that once, when he had taken her to
+Cornchester Fair, and wanted to have lunch at the "Angel," she had
+chided him quite sharply for his extravagance and had made him satisfy
+his appetite on buns and cocoa at a cheap coffee-shop. It was a small
+thing, but he had smarted under it, for like all weak folk he had a vein
+of mulish contrariness in him, and it vexed him to know that Jeckie,
+when she was about, was stronger than he was.
+
+Grice, left to run the business with the aid of his small staff, was
+kept to the shop during Albert's absence. But he had compensations. The
+first came in the shape of a letter from his brother, the draper, the
+contents of which caused George Grice to chuckle and to congratulate
+himself on his diplomacy; he was, in fact, so pleased by it that he
+there and then put up £25 in Bank of England notes, enclosed them in a
+letter to Albert, bidding him to stay in Nottingham a week longer, and
+went out to register the missive himself. The second was that Bartle
+came to him and took charge of the horses and carts and lost no time in
+proving himself useful beyond expectation. And the third lay in knowing
+that the Farnish Family had gone out of the village. Just as the grocer
+had prophesied, Farnish had been sold up within a week of the execution
+which the money-lenders had levied on his effects. Not a stick had been
+left to him of his household goods, not even a chicken of his live
+stock, and on the morning of the sale he and his daughters had risen
+early, and carrying their bundles in their hands had gone into Sicaster
+and taken lodgings.
+
+"And none such cheap uns, neither!" said the blacksmith, who gave Grice
+all this news, and to whom Farnish owed several pounds and odd
+shillings. "Gone to lodge i' a very good house i' Finkle Street, where
+they'll be paying no less nor a pound a week for t'rooms. Don't tell me!
+I'll lay owt yon theer Jecholiah has a bit o' brass put by. What! She
+used to sell a sight o' eggs and a vast o' butter, Mestur Grice! And
+them owin' me ower nine pounds 'at I shall niver see! Such like i'
+lodgins at a pound a week! They owt to be i' t'poorhouse!"
+
+Old Grice laughed and said nothing; it mattered nothing to him whether
+the Farnishes were lodged in rooms or in the wards of the workhouse, so
+long as Jeckie kept away from Savilestowe until all was safely settled
+about Albert. He exchanged more letters with John, the draper; John's
+replies yielded him infinite delight. As he sat alone of an evening,
+amusing himself with his cigars and his gin and water, he chuckled as he
+gloated over his own state-craft; once or twice, when he had made his
+drink rather stronger than usual, he was so impressed by his own
+cleverness that he assured himself solemnly that he had missed his true
+vocation, and ought to have been a Member of Parliament. He thought so
+again in a quite sober moment, when, at the end of three weeks, Albert
+returned, wearing lemon-coloured kid gloves, and spats over his shoes.
+There was a new atmosphere about Albert, and old George almost decided
+to take him into partnership there and then when he announced that he
+had become engaged to his cousin Lucilla, and that her father would give
+her two thousand pounds on the day of the wedding. Instead, he
+signalised his gratification by furnishing and decorating, regardless of
+cost, two rooms for the use of the expected bride.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_The Shakespeare Line_
+
+
+The Savilestowe blacksmith had been right when he said to George Grice
+that Jeckie Farnish had probably put money by. Jeckie had for some time
+foreseen the coming of an evil day, and for three years she had set
+aside a certain amount of the takings from her milk, butter, and eggs
+sales, and had lodged it safely in the Penny Bank at Sicaster in her own
+name. Her father knew nothing of this nest-egg; no one, indeed, except
+Rushie, knew that she had it; not even Rushie knew its precise amount.
+And when Jeckie turned away from watching George Grice's broad back
+disappear down the lane, and knew that her father's downfall was at last
+inevitable, she at once made up her mind what to do. She knew a widow
+woman in Sicaster who had a roomy house in one of the oldest
+thoroughfares, Finkle Street; to her she repaired on the day following
+the levying of the Clothford money-lender's execution, and bargained
+with her for the letting of three rooms. On the morning of the forced
+sale she routed Farnish and Rushie out of their beds as soon as the sun
+rose; before six o'clock all three, carrying their personal effects in
+bundles, were making their way across the fields towards Sicaster; by
+breakfast time they were settled in their lodgings. And within an hour
+Jeckie had found her father a job, and had told him that unless he stuck
+to it there would be neither bite nor sup for him at her expense. It was
+not a grand job, and Jeckie had come across it by accident--Collindale,
+the greengrocer and fruit merchant in the Market Place, with whom she
+had done business in the past, selling to him the produce of the
+Applecroft orchard in good years, happened to want an odd-job man about
+his shop, and offered a pound a week. Jeckie led her father to
+Collindale and handed him over, with a few clearly-expressed words to
+master and man; by noon Farnish was carrying potatoes to one and
+cauliflowers to another of the greengrocer's customers. Nor was Jeckie
+less arduous in finding work for her sister and herself. They were both
+good needlewomen, and she went round the town seeking employment in that
+direction, and got it. Before she went to her bed that first night in
+the hired lodgings, she was assured of a livelihood, and of no need to
+break into the small hoard in the Penny Bank.
+
+Over the interminable stitching which went on in the living-room of this
+new abode, Jeckie brooded long and heavily over the defection of Albert
+Grice. She had believed that Albert would hasten up to Applecroft when
+he heard the bad news, and while her father and the man in possession
+drank up the last beer in the barrel, and Rushie and Doadie Bartle
+finished the mangling of the linen, she went out into the gloom of the
+falling night and listened for his footsteps coming up the lane. Hard
+enough though her nature was, it was unbelievable to her that the man
+she had promised to marry could leave her alone at this time of trouble.
+But Albert had never come, and next day, she heard that he had gone away
+for a holiday. She knew then what had happened--this was all part of old
+Grice's plans; old Grice meant that everything was to be broken off
+between her and his son. She registered a solemn vow when the full
+realisation came to her, and if George Grice had heard it he would
+probably have been inclined to take Stubley's advice and think a little
+before treating Jeckie so cavalierly. She would have her revenge on
+Grice!--never mind how long it took, nor of what nature it was, she
+would have it. And she was meditating on the beginnings and foundations
+of it when Bartle came to her, wanting advice as to his own course of
+proceeding.
+
+"I reckon it's all over and done wi', as far as this here's concerned,"
+he said, with a deprecating glance round the empty fold. "And I mun do
+summat for misen. Now, grocer Grice, he offered me a job yesterday--when
+he were drivin' down t'lane there, after he'd been here. Wants a man to
+look after his horses, and go round wi' his cart, 'liverin' t'groceries.
+Thirty shillin' a week. What mun I do about it?"
+
+Jeckie's eyes lighted up.
+
+"Take it, lad!" she answered, with unusual alacrity. "Take it! And while
+you're at it, keep your eyes and ears open, and learn all you can about
+t'business. It'll happen stand you in good stead some day. Take it, by
+all means."
+
+"All reight," said Bartle. "I'll stan' by what you say, Jeckie.
+But--there's another matter. What?" he continued, almost shamefacedly.
+"What about--yoursens? I know it's a reight smash up, is this--what's
+going to be done? I'm never going to see you and Rushie i' a fix, you
+know. If it's any use, there's that bit o' money 'at you made me put i'
+t'bank--ye're welcome to it. What were you thinkin' o' doin' like?"
+
+Jeckie took him into her confidence. Her plans were already laid, and
+she was not afraid. So Bartle went into Grice's service when Jeckie and
+Rushie started stitching in Sicaster, and thenceforward he turned up in
+Finkle Street every Sunday afternoon, to see how things were going on
+with his old employers. It was characteristic of him that he never came
+empty-handed--now it was a piece of boiling bacon that he brought as an
+offering; now a pound of tea; now a lump of cheese. And he also brought
+news of the village, and particularly of his new place. But for four
+Sundays in succession he had nothing to tell of Albert Grice but that he
+was away, still holidaying.
+
+On the fifth Sunday, when Bartle came, laden with a fowl (bought, a
+bargain, from his village landlady) in one hand, and an enormous bunch
+of flowers (carefully picked to represent every variety of colour) in
+the other, Jeckie and her father were away, gone to a neighbouring
+village to see a relation who was ill, and Rushie was all alone. Bartle
+sat down in the easiest chair which the place afforded, spread his big
+hands over his Sunday waistcoat, and nodded solemnly at her.
+
+"There's news at our place, Rushie, mi lass!" he said gravely. "I
+misdoubt how Jeckie'll tak' it when she comes to hear on't. About yon
+theer Albert."
+
+"What about him?" demanded Rushie, whom Bartle had found lolling on the
+sofa, reading a penny novelette, and who still remained there, yawning.
+"Has he come back home?"
+
+"Come back t'other day, lookin' like a duke," answered Bartle. "Yaller
+gloves on his hands, and a fancy walkin' stick, and things on his feet
+like t'squire wears. An' it's all out now i' Savilestowe--he's goin' to
+be wed, is Albert. T'owd chap's fair mad wi' glory about it."
+
+"Who's he goin' to wed?" asked Rushie.
+
+"A lass 'at's his cousin, wi' no end o' money," replied Bartle. "Owd
+George is tellin' t'tale all ower t'place. She's to hev two thasand
+pound, down on t'nail, t'day at they're wed, and there'll be more to
+come, later on. And Grice is hevin' a bedroom and a sittin'-room done up
+for 'em, in reight grand style--t'paperhangers starts on to-morrow, and
+there's to be a pianner, and I don't know what else. They're to be wed
+in a fortnight."
+
+"She can have him!" said Rushie contemptuously. "He's nowt, is Albert
+Grice!--I never could think however our Jeckie could look at him."
+
+"Well--but that's how it's to be," remarked Bartle. Then, with a solemn
+look, he added, twiddling his thumbs, "He's treated Jeckie very bad,
+has Albert."
+
+Rushie said nothing. She gave Bartle his tea, and later went for a walk
+with him round the old town; in his Sunday suit of blue serge he was a
+fine-looking young fellow, and Rushie saw many other girls cast admiring
+looks at him. He had gone homewards when Jeckie and her father returned,
+and it was accordingly left to Rushie to break the news of Albert's
+defection to her sister.
+
+Jeckie heard all of it without saying a word, or allowing a sign to show
+itself in her hard, handsome face. She went on with her work in the
+usual fashion the next morning, and continued at it all the week, and
+when Bartle came again on the following Sunday, with more news of the
+preparation at Grice's, she still remained silent. But on the next
+Saturday she went out before breakfast to the nearest newsagent's shop
+and bought a copy of the _Yorkshire Post_ of that morning. She opened it
+in the shop, and turned to the marriage announcements. When she had
+assured herself that Albert Grice had been duly married to his cousin
+Lucilla at Nottingham two days previously, she put the paper in her
+pocket, went back to Finkle Street, and ate an unusually hearty
+breakfast. She had made it a principle from the beginning of the new
+order of things to see that Farnish, Rushie, and herself never wanted
+good food in plenty--folk who work hard, in Jeckie's opinion, must live
+well, and her own country-bred appetite was still with her.
+
+But she was going to do no work that Saturday morning. As soon as she
+and Rushie had breakfasted she went upstairs to her room and put on her
+best clothes. That done, she unlocked a tin box in which she kept
+certain private belongings and took from it the engagement-ring which
+Albert Grice had given her and a small packet of letters. These all went
+into a hand-bag with the _Yorkshire Post_; clutching it in her right
+hand, with an intensity which would have signified a good deal to any
+careful observer, she marched downstairs to her sister.
+
+"Rushie," she said, "I shall be out for an hour or two--get on with
+those things for Mrs. Blenkinsop: you know we promised to let her have
+'em to-day. Do as much as you can, there's a good lass--I'll set to as
+soon as ever I'm back. Never mind the dinner till we've finished."
+
+Then she went out and along the big Market Place and into Ropergate, the
+street wherein the Sicaster solicitors, a keen and shrewd lot,
+congregated together, in company with auctioneers, accountants, and
+debt-collectors. There were at least a dozen firms of solicitors in that
+street, but Jeckie, though she had never employed legal help in her
+life, knew to which of them she was bound before ever she crossed the
+threshold of her lodgings. She was a steady reader of the local
+newspapers, especially of the police and county court news, and so had
+become aware that Palethorpe & Overthwaite were the men for her money.
+And into their office she walked, firm and resolute, as St. Sitha's
+clock struck ten, and demanded of a yawning clerk to see one or other of
+the principals.
+
+When Jeckie was admitted into the inner regions she found herself in the
+presence of both partners. Palethorpe, a sharp, keen-faced fellow sat at
+one table, and Overthwaite, somewhat younger, but no less keen, at
+another; both recognised Jeckie as the handsome young woman sometimes
+seen in the town; both saw the look of determination in her eyes and
+about her lips.
+
+"Well, Miss Farnish," said Palethorpe, who scented business. "What can
+we do for you, ma'am?"
+
+He drew forward a chair, conveniently placed between his own and his
+partner's desk, and Jeckie, seating herself, immediately drew out from
+her hand-bag the various things which she had carefully placed in it.
+
+"I dare say you gentlemen know well enough who I am," she said calmly.
+"Elder daughter of William Farnish, as was lately farming at
+Savilestowe. Father, he did badly this last year or two, and everybody
+knows he was sold up a few weeks since by a Clothford money-lender. But
+between you and me, Mr. Palethorpe and Mr. Overthwaite, I've a bit of
+money put by, and I brought him and my sister into lodgings here in
+Sicaster--I've got him a job, and made him stick to it. And me and my
+sister's got good work and plenty of it. I'm telling you this so that
+you'll know that aught that you like to charge me, you'll get--I'm not
+in the habit of owing money to anybody! And I want, not so much your
+advice as to give you orders to do something."
+
+The two partners exchanged smileless glances. Here, at any rate, was a
+client who possessed courage and decision.
+
+"Everybody in Savilestowe knows that for some time before my father was
+sold up I was engaged to be married to Albert Grice, only son of George
+Grice, the grocer," continued Jeckie. "It was all regularly arranged. We
+were to have been married next year, when Albert'll be twenty-five.
+Here's the engagement ring he gave me. I was with him when he bought it,
+here in Sicaster, at Mr Pilbrow's jeweller's shop; he paid four pound
+fifteen and nine for it, and they gave me half-a-dozen of electroplated
+spoons in with it as a sort of discount. Here's some letters; there's
+eight of 'em altogether, and I've numbered and marked 'em, that Albert
+wrote me from time to time; marriage is referred to in every one of 'em.
+There's no doubt whatever about our engagement; it was agreed to by his
+father and my father, and, as I said, everybody knew of it."
+
+"To be sure!" said Overthwaite. "I've heard of it, Miss Farnish. Local
+gossip, you know. Small world, this!"
+
+"Well," continued Jeckie, "all that went on up to the day that the
+bailiff came to our place. George Grice was there when he came; he went
+straight away home, and next day he sent Albert off to Nottingham, where
+they have relations. He kept him away until we were out of the village;
+he took good care that Albert never came near me nor wrote one single
+line to me. He got him engaged to his cousin at Nottingham, and now,"
+she concluded, laying her newspaper on Palethorpe's desk and pointing
+to the marriage announcements, "now you see, they're wed! Wed two days
+ago; there it is, in the paper."
+
+"I saw it this morning," said Palethorpe. He looked inquisitively at his
+visitor. "And now," he added, "now, Miss Farnish, you want----"
+
+"Now," answered Jeckie, in curiously quiet tones, "now I'll make Albert
+Grice and his father pay! You'll sue Albert for breach of promise of
+marriage, and he shall pay through the nose, too! I'll let George Grice
+see that no man's going to trifle with me; he shall have a lesson
+that'll last him his life. I want you to start on with it at once; don't
+lose a moment!"
+
+"There was never any talk about breaking it off, I suppose?" asked
+Overthwaite. "I mean between you and Albert?"
+
+"Talk!" exclaimed Jeckie. "How could there be talk? I've never even set
+eyes on him since the time I'm telling you about. George Grice took care
+of that!"
+
+Palethorpe picked up the letters. In silence he read through them,
+noting how Jeckie had marked certain passages with a blue pencil, and as
+he finished each he passed it to his partner.
+
+"Clear case!" he said when he had handed over the last. "No possible
+defence! He'll have to pay. Now, Miss Farnish, how much do you want in
+the way of damages? Have you thought it out?"
+
+"As much as ever I can get," answered Jeckie, promptly. "Yes, I have
+thought it out. The damage to me's more nor what folk could think at
+first thoughts. George Grice is a very warm man. I've heard him say,
+myself, more than once, that he was the warmest man in Savilestowe, and
+that's saying a good deal, for both Mr. Stubley and Mr. Merritt are
+well-to-do men. And Albert is an only child: he'd ha' come in--he will
+come in!--for all his father's money. I reckon that if I'd married
+Albert Grice I should have been a very well-off woman. So the damages
+ought to be----"
+
+"Substantial--substantial!" said Palethorpe. "Very substantial, indeed,
+Miss Farnish." He glanced at his partner, who was just laying aside the
+last of the letters. "It's well known that George Grice is a rich man,"
+he remarked. "But, now, here's a question--is this son of his in
+partnership with him?"
+
+Jeckie was ready with an answer to that.
+
+"No, but he will be before a week's out," she said. "In fact, he may be
+now, for aught that I know. I've certain means of knowing what goes on
+at Grice's. George has promised to make Albert a partner as soon as he
+married. Well, now he is married, so it may have come off. He hadn't
+been a partner up to now."
+
+"We'll soon find that out," said Palethorpe. "Now, then, Miss Farnish,
+leave it to us. Don't say a word to anybody, not even to your father or
+sister. Just wait till we find out how things are about the partnership,
+and then we'll move. What you want is to make these people pay--what?"
+
+Jeckie rose, and from her commanding height looked down on the two men,
+who, both insignificant in size, gazed up at her as if she had been an
+Amazon.
+
+"Money's like heart's blood to George Grice!" she muttered. "I want to
+wring it out of him. He flung me away like an old clout! He shall see!
+Do what you like; do what you think best; but make him suffer! I haven't
+done with him yet." Then, without another word, she marched out of the
+office, and Palethorpe smiled to his partner.
+
+"What's that line of Shakespeare's?" he said. "Um--'A woman moved is
+like a fountain troubled.' This one's pretty badly moved to vengeance, I
+think, eh?"
+
+"Aye!" agreed Overthwaite. "But she isn't, as the quotation goes on,
+'bereft of beauty.' Egad, what a face and figure! Albert Grice must be a
+doubly damned fool!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_The Gloves Off_
+
+
+The old grocer was not the man to do things by halves, and as soon as he
+found that Albert's engagement to his cousin Lucilla was an accomplished
+fact, duly approved by the young woman's father and to be determined by
+a speedy marriage, he made up his mind to put his son out of the mouse
+stage and make a man of him. Albert should come into full partnership,
+with a half-share in the business; he should also have a domicile of his
+own under the old roof. There were two big, accommodating rooms on the
+first floor of the house, which hitherto had been used as receptacles
+for lumber and rubbish. Grice had Bartle and a couple of boys to clear
+them of boxes and crates, and that done, handed them over to a painter
+and decorator from Sicaster, with full license to do his pleasure on
+them. The painter and decorator set his wits to work, and achieved a
+mighty bill; and when he had completed his labours he remarked sagely to
+old George that the rooms ought to be furnished according-ly, with
+emphasis on the last syllable. George rose to the bait, and called in
+the best upholsterer available, with the result that when Albert and his
+bride came home they found themselves in possession of two brand-new
+suites of furniture, solid mahogany in the parlour, and rosewood in the
+bedroom, with carpets and hangings in due sympathy with the rest of the
+grandeur. The bride also found a new piano, and delighted her
+father-in-law by immediately sitting down to it and playing a few show
+pieces, with variations. In her new clothes and smart hat she went well
+with the rest of the room, and the next morning George took Albert into
+town and signed the deed of partnership.
+
+"You're a very different man now, mi lad, fro' what ye were two months
+since, remember," observed George, as he and his son sat together in the
+"Red Lion" at Sicaster, taking a glass of refreshment before jogging
+home again. "You were naught but a paid man then; now you're a full
+partner i' George Grice & Son, grocers, wholesale and retail, and
+Italian warehousemen, dealers in hay, straw, and horse corn. An' you're
+a wed man, too, and wi' brass behind and before, and there's no young
+feller i' t'county has better prospects. Foller my example, Albert, and
+you'll cut up a good 'un i' t'end!"
+
+Albert grinned weakly, and said that he'd do his best to look after
+number one, and George went home well satisfied. It seemed to him that
+having steered his ship safely past that perilous reef called Jecholiah
+Farnish he would now have plain and comfortable sailing. Instead of
+being saddled with a poverty-stricken daughter-in-law and her
+undesirable family, he had got his son a wife who had already brought
+him a couple of thousand pounds in ready money, and would have more
+when death laid hands on the Nottingham draper. So there was now nothing
+to do but attend to business during the day, look over the account books
+in the evening, and approach sleep by way of gin and water and the
+tinkle of Lucilla's piano.
+
+"I were allus a man for doing things i' the right way," mused George
+that evening as he smoked his cigar and listened to his new
+daughter-in-law singing the latest music-hall songs, "and I done 'em
+again this time. Now, if I'd let yon lass o' Farnish's wed our Albert
+there'd ha' been nowt wi' her, and I should never ha' had Farnish
+his-self off t'doorstep. It 'ud ha' been five pound here, and five pound
+there. I should ha' had to keep all t'lot on 'em. An' if there is a
+curse i' this here vale o' tears, it's poor relations!"
+
+It was no poor relation who was tinkling the new piano in the fine new
+parlour, nor a useless one, either, George thanked Heaven and himself.
+Mrs. Albert had already proved an acquisition. She was a capable
+housekeeper; she possessed a good deal of the family characteristic as
+regards money, and she could keep books and attend to letters. Moreover,
+she was no idler. Every morning, as soon as she had settled the
+household affairs for the day, she appeared in the shop and took up her
+position at the desk. This saved both George and Albert a good deal of
+clerical work, for the Grice trade, which was largely with the gentry
+and farmers of the district, involved a considerable amount of
+book-keeping. Now, George was painfully slow as a scribe, and Albert
+had no great genius for figures, though he was an expert at wrapping up
+parcels. The bride, therefore, was valuable as a help as well as
+advantageous as an ornament. And a certain gentleman who walked into the
+shop one afternoon, after leaving a smart cob outside in charge of a
+village lad who happened to be hanging about, looked at her with
+considerable interest, as if pretty bookkeepers were strange in that
+part of the country. Old Grice at that moment was busy down the yard,
+examining a cartload of goods with which Bartle was about to set off to
+a neighbouring hamlet: Albert was in the warehouse outside,
+superintending the opening of a cask of sugar. Mrs. Albert went forward;
+the caller greeted her with marked politeness.
+
+"Mr. Albert Grice?" said the caller, with an interrogatory smile. "Is he
+in?"
+
+"I can call him in a minute, sir," replied Mrs. Albert. "He's only just
+outside. Who shall I say?"
+
+"If you'd be kind enough to ask him if he'd see Mr. Palethorpe of
+Sicaster, for a moment," answered the visitor. "He'll know who I am."
+
+Mrs. Albert opened the door at the back of the shop, and ushered
+Palethorpe into the room in which Jeckie Farnish had found George Grice
+eating his cold beef. She passed out through another door into the yard,
+came back in a moment, saying that her husband would be there presently,
+and returned to the shop. And upon her heels came Albert, wiping his
+sugary hands on his apron and looking very much astonished.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Albert," said Palethorpe, in his pleasantest
+manner. "I called to see you on a little matter of business. I would
+have sent one of my clerks, but as the business is of a confidential
+sort I thought I'd just drive over myself. The fact of the case is I've
+got a writ for you--and there it is!"
+
+Before Albert had comprehended matters, Palethorpe had put a folded,
+oblong piece of paper into his hand, and had nodded his head, as much as
+to imply that now, the writ having slipped into Albert's unresisting
+fingers, something had been effected which could never be undone.
+
+"Thought it would be more considerate to serve you with it myself," he
+added, with another smile.
+
+"I dare say you prefer that."
+
+Albert looked from Palethorpe to the writ, and from the writ to
+Palethorpe. His face flushed and his jaw, a weak and purposeless one,
+dropped.
+
+"What's it all about?" he asked, feebly. "I--I don't owe nobody aught,
+Mr. Palethorpe. A writ!--for me?"
+
+"Suit of Jecholiah Farnish--breach of promise--damages claimed, two
+thousand pounds," answered Palethorpe, promptly. "That's what it is!
+Lord, bless me!--do you mean to say you haven't been expecting it!"
+
+He laughed, half sneeringly, and suddenly broke his laughter short.
+George Grice had come in, softly, by the back door of the room, and had
+evidently heard the solicitor's announcement of the reason of his
+visit. Palethorpe composed his face, and made the grocer a polite bow.
+It was his policy, on all occasions, to do honour to money, and he knew
+George to be a well-to-do man.
+
+"Good afternoon, Mr. Grice!" he said. "Fine day, isn't it--splendid
+weather for----" Grice cut him short with a scowl.
+
+"What did I hear you say?" he demanded, angrily. "Summat about yon
+Farnish woman, and breach o' promise, and damages? What d'yer mean?"
+
+"Just about what you've said," retorted Palethorpe. "I've served your
+son with a writ on Miss Farnish's behalf--you'd better read it
+together."
+
+Grice glanced nervously at the curtained door which led into the shop.
+Then he beckoned Palethorpe and Albert to follow him, and led them out
+of the room and across a passage to a small apartment at the rear of the
+house, a dismal nook in which his account books and papers of the last
+thirty years had been stored. He carefully closed the door and turned on
+the solicitor.
+
+"Do you mean to tell me 'at yon there hussy has had the impudence to
+start proceedin's for breach o' promise again my son?" he said. "I never
+knew such boldness or brazenness i' my born days! Go your ways back,
+young man, and tell her 'at sent you 'at she'll get nowt out o' me!"
+
+Palethorpe laughed--something in his laugh made the grocer look at him.
+And he saw decision and confidence in Palethorpe's face, and suddenly
+realised that here was trouble which he had never anticipated.
+
+"Nonsense, Mr. Grice!" exclaimed Palethorpe. "I'm surprised at
+you!--such a keen and sharp man of business as you're known to be. We
+want nothing out of you--we want what we do want out of your son!"
+
+"He has nowt!" growled the grocer. "He's nowt but what I----"
+
+"Nonsense again, Mr. Grice," interrupted Palethorpe. "He's your partner,
+with a half-share in the business, as you've announced to a good many of
+your neighbours and cronies during the last week or so, and he's also
+got two thousand pounds with his wife. Come, now, what's the good of
+pretending? Your son's treated my client very badly, very badly indeed,
+and he'll have to pay. That's flat!"
+
+Grice suddenly stretched out a hand towards his son.
+
+"Gim'me that paper!" he said.
+
+Albert handed over the writ and his father put on a pair of spectacles
+and carefully read it through from beginning to end. Then he flung it on
+the desk at which the three men were standing.
+
+"It's nowt but what they call blackmail!" he growled. "I'll none deny
+'at there were an arrangement between my son and Farnish's lass. But it
+were this here--Farnish were to give five hundred pounds wi' her. Now,
+Farnish went brok'--he had no five hundred pound, nor five hundred
+pence! So, of course, t'arrangement fell through. That's where it is."
+
+Palethorpe laughed again--and old Grice feared that laugh more than the
+other.
+
+"I'm more surprised than before, Mr. Grice," said Palethorpe. "My client
+has nothing whatever to do with any arrangement--if there was
+any--between you and her father. Her affair is with your son Mr. Albert
+Grice. He asked her to marry him--she consented. He gave her an
+engagement ring--it was well known all round the neighbourhood that they
+were to marry. He wrote her letters, in which marriage is mentioned----"
+
+Grice turned on his son in a sudden paroxysm of fury.
+
+"Ye gre't damned softhead!" he burst out. "Ye don't mean to say 'at you
+were fool enough to write letters! Letters!"
+
+"I wrote some," replied Albert sullenly. "Now and then, when I was away,
+like. It's t'usual thing when you're engaged to a young woman."
+
+"Quite the usual thing--when you're engaged to a young woman," said
+Palethorpe, with a quiet sneer. "And we have the letters--all of 'em.
+And the engagement ring, too. Mr. Grice, it's no good blustering. This
+is as clear a case as ever I heard of, and your son'll have to pay. It's
+no concern of mine whether you take my advice or not, but if you do take
+it, you'll come to terms with my client. If this case goes before a
+judge and jury--and it certainly will, if you don't settle it in the
+meantime--you won't have a leg to stand on, and Miss Farnish will get
+heavy damages--heavy!--and you'll have all the costs. And between you
+and me, Mr. Grice, you'll not come out of the matter with very clean
+hands yourself. We know quite well, for you're a bit talkative, you
+know--how you engineered the breaking-off of this engagement and
+contrived the marriage of your son to his cousin, and we shall put you
+in the witness-box, and ask you some very unpleasant questions. And
+you're a churchwarden, eh?" concluded Palethorpe, as he turned to the
+door. "Come now--you know my client's been abominably treated by you and
+your son--you'd better do the proper thing, and compensate her
+handsomely."
+
+Grice had become scarlet with anger during the solicitor's last words,
+and now he picked up the writ and thrust it into his pocket.
+
+"I'll say nowt no more to you!" he exclaimed. "I'll see my lawyer in
+t'morning, and hear what he's gotten to say to such a piece o'
+impidence!"
+
+"That's the first sensible thing I've heard you say," remarked
+Palethorpe. "See him by all means--and he'll say to you just what I've
+said. You'll see!"
+
+The calm confidence of Palethorpe's tone, and the nonchalant way in
+which he left father and son, cost Grice a sleepless night. He lay
+turning in his bed, alternately cursing Jeckie for her insolence and
+Albert for his foolishness in writing those letters. He had sufficient
+knowledge of the world to know that Palethorpe was probably right--yet
+it had never once occurred to him that a country lass could have
+sufficient sense to invoke the law.
+
+"She's too damned clever i' all ways is that there Jecholiah!" he
+groaned. "Very like I should ha' done better if I'd kept in wi' her, and
+let her wed our Albert. It's like to cost a pretty penny afore I've done
+wi' it if I have to pay her an' all. There were a hundred pounds for
+Albert's trip to Nottingham and another hundred for t'weddin' and
+t'honeymoon, and I laid out a good three hundred i' doin' up them rooms
+and buyin' t'pianner, and now then, there's this here! An' I'd rayther
+go and fling my brass into t'sea nor have it go into t'hands o' that
+there Jezebel! I wish I'd never ta'en our Albert into partnership, nor
+said owt about his wife's two thousand pound--then, when this came on he
+could ha' pleaded 'at he wor nowt but a paid man, and she'd ha' got next
+to nowt i' t'way o' damages. Damages!--to that there!--it's enough to
+mak' me shed tears o' blood!"
+
+Grice was with his solicitor, Mr. Camberley, in Sicaster, by ten o'clock
+next morning. He had left Albert at home, judging him to be worse than
+an encumbrance in matters of this sort. He himself had sufficient acumen
+to keep nothing back from his man of law; he told him all about the ring
+and the letters, and his face grew heavier as Mr. Camberley's face grew
+longer.
+
+"You'll have to settle, Grice," said the solicitor, an oldish,
+experienced man. "It's precisely as Palethorpe said--you haven't a leg
+to stand on! You know, I'm a bit surprised at you; you might have
+foreseen this."
+
+Grice pulled out a big bandanna handkerchief, and mopped his high
+forehead.
+
+"It never crossed my mind 'at she'd be for owt o' this sort!" he
+groaned. "I never thowt 'at she'd have as much sense as all that. She's
+gotten a spice o' t'devil in her!--that's where it is. And you think
+it's no use fightin' t'case?"
+
+"Not a scrap of use!" said the lawyer. "Stop here while I go round to
+Palethorpe's and see for myself how things are. They'll show me those
+letters."
+
+Grice sat grunting and muttering in Camberley's office until Camberley
+returned. One glance at the solicitor's face showed him that there was
+no hope.
+
+"Well?" he asked anxiously as Camberley sat down to his desk. "Well,
+now?"
+
+"It's just as I expected," said Camberley. "Of course they've a
+perfectly good case; they couldn't have a better. I've seen your son's
+letters. Excellent evidence--for the plaintiff! Marriage is mentioned in
+every one of them--when it was to be, what arrangements were to be made
+afterwards, and so on. There's no use beating about the bush, Grice; you
+haven't a chance!"
+
+"Then, there's naught for it but payin'?" said the grocer with a deep
+sigh. "No way o' gettin' out of it?"
+
+"There's no way of getting out of it," answered Camberley. "Nobody and
+nothing can get you out of it. Here's a perfectly blameless,
+well-behaved, hard-working young woman, whom you had willingly accepted
+as your son's future wife, suddenly flung off like an old glove, for no
+cause whatever! What do you suppose a jury would say to that? You'll
+have to settle, Grice--and I've done my best for you. They'll take
+fifteen hundred pounds and their costs."
+
+Grice's big face turned white, and the sweat burst out on his forehead
+and rolled down his cheeks, and over the tight lip and into his beard.
+
+"It's either that, or the case'll go on to trial," said Camberley. "My
+own opinion," he added, dryly, "is that if it goes to trial, she'd get
+two thousand. You'd far better write out a cheque and have done with it.
+It's your own fault, you know."
+
+Grice pulled out his cheque-book and wrote slowly at Camberley's
+dictation. When he had attached his signature he handed over the cheque
+with trembling fingers, and, without another word, went out, climbed
+heavily into his trap, and drove home. He maintained a strange and
+curious silence all the rest of that day, and that evening the strains
+of the new piano failed to charm him. More than once his cigar went out
+unnoticed; once or twice he shed tears into his gin-and-water.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_The Golden Teapot_
+
+
+While George Grice was driving out of Sicaster, groaning and grumbling
+at his ill-luck, Jeckie Farnish, in the Finkle Street lodging, was
+contemplating a pile of linen which had just been sent in to her for
+stitching. Rushie contemplated it, too, and made a face at it.
+
+"Looks as if we should never get through it!" she said mournfully, "And
+it's such dull work, sewing all day long."
+
+"Don't you quarrel with your bread-and-butter, miss!" answered Jeckie,
+with ready sharpness. "You'd ought to be thankful we've got work to do
+rather than grumble at it."
+
+"There's other work nor this that a body can do," retorted Rushie. "And
+a deal pleasanter!"
+
+"Aye, and what, miss, I should like to know?" demanded Jeckie as she
+thrust a length of linen into her sister's hands. "What is there that
+you could do, pray?"
+
+"Herbert Binks says Mr. Fryer wants one or two young women in his shop,"
+answered Rushie, diffidently. "I could try for that if I was only let.
+And it's far more respectable learning the drapery and millinery than
+sewing sheets and things all day long."
+
+"Is it?" said Jeckie. "Well, I know naught about respectability, and I
+do know 'at Mr. Fryer 'ud want a nice bit o' money paying to him if he
+took you as apprentice. And you mind what you're doing with that Herbert
+Binks! I've no opinion o' these town fellers; he'll be turning your head
+with soft talk. You be thankful 'at we've got work to do that keeps us
+out o' the workhouse. Where should we all ha' been now, I should like to
+know, if it hadn't been for me?"
+
+Then she sat down in her usual place by the window, and began to sew as
+if for dear life, while Rushie, taking refuge in poutings and silence,
+set to work in languid fashion. Already Jeckie was having trouble with
+her and with Farnish. The younger sister openly revolted against the
+interminable sewing. Farnish, whose pocket-money had been fixed at five
+shillings, found eightpence-halfpenny a day all too little for his beer,
+and sulked every night when he came home from the greengrocer's.
+Moreover, Jeckie found it impossible to keep Rushie to heel; she could
+not always be watching her, and as soon as her back was turned of an
+evening Rushie was out and away about the town, always with some
+shop-boy or other in attendance. It was not easy work to manage her or
+Farnish, and Jeckie foresaw a day in which both would strike. Some folk,
+she knew, would have said let them strike and see to themselves, but
+Jeckie was one of those unfortunate mortals who are cursed with an
+exaggerated sense of personal responsibility, and she worried much more
+about her father and sister than about herself.
+
+"You stick to what work we've got for a bit, Rushie, my lass!" she said
+presently, in mollifying tones. "I know well enough it's trying, but
+there'll very likely be something better to do before long; you never
+know what's going to turn up!"
+
+Something was about to turn up at that moment, though Jeckie was
+unconscious of it. One of Palethorpe & Overthwaite's office boys came
+whistling along the street, and, catching sight of Jeckie at the open
+window, paused and grinned; Jeckie eyed him over with a sudden feeling
+of anticipation.
+
+"Are you wanting me?" she demanded.
+
+"Mr. Palethorpe's compliments, and would you mind stepping round to our
+office, miss?" said the lad. "They want to see you, particular."
+
+"I'll be there in a few minutes," answered Jeckie. She laid aside her
+sewing when the lad had turned on his heel, and looked at her sister.
+"Get on with your work while I'm out, Rushie," she said. "I'll be as
+quick as I can--and, maybe, I'll have some news for you when I come
+back."
+
+Then she hurried into her best garments and hastened round to Palethorpe
+& Overthwaite's, wondering all the way what they wanted. The partners
+smiled at her as she was shown in, and Overthwaite manifested an extra
+politeness in handing her a chair.
+
+"Well, Miss Farnish!" said Palethorpe, almost jocularly. "We've good
+news for you. The enemy's capitulated! Never made a bit of a fight,
+either. Clean beaten!"
+
+Jeckie looked from one man to the other with surprised questioning eyes.
+
+"He's going to pay?" she suggested.
+
+Palethorpe pointed to a cheque which lay face downwards on his desk.
+
+"He's paid!" he answered. "Half an hour ago. There's the cheque. I'll
+tell you all about it in a few words. I served Albert with the writ
+myself yesterday afternoon. Albert had nothing to say; old George
+blustered, and said he'd see his solicitor. I said he could do nothing
+better. He came in first thing this morning, and saw Camberley;
+Camberley came on to see us. And, of course, he knew they hadn't a leg
+to stand on, so, as you'd given us full permission to settle on your
+behalf, he came to terms. And--there's the money!"
+
+Jeckie caught her breath, and looked at the cheque with a glance keen
+enough, as Overthwaite afterwards remarked, to go through it and the
+wood beneath it. It was with an obvious effort that she got out two
+words.
+
+"How much?"
+
+"Fifteen hundred pounds--and our costs," answered Palethorpe. "I hope
+you're satisfied?"
+
+Jeckie gave him a queer, shrewd, enigmatical look.
+
+"Aye, I'm satisfied!" she said in a low voice. "I should ha' made Albert
+Grice a rare good wife and George Grice a saving daughter-in-law,
+but--yes, I'm satisfied. And--I know well enough what I shall do with
+it--as George Grice'll find out! So--I'm worth fifteen hundred pound?
+That's one thousand five hundred! Very well! And--I'm much obliged to
+you."
+
+Palethorpe turned to his partner.
+
+"Write out a cheque for Miss Farnish for one thousand five hundred
+pounds," he said. "And she'll give us a receipt. Now Miss Farnish," he
+went on, as Overthwaite produced a cheque-book, "You'll want to bank
+this money, no doubt? If you like, I'll introduce you to the Old Bank."
+
+"Much obliged to you," answered Jeckie. "I have some money of my own in
+the Penny Bank, but of course, it's naught much. Yes, I'll go to the Old
+Bank, if you please, Mr. Palethorpe. And--don't I owe you something?"
+
+"Nothing!" answered Palethorpe, with a smile. "We made Grice pay your
+costs--every penny."
+
+"I hope you charged him plenty," said Jeckie.
+
+Palethorpe laughed, and presently handing her the cheque, took her off
+to the Old Bank and introduced her to its manager. Half an hour later,
+Jeckie, with a virgin cheque-book in her hand, burst in upon Rushie.
+
+"There now, Rushie!" she said, "didn't I tell you there'd happen be
+better times i' store for us. You can drop that sewing--we've done with
+it. We'll hand it over to Mrs. Thompson; she'll finish it and be glad o'
+the job an' all. But--we've done wi' that."
+
+Rushie dropped her needle into the folds of the linen and stared.
+
+"Whatever's happened?" she demanded. "You're all red, like!"
+
+"Never you mind if I'm blue or green," said Jeckie. "I've made them
+Grices pay!--I never told you, but I put t'lawyers on to Albert for
+breach of promise. And of course there was no defence, and he's had to
+pay, or old George has paid for him, and I've got the money, and it's
+safe in the bank!"
+
+"How much?" asked Rushie eagerly. "A lot?"
+
+"No, I shan't tell!" replied Jeckie, with a firm shake of her head.
+"Then you won't know when father asks, for I certainly shan't tell him.
+But now, Rushie, you listen here. Take all this stuff to Mrs. Thompson
+and ask her if she'll finish it off. And see to your own and father's
+dinner--I shan't be in for dinner; I've important business to see to,
+and I shall be out till evening. Now don't go trailing about the town,
+Rushie--be a good girl, and you'll hear news when I come home."
+
+"Then we aren't going to do any more sewing?" asked Rushie.
+
+"We're going to do no more sewing!" said Jeckie. "Not one stitch! We're
+going to do something a deal better. You'll see, if you behave
+yourself--and it'll be a deal better, too, nor going 'prentice to Mr.
+Fryer."
+
+She gave her sister a decisive nod as she left the house and the colour
+was still bright in her cheeks as she marched off in the direction of a
+path across the fields which lay between Sicaster and Savilestowe. It
+was but a very short time since she and Rushie and Farnish had come
+along that path, carrying their entire belongings in bundles; now, she
+reflected, she was retracing her steps with the proud consciousness that
+she had fifteen hundred pounds of solid money in the bank--the knowledge
+was all the sweeter to her because it had been wrung out of old George
+Grice.
