"You can't; an' best be civil, or you'll repent it," answered Bickford.
Then he took the amphora from Putt's hand, walked twenty yards away, and set it up carefully on a rock.
"You said fifty each," said Mark as he returned. "I lay you meant more." Then the labourer broke off and addressed his companion. "Ban't no sin to drag money out of this old mully-grubs; for you know so well as me that she never come by an honest penny in her life. Now I've slicked up her trash 'pon yonder rock, an' I be going to chuck stones at it till she comes to my figure; and sarve her damn well right, for she's bad to the bone—as all Dartymoor knows."
Lovey shrieked and Thomas Putt answered judicially—
"To terrify some money out of her be a fair thing. 'Tis payment for what master suffered."
The woman screamed and groaned. She fell at their feet, clasped their knees, grovelled, uttered blessings and cursings, raved until a steam hung over her lips in the chill air, called upon God and the devil to help her.
"What's the figure then?" asked Putt.
"Five hunderd—five hunderd pound this instant between you. For your sweethearts for——"
In answer, and before Putt, who was well satisfied, could stop him, Mark Bickford had flung a stone at the amphora. The pebble started to the right, came round true with the throw, and missed the precious vessel by inches. The woman followed the flight, and a lifetime of agony passed over her in the space of seconds. Then she turned upon Mark and poured forth a flood of appalling curses.
"Ban't five hunderd enough?" asked Thomas calmly.