BENEATH GREAT LINKS.
"They'm tricky things to put money in. I wonder you risked it."
"There wasn't no risk on paper. Their figures would have convinced any man. But they lied, and did it under the law, so that they be safe. I'm in a very tight place indeed, to be frank with you. I've got a few stiff bills to meet this quarter, and there's only two ways of doing it now. One is to sell out of a little investment or two that is paying well; and that's a cruel thing to do for a man with a wife and an expensive family. And t'other is to find a friend that'll prove a real friend, and raise a bit of money to tide over till spring."
"You ought to be able to do it."
"I can, no doubt; but I'm proud. 'Tisn't everybody I'd go to—even for a trifle like a hundred pound. I've got to show security, and nobody likes opening out their private affairs to other men. I'd thought about it, however, for it must be done. And it may astonish you to hear I'd nearly settled who I was going to."
Brendon nodded.
"You'll have no difficulty," he repeated.
"That's for you to say; for 'tis you I intended to ask."
"Me!"
"Why not? We all know you're a snug man nowadays. You ban't bringing Ruddyford into the front rank of Dartymoor farms for nothing. You're not doing all those big things down there, and taking in land, and doubling your sheep, and buying pedigree cattle and all the rest of it, for nothing. You're putting hundreds into Woodrow's pocket; and, as a sane man, I suppose you look to it that a bit sticks in your own."