+
+"Aye!" she muttered, as she walked swiftly along over the quiet meadows
+and through the growing cornfields. "And now 'at I've got a start, I'll
+let George Grice see 'at he's not the only one 'at can play at the game
+o' makin' money! He's a hard and a healthy old feller, and he'll live a
+good while yet, and I'd let him see 'at I can make money as cleverly as
+he's done--aye, and at his expense, too! I'll make him and Albert rue
+the day 'at they cast me aside--let 'em see if I don't!"
+
+The path across the fields led Jeckie out close by Applecroft, but it
+was indicative of her mood that she never once turned her head aside to
+glance at the old place. She marched straight down the lane, crossed the
+churchyard, and presently turned into Stubley's trim garden. It was to
+see Stubley that she had come to Savilestowe.
+
+Stubley, who had just been round his land, was entering his house when
+Jeckie came up. He led her inside, and, finding she would drink nothing
+stronger brought out a bottle of home-made wine; he himself turned to a
+jug of ale which stood ready on the sideboard.
+
+"And what brings ye here, mi lass?" he asked, eyeing her inquisitively
+as he sat down in his big elbow chair. "Ye're lookin' uncommon well."
+
+"Mr. Stubley," answered Jeckie, "I've come to see you. I've something to
+tell you, for you were always a good friend to me. You knew that I was
+going to marry Albert Grice, and that him and his father threw me away
+when my father came smash. Well, I've made 'em pay! Old George has paid
+fifteen hundred pound--and I've got it, all safe, in the bank."
+
+Stubley's face lighted up with undisguised admiration, and he brought
+his big hand down on his knee with a hearty smack.
+
+"Good lass!" he exclaimed. "Good lass! That's the ticket! An' right an'
+all--they tret you very bad did them two! Good, that 'ud make old George
+grunt and grumble! But fifteen hundred pound--that's a sight o' money,
+mi gel--mind you take care on it."
+
+"Trust me!" answered Jeckie, with a sharp look, "I know the value of
+money as well as anybody. But now, Mr. Stubley, do you know what I'm
+going to do with that fifteen hundred pound?"
+
+"Nay, sure-ly!" said the farmer. "How should I know, mi lass?"
+
+"Then, I'll tell you," replied Jeckie. She leaned forward across the
+table, looking earnestly into Stubley's shrewd eyes. "This!" she said.
+"I'm going to start a grocery business here in Savilestowe--in
+opposition to Grice and Son! There!"
+
+Stubley started as if somebody had suddenly trod on a corn. He stared at
+his visitor, rubbed his chin, and shook his head.
+
+"You're a bold 'un!" he said in accents which were not without
+admiration. "And a clever 'un, an' all! Aye, there's summat in that
+notion, mi lass; old George has had his own way i' this neighbourhood i'
+that line too long, and t'place 'ud be all t'better for a bit o'
+competition. But--what do ye know o' t'trade?"
+
+"I know how to buy and sell with anybody," asserted Jeckie. "An' I'm
+that quick at picking things up 'at I shall know all there is to be
+known before I start. My mind's made up, Mr. Stubley. I've reckoned and
+figured things. George Grice isn't popular here, as you know; there's
+lots of folks'll give their custom to me. And I'll warrant you I'll have
+all t'poor folks away from him as soon as ever I open my doors! He's
+been hard on them, and his prices is shameful, and he doesn't lay
+himself out to keep what they want; as it is, most on 'em have to go to
+Sicaster for their stuff. Now, I'll capture all t'lot of 'em, here and
+in this district; I know what they want, and what they can pay, and I'll
+provide accordingly. An' I'll cut George Grice's prices wherever I can;
+I know what I'm about! An' I'm sure and certain that there's lots o' the
+better sort'll give me their trade; you would yourself, now, Mr.
+Stubley, wouldn't you?"
+
+"Aye, I think I can say I should, mi lass!" asserted the farmer. "I'm
+none bound to no George Grice; he's a hard, grasping old feller, and
+there's no love lost between me and him. But you know ye'd want a likely
+shop, and----"
+
+"That's just what I've come about," interrupted Jeckie. "I want you to
+let me that empty house that old Mrs. Mapplebeck had; I know it's
+yours, and I know what she paid you for it. Those two bottom front
+rooms'll make a splendid shop, and I'd have 'em fitted up at once. Let
+it to me, Mr. Stubley, and I'll pay you the first year's rent in
+advance, just now."
+
+Stubley suddenly smote his knee again, and burst into laughter.
+
+"Good; it's right opposite old George's!" he chuckled. "He'd have
+t'opposition shop straight before his eyes, right i' front of his nose!
+They talk about poetic justice, what?--now that would be it, wi' a
+vengeance. Gow!--I can see t'old feller's face! Ye're a bold 'un,
+Jeckie, mi lass, ye're a bold 'un!"
+
+"Let me the house!" said Jeckie. "It's just because it's in front of
+Grice's that I do want it. Don't you see, Mr. Stubley, that one o' my
+best chances is to be right before his very door? There's many that set
+out to go to him 'ud turn into me when they saw it was better worth
+their while."
+
+Stubley chuckled again at his visitor's eagerness, and suddenly he
+pulled up his chair to the table and became serious.
+
+"Now, then, let's go into matters," he said, gravely. "Ye're a smart
+lass, you know, Jeckie, but it's a serious thing starting to fight an
+old-established firm like Grice and Son. Let's hear a bit more about
+what you propose, like."
+
+Jeckie wished for nothing better. She talked, and explained, and
+outlined her schemes, and pointed out to the farmer, himself a keen man
+of business, where Grice & Son were hopelessly out of date and where
+she could hope to draw a considerable amount of trade away from them.
+She also showed him that she was thoroughly conversant with certain
+customs of the trade which she now proposed to take up, and that she had
+already made herself acquainted with the methods of purchase from
+wholesale grocers and manufacturers. Stubley was struck by her
+knowledge.
+
+"You've been meditating this, mi lass?" he said. "You've been preparing
+for it!"
+
+"Ever since I knew there was a chance of getting money out o' George
+Grice, I have!" admitted Jeckie. "As soon as ever Palethorpe and
+Overthwaite told me 'at I'd a good case, and that Albert 'ud have to
+pay, I determined what I'd do with the money even if it wasn't as much
+as it's turned out to be. And I shall do well, Mr. Stubley, you'll see!"
+
+Stubley let her the house she wanted, and she paid him a year's rent in
+advance, and went off, triumphant, to the village carpenter, and, having
+sworn him to secrecy, told him her plans and gave him orders for the
+fitting up of the two big ground-floor rooms. He, too, got a cheque on
+account, and promised to go to work at once and to tell nobody who it
+was that he was working for. But he was wise enough to know that such
+work as his could not be done in a corner and that there would be
+infinite curiosity in the shop across the way.
+
+"Ye'll none get that secret kept long, ye know, miss," he said. "When
+t'Grices sees 'at I'm fittin' yon place up as a shop they'll want to
+know what it's all about like. It'll have to come out i'now."
+
+"Not till I let it!" said Jeckie. "You go on as fast as you can with
+your work, and wait till I say the word."
+
+During the next month the carpenter and his men were busy day by day
+with counters and shelving, and George Grice, crossing the road to them
+more than once got nothing but evasive replies in answer to his
+inquisitiveness. But one day, chancing to look across at the mysterious
+building, he saw the carpenter coming down a ladder from the moulding
+over the front door; he had just fixed there a great golden teapot. The
+strong sunlight fell full on its grandeur, and the village street was
+suddenly bathed in glory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_The Battle Begins_
+
+
+Up to that moment George Grice had fondly and firmly believed that he
+knew the secret of the house opposite--he was so certain in his
+assumption, indeed, that he had taken no particular trouble to get at
+the real truth about it. For some time there had been a travelling
+draper, a Scotsman, coming into those parts, and doing a considerable
+amount of trade; this man had often remarked to the grocer that he had a
+rare good mind to set up a shop in Savilestowe, and make it the
+headquarters of a further development. He had not been seen in the
+neighbourhood since early spring, but George, who prided himself on his
+deductive qualities, was sure that he was behind all the preparations
+which were going on over the way, and said so, with a knowing chuckle,
+to Albert.
+
+"They're close, is them Scotch fellers!" he remarked, as he and his son
+stood at their shop door one afternoon, watching certain material being
+carried into the opposite house. "I see how it is--he's doing it all on
+the quiet--made t'carpenter keep t'secret till all's ready for opening.
+Then he'll be appearin' on t'scene wi' a cargo o' goods. An' I shall hev
+no objection, Albert, mi lad--owt 'at keeps trade i' t'village 'll
+bring trade to us, as long as it doesn't trespass on our line."
+
+Once or twice George Grice endeavoured to sound Stubley, as owner of the
+house, on the subject of the mystery. Stubley took pleasure in
+heightening it, and winked knowingly at his questioner.
+
+"Aye, ye'll be seeing summat afore long!" said Stubley. "We'm not always
+going to be asleep here i' Savilestowe. This is what they call a
+progressive age, mi lad, and some of you old fossils want wakenin' up a
+bit. We shall be havin' all sorts o' things i' now. You'll have your
+eyes opened, Grice. Keep a look out on t'windows opposite--ye'll be
+seeing summat in 'em at'll make you think!"
+
+"Drapery goods, no doubt," suggested Grice. "An' ready-made clothin'.
+Happen I can see a bit already."
+
+"I'm sayin' nowt," retorted Stubley. "Ye'll see summat--i' time."
+
+But when George Grice saw the golden teapot elevated above the front
+door, he experienced very much the same feeling which fills the breast
+of a mariner, who, having sailed long in fog and mist, sees them lift,
+and finds before him a rocky and perilous coast. Just as a pestle and
+mortar denote the presence of a chemist, so a teapot would seem to
+indicate the presence of a dealer in tea--and in like commodities. And
+it was in something of a cold sweat, induced by anticipation, that he
+tucked up the corner of his apron and sallied across the street to find
+out, once and for all, what that glaring object meant.
+
+"Now, mi lad!" he began, coming across the carpenter at the threshold of
+the renovated house, "What's t'meanin' o' that thing ye've just fixed
+up? It 'ud seem to be a imitation of a teapot, if it owt is owt. What's
+it mean, like? What's this here shop going to be?"
+
+The carpenter, a quiet, meditative man, not without a sense of humour,
+had received his instructions from Jeckie the night before--at noon that
+day he was to place the golden teapot in position, affix a sign beneath
+it, and complete the bold announcement by draping the Union Jack over
+both. So there was no longer any need for secrecy, and with a jerk of
+his thumb he motioned Grice within one of the newly-fitted rooms, and
+pointed to an oblong object which rested, covered with coarse sacking,
+on the counter.
+
+"Mean, eh?" he said, with a laugh. "Why, it means, Mr. Grice, 'at you're
+going to hev a bit o' competition, like! They say 'at it's a good thing
+for t'community, is competition, so yer mo'nt grummle. But if you want
+t'exact meanin'--why, ye can look at this here, if ye like. It'll be up
+ower t'door in a few o' minutes, for all t'place to see, but I'll gi'
+yer a private view wi' pleasure--very neat and tasty it is. I'm sure
+ye'll admit."
+
+With that the carpenter stripped off the sacking from the oblong object
+and revealed a signboard, the background whereof was of a light
+apple-green, the lettering in brilliant gold. And Grice took in that
+lettering in one glance, and stepped back in sickened amazement. Yet
+there was only one word on the sign, only a name--but the name was
+"Farnish."
+
+"Nice bit o' sign-writin', that, Mr. Grice?" said the carpenter,
+maliciously. "Done at Clothford, was that theer--so were t'golden
+teapot. She'll ha' laid a nice penny out on them two, will Miss
+Farnish."
+
+Grice, who was already purple with rage, found his tongue.
+
+"D'ye mean to tell me 'at yon woman's going to start a grocery business
+reight i' front o' my very door!" he vociferated. "Her! Going to----"
+
+"Aye, and why not, Grice?" said a hard and dry voice behind him. "D'ye
+think 'at ye've gotten a monopoly o' trade i' t'place, or i' t'district,
+either? Gow, I think ye'll find yer mistaken, mi lad!"
+
+Grice turned angrily, to find Stubley standing amongst the shavings on
+the floor of the shop. The farmer nodded defiantly as he met the
+grocer's irate look.
+
+"I telled you yer were wrong, Grice, when you turned yon lass off!" he
+said. "I telled you to count twenty afore you did owt. Ye wouldn't--and
+now she's goin' to make you smart for it. And--it must be a very nice
+and pleasant reflection for you!--ye've provided her wi' t'sinews o'
+war! That there fifteen hundred pound 'at she made you fork out's comin'
+in very useful to t'enemy--what!"
+
+The deep red flush which had overspread Grice's big face and thick neck
+died out, and he became white as his immaculate apron. He gave Stubley a
+glare of venomous hatred.
+
+"So you've been at t'back o' this?" he exclaimed. "It's you 'at's backed
+her up? What reight have you to come interferin' wi' a honest man's
+trade 'at he's ta'en all these years to build up? Ye're a bad 'un
+Stubley!"
+
+"Nowt no worse nor you, ye fat owd mork!" retorted Stubley, who had
+waited a long time to pay off certain old scores. "If there's been owt
+bad o' late i' this place, it's been your treatment o' yon lass!--and I
+hope she'll make yer suffer for it. Ye'll ha' t'pleasure o' seein' trade
+come into this door 'at used to come into yours, Mr. Grice. That'll
+touch you up, I know!--that'll get home to t'sore place."
+
+Grice made another effort to speak, but before words reached his lips
+his mood changed, and he turned on his heel and left the house. He went
+straight across the street, through the shop, and into his private
+parlour. He had a bottle of brandy in his cupboard, and he took it out
+and helped himself to a strong dose with a shaking hand. The brandy
+steadied him for the moment, but his rage was still there, and had to be
+vented on somebody, and presently he opened the door into the shop and
+called his son. Albert came in and stared at the brandy bottle.
+
+"Is aught amiss?" asked Albert. "You're that white."
+
+George fixed his small eyes on his son's expressionless face.
+
+"Do you know what that shop is across t'road, and who's going to open
+it?" he demanded.
+
+"Me?--no!" answered Albert. "What is it--and who is?"
+
+"Then I'll tell yer!" said George in low concentrated tones. "It's a
+grocer's shop, and it's yon there she-devil's, Jecholiah Farnish. She
+going to run it i' opposition to me, 'at's been here all these years!
+An' it's wi' my money 'at it's bein' started--mind you that! Mi money,
+'at I've tewed and scratted for all mi life--my fifteen hundred pound,
+'at I hed to pay 'cause you were such a damned fool as to gi' that there
+ring to her and write her them letters! It's all your fault, ye poor
+soft thing--if yer'd never given her t'ring nor written them letters, I
+would ha' snapped mi fingers at her! But yer did--and there's t'result!"
+
+He waved a hand, with an almost imperial gesture, in the direction of
+the offending shop across the way, and looked at his son with eyes full
+of angry contempt.
+
+"There's t'result!" he repeated. "A shop reight before wer very noses
+'at's bound to do us damage--and all owin' to your foolishness!"
+
+Albert put a hand to his mouth and coughed. There was something in that
+cough that made George start and look more narrowly at his son. And he
+suddenly realised that Albert was going to show fight.
+
+"I'll tell you what it is!" said Albert, with the desperate courage of a
+weak nature. "I'm goin' to have no more o' that sort o' talk. You seem
+to think I'm naught but a mouse, but I'll show you I'm as good a man as
+what you are. You forget 'at I've half o' this business--it's mine,
+signed and sealed, and naught can do away wi' that--and me and Lucilla's
+got her two thousand pounds safe i' t'bank and untouched--we're none
+without brass, and I can claim to have t'partnership wound up any time,
+and take my lawful share and go elsewhere, and so I will, if there's any
+more talk. I did no more nor what any other feller 'ud ha' done when I
+gave that ring and wrote them letters--and I'm none bound to stop i'
+Savilestowe, neither. Me an' Lucilla----"
+
+The door from the shop opened and Lucilla came in--and George saw at
+once what had happened. Between his parlour and the shop there was a
+hatchment in the wall, fitted with a small window; hastily glancing
+round he saw that the window was open; Lucilla, accordingly, her
+cashier's desk being close to the hatchment, had heard all that father
+and son had said. And there were danger signals in her cheeks as she
+turned on the old grocer.
+
+"No, we're not bound to stop in Savilestowe!" she exclaimed angrily and
+pertly. "And stop we shan't if you're going to treat Albert as you do.
+You've never been right to him since you paid that money to that woman!
+And it's all your fault--you should have paid her something when you
+first broke it off; she'd ha' been glad to take five hundred pound then.
+And, as Albert says, we've got my two thousand pounds, and his share in
+this business, and I'll not have him sat on, neither by you nor anybody,
+so there! You stand up to him, Albert. We've had enough of black looks
+this last month--it's not our fault if he paid that woman fifteen
+hundred pounds!"
+
+Grice looked in amazement at his muttering son and the sharp-tongued
+bride--and in that moment learned a good deal that he had never known
+before.
+
+"An' it were for you 'at I laid out all that brass in furniture, and
+bowt a bran' new pianner!" he said reproachfully. "Well!--there's
+neither gratitude nor nowt left i' this world!"
+
+"You leave Albert alone!" retorted the bride, sullenly. "We'll have no
+more of it." She drew Albert back into the shop, and George, peeping
+through the window of the hatchment saw them standing together in a
+corner, talking in whispers. Lucilla wore a determined air, and Albert
+nodded in response to all she said--clearly, they were plotting
+something. George drew back and picked up his glass--here, indeed, was a
+fine situation, opposition across the street, and rebellion in his own
+house! And the recollection of a certain look in his daughter-in-law's
+eyes frightened him--he had suddenly seen what she was capable of.
+
+"Nowt but trouble--nowt but trouble!" he muttered. "I should ha' done
+better if I'd let our Albert stick to Jecholiah Farnish! But--it's
+done!"
+
+That day the Grice household became divided. George dined alone in his
+parlour behind the shop, and the bride and bridegroom in their quarters
+upstairs. Father and son only spoke to each other on matters of business
+during the day, and when evening came Mr. and Mrs. Albert went off to
+the theatre at Sicaster, and left George to his reflections. They were
+not pleasant. In his joy at getting rid of Jeckie Farnish and at
+providing Albert with a moneyed bride he had been over-generous in the
+matter of the partnership, and had presented his son with a half-share
+in the business as it stood. And he knew that Albert's was no vain
+threat. Albert, if he liked, could have the partnership dissolved at any
+time, and could insist on having his moiety paid out to him. Now,
+supposing that Lucilla put her husband up to that? Terrible, terrible
+trouble!--and there was that she-devil, Jeckie, about to appear on the
+scene.
+
+Jeckie was the first person George Grice saw when he drew up his blind
+the following morning. She was at her shop-door, very energetic and
+businesslike, superintending the unloading of two great wagon-loads of
+goods. The old grocer turned sick with fury when he saw from the signs
+on the sides of the wagons that they were from the best wholesale
+grocers in Clothford. All that day and all the rest of the week other
+wagons and carts arrived. His practised eye saw that the new shop was
+going to be as well equipped, if not better, than his own. And as he
+noted these things and realised that his carefully built-up business was
+in danger, a deep groan burst from his lips, ever and anon, and it
+invariably ended up with the bitter exclamation:
+
+"All bein' done wi' mi money!--all bein' done with mi money! I've found
+t'munitions o' battle, and they're bein' used agen me!"
+
+Grice always paid his employees at noon on Saturday. On the Saturday of
+this eventful week when he went out into the stable-yard and handed
+Bartle thirty shillings, Bartle quietly handed it back.
+
+"What's that for?" demanded George, suddenly suspecting the truth. "What
+d'yer mean?"
+
+"'Stead of a week's notice," answered Bartle. "I'm none comin' o' Monday
+mornin'."
+
+"Ye're goin' across t'road!" exclaimed George, with an angry sneer.
+"Goin' back to t'owd lot, what?"
+
+"Aye!" answered Bartle. "Allus meant to, mister, as soon as I knew.
+Ye'll have no difficulty about gettin' a man i'stead o' me; there's two
+or three young fellers i' t'village 'at'll take it on. But I mun go."
+
+"All reight, mi lad!" said George. "An' I wonder how long it'll last,
+ower yonder! What does she know about t'grocerin' business?"
+
+"Why, I understand 'at ye didn't nowt about it yersen when you started,"
+retorted Bartle, who was well versed in village gossip, and knew that
+George had begun life as a market gardener. "An' if there's anybody 'at
+has a headpiece i' these parts I reckon it's Jeckie. I'm for her,
+anyway."
+
+This was another bitter piece of bread for Grice to swallow, for he knew
+that Bartle had picked up a lot of valuable information while in his
+employ and would infallibly make use of it.
+
+"Take care you tell no tales about my business!" he growled as he thrust
+the thirty shillings into his pocket and turned away. "There's such a
+thing as law i' this land, mi lad!"
+
+"Aye," said Bartle, with a grin. "You've had a bit o' experience on't o'
+late, Mr. Grice, what?"
+
+The shaft went home, but Grice made no sign that he had received it.
+Blow after blow was falling upon him, and he knew there were more to
+come. The village folk were by that time conversant with the true
+history of the case, and found elements of romance and excitement in it.
+Jeckie Farnish had made George Grice pay up to the tune of fifteen
+hundred pounds, and she was using the money to beat him at his own
+trade! Well, to be sure, everybody must give her a turn. George had had
+his way with folk long enough.
+
+There was a small room over Grice's shop from which he could see all
+that went on in the street beneath, and on the Monday morning, which saw
+the formal opening of Jeckie's rival establishment, he posted himself in
+its window and watched. When Jeckie's blinds were drawn up it was to
+display a fine, well-arranged assortment of goods; it was a fine,
+gaily-painted cart in which Bartle presently drove off and it was filled
+to its edge with parcels. All that morning Grice watched, and saw many
+of his usual customers turn into the new shop. Monday was a great
+shopping day for the village; by noon he realised that his own trade was
+going to suffer. And at night Albert curtly drew his attention to a
+fact--at least half of the better class of customers had not sent in
+their weekly orders; instead of there being thirty to forty lists to
+make up in the morning there were no more than fifteen.
+
+"They're going across there!" muttered Albert significantly. "They say
+her prices are lower."
+
+Grice got an indication of Jeckie's game next day, when the squire's
+wife sailed into the shop carrying a smartly-got up price list in her
+hand with the name, Farnish, prominent on its blue and gold cover. She
+tackled George in person, wanting to know how it was that Miss Farnish's
+prices were in all cases below his own, and suggesting that he should
+come down. Grice grew short in temper and reply, and the squire's wife,
+remarking airily that every one must have a chance, walked out and went
+over the road. The wives of the vicar and the curate had made a similar
+defection the day before, and that evening the one-time monopolist
+foresaw a steady fall in his revenues.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_The Iron Rod_
+
+
+There were more reasons than one for the first gush of customers to
+Jeckie Farnish's smart new shop. One of them George Grice had foreseen
+as soon as his eyes fell on the golden teapot and the new sign novelty.
+Folk would always go to whatever was fresh, he said; only time would
+tell if the influx of trade to the new-comer would be kept up. But of
+other reasons he knew little. One was that he himself was unpopular in
+the village; he had abused his monopoly; more than once he had refused
+temporary credit to old customers who wanted it for a week or a
+fortnight until funds came in; he had a bad reputation for over-ready
+recourse to the County Court; he had sold up one man for a debt which
+might have been paid by instalments; he charged top prices for
+everything, and was not overscrupulous as to weights and measures. At
+least two-thirds of the village population found it a thing of joy to
+turn cold shoulders to the old firm and walk defiantly into the
+opposition establishment.
+
+But there was another reason for Jeckie's popularity of which Grice knew
+less than he guessed at the second of the causes of his sudden loss of
+trade. Jeckie was becoming a strategist; quick to see and realise the
+possibilities of her campaign, and astute in looking ahead. And two days
+before the formal opening of her shop she marched up the village in her
+best clothes, her cheque-book in one pocket, and well-filled purse in
+the other, bent on doing something which, in her well-grounded opinion,
+would establish her in high favour. Farnish owed money in Savilestowe;
+she was going to pay his debts. Not the big ones, to be sure, she said
+to herself with emphasis; they could go by the board. The money-lender
+and the landlord and such-like could whistle for their money as far as
+she was concerned. But the debts in the village were small things--a few
+pounds here, a few there; a few shillings in one case, a few more in
+others. Thirty pounds, she had ascertained, would cover the lot. The
+blacksmith wanted something, and the miller, and the landlord of the
+"Coach-and-Four"; two or three people wanted the reimbursement of money
+lent; there were even labourers to whom Farnish was in debt for small
+amounts. All this she was going to clear off; otherwise, as she well
+knew, she would have had the various creditors coming to her shop and
+suggesting that they should take out the amount of their debts in tea
+and sugar, bread and bacon.
+
+She turned in first at the blacksmith's, who, it being Saturday
+afternoon, was smoking his pipe at the door of his house and enjoying
+the cool breezes which swept over the meadows in front. Under the
+impression that Jeckie had come touting for custom, he received her
+grumpishly, and eyed her with anything but favour.
+
+"Now then, Stubbs!" said Jeckie, in her sharpest manner. "My father owes
+you some money, doesn't he?"
+
+"Aye, he does!" growled the blacksmith. "Nine pound odd it is, and been
+owin' a long time. An' I would like to see t'colour on it, or some on
+it; it's hard on a man to tew and slave and loise his brass at t'end o'
+his labours!"
+
+"You're going to lose naught," retorted Jeckie. "Get inside and write me
+a receipt. I'll pay you. And you'll understand 'at it's me 'at's payin'
+you--not him! He's naught to pay you with, as you very well know. But I
+reckon it'll none matter to you who pays, as long as you get it!"
+
+"Aw, why, now then!" said the mollified creditor. "That's talkin', that
+is! No, it none matters to me. An' I tak' it very handsome o' you; and I
+wish yer well wi' t'shop, and I shall tell my missus to go theer."
+
+"You'll find I can do better for you than Grice ever did," said Jeckie,
+as she followed him into his cottage and drew out her cheque-book.
+"You'll save money by coming to me. There's a price-list. You look it
+over and you'll see 'at I'm charging considerably less nor Grice does,
+and for better quality goods, too."
+
+"Now, then, ye shall have my custom!" said the blacksmith. "I'm stalled
+o' George Grice. He's nowt but a skinflint, and we had some bacon thro'
+him none so long sin' at wor fair reisty."
+
+Jeckie handed over her cheque and took her receipt, and went on her way.
+It was a way of triumph, for not one of Farnish's Savilestowe creditors
+had ever expected to get a penny of what was owing, and unexpected
+payments, however much they may be overdue, are always more welcome than
+the settlement of a debt which is certain. Jeckie went away from each
+satisfied creditor conscious that she had made a friend and a regular
+customer; she had laid out twenty-eight pounds and some shillings by the
+time she returned home. Never mind, she said to herself, she would soon
+have it back in profits. And Farnish would now be able to walk abroad in
+the village, knowing that he owed nothing to any fellow-villager. As to
+his bigger creditors, let them go hang!
+
+During the week, furniture, just sufficient to satisfy mere necessities,
+had arrived at the house, and had been disposed in certain rooms by
+Jeckie and Rushie, and on the Saturday night, acting on his daughter's
+orders, Farnish, having finished his week's work at the Sicaster
+greengrocer's, came creeping into the village after dark, cast a longing
+eye on the red-curtained windows of the "Coach-and-Four," and slunk into
+his daughter's back premises. His spirits had been very low during this
+home-coming; they rose somewhat on seeing that a thirteen-gallon cask of
+ale stood in the pantry adjoining the kitchen in which his supper was
+set for him, but became anxious and depressed again when he also saw
+that the key had been carefully removed from the brass tap. He foresaw
+the beginning of strict allowance, and of ceaseless scheming on his part
+occasionally to gain possession of that key. Now and then, he thought,
+Jeckie would surely forget it, and go out without it. It was painful, in
+Farnish's opinion, to ask a man to live in the house with a locked beer
+barrel and led to exacerbation of proper feelings.
+
+Jeckie gave him a pint of ale and a hot supper that night, and presented
+him with a two-ounce packet of tobacco. And, when Rushie had gone into
+the scullery to wash up the supper things, she marshalled Farnish into a
+certain easy chair by the corner of the hearth, and proceeded to lay
+down the law to him in no purposeless fashion.
+
+"Now then, I want to have some talk to you," she said, sitting down
+opposite him and folding her hands in her apron. "We're going to start
+out in a new way, and everybody about me's going to hear what I've got
+to say about it. You'll understand that this is my house, and my shop,
+and my business--all mine! I'm master!--and there'll nobody have any say
+in matters but me. Do you understand that?"
+
+"Oh, aye, I understand that, reight enough, Jecholiah, mi lass,"
+answered Farnish. "Of course I never expected no other, considerin' how
+things is. And I'm sure I wish you well in t'venture!"
+
+"I shall do well enough as long as I'm boss!" said Jeckie in her most
+matter-of-fact manner. "And that I will be! I'll have no interference,
+either from you or Rushie. As long as you're both under my roof, you'll
+just do my bidding. And now I tell you what you'll do. You may as well
+know your position first as last. And to start with, I've paid off
+every penny 'at you owed i' this place--nearly thirty pounds good money
+I've laid down in that way this very afternoon!--so you can walk up
+t'street and down t'street and feel 'at you owe naught to nobody. And
+you'll have a deal o' walking to do, for you can't expect me to throw my
+money away on your behalf wit'out doin' something for me i' return, so
+there!"
+
+"I'm sure it were very considerate on yer, Jecholiah," said Farnish
+humbly. "An' I tak' it as very thoughtful an' all. Willn't deny 'at it
+were a sore trouble to me 'at I owed brass i' t'place. An' what might
+you be thinkin' o' puttin' me to, now 'at I am here, like?"
+
+"I'm going to tell you," answered Jeckie. "All's ready to open on Monday
+morning. Me and Rushie'll attend to the shop; Bartle'll go out with the
+horse and cart; I've got a strong lass coming in that'll see to the
+house and the cooking. You'll help wi' odd jobs in the shop, and you'll
+carry out light goods and parcels in t'village. It'll none be such heavy
+work, but it must be done punctual and reg'lar--no hangin' about and
+talkin' at corners, and such like--we've all got to work, and to work
+hard, too!"
+
+"I'm to be fetcher and carrier, like," said Farnish. "Aye, well, mi
+lass, it's not t'sort o' conclusion to a career 'at I aimed at, but I
+mun bow down to Providence, as they call it. Beggars can't be choosers,
+no how!"
+
+"Who's talkin' about beggars!" retorted Jeckie impatiently. "There's no
+beggars i' this house, anyway. Beggars, indeed! You'll never ha' been
+so well off in your life as you will be wi' me!"
+
+"Do you say so, Jecholiah?" asked Farnish timidly. "I'm very glad to
+hear it, I'm sure. How shall I stand, like, then?"
+
+"You'll stand like this," replied Jeckie. "There's a good and
+comfortable bedroom all ready upstairs; this place'll be more
+comfortable nor aught we had at Applecroft when all's put to rights in
+it; there'll always be plenty to eat, and good quality, too; I shall let
+you have two pints of beer a day, and give you two ounces of tobacco
+every Saturday. And once a year you shall have a new suit of good
+clothes, and your underwear as it wants replacing. I'll see 'at you want
+for naught to fill your belly and cover your back. If that isn't doing
+well by you, then I don't know what is!"
+
+"Well, I'm sure it's very handsome, is that, Jecholiah," said Farnish.
+"It's seems as if I were to be well provided for i' t'way o' food and
+raiment. But how will it be now"--he paused, and looked at his
+daughter's erect and rigid figure with a furtive depreciating
+glance--"how will it be now, mi lass, about a bit o' money? Ye wouldn't
+hev your poor father walkin' t'street wi'out one penny to rub agen
+another, I'm sure? A man, ye see, Jecholiah, has feelin's!"
+
+Jeckie's lips tightened. It had been her intention, in laying down a
+code of rules to Farnish, to tell him that he was not going to have
+money. But as he spoke, a thought came into her mind--if she kept him
+penniless, he would certainly do one of two things, possibly both;
+either he would borrow small sums here or there, or he would pilfer from
+the till and pocket payments from chance customers. Once more she must
+look ahead.
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do," she said suddenly. "I'll give you--" then
+she paused, made some more reflections and calculations, and reckoned up
+to herself what precise amount of mischief Farnish could do with the
+amount she was thinking of--"I'll give you seven shilling a week for
+spending money--I know well enough there's naught on earth'll stop you
+from dropping in at t' 'Coach-and-Four,' and a shilling a day's enough,
+and more than enough, for you to waste there. But I'll give you fair
+warning--if I hear o' you borrowing any money, or running into debt, at
+t' 'Coach-and-Four,' or elsewhere, or hanging about publics when you
+ought to be at your job, I shall stop your allowance--and so there you
+are!" Farnish, on his part, made a swift calculation. A shilling a day
+meant three pints of ale at fourpence a pint. He was to have two pints
+at home--very well, five pints would do nicely. He waved a magisterial
+hand.
+
+"Now, then, ye shall have no cause to complain, Jecholiah," he said.
+"It's as well to know how we stand, d'ye see, mi lass? It's none so much
+t'bit o' money," he continued, still more magisterially, "it's what you
+may term t'principle o' t'thing. A man mun stand by his principles, and
+it's agen mine to walk about t'world wi' nowt i' my pocket! It's agen
+t'Bible, an' all, Jecholiah, as you may ha' noticed i' readin' that good
+owd Book--there's two passages i' that there 'at comes to my reflection
+at once. 'Put money in thy purse,' it says i' one place, and 'The
+labourer is worthy of his hire' it remarks in another. An' I wor browt
+up to Bible principles--mi mother were a very religious woman--she were
+a chappiler!"
+
+"I don't believe it says aught at all i' t'Bible about puttin' money i'
+your purse," said Jeckie contemptuously, "and if your mother was as
+religious as you make out, she should ha' taught you something 'at is
+there--'Owe no man anything!' Happen you never heard o' that?"
+
+"Now, then, now then!" answered Farnish. "Let's be friendly! There's a
+deal said i' t'Bible 'at hes dark meanin's--I've no doubt 'at t'real
+significance o' that passage is summat 'at ye don't understand, mi
+lass."
+
+"I understand 'at nobody's going to run up debts while they're under my
+roof," declared Jeckie. "You get that into your head!"
+
+Farnish retired to his comfortable bedroom that evening apparently well
+satisfied with his position, and when he had left them Jeckie turned to
+her sister; it was as necessary to have a proper understanding with
+Rushie as with their father. And Rushie was amenable enough; the
+prospect of selling things in the smart new shop, and of conversations
+with customers, and of all the varying incidents in a day's retail
+trading, appealed to her love of life and change. Jeckie's proposals as
+to finding her with board, lodging, and all she wanted in the way of
+clothes and shoe-leather, and giving her a small but sufficient salary,
+satisfied her well. But at the end of their talk they hit on a
+difference of opinion.
+
+"And now about that Herbert Binks," said Jeckie suddenly. "He's after
+you, Rushie, and you're a fool. He's naught but a draper's assistant,
+when all's said and done. I'll none have him coming here. What do you
+want wi' young men?"
+
+Rushie began to pout and to look resentful.
+
+"He's a very nice, quiet, respectable young man, is Herbert," she said,
+half angrily. "And if he is a draper's assistant, do you think he's
+always going to be one? He has ambitions, has Herbert, and he aims at
+having a shop of his own."
+
+"Let him get one, then, before he comes running after you!" retorted
+Jeckie. "Young men of his age has no business to think about girls--what
+they want to think about is making money."
+
+"Money isn't everything!" said Rushie.
+
+"Isn't it?" sneered Jeckie. "You'll sing another tune, my lass, when
+you've seen as much as I have! I know what money's meant to me, and what
+it's going to mean, and I'll take good care none goes by me so long as
+I've ten fingers to lay hold of it with!"
+
+It needed no observation on the part of Rushie or of Farnish to see that
+Jeckie had made up her mind to seek the riches of this world. She was up
+with the sun, and still out of her bed long after the others had sought
+theirs; she did the work of three people, and never allowed herself to
+flag. She taught herself book-keeping, and practised correspondence till
+she could write smart business letters; before long she purchased a
+typewriter and mastered its intricacies; she had no time to read the
+local newspaper any longer, but she read the "Grocer" with eagerness and
+avidity, and became as glibly conversant with prices as any of the
+travellers who called on her for orders. A sharp, shrewd woman she was
+to deal with, said the gentlemen amongst themselves; sharper, far, than
+old Grice across the way, and certain to rob him of most of his trade.
+And some of them, who did little business with him, and could well
+afford to be shyly mutinous at his expense, were not slow to poke fun at
+George about his rival and her capabilities.
+
+"Sad thing for you, Mr. Grice," they would say, with a wink at the
+golden teapot on which the sun contrived to focus its rays all day long.
+"Smart woman across there, sir!--ah, great pity you couldn't amalgamate
+the two businesses, Mr. Grice. Doing well over there, sir, I
+believe--knows what she's about! Place too small to carry two good
+businesses like yours and hers, Mr. Grice--ought to come to some
+arrangement, sir--limited liability company now, Mr. Grice, what?"
+
+All this was so much gall and wormwood to George Grice, who had an
+additional cause of intense and mortifying annoyance in a certain habit
+of Jeckie's which, he said, could only have been developed by a woman
+who was both a Jezebel and a devil. Every now and then, in the full
+light of day, Miss Farnish would leave her own shop, stroll calmly
+across the street, and insolently and leisurely inspect George Grice &
+Son's newly-dressed windows. She would note down all their prices on a
+scrap of paper--and then she would go back. And within half-an-hour the
+same goods which Grice's were offering would be in the Farnish
+windows--with all the prices cut down to figures which made George
+despairing and furious.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_The Eternal Feminine_
+
+
+All unknown to George Grice, there was a certain young person in his
+immediate surroundings who was watching the course and trend of events
+with a pair of eyes which were at least as keen as his own. His
+daughter-in-law had come to her new life armed with a goodly stock of
+common sense and no small share of the family characteristics of love of
+money and astuteness in getting it. Lucilla, indeed, was a worthy
+daughter of her father, the draper, who was as much of a money-grubber
+as his brother of Savilestowe, and had implanted in his children--all
+girls--a thorough devotion to Mammon. The draper had played no small
+part in engineering the marriage between Lucilla and Albert. Having read
+the letter which Albert brought him from George, he had conducted
+Lucilla into privacy and set forth certain facts before her. One, that
+his brother George was a very warm man, a very warm man indeed, with the
+true instinct for scraping money together and sticking to it when it was
+scraped. A second was that he was now an elderly man, of a plethoric
+habit, and could not, in all reason, expect to live so very much longer.
+A third was that Albert was an only child and would accordingly come
+into his father's property and business; a fourth, that the property
+was considerable and the business a monopoly. And the fifth, and not
+least important one, was that Albert was the sort of fellow that any
+woman could twist round her finger and tie up to her apron strings.
+
+Lucilla made up her mind there and then, and skilfully detaching Albert
+from her two sisters, to whom she and her father said a few words in
+private, led him through the by-ways of love to the hymeneal altar. When
+she had safely conducted him there, she took stock of the new world in
+which she found herself. A close inspection of her father-in-law
+convinced her that George Grice had a decided tendency to apoplexy, and
+might be seized at any time. She foresaw great things for Albert and
+herself--a few years more of monopolistic trading in Savilestowe, and
+they would be able to sell the business and goodwill for a handsome sum
+and retire, to be lady and gentleman for all the rest of their lives.
+This was Lucilla's ambition. It had been hers when she helped her father
+in his drapery stores; it remained hers when she began to post up her
+father-in-law's account-books. Linen and lace, bacon and bread were not,
+in themselves, objects of interest to Lucilla; they were means to an
+end. The end was a genteel competency in a smart villa residence, with
+at least a good horse and a showy dog-cart, two maids, and real silver
+on the dinner table.
+
+But when the golden teapot rose across the street, set high above the
+arch of Jeckie Farnish's front door, a flaming reminder to George Grice
+that the enemy's outworks had been pushed close to his citadel, Lucilla
+began to foresee much. Her brain was small but sharp, and she had been
+trained in a shrewd school. It needed little reflection to show her that
+her father-in-law's monopoly was in a fair way of being broken down, and
+that Albert's partnership in George Grice & Son was not worth as much as
+it had been when he and his father set their signatures to the deed.
+Before the first week of the rival's campaign was over, Lucilla, as
+bookkeeper, was aware of some stern facts. She drew Albert's attention
+to them during the temporary absence of old Grice from the shop.
+
+"Look here!" she said, pointing to some figures on a sheet of paper.
+"The takings for this week are not one-third of what they were last
+week! That's as regard the cash trade. And look at that!" she went on,
+indicating a row of small account-books. "Where there used to be
+thirty-three of those, there's now only seventeen. That means that
+sixteen good customers, who used to pay their accounts weekly, have gone
+over yonder. She's driving her knife in pretty deep, Albert, is that old
+flame of yours!"
+
+Albert had been obliged to tell Lucilla of his former attachment; having
+secured Albert for herself, she had paid little attention to it; she
+also had had sweethearts in her maiden days. True, she had felt a sense
+of great injury when Jeckie Farnish got her fifteen hundred pounds, but
+she had made up her mind that that was never to be brought into account
+against Albert--George Grice had broken off the match and he must pay.
+And her last remark was more jocular than reproachful--something in her
+made her see the humour of a situation in which George was getting the
+worst of it.
+
+"Now you reckon up, Albert, and just see for yourself what a falling off
+like this is going to mean at the end of the year!" she continued.
+"You'll find it'll be a nice round sum."
+
+Albert, who was not behindhand at mental arithmetic, nodded.
