'Well,' she said, 'what's up, father?'
The old man shook his head, and thumped his fist irritably.
'Didn't I say I was going to tell you summat?' he said. 'Hold your tongue till I've done it. Years agone,' he began, 'I had a son—your father, Biddy and Bet. You don't remember him—how should you. He and your poor silly mother died when you were babes.'
'I remember him well enow,' Dorothy began; 'I had cause for he disgraced the family.'
'Hold you tongue, Doll.'
'Yes, Aunt Dorothy, do be quiet,' Bryda said in a trembling voice.
'Well, he went wrong, very wrong, and I wanted to get him out of the country, to escape the justices. It was a big sum, and I borrowed it of Squire Bayfield up Binegar way. I put my name to a paper that I'd be surety it should be paid on demand. The old Squire was a kind-hearted chap, and he never pressed me. I spoke to him last fall, when he was out with the beagles, as stout and as strong as ever, I thought. I told him times were bad, and the crops scarce, and I had lost a lot of sheep in the hard winter. And says he, "All right, I'll not come down on you." So I was easy in my mind, and if he had lived it would have been all right; but he dropped down dead last Candlemas, and his son, who has come back from foreign parts, says he will have the cash or sell me up.'
'How much is it?' Betty asked, with white trembling lips.
'Three hundred pounds. I paid interest, I did, but this chap, curse him, says he will have the lump sum or he'll put the bailiffs in.'
'Are you bound to pay him the sum?' Bryda asked. 'I expect not.'