The Bondman: A New Saga

by Sir Hall Caine

And having so decided they further concluded to see the crops off the ground, and then lose no time in carrying out their design. "Let's wait for the melya," said Asher, meaning the harvest-home, "and then off for Marky the Lord." The person who went by this name was one Mark Skillicorn, an advocate, of Ramsey, who combined the functions of pettifogger with those of money-lender and auctioneer. Marky the Lord was old, and plausible and facetious. He was a distant relative of the Fairbrothers by the side of their mother's French family; and it was a strange chain of circumstances that no big farmer ever got into trouble but he became a client of Marky the Lord's, that no client of Marky the Lord's did not in the end go altogether to the bad, and that poor Marky the Lord never had a client who did not die in his debt. Nevertheless Marky the Lord grew richer as his losses grew heavier, and more facetious as his years increased. Oh, he was a funny dog, was Marky the Lord; but there was just one dog on the island a shade or two funnier still, and that was Jacob Fairbrother. This thrifty soul had for many a year kept a nest of private savings, and even in the days when he and his brethren went down to make a poor mouth before their father at Castletown he had money secretly lent out on the conscientious interest of only three per cent. above the legal rate.

And thus it chanced that when Ballacraine was advertised in big letters on every barn door in the north of Mann, Jacob Fairbrother went down to Marky the Lord, and made a private bargain to buy it in again. So when the day of the sale came, and Marky the Lord strode over the fields with some thirty men—farmers, miners, advocates, and parsons—at his heels, and then drew up on the roadside by the "Hibernian," and there mounted the till-board of a cart for the final reckoning, little Jacob was too much moved to be present, though his brothers were there, all glooming around on the outside of the group, with their hands in their breeches pockets.

Ballacraine was knocked down cheap to somebody that nobody knew, and then came the work of the mortgages; so once again Jacob went off to Marky the Lord, and bargained to be made mortgagor, though no one was to be a whit the wiser. And ten per cent. he was to get from each of his five brothers for the use of the money which next day came back to his own hands.

Thus far all was straight dealing, but with the approach of the time to go to Iceland the complications grew thick. Jacob had so husbanded his money that while seeming to spend he still possessed it, and now he was troubled to know where to lodge that portion of it which he should not want in Iceland and might find it unsafe to take there. And while he was in the throes of his uncertainty his brothers—all save John—were in the travail of their own big conception.

Now Asher, Stean, Ross and Thurstan, having each made up his mind that he would go to Iceland also, had to consider how to get there, for their late bargaining had left them all penniless. The proceeds of the sale of Ballacraine were lodged with Jacob for Greeba, and Jacob also held as his own what had come to each man from his mortgage. So thinking that Jacob must have more than he could want, they approached him one by one, confidentially and slyly. And wondrous were the lies they told him, for they dare not confess that their sole need of money was to go to Iceland after him, and watch him that he did not cheat them when Greeba sent them all their fortunes in return for their brotherly love of her.

Thus Asher took Jacob aside and whispered, "I'm morthal hard pressed for a matter of five and thirty pound, boy—just five and thirty, for draining and fencing. I make bold to think you'll lend me the like of it, and six per cent. I'll be paying reg'lar."

"Ah, I can't do it, Asher," said Jacob, "for old Marky the Lord has stripped me."

Then came Stean, plucking a bit of ling and looking careless, and he said, "I've got a fine thing on now. I can buy a yoke of ploughing oxen for thirty pound. Only thirty, and a dead bargain. Can you lend me the brass? But whisht's the word, for Ross is sneaking after them."

"Very sorry, Stean," said Jacob, "but Ross has been here before you, and I've just lent him the money."

Ross himself came next, and said, "I borrowed five-and-twenty pound from Stean a bit back, and he's not above threatening to sell me up for a dirty little debt like that. Maybe ye'd tide me over the trouble and say nothing to Stean."