+
+"Aye," he said. "But--will it last? I expected naught else this
+week--folks will go to aught that's new. But a lot of 'em'll come back."
+
+"Will they?" demanded Lucilla, with a certain grimness of aspect. "We'll
+see!"
+
+There was a note in her voice which seemed to suggest that she had
+considerable doubt about Albert's optimism, and as time went on her own
+fears proved to have been well grounded. The truth was, as Lucilla knew,
+that George Grice & Son had become old-fashioned. George had got into a
+rut, and nothing could lift him out of it. Instead of laying in what his
+customers wanted, or developing new lines of trade, he went on in the
+way to which he had become accustomed, dealing with the same firms,
+driving away travellers who wanted to introduce new goods, refusing to
+march with the times. And nobody knew this better than Jeckie Farnish,
+who welcomed anything new and up-to-date, studied the likes, pleasures,
+and convenience of her customers in everything, and, in her shop and in
+all her dealings, cultivated a suavity and charm of manner which
+sometimes made Farnish and Rushie wonder if she were the same woman to
+whose sharp tongue and hard words they were not infrequently treated.
+
+"You take good care never to speak to customers as you speak to me,"
+remonstrated Rushie on one occasion. "You're as mealy-mouthed as ever
+they make 'em when you're in t'shop, even if it's in servin' naught but
+a pennorth o' pepper! It's all smiles and soft talk then--t'customers is
+fair fawned on when you're behind t'counter!"
+
+"I'm makin' my money out o' customers!" retorted Jeckie. "I'm makin'
+none out o' you, mi lass. I should be a fool, an' all, if I didn't do a
+bit o' soft sawderin' to folks 'at brings brass i' their hands. Pounds
+or pence, politeness is due to all. It costs naught."
+
+There was more gruffness than politeness across the way, and at the end
+of six months Lucilla knew that George Grice and Son were seriously
+affected. Certain old customers had stuck to the old firm; certain of
+the village folk still came in at the door; there were others who
+continued to trade with the Grices because they were in debt to them and
+were paying by instalments. But Lucilla knew--for she kept the books.
+And without saying anything to Albert, she formed plans and ideas of her
+own which eventually developed into a project, and one winter afternoon,
+when George and his son had gone to Clothford on business which required
+their joint presence, she boldly walked across the street, and, entering
+the rival establishment, marched calmly up to the mistress at the cash
+desk.
+
+"Good afternoon, Miss Farnish," she said, in as matter-of-fact tones as
+she would have employed if she had called in to change a sovereign into
+silver. "Can I have a word or two with you? You know me, Miss
+Farnish?--Mrs. Albert Grice."
+
+For once in her life Jeckie was taken aback. She stared at her visitor
+as if Lucilla had been one of the animals from the menagerie just then
+being shown at Sicaster, and the vivid colour which always distinguished
+her healthy cheeks deepened. In silence, and with a glance at Rushie,
+who was staring open-mouthed at Mrs. Albert, she left the cash desk and
+ushered the caller into the parlour.
+
+"What do you want?" she demanded with asperity. "I'm busy!"
+
+"You're always busy," said Lucilla. "Anybody can see that. But you'll
+spare me a minute or two, I'm sure, and I'll sit down, if you please,
+Miss Farnish," she went on, when Jeckie had ungraciously indicated the
+chair and had taken one herself--to sit on the extreme edge of it in a
+severely rigid and disapproving attitude. "Miss Farnish, there's no need
+for you and me to be enemies, whatever you may be with the men opposite.
+I'd naught to do with what happened between you and the Grices. I never
+knew that you and Albert had been engaged when he came to our house at
+Nottingham. I never knew till we were married. What I know is that I
+brought Albert Grice a couple of thousand pounds, and that me and my
+father expected I was marrying into something that was worth having!"
+
+"Isn't it?" demanded Jeckie, with a grim face.
+
+"It's not going to be if things go on as they are!" answered Lucilla,
+with obvious candour. "I'm all for plain speaking, and truth, and seeing
+things as they are, I am! And what's the use of endeavouring to conceal
+things, Miss Farnish? I've kept the books across there ever since I came
+to this place, and I know how George Grice & Son is situated."
+
+"Well?" said Jeckie, grim as ever. "Well?"
+
+"Well," answered Lucilla, "I should think the plain truth's obvious to
+anybody that has eyes! Their trade's falling off. Of course, you know
+that as well as I do. You've got what they've lost. I don't see any use
+in concealing matters; their turn-over this year'll not be half of what
+it was last year. Now, Miss Farnish, I put it to you--how long's this
+going to last?"
+
+Jeckie shifted her stiff position, and began to grow interested.
+
+"I don't know what you mean," she said.
+
+"Why, I mean this," replied Lucilla. "I've been brought up to business,
+and I know what I'm talking about. Here's two businesses in one place,
+covering the same district--rival businesses. The probability is that
+things have got to a settled point now--you've established your
+business, and very quick, too, and George Grice & Son, if they've lost
+what you've gained, have got a certain number of customers that'll stick
+to them. You'll not get any farther in one way and they'll not go
+farther in the other. Now, what foolishness to have two such businesses
+in one place, trying to cut one another's throats! Why not come to
+terms, Miss Farnish? Amalgamate!--that's what's wanted. Call it Farnish
+& Grice, or Grice & Farnish. Turn the two firms into a limited liability
+company, if you like, but bring them together! That's what I say,
+anyway."
+
+"Who sent you?" asked Jeckie.
+
+Lucilla stared.
+
+"Sent--me?" she exclaimed. "Lord, do you think anybody sent me? What,
+old Grice? or Albert? I should like to see either of 'em send me about
+anything! No, I came on my own hook. They don't know. It's my idea.
+But--if you'd agree to what I say I would bring them to it, both of 'em.
+Albert, of course, he'd do just what I told him to do, and as for his
+father, well, I could talk him round. But what do you say?"
+
+For the first time since her visitor had entered the parlour Jeckie let
+her stern features relax into a smile. It was the sort of a smile which
+might overspread the face of a conqueror who, having his enemy at his
+feet, is asked, suddenly, to let him off, unscathed.
+
+"What do I say?" she said. "Why, I say 'at you don't know me, or else
+you'd never come here with such a proposal! Lord bless you! I wouldn't
+have aught to do with George Grice were it ever so! Why should I? I've
+not been seven month at this business, and I've made it pay. Aye, nobody
+but myself knows how well, for all I've cut prices to the last extent.
+And this is naught to what I intend to do. I'm servin' a radius o' five
+miles now, but it'll be ten next year. I'm not going to content myself
+with Savilestowe, you make no mistake! An' you started out by saying,
+how long's this going to last? I'll tell you how long it's going to
+last. It's going to last till I've done what I aimed at doing when I
+started!"
+
+"And what's that?" inquired Lucilla. "What did you aim at?"
+
+"I aimed at forcing George Grice to put up his shutters!" answered
+Jeckie, in harsh, tense tones. "And--I'll do it!"
+
+Lucilla rose from her chair, staring at the stern eyes and hard mouth.
+
+"Oh, well, in that case," she said, "of course, if you're feeling that
+way, there's no more to be said about it, and I shall know what to do."
+
+"And what's that?" demanded Jeckie, who was still inquisitive. "What
+will you do?"
+
+"That's my business," answered Lucilla. "However, I'm obliged to you for
+making things plainer. I shall know better what course to take. And, as
+I said, there's no reason why you and me should be enemies; I've nothing
+against you. I reckon you're doing your best for yourself. So am I!"
+
+Jeckie asked no more questions, and Lucilla marched calmly back across
+the street, and spent the remainder of the afternoon and evening making
+a minutely close and accurate examination of the books of George Grice &
+Son. And that night, in the security of their own parlour, where she and
+her husband spent all their leisure now that there was a coolness
+between George and herself, she gave Albert definite orders as to the
+future. It was in his power to dissolve the partnership and to claim
+his share at any moment. The moment, in Lucilla's opinion, was at hand.
+Next year, by that time, the goodwill of the firm would not be worth
+anything like so much as it was then. The year after that it would be
+worth still less. In three years, said Lucilla, it would be worth just
+nothing. Albert gave in, only stipulating that Lucilla should break the
+news to George and do all the talking. Lucilla was as ready for this as
+for her breakfast, and within a month George had paid Albert out with
+six thousand pounds, and stood in his shop a lonely and sour-mouthed
+man.
+
+It was about this time that Jeckie also came to the waters of
+bitterness, if not of actual tribulation. Rushie led her to them. In
+spite of all that her elder sister could say, Rushie would not give up
+the society and attentions of Mr. Herbert Binks. Herbert was one of
+those young men who part their hair in the middle, use much pomatum, and
+are never seen out of doors without gloves; he also wore a tailed coat
+and a top-hat on Sundays. His chief ideas were centered in the drapery
+trade, but he was of an innocently amorous nature, and Rushie considered
+him a perfect gentleman. Not even Jeckie could prevent these two meeting
+on Sunday afternoons, and as Jeckie would not admit Herbert to her
+house, he and Rushie took to having tea together at the
+"Coach-and-Four," whence they invariably proceeded to evensong at the
+parish church and sang out of the same hymn-book. It was a mark of
+respectability to go to church, said Herbert, and stood you well in
+with customers. But the expenditure at the "Coach-and-Four" roused
+Jeckie's contempt, and hardened her against Rushie's young man.
+
+"A nice sort o' feller you've got!" she said, with one of her grim
+sneers. "Spending what bit of money he's got in teain' at t'
+'Coach-and-Four' every Sunday! I know what they'll charge him for your
+teas! Ninepence each--such extravagance! Eighteenpence every Sunday.
+That's three pounds eighteen shillings a year--enough to buy him a new
+suit o' clothes or you a new gown! And I'll lay my lord must do the
+grand and put a sixpence in t'plate when you go to church--just to look
+fine. That's another six-and-twenty shillings! You might as well tell
+him to chuck his brass i' t'horsepond!"
+
+"We don't have tea at the 'Coach-and-Four' every Sunday in the year!"
+declared Rushie. "And Herbert doesn't give sixpence at church--he keeps
+threepenny bits for that. And there'd be no need to have tea at all at
+the public if you'd behave as you ought and ask him here! But I shall be
+having a house of my own some day--you'll see!"
+
+"And a fine place it'll be, out o' two pounds a week!" sneered Jeckie.
+"Nay, I'd ha' summat better nor a feller 'at measures tape and sells
+pins and needles. Isn't there two or three young fellers abaht 'at has
+brass? I'd say naught if you'd tak' up wi' young Summers, for
+instance--he's been looking like a sheep at you this long while, and
+he's a rare good farm and money i' plenty."
+
+"Never you mind!" retorted Rushie. "Herbert hasn't got a head like a
+turnip nor a face like a cake with raisins in it. Make up to young
+Summers yourself!"
+
+Rushie, it was clear, was sentimentally and badly in love with the
+pomatumed Herbert. But Jeckie had no belief that it would ever come to
+anything serious until she awoke one morning to discover that her sister
+had risen much earlier and had departed to Sicaster, where by that time
+she had become Mrs. Binks.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_Humble Pie_
+
+
+Those who were in close touch with Jeckie Farnish on the day of her
+younger sister's revolt and defection had far from pleasant moments. She
+drove her father and shop boys about with harsh and impatient words; she
+was curt and dictatorial with Bartle, one of those conscientious and
+faithful souls to whom any reasonable employer would have found it
+impossible to attribute laxity; for the first time since commencing
+business she was short-tempered with some customers, snappish with
+others, and openly rude to one or two whose trade was a matter of
+complete indifference to her. The truth was that Rushie's clandestine
+marriage had upset more than one of Jeckie's best-laid plans. She had no
+wish to take in an outsider as principal assistant--outsiders, in her
+opinion, were never to be trusted, and it was repugnant to her to think
+that a smart young shopman (for saleswomen were not known in those days)
+should learn any of the secrets which had already begun to accumulate
+about the Farnish establishment. Yet the business had already assumed
+such proportions that assistance was necessary, and Jeckie's first
+impression was that she would only get it from some young jackanapes who
+would want the usual wages (or, as he would call it, salary) of his
+degree, and from whom she would be unable to keep those private details
+which she had no objection to share with her sister. It was, she
+considered, a gross piece of ingratitude that Rushie should have
+preferred Binks to her own flesh and blood, and she made up her mind to
+say so, plainly and emphatically as soon as the culprit came once more
+within reach.
+
+But for several days Jeckie had to cherish her wrath in silence and in
+secret. Rushie and her bridegroom took a short and economical honeymoon
+at Blackpool; they had been back in Sicaster for forty-eight hours
+before Jeckie heard of their return. Within an hour of hearing it,
+however, she appeared at Mr. Herbert Bink's lodgings; it was then nearly
+noon, and the bridegroom was at his place of employment; the bride,
+unfortunately, was discovered in idleness, reading her favourite form of
+fiction, a cheap novelette. She paled and reddened alternately at sight
+of Jeckie who had cleverly gained admittance without notice, and walked
+in upon her like an avenging goddess, and her eyes went straight to the
+cheap clock over the mantelpiece. It was twenty minutes to twelve; and
+Herbert would not be home until five minutes past; for twenty-five
+minutes, then, she would have to put up with Jeckie's tantrums. And
+Jeckie left her no doubt as to what they were to be.
+
+"So this is what you've come to already, my fine madam!" began the elder
+sister. "Lying there on a sofa, in cheap lodgings, readin' trash in
+t'very middle o' the day, when you might ha' been and ought to ha' been
+at honest work--you'll come to find work i' t'poorhouse before you've
+done! Such idle, good-for-naught ways!"
+
+"You mind what you say, Jecholiah Farnish!" retorted Mrs. Binks. "My
+husband'll be home before long, and if he catches you----"
+
+"If I'd a husband," said Jeckie, with a contemptuous snort, "I'd be
+cooking his dinner again his comin' home. But such as you----"
+
+"There's no need to cook our dinner," broke in Mrs. Binks. "Until we
+start a house of our own, we board and lodge, so----"
+
+"A house o' your own!" exclaimed Jeckie. "When and where are you like to
+get a house o' your own--a twopenny-halfpenny draper's assistant and an
+idle wench like you, 'at spends her time readin' that soft stuff? You'll
+be as poor as church mice all t'days o' your life! He'll never be no
+more than a shopman at two or three pounds a week--where does such like
+start houses o' their own? Do you know what you've thrown away, you
+ungrateful thing?" demanded Jeckie, who was now in full torrent and
+meant to go on her way unchecked. "If you'd stopped wi' me, your lawful
+sister, and had done your duty, an' behaved yourself, and kept of all
+such softness as men and marryin', and shown yourself fit for it, I'd
+ha' taken you in partnership! An' by the time we'd come to middle life
+we could ha' done what you'll see I shall do--retire wi' a fortune, and
+take a fine house at Harrigate or Scarhaven, and keep servants, and have
+a carriage and pair, and t'best of everything! You've given up all that
+for this--poor, struggling folk you'll be, all your lives, while I grow
+up as rich as Creesees, whoever he may ha' been, and happen I shall be a
+deal richer. All that for a draper's shop-lad!"
+
+"He isn't a draper's shop-lad!" retorted Mrs. Binks, with some spirit.
+"And him and me loves each other, and----"
+
+"You gr'et soft thing!" exclaimed Jeckie, contemptuously. "Love,
+indeed!--that's all because you've been wed inside a week! Wait till
+you've gotten a pack o' screaming childer about you, and you
+draggle-tailed and down at heel, and see how much you'll talk about love
+i' them days! You're a fool, Rushie Farnish, and you'll come to rue----"
+
+"My name isn't Farnish!" said Mrs. Binks, "and if Herbert was here, he'd
+put you out o' this room, and----"
+
+The bride came to a sudden stop. Mr. Binks, impatient to rejoin the
+recently-secured object of his affection, had contrived to get away from
+his employer's shop a quarter of an hour earlier than usual, and he had
+been listening at the keyhole for the last few minutes, his landlady
+having told him that Miss Farnish had gone up to see her sister. And now
+he stepped into the room, looking as important and dignified as such a
+very ordinary young man could. And, not unnaturally, he fell into the
+language of the drapery department in which he served.
+
+"Oh!" he said. "Miss Farnish, I believe? And what can we have the
+pleasure of doing for you, ma'am? No previous favours received from
+your quarter, I believe, Miss Farnish? No transactions between us
+before--eh, ma'am?"
+
+Jeckie favoured her brother-in-law with a withering glance.
+
+"You impudent young counter-jumper!" she answered. "What do you mean by
+running away with my sister?--a feller that sells pennorths o' tape and
+papers o' pins! Answer me that!"
+
+"Better sell anything, Miss Farnish, than be sold up!" retorted Mr.
+Binks with a grin. "I think that was what had just happened to your
+family when I first became acquainted with it."
+
+"That's it, Bert!" said Mrs. Binks, glad to give Jeckie something in
+return for all the scoldings that she herself had suffered. "She's been
+going on at me dreadfully!"
+
+Jeckie pulled herself up to her full height, and slowly looked from
+bride to bridegroom.
+
+"I know what you've married on," she said, her voice becoming as calm as
+it had previously been furious. "You're young fools, and you'll find it
+out. Don't you ever come to me for anything; if you do you'll find
+yourselves shown the door! So there; and I've no more to say."
+
+Mr. Binks rubbed his hands.
+
+"That's well, ma'am!" he remarked, almost gaily. "For our bit of
+dinner's ready downstairs. And you can go away, ma'am, assured that
+Rushie and me ain't afraid of nothing. You see, we prefer love to money,
+though we intend to do pretty well in that way, all in good time. No
+offence, ma'am, but we ain't going to be bullied by you or anybody.
+If," he concluded, as he opened the door for Jeckie with mock
+politeness, "if you'd come to our little shop intending to do business
+on pleasant and friendly lines we might have established a connection,
+but as you ain't, well, all I've got to say, Miss Farnish, is--nothing
+doing!"
+
+He felt very proud of himself, this sandy-haired, snub-nosed,
+commonplace young man, as he uttered this sarcasm; he knew, somehow,
+that he had got the better of this terrible Jecholiah. And suddenly, as
+Jeckie was passing through the door, he had an inspiration, and felt it
+to be clever, very clever.
+
+"But we ain't above or below playing the coals-of-fire game, Miss
+Farnish," he said. "You wouldn't ask me into your house to as much as a
+cup of tea, but if you like to stop you're welcome to your share of as
+nice a bit of steak and onions as ever you set tooth into! Say the word,
+ma'am, and take it friendly."
+
+But Jeckie was marching down the stairs in dead and gloomy silence and
+Mr. Binks turned to his bride.
+
+"I did it proper there, old woman!" he said. "Hand o' friendship, and
+that sort o' thing--what? Her own fault if she wouldn't take it."
+
+"She's as hard as iron," answered Rushie. "Come down, Bert; the
+dinner'll be getting cold."
+
+Jeckie drove away from Sicaster feeling that Mr. Binks had somehow got
+the best of her. He had certainly not been frightened of her; he had
+poked fun at her. Worst of all, he had actually offered her hospitality,
+and had been serious when he offered it. And Rushie, when it came to
+it, had not been afraid of her either. She was surprised at that. Rushie
+had always been subservient, even if she had occasionally protested. The
+fact was that Jeckie had driven into the market town under the
+impression that the erring pair, having irretrievably committed
+themselves, would beg her forgiveness, and ask her to help them with
+money so that Binks could set himself up in business. Now Binks's
+attitude, from the time he walked into the sittingroom to the moment in
+which he invited her to the steak and onions, was that of cheerful
+independence. It was beyond Jeckie, who was no psychologist; all that
+she realised was that though bride and bridegroom knew her to be already
+a well-to-do tradeswoman they defied her.
+
+She was defied again before night fell, and by her own father. Farnish,
+so far, had kept his compact with his elder daughter. He was, in fact,
+in better circumstances than he had ever been in his life. He slept in
+comfort; he ate and drink his fill at Jeckie's well-provided table; his
+allowance of money was sufficient to provide him with a few additional
+glasses of ale at the village inn; moreover, it was added to by
+occasional tips from the people to whom he carried the Farnish goods. He
+was waxing fat; he wore a good suit of clothes on Sundays; something of
+the glory which centered in his successful daughter shone around him,
+for, after all, he was the parent of the woman who had beaten George
+Grice and was becoming a power in the village. All this gave him a
+certain feeling of independence, but there had been no evidence of any
+Jeshurun-like spirit in him until the evening of the day on which Jeckie
+paid her visit to the Binks's. Then certain words from Jeckie aroused
+it.
+
+"There's something I've got to say to you," said Jeckie, suddenly, as
+she and Farnish sat by the domestic hearth that night after supper. "You
+know what our Rushie's gone and done?--made a fool of herself?"
+
+"I have been duly informed o' what she's done, Jecholiah," answered
+Farnish. "As to whether she's made a fool of hersen, I can't say. From
+what bit I've seen o' t'young feller, he seems a decent, promisin' sort
+o' chap, and earns a very nice wage at t'drapery business. An' there
+were a man I met t'other day, a Sicaster chap, 'at telled me 'at this
+here Binks and our Rushie were very much in love with each other, to all
+accounts, so let's hope it'll come out well."
+
+"Fiddle-de-dee!" sneered Jeckie. "A draper's shopman, earnin', happen,
+two pound a week! I've been to see 'em to-day and told 'em my mind. I
+know what they'll be after--they'll be comin' to me for money before
+long. There'll be bairns comin'--poor folks always has 'em where rich
+folks won't--and they'll turn to me as t'best off relative they have--I
+know!"
+
+"Why, why, mi lass!" said Farnish. "I'm sure ye'd none see yer own
+sister want for owt i' circumstances like them theer. Flesh an' blood,
+ye know."
+
+"Flesh and blood must agree wi' flesh and blood," retorted Jeckie
+stolidly. "Our Rushie's set me at naught--me that's done so much for
+her! She's defied me--and I'll have naught no more to do with her. If
+she'd been a good gal and behaved herself I'd ha' made a lady on her.
+But it's done--and neither her nor that counter-jumper's going to darken
+my doors. And I said I'd a word to say to you, and I'll tell you what it
+is--I'm not going to have you going there. Don't let me hear tell o' you
+going to them Binkses, or you an' me'll quarrel. Now then!"
+
+Farnish, who was smoking his after-supper pipe in the easy chair which
+was his special seat, stared at his daughter for a while in silence.
+Then he suddenly rose from his place, knocked out the ashes from his
+pipe, put his hands in his pockets, and shook his head.
+
+"Nay, nay, mi lass!" he said. "Ye're none going to force that on me,
+neither! I made a bargain wi' you when ye set up this business o' yours,
+and I've kept it, and you've nowt to complain on, I'm sure, for if ye
+had had owt I should ha' heard yer tongue afore now. But I'm not going
+to be telled 'at I'm not to go near mi own dowter! I shall go an' see
+our Rushie just as often as ever I please, and if it doesn't suit you,
+why, then ye can find another man to tak' my place. I'm willin' to go on
+as we have been doin', but if we part I can find work elsewheer. Don't
+you never say nowt no more to me o' this sort, Jecholiah, or else ye'll
+see t'back side o' my coat!"
+
+With that Farnish turned and went off to bed, and Jecholiah stared after
+him as if he were some wonderful stranger whom she had never seen
+before. For the second time that day she, the rising and successful
+tradeswoman, had been defied by poor folk. She ate a considerable amount
+of humble pie before she laid her head on her pillow that night, and
+next morning she said no more to her father, and matters went on as
+usual.
+
+There was another person in Savilestowe who, like Jeckie, was eating
+humble pie, in even larger slices, about that time. George Grice, left
+alone since Albert's defection, saw his trade decline more and more.
+Jeckie, wherever she got it from, had a natural instinct for attracting
+custom, and an almost uncanny intuition as to suiting their tastes. By
+that time nearly all the big houses in the neighbourhood were on her
+books, and the smart cart driven by Bartle had become two. Rushie was
+replaced by an experienced assistant, carefully selected by Jeckie out
+of many applicants; two apprentices were taken in; Bartle had another
+man to help him, and Farnish became foreman of several errand boys. All
+this meant that trade was steadily flowing from Grice on one side of the
+street to Farnish on the other. Old George used to stand in his window
+and watch his former customers pass in and out of the door beneath the
+golden teapot. His first anger and resentment changed slowly to a
+feeling of mournful acquiescence in fate, and two new lines were added
+to those already set deeply on each side of the tight lip. But a new
+anger arose one morning, when, chancing to gaze across the street, he
+saw the smart dog-cart which Albert and Lucilla had set up at their
+villa residence just outside the village arrive at Farnish's, and
+Lucilla herself descend, bearing in her hand a sheet of paper and her
+purse. George knew what that meant; his daughter-in-law, who up to that
+time had traded with him, for very decency's sake, was now going to try
+the opposition shop. He turned away full of new resentment and
+mortification.
+
+"Nay, nay," he muttered. "That beats all! One's own flesh and blood! But
+I might ha' seen how it would be ever since yon young hussy cheeked me
+to my face wi' her two thousand pound! And I mun think--I mun think! Am
+I done, or am I not done? That's the question!"
+
+Over his gin-and-water--of which he now, in his solitude, took an
+increased amount every evening--old George thought hard that night.
+Between periods of thought he had periods of consultation with his
+account-books, his banker's pass book, his securities (carefully locked
+up in a special safe) and with various memoranda relating to the
+business and private property. When all was over he went to bed, and lay
+awake half the night, still thinking; he continued to think during most
+of the next day. And the result of all this thought was that, a night or
+two later, when shops had closed, darkness fallen, and most of the
+Savilestowe folk abed, George Grice slunk across the street to his
+rival's private door.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_The Triple Chance_
+
+
+At the beginning of her venture Jeckie had spent all her energies on the
+business part of her establishment, and had laid out very little money
+on the furnishing of the private rooms. A living room for meals,
+bedrooms for herself and Rushie and their father, had seemed to her
+sufficient for first needs; additions could come later, if the business
+prospered. The business had prospered, and there came a time when she
+determined to have at least a parlour into which the better class of
+customers could be shown if they wanted to see her, as they sometimes
+did, in private. Accordingly, she gave orders to the best firm of
+furniture dealers in Sicaster to fit up a room at the side of the house
+in handsome, if solid, style, having previously had it, and a lobby
+adjoining it, painted and decorated in corresponding manner. The door of
+the lobby opened on a little side garden; she ordered it to be painted a
+rich dark green, and had it fitted with a fine brass knocker which one
+of the shop-boys kept so constantly polished that its refulgence
+exceeded that of the golden teapot at the front of the house. It was to
+this door that George Grice stole, and at this knocker that he sounded
+his summons, and the time was half-past nine at night.
+
+Jeckie--alone, for Farnish had already retired--wondered who it could be
+that came knocking there at that late hour. She picked up a hand-lamp
+and went round to the lobby and opened the door; the light of the lamp
+fell full on George Grice's round face, and on a certain sheepish and
+furtive look in his eyes. He lifted his slouched straw hat, and even
+smiled faintly, but Jeckie frowned in ominous fashion.
+
+"What do you want?" she demanded in her least gracious manner. She had
+never heard Grice's voice since the afternoon, now long since, on which
+he had ridden away from Applecroft, turning a deaf ear to her prayers,
+but she remembered it well enough, and she knew that there was a new
+note in it when he spoke, a note of something very like meekness, if not
+of positive humility.
+
+"I could like a word or two wi' you, if you please," said Grice. "A word
+i' private."
+
+Jeckie knew from the very tone that this man who had once thrown her
+aside like an old glove, and whom she had fought with the fierceness and
+tenacity of a tiger, had come to acknowledge himself defeated. Without a
+word she motioned him to enter, closed the door, led him into the new
+parlour, lighted a handsome standard lamp that stood on the table, and
+pointing him to a chair, took one herself and stared at him.
+
+"Well?" she said.
+
+Grice drew out a big handkerchief and mopped his bald head; it was an
+old trick of his, well remembered by Jeckie, whenever he was moved or
+excited.
+
+"I made a mistake i' your case," he answered, almost dully. "I--I didn't
+know it at the time, but I know it now--to my cost."
+
+"Aye, because I've taught you to know it!" said Jeckie. "I've bested
+you!" Grice looked at her, furtively. He had some knowledge of human
+nature, and he suddenly realised the woman's hard, determined spirit.
+
+"If I'd ha' known," he burst out suddenly, "what make of woman you are,
+I'd ha' taken good care that things turned out different! If you'd
+married our Albert--aye, things would indeed ha' been different! But I
+went on t'wrong side o' t'road--and he married that niece o' mine, 'at's
+now made him turn agen' his own father, and I'm left there--alone!"
+
+"Your own fault!" said Jeckie. "Who made your bed but yourself?"
+
+"That makes it no better," replied Grice. "Nay, it makes it worse! I've
+borne more nor I ever expected to bear. This--(he waved his hand around
+as if to include his rival's establishment and trade)--this is t'least
+of it. You fought me fair and square, no doubt; and I'm beaten. But
+there's a thing I can suggest, even at this stage."
+
+"What?" demanded Jeckie, who was watching him keenly. "What?"
+
+Grice put both hands on his knees and bent forward to her.
+
+"I'm still a well-to-do man," he said, in a low, terse voice. "Accordin'
+to some standards, I'm a rich man. I had a reckonin' up t'other night
+o' what I were worth. If I'd to die now I should cut up well. You'd be
+surprised. And I shan't leave a penny to my son! My son, Albert
+Grice--not a penny!"
+
+Jeckie continued to stare at him; herself silent, her face fixed. She
+saw that her beaten rival had still a lot more to say, and that left to
+himself he would say it.
+
+"Not one penny to him!" continued Grice with emphasis. "For why? I'll
+not say 'at if he were a single man or a widow man I shouldn't. But he's
+wed and to my niece, and after what I've experienced at her hands I'll
+take care 'at she handles no more money o' mine. It were her 'at forced
+Albert to dissolve partnership wi' me. I had to pay him out wi' a lot o'
+money. But they'll never see another penny of what I've got! An' as I
+said just now, I'm worth, first and last, a good deal."
+
+Jeckie suddenly opened her tightly-shut lips.
+
+"How much?" she asked quietly.
+
+Grice gave her a quick look; from her face his eyes wandered to the door
+of the parlour, which Jeckie had left open. He suddenly rose from his
+chair, tiptoed across the floor, and looked out into the lobby.
+
+"There isn't a soul in the house but Farnish, and he's fast asleep,
+t'other side of the shop," said Jeckie, laconically. "But you can shut
+the door if you like."
+
+Grice shut the door, slid back to his chair, and once more looked at
+her.
+
+"Five and twenty thousand pound, at least," he said in a whisper. "One
+thing and another, five-and-twenty thousand pound!"
+
+Jeckie watched him steadily through another period of silence.
+
+"What did you come here for?" she suddenly demanded. "It wasn't for
+naught, I'll be bound! You'd an idea in your head!"
+
+Grice leaned an elbow on the table, and began to tap the smart cloth
+with his thick fingers.
+
+"An idea, aye--a suggestion," he answered, his small eyes still set on
+the woman who sat bolt upright before him. "And I'll put it to you,
+Jecholiah, for I know--and I wish I'd known sooner!--'at you're as keen
+on brass as what I've always been. It's this here, i' one
+word--marriage!"
+
+Jeckie heard, without moving a muscle of her face nor relaxing the
+steady stare of her eyes.
+
+"You an' me," she said in a low voice. "You and me--that's what you
+mean, Grice?"
+
+"Me an' you," asserted Grice, nodding his bald head. "Me an' you--that
+is what I mean, and I've thought it out careful. Look here! I'm a
+certain age, but I'm a strong and well-preserved man, and worth at
+least--only at least, mind you--five-and-twenty thousand pound. Now
+then, this here business o' yours--and well you've conducted it!--is
+worth a lot already, goodwill, stock i' hand, and so on. Mine's still
+worth a good deal--old established, and I've one trade 'at you haven't
+touched--hay and corn merchant--'at's as good as ever. Now I haven't
+counted my businesses in that five-and-twenty thousand pound. An', do
+you see, supposin' you and me were to sell our businesses to a limited
+liability company, I know how and where they could be sold, and if you
+want to know, to one o' them firms o' that sort 'at's takin' over
+village businesses and transformin' 'em into big general stores. If, I
+say, we were to do that, d'ye see what a lot o' money we should have
+between us? And--you'll already have saved a good deal, I know!"
+
+"Well, and what then?" asked Jeckie. There was not a trace of anything
+but hard business dealing in her voice, and her face was as fixed as
+ever. "What then, Grice?"
+
+Grice put his head on one side, and seemed to be making some mental
+reflections.
+
+"Taking one thing with another," he said, "what I have, what I can get
+for my business; what you have, what you can get for this place, I
+reckon we should be uncommon well off. We'd marry, and take a nice
+house, wherever you like, and keep a smart trap and horse."
+
+"Smarter than your Albert's?" interrupted Jeckie with a sneer so faint
+that Grice failed to see it. "What?"
+
+"Aye, a deal!" asserted Grice. "And we'd show 'em how to do it!
+Albert'll none ever touch a penny o' mine, now! Say the word, and it
+comes off, and I'll make a will i' your favour as soon as we're wed!
+What say you?"
+
+Jeckie, still upright and rigid, sat staring at him until he thought she
+would never speak. Suddenly she rose, moved to the door, and beckoned
+him.
+
+"Come here, Grice!" she said.
+
+Grice rose and followed her round the end of the lobby into a passage
+which led to the shop. She opened a door, lighted a lamp, and, standing
+in the middle of the place, pointed round the heavily-stacked shelves
+and counters.
+
+"You want to know what I say, Grice?" she said in low, incisive tones
+that made the old man's ears tingle. "I say this! Did ye ever see your
+shop stocked like mine, did you ever do as much trade as I'm doing, did
+you ever take as much brass over your counter in a fortnight as I take
+in a week? Never! An' I started all this wi' your money--it was your
+money that gave me my chance o' revenge. An' when I got that chance I
+said to myself that I'd never rest, body or soul, till I'd seen your
+shutters come down, and I never will! Go home!" she concluded, moving
+swiftly across the shop, and throwing open the street door. "Go
+home!--I'd as lief think o' marryin' the devil himself as o' weddin' a
+man like you--I shall see you pull your shutters down yet, and--I shall
+ha' done it!"
+
+Grice went out into the night without a word, and Jeckie stood in her
+doorway and watched him march heavily across the road. When he had
+disappeared within his own door, she closed hers, picked up a couple of
+sweet biscuits out of an open box as she crossed the shop, and went
+upstairs, munching them contentedly. And not even the delight of revenge
+kept her from sleep.
+
+There were other men in Savilestowe who had eyes on Jeckie Farnish with
+a view to marriage. In spite of her strenuous pursuit of money she kept
+her good looks; continuous work, indeed, seemed to improve them, and if
+there was a certain hardness about her she remained the handsomest woman
+in the village. And not very long after her dramatic dismissal of the
+old grocer she was brought face to face for the second time with the
+necessity of making a decision. Calling on Stubley one day to pay her
+rent, the farmer, after giving her a receipt, turned round from the old
+bureau at which he had written it, and, leaning back in his elbow chair,
+gazed at her critically. He was a fine-looking, well-preserved man, a
+bachelor, more than comfortably off, and something in his eyes brought
+the colour to his tenant's cheeks. For one second she forgot her
+hardness and her ambitions and felt, rather than remembered, that she
+was a woman.
+
+"Well, mi lass!" said Stubley. "And how long's this to go on?"
+
+"How long's what to go on?" asked Jeckie.
+
+"All this tewin' and toilin' and scrattin' after brass?" he said, with a
+half-amused, half-cynical laugh. "You've been at it a good while now,
+and you've about done what ye set out to do. Grice'll none keep his
+shutters up much longer. They say his takings have fallen to naught."
+
+"I know they have," assented Jeckie with a flash of her keen eyes. "He's
+scarce any trade left."
+
+"Aye, and you have it all, and I'll lay aught you've already made a nice
+little fortune for yourself!" continued Stubley. "So--why go on? What's
+the use of wasting your life, a handsome woman like you? There's
+something else in life than all this money-making, you know, lass. Sell
+your business--and live a bit!"
+
+"Live a bit?" she said. "I--I don't know what you mean?"
+
+Stubley waved his hand towards the window. There was a beautiful and
+well-kept garden outside, and beyond it a wide stretch of equally
+well-kept land. And Jeckie knew what the gesture meant.
+
+"You know me," he said quietly. "Here's t'best farm-house and t'best
+farm in all this countryside. There's naught wanting here, mi lass--it's
+plenty ... and peace. And there's no mistress to it, and naught to
+follow me, neither lad nor lass. Say the word, and get rid o' yon shop,
+and I'll marry you whenever you like. And--you'd never regret it."
+
+Jeckie stood up, trembling in spite of her strength. She thought of the
+hard, grinding, sordid, unlovely life which she was living in the
+pursuit of money, and then of what might be as mistress of that fine old
+farm and wife of an honest, good-natured, dependable man. But as she
+thought, recollection came back to her--a recollection which was with
+her day and night. She saw herself standing in the empty, stockless fold
+at Applecroft, watching George Grice drive away, deaf to her entreaties
+for help. The old demon of hatred and determination for revenge, and the
+lust for money and power which had sprung from his workings, rose up
+again and conquered her.
+
+"No," she said, turning away. "I can't! I'm obliged to you, Mr.
+Stubley--you're a straight man, and you mean well. But--I can't do it!
+I've set myself to a certain thing, and I must go on--I can't stop now!"
+
+"What certain thing, mi lass?" asked Stubley. "What're you aimin' at?"
+
+Jeckie looked round her, at the old furniture, the old pictures and
+framed samplers on the walls of the farm-house parlour, and from them to
+Stubley, and her eyes grew deep and sombre.
+
+"I'm going to be the richest woman in all these parts!" she whispered.
+"I've set my mind to it, and it's got to be. I've no time to think of
+men--I'm after money--money!"
+
+Then she turned and went swiftly out, leaving the farmer staring after
+her with wonder in his eyes. And he shook his head as he picked up the
+cheque which she had just given him and locked it in his bureau. He was
+thinking of the times when Jeckie Farnish could not have put her name to
+a cheque for a penny piece. But now--
+
+There was yet one more man who wanted to marry the determined,
+money-grubbing woman. Bartle, who had seen Jeckie Farnish every day of
+his life since he had first come, seeking a job, to her father's door, a
+lad of fifteen, and who had served her like a faithful dog from the
+beginning of her big venture, came to feel that with him it was either
+going to be all or nothing. He had developed into a fine, handsome
+fellow, whose steadiness was a by-word in the village; in looks and
+character he was a man that any woman might well have been proud of. And
+one Sunday, having occasion to see Jeckie about some business of the
+ensuing morning, he suddenly spoke straight out, as he and she stood
+among the flowers in her garden.
+
+"Missis!" he said, his bronzed cheeks taking on a deep blush. "There's a
+word I mun either say or burst--I cannot hold it longer! I been i' love
+wi' you ever sin I were a lad, and you a lass, and it grows waur and
+waur! Will you wed me?--for if you weern't missis, I mun go!"
+
+Jeckie looked at him, and knew the reality of what he had said. And for
+a moment she felt something remind her that she was a woman--but in the
+next she had steeled herself.
+
+"It's no good, lad!" she said softly. "No good! Put it away from you."
+
+Bartle turned white as his Sunday shirt, but he stood erect.
+
+"Then you mun let me go, missis, and at once," he said huskily. "I've
+saved money, and I'll go a long way off--to this here Canada 'at they
+talk about. But go I will!"
+
+He came to say good-bye to her three days later, and Jeckie put a
+hundred pounds in banknotes into his hand. It was the only deed of its
+sort that she ever wanted to do, but Bartle would have none of it. His
+eyes looked another appeal as he said his farewell, and Jeckie shook her
+head and let him go. And so he went, white-faced and dry-eyed, and with
+him went the last chance of redemption that Jeckie Farnish ever had. She
+had sold herself by then, body and soul, to Mammon.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_Dead Men's Shoes_
+
+
+Had George Grice but known it, the defection of his daughter-in-law,
+Lucilla, to the rival establishment across the street had more in it
+than appeared on the surface. Lucilla, after much worry and anxious
+thought, had come to the conclusion that there was no more to be got out
+of Albert's father. She had grown doubtful, not very long after her
+marriage, about the old man's financial position. George, when the bride
+and bridegroom had fairly settled down, had begun to throw out hints
+that her portion--two thousand pounds good money--ought to be sunk in
+the business, and when she had objected, saying that she preferred to
+control it herself, had grown grumpy and sullen. Then there had been
+difficulties about paying Albert out of the business when the dissension
+took place. George had put every obstacle possible in the way, and had
+delayed settlement until he was forced to it. Finally, he had forbidden
+Albert and Lucilla to darken his doors again, and the break-up of family
+ties had seemed complete. But, Lucilla had kept her eyes and ears open,
+and had seen and heard how the old man's business fell off; and, getting
+a purely feminine intuition that George was going steadily downhill and
+only keeping open out of sheer obstinacy and pride, she formed the
+opinion that he was by no means as well-off as was fancied, and,
+therefore, worth no more consideration. Hence the grocery book went no
+more to Grice but to Farnish. It was a final sign of complete
+separation, wholly due to Lucilla, who, in addition to other things, was
+actuated not a little by womanish spite and malice. George had told her
+a few plain truths to her face when the rift opened, and she had no
+objection to give him a few kicks behind his back. If she had had
+positive knowledge that the old man was wealthy she would have taken
+good care to keep in with him, but she had formed the impression that he
+was on his last legs, and that she and Albert would, from one cause or
+another, never benefit by him again.
+
+As for Albert, he was now a gentleman; that is to say, he was a
+gentleman in the sense in which gentility is understood by village folk.
