'I could hang you for it,' laughed Elijah. 'That pretty neck where the red handkerchief hangs so jauntily would not look well with a hemp rope round it. You'd dangle on the Ray, where the house stood. You'd have a black cap then pulled over those dark eyes and brown skin, not a red one, not a red one, Glory!' he rubbed his hands.
'I have no warrant against you,' said the bailiff to Mehalah. 'You stand charged with nothing. The warrant is against your mother.'
'Against me? What will you do with me?' cried the old woman.
'You must go to prison if you cannot build the house up again, and restore it as good as it was to the landlord. He can't be at a loss by your neglect.'
'I cannot do it. I have not the money.'
'Then you must go to prison till you get it.'
Mrs. Sharland sank on the gravel. She wept and wrung her hands. This was worse than the burning of the house, worse even than the lesion of the ear and tail of the poodle.
'I won't go. I can't go!' she sobbed. 'I've the ague so bad. I suffer from rheumatism in all my bones. Let me alone,' she pleaded, 'and I promise I'll go to bed and never get out of it again.'
'You'll suffer in prison, I can promise you,' said Elijah exultingly. 'You'll have no bed to crawl into, unless you can pay for it; you'll have no blankets to wrap round you in the cold frosty night, if you can't pay for them; you'll have no fire to shiver by when there is ice on the ponds, if you haven't money to pay for it. The frost in your bones will make you shriek and jabber in prison.'
'I have no money. I gave the last to pay off Mrs. De Witt,' wailed the wretched woman. 'But there are the sheep.'