his head, and thumped his fist irritably.

'Didn't I say I was going to tell you summat?' he said. 'Hold your
tongue till I've done it. Years agone,' he began, 'I had a son--your
father, Biddy and Bet. You don't remember him--how should you. He and
your poor silly mother died when you were babes.'

'I remember him well enow,' Dorothy began; 'I had cause for he disgraced
the family.'

'Hold you tongue, Doll.'

'Yes, Aunt Dorothy, do be quiet,' Bryda said in a trembling voice.

'Well, he went wrong, very wrong, and I wanted to get him out of the
country, to escape the justices. It was a big sum, and I borrowed it of
Squire Bayfield up Binegar way. I put my name to a paper that I'd be
surety it should be paid on demand. The old Squire was a kind-hearted
chap, and he never pressed me. I spoke to him last fall, when he was out
with the beagles, as stout and as strong as ever, I thought. I told him
times were bad, and the crops scarce, and I had lost a lot of sheep in
the hard winter. And says he, "All right, I'll not come down on you." So
I was easy in my mind, and if he had lived it would have been all right;
but he dropped down dead last Candlemas, and his son, who has come back
from foreign parts, says he will have the cash or sell me up.'

'How much is it?' Betty asked, with white trembling lips.

'Three hundred pounds. I paid interest, I did, but this chap, curse
him, says he will have the lump sum or he'll put the bailiffs in.'

'Are you bound to pay him the sum?' Bryda asked. 'I expect not.'

'Yes, the paper says, or heirs of his body.'

'Ask a lawyer about it. Ask Mr Lambert,' Betty said.

'It ain't no good. The young fellow was here blustering last night. He
says he is in want of cash, and he must have it. That's the long and the
short of it. No, there's no hope. So the stock must go, and the bits of
furniture that have stood here since I was no higher than the table.'

'Lor'!' the old man said, wandering back into the past, 'I can see my
mother now a-polishing and rubbing yonder bureau till I could see my
face in it. Well, well, it's not for myself I grieve, it's for you
children.'

Bryda had risen, and stood with one hand on her grandfather's shoulder
and the other grasping the carved elbow of the old oak settle. Her lips
were firmly shut, and her whole bearing determined, almost defiant.
Presently she said,--

'I never knew before it was as bad as this. I never knew my father was
what Aunt Doroth