+He had nothing to do, and money to do it on. He and Lucilla dwelt in a
+villa residence on the roadside between Savilestowe and Sicaster; the
+villa was a pretentious affair of red brick with timber facings, there
+was a white door with an ornamental black knocker, a flower garden with
+rustic seats in front, a kitchen garden behind, and in a screened yard a
+coach-house and a stable with a smart dog-cart in one and a good cob in
+the other. There were two maidservants in the kitchen, and a pet dog in
+the parlour; in the dressing-room was Lucilla's chief solace, a piano,
+not so good, to be sure, as that which old George had bought her (that
+still remained, with the suite of furniture, in the room over the
+Savilestowe shop), but more showy in appearance. Lucilla ran the entire
+establishment--everyone in it, from Albert to the pet dog, was under her
+thumb. Albert read the newspaper after breakfast. He was then allowed to
+walk into Sicaster and look round the bar-parlours, but it was a strict
+commandment that he was never to drink anything but bitter beer, and
+only a little of that. In the afternoon he drove Lucilla out in the
+dog-cart. In the evening there was another newspaper to read, and he was
+allowed two glasses of gin-and-water before retiring to rest. It was a
+simple life, and Lucilla, who managed all the money matters, saved money
+every year.
+
+Meanwhile old George went his way. It was a way of solitude, but he kept
+along its centre, looking neither to right nor left. He sold his
+hay-and-corn business, and devoted himself to the shop. A certain number
+of his old customers remained loyal to him; there was always sufficient
+trade to warrant him in keeping open, but in time he could comfortably
+do all the counter work himself, and his staff was cut down to an errand
+boy. He had plenty of time to talk to customers now, and, as they
+chiefly consisted of garrulous old women, he lounged a good deal over
+his counter. What affected him chiefly was the evening solitude, and, at
+last, after his fateful interview with Jeckie Farnish, he broke through
+the rule of a lifetime, and began to frequent the parlour of the
+"Coach-and-Four" every night, making one of a select circle wherein sat
+the miller, the butcher, the blacksmith, and the parish clerk. After a
+few experiences in this retreat he found himself cordially welcomed,
+for, having his own intentions as regarded the disposal of his money, he
+was liberal in spending it on liquor and cigars; nay, more, he actually
+got back some trade by this new departure, for, as the miller said, it
+was only reasonable that as Mr. Grice was so friendly and sociable-like
+they should go back to the old shop. For that George cared little by
+that time. What he chiefly valued was sympathy, and he quickly found
+that he could get plenty of it by handing round the cigar-box and paying
+for his cronies' gin-and-water.
+
+"I reckon ye've been uncommon badly treated, Mr. Grice!" said the
+butcher as the five chief frequenters of the bar-parlour sat together in
+an atmosphere of cigar smoke and unsweetened gin one night. "It's a nice
+game, an' all, when a man's attained to t'eminence 'at you had i' this
+here place, when an upstart comes in and cuts him out! I should feel it
+mysen, I should indeed, wor it me!"
+
+"Mr. Grice," observed the parish clerk, "has borne it all wi' Christian
+fortitude, gentlemen. My respects, sir; you haven't fallen off i' my
+estimation, Mr. Grice--nor, I'm sure, i' that of any of the rest of
+these here gentlemen."
+
+There was a general murmur of assent; the fact was that old George had
+shown himself particularly lavish that evening in insisting on paying
+for everything, saying that it was his birthday.
+
+"Aye, there's a deal i' Christian fortitude," remarked the blacksmith.
+"It's one o' them horses 'at'll carry a man a long way wi'out brakkin'
+down; it 'ud weer out a good many shoes would that theer. Ye been well
+favoured to be endowed wi' such a quality, Mr. Grice."
+
+"Now then!" said George, mollified and pleased. "Now then, say no more
+about it! I hev mi faults, and I hev mi qualities. I could say a good
+deal, but I'll say naught. All on us hes crosses to bear, and I've borne
+mine, patient. An' I hope all them 'at's deserted me for never mind
+who'll never have cause to regret it. But i' mi time, 've give away a
+deal i' charity i' this place--ask t'parson if he ever knew me not to
+put mi hand i' mi pocket whenever him or his lady, or t'curate come
+wantin' summat for coals, and blankets, and t'clothing fund and
+such-like--and I don't hear 'at a certain person ever gives a penny!"
+
+"None she!" exclaimed the miller. "She's as hard as one o' t'stones i'
+my mill--and if there's owt i' this world 'at's harder, I could like to
+hear tell on it! No, she'll none give owt away, weern't that! She's set
+on makkin' all t'brass 'at she can, and what she scrapes together she'll
+stick to. All t'same, I don't think you'll put your shutters up yet, Mr.
+Grice, what?"
+
+"Not while I can draw breath!" answered Grice, with a grim look. "She'll
+none beat me at that, I can tell yer!"
+
+He had made up his mind on that point after Jeckie Farnish had motioned
+him away from her shop-door on the night of his strange proposal to
+her. Let come what might, he would keep down the shutters to the very
+end--they should never be put up until they were put up some day to show
+that he was dead. Customers or no customers--he would keep the old shop
+open. There would have to be a day, of course, whereon he would be
+unable to tie on his apron and take his stand behind the counter, but
+until that day came....
+
+The day came with sudden swiftness. One morning the woman who did George
+Grice's housework arrived to find the doors open, an unusual thing, for
+he usually came down to let her in. She walked through the kitchen into
+the parlour, and found him lying back in his elbow-chair at the table,
+dead and cold. The gin and the cigars were on the table; on the carpet
+at his feet lay an old account-book which he had evidently been reading
+when death came upon him; it referred to the days wherein the firm of
+George Grice & Son had been at the height of its prosperity. So Grice's
+last thoughts in this world had been of money.
+
+The woman followed the instincts of her sort, and after one horrified
+glance at the dead man, ran out into the street, eager to spread the
+news. The first person she set eyes on was Jeckie Farnish, who, always
+up with the sun, was standing in the roadway outside her shop,
+vigorously scolding one of her shop-boys for his carelessness in
+sweeping the sidewalk. Upon her objurgations the woman broke, big with
+tidings and already half breathless.
+
+"Miss Farnish! Eh, dear--such a turn as it's given me!--Miss Farnish!
+There's Mr. Grice--there in his parlour--sittin' i' his chair, Miss
+Farnish, an' wi' his bottle o' sperrits i' front o' him, and all--such
+an end, to be sure!--and dead--aye, and must ha' died last night, for
+he's as cowd as ice. An' will you come back wi' me, Miss Farnish?--I'm
+fair feared to go in agen by misen!"
+
+Jeckie turned and looked down at the woman--a little wizened
+creature--with an incredulous stare.
+
+"What do you say?" she demanded sharply. "Grice? Dead?"
+
+"Dead as a door-nail, Miss Farnish, as sure as I'm here--and sittin' i'
+t'easy chair at his table----"
+
+Jeckie looked round at the offending shop-boy; even then she considered
+her own affairs first.
+
+"You get another pail o' water, and swill them flags again this minute!"
+she commanded. "And mind you do it right, or else----"
+
+She broke off at that, and without another word to the agitated woman
+who was staring at her with affrighted eyes, marched straight across the
+street, through George Grice's yard and in at the side-door of the
+house. She knew her way about that house as well as its late master, and
+she turned at once into the parlour in which she had never set foot
+since that morning, years before, on which she had gone there to beg
+Grice's help. She saw at one glance that Grice himself was now beyond
+all human help, and for a moment she stood and looked at his dead face
+with keen, critical eyes. Death, instead of smoothing the lines of his
+naturally sly and crafty countenance, had deepened them; it was not a
+pleasant sight that Jeckie looked at. And the woman, who had crept in
+after her, spoke in a half-frightened whisper.
+
+"Lord save us!--he don't mak' a beautiful corpse, trew-ly, does he, Miss
+Farnish?" she said. "He looks that hard and graspin', same as he did
+when a poor body wanted summat and----"
+
+"He must have had a stroke and died in it," remarked Jeckie, in
+matter-of-fact tones. "And I should say, as he died all alone, 'at
+there'll have to be an inquest, so don't you touch aught 'at there is on
+that table. You go round and tell the policeman to come here at once for
+he'll have to let the coroner know. Don't say aught to anybody else till
+he's been, and I'll go and send one of my lads for Mr. Albert."
+
+The woman hurried away, and Jeckie, waiting there with the dead man
+until the policeman arrived, hated him worse than ever. For she had
+never seen the shutters go up in his lifetime--he had held out to the
+end, and cheated her of her cherished revenge. Yet never mind--the Grice
+business was over; that she knew very well; henceforth she was a
+monopolist. And when the policeman had come and had taken charge of
+matters, she went across to her stables, where her van-man was just
+putting a horse into a light cart.
+
+"Here!" she said, "you're going up to t'top o' t'village, Watkinson.
+Drive on, as soon as you've delivered those parcels, to Mr. Albert
+Grice's--tell him his father's dead."
+
+The old man opened his mouth and stared.
+
+"What, t'owd man, missis?" he exclaimed. "Nay!--I seed him all right
+last night."
+
+"He's dead," repeated Jeckie, turning unconcernedly away. "Tell Mr.
+Albert he'd better come down."
+
+Albert came within an hour, and Lucilla with him, and the smart cob and
+smart dog-cart were housed in the dead man's stable. Presently, he
+himself was laid out in decency on his own bed, and all the blinds were
+drawn, and the shutters were up in the shop, and Albert and Lucilla,
+having found George's keys, began to go through his effects. But before
+they had fairly entered on this congenial task, interruption came in the
+shape of a Sicaster solicitor, Mr. Whitby, accompanied by a well-known
+Sicaster tradesman, Mr. Cransdale, who drove up in a cab, evidently in
+haste, and walked uninvited into the house, to find Albert and Lucilla
+busied at the dead man's desk. Whitby immediately pulled out some
+papers.
+
+"Good morning, Mr. Grice--good morning, Mrs. Grice," he said, with a
+certain amount of disapproval shown behind a surface pleasantness.
+"Busy, I see, already! I'm afraid I must ask you to hand those keys over
+to us, Mr. Grice, and to leave all my late client's effects to the care
+of Mr. Cransdale and myself--we're the executors and trustees of his
+will----"
+
+"What?" exclaimed Lucilla, whose tongue was always in advance of her
+husband's. "Then he made a will?"
+
+"Here's the will," answered Whitby, producing a document and folding it
+in such a fashion that only the last paragraph or two could be seen.
+"There is the late Mr. George Grice's signature; there are the
+signatures of the witnesses, and there--you may see that much--is the
+clause appointing Mr. Cransdale and myself executors and trustees. All
+in order, Mr. Grice!"
+
+"What's in the will?" demanded Lucilla.
+
+"All in good time, ma'am!" responded Whitby. "You'll hear everything
+after the funeral. In the meantime--those keys, if you please. Now," he
+continued, as Albert sullenly handed over the keys, "nothing whatever in
+this house will be touched--no papers, no effects, nothing! You
+understand, Mr. and Mrs. Grice? Mr. Cransdale and I are in full power.
+We shall arrange everything."
+
+"So you turn my husband out of his father's house!" exclaimed Lucilla
+indignantly. "That's what it comes to!"
+
+"I don't think he troubled his father's house very much of late," said
+Whitby dryly. "But I repeat--Mr. Cransdale and I are in full power.
+After the late Mr. Grice's funeral the will shall be read."
+
+Albert and Lucilla had to retire, and they spent the next three days in
+wondering what all this was about. Lucilla's father arrived from
+Nottingham on the evening before his brother's obsequies; he, too, was
+full of wonder. He was as busy a man as George had been in his palmiest
+days, and knew little of what had been going on at Savilestowe. And when
+his daughter told him the story of recent events he frowned heavily.
+
+"It'll be well if you haven't made a mistake, my girl!" he said. "My
+brother George was as deep and sly as ever they make 'em. The
+probability is that he'll cut up a lot better than you think, in spite
+of everything. You should have kept in with him, whatever came. You wait
+till that will's read, and I hope you and Albert won't get a nasty
+surprise!"
+
+Lucilla was surprised enough when she saw the curious assemblage which,
+duly marshalled by Whitby, gathered together in the dead man's parlour,
+after he himself had been laid in the grave, which many years before had
+received his wife's body, and was surmounted by a handsome and weighty
+obelisk, whereon his own name was now to be cut in deep gilt letters.
+There were the relatives; herself, her husband, her father; there were
+also the vicar, the squire, and Stubley, the last three all plainly
+wondering why they were asked to be present. But their wonder was not to
+last long. In five minutes the will had been read and everybody there
+had grasped the meaning of its provisions. George Grice had left
+everything of which he died possessed in trust to Whitby and Cransdale,
+who were to realise the whole of his estate, and with the proceeds to
+build and endow a cottage hospital at Savilestowe, to be known forever
+as the George Grice Memorial Home, and the vicar, the squire, and
+Stubley were asked to co-operate with the trustees in carrying out the
+initial arrangements. For anything and anybody else--not one penny.
+
+When all was done Lucilla's father drew Whitby aside.
+
+"Between you and me," he said, with a knowing look, "what might my
+brother's estate be likely to come to?"
+
+"As near as I can make out," answered Whitby, "about thirty thousand
+pounds."
+
+The inquirer followed his daughter and Albert out of the house, and gave
+them a good deal of his tongue on the way home, and for once in her life
+Lucilla had nothing to answer. Moreover, she now foresaw trouble between
+her and Albert.
+
+And that afternoon, before leaving the village, the executors and
+trustees of George Grice deceased walked across the street to see Miss
+Jecholiah Farnish. Their conversation with her was of a brief sort as
+far as time was concerned, but its upshot was of an important nature.
+Jeckie agreed, there and then, to buy the goodwill of the business which
+she had set out to ruin, and she took care to get it dirt cheap.
+
+
+END OF THE FIRST PART
+
+
+
+
+_Part the Second: FALL_
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I
+
+_Avarice_
+
+
+Five years after George Grice had been gathered to his fathers, by which
+time Jeckie Farnish had achieved her ambition and become the richest
+woman in Savilestowe, there walked into the stone-flagged hall of the
+"Coach-and-Four" one fine spring morning, a gentleman who wore a smart
+suit of grey tweed, a grey Homburg hat, ornamented by a black band, and
+swung a handsome gold-mounted walking cane in his elegantly-gloved
+fingers. There was an air of consequence and distinction about him,
+though he was apparently still on the right side of thirty; the way in
+which he looked around as he stepped across the threshold, showed that
+he was one of those superior beings who are accustomed to give orders
+and have them obeyed, and Steve Beckitt, the landlord, who chanced to be
+in the hall at the time, made haste to come forward and throw open the
+door of the best parlour. The stranger, who was as good-looking as he
+was well-dressed, smiled genially, showing a set of fine teeth beneath a
+carefully trimmed dark moustache, and removed his hat as he walked in
+and glanced approvingly at the old-fashioned furniture. "You the
+landlord?" he asked pleasantly, and with another smile. "Mr. Beckitt,
+then?--I had your name given me by the landlady of the 'Red Lion' at
+Sicaster, where I've been staying for a week or two. I've just walked
+out from there--and, to begin with, I should like a glass or two of your
+best bitter ale, Mr. Beckitt. Bring a jug of it--I know you've always
+good ale in these country inns!--and join me. I want to have a word or
+two with you."
+
+Beckitt, a worthy and unimaginative soul, full of curiosity, fetched the
+ale and poured it out; the stranger, producing a handsome silver case,
+offered him a cigar and lighted one himself. And when he had tasted and
+praised the ale, he dropped into an easy chair and swinging one leg over
+the other, looked smilingly at the landlord, whom he had waved to a
+seat.
+
+"My name's Mortimer," he said, with almost boyish ingenuousness,
+"Mallerbie Mortimer--I'm from London. I've been having a holiday in the
+North here, and for the last fortnight I've been staying in Sicaster--at
+'the Red Lion.' Now, I've a fancy to stay a bit longer in these parts,
+Mr. Beckitt, and I have heard in Sicaster that this is a very pretty and
+interesting neighbourhood. So I walked out this morning to see if you
+could put me up for a week or two at the 'Coach-and-Four'? How are you
+fixed?"
+
+Beckitt, who was sure by that time that his visitor was a moneyed
+gentleman, put his thumbs in the armholes of his waistcoat--a sure sign
+that he was thinking.
+
+"Well, sir," he replied, "it isn't oft 'at we're asked for accommodation
+o' that partik'lar nature, but, of course, twice a year we do entertain
+t'steward--a lawyer gentleman--when he comes to collect t'rents. He has
+this room for a parlour, and there's a nice big bedroom upstairs--he's
+allus expressed his-self as very well satisfied wi' all 'at we do for
+him. Of course, it's naught but plain cookin' at we can offer--but
+t'steward, he allus takes to it."
+
+"And so should I," affirmed the caller, who was evidently disposed to
+like anything and everything. "Good, plain, homely fare and cooking, Mr.
+Beckitt--that's all I want. And for whatever I have, I'll pay you
+well--now, supposing you call your good lady, and let me see the
+bedroom, and have a talk to her about my meals?"
+
+Within ten minutes of his entrance Mr. Mallerbie Mortimer had settled
+matters with the host and hostess of the "Coach-and-Four." He was
+evidently a man who was accustomed to arrange affairs in quick time; he
+told Mrs. Beckitt precisely what he wanted in a very few sentences, and
+then offered her for board and lodging a certain weekly sum which was
+about half as much again as she would have asked him. Immediately on her
+acceptance of it, he pulled a handful of loose gold out of his trousers
+pocket, paid his first week's bill in advance, and turning to the
+landlord, asked him to send somebody with a trap to Sicaster to fetch
+his luggage--three portmanteaux and two suit-cases. Then, arranging for
+a mutton-chop at half-past one, he went out and strolled down the
+village street, his Homburg hat at a jaunty angle, and his cane
+swinging lightly in his gloved hand. The folk whom he met wondered at
+him, and Jeckie Farnish, who happened to be standing at the door of her
+shop, wondered most of all. Strangers were rare in Savilestowe, and this
+one was evidently a man of far-off parts.
+
+But before twenty-four hours had gone by, Mr. Mallerbie Mortimer had
+made himself known to most people in the village. He was an eminently
+sociable person, and after his first dinner at the "Coach-and-Four"--a
+roast chicken, the cooking of which he praised unreservedly--he went
+into the bar-parlour and fraternised with the select company which
+assembled there every evening. He was generous in the matter of paying
+for drinks and cigars; he was also an adept in drawing men out. Within a
+night or two, he knew all the affairs of the place, and all the
+principal inhabitants by name; also, he had heard, from more than one
+informant, the full story of Jeckie Farnish and George Grice. He showed
+himself possessed of pleasant and ingratiating manners, and might be
+seen chatting in the blacksmith's forge, or lounging in the carpenter's
+shop, or exchanging jokes with the miller, or hanging about the
+churchyard with the sexton; he talked farming with Stubley, and smoked
+an afternoon pipe with Merritt. And when he was not doing any of these
+things, he was all over the place--farmers met him crossing fields and
+going about meadows, and along the side of hedgerows; thus encountered,
+Mr. Mallerbie Mortimer always showed his white teeth and his engaging
+smile, and said he hoped he wasn't trespassing, but he had a mania for
+going wherever his fancy prompted when he was in the country. Nobody, of
+course, objected to so pleasant a gentleman going wherever he pleased,
+and by the end of the week he had thoroughly explored the parish. And
+had anybody been with him on these solitary excursions they would have
+observed that the stranger took a most curious interest in the various
+soils over which he walked, and that in certain places he would linger a
+long time, closely inspecting marl and loam and clay and sandstone and
+outcropping limestone. But the Savilestowe folk saw nothing of this; all
+they saw was a very smart young gentleman who wore a different,
+apparently brand-new, suit every day, put on black clothes and a dinner
+jacket every evening, received piles of letters and bundles of
+newspapers each morning, and, in spite of his grandeur and his
+money--his abundant possession of which was soon made evident--had
+no snobbishness about him, and was only too willing to be
+hail-fellow-well-met with everybody from the parson to the ploughman.
+
+Mr. Mortimer informed Mrs. Beckitt, at the end of his first week's stay
+at Savilestowe, that he was so well satisfied with his quarters that he
+had decided to remain where he was for a while longer--he might, he
+further informed her, be having a friend down from London to stay for a
+week or so in this truly delightful spot. Beckitt and his wife were only
+too pleased; Mr. Mortimer was not only a very profitable lodger, but
+free of his money in the bar-parlour, where he made a practice of
+spending his evenings after his seven o'clock dinner. He was in that
+parlour every night until nearly the second week of his visit had gone
+by. Then, one night, instead of crossing the hall from his sitting room
+to join the company which had grown accustomed to his genial presence,
+he waited until night had fallen, put a light overcoat over his evening
+clothes, drew on a soft cap, and taking some papers from a dispatch-box
+which he kept, locked, in his bedroom, slipped out of the
+"Coach-and-Four" and strolled down the village street. Five minutes
+later found him knocking gently at the private door of Jeckie Farnish's
+house.
+
+Jeckie, by this time, kept a couple of maidservants. But it was growing
+late, and they had gone to bed, and it was Jeckie herself who opened the
+door and shone the light of a hand-lamp on the caller. Now up to that
+time Jeckie was about the only person in Savilestowe to whom Mr.
+Mallerbie Mortimer had not introduced himself; he had passed her shop
+scores of times, but had never entered it. She stared wonderingly at him
+as he removed his cap with one hand and offered her a card with the
+other.
+
+"May I have a few minutes' conversation with you, Miss Farnish--in
+private?" he asked, favouring Jeckie with the ingratiating smile. "I
+came late purposely--so that we might have our talk all to
+ourselves--you are, I know, a very busy woman in the day-time."
+
+Jeckie looked at the card suspiciously. Mr. Mallerbie Mortimer,
+M.I.M.E., 281c, Victoria Street, London, S.W. The letters at the end of
+the name conveyed nothing to her. "You're not a traveller?" she asked
+abruptly, showing no inclination to ask the caller in. "I only see
+travellers on Fridays--three to five. I can't break my rule."
+
+"I am certainly not a traveller--of that sort," laughed the visitor. "I
+am a professional man--staying here for a professional purpose. Don't
+you see, ma'am, what I am, from my card?--a member of the Institute of
+Mining Engineers? I want to see you alone, on a most important business
+matter."
+
+Jeckie motioned him to enter.
+
+"I didn't know what those letters meant," she said, with emphasis on the
+personal pronoun. "But come in--though upon my word, mister, I don't
+know what you want to see me about, mister! This way, if you please."
+
+Mortimer laughed as he followed her into a parlour where there was a
+bright fire in the grate--coal was cheap in that neighbourhood--and a
+lamp burning on the centre table. He closed the door behind him, and
+when Jeckie had seated herself, dropped into an easy chair in front of
+her.
+
+"I'll tell you why I've come to see you, Miss Farnish," he said in low
+suave tones. "There's nothing like going straight to the point. I came
+to you because, having now been in Savilestowe, as you're aware, for
+close on a fortnight, I know that you're the richest person in the
+place--man or woman! Eh?"
+
+Jeckie had heard this sort of thing before, more than once. It usually
+prefaced a demand on her purse, and she looked at Mortimer with
+increased suspicion.
+
+"If it's a subscription you're wanting," she began, and then stopped,
+seeing the amusement in her visitor's face. "What do you want, then?"
+she demanded. "You said business."
+
+"And I mean and intend business!" answered Mortimer. "You're a business
+woman, and I'm a business man, so we shall understand each other if I
+speak freely and plainly. Look here! Since I came to stay at the
+'Coach-and-Four,' nearly a fortnight ago I've heard all about you, Miss
+Farnish. How you beat that old fellow Grice, drove him out, and all the
+rest of it. You're a smart woman, you know; you've brains, and go, and
+initiative, and determination--you're just the person I want!"
+
+"For what?" demanded Jeckie, who was not insensible to flattery. "What's
+it all about?"
+
+Mortimer edged his chair nearer to hers, and gave her a knowing look.
+The hard and strenuous life she had lived had robbed Jeckie of some of
+her beauty, but she was a handsome woman still, and there was
+recognition of that undoubted fact in the man's bold eyes.
+
+"You're one of the sort that wants to get rich quick!" he said. "Right!
+so am I. There's a bond between us. Now, as I said, I know for a fact
+you're the richest person in this place, leaving the squire out of the
+question. You know that's so! but only yourself knows how well-off you
+are. Yet, how would you like to be absolutely wealthy?"
+
+"I believe in money," said Jeckie. She saw no use in denying the truth
+to this persistent and plausible stranger. "I've worked for money,
+naught else! What do you mean?"
+
+"Supposing I told you of how you could make money in such a fashion that
+what you're making now would be as nothing to it?" said Mortimer, still
+watching her keenly. "Would you be inclined to take the chance?"
+
+Jeckie gave her visitor a good, long look before she replied. And
+Mortimer added another word or two.
+
+"I'm talking sense!" he affirmed. "I mean what I say."
+
+"If I saw the chance o' making money in the way you speak of," answered
+Jeckie, at last, "it 'ud be a queer thing if I didn't take it. I never
+missed a chance yet!"
+
+"Don't miss this!" said Mortimer. "Listen! You don't know why I'm here;
+you don't know what I mean; you don't know what I've come to see you
+about. I'll tell you in one word if you'll promise to keep this to
+yourself?"
+
+"If it's aught about business and money you can be certain I shall,"
+asserted Jeckie. "I'm not given to talking about my affairs."
+
+"Very good," continued Mortimer. "Then, do you know what there is under
+this village of Savilestowe, under its fields and meadows, aye,
+underneath where you and I are sitting just now. Do you?"
+
+"What?" demanded Jeckie, roused by his evident enthusiasm. "What?"
+
+Mortimer leaned forward, laid a hand on her arm, and spoke one
+word--twice.
+
+"Coal!" he said. "Coal?"
+
+Jeckie stared at him, silently, for awhile. And Mortimer kept his eyes
+fixed on hers, as if he were exercising some hypnotic influence on her.
+She stirred a little at last, and spoke, wonderingly.
+
+"Coal?" she said, in a low voice. "You mean----"
+
+"I mean that there's no end of coal beneath our feet!" said Mortimer.
+"Listen! You know--for you must have heard--how the coal-mining
+industry's been increasing and developing in this part of Yorkshire
+during the last few years. Now, I'm a mining expert; here's a pocketful
+of references and testimonials about me that I'll leave with you, to
+look over at your leisure; and I came over to Sicaster three weeks or so
+ago to have a look round this neighbourhood. From something I saw one
+day when I was out for a walk in this direction I decided to come here
+and go carefully over the ground. I've been carefully over it--every
+yard of this village! I tell you, as an expert, there's no end of coal
+under here--no end! And whoever works it'll make--a huge fortune!"
+
+Jeckie sat, almost spellbound, listening; such imagination as she
+possessed was already stirred. And when she spoke it seemed to her that
+her voice sounded as if it came from a long way off.
+
+"But--it's down there!" she said.
+
+"But--it is there!" exclaimed Mortimer. "All that's wanted is for man to
+get it out! I know how to do that. All that's wanted is money! capital!"
+
+He got up from his chair, thrust his hands in his pocket, and jingled
+the loose coins which lay in them, looking down at Jeckie with a
+significant smile.
+
+"Capital!" he repeated. "Capital! I'm so certain of what I say that I'm
+willing to find a good lot myself. But not all that's wanted. And what I
+want to know is--are you coming in, now that I've told you? Look here,
+for every ten thousand that's put into this business there'll be a
+hundred thousand within a very short time of getting to work. I'll stake
+my reputation--not a bad one, as you'll learn from these papers--that
+this'll be one of the richest mines, in quantity and quality, in
+England. A regular gold mine! I know!"
+
+"But--the land?" said Jeckie. "You've to buy the land first, haven't
+you?"
+
+Mortimer laughed, and picked up his cap.
+
+"I know how to do that in this case," he said. "Not another word now:
+I'll come and see you again to-morrow evening, same time. In the
+meantime--strict secrecy. But take my word for it, if you come in with
+me at this I'll make you a richer woman than you've ever dreamed of
+being. And I think you've had some ambitions that way--what?"
+
+Then, with a brief, almost curt, good-night, he went away, and Jeckie,
+after letting him out and fastening her door, read through the papers
+which he had left with her. There was a banker's reference, and a
+solicitor's reference, and numerous testimonials to the great ability of
+Mr. Mallerbie Mortimer as a mining expert. Jeckie knew enough of things
+to estimate these papers at their proper value, especially the banker's
+reference, and she went off to bed with new ideas forming in her brain.
+Coal!--there, beneath her feet--black, shining stuff that could be
+turned into yellow gold. It seemed to her that she hated the green
+fields and red earth that lay between it and her avaricious fingers.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II
+
+_The Bit of Bad Land_
+
+
+Mortimer was at Jeckie Farnish's private door to the minute on the
+following evening, and Jeckie hastened to admit him and to lead him to
+her parlour. He went straight to the point at which he had broken off
+their conversation of the night before.
+
+"You were saying that before ever starting on the project I mentioned it
+would be necessary to buy the land," he said, as he settled himself in
+an easy chair. "Now, Miss Farnish, let's be plain and matter-of-fact
+about one thing. Most of the land in this parish of Savilestowe belongs
+to the squire. But we're not going to have him in at this business! I
+don't want him even to know that anything's afoot until matters are
+settled, and in full working order. For not all the land is his!--which
+is fortunate. A good deal of it, as you know, is glebe land. Then,
+Stubley owns a bit, and I understand those two fields by the mill are
+the freehold property of the miller. And, very fortunately for my scheme
+and ideas, there's a considerable piece of land here which belongs to a
+man who, I should say, would be very glad to sell it--I mean the piece
+down there beyond the old stone quarry, which you villagers call
+Savilestowe Leys."
+
+"Worst bit o' land in the place!" exclaimed Jeckie. "There's naught
+grown there but the coarsest sort o' grass and weeds and such-like; it's
+more like a wilderness than aught!"
+
+Mortimer showed his white teeth and his eyes sparkled.
+
+"All the better for us, my dear lady!" he said. "But it's under there
+that we shall find the richest bed of coal! I know that! Seams, without
+doubt, spread away from that bed in several directions, but the real
+wealth of this place lies under that bad bit of land, half-marsh,
+half-wilderness, as you say. Now, I understand that that particular
+property--forty acres in all--belongs to that little farmer at the
+Sicaster end of the village. You know the man I mean--Benjamin Scholes?"
+
+"Yes," assented Jeckie. "It's been in Ben Scholes's family for many a
+generation."
+
+Mortimer leaned forward, gave Jeckie a sharp, meaning look, and tapped
+her wrist.
+
+"The first thing to be done is to buy these forty acres of land from
+Scholes--privately," he said. "That land's the front door to a
+store-house of unlimited wealth! And--you must buy it."
+
+Jeckie shook her head.
+
+"I say you must!" asserted Mortimer. "There's nobody but you who can do
+it. It'll have to be done on the quiet. You're the person!"
+
+"It's not that," said Jeckie. "You're a stranger; you don't know our
+people. Ben Scholes is a poor man; he'd be glad enough of the money. But
+that land's been in their family for two or three hundred years; he'll
+none want to part with it, were it ever so. Poor as it is, the squire
+wanted to buy it from him some time since; he'd a notion of planting it
+with fir and pine. But Ben wouldn't sell. And, besides, what excuse
+could I make for buying it?--poor land like that! He'd be suspicious."
+
+"I've thought of all that," answered Mortimer. "I'm full of resource, as
+you'll find out. Everybody knows what an enterprising woman you are, so
+that what I'm going to suggest you should do would surprise nobody if
+you do it--as you must. Go and see Scholes; tell him you want to start a
+market garden and a fruit orchard, and that his land will just suit your
+purposes when it's been thoroughly drained and prepared. Offer to buy it
+outright; stick to him till you get it. Never you mind about his refusal
+to the squire; you've got a better tongue in your head than the squire
+has from what I've seen of him, and you'll get round Scholes. You ought
+to get the forty acres, such bad land as it is, for two or three hundred
+pounds. But look here--go up to that. You see, I'm not asking you to
+find the money."
+
+He drew out a pocket-book, extracted a folded slip of paper from it,
+unfolded it, and dropped it on the table at Jeckie's elbow. Jeckie
+looked down and saw a cheque, made payable to herself, for five hundred
+pounds.
+
+"You'll get it for less than that if you go about it the right way,"
+continued Mortimer. "And, of course, when you buy it, and the
+conveyancing's done, you'll have all the papers made out in your name.
+I shan't appear in it at all. You and I can settle matters
+later--but--there's the money. And if this chap Scholes stands out for
+more you've nothing to do but ask me. Only--but! At once!"
+
+"And if he will sell?--if I get it?" asked Jeckie. "What then?"
+
+"Then we've got forty acres of worthless stuff on top, and many a
+thousand tons of coal beneath!" said Mortimer. "It'll take a good time
+to exhaust what there is beneath the forty acres. And we can get to
+work. As for the rest of the land in the place--well, as need arises we
+shall have to come to terms with the other property owners. We should
+pay them royalties; that's all a matter of arrangement. We might lease
+their land--mineral rights, you know--from them for a term of years. All
+that can be settled later. What we want is a definite standing as
+owners; to begin with--owners! We might have leased Scholes's forty
+acres for twenty-one, forty-two, or sixty-three years, but it's far best
+to buy. Then it's ours. Go and see Scholes at once--to-morrow."
+
+Jeckie picked up the cheque, and seemed to be looking at it, but
+Mortimer saw that she did not see it at all; her thoughts were
+elsewhere.
+
+"And if I buy this bit o' land?" she said, after a pause. "What then?"
+
+"Then, my dear madam, we'll get the necessary capital together, and
+proceed to make our mine!" replied Mortimer, with a laugh. "But there'll
+be things to be done first. First of all, so as to make assurance doubly
+sure, we should do a bit of prospecting--dig a drift into the seam (if
+I find an out-crop, as I may) to prove its value, or sink a trial pit,
+or do some boring. It'll probably be boring; and when that takes place
+you'll soon know what to expect in the way of results."
+
+"I should want to know a lot about that before I put money into it,"
+affirmed Jeckie. "I'm not the sort to throw money away."
+
+"Neither am I!" laughed Mortimer. He rose in his characteristically
+abrupt fashion. "Well!" he said. "You'll see Scholes?--at once! Get hold
+of his forty acres, and then--then we can move. And in five years--ah!"
+
+"What?" demanded Jeckie as she followed him to the door.
+
+"You'll be mistress of a grand country house and a town mansion in
+Mayfair!" answered Mortimer, showing his teeth. "Wealth! Look beneath
+your very boots! it's just waiting there to be torn out of the earth."
+
+Jeckie put Mortimer's cheque away in her safe, and went to bed, her
+avaricious spirit more excited than ever. Like all the folk in that
+neighbourhood, she knew how the coal-fields of that part of Yorkshire
+had been developed and extended of late; she had heard too, of the
+riches which men of humble origin had amassed by their fortunate
+possession of a bit of land under which lay rich seams of coal. There
+was Mr. Revis, of Heronshawe Main, three miles the other side of
+Sicaster, who, originally a market gardener, was now, they said, a
+millionaire, all because he had happened to find out that coal lay
+under an unpromising, black-surfaced piece of damp land by the river
+side, which his father had left him, and had then seemed almost
+valueless. There was Mr. Graveson, of the Duke of York's Colliery, on
+the other side of the town--he, they said, had been a small tradesman to
+begin with, but had a sharp enough nose to smell coal at a particular
+place, and wit enough to buy the land which covered it--he, too, rolled
+in money. And, after all, the stranger from London had shown his belief
+by putting five hundred pounds in her hands--it would cost her nothing
+if she made the venture. And if there was coal beneath Ben Scholes's
+forty acres, why not try for the fortune which its successful getting
+would represent?
+
+After her one o'clock dinner next day, Jeckie, who by that time had a
+capable manager and three assistants in her shop, assumed her best
+attire and went out. She turned her face towards the Savilestowe Leys, a
+desolate stretch of land at the lower end of the village, and from the
+hedgerow which bordered it, looked long and speculatively across its
+flat, unpromising surface. She was wondering how men like Mortimer knew
+that coal lay underneath such land--all that she saw was coarse grass,
+marsh marigolds, clumps of sedge and bramble, and a couple of
+starved-looking cows, Scholes's property, trying to find a mouthful of
+food among the prevalent poverty of the vegetation. That land, for
+agistment purposes, was not worth sixpence an acre, said Jeckie to
+herself; it seemed little short of amazing to think that wealth,
+possibly enormous in quantity, should be beneath it. But she remembered
+Mortimer's enthusiasm and his testimonials, and his cheque, and she
+turned and walked through the village to Ben Scholes's farm.
+
+There was a circumstance of which Jeckie was aware that she had not
+mentioned to Mortimer when they discussed the question of buying Ben
+Scholes's bit of bad land. Ben Scholes, who was only a little better off
+than her own father had been in the old days at Applecroft, owed her
+money. Jeckie, as time went on, had begun to give credit; she found that
+it was almost necessary to do so. And that year she had let Ben Scholes
+and his wife get fairly deep into her books, knowing very well that when
+harvest time came round Ben would have money, and would pay up--he was
+an honest, if a poor man. What with groceries and horse-corn and
+hardware--for Jeckie had begun to deal in small goods of that sort,
+forks, rakes, hoes and the like, since years before--Scholes owed her
+nearly a hundred pounds. She remembered that, as she walked up the
+street, and she busied herself in thinking how she could turn this fact
+to advantage. Yet, she was not going to put the screw on her debtor; in
+her time she had learnt how to be diplomatic and tactful, how to gain
+her ends by other means than force. And it was not the face of the stern
+creditor which she showed when she knocked at the open door of Scholes's
+little farmstead.
+
+It was then three o'clock, and Scholes and his wife were following the
+usual Savilestowe custom of having an early cup of tea. They looked up
+from the table at which they sat by the fire, and the wife rose in
+surprise and with alacrity.
+
+"Eh, why, if it isn't Miss Farnish!" she exclaimed. "Come your ways in,
+Miss Farnish, and sit you down. Happen, now you'll be tempted to take a
+cup o' tea? it's fresh made, within this last five minutes, and good and
+strong--your own tea, you know, and I couldn't say no more. Now do!"
+
+"Why, thank you," responded Jeckie. "I don't mind if I do, as you're so
+kind. I just walked up to have a word or two with Ben there."
+
+Scholes, a middle-aged, careworn-looking man, who, in spite of
+everything, had a somewhat humorous twist of countenance, grinned almost
+sheepishly as Jeckie took an elbow chair which his wife pulled forward
+for her.
+
+"I hope you haven't come after no brass, Miss Farnish," he said, with an
+air intended to be ingratiatingly seductive. "I've nowt o' that sort to
+spare till t'harvest's in, but there'll be a bit then to throw about. We
+mun have a settlin' up at that time. Ye know me--I'm all right."
+
+Jeckie took the cup of tea which Mrs. Scholes handed to her, and stirred
+it thoughtfully.
+
+"I didn't come after any brass, Ben," she answered. "It's all right,
+that--as you say, I know you. I wasn't going to mention it till harvest
+comes."
+
+"Why, now, then, that's all right!" said Scholes, facetiously. "Them's
+comfortable words, them is. Aye, brass is scarce i' this region, but we
+carry on, you know, we carry on, somehow. We haven't all gotten t'secret
+o' makin' fortunes, like you have, ye know. Us little 'uns has to be
+content wi' what they call t'day o' small things."
+
+"Aye, an' varry small an' all!" sighed Mrs. Scholes. "I'm sure! It's all
+'at a body can do, nowadays, to keep soul and body together."
+
+"Why, mi lass, why!" said Scholes. "We've managed it so far. All t'same,
+I could offen find it i' mi heart to wish 'at I'd one o' these here
+rellytives 'at ye sometimes read about i' t'papers--owd uncles 'at dies
+i' foreign parts, and leaves fortunes, unexpected, like, to their nevvys
+and nieces at home. But none o' my uncles niver had nowt to leave 'at I
+iver heerd on."
+
+"I came up to tell you how you could make a bit o' money if you want
+to," said Jeckie. The conversation had taken a convenient turn, and she
+was quick to seize the opportunity. "A nice bit!" she added. "Something
+substantial."
+
+Scholes pushed his cup and saucer away from him and looked sharply at
+his visitor.
+
+"Ecod!" he exclaimed. "I should be glad to hear o' that! But--wheer can
+I make owt, outside o' this farm o' mine? It niver does no more nor keep
+us. It does that, to be sure, seein' 'at there's nobody but me and
+t'missis there, but that's all."
+
+"Well, listen," said Jeckie. "There's that piece o' land o' yours, down
+at t'bottom end o' t'village. I want to buy it."
+
+Scholes' thin face flushed, and he rose slowly from his chair, and for a
+moment turned away toward the window. When he looked round again he
+shook his head.
+
+"Nay!" he said. "Nay!--I couldn't sell yon theer! Why, it's been i' our
+family over three hundred years! Poor enough it is, and weean't feed
+nowt--but as long as I have it, ye see, I'm a landowner, same as
+t'squire his-self! Why, as I dare say you've aweer, he wanted to buy
+that forty acres fro' me a piece back--but I wodn't. No! He were
+calculating to plant it, and to make it into a game preserve. It were no
+use. I couldn't find it i' mi heart to let it go. No!"
+
+"Don't be silly!" said Jeckie. "That's all sentiment. What good is it to
+you? Them two cows 'at you've got in it now can scarce pick up a
+mouthful!"
+
+"It's right, is that," agreed Scholes. "If them unfortunate animals had
+to depend on what they get out o' that theer they'd have empty bellies
+every night! But--(he dropped into his chair again and looked hard at
+his visitor)--since it's as poor as it is, what might you be wantin' it
+for? If it's no good to me it's no good to nobody."
