'Ekal to my powers!' roared Grizzly; 'look at my hands. See, they be two, three times as big as yours. I could break every bone in your body with mun. I be strong; I reckon, stronger than most of they fellows down to Upaver.'
'Very well, then, work.'
'I won't work. I ain't forced.'
'No, I am sorry for it. It is a mistake that you are given broken scraps from West Wyke. That keeps you from famishing, and emancipates you from the necessity of working.'
'You'd cut me off that next, I reckon.'
'Yes, I would.'
'You would!' repeated the old man malevolently. 'You takes away my liquor, and my meat, and my daughter as ought to work and keep me in my old age, and'—he turned and looked up in Herring's face—'you took the box from under the hearthstone.'
Herring started. The old man observed his advantage and chuckled.
'Grizzly, it is quite true that I took the box. You had no right to it; you had stolen it from the carriage that was upset. I took it that I might return it——'
'Oh, in coorse, in coorse, you returned the box at once, and all that was in it, to the young lady with the white face.'