The Root of All Evil

by J. S. Fletcher

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

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Part the First: RISE

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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.

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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!"

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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.

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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!"

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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.