+
+"I've got something that you haven't got," answered Jeckie, in her most
+matter-of-fact tones. "You could never do aught to improve that land,
+because you haven't got the money to do it with. I have! I'll be plain
+with you. I'll tell you what I want it for. You know how I've developed
+my business since I started it--developed it in all sorts of ways. Well,
+I'm going in for market-gardening and fruit-growing, and that piece o'
+land'll just suit me, because it's within half a mile o' the shop. Sell
+it to me, and I'll have it thoroughly drained. That's what it wants; and
+make real good land of it, you'll see. You can't do that; it 'ud cost
+you hundreds o' pounds. I don't mind spending hundreds o' pounds on it.
+And--I want it!"
+
+Scholes was evidently impressed by this line of argument. He looked
+round at his wife, who was gazing anxiously from him to Jeckie, and from
+Jeckie to him.
+
+"Ye're right i' one thing," he answered. "It would make all t'difference
+i' t'world to them forty acres if they were drained. My father allus
+said so, and I've allus said so. But we never had t'money to lay out on
+that job."
+
+"I have," said Jeckie. "Let me have it! It 'ud be a shame on your part
+to deprive anybody of the chance of making bad land into good when you
+can't do aught at it yourself! It's doing you no good; I can make it do
+me a lot o' good. And I'll lay you could do with the money."
+
+Mrs. Scholes sighed. And Scholes gave her a sharp look.
+
+"Aye, mi lass!" he said. "I know what ye'd say! Sell! But when all's
+said and done, a man is sentimental. Three hundred year, over and above,
+yon theer property's been i' our family. I' time o' owd Queen
+Elizabeth--that's when we got it. Lawyer Palethorpe, theer i' Sicaster,
+he has all t'papers. He telled me one day 'at of all t'landowners round
+here there isn't one, not one, 'at has land 'at's been held i' one
+family as long as what our family's held that. It 'ud be like selling a
+piece o' miself!"
+
+"I'll tell you what I'll do," said Jeckie, utterly unmoved by Scholes's
+reasonings. "I'll give you a full receipt for your bill--close on a
+hundred pound it is--and a cheque for three hundred. That's giving you
+nearly four hundred pound. And you know as well as I do that if you put
+it up to auction you'd scarce get a bid. Don't be a fool, Ben Scholes!
+Three hundred pound, cash down, 'll be a rare help to you. And you'll
+have no bill to pay me when harvest comes."
+
+Late that evening Mortimer tapped at the private door, and Jeckie
+admitted him. He followed her into the parlour.
+
+"Well?" he said, without any word of greeting. "Anything come of it?"
+
+"It's all right," answered Jeckie. "I've got it. Four hundred. I'm going
+into Sicaster with him to-morrow to settle it at the lawyer's. So that's
+managed."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III
+
+_Coal_
+
+
+Mortimer threw down his cap, and dropped into the easy chair which he
+had come to look upon as his own special reservation. He rubbed his
+hands together in sign of high satisfaction.
+
+"Smart woman," he exclaimed admiringly. "Excellent! Excellent! Didn't I
+tell you that you'd be able to manage it? Good! Good!"
+
+"Yes," said Jeckie, almost indifferently. "I did it. I knew how to do
+it, you see, when I came to to think it over. And I did it there and
+then, and paid the price--there's naught to do but the legal business,
+and that's only a matter of form. The land's mine, now." She moved
+across the room to her safe, unlocked it, took out an envelope, drew
+Mortimer's cheque from it, and quietly laid it at his elbow. "I shan't
+want that, of course," she added.
+
+Mortimer looked up at her in surprise.
+
+"But--I was to find the money!" he said.
+
+"I've found it," answered Jeckie. "I've bought the land--it's mine, and
+whatever's underneath it is mine, too. So if there's nothing, there's
+nothing--and you'll lose nothing."
+
+"Oh, well," said Mortimer, "as long as we've got it, it doesn't much
+matter who's bought it--we'll make that right later."
+
+Jeckie gave him no reply. But in Mortimer's sorry acceptance of her
+announcement she made a sudden discovery as to his character.
+Enthusiastic he no doubt was, and eager and full of ideas as to
+business. But--he was easygoing, apt to let things slide; ready to take
+matters as settled when they were all unsettled. Jeckie herself, had she
+been Mortimer, and bearing in mind the conversation of the previous
+evening, would have insisted on a proper and definite understanding as
+to the ownership of the forty acres. She smiled grimly as she relocked
+the door of her safe, and she said to herself when it came to a contest
+of brains she was one too many for this smart London fellow. The land
+was hers, and the mineral beneath it--so she said nothing; there was
+nothing to say.
+
+"The thing is," said Mortimer, again rubbing his hands in high glee,
+"the thing is, now, to get to work. We must bore!"
+
+"How's that set about?" asked Jeckie, who was now anxious to learn all
+she could. "What's done, like?"
+
+"Oh, you just get some men and the necessary apparatus," replied
+Mortimer nonchalantly. "I'll see to all that. And I'll get a
+friend of mine down from London--I'll take a room for him at the
+'Coach-and-Four'--a friend who's one of the cleverest experts of the
+day; he and I, between us, will jolly soon tell you what lies under that
+land. Of course, I haven't the slightest doubt about it, but it's
+better to have the opinion of two experts than one. My friend's name is
+Farebrother--he's well-known. He shall come down and watch the boring
+operations with me. I'll get the men and the requisite machinery at
+once, and we'll go to work as soon as you've got the legal business
+through--we'd better keep it dark until then."
+
+"All that'll cost money, of course," observed Jeckie.
+
+"Oh, a few hundred'll go a long way in the preliminaries," answered
+Mortimer. "I'll wait until Farebrother comes along before I decide which
+method I'll follow--the percussive or the rotatory. But I won't bother
+you with technical details; what you'll be more interested in will be
+results."
+
+"This boring that you talk about, now?" said Jeckie. "It shows what
+there is underneath the surface?"
+
+"To be sure!" assented Mortimer. "It's like this--you select your spot,
+and you put in (this is the rotary method) a cutting-tool which is a
+sort of hollow cylinder, with saw-like teeth at its lower edge, or an
+edge of hard minerals--rough diamonds, sometimes--and it's driven in by
+steam-power at two or three hundred revolutions a minute. As it's
+hollow, a solid core is formed in the cylinder--you raise the cylinder
+from time to time and examine the core, which comes up several feet in
+length. And you know from the core what there is down there. See?"
+
+"I understand," said Jeckie. "I thought it must be something of that
+sort. Very well--I'll pay for all that. Get to work on it."
+
+Mortimer again glanced at her in surprise. But she saw that there was no
+suspicion in his eyes as to her object.
+
+"You seem inclined to launch out!" he said, laughing. "You were disposed
+the other way when I first mentioned this matter."
+
+"It's my land," reiterated Jeckie. "So, to start with, anyway, I'll pay
+the expenses. As you said just now, we can make things right later. Mind
+you, I'm going on what you've said! If you hadn't assured me, you, as a
+professional man, that there's coal under that land, I shouldn't ha'
+bought it, and if there isn't--well, I know what I shall say! But I'm
+willing to pay the cost o' finding out. Only--I shall want to be
+certain!"
+
+"If there isn't coal under your forty acres, may I never see coal
+again!" asserted Mortimer. "I tell you there's any amount there!"
+
+"Then it's all right--and when we know that it is there, for certain and
+sure, it'll be time to consider matters further," said Jeckie calmly.
+"Go on with your boring and I'll pay. As you said, I say again--we can
+make things right later."
+
+Mortimer was too elated at the prospect of opening out a new and
+possibly magnificent enterprise to ask Jeckie what her present ideas
+were as to how things should be made right in the event of coal being
+found in sufficient quantity to warrant the making of a mine. He went
+away and plunged into business, and in a few days brought his friend
+Farebrother down to Savilestowe--a quiet, reserved man of cautious
+words, who impressed Jeckie much more than Mortimer had done. But,
+cautious and reserved as he was, Farebrother, dragged hither and thither
+by Mortimer over the woods and meadows, uplands and lowlands, gave it as
+his deliberate opinion that there were vast quantities of coal under
+Savilestowe, and that Jeckie's forty acres of land probably covered a
+particularly rich bed.
+
+"Get to work, then!" said Jeckie laconically. "I'll pay for the
+machinery, and I'll pay what men you want. Bring their wages bill to me,
+every Friday, and the money'll be there."
+
+No one in Savilestowe, not even Steve Beckitt, nor any of the select
+company of the bar-parlour of the "Coach-and-Four," knew what was afoot,
+nor what the machinery which presently arrived in the village, and was
+housed in a hastily constructed wooden shed in the centre of Jeckie
+Farnish's forty acres, was intended for. But Ben Scholes, who had made
+no secret of his sale of the long-owned property, was able to enlighten
+his curious neighbours.
+
+"Jecholiah Farnish," he said, in solemn conclave at the blacksmith's
+shop, shared in by several of the village wiseacres, "bowt that theer
+land fr' me for a purpose. It's her aim, d'ye see, to turn them forty
+acres into a fruit-orchard and a market-garden. But it's necessary,
+first of all and before owt else, to drain that theer land. I should ha'
+done it mysen if I'd iver hed t'brass to do it wi'. I dedn't--shoo has.
+And this here machinery 'at's arrived on t'scene it'll be for t'purpose
+o' drainin'--shoo's a very wealthy woman now, is Jecholiah, and shoo's
+bahn to do t'job reight. Pumpin' and drainin' machinery--that's what
+it'll be."
+
+The general company, open-mouthed, took this as gospel--save one man, a
+jack-of-all-trades, who had travelled in his time. He shook his head and
+betrayed all the marks and signs of scepticism.
+
+"Well, I don't know, Mestur Scholes," he remarked. "But I see'd 'em
+takkin' some o' that machinery offen t'traction wagons 'at it cam' on,
+and I'll swear my solemn 'davy 'at it's none intended for no pumpin' and
+drainin'--nowt o' t'sort!"
+
+"What is it intended for, then?" demanded Scholes. "Happen ye know? Ye
+allus reckon to know better nor anybody else, ye do!"
+
+"Nah thee nivver mind!" retorted the sceptic. "Ye'll all on yer find out
+what it's for afore long. But ye mark my words--it's none for
+drainin'--not it!"
+
+Two or three weeks had gone by before the curiosity of the villagers
+received any appeasement. Whatever went on in the forty acres was
+conducted in secrecy in the big wooden shed which the carpenters had
+hastily run up. There, every day, Mr. Mallerbie Mortimer, his friend Mr.
+Farebrother, and a gang of workmen--foreigners, in the eyes of the
+Savilestowe folk--for whom Mortimer had taken lodgings in the village,
+conducted mysterious rites, unseen of any outsider. Once or twice the
+unduly inquisitive had endeavoured to enter the field, on one excuse or
+another, only to find a jealous watchman at hand who barred all
+approach. But the sceptic of the blacksmith's shop was a human ferret
+and one morning he leaned over the wall of Ben Scholes's yard and
+grinned derisively at the late owner of Savilestowe Leys.
+
+"Now, then, Mistur Scholes!" he said triumphantly. "What did I tell yer
+about yon machinery 'at's been setten up i' that land 'at ye selled to
+Jecholiah Farnish? Pumpin' and drainin'! I knew better! I seen a bit i'
+my time, Mistur Scholes, more nor most o' ye Savilestowers, and I knew
+that wor no pumpin' and drainin' machinery. I would ha' tell'd yer at
+t'time, when we wor talkin' at t'smithy, what it wor, but I worn't i'
+t'mind to do so. Ye don't know what they're up to i' yon fields 'at used
+to be yours!"
+
+"What are they up to, then?" demanded Scholes. "I'll lay ye'll know!"
+
+"I dew know!" answered the other, with arrogance. "An' ye'll know an'
+all, to yer sorrow, afore long. They're tryin' for coal! I hed it fro'
+one o' t'workmen last neet; I hed a pint or two, or it might be three,
+wi' him. An' he says 'at it's varry like 'at theer's hundreds o'
+thousands o' pounds' worth o' coal under that land. That's what Jeckie
+Farnish wanted it for. Coal!"
+
+Scholes, who was cleaning out the ginnel in front of his stable,
+straightened himself, staring intently at his informant. The informant
+nodded, laughed sneeringly, and went off. And Scholes, casting away his
+manure fork with a gesture that indicated rising anger and hot
+indignation, went off, too, in his shirt sleeves, but in the opposite
+direction. He made straight down the village to Jeckie Farnish's shop.
+
+It was then nearly noon, and the shop was full of customers. Jeckie, who
+had long since given up counter work, and now did nothing beyond general
+and vigilant superintendence, was standing near the cashier's desk,
+talking to the vicar's wife. Scholes's somber eyes and aggressive look
+told her what was afoot as soon as he crossed the threshold. She
+continued talking, staring back at him, as if he were no more than one
+of the posts which supported the ceiling. But Scholes was not to be
+denied, and he strode up with a pointed finger--a finger pointing
+straight at Jeckie's hard eyes.
+
+"Now then!" he burst out in loud, angry tones which made the vicar's
+wife start, draw back and stare at him. "Now then, Jecholiah, I've a
+crow to pull wi' ye! Ye telled me an' my missis 'at ye wanted yon land
+o' mind for to mak' a fruit orchard and a market-garden on, and I let ye
+hev it at a low price for that same reason. Ye're a liar! ye wanted it
+for nowt o' t'sort! Ye were after what you knew then wor liggin' beneath
+it--coal! Ye've done me! Ye're a cheat as well as a liar! Ye've done me
+out o' what 'ud ha' made me a well-to-do man. Damn such-like!"
+
+Jeckie turned, cool and collected, to the vicar's wife.
+
+"I'll see what I can do about it," she said quietly, continuing their
+conversation. "If I can put it in at a lower price, I will, though I'd
+already cut it as fine as I could. But, of course if it's for the
+mothers' meetings, I must do what I can." Then she turned again--this
+time to the angry man in front of her. "Go away, Scholes!" she said. "I
+can't have any disturbance here; go away at once!"
+
+"Disturbance!" shouted Scholes. "I'll larn ye to talk about disturbance!
+Ye're no better nor a thief! Look ye here, all ye folk, high and low!"
+he went on, waving an arm at the astonished customers. "Do ye know what
+this here woman did? She finds out 'at there's coal under my land, and,
+wi'out sayin' a word to me about it, she persuades me to sell her t'land
+for next to nowt! Is that fair doin's? Do ye think 'at I'd ha' selled if
+I'd known what I wor sellin'? But she knew; and she's done me and mine.
+Ye're a thief, Jecholiah Farnish--same as what ye allus hev been--ye're
+sort 'at 'ud skin a stone if theer wer owt to be made at it! Damn all
+such-like, I say, and say ageean--and I'll see what t'lawyers hev to say
+to t'job!"
+
+"You'll hear what my lawyer has to say to you," retorted Jeckie, who,
+the vicar's wife having hurriedly left the shop, was now not particular
+about letting her tongue loose. "You get out of my shop this instant,
+Scholes, or I'll have you taken out in a way you won't like. Here, you,
+boy, run across the street and tell the policeman to come here! What do
+you mean, you fool, by coming and talking to me i' that way? Didn't I
+give you t'brass for your land, cash down? And as to coal, I've no more
+notion whether there's coal under it than you have; there may be and
+there mayn't. But I'll tell you this--if there is, it's mine! And you
+get out o' my shop, sharp, or I'll hand you over to t'law here and now.
+I'll have none o' your sort tryin' to come it over me. Get out!"
+
+Scholes looked Jeckie squarely in the face--and suddenly turned and
+obeyed her bidding. But he went up the street muttering, like a man
+possessed, and the vicar's wife, who had stopped to speak to a group of
+children, shrank from him as he passed, and went home to tell her
+husband of what she had heard and seen, and to voice her convictions
+that the knowledge that he had been cheated had affected Scholes's
+brain.
+
+"Do you think she could really do such a thing?" she asked half
+incredulously. "If she did, it certainly looks--mean, at any rate."
+
+"If you want my personal opinion," answered the vicar dryly, "I should
+say that Jeckie Farnish is capable of any amount of sharp practice.
+Coal! Dear me! Now I wonder if that's really what she's after, and if
+there is coal? Because, of course, if there's coal under her land
+there'll be coal under my glebe, and in that case--really, one's almost
+afraid to think of such a possibility. Coal! I wonder when we shall get
+to know?"
+
+The whole village knew within another week; indeed, from the time of
+Scholes's indignant outburst at the shop, it was hopeless to conceal the
+operations at the waste land. Throngs of villagers were at the hedgerow
+sides from morning till night, eager for news; there, too, might be seen
+the squire and the vicar, and Stubley and Merritt, as inquisitive as
+the rest. The men engaged in boring forgathered of evenings at the
+"Coach-and-Four," and, despite Mortimer's warnings and admonitions,
+talked, more or less freely, over their beer. And one day at noon the
+rumour ran from one end to the other of the village street that coal had
+been found, and that there would be a rich and productive yield; before
+night the rumour had become a certainty--the squire himself had it from
+Mortimer and his fellow-expert that beneath Jeckie Farnish's forty acres
+there was what would probably turn out to be one of the best beds of
+coal in the country, and that it doubtless extended beneath the land of
+the other property owners.
+
+The one person who showed no excitement, who refused to allow herself to
+be bustled or flurried, was Jeckie herself. Within twenty-four hours she
+was visited by the squire, the vicar, and Stubley--each wanted to know
+what she was going to do, each had a proposal for coming in. The squire
+wanted to start a limited liability company for founding a colliery to
+work the district, with himself as the chairman; the vicar was anxious
+about royalties on the coal which no doubt lay beneath his glebe lands;
+Stubley came to warn Jeckie to make sure. Jeckie listened to each and
+said nothing; it was impossible to get a word out of her that gave any
+indication of what she had in her mind. The only persons with whom she
+held conversation at that time were Mortimer and his friend Farebrother;
+with them she was closeted in secret every evening; Farnish, told off to
+act as watch-dog, had strict orders that no other callers were to be
+admitted. The result of the conference was that within a fortnight
+Jeckie had acquired a vast mass of useful information, which she
+carefully memorised. And, as Mortimer remarked, at the end of one of
+these talks, there was now nothing to do but to arrange the financial
+matters for beginning work. Money--capital--that was all that was needed
+now. To that remark Jeckie made no answer--she already had her own ideas
+about the matter, and she was resolved to keep them carefully to
+herself.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV
+
+_Birds of a Feather_
+
+
+Close countenance though Jeckie Farnish kept to all the world, her
+thoughts had never been so many nor so varied as at this eventful stage
+of her career. She spent many a sleepless night considering
+possibilities, probabilities, eventualities. She thought over ways and
+means; she reckoned up her resources. She tried to look ahead as far as
+possible; to take everything into account. But, in all her reflections
+and plans and schemings, there was one dominant note--the desire to make
+money out of her lucky discovery--money, more money than she had ever
+dreamed of possessing. She was in no hurry. She made Mortimer and
+Farebrother continue their boring operations until she became as certain
+as they were themselves. They had made these boreholes, so as to test
+the whole of Jeckie's property, and had kept a careful journal of the
+boring, which was punctiliously entered up--Jeckie made a point of
+inspecting that journal, and of examining the cores which the boring
+cylinders brought up and were duly labelled and laid out under cover.
+But she was not satisfied with this, nor with merely taking the opinions
+of Mortimer and his friend. At her own instance and expense she called
+in two acknowledged mining experts and a professor of geology from one
+of the local universities; to these three she submitted the whole
+matter, only impressing upon them that she wanted an opinion that could
+be relied upon. All three agreed with Mortimer and Farebrother--coal was
+there, under the otherwise unpromising surface of the forty acres, in
+vast quantity. So, as Mortimer was constantly saying, there was nothing
+to do but to arrange the financial side of the affair, and to get to
+work on the construction of the necessary mine.
+
+Jeckie was not going to be hurried about that, either; she had her own
+ideas. In spite of Mortimer's exhortations and Farebrother's hints, she
+kept them to herself until she was ready to act. But upon one point she
+was determined, and had been determined from the very first. Neither
+squire, nor parson, nor Stubley, nor Merritt, nor any Savilestowe party
+was going to come in with her--no, nor was Mortimer, of whom, all
+unknown to him, she was making a convenience. She was going to keep this
+El Dorado to herself as far as ever she could--to be chief controller of
+its destinies, to be master. Nevertheless, knowing, after her various
+consultations with Mortimer and Farebrother, that she did not possess
+sufficient capital of her own to establish a colliery, she had decided
+to take in one partner who could contribute what she could not find. She
+had that partner in her mind's eye--Lucilla Grice.
+
+Lucilla, as Jeckie well knew, had long been top dog in the Grice menage.
+Albert, from the day of his marriage, had become more and more of a
+nonentity; as years went by he grew to be of no greater importance than
+one of his wife's umbrellas; a thing that had its uses now and then, but
+could at any moment be tossed into a corner and disregarded for the time
+being. Lucilla managed everything. Lucilla invested the money which he
+got for his partnership and received the dividends; Lucilla kept the
+purse; Albert had no more concern with cash than the cob in his stable;
+all he knew of money was that he was allowed three-and-six a day to
+spend as he liked. Jeckie Farnish knew all this, and more. She knew that
+Lucilla's marriage portion of two thousand pounds, and Albert's
+partnership money of five thousand, both secure and untouched in
+Lucilla's hands, had been added to of late by legacies from Lucilla's
+father, the Nottingham draper, and her maternal uncle, a London
+solicitor, which had materially increased Mrs. Albert Grice's fortune.
+The Nottingham draper had left his daughter ten thousand
+pounds--one-third of his estate; the maternal uncle, an old bachelor,
+regarding her as his favourite niece, had bequeathed to her all he died
+possessed of, some fourteen or fifteen thousand; Lucilla, therefore
+(Albert being ruled clean out of all calculations), was worth at the
+very least thirty thousand pounds. And there were psychological reasons
+why Jeckie fixed on Lucilla as the proper person to come in with her.
+From the very first she had recognised in Lucilla, a kindred spirit--a
+lover of money for money's sake. Jeckie had known it at their first
+interview; she had seen signs of it in their business dealings; she had
+been quick to observe that when Lucilla received her important influx
+of money from her father and uncle, whose deaths had occurred about the
+same time, she had not launched out into greater expenditure. She and
+Albert still occupied the same villa residence, just outside Sicaster;
+still kept the same modest establishment; still stuck to the one cob and
+the same dog-cart; still pursued the same uneventful course of life. And
+as she spent no more than she had ever spent, Lucilla, according to
+Jeckie Farnish's reckoning, must, since her receipt of the family
+legacies, have added considerably to her capital. But--and here was
+another and more important psychological reason--Jeckie knew, by
+instinct as much as by observation, that Lucilla, like herself, was one
+of those persons who, having much, are always feverishly anxious to have
+still more. There were few details of the life of that neighbourhood
+with which Jeckie was not thoroughly familiar, and she knew intimately
+the habits and customs of the Grice household. She was well aware, for
+instance, that Albert, who had now grown a beard and become a somewhat
+fat man, more easygoing than ever, went into Sicaster every morning to
+spend his three-and-six and pass the time of day with his gossips in the
+bar-parlours of the two principal hotels; he left his door punctually at
+ten o'clock for this daily performance and returned--even more
+punctually--at precisely one o'clock. It was, therefore, at half-past
+ten one morning that Jeckie, armed with an old-fashioned reticule full
+of papers, presented herself at the villa and asked to see its mistress;
+Lucilla, she knew, would then be alone.
+
+Lucilla had a certain feeling for Jeckie; a feeling closely akin to that
+which Jeckie had for Lucilla; it centered, of course, in money. Lucilla
+knew how Jeckie had made money, and how Jeckie could stick to money, and
+for money and anything and anybody that had to do with money Lucilla had
+instincts of respect which almost amounted to veneration. Accordingly,
+she not only welcomed her visitor with cordiality, but showed her
+pleasure at receiving her by immediately producing a decanter of port
+and a sponge cake, and insisting on Jeckie's partaking of both.
+
+"You'll have heard, no doubt, of what's been happening down our way?"
+said Jeckie, plunging straight into business as soon as she had accepted
+the proffered hospitality. "About finding coal under my land, I mean.
+It's generally known."
+
+"I have heard," assented Lucilla. "A sure thing, they say. Well!--if you
+aren't one of the lucky ones, Miss Farnish! Everything you touch turns
+to gold. Why--you'll make a fortune out of it! I suppose it's dead
+certain, eh?"
+
+Jeckie finished her port, shook her head as her hostess pointed to the
+decanter, and began to pull her papers out of the old silk reticule.
+
+"Aye, it's as dead certain as that I'm sitting here, Mrs. Grice," she
+said. "That is, unless all them that ought to know is hopelessly wrong.
+To tell you the truth, and between ourselves, I've come to see you about
+it, and I'll give you the entire history of the whole affair. You'll ha'
+seen that smart London chap that's been staying at the 'Coach-and-Four'
+for some time now--Mortimer, Mr. Mallerbie Mortimer? Aye, well, it was
+him put me on to it. He's a mining expert--a member of the Institute of
+Mining Engineers--and he came down to these parts prospecting. He told
+me, in confidence, that there was coal, no end of it, under Savilestowe,
+and particularly under forty acres o' poor land that belonged to Ben
+Scholes. Well, I said naught to nobody, but I bought that bit o' land
+fro' Ben--I gave him next to naught for it and had it properly conveyed
+to me. And then I told this here Mortimer to bore, and he got machinery
+and men, and another expert fro' London--a man called Farebrother. And
+they sunk these borings, at different spots' i' my land, and the result
+was splendid. But I worn't going to go on their word--right as it is. I
+got two independent experts, t'best I could hear of, and a professor o'
+geology fro' Clothford University, and had them to go thoroughly into
+the matter. And they all agreed with the other two--they tell me that
+under my forty acres there's coal of the very best quality, that it'll
+take many and many a year to exhaust, and that there's a regular big
+fortune in it. So--there's no possible doubt. But cast your eye over
+these papers yourself--you'll be quite able to understand 'em."
+
+Lucilla readily understood the typewritten sheets which Jeckie handed to
+her. They were all technical reports, signed by the five men whom Jeckie
+had mentioned--differing in phraseology and in detail, all were alike in
+asserting a conviction, based on the results of the borings, that coal
+lay under Savilestowe Leys in vast quantity and of the best quality.
+Lucilla handed them back with obvious envy.
+
+"Well, if ye aren't lucky!" she exclaimed. "It's as I said--all turns to
+gold that you handle. Then--what's going to happen next! You'll be for a
+company, I suppose?"
+
+"No!" said Jeckie grimly. "I'll ha' no more fingers in my pie than I can
+keep an eye on, I'll warrant you, Mrs. Grice! I've had no end o'
+suggestions o' that sort--the squire, and the parson, and Stubley, and
+Merritt, they'd all like to come in--the squire wanted to get up a big
+limited liability company, with him as chairman, and do great things.
+But I shan't have aught to do wi' that. I know what there is under my
+land, according to these papers, and as I say, it's a pie that I'm not
+going to have a lot o' fingers poked into. But, I'll tell you what--and
+it's why I come here--I don't mind taking in one partner, just one.
+You!--if you like the notion."
+
+Lucilla blushed as if she had been a coy maiden receiving a first
+proposal of marriage.
+
+"Me!" she exclaimed. "Lor', Miss Farnish!"
+
+"Listen to me!" said Jeckie, bending forward across the bearskin
+hearthrug. "You and me knows what's what about money matters--nobody
+better. I know--for I know most o' what goes on about here--that you're
+now a well-to-do woman, what with what you had and with them legacies
+you've had left. Now, so am I, to a certain extent. What I propose is,
+let's you and me--just ourselves and nobody else--go into partnership to
+work this coal-mine. Farnish and Grice, Savilestowe Main--that's how it
+would be. You and me--all to ourselves?"
+
+"Goodness gracious! It 'ud cost an awful lot of money, wouldn't it?"
+said Lucilla, in an awe-struck whisper. "To make a colliery! Why----"
+
+"Aye, and think what we should get out of it!" interrupted Jeckie.
+"It'll take many a long year, they say, to exhaust what there is just
+under my land. And it'll not be so expensive as in some cases, the
+making of a mine. I've gone into that, too, and had estimates. It's the
+character of the, what do they call 'em--strata; that's the various
+stuffs, soils, and stones, yer know, they have to get through. They say
+this'll be naught like so difficult as some, and that we could be
+working in less nor two years."
+
+Lucilla, perched on her sofa, was already regarding Jeckie with dilated
+and avaricious eyes. Her lips were slightly parted, but she said
+nothing, and Jeckie presently bent still nearer and whispered.
+
+"There's hundreds o' thousands o' pounds worth o' that coal!" she said.
+"And we've naught to do but to get it out!"
+
+Lucilla found her tongue.
+
+"How much should we have to put in?" she asked faintly.
+
+"Well, I've thought that out," answered Jeckie, readily enough.
+"Supposing we put in twenty-five thousand each, to make a starting
+capital o' fifty thousand? Then, as regards profits--as the land's mine,
+and the coal, too, you wouldn't expect to share equally. One-third of
+the profits to you, and the other two-thirds to me--that's what I think
+'ud be fair, and right, and reasonable. Even then, you'd have a rare
+return for your outlay. You know I could find a hundred people 'at 'ud
+just jump at such an offer. The squire 'ud fair leap at it! But I came
+to you because I know that you understand money, same as I do, and I'd
+rather have a woman for a partner nor a man. But look here. I'm a rare
+hand at figures, and I've worked this out. You come to this table, and
+go into these figures wi' me."
+
+Jeckie had only just left the villa residence, when Albert returned to
+the midday dinner. His wife said nothing of her visitor, and Albert was
+too full of his usual bar-parlour gossip to notice that Lucilla was
+remarkably preoccupied and absent-minded. He remained innocent and
+unconscious of what was going on, nor was he aware that Jeckie Farnish
+visited Lucilla during several successive mornings, and that on the last
+two, both women went into town, and were closeted for some time with,
+first, solicitors, and, second, bankers. Albert, indeed, never entered
+into the thoughts of either Lucilla or Jeckie; he was not even a
+circumstance to be taken into account. There was, however, a man in the
+neighbourhood who had Miss Jecholiah Farnish very much in his thoughts
+at this time. This was Farebrother, a more observant man than Mortimer,
+and Farebrother at last tackled his friend definitely as they sat dining
+one night in the parlour of the "Coach-and-Four."
+
+"Look here!" he said, suddenly. "It's about time you knew what this
+Farnish woman's going to do. If you want the plain truth, Mortimer, I
+don't trust her."
+
+"Oh, she's all right," exclaimed Mortimer. "A keen business woman, no
+doubt, but not the sort to----"
+
+"My lad!" interrupted Farebrother, "you're always too optimistic, and
+too ready to believe in people. The woman's just the sort to do anybody
+out of anything--she did both you and Scholes over the land. It's
+hers--and so is all that's beneath it, to the centre of the earth. You
+should have bought it yourself."
+
+"I?--a complete stranger!" protested Mortimer. "Impossible! There would
+have been suspicion with a vengeance!"
+
+"Then you should have made an arrangement with her before she got it,"
+said Farebrother. "She's got it now--and all that it implies. And my
+belief is that she's up to something. The last two or three times I've
+been in the town I've seen her coming out of solicitors' offices--she's
+at some game or another. She'll do you out of any share that you want to
+get in this very promising mine unless you're careful, and if you take
+my advice you'll put it straight and unmistakably to her, and ask her
+what she's going to do."
+
+Mortimer protested and explained, but when dinner was over he went round
+to Jeckie's private door, and after a slight interchange of casual
+remarks, asked her point-blank what she was going to do about starting
+a company to work the mine. Jeckie pointed to a large, legal-looking
+envelope which lay on the table.
+
+"It's done," she said calmly. "There'll be no company. Me and a friend
+of mine have gone into partnership to work it--there's the deed, duly
+signed to-day. We're going to start operations very soon."
+
+Mortimer felt his cheeks flush--more from the memory of what Farebrother
+had said than with his very natural indignation.
+
+"But what about me?" he exclaimed. "Why--I gave you the idea! I said
+from the first that I'd find money towards the company and knew others
+who would. It was my idea altogether--mine entirely. I only gave you the
+chance of coming in--I----"
+
+"Whose land is it?" demanded Jeckie, coolly. "Did I buy it? Is it mine?
+If you wanted it why didn't you buy it? I bought it; it's my land.
+And--all that's beneath it. Do you think I was going to do that for
+other folks? We do nowt for nobody hereabouts, unless there's something
+to be made at it, my lad! But, of course, I'll pay you and your friend
+for your professional services--you must send your bill in."
+
+Mortimer rose from his chair and looked at the woman in whom,
+half-an-hour previously, he had expressed his belief.
+
+"So you've done me, too?" he said, simply. "You know well enough what my
+intentions were about this mine--of which you'd never have known, never
+have dreamed, if I hadn't told you of it. Do you call that honest--to do
+what you are doing?"
+
+"Send in your bill--and tell Farebrother to send in his," said Jeckie,
+in her hardest voice. "You'll both get your cheques as soon as I see
+that you've charged right."
+
+Mortimer went away, worse than chagrined, and told Farebrother of his
+dismissal; Farebrother forbore to remind him of what he had prophesied.
+
+"All right!" he said. "I see what it is. She learnt all she can from
+us--now she's going to be what such a woman only can be--sole master!
+All right!"
+
+And being a practical man, he sat down to make out, what Jeckie styled,
+his bill.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER V
+
+_The Yorkshire Way_
+
+
+During the course of the next morning Jeckie received a large oblong
+envelope delivered to her by the stable-boy of the "Coach-and-Four." It
+was handed to her over the counter of the shop, and she opened it there
+and then, in the presence of her assistants and of several customers,
+all of whom were surprised to see the usually hard, unmoved face flush
+as its owner glared hastily at the two enclosures which she drew out.
+Within an instant Jeckie had hurried them into the envelope again, and
+had turned angrily on the stable-boy.
+
+"What're you waiting for?" she demanded sharply.
+
+"Mestur Mortimer, he said I wor to wait for an answer," replied the lad.
+"That's what he telled me."
+
+"Then you can tell him t'answer'll come on," retorted Jeckie. "I can't
+bother with it now. Off you go!"
+
+The stable-boy stared at the angry face and made a retreat; Jeckie
+retreated, too, into her private parlour, where she once more drew out
+the two sheets of excellent, unruled, professional-looking paper whereon
+the two mining engineers had set down their charges for services
+rendered.
+
+"Did ever anybody see the like o' that!" she muttered. "They might think
+a body was made o' money! All that brass for just standin' about while
+these other fellers did the work, and then tellin' me what their
+opinions were! It's worse nor lawyers!"
+
+She had no experience, nor knowledge, even by hearsay, of what
+professional charges of this sort should be, for the two experts and the
+professor of geology whom she had engaged, in order to get independent
+opinion, had not yet rendered any account to her. But she remembered
+that they would certainly come in, and that she would just as certainly
+have to pay them, whatever they might amount to, for she had definitely
+engaged the three men, from whom they would come, writing to request
+their attendance with her own hand.
+
+"And if them three charge as these two has," she growled, looking black
+at what Mortimer demanded on one sheet of paper, and Farebrother on the
+other, "it'll come to a nice lot!--a deal more nor ever I expected. And
+as if they'd ever done aught for it! I'm sure that there Mortimer never
+did naught but stand about them sheds, wi' his hands in his pockets,
+smokin' cigars without end--why it's as if he were chargin' me so many
+guineas for every cigar he smoked! And if these is what minin'
+engineers' professional charges is, it's going to cost me a pretty penny
+before even we've got that coal up and make aught out of it!"
+
+No answer, verbal or otherwise, went back from Miss Farnish to the
+London gentlemen at the "Coach-and-Four" that day. But, early next
+morning, Jeckie, who had spent much time in thinking hard since the
+previous noon, got into her pony-tray (an eminently useful if not
+remarkably stylish equipage) and drove away from the village. Anyone who
+had observed her closely might have seen that she was in a preoccupied
+and designing mood. She drove through Sicaster, and away into the mining
+district beyond, and after journeying for several miles, came to
+Heronshawe Main, an exceedingly flourishing and prosperous colliery
+which was the sole property of Mr. Matthew Revis, and was situated on
+and beneath a piece of land of unusually black and desolate aspect.
+Revis, a self-made man, bluff, downright, rough of speech, had had
+business dealings with Jeckie Farnish in the past in respect of some
+property in which each was interested, and of late she had consulted him
+once or twice as to the prospects of her new venture; she had also
+induced him to drive over to Savilestowe during the progress of the
+experimental boring. She wanted his advice now, and she went straight to
+his offices at the colliery. She had been there before, and on each
+occasion had come away building castles in the air as regards her
+projected development of Savilestowe. For to sit in Revis's handsome,
+almost luxurious private room, looking out on the evidences of industry
+and wealth, to see from its windows the hundreds of grimy-faced
+colliers, going away from their last shift, was an encouragement in
+itself to go on with her own schemes. Already she saw at Savilestowe
+what she actually looked on at Heronshawe Main, and herself and Lucilla
+Grice mistresses of an army of men whose arms would bear treasure out of
+the earth--for them.
+
+Revis came into his room as she sat staring out on all the unloveliness
+of the colliery, a big, bearded man, keen-eyed and resolute of mouth,
+and nodded smilingly at her. He already knew Jeckie for a woman who was
+of a certain resemblance to himself--a grubber after money. But he had
+long since made his fortune--an enormous one; she was at a stage at
+which he had once been, a stage of anxious adventure, and therefore she
+was interesting.
+
+"Well, my lass!" he said. "How's things getting on? Made a start yet
+with that little business o' yours? You'll never lift that coal up if
+you don't get busy with it, you know!"
+
+He dropped into an easy chair beside the hearth, pulled out his
+cigar-case, and began to smoke, and Jeckie, noting his careless and
+comfortable attitude, wished that she had got over the initial stages of
+her adventure, and had seen her colliery in full and prosperous working
+order for thirty years.
+
+"Mr. Revis," she answered, "I wish I'd got as far as you have! You've
+got all the worst of it over long since. I've got to begin. Now, you've
+been very good to me in giving me bits of advice. I came to see if you'd
+give me some more. What's the best and cheapest way to get this colliery
+o' mine started?"
+
+Revis laughed, evidently enjoying the directness of her question. He
+knew well enough that it did not spring from simplicity.
+
+"Why!" he answered. "You've got them two London chaps at Savilestowe
+yet, haven't you? I saw 'em in Sicaster t'other day. They're mining
+engineers, both of 'em. Why not go to them--I thought you were going to
+employ them."
+
+"I don't want to have naught more to do with 'em, Mr. Revis," said
+Jeckie earnestly. "They're Londoners! I can't abide 'em. They seem to me
+to do naught but stand about and watch--and then charge you for
+watching, as if they'd been working like niggers. I don't understand
+such ways. Aren't there mining engineers in Yorkshire that 'ud see the
+job through. Our own folk, you know?"
+
+"I see--I see!" said Revis, with a smile. "Want to keep work and money
+amongst our own people, what? All right, my lass!--I'm a good deal that
+way myself. Now, then, pull your chair up to my desk there, and get a
+pen in your hand, and make a few notes--I'll tell you what to do about
+all that. And," he added, with a laugh that was almost jovial, "I shan't
+charge you nowt, either!"
+
+An hour later Jeckie went away from Heronshawe Main filled to the brim
+with practical advice and valuable information. It mattered nothing to
+Matthew Revis if a hundred new collieries were opened within his own
+immediate district; he had made his money out of his own already, and to
+such an extent that no competition could touch him. Therefore, he was
+willing to help a new beginner, especially seeing that that beginner was
+a clever and interesting woman, still extremely handsome, who certainly
+seemed to have a genius for money-making.
+
+"Come to me when you want to know aught more," he said, as he shook
+hands with his visitor. "Get hold of this firm I've told you about, and
+make your own arrangements with 'em, and let 'em get on with the
+sinking. With your capital, and the results o' that boring, you ought to
+do well--so long as naught happens."
+
+Jeckie started, and gave Revis a sharp, inquiring look.
+
+"What--what could happen?" she asked.
+
+"Well, my lass, there's always the chance of two things," answered
+Revis, becoming more serious than he had been at any time during the
+interview. "Water for one; sand for the other. In these north-country
+coal-fields of ours, water-logged sand has always been a danger.
+But--you'll have to take your chance: I had to take mine! None of us 'ud
+ever do aught i' this world if we didn't face a bit o' risk, you know."
+
+But Jeckie lingered, looking at him with some doubt in her keen eyes.
+
+"Did you have any trouble yourself in that way?" she asked.
+
+"Aye!" answered Revis, with a grim smile. "We came to a bed of
+quicksand--a thinnish one, to be sure, but it was there. Two thousand
+gallons o' water a minute came out o' that, my lass!"
+
+"What did you have to do?" inquired Jeckie. "All that water!"
+
+"Had to tub it with heavy cast-iron plates," replied Revis. "But you'll
+not understand all these details. Leave things to this firm I've told
+you about; you can depend on them."
+
+All the way from Heronshawe Main to Sicaster, Jeckie Farnish revolved
+Revis's last words. Water!--sand! Supposing all her money--she gave no
+thought to Lucilla Grice's money--were swept away once for all by water,
+or swallowed up for ever in sand? That would indeed be a fine end to her
+ventures! But still, Revis had met with and surmounted these
+difficulties; no, she meant to go on. And she had saved a lot of money
+that morning by getting valuable advice and information from Revis for
+nothing--nothing at all--and she meant to get out of paying something
+else, too, before night came, and with that interesting design in her
+mind, she drove up to Palethorpe and Overthwaite's office, and went in,
+and laid before Palethorpe, whom she found alone, the charges sent in to
+her the day before by Mortimer and his friend Farebrother. Palethorpe,
+whose keenness had not grown less as he had grown older, elevated his
+eyebrows, and pursed his lips, when he glanced at the amounts to which
+Jeckie pointed.
