"Take your time, mi lass, take your time!" said the grocer. "Before I think o' helping anybody I want to know where I am! Now," he continued, as they walked into the fold and he looked round him with appraising eyes, "it may seem a queer thing me living in t'same place, my lass, but I've never been near this house o' yours for many a long year--never sin' you were a bairn, I should think--it's out o' t'way, d'ye see! And dear, dear, I see a difference! What!--there's naught about t'place! No straw--no manure--no cattle--a pig or two--a few o' fowls!--Why, there's nowt! Looks bad, my lass, looks very, very bad. Farnish has nowt--nowt!" Jeckie's heart sank like lead in a well, and a sickened feeling came over her. "I know it looks pretty bad, Mr. Grice," she admitted, almost humbly. "But it's not so bad as it looks. There's four right good cows, and over a hundred and fifty head o' poultry. I know what the butter and milk and eggs bring in!--and there's more pigs nor what you see, and there's the crops. Come through the croft, and look at 'em. If there's no manure in the fold, it's on the land, anyway--we've never sold neither straw nor manure off this place. Come this way." It was mainly owing to Jeckie, Rushie, and Doadie Bartle that what arable land Farnish held was clear and free of weeds. The grocer was bound to admit that the crops looked well; his long acquaintance with a farming district had taught him how to estimate values; he agreed with Jeckie that, granted the right sort of weather for the rest of the summer and part of autumn, there was money in what he was shown. "But then, you know, mi lass," he said as they returned to the house, "it all depends on what Farnish is owing. This here money-lender 'at you spoke of--he ought to be cleared off, neck and crop! Then there's a year's rent. And there'll be other things. There's forty pounds due to me. Before ever I take into consideration doing aught at all for you--'cause I wouldn't do it for Farnish, were it ever so!--I shall want to know how matters stands, d'ye see? I must know of every penny 'at's owing--otherwise it 'ud be throwin' good money after bad. I'll none deny that if what he owes is nowt much--two or three hundred or so--things might be pulled round under your management. But, there it is! What does he owe?--that's what we want to be getting at." "I'll make him tell," said Jeckie. "We'll have it put down on paper. Come in, Mr. Grice." Then, as they went towards the door of the house, she added in confidential, hospitable tones, "I've a bottle o' good old whisky put away, that nobody knows naught about--you shall have a glass." Grice muttered something about no need for his prospective daughter-in-law to trouble herself, but he followed her into the kitchen, where Farnish stood nervously awaiting them. The grocer, who felt that he could afford to be facetious as well as magnanimous, gave Farnish a sly look.