when wanted, but always taking
ample security, and letting money in the same way, at five per cent.
per month.

The settlers had met with the usual financial disappointments of the
frontier, and then a business revulsion at the east caused a fall in
the value of land, and a diminution of immigration; and, having
expended the little they had on their arrival, they were compelled to
do as best they could. In this extremity it became common for them to
get trusted at the store for groceries, and hire money of its
proprietor; and in an astonishingly short space of time, the sharp
grocer held mortgages on most of the farms in the neighborhood. He was
inexorable when pay-day came; and if the money was not ready, he
foreclosed, deaf to all appeals. But of this he invariably gave each
one who applied for a loan an offensively plain warning. He was a
middle-sized, broad-chested, black-eyed man, muscular, passionate,
blasphemously profane, heavy-voiced, had a remarkable command of
language, and when angered his eyes seemed to shoot lightning, and he
would gesticulate with great energy. There was no respect of persons
or station with him; high and low were served alike. When credit or
money was asked for, he would say,--

"Certainly, sir; but, mind you," with a fearful oath, "if you don't
pay according to agreement, I shan't wait a moment. Everybody that
deals with me has to be on the square. O, yes; you _expect_ to pay,
but you won't. And don't you come whining and crying round me then; it
won't make any sort of difference. I've put my grip on your land, and
I tell you now that I shan't let go. Don't you say, then, that I
didn't tell you beforehand just how it would turn out."

The money-lender of the young village was feared, hated, and fawned
upon. His bearing was imperious and sneering towards all. He had a
vigorous intellect, however, was uncommonly well-informed, and would
discourse to the groups in his store, sitting with his stout legs
hanging over the counter, with a coarse brilliancy, original and
sagacious, from which the more cultured might cull gems of thought,
fresh and striking, despite the terrible swearing, which would startle
even bad men.

Was there "a well in the rock" of this man's hard heart? We shall
see.

The lines of the money-lender's face were bitterly hard; but on this
afternoon his features worked as if strong conflicting emotions were
striving for mastery. Something unusual was stirring his bra