+
+"Whew!" he said. "These are pretty stiff charges, Miss Farnish!"
+
+"Worse nor what yours are!" said Jeckie, showing a little sarcastic
+humour. "And they're bad enough sometimes."
+
+"Strictly according to etiquette, ma'am!" replied Palethorpe, with a
+sly smile. "Strictly regular. But there----"
+
+"Aye, there!" exclaimed Jeckie. "All that brass for just hearing them
+two talk a bit, and for seeing 'em stand about watching other fellers
+work! And I want to know how I can get out o' paying it?"
+
+Palethorpe put his fingers together and got into the attitude of
+consultation.
+
+"Just give me a brief history of your transactions with these
+gentlemen," he said. "Just the plain facts."
+
+He listened carefully while Jeckie detailed her knowledge and experience
+of Mr. Mallerbie Mortimer and his friend, and, when she had finished,
+asked her two or three questions arising out of what she had told him.
+
+"Now, you attend closely to what I say, Miss Farnish," he said, after
+considering matters for awhile. "First of all, would you like me to see
+these two, or would you rather see them yourself? You'll see them
+yourself? Very well; now, then, when you go, just do and say exactly
+what I'm going to tell you."
+
+There was no apter pupil in all Yorkshire than Jeckie Farnish when it
+came to learning lessons in the fine art of doing anybody out of
+anything, and by the time she walked out of Palethorpe and Overthwaite's
+office she had mastered all the suggestions offered to her. And it was
+with an air in which cleverly assumed surprise, expostulation, and
+injured innocence were curiously mingled that she walked into the
+parlour of the "Coach-and-Four" that evening, just as Mortimer and
+Farebrother finished dinner, and laid down on an unoccupied corner of
+the table the two folded sheets of foolscap which they had sent her the
+previous day.
+
+Farebrother gave Mortimer a secret kick, and spoke before his too
+easygoing friend could get in a word.
+
+"Good evening, Miss Farnish," he said, politely. "Won't you take a
+chair, and let me give you a glass of wine; it's very good. I hope you
+found these accounts correct?"
+
+"Thank you," replied Jeckie. "I'll take a chair, but I won't take no
+wine. Much obliged to you. And as to these accounts, all I can say 'at I
+never was so surprised in my life as when I received 'em! It's
+positively shameful to send such things to me, and I can't think how you
+could do it, reckoning to be gentlemen!"
+
+Farebrother gave Mortimer another kick and looked steadily at their
+visitor.
+
+"Oh!" he said, very quietly. "Now--why?"
+
+"Why?" exclaimed Jeckie. "What! amounts like them? You know as well as I
+do 'at I never employed either of you! You haven't a single letter, nor
+paper, nor nothing to show 'at I ever told you or engaged you to do
+aught for me; you know you haven't. It's all the fault o' Mr. Mortimer
+there if there's been any misunderstanding on your part, Mr.
+Farebrother, but I'd naught to do with it. I know quite well what part
+Mr. Mortimer's played!"
+
+Mortimer received a third kick before he could speak, and Farebrother,
+who was gradually becoming more and more icy in manner, asked another
+question.
+
+"Perhaps you'll give me an account of Mr. Mortimer's doing?" he
+suggested. "I shall like to hear what you have to say."
+
+Jeckie favoured both men with an injured and sullen stare.
+
+"Well!" she said. "Mr. Mortimer came to me, unasked, mind you, and said
+he was having a holiday down here, and who he was, and that he'd a
+suspicion there might be coal under this village. He talked a lot about
+it in my parlour, though I'm sure I never invited him to do so. I didn't
+know him from Adam when he came to my house! It's quite true 'at I
+bought land from Ben Scholes on the strength of what he said, but he'd
+naught to do with that. I paid for it with my own money. And then he
+goes and sends me in a bill like that there?--a bill three or four times
+as much as yours, though, from what I've seen of both of you, I reckon
+you're a more dependable man than what he is, and----"
+
+"Mr. Mortimer has been employed by you four times as long as I had,"
+interposed Farebrother. "Therefore----"
+
+"He was never employed by me at all!" exclaimed Jeckie, emphatically.
+"Where's his papers to show it? I always reckoned that he was just a
+Londoner down here for a holiday--that's what he told t'landlord and his
+wife when he came to this house--and that, being interested in coal, he
+was telling me what he knew or thought he knew. And I never gave him
+any reason to think that I was employin' his services, nor yours either,
+for that matter. It's naught but imposition to send me in bills like
+them!"
+
+"Here, I can't stand this any longer!" said Mortimer, suddenly rising
+from his chair. He turned on Jeckie and confronted her angrily. "You
+know as well as I do that you constantly consulted me, and that you told
+me to get Mr. Farebrother down from London----"
+
+"Have you aught to prove it?" interrupted Jeckie, with a knowing look in
+which she contrived to include both men. "You know you haven't! No! but
+I can prove, 'cause you're a great talker and over-ready with your
+tongue, mister, that you gave it out all over t'village 'at your friend
+Mr. Farebrother was coming down to have a holiday, too. And he came;
+and, of course, I'd no objection if you both gave me advice, and I
+should ha' been a fool if I hadn't taken it, but I never employed
+neither of you. Didn't I get my own advisers when the time came? I
+employed them, right enough, but not you. You know quite well, if you're
+business men, 'at you haven't a scrap of writing nor a shred of evidence
+to show that I ever gave you any commission to do aught for me. I just
+thought you were amusing and interesting yourselves, and giving me a bit
+of advice and information, friendly-like. But, of course, I'm willing to
+make you a payment, in reason, and if ten pound apiece 'ud be----"
+
+Jeckie got no further. Before Mortimer could speak Farebrother suddenly
+picked up the obnoxious accounts, tore them in two, flung the fragments
+into the fire, and, opening the parlour door, made Jeckie a ceremonious
+bow.
+
+"We'll make you a present of all we've done for you, my good lady," he
+said. "Now, go!"
+
+Jeckie went, grumbling. She had honestly meant to part with twenty
+pounds. It vexed her, temperamentally, to think of anybody doing
+something for nothing. She would have liked to pay these two ten pounds
+each. And she went home feeling deeply injured that they had scorned
+her.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VI
+
+_Obsession_
+
+
+Before noon the next day the two Londoners, for whom Jeckie Farnish had
+no further use, had shaken the Savilestowe dirt from off their feet, to
+the sorrow of Beckitt and his wife and the frequenters of the
+bar-parlour, and Jeckie told her partner, Lucilla Grice, of how cleverly
+she had done them. Lucilla applauded her cleverness; what was the use,
+she said, of paying money if you could get out of paying it?--especially
+as there was such a lot of spending to be done that she and Jeckie could
+not by any possible means avoid. The mere pointing out of that undoubted
+fact made Jeckie sigh deeply.
+
+"Aye!" she said, almost lugubriously. "That's true enough!--we're just
+starting out on what can't be other than the trying and unpleasant part
+of the business--laying money out in bucketfuls with no prospect of
+seeing aught back for some time! However, there's no doubt about seeing
+it back in cart-loads when it does start coming, and now that I've got
+this advice and information from Mr. Revis--free, gratis, mind
+you!--we'd best set to work. Revis, he says that these engineers and
+contractors that he's recommended'll do the whole job twenty per cent.
+cheaper than those London chaps would ha' done, so you see I've saved a
+lot already. And now there's naught for it but to work--and wait."
+
+"We shall have our hands full," remarked Lucilla sententiously.
+"But--let's start." Savilestowe--its mouth agape and eyes wide
+open--witnessed the start of the Farnish-Grice enterprise before many
+weeks had gone by. Until then--save for Jeckie's boring operations,
+which were, comparatively, hole-and-corner affairs--it had never been
+roused out of its bucolic life since the Norman Conquest. It had always
+been a typical farming village, a big and important one, to be sure, but
+still a purely rural and agricultural settlement. Within the wide
+boundaries of its parish--one of the largest in England--there were fine
+old country-houses in their parks and pleasure grounds; roomy and
+ancient farmsteads in their gardens and orchards; corn-lands,
+meadow-lands, woods, coppices, streams; industry other than that of
+spade and plough had never been known there. But now came a
+transformation, at which the older folk stood aghast. The quiet roads
+became busy and noisy with the passage of great traction engines drawing
+trains of wagons filled with all manner of material in steel and iron,
+wood, stone, and brick; vast and unfamiliar structures began to arise on
+the forty acres wherein Ben Scholes's half-starved cattle had once tried
+to add to their always limited rations; smoke and steam rose and passed
+away in noisome clouds over the cottages which had hitherto known
+nothing but the scent of homely herbs and flowers. And with all these
+strange things came strangers--crowds upon crowds of workmen, navvies,
+masons, mechanics, all wanting accommodation and food and drink. Hideous
+rows of wooden shanties, hastily run up on the edge of Savilestowe Leys,
+housed many of these; others, taken in by the labourer's wives, drove
+away the primitive quietude of cottage life; it was, as the vicar's wife
+said in her most plaintive manner, an invasion, captained by Jeckie
+Farnish and Lucilla Grice. The old order of things was gone, and
+Savilestowe lay at the mercy of a horde of ravagers who meant to tear
+from it the wealth which its smiling fields had so long kept safely
+hidden.
+
+And now the Savilestowe folk talked of nothing but the marvellous thing
+that was going on in their midst. The old subjects of fireside and
+inn-kitchen conversation--births, deaths, marriages, scandals, big
+gooseberries, and two-headed lambs--were forgotten. There was not a man,
+woman, or child in the village who was not certain that wealth was being
+created, and that its first outpourings were already in evidence. Money
+was being spent in Savilestowe as it had never been spent within the
+recollection of the oldest inhabitant, and there was the more glamour
+about this spending in that the discerning knew whence this profusion
+came.
+
+"There niver wor such times as these here 'at we're privileged to live
+in!" said one of the assembly which usually forgathered round the
+blacksmith's forge and anvil of an afternoon. "Money runs like water i'
+t'midst on us. I un'erstand at wheer t' 'Coach-and-Four' used to tak'
+six barril o'ale it now needs eighteen, and t'landlord o' t' 'Brown
+Cow,' up at t'top end o' t'village, says 'at he mun build a new tap-room
+for t'workmen to sit in, for his house is filled to t'brim wi' 'em ivery
+neet. An' they say 'at Farnish's shop hez more nor once been varry near
+selled clear out o' all 'at there wor in it, and 'at they've hed to send
+to Sicaster for new supplies. An' it's t'same wi' t'butcher--he's
+killin' six or eight times as many beasts and sheep as he used to, and
+t'last Frida' neet he hadn't as much as a mutton chop nor a bit o' liver
+left i' t'place. Now, there is some brass about, and no mistak'!"
+
+"Why, thou sees, it's what's called t'circulation o' money," observed
+the blacksmith, leisurely leaning on his hammer. "It goes here and it
+goes theer, like t'winds o' heaven. Now, ye were sayin' 'at Jecholiah
+Farnish's shop's varry near been cleaned out more nor once--varry weel,
+if ye'd nobbut think a bit, that means 'at Jeckie wor gettin' her own
+back wi' summat added to it--that's what's meant by t'circulation o'
+money. We all on us know 'at this here army o' fellers, all at their
+various jobs, is paid bi Jeckie and her partner, Mrs. Albert Grice, all
+on 'em. Twice a week they're paid--one half on 'em o' Mondays, and
+t'other half o' Fridays. Varry weel, they get their brass--now then,
+they hev to lig it out, and it goes i' various ways--and a good deal on
+it goes back to Jeckie for bread and bacon and cheese and groceries,
+d'ye see? She pays out wi' one hand and she tak's in wi' t'other;
+they've niver had such an amount o' trade at her shop as they hev now.
+Stan's to reason!--ye can't hev three or four hundred stout fellers
+come workin' in a place wi'out 'em liggin' brass out. They mun ate and
+drink--same as what t'rest on us does. And so t'money goes back'ard and
+forrards."
+
+"Aye, but theer's one i' t'place 'at'll tak' good care 'at some on it
+sticks in' her palm!" said an individual who leaned against the door and
+watched the proceedings out of a squinting eye. "Theer'll be a nice bit
+o' profit for Jeckie Farnish out o' all that extry grocery trade--tak' a
+bit o' notice o' that!"
+
+"Varry like--but when all's said and done," answered the first speaker,
+"theer's no denyin' t'fact 'at all this here brass 'at's bein' paid out
+and spent i' t'village hes what they call its origin wi' her and t'other
+woman. They hef to pay t'contractors, ye know. And a bonny-like sum it
+mun be an' all, wi' all that machinery, and t'stuff 'at they've browt
+here i' building material, and t'men's wages--gow, I couldn't ha' thowt
+'at her and Albert Grice's wife could ha' had so much brass!"
+
+"Now, how much will they reckon to mak' a year out o' t'job when it's
+fully established, like?" asked a man who had shown his keen interest by
+watching each preceding speaker with his mouth wide open and his eyes
+turning and staring from one to another. "Is there a deal to be made out
+o' this here coal trade? 'Cause mi mother, 'at lives close to Mestur
+Revis' colliery, yonder at Heronshawe Main, as they call it, she niver
+pays no more nor five shillin' a ton for her coal. I reckon ye'd hev to
+sell a lot o' tons o' coal at that figure before ye'd get enew o' brass
+to pay for all 'at's bein' laid out here--what?"
+
+"Thy mother lives close to t'scenes o' operations, fathead!" retorted
+the blacksmith. "She's on t'threshold, as it were--nowt to do but buy it
+as it comes out o' t'pit. But if thy mother lived i' London town, what
+dusta think she'd hev to pay for her coal then? I've read pieces i'
+t'papers about coal bein' as much as three and four pounds a ton i'
+London--what's ta think o' that?"
+
+"Why, now, that's summat like a price!" assented the questioner. "I
+shouldn't hev no objection misen to sellin' coal at four pound a ton.
+But they hev to get it to London town first, hevn't they, afore they can
+sell?"
+
+Before the blacksmith could give enlightenment on this economic point,
+the jack-of-all-trades, who, on a previous similar occasion, had warned
+Ben Scholes of what Jeckie was after in buying his land, put in one of
+his caustic remarks.
+
+"Aye, and afore Jeckie Farnish gets her coal to London town--which there
+isn't no such place, 'cause London's a city--she'll hev to get it
+somewheer else!" he said. "Don't ye forget that!"
+
+"I thowt ye'd ha' summat to say," sneered the blacksmith. "Wheer hes she
+to get it, like?--ye'll knaw, of course."
+
+"I dew knaw," affirmed the wiseacre. "She'll hev to get it to t'surface!
+It's i' t'bowels o' t'earth yet, is that coal--it's none on t'top."
+
+"What's to prevent it bein' browt to t'top, clever 'un?" demanded the
+blacksmith. "Aren't they at work sinkin' t'shafts as fast as they can?"
+
+"Aye--and I've knawn wheer they sunk t'shafts deeper nor wheer ye heerd
+on!" said the clever one. "And then they niver got no coal! Not 'cause
+t'coal worn't there--it wor theer, reight enough wor t'coal. But it
+niver rase to t'top!"
+
+"And for why, pray?" asked an eager listener. "What wor theer to prevent
+it?"
+
+But the hinter at evil things, having shot his shafts, was turning on
+his heel, bound for the tap-room at the "Brown Cow."
+
+"Niver ye mind!" he said darkly. "Theer's been no coal led away fro'
+Jeckie Farnish's pit mouth yit! An' happen ther niver will be!"
+
+If he really had some doubts on the matter the Jack-of-all-trades formed
+a minority of one on the question of Jeckie Farnish's success. Everybody
+in the village believed that within a comparatively short time the pit
+would be in full working order, and coal would be coming up the winding
+shaft in huge quantities. And there were not wanting those in
+Savilestowe who were eager to get some share in the fortune which Jeckie
+and Lucilla had so far managed to monopolise. The squire, and the vicar,
+and Stubley, and Merritt as principals, and some of the lesser lights of
+the community as accessories, began putting their heads together in
+secret and discussing plans and schemes of money-making, all arising out
+of the fact that work was going ahead rapidly at the Farnish-Grice pit.
+Now, it was almost impossible for anything to be discussed, or for
+anything to happen in Savilestowe without the news of it reaching
+Jeckie--and one day she went to Lucilla with a face full of information
+and resolve.
+
+"It's always the case!" she began, with a dark hinting look. "Whenever a
+big affair like ours is started, there's sure to be them that wants to
+get a bit of picking out of it by some means or other, fair or foul.
+I'll not say 'at this isn't fair, but it doesn't suit me!"
+
+"What is it?" asked Lucilla anxiously. "Nothing wrong?"
+
+"Not with our concern," replied Jeckie. "That's going all right, as you
+know very well--we shall be getting coal in another twelve month. No,
+it's this--it's come to my ears that the squire and Stubley and some
+more of 'em, knowing very well that there'll have to be a bit of housing
+accommodation provided, are forming themselves into a society or a
+company, or something, with the idea of building what they call a model
+village that'll be well outside Savilestowe but within easy reach. Now,
+you and me's not going to have that!"
+
+"But--the miners'll have to live somewhere!" said Lucilla.
+
+Jeckie gave her partner a queer look.
+
+"Do you think I don't know that?" she said. "Why, of course! And I've
+made provision for it, though I thought we'd time enough. But
+now--before ever this lot can get to work--we'll start. We'll have our
+men in our own hands--on our own property."
+
+"But how?" inquired Lucilla.
+
+"I never told anybody until now," answered Jeckie, "but I have some land
+in Savilestowe that I bought years before I got that land of Ben
+Scholes's. There's about thirty acres of it--I bought it from James
+Tukeby's widow for next to naught, on the condition that she was to have
+the rent of it till she died. It was all properly conveyed to me, and,
+of course, I can do what I like with it. Now then, we'll build three or
+four rows of cottages on that--of course, as the land's mine, it's
+value'll have to be reckoned in our partnership account--and we'll let
+'em to our own miners, d'you see? I'll have none of our men livin' in
+model villages under the squire and the parson--it's all finicking
+nonsense. We'll have our chaps close to their work! Good, substantial,
+brick cottages--bricks are cheap enough about here--with a good water
+supply; that's all that's wanted. Model villages!--they'll be wantin' to
+house workin' fellers i' palaces next!"
+
+"It'll cost a lot of money," observed Lucilla. She had never considered
+the housing of the small army of miners which would troop into
+Savilestowe at the opening of the new pit. "And you know what we're
+already laying out!"
+
+"We shall get it all back in rents," said Jeckie. She pulled some papers
+out of the old reticule. "See," she continued, "I've worked it out--cost
+and everything; I got an estimate from Arkstone, the builder, at
+Sicaster, yesterday. There's no need to employ an architect for places
+like they'll be--just five roomed cottages. Come here, and I'll show you
+what it'll cost, and what it'll bring in."
+
+Lucilla was always an easy prey to Jeckie, and being already deeply
+involved, was only too ready to assent to all the plans and projects
+which her senior partner proposed. Moreover, Albert, when the two women
+condescended to call him into counsel, invariably agreed with his
+one-time sweetheart; he had the conviction that whatever Jeckie took in
+hand must certainly succeed. He himself was so full of the whole scheme
+that he had long since given up his daily visit to Sicaster. Ever since
+the beginning of active sinking work at the pit, he had driven Lucilla
+over to Savilestowe every morning after breakfast, and there they had
+remained most of the day, watching operations; in time Albert came to
+believe that he himself was really a sort of _ex-officio_ manager of the
+whole thing, and in this belief Jeckie humoured him. And so it was easy
+to gain Lucilla's consent to the cottage-building scheme (which
+eventually developed into one that included the construction of houses
+of the villa type for the more important officials), and once more the
+two partners paid visits to solicitors and bankers.
+
+The money was rushing away like water out of a broken reservoir. As in
+most similar cases, the expenditure, when it came to it, was greater
+than the spenders had reckoned for. More than once Lucilla drew back
+appalled at the sums which had to be laid out; more than once the
+bankers upon whom the partners were always drawing heavy cheques, took
+Jeckie aside and talked seriously to her about the prospects of the
+venture; Jeckie invariably replied by exhibiting the opinions of the
+experts and the professor of geology, and by declaring that if she had
+to mortgage her whole future, she was going on. She would point out,
+too, that the work had gone on successfully and smoothly; there had been
+nothing to alarm; nothing to stay the steady progress.
+
+"I'll see it through to success!" she declared. "Cost what it may, I'm
+going to put all I have into it. I've never failed yet--and I won't!"
+
+The work in her forty acres and in the land where the rows of ugly
+cottages were being built came to fascinate her. She began to neglect
+her shop, leaving all its vastly increased business to a manager and
+several sorely-taxed assistants, and to spend all her time with the
+engineers and contractors, until she came to know almost as much about
+their labours as they themselves knew. She would wander from one of the
+two shafts to the other a dozen times in a day; she kept an eye on the
+builders of the cottages and on the men who were making the road that
+would lead from the pit to the main street of the village; she had a
+good deal to say about the construction of the short stretch of railway
+which would connect it with the line that ran behind the woods, whereon
+she hoped to send her coal all over the country. In her imagination she
+saw it going north and south, east and west, truck upon truck of it--to
+return in good gold.
+
+But meanwhile the money went. More than once she and Lucilla had to
+increase their original capital. A time came when still more money was
+needed, and when Lucilla could do no more. But Jeckie's resources were
+by no means exhausted, and one day, after a sleepless night during which
+she thought as she had never thought in her life, she went into
+Sicaster, determined on doing what she had once vowed she never would
+do. The shop must go.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII
+
+_The Last Throw_
+
+
+It was a conversation with Farnish that sent Jeckie, grim and resolute,
+into Sicaster, determined on selling the business which she had built up
+and developed so successfully. Until the day of that conversation the
+idea of giving up the shop had never entered her mind; she had more than
+once foreseen that she might have to raise ready money on the strength
+of her prosperous establishment, but she had not contemplated
+relinquishing it altogether, for she knew--no one better--that as the
+population of Savilestowe increased because of the new industry which
+she was founding in its midst, so would the trade of the Golden Teapot
+wax beyond her wildest dreams. But certain information given her by her
+father brought matters to a crisis, and when Jeckie came to such
+passages in life she was as quick in action as she was rapid in thought.
+
+Farnish, since the beginning of his daughter's great adventure, had
+grown greatly in self-importance. Like Albert Grice, he believed himself
+to be a sharer, even a guiding spirit, in the wonderful enterprise. Long
+since promoted from his first position as a sort of glorified errand-boy
+to that of superintendent of transit and collector of small accounts,
+he now wore his second-best clothes every day, and was seen much about
+the village and at Sicaster. Jeckie had found out that he was to be
+trusted if given a reasonable amount of liberty; consequently, she had
+left him pretty much to his own devices. Of late he had taken to
+frequenting the bar-parlour of the "Coach-and-Four" every evening after
+his early supper, and as he never returned home in anything more than a
+state of quite respectable up-liftedness, Jeckie said nothing. He was
+getting on in years, she remembered, and some licence must be permitted
+him; besides, she had for a long time given him an increased amount of
+pocket-money, and it now mattered nothing to her how or where he laid it
+out so long as he behaved himself, and did his light work faithfully.
+They had come to be better friends, and she had allowed him, in some
+degree, to make evident his parental position, and had condescended now
+and then to ask his advice in small matters. And in the village, and in
+Sicaster, he was no longer Farnish, the broken farmer, but Mr. Farnish,
+father of one of the wealthiest women in the neighbourhood.
+
+The problem of Jeckie's wealth--and how much money she really had was
+only known to her bankers and guessed at by her solicitors--had long
+excited interest in Savilestowe and its immediate surroundings. It was
+well known that she had extended her original business in such
+surprising fashion that her vans and carts now carried a radius of many
+miles; she had been so enterprising that she had considerably damaged
+the business of more than one grocer in Sicaster and Cornchester; the
+volume of her trade was at least six times as great as that which George
+Grice had ever known in his best days. Yet the discerning knew very well
+that Miss Farnish had not made, could not have made, all the money she
+was reputed to possess out of her shop, big and first-class as it was.
+And if Jeckie, who never told anybody everything, could have been
+induced to speak, she would have agreed with the folk who voiced this
+opinion. The truth was that as she had made money she had begun to
+speculate, and after some little practice in the game had become
+remarkably proficient at it; she had found her good luck following her
+in this risky business as splendidly as it had followed her in selling
+bacon and butter. But, it was only a very few people--bankers,
+stockbrokers, solicitors--who knew of this side of her energetic career.
+What the Savilestowe folk did know was that Jecholiah Farnish had made
+no end of brass; some of them were not quite sure how; some suspected
+how. Jeckie said and did nothing to throw any light on the subject. It
+pleased and suited her that people knew she was wealthy, and her own
+firm belief--for she was blind enough on certain points--was that she
+was believed to be a great deal richer than--as she herself knew, in
+secret--she really was.
+
+It fell to Farnish to disabuse her on this point.
+
+Farnish, returning home one night from the customary symposium at the
+"Coach-and-Four," found Jeckie peacefully mending linen by the parlour
+fire. It had come to be an established ceremony, since more friendly
+relations were set up between them, that father and daughter took a
+night-cap together before retiring, and exchanged a little pleasant
+conversation during its consumption; on this occasion Farnish, after the
+gin-and-water had relapsed into a moody quietude. He was usually only
+too ready to talk, and Jeckie glanced at him in surprise as he sat
+staring at the fire, leaving his glass untouched.
+
+"You're very quiet to-night," she said. "Has aught happened?"
+
+Farnish started, stared at her, and leaned forward.
+
+"Aye, mi lass!" he replied. "Summat has happened! I've been hearin'
+summat; summat 'at's upset me; summat 'at I niver expected to hear." He
+leaned still nearer, and dropped his voice to a whisper. "Jecholiah, mi
+lass!" he went on, in almost awe-struck tones. "Folks is--talkin'!"
+
+"Folks! what folks?" exclaimed Jeckie in genuine amazement. "An'
+talkin'? What about?"
+
+"It's about you, mi lass," answered Farnish. "I heerd it to-night, i'
+private fro' a friend o' mine as doesn't want his name mentionin', but's
+a dependable man. He tell'd me on t'quiet, i' a corner at t'
+'Coach-and-Four'; he thowt you owt to know, this man did. He say 'at
+it's bein' talked on, not only i' Savilestowe here, but all round
+t'neighbourhood. Dear--dear!--it's strange how long a tale tak's to get
+to t'ears o' t'person 'at's chiefly concerned!"
+
+"Now then--out with it!" commanded Jeckie. "What's it all about?"
+
+Farnish glanced at her a look which was half fearful, half-inquiring.
+"They're sayin' 'at you and Lucilla Grice hes come to t'end o' your
+brass, or close on it," he whispered. "Some on 'em 'at reckons to know
+summat about it's been reckonin' up what you mun ha' laid out, and
+comparin' it wi' what they knew she hed, and what they think you hed,
+and they say you mun be about at t'last end. An' they say, 'at it'll be
+months yet afore t'pit'll be ready for working, and 'at ye'll niver be
+able to keep up t'expense, and 'at ye'll eyther hev to sell to somebody
+'at can afford to go on wi' it, or gi' t'job up altogether, and lose all
+t'brass--an' it mun be a terrible amount bi' now--'at you've wared on
+it. That's what's bein' whispered about, mi lass!"
+
+"Aught else?" demanded Jeckie.
+
+"Well, theer is summat," admitted Farnish. "They say 'at ye never paid
+them two London gentlemen 'at did such a lot at t'beginning o' things;
+'at they went away thro' t'place wi'out their brass, an'----"
+
+"That'll do!" interrupted Jeckie. "Is that all?"
+
+"All, mi lass," assented Farnish. "Except 'at it's a common notion 'at
+ye'll niver be able to carry t'job through! Now, what is t'truth, mi
+lass? I'm reight fair upset, as you can see."
+
+"Sup your drink and go to bed and sleep sound!" said Jeckie
+contemptuously. "An' tell any damned fool 'at talks such stuff again to
+you 'at he'd better wait and watch things a bit. Money! I'll let 'em see
+whether I haven't money! More nor anybody knows on!"
+
+Farnish went to bed satisfied and confident; but when he had gone Jeckie
+sat by the fire, motionless, staring at the embers until they died out
+to a white ash. She was thinking, and reckoning, and scheming, and when
+at last, she too retired, it was to lie awake more than half the night
+revolving her plans. She was up again by six o'clock next morning, and
+at seven was with the manager of the works--a clever, capable,
+thoroughly-experienced man who had been recommended to her by Revis, of
+Heronshawe Main, and in whom, accordingly, she had every confidence. He
+stared in astonishment as Jeckie, who had wrapped head and shoulders in
+an old Paisley shawl, came stalking into his temporary office. "I want a
+word with you," said Jeckie, going straight to the point after her usual
+fashion. She shut the door and motioned him to sit down at his desk. "I
+want plain answers to a couple of questions. First--how long will it be
+before we get this pit into working order?"
+
+The manager reflected a moment.
+
+"Barring accidents, ten months," he answered.
+
+"Second," continued Jeckie, "how much money shall we want to see us
+through? Take your time; reckon it out. Carefully, now; leave a good
+margin."
+
+The manager nodded, took paper and pencil, and began to figure; Jeckie
+stood statue-like at his side, watching in silence as he worked. Ten
+minutes passed, then he drew a thick line beneath his last sum total of
+figures, and pointed to it.
+
+"That," he said. "Ample!"
+
+Jeckie picked up the sheet of paper, folded it, slipped it under her
+shawl, and turned to the door.
+
+"That's all right," she said. "I only wanted to know. Get on!"
+
+This it was that sent her, dressed in her best, a fine figure of a
+woman, just on the right side of middle age, into Sicaster that morning.
+But before she reached the town she called in at Albert Grice's villa.
+It was still early, and Albert and Lucilla were seated at their
+breakfast table. Jeckie walked in on them, closed the door, after making
+certain that the parlour-maid was not lingering on the mat outside,
+declined to eat or drink, pulled a chair up to the table, and produced
+the sheet of paper on which the manager had made his reckoning.
+
+"Look here!" she said. "You know that this--what with that building
+scheme and one thing and another--is costing us a lot more nor ever we'd
+reckoned on; things always does. Now then, I've made Robinson work
+out--carefully--exactly how much more we shall have to lay out yet
+before that pit's in full working order. Here's the amount. Look at it!"
+
+Albert and Lucilla bent their heads over the sheet of paper. Albert made
+a sound which expressed nothing; Lucilla screamed.
+
+"Mercy on us!" she exclaimed. "I can't find any more money; it's
+impossible! Why----"
+
+"Never said you could," interrupted Jeckie. "I'll find it; all t'lot.
+But ... bear in mind, when I've found that, as I will, at once, my share
+in our united capital'll be just eight times as much as yours. So, of
+course, your share in the profits'll be according. D'you see!"
+
+Lucilla made no answer, but Albert immediately assumed the air of a wise
+and knowing business man.
+
+"Oh, of course, that's right enough, Lucilla!" he said. "That's
+according to strict principles. Share in profits in relation to amount
+of capital held by each partner. You'll be able to find this capital?"
+he continued, turning to Jeckie. "It 'ud never do for things to
+stop--now!"
+
+"I'll find it--at once," declared Jeckie. "Naught's going to stop. But
+your wife must sign this memorandum that the sharing's to be as I've
+just said, and we'll have the deed of partnership altered in accordance.
+After all, it'll make no difference to you. You'll get your profits on
+your capital just the same." She produced a typewritten document which
+she had prepared herself after her interview with the manager, and when
+Lucilla had signed it, went off in silence to the town. Her first visit
+was to the bank, where she asked for a certain box which reposed in the
+strong-room; she opened it in a waiting-room, took from it a bundle of
+securities, gave the box back to the clerk, and going out, repaired to a
+stock and share broker's. Within half an hour she was back at the bank,
+and there, in the usual grim silence in which she usually transacted
+similar business, paid in to the credit of Farnish & Grice a cheque
+which represented a very heavy amount of money.
+
+And now came the last desperate move. She had just sold every stock and
+share she possessed; she had only one thing left to sell, and that was
+the business in which she had been so successful. She walked twice round
+the old market place before she finally made up her mind. It was fifteen
+years since she had caused the golden teapot to be placed over the door
+of the house which she had rented from Stubley, and she had prospered
+beyond belief. There was no such business as hers in that neighbourhood.
+And there were folk who would be only too willing to buy it. She turned
+at last and walked determinedly into the shop of the leading grocer in
+Sicaster, a man of means, who was at that time Mayor of the old borough.
+If anybody was to step into her shoes he was the man.
+
+He was just within the shop, a big, old-fashioned place, when Jeckie
+walked in, and he stared at her in surprise. Jeckie showed neither
+surprise nor embarrassment; now that her mind was made up she was as
+cool and matter-of-fact as ever, and her voice and manner showed none of
+the agitation which she had felt ten minutes before.
+
+"I want a few minutes' talk with you, Mr. Bradingham," she said. "Can
+you spare them?"
+
+"Certainly, Miss Farnish!" answered the grocer, an elderly,
+prosperous-looking man, who only needed his mayoral chain over his smart
+morning coat to look as if he were just about to step on the bench.
+"Come this way."
+
+He led her into a private office at the rear of the shop and gave her a
+chair by his desk; Jeckie began operations before he had seated himself.
+
+"Mr. Bradingham!" she said. "You know what a fine business I have
+yonder at Savilestowe?"
+
+Bradingham laughed--there was a note of humour in the sound.
+
+"We all know that who are in the same trade, Miss Farnish," he answered.
+"I should think you've got all the best families, within six miles
+round, on your books! You're a wonderful woman, you know."
+
+"Mr. Bradingham," said Jeckie, "I want to sell my business as it stands.
+I want to devote all my time to yon colliery. I've made lots o' money
+out of the grocery trade, and lots more out o' what I made in that way,
+but that's naught to what I'm going to make out o' coal. So--I must
+sell. Will you buy?--as it stands--stock, goodwill, book debts (all
+sound, you may be sure, else there wouldn't be any!), vans, carts,
+everything? I'd rather sell to you than to anybody, 'cause you'll carry
+it on as I did. You can make a branch of this business of yours, or you
+can keep up the old name--whichever seems best to you."
+
+Bradingham looked silently at his visitor for what seemed to her a long
+time.
+
+"That's what you really want, then?" he said at last. "To concentrate on
+your new venture."
+
+"I don't believe in running two businesses," answered Jeckie. "I'm
+beginning to feel--I do feel!--that it's got to be one or t'other.
+And--it's going to be coal!"
+
+"You've sunk a lot in that pit, already?" he remarked.
+
+"Aye--and more than a lot!" responded Jeckie. "But it's naught to what
+I mean to pull out of it!"
+
+Bradingham continued to watch his visitor for a minute or two and she
+saw that he was thinking and calculating.
+
+"I've no objection to buying your business," he said at last. "Look
+here--I'll drive out to Savilestowe this afternoon, and you can show me
+everything, and the books, and so on, and then we'll talk. I'm due at
+the Mayor's parlour now. Three o'clock then."
+
+As Jeckie drove back to Savilestowe she remembered something. She
+remembered the day on which she had run down from Applecroft to get old
+George Grice's help, and how he had come up and found poverty and ruin.
+Now, another man was coming to see and value what she had created--he
+would find a splendid trade, a rich and flourishing business--all made
+by herself. But it must go. The pit was yawning for money--more
+money--still more money. And as in a vision, she saw sacks of gold, and
+wagon loads of silver, and bundles of scrip, and handfuls of banknotes
+all being hastened into the blackness of the shaft and disappearing
+there. It was as if Mammon, the ever-hungry, ever-demanding, sat at the
+foot, refusing to be appeased.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII
+
+_The Commination Service_
+
+
+At five o'clock that afternoon, by mutual agreement, Jeckie Farnish sold
+to John Bradingham the stock and goodwill of her grocery business, and a
+few days later she paid in another heavy cheque to the credit of Farnish
+and Grice, and, at the same date, secured the alteration in the deed of
+partnership which made matters straight between her and Lucilla. There
+was something of a grim desperation in Jeckie's face as she walked out
+of the solicitor's office whereat this transaction had been effected;
+she was feeling something that she had no desire to speak of. But
+Lucilla felt it, too, and said it.
+
+"Well!" she remarked in a low tone as the two partners walked away from
+the town. "I don't know how it is with you, but I've put my last penny
+into that pit! Me and Albert's got just enough to live comfortably on
+till we begin to get some returns, but I can't ever find any more
+capital!"
+
+"No need!" said Jeckie, almost fiercely. "Wait! as I'm doing."
+
+She herself knew well enough that she, too, had thrown in her last
+penny; there was nothing for it now but to see the additional capital
+flow out steadily, and to wait in patience until the first yields
+brought money. In the meantime, she was not going to waste money on
+herself and her father. Selling most of the furniture which she had
+gradually accumulated, and leaving the house behind the shop, which had
+become an eminently comfortable dwelling, she transferred Farnish and
+herself to a cottage near the pit, told him that there they were going
+to stop until riches came, and settled down to watch the doings of the
+little army of workers into whose pockets her money was going at express
+speed. Wait--yes, there was nothing else to do.
+
+There was not a man amongst all that crowd of toilers, from the
+experienced managers to the chance-employed navvy, who did not know
+Jeckie Farnish at that stage of her career. She was at the scene of
+operations as soon as work began of a morning; she was there until the
+twilight came to end the day. Here, there, everywhere she was to be met
+with. Now she was with the masons who were building the cottages on her
+bit of land outside the Leys; now with the men who were constructing a
+solid road from the pit-mouth to the highway; now with the navvies who
+were making the link of railway that would connect Savilestowe Main
+Colliery with the great trunk line a mile off behind the woods; now,
+careless of danger and discomfort, she was down one or other of the twin
+shafts, feverishly eager to see how much farther their sinkers were
+approaching to the all-important regions beneath. Sometimes she had
+Lucilla in her wake; sometimes Albert; sometimes Farnish. But none of
+these three possessed her pertinacity and endurance; a general daily
+look round satisfied each. Jeckie, when she was not in her bed or
+snatching a hasty meal, was always on the spot. Her money was at stake,
+and it behoved her to see that she was getting full value for every
+pennyworth of it.
+
+She was not the only perpetual haunter of Savilestowe Leys at that time.
+The men who worked there at one or other of the diverse jobs which the
+making of a coal-mine necessitates--all of them strangers to the place
+until the new industry brought them to it--became familiar with a figure
+which was as odd and strange as that of Jeckie Farnish was grim and
+determined. Morning, noon, and night a man forever hung around the scene
+of operations, a man who was not allowed to cross the line of the
+premises and had more than once been turned out of them, but whom nobody
+and nothing could prevent from looking over fences and through gaps in
+the hedgerows and haunting the various means of ingress and egress, a
+wild, unkempt bright-eyed man, who was always talking to himself, and
+who, whenever he got the chance, talked hard and fast and vehemently to
+anyone he was able to lay a mental grappling-iron upon; a man with a
+grievance, Ben Scholes. He was always in evidence. While Jeckie
+patrolled her armies within, Scholes kept his watch without; he was as a
+man who, having had a treasure stolen from him, knows where the thief
+has bestowed it, and henceforth takes an insane delight in watching
+thief and treasure.
+
+The first result of Scholes's discovery that Jeckie Farnish had done
+him over his forty acres of land was that he took to drink. Immediately
+after leaving the sign of the Golden Teapot he turned in at the
+"Coach-and-Four," and found such comfort in drinking rum-and-water while
+he retailed his grievances to the idlers in the inn-kitchen that he went
+there again next day, and fell into the habit of tippling and
+gossiping--if that could be called gossiping which resolved itself into
+telling and retelling the story of his woes to audiences of anything
+from one to a dozen. Few things interest a Yorkshireman more than to
+hear how Jack has done Bill and how Jack contrived to accomplish it, and
+while Scholes never got any sympathy--every member of his congregation
+secretly admiring Jeckie for her smartness and cleverness--he never
+failed to attract attention. There were many houses of call in that
+neighbourhood; Scholes began a regular round of them; he had a tale to
+tell which was never likely to pall on folk whose one idea was to get
+money by any means, fair or foul, and the sight of his lean face and
+starveling beard at the door of parlour or kitchen was enough to arouse
+an eager, however oft repented, invitation.
+
+"Nah, then, Scholes!--come thi ways in, and tell us how Jeckie Farnish
+did tha' out o' thi bit o' land--here, gi' t'owd lad a drop o' rum to
+set his tongue agate! Ecod, shoe's t'varry devil his-self for smartness
+is that theer Jecholiah! Nah, then, Scholes, get on wi' t'tale!"
+
+Scholes had no objection to telling his tale over and over again, and
+there was not a pair of ears in all that neighbourhood which had not
+heard it; if not at first, then at second hand--nor was there a soul
+which did not feel a certain warmth in recognising Jeckie Farnish's
+astuteness; Scholes himself recognised it.
+
+"Ye see, shoo hed me afore iver shoo come to t'house!" he would say.
+"Knew t'coal wor theer afore iver shoo come reck'nin' to want to buy mi
+fotty acre and mak' an orchard on't! But niver a word to me! Buyin',
+shoo wor, not fotty acre o' poor land, d'ye see, but what they call
+t'possibilities 'at ligged beneath it! T'possibilities o' untold wealth!
+As should ha' been mine. Nowt but a moral thief--that's what shoo is,
+yon Jecholiah. Clever' 'er may be--I don't say shoo isn't, but a moral
+thief."
+
+"Tha means an immoral thief," said one of his listeners.
