banks in the
north of the island then, and the mistress of Lague was in effect the
farmer's banker.

Government House, in the south of the island, had yet more
applicants; but what the Governor had he gave, and when his money was
gone he served out orders on the millers for meal and the weavers for
cloth. It soon became known that he kept open house to the poor, and
from north and south, east and west, the needy came to him in troops,
and with them came the idle and the dissolute. He knew the one class
from the other, yet railed at both in threatening words, reproaching
their improvidence and predicting his own ruin, but he ended by
giving to all alike. They found out his quarter-day and came in
throngs to meet it, knowing that, bluster as he would, while the good
man had money he was sure to give it to all who asked. The sorry
troop, good and bad, worthy and unworthy, soon left him without a
pound. He fumed at this when Greeba cast up his reckoning, but
comforted himself with the thought that he had still his stipend of
five hundred pounds a year coming in to him, however deeply it might
be condemned beforehand.

At the first pinch of his necessity his footman deserted him and
after the footman went the groom.

"They say the wind is tempered to the shorn sheep, Greeba," said he,
and laughed.

He had always stood somewhat in awe of these great persons, and his
spirits rose visibly at the loss of them, for he had never yet
reconciled himself to the dignity of his state.

"It's wonderful how much a man may do for himself when he's put to
it," he said, as he groomed his own horse next morning. His sons were
not so easily appeased, and muttered hard words at his folly, for
their own supplies had by this time suffered curtailment. He was
ruining himself at a breakneck pace, and if he came to die in the
gutter, who should say that it had not served him right? The man who
threw away his substance with his eyes open deserved to know by
bitter proof that it had gone. Jason heard all this at the fireside
at Lague, and though he could not answer it, he felt his palms itch
sorely, and his fists tighten like ribs of steel, and his whole body
stiffen up and silently measure its weight against that of Thurstan
Fairbrother, the biggest and heaviest and hardest-spoken of the
brothers. Greeba heard it, too, but took it with a gay lightsomeness,
knowing all yet fearing nothing.

"What matter?" she said, and laughed.

But strang