h the others until all were done. And passing
to each his money, as the grasp of Death's own hand relaxed the hard
grip of her tight fingers, she trembled visibly, held it out and drew
it back again, and held it out again, as though she were reluctant to
part with it even yet.

And when all was over she swept the people out of the room with a
wave of her hand, and fell back to the bolster.

Then Greeba, thinking it a favorable moment to plead for her father,
mentioned his name, and eyed her mother anxiously. Mrs. Fairbrother
seemed not to hear at first, and, being pressed, she answered
wrathfully, saying she had no pity for her husband, and that not a
penny of her money should go to him.

But late the same day, after the doctor, who had been sent for from
Douglas, had wagged his head and made a rueful face over her, she
called for her sons, and they came and stood about her, and Greeba,
who had nursed her from the beginning, was also by her side.

"Boys," she said, between fits of pain, "keep the land together, and
don't separate; and mind you bring no women here or you'll fall to
quarrelling, and if any of you must marry let him have his share and
go. Don't forget the heifer that's near to calving, and see that you
fodder her every night. Fetch the geese down from Barrule at
Martinmas, and count the sheep on the mountains once a week, for the
people of Maughold are the worst thieves in the island."

They gave her their promise duly to do and not to do what she had
named, and, being little used to such scenes, they grew uneasy and
began to shamble out.

"And, boys, another thing," she said, faintly, stretching her
wrinkled hand across the counterpane, "give the girl her rights, and
let her marry whom she will."

This, also, they promised her; and then she, thinking her duty done
as an honest woman towards man and the world, but recking nothing of
higher obligations, lay backward with a groan.

Now it did not need that the men should marry in order that they
might quarrel, for hardly was the breath out of their mother's body
when they set to squabbling, without any woman to help them. Asher
grumbled that Thurstan was drunken, Thurstan grumbled that Asher was
lazy, Asher retorted that, being the eldest son, if he had his rights
he would have every foot of the land, and Ross and Stean arose in
fury at the bare thought of either being hands on their brother's
farm or else taking the go-by at his hands. So they qua