+
+"I mean what I say!" retorted Scholes. "I know t'English language better
+nor what thou does. A moral thief!--that's what yon woman is. I appeal
+to t'company. If ye nobbut come to consider, same as judges and juries
+does at t'sizes, how shoo did me, ye'll see 'at, morally speakin', shoo
+robbed me o' my lawful rights. Ye see--for happen ye've forgotten some
+o' t'fine points o' t'matter, it wor i' this way----"
+
+Then he would tell his tale all over again, and would afterwards argue
+it out, detail by detail, with his audience. In that part of Yorkshire
+the men are fond of hearing their own tongues, and wherever Scholes
+went the companies of the inn-kitchens were converted into debating
+societies.
+
+One night, Scholes, full of rum and of delight in his grievance, went
+home and found his wife dead. As he had left her quite well when he went
+out in the morning, the shock sobered him, and certain affecting
+sentences in the Burial Service at which he was perforce present a few
+days later turned his thoughts toward religion. The truth was that
+Scholes, already half mad through his exaggeration of his wrongs,
+developed religious mania in a very sudden fashion. But no one suspected
+it, and the vicar, who was something of a simpleton, believed him to
+have undergone a species of conversion; Scholes, anyhow, forsook the
+public-house for the house of prayer, and was henceforth to be seen in
+company of a large prayer-book at all the services, Sunday and week-day.
+Very close observers might have noticed that he took great pleasure in
+those of the Psalms which invoke wrath and vengeance on enemies, and, on
+days when the choir was not present and the service was said, manifested
+infinite delight in repeating the Psalmist's denunciation in an
+unnecessarily loud voice. But no one remarked anything, and if the vicar
+secretly wished that his new sheep would not bleat quite so loudly, he
+put the excess of vocalisation down to the fact that Scholes was new to
+his job and anxious to obey the directions of the Rubrics. Moreover, he
+reflected, the probability was that Scholes would soon tire of
+attendance on the services, and would settle down to the conventional
+and respectable churchmanship of most of the folk around him.
+
+Scholes, however, developed his mania. He suddenly got rid of his farm,
+realised all that he was worth, and went to live, quite alone, in a
+small cottage near the churchyard. From that time forward he divided his
+time between the church services and the doings on Savilestowe Leys.
+Whenever there was a service he was always in church--but so soon as
+ever any service was over he was off to the end of the village, to haunt
+the hedgerows and fences, and button-hole anybody who cared to hear his
+story. This went on for many an eventful month, and at last became a
+matter of no moment; Ben Scholes, said all the village, was a bit
+cracked, and if it pleased him to spend ten minutes in church, and all
+the rest of the day hanging about the outskirts of Jeckie Farnish's pit,
+why not? But in the last months of the operations at the new pit, the
+first day of another Lent came round, and the vicar, with Scholes and a
+couple of old alms-women as a congregation, read the Commination
+Service. Scholes had never heard this before, and the vicar was somewhat
+taken aback at the vigour with which he responded to certain
+fulminations.
+
+"Cursed," read the vicar in unaffected and mellifluous tones, more
+suited to a benediction, "cursed is he that smiteth his neighbour
+secretly!"
+
+"Amen!" responded Scholes, suddenly starting, as if a thought struck
+him. "Amen!"
+
+"Cursed," presently continued the vicar, "is he that putteth his trust
+in man...."
+
+"Amen, amen!" said Scholes fervently. "Amen!"
+
+"Cursed," continued the vicar, glancing round at his respondent
+parishioner, and nervously hurrying forward, "are...."
+
+"Covetous persons, extortioners!" exclaimed Scholes, anticipating
+certain passages to come. "Amen, amen! So they are--amen!"
+
+Then without waiting to hear what it was that the prophet David bore
+witness for, he clapped his prayer-book together with a loud noise, and
+hurried from the church; through one of the windows the vicar saw him
+walking among the tombs outside, gesticulating, and evidently talking to
+himself. When the service was over, he went out to him. "I fear the
+service distressed you, Scholes," he began, diffidently. "You are----"
+
+Scholes waved his arms abroad.
+
+"Nowt o' t'sort!" he exclaimed. "I wor delighted wi' it! I could like to
+hev that theer service read ivery Sunda'! I wor allus wantin' to mak'
+sure 'at a certain person 'at I could name wor cursed. An', of course,
+wheer theer's cursin' theer's vengeance--vengeance, vengeance!"
+
+"Don't forget, Scholes, that it has been wisely said, 'Vengeance is
+Mine: I will repay, saith the Lord,'" answered the vicar, in his mildest
+tones. "You must remember----"
+
+"Now, then, I forget nowt!" retorted Scholes. "I know all about it. But
+t'Lord mun use instruments--human instruments! Aw, it's varry
+comfortin', is what ye and me read together this mornin'--varry
+comfortin' to me. Cursed! 'Covetous persons'! Aw!--ye needn't go far
+away to find _one_!"
+
+The vicar was one of those men who dislike scenes and enthusiasm, and he
+left Scholes to himself, meditating among the gravestones, and went home
+to tell his wife that he wished somebody would give the man a quiet hint
+that loud upliftings of voice were not desirable in public worship. But
+next Sunday Scholes was not in his accustomed place--the front pew in
+the south aisle--nor did he come to church again. The clauses in the
+Commination Service had set his crazy brain off on another tack, and
+from the day on which he heard them he forgot the temporary anæsthetic
+which religious observance had brought to him, and sought out his older
+and more familiar one--drink. He took to frequenting the "Brown Cow," a
+hostelry of less pretensions than the "Coach-and-Four," and there he
+would sit for hours, quietly drinking rum and water--as inoffensive,
+said the landlady, as a pet lamb in a farm-house kitchen.
+
+For Scholes no longer talked about his grievance. He became strangely
+quiescent; sharper observers than the landlady would have seen that he
+was moody. He never talked to anybody at this stage, though he muttered
+a great deal to himself, and occasionally smiled and laughed, as if the
+thought of something pleased him. But one night, as he sat alone in a
+corner of the "Brown Cow," there came in a couple of navvies whom he
+recognised as workers at the hated pit, and a notion came into his
+mentality, which, crazy as it was rapidly becoming, yet still retained
+much of its primitive craftiness. He treated these men to liquor; they
+came to be treated again the following night, and the night after that;
+they and Scholes henceforth met regularly of an evening in their corner,
+and drank and whispered for hours at a time.
+
+There came a day whereon these men and Scholes no longer forgathered at
+the "Brown Cow." Instead, they met at Scholes's cottage. It was a lonely
+habitation, a tumbled-down sort of place in the lee of the old
+tithe-barn, and had been empty for years before Scholes took it and
+furnished it with odds and ends of seating and bedding. It stood well
+out of the village, and could be reached unobserved from more than one
+direction. Here the two navvies with whom he had made friends at the
+"Brown Cow" began to come. Scholes laid in a supply of liquor for their
+delectation. And here, round a smoky lamp and a spirit bottle, the three
+were wont to talk in whispers far into the night.
+
+Had Jeckie Farnish or Lucilla Grice known of what it was that these
+three men talked--one of them already obsessed with the belief that he
+was the Lord's chosen instrument of vengeance, the other two cunningly
+anxious to profit by it--neither would have slept in their beds, nor
+felt one moment's peace until Scholes and his companions were safely
+laid by the heels. But they knew nothing; nothing, at any rate, that was
+discomposing or threatening. Ever since the time of putting more capital
+into the concern the making of the colliery had gone on successfully and
+even splendidly. The two shafts, up-cast and down-cast, had been sunk
+to depths of several hundreds of feet without any encountering of more
+than the ordinary difficulties; the two great dangers, water and running
+sand, had not presented themselves. On the surface the building of the
+various sheds and offices had proceeded rapidly; some were already
+roofed in; in one the winding machinery and engines had been installed.
+The connection road was made; the link of railway finished; and on the
+high ground above the Leys three rows of ugly red-brick cottages were
+steadily approaching completion. The man who made his silent
+calculations that morning when Jeckie Farnish stood by him in grim
+silence came to her one day with a sheepish smile on his face.
+
+"I was a bit out in my reckoning, Miss Farnish," he said. "But it was on
+the right side! At the rate we're going at now we'll be finished, and
+the pit'll be working from six to eight weeks sooner than I thought.
+You'd better hurry those builders on with the cottages; you'll be
+wanting to fill them before so long."
+
+Jeckie needed no admonition to hurry anything. She was speeding up all
+the work as rapidly as she could, for good reasons which she kept to
+herself. Once more the outlay was proving greater than had been
+anticipated, and she knew that if the manager's final reckoning of ten
+months from the time of her sale of the grocery business had been kept
+to she would have had to raise more capital. She was secretly overjoyed
+when Revis, of Heronshawe Main, drove over one day, made a careful
+inspection of all that had been done, and was then being done, and
+corroborated Robinson's revised opinion--the pit would be at work six
+weeks sooner than she had thought.
+
+"And I reckon you'll be rare and glad to see the first tubs o' coal
+wound, my lass!" he said heartily as he drove off. "I know I was!"
+
+Jeckie nodded and smiled; she was too thankful for his opinion to put
+her feelings into words. That night she was wakeful--not from anxiety,
+but from satisfaction and anticipation. Two months more, and the money
+that had been sunk in that pit would be coming out of its depths again,
+multiplied, increased....
+
+In the middle of that night a brilliant flash of lurid flame followed by
+a roar that shook her cottage to its foundations and left it rocking,
+sent her headlong from her bed. And as she stood sick and trembling,
+grasping at the lintel of her window, she heard, in the deadly silence
+that followed, a sudden outburst of the big bell of the church, pealing
+as if for victory.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX
+
+_The Bell Rings_
+
+
+Jeckie Farnish was a strong woman; physically as well as mentally she
+was the strongest woman in all those parts. She had scarcely ever known
+what it was to feel a sudden giving way of strength; the end of a long
+day's toil usually found her fresh and vigorous, ready for and gladly
+anticipating the labours of the morrow. Nor had she ever known what it
+was to experience a mental giving way; the nearest approach to it--only
+a momentary one--had been on that day, long years before, whereon George
+Grice had turned his back on her and her father's fallen fortunes. She
+had felt mentally sick and physically weak then, as though all the
+strength had been dashed out of her mind and body. But the feeling had
+quickly passed under the reviving fire of her anger and resentment, and
+since then she had rarely felt a qualm that affected her in either
+sense--determination and resolution had always kept her going. There
+were folks in the parish who were fond of saying that she was moulded of
+beaten iron with a steel core in the middle--it was their way of
+expressing a belief that nothing on earth below or in heaven above could
+move or bend her.
+
+But as the vivid flash of flame and the infernal roar which followed it
+passed away, Jeckie standing in her night-clothes between her bed and
+her curtained window, felt herself stricken from head to foot; she was
+sick, in heart and brain. She suddenly realised that she was shaking
+throughout her strongly-fashioned frame, that her knees were knocking
+one against the other, her feet rattling on the floor, her fingers
+working as from a terrible shock. And in the silence she heard her heart
+thumping and thumping and thumping--it made her think of the engines at
+the pit which pumped up the leaking water as the shafts were driven
+deeper and deeper into the earth. She tried to lift a hand towards her
+heaving breast; it dropped back, nerveless, to her side.
+
+"Oh God!" she breathed at last. "What is it? What is it?"
+
+The hurrying of folk in the street outside roused her out of her
+momentary paralysis, and with an effort she stumbled rather than walked
+to the window-place, drew aside curtain and blind, flung open a
+casement, and leaned out into the night. And at what she saw, a moan
+burst from her lips, and she began to tremble as with a violent attack
+of ague. For the night was one of brilliantly clear moonlight, and from
+her window she could see all across the Leys and the buildings upon
+which she had expended such vast sums. And over the newly made pit, so
+rapidly approaching completion, hung a great umbrella-shaped cloud of
+dun-coloured smoke, thick and rolling, and from the pit mouth itself
+issued spurts and flickers of bright flame, which, as she stared,
+horror-stricken, began to gather at one place into a steady, spreading
+blaze. Thitherwards men were already beginning to hasten from the open
+doors of the cottages, calling to each other as they ran. And above
+their voices, never ceasing, sounded the frantic ringing of the big bell
+of the church, maddening in its insistence.
+
+She leaned farther out of the window and called to the folk who were
+hurrying past; called several times before she attracted attention. But
+at last a white face looked up and a voice hailed her--the voice of one
+of the principal foremen in the machinery department at the pit.
+
+"Miss Farnish!" he called. "Miss Farnish!--it's an explosion! The
+down-cast shaft! And look there!--the pit's on fire!"
+
+He pointed a shaking arm across the flat expanse of land before the
+cottage, and Jeckie saw that the gathering flame about the mouth of the
+shaft had suddenly leaped into a great mass of lurid light. Its
+brightness illumined the whole area around it, and she saw then that the
+surface works which had steadily grown up around the excavations had
+either been blown away or were left in shapeless bulks of ruinous
+masonry. Towards these from all directions men were running like ants
+swarming about a broken down nest.
+
+She turned away from the window, and with no other light than the glare
+from without, sought for and huddled her shaking limbs into the first
+garments that came to hand. And as she fastened them about her, scarce
+knowing how, a hand began to beat upon her door, and Farnish called to
+her, once, twice, thrice, before she realised that the sounds were human
+and had any significance.
+
+"Jeckie, mi lass!" Farnish was calling. "Jeckie! Jeckie!"
+
+"What is it?" she asked at last in a dull, strained voice, so strange in
+its sound that she found herself wondering at it. "What do you want?"
+
+"Yon noise?" cried Farnish, who slept at the back of the cottage.
+"What's it about, mi lass? What's it mean?"
+
+"The pit's blown up," answered Jeckie, with almost sullen indifference.
+"It's on fire, too. You can come in and see for yourself."
+
+Farnish pushed the door open and entered; he was half whimpering, half
+moaning as he crossed the floor towards the window. But Jeckie, now
+wrapped in a thick ulster coat and tying a shawl round her head and
+neck, said nothing. Her heart had resumed its normal action by then; she
+was only conscious that she felt sick and faint. She stared stupidly at
+her father's figure, darkly outlined against the glow of the fire.
+
+"God ha' mercy on us!" groaned Farnish. "A bad job! a bad job! Howiver
+can it ha' come about, and what mun be done? It's all of a flame,
+and----"
+
+"Come out!" commanded Jeckie. "I must see for myself what's----"
+
+She had laid a hand on the half-open door of the bedroom, when it was
+suddenly wrenched out of her grasp, and she herself thrown backwards
+across the bed by a second and apparently more violent explosion, which
+came simultaneously with another vivid burst of orange-coloured flame.
+Jeckie remembered afterwards what curious and vivid impressions she had
+in that moment. As she herself was flung over the edge of her thick
+feather-bed she saw Farnish thrown away from the window, his arms
+whirling in the air like the sails of a wind-mill; she heard a musical
+tinkle of falling glass, making a sort of background to his startled
+outcry. And she saw things. The vividness of the glare lit up a
+glass-fronted case on the bedroom wall wherein was a stuffed squirrel;
+it also lit up a framed text of Scripture, set in a floral bordering of
+hideous design, and a little weather-glass, furnished with two figures,
+one of which, a man, came out for fine weather, while the other, a
+woman, emerged for wet; years afterwards she had vivid recollections of
+how these two quaint puppets were violently agitated at the end of their
+wires. And then there was gloom again, and silence, and she heard
+Farnish gathering himself up from the floor, moaning.
+
+"Are you hurt?" she asked, dully and indifferently. "Is aught wrong?"
+
+"T'window were blown right in on mi face," answered Farnish, "I'm
+bleedin' somewhere. What about yoursen, mi lass?"
+
+Jeckie was seeking for matches and a candle. The candle had been blown
+out of its tin holder and had rolled into a corner. When she found and
+lighted it it was to reveal Farnish with a trickle or two of blood on
+his cheeks and scarce a pane of glass left in the window. She pointed
+him to a towel, and turned to the door. "That 'ud be the other shaft,"
+she said in a low voice, and in a fashion that made Farnish afraid.
+"It's been a put-up job. I've enemies! But I'll best 'em yet! I'll not
+be bet!"
+
+Without another word she went downstairs and out into the street, and
+Farnish, left alone, looked dolefully at his face as envisaged to him in
+Jeckie's mirror. Something glittered on one of his projecting
+cheekbones, and he groaned again as he picked out a sliver of glass.
+Then he wiped his face with the towel, and, still moaning and bewailing,
+descended to the living-room. In those days Jeckie no longer locked up
+the spirits, and he, accordingly, went to the cupboard, got out the gin,
+and mixed himself a stiff drink. And as he stood sipping it he muttered
+to himself.
+
+"A bad job!" said Farnish. "A bad, bad job! All that theer brass--gone
+i' th' twinklin' of an eye, as the sayin' is! An' who can ha' done it?"
+
+He, too, went into the street at last. By that time the whole village
+was out of bed and abroad, and while the more active of the men folk
+were flocking towards the scene of the explosion, the older men and the
+women were hanging in groups about the doors of the houses and cottages,
+gazing fearfully at the great cupola of smoke that hung over the Leys.
+Farnish joined one such group, the members of which were already
+recounting with great zest their own particular private experiences.
+
+"Our Sarah's little lad, Albert James, wor flung fair out o' t'bed and
+ageean t'wall!" declared one woman. "And his father's heead wor jowled
+ageean t'chest o' drawers! An' our cottage rocked same as if it wor a
+earthquake--I made sure 'at all t'place 'ud come tummlin' down about wor
+ears!"
+
+"Aye, an theer isn't a pane o' glass left whole in our front windows!"
+said another. "Blown reight into t'kitchen they wor, and I would like to
+know who's goin' to pay for t'mendin'! This is what comes o' mekkin'
+coal-pits i' a quiet, peaceable place same as what this wor afore Jeckie
+Farnish started on at t'game! I allus did say 'at no good 'ud come o'
+t'job, and 'at we should all on us be blowed up i' wor beds some fine
+night, and if we hevn't been to-night it nowt but a merciful
+dispensation o' Providence 'at we hevn't! An' I hope 'at t'job's
+finished, and 'at we shall hev' no more on't--theer's nowt 'ud suit me
+better nor to see all t'coal-miners tak theer-sens off and leave us i'
+peace as we used to be, for I'm sure----"
+
+"Hod this wisht!" broke in one of the few men who had kept back from the
+Leys. "That's talkin' like a fooil!--doesn't ta see 'at this here'll
+mean no end o' money lost to them 'at's mekkin' t'pit, and theer's
+Mestur Farnish stannin' theer? How is it, Mestur Farnish?--d'ye knaw owt
+about how it happened like?"
+
+"I know no more about it nor what you do," answered Farnish, who was
+standing at the end of a group of cottages, staring blankly at the flame
+and smoke which glared and rolled in front. "It's a bad job--a bad job!
+An' what's yon theer bell ringin' for--is it somebody 'at's gone to
+ring for t'Sicaster fire brigade, or what?"
+
+"Why, theer wor a young feller started off on his bicycle for that theer
+purpose, as soon as t'first explosion wor over," answered the man.
+"Besides, they wodn't hear our bell as far off as Sicaster--t'wind's i'
+t'wrong quarter, an' all. I been wonderin' what t'bell wor ringin' for,
+missen. How would it be if we stepped up to t'church, like?"
+
+Farnish, realising the hopelessness of going near the pit, joined the
+two or three men who turned in the direction of the church. As they
+hurried up the street, a dog-cart dashed past them; the young man who
+had hastened to Sicaster for the fire brigade had called at Albert
+Grice's house on his way, and Albert and Lucilla, panic-stricken, were
+flying to what might be the grave of their hopes, and more than one man
+who watched them pass noticed that Lucilla was driving, and flogging the
+smart cob to the utmost limit of his speed, while Albert, pale and
+frightened, cowered in the lower seat at her side. Behind them presently
+came the Sicaster fire engine, its bell ringing clangerously as the
+steaming horses clattered through the village; in its brazen loudness
+the frantic ringing of the church bell was lost to hearing, and when
+Farnish and his companions came to the churchyard and comparative
+silence, it had ceased altogether.
+
+"Whoever wor ringin' must ha' been ringin' for t'fire engine," muttered
+one of the men. "Ye see, he's stopped now 'at t'fire brigade's comed. It
+mun ha' been t'sexton." But just then the sexton, accompanied by the
+vicar, came hurrying through the little wicket-gate at the farther end
+of the churchyard. Encountering the other men at the porch, they stopped
+short.
+
+"Who is in there, ringing that bell?" demanded the vicar. "Who's
+this?--you, Farnish? Did they send some one up from the pit to ring? If
+so, they must have broken into the church."
+
+"Notwithstanding," interrupted the sexton, solemnly, "'at everybody in
+t'parish know 'at t'keys is in my possession, and close by!"
+
+"I know naught about it," answered Farnish. "We come up here to find out
+who it wor, and what he wor ringin' for, ye see."
+
+High over their heads the big bell once more gave tongue--loudly,
+clamorously, insistently. It rang out a score of times; then stopped as
+suddenly as it had begun. And one of the men, stepping back, as the
+rest, headed by the sexton, made for the porch, and looking up towards
+the head of the great square tower, let out a sharp exclamation.
+
+"There's a man up there, looking ower t'parapet!" he said. "See
+yer!--there, wi' t'moon shinin' on his face! Look!"
+
+The other men fell back, and shading their eyes from the bright
+moonlight, stared in the direction indicated. There, leaning over the
+battlemented parapet of the tower, immediately above one of the most
+grotesque of its gargoyles, appeared a weird and sinister figure--a man
+whose unkempt hair and sparse beard were being blown about his face by
+the light breeze. One of the younger men there, whose sight was keen,
+suddenly uttered a sound of recognition.
+
+"Ecod!" he exclaimed. "It's Ben Scholes!"
+
+The vicar uttered a sound too--dismal, and full of foreboding.
+
+"Mad," he muttered. "Mad--undoubtedly! Scholes!" he went on, calling
+upwards to the figure silhouetted against the sky. "Scholes! What are
+you doing there? Come down, my good fellow, come down at once!"
+
+But Scholes shook his floating locks, vigorously and emphatically.
+
+"Naught o' t'sort, parson!" he answered, his voice coming with curious
+force from his airy station. "T'job isn't half done in yet! Ye don't
+understand--how should yer? Ye see, it wor you 'at put t'idee into mi
+mind when ye read them comfortable passages t'other week, and I said
+'Amen and Amen' to 'em. 'Cursed be covetous persons'--and sich like. I
+knew then, d'ye see, 'at I wor what they call t'instrument o' vengeance
+on yon theer Jecholiah. It hed to be, parson it hed to be! I wor doomed,
+as it weer, to blow her and her devil's wark to perdition, as t'sayin'
+is. Aye!--listen, all on yer--it wor through me 'at t'pit's been blown
+up! Three hundred pound o' good money I wared to get it blown into
+t'air. And I mun ring, I mun ring, all through the night, till t'sun
+rises on t'scene o' desolation; ring, d'ye understand, to show how
+t'Lord hes vengeance on bad 'uns like yon theer woman! Three hundred
+pound!--but I gat it done! Flame and smoke, parson!--I see'd 'em rise
+out o' t'pit. And then I rang, and rang, and rang--and I mun ring agen
+till t'sun rises ower yon woods. So may all them 'at cheats poor folk
+perish!"
+
+"Mad!" repeated the vicar, looking helplessly round him. "What does he
+mean! And how can we get at him?"
+
+"He means, sir, 'at he's paid some of them miners three hundred pound to
+blow t'pit up," answered the sexton, who was a sharp-witted man, "and as
+to gettin' at him, it's none to be done till he chooses to come down.
+There's naught but a straight ladder, and a man-hole at t'end on it,
+into yon belfry, and if he stands on t'trap door i' that man-hole he can
+keep all t'parish out as long as he likes. See you!--he's at it again!"
+
+Scholes had suddenly disappeared from the parapet, and a moment later
+the big bell began clamouring once more.
+
+"Didn't he say he mun ring till sunrise?" said the sexton. "He will
+ring!"
+
+Farnish went hurrying home through the crowds in the village street.
+There was a light in the window of the living-room, and when he walked
+in, he found Jeckie, white-faced and grim, standing by a newly lighted
+lamp, staring at nothing. He went up and touched her timidly, and for
+the first time in her life she started, as if in fear. But Farnish was
+too full of news to notice that her nerves were gone.
+
+"Jeckie, mi lass!" he said. "It's yon man Ben Scholes's 'at's at
+t'bottom o' this here! He paid some fellers three hundred pound to blow
+t'pit up--and he's gone mad wi' t'glory on it--mad!"
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X
+
+_Black Depths_
+
+
+The cottage to which Jeckie had removed her father and herself, and such
+household belongings as were absolutely necessary to their simple
+standard of comfort, faced due east; consequently, when the sun rose
+above the fringe of woods that morning its beams shone direct into the
+little living-room. And they fell full on Jeckie, who sat bolt upright
+at the table, her hands stretched out and tightly clasped on its
+surface, her eyes staring straight in front of her, her lips white and
+set. So she had sat for hours--motionless, silent. The tall clock in the
+corner had ticked away its record of minutes; the darkness had gone; the
+grey light had stolen in; there had come a glow in the skies and a
+gradual lighting of the window; finally, the sun had shown a ruddy,
+round face above the tapering pines and firs on the hilltop behind the
+Leys, and in the meadows and orchards the blackbirds and thrushes had
+begun to pipe and trill. But the breaking of a new day had caused no
+change in Jeckie Farnish's attitude. It was, said Farnish, talking of it
+after to his cronies, as if she had been turned into stone.
+
+"Theer wor niver a word out on her, poor lass, after I'd telled her what
+I'd gathered up at t'church porch," said he. "When she heeard 'at yon
+Ben Scholes had paid fellers three hundred pound to blow up t'pit she
+collapsed, as they call it, into t'chair and ligged her hand on t'table,
+and theer she sat, starin' and starin', hour after hour, till I wor fair
+afraid! I leeted t'lamp, and made t'fire, and brewed a pot a' tea, but I
+couldn't get her to put her lips to it. Wheer I laid t'cup at her side
+at four o'clock, theer it wor at seven--untasted. And not one word did
+she spake, all that time--nobbut sat and stared and stared i' front on
+her, as if she'd see summat. An happen she did see summat--how can I
+say?"
+
+But Jeckie moved at last. As Farnish, well-nigh beyond his wits with
+fear and anxiety, stood by the hearth, watching her, a hurried step
+sounded on the flagged path outside the cottage, and Robinson, the
+manager, came hastening in, grimy and dishevelled. She stirred then; but
+it was only the stirrings of a burning eye and a dry lip.
+
+"Well?" she said, in such a faint whisper that both men started and
+looked anxiously at her. "Well? Speak!"
+
+Robinson threw out both hands with a gesture of despair. "It's worse
+than I thought!" he answered, huskily. "No use pretending it isn't; it's
+far worse. We've made as thorough an examination as we could, and it's
+terrible to see what damage has been done. Work of all this time--many a
+long month!--all destroyed, in both shafts. They're blocked with
+wreckage! Brickwork, ironwork, everything's been blown out in both. The
+downcast's the worst. And--and that's not all!"
+
+"What is all?" asked Jeckie. "Say it! I want to know."
+
+Robinson glanced at Farnish, and Jeckie was quick to interpret the look.
+She turned on her father as if he had been a house dog.
+
+"Go out!" she commanded. "Outside!--and shut the door. Now then," she
+demanded as Farnish hurried into the garden and pulled the door tight
+after him. "Say it straight out! What is--all?"
+
+Robinson dropped into a chair and for a moment rested his head on his
+hands; when he raised it again his face was as white as Jeckie's.
+
+"I've been down that down-cast shaft, through the wreckage, as far as I
+could--Hargreaves and I went down, an hour since," he replied. "You
+never saw such a sight!--those fellows must have used some explosive
+that's more powerful than anything we've ever used for ordinary
+blasting. Those heavy cast-iron plates that we used for that stretch of
+tubbing, now--twisted and curled as if they'd been sheets of
+paper--ribs, brackets, flanges--I couldn't have believed that such
+things could have been, well, just made into ribbons, as if they'd been
+no more than putty. The timbering and the masonry, of course, are just
+so much splinters and dust, but the ironwork--well, it beats me how it's
+happened! Still, in time, all that could be put right--there'd be long
+delay, to be sure, and awful expense--all would have to be done over
+again--it's like starting all over again, but----"
+
+He paused, shook his head, shivered a little as if at some
+recollection, and for a moment seemed as if he had lost the thread of
+his story.
+
+"Get on to what there is of the rest of it!" commanded Jeckie. "There's
+more!"
+
+Robinson started; the last word appeared to spur him up.
+
+"More!" he exclaimed, almost emphatically. "More? Yes more!--lots more.
+The worst of it! My God!"
+
+"Will you get it out?" said Jeckie, in a low voice that betrayed her
+concentrated anxiety. "Say it, man. I want to know."
+
+Robinson made an effort, and pulled himself together. He gave Jeckie a
+queer, sidelong glance.
+
+"I went down, through the wreckage, as far as I could," he said.
+"And--there's been more than the mere blowing up of timber and masonry,
+and iron fittings. We heard it, down there; heard it unmistakably--me
+and Hargreaves. I heard it; he heard it. Oh, yes; there's no doubt of
+it. The explosion must have blown out a tremendous lot of wall surface
+stuff in the lowest workings they'd got to, where they hadn't started
+any masonry or tubbing, you understand. Because--we heard! No mistaking
+it! Once--just once--I've heard it before. Never to be forgotten,
+that--no!"
+
+"For God's sake, man, speak plainly!" said Jeckie. "Heard--what!"
+
+Robinson glanced fearfully around him as he bent nearer to her. He spoke
+but one word, in a tense whisper.
+
+"Water!"
+
+Jeckie started back, and her drawn face grew white to the lips. She,
+too, spoke the word he had spoken, in a lower whisper than his.
+
+"Water!"
+
+Robinson edged his chair near to the table and tapped the edge with a
+forefinger on which there was both grime and blood.
+
+"I tell you we heard it--me and Hargreaves," he said. "I say--no
+mistaking it. This explosion, now--it must have blown a pretty
+considerable hole into the lowest part of the shaft, where they've been
+at work this last week or two, and it's released--it may be a thin bed
+of quicksand that we didn't suspect, or water-logged sandstone or sand,
+or something of that sort, if you follow me, but there's the
+fact--water! It's running into the shaft at, I should say, the rate of
+thousands of gallons a minute; we could hear it fairly roaring down
+there. It's no use; it's there!"
+
+"What'll happen?" asked Jeckie in a curiously hard voice.
+
+"The shafts'll be flooded to the brim in twenty-four hours," answered
+Robinson. "To the brim!'
+
+"You said shafts!" exclaimed Jeckie.
+
+"It's running into the up-cast, too," said Robinson. "We examined that.
+There must have been--must be--an extensive bed of quicksand lying
+between both shafts. Anyhow, it's there. I tell you, they'll be flooded
+to the brim!"
+
+Jeckie's mind went back to a certain conversation she had once had with
+Revis, of Heronshawe Main. He too, had met with an obstacle in water,
+and had surmounted it.
+
+"But it can be pumped out?" she suggested.
+
+"Aye!" assented Robinson. "But how long will it take as things are, and
+how long after that to get matters put as straight as they were last
+night, and how much will it cost? It's no use denying it--all that we've
+done, all that we'd arrived at, is just--ruined!"
+
+Jeckie suddenly got up from the table. She went across to the window,
+and pulling aside the half-curtain that veiled the lower panes, looked
+out across the Leys. The surface works of the new pit were either
+levelled with the ground or showing gaunt and ruinous against the
+sky-line; crowds of curious sightseers were grouped about them; above
+everything, a sinister blot on the otherwise sun-filled sky, a cloud of
+yellow smoke still hung, heavy and significant, as if loath to float
+away from the scene of destruction. And as suddenly as she had risen
+from her seat so she turned on Robinson with a quick movement and with a
+flash of her old spirit. "But the coal's still there!" she exclaimed.
+"The coal's still there--to be got!"
+
+Robinson looked at her for a moment in silence. Of late she had taken
+him into her confidence, pretty deeply, and she suddenly saw of what he
+was thinking. Money!--always money! And she began to think, too, of the
+money that had gone into the pit, and of how much more would be wanted
+now to recover what had so gone. It was as if one had lost a sovereign
+down some grating in the street, and must needs pay another to get it
+back.
+
+"I say the coal's still there!" she repeated with fierce insistence. "To
+be got, do you hear? It's got to be got--that water'll have to be pumped
+out, and everything put in order again, and do you think I'm going to
+lose all I've laid out?" she went on, suddenly beating her fist on the
+table. "We must get to work at once!"
+
+Robinson moved his head from side to side; something in the movement
+suggested difficulty, perhaps hopelessness.
+
+"It's for you to decide," he said, dully. "It'll cost--I don't know what
+it won't cost. If you'd hear that water pouring in! And as things are,
+the shafts cumbered up with ruin; we can do nothing to stop it."
+
+Jeckie snatched up her ulster, and began to put it on.
+
+"Come on!" she said, turning to the door. "I'm going there myself."
+
+Robinson sighed heavily as he pulled himself out of his chair and
+followed her into the sunlight. And he sighed again and shook his head
+as they set out across the Leys in the direction of the wrecked pit.
+
+"There's naught to be done at present," he said, dejectedly. "It'll be
+days before we know the full extent of the damage. And we shall have to
+wait till we find out how high this water's going to rise--we don't know
+yet what weight there is behind it, down there. We're all in the dark."
+
+"Something's got to be done!" declared Jeckie. Badly shaken though she
+was, a flash of her old indomitable spirit still woke to life at odd
+moments. "We can't stand about doing nothing," she went on. "The coal's
+there, I tell you!"
+
+There were plenty of people standing about, doing nothing, on the edge
+of the scene of disaster, and among them Albert and Lucilla Grice.
+Lucilla was in tears, and Albert was in apparently heated argument with
+some of the officials, who turned to Robinson as he and Jeckie drew
+near.
+
+"Mr. Grice is blaming us because he says there ought to have been a
+watch kept over these shafts," said one of them. "I've told him there
+were watchmen."
+
+"Then how comes it that somebody could get down there and place these
+explosives where they did," demanded Albert. "Don't tell me! There's
+been no proper watch kept at all, or this couldn't ha' happened. And all
+my wife's money invested in this!--and blown to pieces!"
+
+He gave Jeckie a sidelong glance, as if laying the blame on her
+shoulders. He chanced to be in her way where he stood, and she
+unceremoniously elbowed him aside.
+
+"Your wife's money!" she snarled as she passed him. "What's her bit o'
+money compared to what I've put in? Come on, Robinson--I'm going down
+that shaft as far as I can--to find out how things are."
+
+"It's dangerous," said Robinson. "We risked a lot, me and Hargreaves."
+
+"Where you've been I can go--and I'm going," declared Jeckie. "Come
+on--we'll go together."
+
+The others, standing round, watched Jeckie's descent into the tangled
+mass of iron, wood, masonry; she herself, following her manager, cared
+nothing for danger, and was only intent on listening for the dread sound
+of which he had spoken. And, at last, when they had made their way a
+good two hundred feet into the shaft, penetrating through broken and
+twisted plates and girders, Robinson paused and held up the lantern he
+was carrying as a sign that they could go no farther.
+
+"Listen!" he said in a whisper. "You'll hear!"
+
+Jeckie steadied herself among the wreckage, looking down the darkness
+beneath it. And suddenly, in the silence that hung all round them, she
+heard, far below, in the gloomy depths which her imagination pictured
+the steady, heavy rush of water. It was unmistakable--and once again she
+felt sick in heart and brain, and weak of body.
+
+"It's increased in volume since I was down," muttered Robinson as he
+stood at her side. "It's as I said before--the pit'll be flooded out.
+There's no help for it. It must be rising fast, that water."
+
+He tore away a loose piece of iron from the wreckage close by, and
+dropped it through the twisted mass beneath their standing place. The
+sound of its heavy splash came almost at once.
+
+"You hear!" he exclaimed. "It's within thirty or forty feet of us now!
+It'll be up here before long; it'll rise to the brim. There's nothing to
+be done, Miss Farnish--we'd best make our way up again."
+
+When Jeckie climbed out of the last mass of wreckage at the mouth of
+the shaft, it was to find Revis standing close by, talking to the men
+who hung about. He came up to her with a face full of grave concern.
+
+"This is a bad job, my lass!" he said in low tones. "I'm as sorry for
+you as I can be!" He turned from her to Robinson. "Water rising?" he
+asked.
+
+"Aye, fast as it can!" answered Robinson. "There must have been a
+tremendous lot released right down where they'd got to. And we were
+close on to the seam, too!"
+
+"Rising in both shafts?" inquired Revis.
+
+Robinson gave him a significant look.
+
+"Both!" he answered.
+
+Revis drew him aside; the others, watching them, heard the two men
+talking technicalities; Jeckie caught chance terms and expressions here
+and there--"water-laden bed"; "dangerous feeder"; "water-logged trias";
+"drainage tunnel"; "Poetsch's method"; "Gebhardt and Koenig's method";
+"Kind-Chaudron system"; "winding and pumping"--she understood little or
+nothing of it, and at that moment did not care to inquire; all that she
+realised was that the work into which she had put so much energy, and
+whereon she had laid out all her beloved money, was in danger of utter
+ruin. She let Albert grumble and growl to the men, and Lucilla weep
+fretfully; she herself stood silent and motionless, watching Revis and
+the manager.
+
+Revis came to her at last, motioning Albert and Lucilla to join them.
+He looked graver than before.
+
+"This is a very bad job!" he said in a low voice. "There seems to be no
+doubt that this explosive, whatever it was--and it must have been of
+extraordinary force--has tapped an exceptionally heavy lot of water. The
+mine'll be flooded--that is, these two shafts will. It's a good job you
+hadn't got the whole thing finished and opened out, for in that case, if
+this explosion had happened, you'd have had all the workings flooded,
+and there'd probably have been serious loss of life. As it is----"
+
+Jeckie interrupted him--the question of what might have been had no
+interest for her.
+
+"Can't the water be pumped out?" she asked. "You had trouble yourself
+that way?"
+
+"Aye, you can pump!" agreed Revis. "But--you don't know what amount of
+water there is yet. It looks to me, from what Robinson says, as if there
+was a sort of subterranean lake down there. Pump, aye!--but ... a long
+and terrible job. And--now don't be frightened!--the thing is--will it
+be worth it?"
+
+"The coal's there!" exclaimed Jeckie, dogged and determined.
+
+Revis looked from her to the Grices. Lucilla was grasping a tear-soaked
+handkerchief and gazing at him in the last throes of despairing anxiety;
+Albert stood with his lips a little open, expectant of wisdom from the
+man of experience.
+
+"Yes," said Revis, at last. "But--it's no use shirking
+difficulties--this may be a quicksand that forms a thick cover all over
+the measures of whatever extent they may be. The fact is--you don't know
+what's happened down there, nor where you are."
+
+"The coal's there!" repeated Jeckie. "It's there, I say! We've got to
+get it."
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI
+
+_The Sentence_
+
+
+On the evening of that eventful day--a day of comings and goings about
+the ruined colliery--Farnish stayed later than usual at the
+"Coach-and-Four." There had never been so much to talk about in the
+whole history of Savilestowe as there was that evening, and he, as
+father of Jeckie Farnish, was a person of consequence in the debate
+which was carried on in the bar-parlour to the latest hours allowed by
+the licensing laws. But he went home at last, to find the cottage in
+darkness; there was not even the gleam of the last ashes of the usual
+wood fire to welcome him when he opened the door which admitted to the
+living-room. "I misdoubt yon poor lass o' mine is still hangin' about
+them shafts!" he muttered, as he began to feel around him in the
+darkness. "It's nat'ral on her part, an' all, but it'll do no good, no
+good!" Then he struck a match, drawn from a box which was always handy
+at the corner of the mantelpiece, and as he turned to where the lamp was
+kept, saw Jeckie. She sat in an easy chair at the other side of the
+hearth, but in no lounging attitude, such as is commonly affected by
+folk who sit in easy chairs. Instead, she was bolt upright and rigid,
+and for a moment Farnish wondered if she had been stricken with
+paralysis, or was dead. But a sudden flash of her keen eyes showed him
+that she was alive enough.
+
+"Why, Jecholiah, mi lass!" he exclaimed, as he lighted the lamp. "What's
+this here? Sittin' there i' t'darkness?--no light, no fire! Ye mo'nt tek
+on so, Jecholiah--it's o' no use, and bad for a body."
+
+"Who said aught about takin' on?" answered Jeckie, with a sombre stare
+at him. "I was thinkin'--can't one think in t'dark as well as in
+t'light?"
+
+"I dare say they can, mi lass," assented Farnish. "I done it misen, more
+nor once, and a varry bad thing it is--what ye happen to think i'
+t'dark's allus magnified, as it weer. Let me get you a drop o' summat,
+now?--and then go to yer bed and try for a bit o' sleep--ye need it."
+
+"You can get something for yourself," answered Jeckie. "I want naught!"
+Farnish had no objection to this invitation. He got out the bottle of
+gin, mixed himself a tumbler to his liking, and sitting down in his own
+chair, wagged his head over the glass.
+
+"I been tryin' to collect a bit o' information," he said. "Yon theer Ben
+Scholes--as were at t'bottom o' this unfortunate episode, as t'term
+is--he's clean disappeared. They laid wait for him to come down out o'
+t'church tower; watched for him most o' t'day, but he niver come, and as
+t'afternoon were drawing to an end, some on 'em stormed his citadel.
+Went up t'ladder to t'chamber i' t'tower wheer they toll t'bells--but
+t'bird hed flown. An' now they're sayin' 'at Scholes knew some secret
+way in and out o' t'church, and 'at he's off wi' them fellers 'at he
+bribed to blow t'pit up. Howsomeiver, Jecholiah, mi lass, t'police is on
+t'track of all on 'em, and ye'll hev t'satisfaction o' seein'
+malefactors browt to justice. There is them 'at I've been talkin' wi'
+'at says 'at i' their opinion it's a hengin' matter--high treason, or
+summat o' that sort, but chuse how, it'll mean 'at they'll be clapped i'
+gaol for t'rest o' their lives, and never come out no more. So ye mun
+cheer up!"
