Farnish was riding into the fold as she regained it, and he got off his pony as she went towards him, and silently removing its saddle and bridle, turned it loose in the lane, to keep the horse company and find its dinner for itself. Carrying its furniture, he advanced in the direction of his daughter--a tall, lank, shambling man, with a wisp of yellowish-grey whisker on either side of a thin, weak face--and shook his head as he turned into the stable, where Jeckie silently followed him. He flung saddle and bridle into an empty manger, seated himself on a corn-bin, and, swinging his long legs, shook his head again. "Well?" demanded Jeckie. Farnish, for a long time, had found it difficult to encounter his elder daughter's steady and questioning gaze, and he did not meet it now. His eyes wandered restlessly about the stable, as if wondering out of which particular hole the next rat would look, and he made no show of speech. "You may as well out with it," said Jeckie. "What is it, now?" There was an emphasis on the last word that made Farnish look at his daughter for a brief second; he looked away just as quickly, and began to drum his fingers on his bony knees. "Aye, well, mi lass!" he answered, in a low tone. "As ye say--now! Ye may as well hear now as later. It's just like this here. Things is about at an end! That's the long and that's the short, as the saying goes." "You'll have to be plainer than that," retorted Jeckie. "What is it? Money, of course! But--who's wanting it?" Farnish made as if he swallowed something with an effort, and he kept his eyes steadily averted. "I didn't make ye acquainted wi' it at the time," he said, after a brief silence. "But ye see, Jeckie, my lass, at t'last back-end I had to borrow money fro' one o' them money-lendin' fellers at Clothford--them 'at advertises, like, i' t'newspapers. I were forced to it!--couldn't ha' gone on, nohow, wi'out it at t'time. And so, course, why, its owin'!" "How much?" demanded Jeckie. "It were a matter o' two hundred 'at I borrowed," replied Farnish. "But--there's a bit o' interest, of course. It's that there interest----" "What are they going to do?" asked Jeckie. Her whole instinct was to get at the worst--to come to grips. "Let's be knowing!" she said impatiently. "What's the use of keeping it back?" "They can sell me up," answered Farnish in a low tone. "They can sell aught there is. I signed papers, d'ye see, mi lass. I had to. There were no two ways about it." Jeckie made no answer. She saw the whole of Applecroft and its hundred acres as in a vision. Sold up! There was, indeed, she thought, with bitter and ironic contempt, a lot to sell! Household furniture, live stock, dead stock, growing crops--was the whole lot worth two hundred pounds? Perhaps; but, then there would be nothing left. Now, out of the cows and the poultry a living could be scratched together, but....