For the next two days and nights Larry was in great pain. His arm and collar-bone had been set, but strains are more painful than breakages, and the young fellow in his fall had managed to bruise and sprain his muscles as well as fracture his bones. He could not sleep; he could not move in bed; every turn, even the slightest, caused him agony. The doctor enjoined perfect rest. Through the two long sleepless nights his mind was active, and the train of thought that had begun as he was being carried from Broadbury continued to move in his brain. What different nights were these to those spent by him on the bench with Honor! He considered what she had said to him, and he knew that what she had said was right. How careless of his best interests he had been! How regardless of his duties! How neglectful of his proper self-respect! Of course she was right. His father never had properly managed the farm, and since his stroke he had paid it less attention than before. He, the son and heir, ought to have devoted himself to the work of the farm, and made that his main object, not to amuse himself. His father came up to his room several times a day to enquire how he was. ’There’s Physick coming here,’ said the old man, ’and I want you to use your hand when he comes.’ ’I have only my left.’ ’Well, the left must do. If you can’t sign your name, you can make a cross and that will suffice.’ ’What do you want me to sign, father?’ ’The mortgage. Physick will find the money, and then we shall pay off Taverner Langford, and have done.’ Larry sighed. He remembered what Honor had said. He was helping to burden, not to relieve, the property. ’Can’t it be helped, father? I’d rather not, if the money could be raised any other way.’ ’But that is impossible without a sale.’ ’Why did Uncle Taverner lend the money?’ ’We were behind in a score of things.’ ’Is it all gone, father?’ ’Gone! of course it is. Now I’m wanting more, and I must raise double what Taverner lends me, half to pay him off, and half to meet present demands.’ ’How is this?’ ’Bad times. Things will come round some day.’ ’How long have they been bad?’ ’Ever since your mother died. That was a bad day for us.’ The old man sat rubbing his chin. ’The next bad day was when I quarrelled with Taverner, or rather, when Taverner quarrelled with me. ’Tis a pity. I made up his orchard with my new grafts; and a more beautiful lot of apple-trees are not to be seen—and he for to cut them. Shameful.’ ’What was the quarrel about, father?’ ’I’ve told you afore. A red spider. Taverner tried to sloke (draw) her away, when she was running straight as a line into my pocket. But I reckon he can’t keep you for ever out of Langford. He may live for ten or twelve years out of wicked spite, but he is not immortal, and Langford will come to you in the end. Then you can clear off the mortgages.—I reckon I shall be gone then.’ ’Don’t say that, father.’