+
+Jeckie glowered at him in the dim light of the lamp.
+
+"What good'll that do me?" she demanded, contemptuously. "Will it repair
+t'damage they've done? I don't care whether they catch Ben Scholes or
+no! Him and them other devils can go where they like, for all I care! I
+want to hear naught about 'em. They've done their job. It's over!"
+
+"Aye, why, mi lass," expostulated Farnish. "But theer's what t'scholars
+terms poetic justice. It 'ud be nowt but right if these here chaps were
+browt to it. Now, it 'ud nobbut be t'proper thing if they could be
+henged--and happen drawn and quartered, same as yere done i' t'good old
+times--on t'scene o' their misdeeds. But I doubt whether that theer 'ud
+be allowed nowadays--we'm all too soft-hearted. Hev a drop o' comfort,
+Jecholiah, mi lass, and then get to your bed."
+
+"No!" retorted Jeckie. "I haven't done thinking."
+
+Farnish left her thinking, and went to bed himself, and slept soundly.
+But the habits of a lifetime had made him an early riser, and he was up
+again and downstairs as the grey dawn broke over the village. And there
+he found Jeckie still sitting just as he had left her, some hours
+before, and in the light of his chamber candlestick he saw something
+that made him start back in amazement.
+
+"The Lord ha' mercy on us, mi lass!" he exclaimed in awe-struck accents.
+"What's come o' your hair? Look at yoursen!"
+
+The feminine instinct never wholly dies out, and Jeckie lifted herself
+to her feet, and, taking the candle from her father's hand, looked into
+the old mirror which hung above the mantelpieces. Then she saw what he
+meant. Her hair, thick, luxuriant still, and till the day before black
+and glossy as in her days of young womanhood, was now patched freely
+with grey strands, and here and there with unmistakable threads of
+white. She stood, looked, turned away, and set down the candle.
+
+"Aye!" she muttered, as if to herself. "Aye!--and there's a lot o'
+thinkin', and plannin', and schemin' to do yet!"
+
+None knew that better than she did. Of all the folk who from personal
+motives or from sheer natural curiosity discussed the present and future
+situation of the unlucky mine, none were so keenly aware of the real
+state of things as its principal proprietor. Lucilla might weep and
+bewail, and Albert indulge in platitudes which he fondly believed to be
+oracular sayings of the deepest wisdom, but Jeckie, essentially
+practical and businesslike, knew what the real problem was. There was so
+much capital left. It would have sufficed amply, if things had gone on
+as they were going on before the explosions. But now the pit was ruined
+in its upper and lower workings, and an immense amount of labour in
+pumping, clearing, and restoring was absolutely necessary before it
+could be brought back to the state in which it had been when Scholes
+achieved his revenge. Could she last out?
+
+It was not in her to be idle. She sought the opinion of numerous
+experts; she went carefully into the all-important question of the
+money; at last she went to work once more. It was a fell and sinister
+enemy that had to be encountered first, for the shafts, as Robinson had
+prophesied, were flooded to the brim. But there the water had paused in
+its upward progress, and she gave the word to start on its clearance.
+Henceforth the village saw nothing but the progress of this grim fight.
+There was now no more clanging of steel and iron about the place; no
+more work at the rows of cottages which should soon have been filled by
+miners and their families; there was nothing but the ceaseless clearing
+of the shafts from the dark flood which had been released from its
+unsuspected source in the bowels of the earth--and the fear lest, when
+all this was accomplished, some further eruption might not break out and
+render all the labour in vain.
+
+And as before, when hope was high and the fruition of her toiling and
+scheming seemed certain, so now, when all was doubt and anxiety, Jeckie
+Farnish haunted the scene from early morning till the evening shadows
+fell. She aged rapidly in those days; the patches of white thickened in
+the dark hair; the keen eyes grew harassed and hunted; about the firm
+mouth lines and seams appeared which nothing would ever smooth away
+again. She grew strangely silent; it seemed to those whose business
+brought them into touch with her that all she did throughout the day was
+to watch and watch and watch. She said little to Farnish; she ate and
+drank mechanically--no more, observed Farnish to his cronies, than kept
+the health in her body, now growing thin and gaunt; and at night she sat
+alone in the cottage, always staring at the fire which her father took
+care to keep going; if it had not been for him, he said, there would
+have been no fire, for she had no interest in anything but the ceaseless
+clearance of the dark floods which were being drawn and pumped away. It
+was useless, too, he said, to sit with her and attempt to cheer her up;
+she just sat, staring before her. So Farnish continued to attend the
+nightly symposium at the "Coach-and-Four," and in the living-room of
+their cottage Jeckie sat motionless, her eyes fixed on the bit of red
+glow in the grate, thinking.
+
+She was so sitting one night, long after darkness had fallen, and when
+there was no light in the place beyond a rapidly dying lamp and the dull
+gleam of the fire, when, behind her chair, she heard the latch of the
+door lifted, and a footstep which she knew to be a man's. She believed
+it to be Farnish, who had come in an hour before his time, and she took
+no heed. But then fell silence, a strange and frightening silence, and
+at last she turned her head and looked. And there, half in shadow, half
+in the light, staring at her out of glowing eyes, stood Scholes.
+
+The man whom Jeckie had so cunningly dispossessed of his lawful rights,
+had always been more or less of an unkempt, carelessly attired
+individual--the sort of man who neglected hair and beard, and wore his
+clothes as if they had been thrown on with one of his own pitchforks.
+But as he stood there now, motionless, staring at her, he reminded
+Jeckie of pictures which she had seen; pictures of prophets, hermits,
+anchorites. His head was bare, and his untrimmed, uncombed locks fell
+about his ears and shoulders; even in that dim light she could see
+leaves and straw in them, and in the straggling beard which mingled with
+them. The rest of him, as she saw it, was wrapped in an ancient,
+weather-stained ulster coat, in rags at all its extremities, and tied
+about the waist with a piece of old cart rope. He carried a long staff
+of hazel in one hand; the other clawed meditatively at his beard as he
+stood fixedly staring at the woman who, in her turn, stared at him over
+her shoulder. And, suddenly, Jeckie forgot hair, beard, the strange
+garb, and saw nothing but the man's burning eyes, which never shifted
+their intense gaze from her face. Before many seconds had elapsed she
+would have given much to withdraw her own gaze--twice she tried to close
+her eyelids, in the vain hope that this was a phantom, a bad dream. But
+Scholes held her; and at last he spoke, in a queer, hollow voice which
+sent a thrill of fear through her. For Jeckie Farnish, like all country
+folk of her sort, and in spite of her hard-hearted, practical
+temperament, was intensely superstitious, and it seemed to her that
+this was either Scholes's ghost or that if he were really there in the
+flesh he had become endowed with supernatural powers. And as he spoke
+she cowered before him, trembling in every limb.
+
+"So ye're sittin' theer, Jecholiah, all bi yersen, doin' nowt but
+thinkin'!" said the queer voice. "An' to be sure, when all's said and
+done, that's t'inevitable end of all them 'at compasses evil. Ye've nowt
+to do now but think, and think, and think! Here's t'end of all your
+schemin' and contrivin' and sellin' yer soul for brass! Wheer's yer
+brass, now? Gone!--and ye'll niver see one penny on it agen--niver!
+Ye're doomed, Jecholiah! Ye've been doomed to destruction ever since
+that day when yer carried yer bad heart into a poor man's house, wi'
+full determination to cheat him. Ye reckoned to be buyin' one thing when
+ye knew well 'at ye wor buyin' another. An' what ye wor doin' then wor
+this--ye were sellin' yer soul to t'Devil! Ye cheated me to mi face; but
+ye can't cheat him 'at put it into yer mind to cheat me! An' theer's
+others powers beside him, and I've been their instrument. I wor nowt but
+an agent i' bringing you to destruction. For ye're destroyed, Jecholiah!
+Ye can work and tew, tew and work, labour and better labour, at yon
+black water, but ye'll never clear it; it's t'flood o' vengeance 'at's
+come down on yer! If ye'd been content to mak' yer brass honest and
+straight, nowt would ha' happened to ye; and ye'd ha' had all 'at yer've
+lost. Lost! lost! lost! Sit theer, and stare and stare at yer bit o'
+fire till it dies out; yer last hopes'll die wi' that, for niver one
+penny o' yer brass will ye iver see out o' that land 'at once were mine
+and 'at ye cheated me out on. Ye ran t'race i' yer own way, Jecholiah,
+and ye're beaten!"
+
+The burning eyes and strange figure suddenly vanished into the gloom
+from which they had appeared, and at the same moment the light of the
+lamp, which had been growing fainter and fainter while the queer voice
+sounded, gave one leap, showed Jeckie that she was alone in the
+living-room, and died out. Then came blackness, for at the same time the
+red ashes in the grate sank into sombre grey, and with the blackness an
+intense silence. She knew then that what she had seen was Scholes's
+ghost, and with a lifting of her hands to her head and a sudden catching
+of her breath, she half rose, and in the action fell forward across the
+hearth.
+
+Farnish, coming home an hour later, found her lying there unconscious.
+And, in unconsciousness or semi-consciousness, she lay in her bed for a
+long time, hovering between life and death. One season had merged into
+another before Jeckie came to herself. Farnish and his younger daughter
+were at her bedside when her eyes first opened with full intelligence,
+and for a moment she believed that the old days at Applecroft were back
+again, and that they were all together. But in the next she remembered
+and realised, and after one quick glance at Rushie she turned her face
+to the wall with a gesture that seemed to implore silence.
+
+It takes much to kill a woman of such a constitution, and Jeckie began
+to mend. But it was long before she spoke a word to any of those who
+came about her as to the events that had led up to her illness. It was
+to Farnish that she spoke at last; he had never failed in constant
+attendance on her, and sat for hours in her room, watching her, waking
+or sleeping. And as he sat by her side one grey afternoon she suddenly
+turned her eyes on him with a flash of their old power.
+
+"How long have I been here?" she demanded.
+
+Farnish, mindful of the doctor's orders, tried to evade a direct answer.
+
+"Ye'd best not to bother about that theer, mi lass," he said,
+soothingly. "Ye're mendin' varry weel now, and t'doctor says 'at if
+ye're nobbut kept quiet, and hev nowt to worry yer, ye'll soon be up and
+doin', so----"
+
+"I shall have plenty to worry about if you don't tell me what I want to
+know," insisted Jeckie. "How long have I been ill? Out with it!"
+
+"Why, then, a matter o' two or three month, mi lass," replied Farnish.
+"But ye've been well looked to. Me an' yer sister Rushie, we've been wi'
+you all t'time--she's been a reight good 'un, has Rushie--never left
+t'place, and----"
+
+Jeckie made a movement of impatience.
+
+"What's gone on across there?" she demanded, pointing a wasted hand to
+the window. "What have they done? How are things?"
+
+Farnish, who sat by the bedside twiddling his thumbs in sign of deep
+perplexity, shook his head.
+
+"Now, Jecholiah, mi lass!" he said, with a poor attempt at firmness.
+"That's t'varry thing 'at t'doctor said ye worrn't to be allowed to talk
+about. So----"
+
+"If you don't tell me, I'll get up and see for myself!" she retorted.
+"You'd better say!"
+
+"Why, then," answered Farnish, "if I mun say, all I can say is, 'at you
+were took badly Mestur Revis he's hed all t'affairs i' hand. He come
+forrard and said 'at he'd tak it all on his shoulders, i' your interest.
+And he's t'only man 'at can rightly say how things is--I can't. I know
+nowt, mi lass--'ceptin' what I've telled you."
+
+"I must see him," said Jeckie.
+
+"Ye mun ha' t'doctor's consent first, mi lass," replied Farnish.
+
+She lay quiet for some time after that; then she suddenly asked a
+question which made Farnish stare at her.
+
+"Has naught been heard of Ben Scholes?"
+
+Farnish made a curious exclamation.
+
+"Scholes!" he said. "Aye, for sure! He wor found dead, i' Wake Wood,
+some time ago; they say he'd evidently been i' hiding theer, and theer
+he'd died. Queer, worrn't it, mi lass?"
+
+But Jeckie made no answer. She knew now, for certain, that it was
+Scholes's ghost that had come to her, and that all was lost.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII
+
+_The Second Exodus_
+
+
+Those who ministered to her in her convalescence found it difficult to
+understand Jeckie Farnish's curious apathy and indifference to the
+things about her. Once her sister was out of danger, Rushie had gone
+home to Binks and her children; Binks was by that time a bustling
+tradesman in Sicaster, and had prospered so well that Rushie wore a real
+sealskin coat and sported gold chains and diamond rings. It had been
+Binks's idea that his wife should go to the rescue when Jeckie was taken
+ill; blood, said Binks, with the air of a Solomon, was thicker than
+water when all's said and done, and bygones should be bygones, and in no
+half-measures. So Rushie waited on Jeckie hand and foot, and Jeckie,
+after she had come to herself, watched her going about the sick room and
+said nothing. At that time, indeed, she said nothing to anybody, and
+when Rushie had returned, leaving her sister in charge of Farnish and a
+neighbour-woman, she said less. Farnish began to wonder if her illness
+had affected her mind, and voiced his doubts to the doctor; the doctor
+made him leave Jeckie alone; she would speak, he said, as soon as she
+wanted to.
+
+There came a time when Farnish was obliged to speak, whether Jeckie
+wanted to hear or not. He approached her bedside one day in a
+shamefaced, diffident manner, looking doubtfully at her.
+
+"Jecholiah, mi lass," said Farnish, "theer's a little matter 'at I mun
+mention to yer, though I'm sure I wouldn't trouble yer wi' it if it
+could be helped. But ye see, mi lass, when ye were ta'en badly an' could
+do nowt for yersen, I hed to tak things i' hand, and of course, I hed to
+lay out money. I knew wheer you kep' a certain supply down theer i'
+t'owd bewro i' t'kitchen corner, and I hed to force t'lock and lay hands
+on it. That's three months and more since, and for all I've been varry
+careful about layin' it out, it's come to an end, as all such
+commodities, as they term 'em, does. What mun I do, mi lass?"
+
+Jeckie made an effort of memory, and remembered how much money there had
+been in the old bureau of which her father spoke--something between
+forty and fifty pounds, as far as she could recollect. She made a rapid
+calculation and found that Farnish had spent between three and four
+pounds a week during her illness. There was nothing extravagant in such
+expenditure at such a time. But she gave him a sharp, searching look.
+
+"You made that do? You have borrowed aught from anybody?" she demanded.
+
+"Surely not, mi lass!" protested Farnish. "No!"
+
+"Not from them Binkses?" questioned Jeckie.
+
+"Nowt from nobody, Jecholiah," said Farnish. "It's panned out very well,
+ower fourteen weeks. There's happen a pound or so left. But----"
+
+"Go downstairs, and come up again when I knock on t'floor," said
+Jeckie. "I have a bit in my box."
+
+Farnish went away in his usual obedient fashion, and when he had gone,
+Jeckie, who hitherto had been unable to get out of bed unaided, made
+shift to rise, and to wrap a shawl round her shoulders. Weak as she was,
+her first action was characteristic--to totter to the door and lock it.
+That cost her trembling limbs an effort; she had to summon all her small
+reserve of strength and to pause once or twice in order to cross the
+floor to a heavy, iron-clamped box which stood in one corner of the
+room, staying again on the way to extract a key from a certain
+hiding-place beneath the carpet. And when this box was unlocked she
+found it difficult work to lift out and lay aside the various things
+that lay within; it took some time before she had got down to the bottom
+and had there unearthed a smaller box, wherein, months before, when she
+had been obliged to face possible contingencies, she had placed a
+personal reserve fund. The key of that box was in an old satchel kept
+within the larger one; she found it at last and laid bare her secret
+store.
+
+Weak and trembling as she was, Jeckie could not forbear the satisfaction
+of counting over this money. She had deposited there a thousand pounds
+in banknotes, and fifty in gold, and she slowly counted paper and coin.
+It was all there, all safe, and she took ten pounds in gold, put the
+rest back, and with many tremblings and restings, locked up the two
+boxes, unlocked the door, knocked loudly on the floor, and climbed back
+into bed.
+
+"There's ten pound," she said when Farnish came up in response to her
+summons. "Make it go as far as you can."
+
+She turned her face away then, as if wanting no talk on the matter, and
+Farnish took the hint and the money and went quietly away. It astonished
+him, as Jeckie grew stronger, that she asked no questions about his
+expenditure; once upon a time, she would have made him account for every
+penny. But now she seemed indifferent; she was indifferent, indeed, to
+everything, and there came a time when she showed no interest in the
+doctor's visits, as if she cared nothing whether he was doing her good
+or not. But all that time she was steadily improving, and at last the
+doctor told her, in Farnish's presence, that there was no need for him
+to come again and that she could get up.
+
+"Ye'll be glad to take a look round, no doubt, mi lass," observed
+Farnish, when the doctor had gone. "It'll liven you up."
+
+Jeckie made no reply. The neighbour-woman got her up next day, helped
+her to dress, and bustled about in the hope of making her comfortable at
+her first rising. When Jeckie was dressed this good Samaritan went
+downstairs and returned with an easy chair and cushions.
+
+"I'll put this here agen t'winda, Miss Farnish," she said with cheery
+officiousness. "Ye'll be able to look out theer ower t'pit, and see what
+they're a-doin' on theer. Nowt so lively as it wor afore t'accident, but
+theer is things bein' done theer, an' happen ye'll like to get a glimpse
+on' em, for, of course, ye mun ha' been anxious, an'----"
+
+"Put that chair in that corner!" snapped Jeckie, with a sudden gleam of
+her old temper. "An' hold yer wisht about t'pit! When I want to talk
+about t'pit, I'll let you know."
+
+The woman had sufficient sense to see that her charge was irritable, and
+she made no answer; she had enough wit, too, to place the easy chair in
+a corner of the room from which it was impossible to see out of the
+window. And in that corner Jeckie spent the first period of her
+convalescence, at first doing nothing, afterwards occupying herself in
+mending her linen.
+
+Farnish came upstairs every now and then, always with some question--was
+she wanting aught? But Jeckie never wanted anything; she ate and drank
+whatever was put before her without remark and with apparent
+indifference, and so the days went by. And during the whole of that time
+she never asked her father a question save once.
+
+"Where," she asked suddenly, one day, as Farnish hung about the bedroom
+in his usual aimless, good-intentioned fashion, "where did they bury
+Scholes?"
+
+"Why, i' t'churchyard, to be sure, mi lass!" answered Farnish, glad to
+break the silence which he found so trying. "Wheer else? Ligged him i'
+t'same grave as his missus--ye'll know t'spot; halfway down that new
+piece o' ground 'at they took in fro' Stubley's ten-acre a few years
+sin'. Aye, he wor buried all reight theer, wor Ben--same as anybody
+else. Why, mi lass?"
+
+"Naught!" answered Jeckie, and relapsed into her usual silence.
+
+The same silence continued when she at last went downstairs. And there
+Farnish noticed that she never went near the window of the living-room;
+it, like that of her bedroom, overlooked the ill-fated colliery. For
+awhile she accepted the help and ministrations of the neighbour-woman;
+then one day she gave her some money and with the curt remark that in
+future she and her father could fend for themselves, dismissed her. She
+began to go about the cottage then, and to do the household work, and
+Farnish, who was somewhat shrewd as regards observation, noticed that
+one night, when the darkness had fallen, she fitted two muslin blinds to
+the window of the living-room and the window of her chamber above; the
+light could come in through them, but no one could see out.
+
+"It's t'same as if our Jeckie niver wanted to set her eyes on yon theer
+pit an' its surroundings niver no more!" observed Farnish, narrating
+this curious circumstance to his principal crony. "Shutten 'em clean
+out, as it weer!"
+
+"An' no wonder, considerin' how things has befallen," remarked the
+crony. "If things hed turned out wi' onny affair o' mine as that's
+turned out wi' her, d'ye think I should want to hev' it i' front o' my
+eyes, allus remindin' me o' what had happened? Nowt o' t'sort!"
+
+"Aye!" said Farnish, reflectively. "But--she knows nowt, as yet."
+
+There came a time when Jeckie had to know. One morning, when she was
+fully restored to health, though now a gaunt and haggard woman,
+grey-haired and spiritless, Farnish, who had been out in the village,
+came in as she was washing up the breakfast things in the scullery and
+approached her with evident concern.
+
+"Jecholiah, mi lass," he said, in a low voice, "theer's Mestur Revis
+outside, i' his trap. He's called at t'doctor's as he came through
+Sicaster, and t'doctor says you're now fit to hev a bit o' business
+talk. And Mestur Revis is varry anxious to come in and hev it, now. How
+will it be, mi lass?"
+
+Jeckie finished polishing her china before she answered, and Farnish
+stood by, silent, anxiously waiting.
+
+"Happen I know as much as Revis or anybody else can tell," she said at
+last in a queer voice. "And happen I got to know it in a way 'at neither
+Revis nor you, nor anybody, 'ud understand. But--tell him to come in."
+
+Farnish went out to the colliery proprietor, who sat in his smart
+dog-cart, meditatively surveying the scene on the other side of the
+road. There were no signs of activity now about the pit on which Jeckie
+had set such hopes; the surface buildings stood as ruinous as the
+explosions had left them; on the hillside the cottages intended for the
+miners were just as they were when all work had come to an end on them;
+over the whole surface of the Leys there was ruin and desolation. And
+Revis had just shaken his head and heaved a deep sigh when Farnish
+emerged from the cottage.
+
+"She'll see you now, if you'll please go in, Mestur Revis," said
+Farnish. Then he looked half entreatingly, half wistfully at the big
+man. "Ye'll break it gentle to her, sir?" he added. "She's in a queer
+state of mind, to my thinking."
+
+"Leave it to me, my lad," said Revis, as he got out of his dog-cart.
+"I'll make it as easy as I can for her."
+
+He went up the path to the cottage door, tapped, and walked in. Jeckie
+sat in her accustomed corner, in the shadows, but Revis saw how she had
+changed, and it was with a curious mixture of pity and wonder and
+interest that he went up and held out his hand to her.
+
+"Well, my lass!" he said, with a sympathetic effort to put some
+cheeriness into his voice. "You've had a bad time of it, to be sure,
+poor thing! But--you're better?"
+
+"Well enough to hear aught you've to say, Mr. Revis," answered Jeckie.
+"And--sit down and tell me straight out, if you please. You know me!"
+
+Revis gave her a searching look and pulled a chair in front of her.
+
+"Aye!" he said. "I think I know! Well, it's not cheering news, but you'd
+better know it. You know already that I've done what I could to look
+after things for you while you've been ill?"
+
+"Yes, and I'm obliged to you," answered Jeckie. "You were always a good
+friend."
+
+"It was this way," continued Revis. "When you were taken ill that
+brother-in-law of yours, Binks, came to me and asked me if I couldn't do
+something to help. I came over and consulted with him and your partner
+and her husband. We went right into things. Of course you know that when
+your illness came you were just at the end of your capital?"
+
+"Who should know better!" exclaimed Jeckie, bitterly.
+
+"Well, that was so," asserted Revis. "So--everything stopped, with those
+shafts still half-full of water, and----"
+
+"I know how they were, and how all else was," interrupted Jeckie. "You
+can't tell me anything about that!"
+
+"To be sure!" said Revis, humouring her. "Well, the question was--was it
+worth while putting more capital--it would have had to be a lot more
+capital!--to clear the mine, get all going again, and go on? Now, I had
+some talk with two or three influential men in the district, and we
+decided to come to your help if we could see that all the money you and
+Mrs. Albert Grice had put in, and all that we should have to put in
+would be got back--that, in short, the results would justify the
+expenditure. In other words, what amount of coal is under this property
+and close to it? You understand?"
+
+For the first time for many long months a faint flush of colour came to
+Jeckie Farnish's haggard cheeks, and she spoke with some show of
+interest.
+
+"You mean to say that there's a doubt?" she asked.
+
+"We'll leave doubts out," answered Revis. "That was the real problem. I
+put aside all the investigations that you made before you started, and
+made some of my own, at my own expense. You know what a thorough man I
+am about such things. Well, I made, at once, more borings, in different
+parts, not only of your property, but in the land round about. I've
+known the truth now for a week or two; it's an unpleasant one. There's
+without doubt a good bed beneath your land, but a small one. What you'd
+have got out of it would possibly have given you back your capital and a
+bit over. But there's none elsewhere! And your pit's been so ruined by
+that explosion, and there's such a body of water that----"
+
+"I understand," said Jeckie, interrupting him with a significant look.
+"It's useless!"
+
+"If you want plain words, my lass--yes!" answered Revis. "To get that
+pit cleared and to go on again would cost far more than you'd ever get
+back. I reckoned everything up, with your partner's assistance--you know
+she'd power to act for you if you couldn't--and things were just
+here--what with paying everything up to the time of stoppage and so on,
+you've just come to the end of your capital, and--there you are! It's a
+very sad thing, but it's one of these things that have to be faced."
+
+"The workmen and all the rest of them?" asked Jeckie.
+
+"All paid off--gone, weeks since," replied Revis, laconically.
+
+"And the stuffs about those shafts--material--the building material at
+those cottages, and all that?" she inquired.
+
+"Sold--to settle things up," said Revis. "Your partner had power to do
+all that, you know, as you couldn't. We all made the biggest effort we
+could for you and for her. To put things in a nutshell--you owe nothing
+to the bank or to anybody, and the whole concern is just a ruin which
+anybody can take up and remake if they like. I would have liked, but it
+isn't worth it."
+
+Jeckie looked steadily at her visitor for a long time.
+
+"Then," she said at last, in a low voice that was curiously firm,
+"then--I've nothing?"
+
+Revis shook his head.
+
+"Nothing," he answered. "Nothing! except the forty acres that you bought
+in the beginning."
+
+He was surprised to hear Jeckie laugh. He was something of a student of
+human nature, this big, bluff man, but he could not gauge the precise
+meaning of that laugh, and he looked at the woman before him, in some
+slight alarm, which she was quick to recognise.
+
+"I'm not going mad, Revis," she said. "I was only thinking that at the
+end of all that I've got--forty acres! Those forty acres!"
+
+"How much did you give for them?" he asked, inquisitively. "A lot? I'd
+an idea it was for next to naught that you got them."
+
+Jeckie suddenly got up from her chair, and turned towards the hearth.
+She stood looking into the fire for some time, and when, at last, she
+glanced at her visitor there was a look in her eyes which Revis never
+forgot.
+
+"What did I give for them?" she said in a low, concentrated voice.
+"Man!--I don't know--yet!--what I gave for them!"
+
+Revis stood staring at her for a moment of wonder. Her answer was beyond
+him. And as he had no reply to it he turned to go. But Jeckie stopped
+him.
+
+"Wait a minute," she said. "A question--Lucilla Grice and her husband?"
+
+"They've left the neighbourhood," replied Revis. "They sold their house
+and furniture and went away. I don't know where they've gone."
+
+Jeckie said no more, and Revis went out, said a few words to Farnish,
+and drove off. And Farnish went indoors, and found Jeckie already
+setting about the preparations for their early dinner. He was astonished
+to find that she began to be talkative that day; still more astonished
+that, when evening came, she cooked a hot supper, encouraged him to eat,
+ate heartily herself, and before they went to bed mixed a goodly tumbler
+of grog for each of them. It was, thought Farnish, like old times, and
+he went to his chamber in high content.
+
+But as the grey dawn broke a few hours later, Farnish woke to find
+Jeckie, fully dressed, standing at his bedside. He stared at her in
+astonishment.
+
+"Get up; get dressed; come down; we're going away," said Jeckie. "Don't
+talk, but do as I tell you. There'll be some breakfast ready by the time
+you're down."
+
+Farnish obeyed; he was still as clay in his elder daughter's hands. And
+an hour later, still obedient though wondering, he followed her out of
+the cottage, and up the empty street of Savilestowe, past what had once
+been Grice's, past what had once been the Golden Teapot, past the last
+house, past the last tree. At the top of the hill, and as the morning
+broke, he turned and looked back, having some strange intuition that he
+was being taken away from a place which he had known long and would
+never see again. He stood looking for some minutes; when he turned,
+Jeckie, who had never once looked back, was marching stolidly ahead.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XIII
+
+_The Lustre Jug_
+
+
+Some eight or nine years after the morning on which Jeckie Farnish and
+her father had walked out of their native village for the last time,
+never to be heard of again in those parts, a man, who had just arrived
+by train at Scarhaven, the time being seven o'clock of a bitterly cold
+November evening, turned away from the railway station and betook
+himself, shivering in the north-east wind that swept inland from the
+sea, towards a part of the town wherein cheap lodgings were to be found.
+In the light of the street lamps he showed himself to any who chanced to
+look at him as a not over-well clad, somewhat shabby man, elderly,
+greyish of hair and beard, who carried an old umbrella in one hand and a
+much worn hand-bag in the other. Not the sort of man, this, anyone would
+have said, who had much money to spend--nevertheless, when, after some
+ten minutes of hard walking, he came to the end of a badly lighted
+street in a dismal quarter, he turned into the bar-parlour of a corner
+tavern and ordered hot whisky and a cheap cigar. In the light of the
+place his shabbiness was more apparent, yet it was shabbiness of the
+genteel sort. His overcoat was threadbare, but well brushed; his boots,
+patched in more than one place, were sound of sole and firm of heel and
+had been well cleaned and polished; his linen was clean and he wore
+gloves. A keen observer of men and things would have said, after
+inspecting him, that here was a man who had known better days.
+
+Under the cheering influence of his whisky and his cigar, this man shook
+off the chill of the streets and the sea wind and began to feel more
+comfortable in flesh and bone.
+
+He settled himself in a corner of the bar-parlour and picked up a
+newspaper from an adjoining table, there was a good fire in the grate
+close by, and he glanced at it approvingly as at the face of an old
+friend, and occasionally stretched out a hand to it. In this fashion he
+spent half an hour; at the end of that time he pulled out a watch, and
+here again a keen observer would have noted something of significance.
+The watch hung from a cheap steel chain, of the sort that you can buy
+anywhere for a couple of shillings, but the watch itself was a good,
+first-class article of solid gold, old, no doubt, but valuable. He
+replaced it in his pocket with an air of indecision; then, apparently,
+making up his mind about something, he had his glass replenished, and
+for another half-hour he sat, gradually growing warmer and more
+courageous. But soon after eight o'clock had struck from a neighbouring
+church tower, he rose, buttoned his overcoat about his throat, and,
+picking up bag and umbrella, made for the door. Ere he had reached it
+another moment of apparent indecision came over him. It ended in his
+returning to the bar and asking to be supplied with a bottle of whisky.
+He counted out its price from a handful of silver which he drew from his
+hip pocket, and, placing the bottle in the bag, made his exit and went
+out again into the night.
+
+It was a badly-lighted street down which this man turned--a street of
+small, mean houses, wherein there were few lights in the windows and the
+gas lamps were placed far apart. Consequently, he had some difficulty in
+finding the number he wanted, and was obliged to look closely within the
+doorways to get an idea of its exact situation. But he got it at last,
+and knocked--to wait until a slight opening of the door revealed a
+dimly-lighted, narrow passage, and a girl between the lamp and himself.
+
+"Mrs. Watson in?" he asked, making as if to enter. The girl shook her
+head.
+
+"Mrs. Watson's dead, sir--died three years ago," she answered. "Name of
+Marshall here now."
+
+The inquirer appeared to be seriously taken aback.
+
+"Sorry to hear that," he said. "I used to get a night's lodgings with
+her in years past. Do they let lodgings here now?"
+
+"No, sir," said the girl, "but there's plenty of houses where they do,
+both sides of the street. You'll see cards in the windows, sir."
+
+The man thanked his informant and went away--to look for the cards of
+which the girl had spoken. There were plenty of these cards in the
+windows. He could see them, dismal and ghost-like in the gloom, and very
+soon he paused, irresolute.
+
+"One's as good as another, I reckon," he muttered at last. "And when
+you can't afford an hotel----"
+
+Then he knocked at the door by which he was just then standing. There
+was some delay there, but when the door opened there was a strong light
+in the passage behind it, and he found himself confronting a tall,
+gaunt, white-haired woman, gowned in rusty black, over whose shoulders
+were thrown an old Paisley shawl. He looked uninterestedly at her--one
+landlady was pretty much as other landladies.
+
+"Can you let me have a room and a bit of supper and breakfast?" he
+began. "I used to put up at Mrs. Watson's, lower down, but I find she
+dead, so----"
+
+Then he suddenly stopped, hearing the woman catch her breath and seeing
+a quick start of surprise in her as she leaned forward to stare at him.
+And he, too, leaned nearer, and stared.
+
+"Good Lord!" he muttered. "Jeckie! Jeckie Farnish! Well, I never!"
+
+Jeckie held the door wider, motioning the applicant to step inside.
+
+"I knew you, Albert Grice, as soon as you spoke," she said, in a dull,
+almost sullen voice. "Come in! I can find what you want. Where's your
+wife?" she went on, as she pointed him to a hat-stand. "Is she here,
+waiting anywhere, in the town, or is it just for yourself?"
+
+Albert set down his umbrella and bag, and began to take off his coat.
+
+"Lucilla's dead," he replied, shortly. "Five or six years since. I'd no
+idea of coming across you! I was here, once or twice--business, you
+know--for a night, some years since, at that Mrs. Watson's----"
+
+"Come this way," said Jeckie. She walked before him down the narrow
+passage to a living-room at the end, a homely, comfortable place, where
+there was a bright fire, something cooking on the range, and, in an
+elbow-chair at the side of the hearth, an old, white-bearded man who
+smiled and nodded as Albert walked in. "You remember him," continued
+Jeckie, pointing to Farnish. "He's lost his memory--he wouldn't know you
+from Adam!--he's forgotten all about Savilestowe, and he thinks he's a
+retired farmer--wi' lots o' money!" she added, grimly. "Speak to
+him--but take no notice of what he says--he talks all sorts o' soft
+stuff."
+
+Albert went up to Farnish and offered his hand.
+
+"Ah, how do you do, sir?" he asked. "Hope I see you well, sir?"
+
+"Ah, how do you do, sir?" responded Farnish, with another infantile
+smile. "I hope you're well yourself? Friend o' my dowter's, no doubt,
+sir, and kindly welcome. Jecholiah, mi lass, what'll the gentleman tak'
+to drink--ye mun get out the sperrits--and there'll be a bit o' tobacco
+in the jar, somewhere, no doubt."
+
+"Sit you down," said Jeckie, motioning Albert to another elbow-chair.
+"There's some hot supper in t'oven; plenty of it, and good, too, and
+we'll have it in a minute, and then he'll go to his bed--he's quiet and
+harmless enough, but his mind's gone--at least his memory has."
+
+"Does he ever take a glass?" asked Albert, staring curiously at Farnish.
+"I see he's got his pipe handy."
+
+"Oh, I give him a drop every night before he goes to bed," said Jeckie,
+already bustling about the hearth. "That does him no harm."
+
+Albert went back into the passage and returned with his bottle of
+whisky. Seeing a corkscrew hanging on the delf-ledge, he drew the cork,
+mixed two tumblers of grog, and handed one to Farnish and offered the
+other to Jeckie.
+
+"Nay, drink it yourself," said Jeckie. "I don't mind one after supper,
+but not now. You haven't made it over strong for him?"
+
+"It'll not hurt him," replied Albert, pointing to the label on the
+bottle. "Sound stuff, that. Best respects, sir!"
+
+"And my best respects to you, sir, and many on 'em," answered Farnish.
+"Allers glad to see a gentleman o' your sort, sir--friends o' my
+dowter's."
+
+"He thinks all my lodgers are friends 'at come to see us," observed
+Jeckie. "Poor old feller!--he's been like that this three year."
+
+Albert sat sipping his drink and watching father and daughter. Farnish
+had become white and doddering; Jeckie's hair was as white as his, and
+she was as gaunt as a scarecrow, and looked all the more so because of
+her height and her strong-boned figure, but she was evidently as
+bustling as ever, and not without some spark of her old fire. And
+before long she set a smoking-hot Irish stew on the table, and bade
+Albert to fall to and eat heartily; there was always plenty of good,
+plain food in her house, she added, dryly, and nobody went with their
+bread unbuttered. So Albert ate and grew warm and satisfied, and, when,
+later on, Jeckie was seeing Farnish to his bed, he sat by the fire, and
+drank more whisky, and wondered, in vague, purposeless fashion, about
+the vagaries of life.
+
+Jeckie came back to him at last, and dropped into the chair which
+Farnish had left empty. Albert indicated his bottle.
+
+"Well, I don't mind a drop," she said. "A woman 'at works as hard as I
+do can do with a glass last thing at night. I've some good stuff o' my
+own in that cupboard--you must try it when you've finished your glass."
+
+"Good health, then," said Albert. He looked speculatively at her as he
+lifted his glass. "I was never more surprised in my life," he went on,
+confidentially, "than when you opened that door! For--it's all a long
+time ago!"
+
+Jeckie, holding the tumbler which he had given her in both hands, stared
+meditatively at the fire for some time before replying.
+
+"Aye!" she said at last. "I've had more lives nor one i' my time! You've
+never been back there?"
+
+"Never!" answered Albert. "Have you?"
+
+Jeckie shook her head.
+
+"There's naught could ever make me do that," she said. "It was over and
+done with. Once I thought of emigrating and starting afresh, but there
+was him"--she nodded towards the stairs. "I had to think of him. So I
+came here, and furnished this bit of a house, and started taking in
+lodgers--chance folk, like yourself. It's been--well, just a comfortable
+living. T'old fellow upstairs is satisfied, especially since he lost all
+his memory. And that's the main thing, anyhow, now. There's naught
+else."
+
+Albert said nothing, and there was a long pause before Jeckie spoke
+again. Then she asked a question.
+
+"What might you be doing?"
+
+"Bit o' travelling," replied Albert. "The old line--a patent food. No
+great thing; but, as you say, it's, well, just a nice living. For a
+single man, keeps one going; and I can manage a cigar now and then, and
+a drop o' that," he added, with a knowing sidelong glance at the bottle.
+"I don't complain."
+
+Jeckie shrugged her shoulders.
+
+"What's the use?" she said.
+
+Albert suddenly rose, went out into the passage, and came back with a
+packet in his hand, which he presented to her.
+
+"This is the stuff," he said. "Invaluable for children, invalids, and
+old people. You might try it on your father; it's grand stuff for old
+'uns when they've lost their teeth. Lately I've done very nicely with
+it. What I want is to get a bigger connection with leading firms in some
+of these towns. I'm going to try a whole day here to-morrow. I've only
+one of these Scarhaven firms on my list at present. Now, you'll have an
+idea about where I should go, eh? Happen you can suggest...."
+
+They continued talking for an hour or two, facing each other across the
+hearth, two broken things, with a past behind them, and a bottle between
+them, each secretly conscious of mutual knowledge, and neither daring to
+speak of it. They talked of anything but the past, any trifle of the
+moment; yet the consciousness of the past was there, spectre-like, and
+each felt it. And, at last, as the clock struck eleven, Jeckie rose and
+lighted a candle.
+
+"I'll show you your room," she said. "You can depend on the bed being
+well-aired; I'm always particular about that; and there's everything
+you'll want. And I'll have a good breakfast ready at half-past eight."
+
+When she had shown Albert to his room she went downstairs again, and,
+gathering the Paisley shawl about her, sat in front of the fire, staring
+at it and thinking, until the red ashes grew grey, and the grey ashes
+white. It was past midnight then, but she had so sat, and so heard the
+clocks strike twelve for many a long year.
+
+"As sure as I'm a born woman," she muttered, she rose at last, "it was
+Ben Scholes's spirit 'at I saw that night! And I were none wrong when I
+said to Revis 'at I didn't know what I gave for that land! for who knows
+what I'll have to pay for it yet! But I've kept paying, and paying, and
+paying, on account; but what about t'balance?"
+
+She went slowly and heavily upstairs and looked in on Farnish. The old
+man was fast asleep, his hands clasped over his breast.
+
+"He's all right," she muttered as she left his room. "He never had any
+great love of money."
+
+Albert found a good breakfast of eggs and bacon ready for him when he
+came down in the morning, and did justice to it. Jeckie stood by the
+fire and talked to him while he ate, but again there was no reference to
+the past. And before nine o'clock he had got into his coat and hat, to
+start out on his round.
+
+"I want to get done by four," he said. "I must go on to Kingsport
+to-night. So now--what do I owe?"
+
+"Why if you give me three-and-six, it'll do," answered Jeckie. With the
+coins which he gave her still in her hand, she followed him to the
+street door and looked out into a grey sea-fog that was rolling slowly
+up the street. She continued to look when he had said good-bye and gone
+quickly away ... she watched his disappearing figure until the sea-fog
+swallowed it up. She went back to the living-room then, and took down
+from the mantelpiece an old lustre-jug which she had treasured all
+through her life, since the time of her girlhood at Applecroft, and in
+which she now kept her small change. And as she dropped the
+three-and-six in it, the lustre-jug slipped from her fingers, and was
+broken into fragments on the hearthstone. Presently, she picked up the
+fragments and went out into the yard behind the house and threw them
+away on the dustheap; bits of pot, not more shattered than her own self.
+
+
+THE END
+
+       *       *       *       *       *
+
+    _Novels by_
+
+    J. S. FLETCHER
+
+    THE ROOT OF ALL EVIL
+    THE SECRET OF THE BARBICAN
+    THE MILL OF MANY WINDOWS
+    THE COPPER BOX
+    THE HEAVEN-KISSED HILL
+    EXTERIOR TO THE EVIDENCE
+    THE VALLEY OF HEADSTRONG MEN
+    THE LOST MR. LINTHWAITE
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Root of All Evil, by J. S. Fletcher
+
+*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 40603 ***