"In truth you will not."
"I cannot."
"I don't believe you. It is because you want to spite me that you will not help."
"Not at all, Bideabout. I wish well to the child and its mother, and, of course, to you. But I cannot break a trust."
"You will not?"
"If no other word will suit you—be it so—I will not."
Jonas Kink fumed blood red.
"You think to have me there. I shouldn't be surprised but it's you who are at the bottom of all—and will buy me up and buy me out, that you and Matabel may have the place to yourselves. It shall never be. I know what was meant when Sanna Verstage made you trustee. I am to be reckoned with. I can assure you of that. I shall find means to keep my property from you and my wife also."
He raised his stick and fell to beating the picture of Mehetabel with it; till it was rent to rags.
"Not even her picture shall you have—and I would it were her I were slashin' and breakin' to pieces as I've done to this picture. It may come to that in the end—but out of my power and into your hands she shall never go."