Then Ross made a loud guffaw, and Jacob faced about to him. "And maybe you've paid back your dirty five-and-twenty pound that Stean threatened to sell you up for?"
Then Stean glowered hard at Ross, and Ross looked black at Stean, and Asher almost burst his sides with laughter.
"And you, too, my dear eldest brother," said Jacob, bitterly, "you have the advantage of me in years but not in wisdom. You thought, like the rest of them, to get the money out of me, to help you to follow me and watch me. So that was it, was it? But I was too much for you, my dear brother, and you had to go elsewhere for your draining and ditching."
"So I had, bad cess to you," said Asher; "and fourteen per cent. I had to pay for the shabby loan I got."
At that Stean and Ross and Thurstan pricked up their ears.
"And did you pay fourteen per cent.?" said Stean.
"I did, bad cess to Marky the Lord, and the grasping old miser behind him, whoever he is."
And now it was Jacob's turn to look amazed.
"Wait," he said; "I don't like the look of you."
"Then shut your eyes," said Thurstan.