“Well, sir, the fact is that the Squire can’t git the money. It can’t be had nohow. Nobody won’t take the land as security. It might be so much water for all folk to look at it.”
“Quite so. Land is in very bad odour as security now.”
“And that being so, sir, what is to be done?”
Mr. Quest shrugged his shoulders. “I do not know. If the money is not forthcoming, of course I shall, however unwillingly, be forced to take my legal remedy.”
“Meaning, sir——”
“Meaning that I shall bring an action for foreclosure and do what I can with the lands.”
George’s face darkened.
“And that reads, sir, that the Squire and Miss Ida will be turned out of Honham, where they and theirs hev been for centuries, and that you will turn in?”
“Well, that is what it comes to, George. I am sincerely sorry to press the Squire, but it’s a matter of thirty thousand pounds, and I am not in a position to throw away thirty thousand pounds.”
“Sir,” said George, rising in indignation, “I don’t rightly know how you came by them there mortgages. There is some things as laryers know and honest men don’t know, and that’s one on them. But it seems that you’ve got ‘em and are a-going to use ‘em—and that being so, Mr. Quest, I have summut to say to you—and that is that no good won’t come to you from this here move.”