"I sha'n't take money that's given in any such way, and neither will my son. I haven't changed my mind about what I said the other night, and neither has he. You need this money yourself. If the money had been left to us, it would have been different; we sha'n't take it, and you needn't offer it to us; you can count us out in your division. We sha'n't take what Doctor Prescott has offered neither--to give us the mortgage on our house. It's an honest debt, and we don't want to shirk it. If we're paupers, we'll be paupers of God, but of no man!" "Henry," pleaded Jerome, "just listen to me." But it was of no avail. His cousin turned his blind face sternly away from his pleading voice, and went out of the yard, still seeming to strive against his mother's leading hand. Jerome followed them, still arguing with them; he even walked with them a little, after the turn of the road. Then he gave it up, and went on to the store, where he had an errand. He resolved to see Adoniram, and try to influence him to take the money for his blind son. He could not believe that he would not do so. Long before he reached the store he could hear the gabble of excited voices, and loud peals of rough laughter. "What's going on?" he thought. When he entered, he saw Simon Basset backed up against a counter, at bay, as it were, before a great throng of village men and boys. Basset was deathly white through his grime and beard-stubble, his gaunt jaws snapping like a wolf's, his eyes fierce with terror. "Shell out, Simon," shouted a young man, with a butting motion of a shock head towards the old man. "Shell out, I tell ye, or ye'll have a writ served on ye." "I tell ye I won't; ye don't know nothin' about it; I 'ain't got no property!" shrieked Simon Basset, amidst a wild burst of laughter. "He 'ain't got no property, he 'ain't, hi!" shouted the boys on the outskirts, with peals of goblin merriment. "I tell ye I 'ain't got more'n five thousand dollars to my name!" "You 'ain't, eh? Where's all your land, you old liar?" asked the young man, who seemed spokesman for the crowd. "It ain't wuth nothin'. I couldn't sell it to-day if I wanted to." "Gimme the land, then, an' we'll take the risk," was the cry. "J'rome and the doctor have shelled out; now it's your turn, or you'll hev the officers after ye." Jerome pushed his way through the crowd. "What are you scaring him for?" he demanded. "He's an old man, and you ought to be ashamed of yourselves." "He ain't more'n seventy," replied the young man, "an' he's smart as a cricket--he's smart enough to gouge the whole town, old 's he is." "That's so, Eph!" chorused his supporters. Jerome grasped Basset by the shoulder. "Don't you know you are not obliged to give a dollar, if you don't want to?" he asked. "That paper wasn't legal."