She succeeded in making the old man swallow half the contents of the thick-lipped mug. Then she put another faggot on the fire, not heeding Dorothy's remark that they should all be smothered with heat, and sat down on the bench at the table, by Bryda's side, to discuss her own breakfast with a keen appetite. Bryda, who was thinking over the loud, angry voices she had heard on the previous night, connected her grandfather's appearance with some mysterious visitor, who had evidently left the house in anger. So she did not do justice to the particular griddle cake, done to a turn, which Betty had put on her plate. 'Something is wrong,' she whispered to Betty. 'I know there is. I wish we knew what it is.' They were not left long in doubt. As soon as the scraping of the heavy boots of the farm servants was heard on the brick floor of the back kitchen, where they took their meals, and the benches pushed back by the general servant of the farm, Mr Palmer spoke, jerking his thumb in the direction of the open door. 'Shut yonder door,' he said, 'and come here all of you.' The girls obeyed, Bryda and Betty seating themselves on either side of their grandfather, while Dorothy Burrow stood before him, her stout red arms uncovered, her elbows stuck on either side of her thick waist, and the frills of her big calico cap blown back from her stolid face. 'Well,' she said, 'what's up, father?' The old man shook his head, and thumped his fist irritably. 'Didn't I say I was going to tell you summat?' he said. 'Hold your tongue till I've done it. Years agone,' he began, 'I had a son--your father, Biddy and Bet. You don't remember him--how should you. He and your poor silly mother died when you were babes.' 'I remember him well enow,' Dorothy began; 'I had cause for he disgraced the family.' 'Hold you tongue, Doll.' 'Yes, Aunt Dorothy, do be quiet,' Bryda said in a trembling voice. 'Well, he went wrong, very wrong, and I wanted to get him out of the country, to escape the justices. It was a big sum, and I borrowed it of Squire Bayfield up Binegar way. I put my name to a paper that I'd be surety it should be paid on demand. The old Squire was a kind-hearted chap, and he never pressed me. I spoke to him last fall, when he was out with the beagles, as stout and as strong as ever, I thought. I told him times were bad, and the crops scarce, and I had lost a lot of sheep in the hard winter. And says he, "All right, I'll not come down on you." So I was easy in my mind, and if he had lived it would have been all right; but he dropped down dead last Candlemas, and his son, who has come back from foreign parts, says he will have the cash or sell me up.' 'How much is it?' Betty asked, with white trembling lips. 'Three hundred pounds. I paid interest, I did, but this chap, curse him, says he will have the lump sum or he'll put the bailiffs in.' 'Are you bound to pay him the sum?' Bryda asked. 'I expect not.' 'Yes, the paper says, or heirs of his body.'