"Those men were thieves and swindlers; and I suppose to-day they're living on the fat of the land, milk and honey thrown in. See here, I'm not an educated man, but I have a little common sense. Suppose we'd been let to go our ways quiet like,--the farmers holding on to their farms, and making two blades of grass grow where one grew before. Wasn't that some old philosopher's advice? Suppose David Lawrence hadn't built that great palace out on Hope Terrace (he was a plainish man himself), and there had been five or six beside him making a moderate share of money. He's lost all his great fortune, there's seventy thousand or so gone somewhere, the bank has smashed with thousands more of everybody's money, with nothing much to show but trumpery mortgages; there's no work and no money, and a howl goes up that there has been over-production. Not over-production of honesty, I take it." Maverick looked at the little earnest man, and laughed a hearty, cheering sort of laugh that was like pouring oil into a wound. Jack stared with wide-open eyes. "I've been to hear Rantley two or three times,--he's going about lecturing, you know,--but I don't see as he has any very good plan for getting work on its legs again. Then I've listened to the parson this winter, to please the old lady; and he is sure all this is a judgment for our sins. Seems to me, judgment went a little askew: why doesn't it touch Eastman and such fellows?" "Has nothing been done?" asked Jack. "I have heard no business gossip for the last three months. Can't it be proved that he was a defaulter?" "Perhaps it could. The old lady was reading the other morning about the scapegoat being sent into the wilderness with everybody's sins on his head; and I guess they'd rather have _him_ off somewhere, and pack the trouble on him. He might tell too much if he was here. They couldn't get the money back, even if he has it; but no one ever will believe that David Lawrence profited by it. That money belongs to the people of Yerbury, who have earned it, and saved it; and I say thieving and roguery have more to do with hard times than 'surplus of labor.' The big men have taken the money that belonged to the little ones." "None of the Lawrence estate has been settled, I suppose?" asked Jack. "Every thing is for sale. The mortgage on the big house is to be foreclosed, also on the mill I believe. I declare to you, Darcy, it makes my heart ache to see those dumb spindles, and the great silent engine standing like a mourner at a funeral. Come now, why should Hope Mills go to ruin, and Yerbury fall to pieces, while you and Maverick go and build up Florida? Wouldn't the money and the energy do something here?" Cameron's eyes looked out of their overhanging thatch with a puzzled, thoughtful expression, as if there must be a solution to the mystery. Jack was startled. Building up Florida looked feasible, but building up Yerbury-- "Then you will not go with us?" said Maverick with a half-laugh.