’I should not like to be on Broadbury after dark, not near the old gibbet hill, anyhow. Listen to the old fellow snoring in the apple-tree. I thought owls slept by day and waked by night, but this fellow is dead asleep, judging by the noise he makes.’ After silence of a few moments, during which they listened to the owls, ’I wonder, Honor,’ said the young man, ’that you liked to sit on the mound where Wellon was hung. It’s a queer, whisht (uncanny) place.’ ’I only sit there by day, and that only now and then when I can get out a bit. I have not been there for some time.’ Then ensued another pause. ’I wish you would tell me one thing,’ said the girl, ’yet it is what I have no right to ask. Do you owe Mr. Langford a great deal of money?’ ’Oh yes,’ answered Hillary carelessly, ’a great deal. He has called it in, and we shall have to pay in a month or two.’ ’Can you do so out of your savings?’ ’We have no savings. We shall go to Mr. Physick—father and I—and get a mortgage made on the property. It is easily done. I am of age. Father couldn’t have done it by himself, but I can join and let him.’ He held up his head. He was proud of the consequence gained by consenting to a mortgage. ’The first thing you have to do with the property is to burden it,’ said Honor. Hillary screwed up his mouth. ’You may put it so if you like.’ Instead of looking round at him admiring his consequence, she reproached him. ’That is something to be ashamed of, I think,’ she said. ’Not at all. If I did not, Uncle Taverner could come down on us and have a sale of our cattle and waggons and what not. But, maybe, that would suit your ideas better?’ ’No,’ said Honor gravely, ’not at all. No doubt you are right; but you are old enough not to have let it come to this. Your service on the farm ought to have been worth fifty pounds a year for the last four years. I doubt if it has been worth as many shillings.’ He clicked his tongue in the side of his mouth, and threw out his right leg impatiently. ’Mr. Langford has saved thousands of pounds. He puts by several hundreds every year, and his land is no better than yours.’ ’Uncle Taverner is a screw.’ Then, jauntily, ’we Nanspians are open-handed, we can’t screw.’ ’But you can save, Larry.’ ’If Uncle Taverner puts away hundreds, I wonder where he puts them away?’ ’That, of course, I cannot say.’ ’I wonder if Mrs. Veale knows?’ Then he chuckled, and said, ’Honor, some of the chaps be talking of giving him a hare-hunt. We think he ought to be shamed out of letting that woman tongue-lash him as she does?’ ’Larry!’ exclaimed Honor, turning sharply on him and clutching his arm, ’for God’s sake do not be mixed up in such an affair. He is your uncle, and you may be very unjust.’ He shrugged his shoulders. ’I’m not over sweet on Uncle Taverner,’ he said. ’It is mean of him calling in that money, and he deserves to be touched up on the raw.’