CHAPTER XXV

BORROWING AGAIN

When Pepperill, tired with his long day’s journey, and harassed in mind, went to his bedroom, Zerah at once fell upon him.

“How have you fared, I’d like to know? But lawk! what’s the good of my axing, when I’m pretty confident your journey has been all down hill, with an upset of the cart presently.”

“And if it be so, who is to blame but your brother?” retorted Pepperill angrily.

“My brother may have made his mistakes sometimes, but not always—you never by any chance fail to do the wrong thing.”

“He has dragged me into this confounded affair of the Brimpts timber; and now—I cannot sell the bark or the oaks.”

“He had nothing to say to the wool. What made you buy at a wrong price?”

“The market is always changing.”

“Yes—against your interests. We shall end in the workhouse.”

“Things will come right.”

“They cannot. Look here! Here is a lawyer’s letter about the coals. You must pay by the first of the next month, or they will put in the bailiffs.”

“It will come right. I have had an offer.”

“For the oak?”

“No, of a loan. Kate, like a good and reasonable and affectionate girl, is going to get Jason to withdraw her money and lend it to me.”

Zerah flushed crimson. “So!” she exclaimed, planting herself in front of her husband, and lodging her hands on her hips; “you want to swindle the orphan out of her little fortune. You know as well as I do, if that money gets into your hands, it will run between your fingers as has all other money that ever got there. Folks say that there is a stone as turns all base metal to gold. I say that your palm has the faculty of converting gold into quicksilver, that escapes and cannot be recovered.”

“This is only a temporary embarrassment.”

“It shall not be done,” said Zerah. “I don’t myself believe Jason will hear of it, and if he does, and prepares to carry it out, I’ll knock his head off—that’s my last word. The parson said I didn’t love Kate, that I was starving her; but I’ll stand up for her against you—and her own father if need be.”

“The coal merchant must wait,” said Pasco, shrugging his shoulders.

“He will not wait. You have passed over unnoticed his former demands, and now, unless in a fortnight the money is paid, he will make the house too hot to hold us.”

“We can sell something.”

“What? You have parted with your farm, the orchard, the meadow—with everything but the house, to follow your foolish passion to be a merchant.”

“He must wait. I have to wait till folk pay me my little bills. Money doesn’t come in rushes, but in leaks.”

“He will not wait. Where is the ready money to come from?”

Pasco scratched his head.

“If everything else fails,” said she further, “then I propose you go to old Farmer Pooke and get a loan of him.”

“Pooke? he won’t lend money.”

“I am not so sure of that. Jan has called several times since Kitty has been away, and yesterday he told me, in his shy, awkward fashion, that he had spoken with his father about her. The old man made some to-do—he had fancied Rose Ash as a match for his son, as she is likely to have a good round sum of money; but when Jan insisted, he gave way. You see everyone in the place knows that Kate has something left by her mother, but they don’t know how much, and, instead of three hundred pounds or so, they have got the notion into their heads that it is a thousand pounds. Now, as the father is ready to let his son marry Kate, I think it like enough he would help you, so as to prevent the scandal of bailiffs in Coombe Cellars.”

“He may make that the excuse for breaking off the match.”

“Jan is obstinate. When that lad sets his head on a thing, there is no turning him, and that his father knows well. He’d ha’ turned his son away from Kitty and on to Rose if he could, but he can’t do it; and what he is aware of is, that the least show of opposition will make Jan ten times more set on it than before.”

“Then you go to Farmer Pooke and borrow.”

“I! I made to go round as a beggar-woman! You have brought trouble on the house. You must ask for the loan.”

Next day, Pasco Pepperill started for Pooke’s house. The lion is said to lash itself with its tail till it lashes itself into fury. Pasco blustered and bragged with everyone he encountered, till he had worked himself up into self-confidence and assurance enough for his purpose, and then, with bold face and swaggering gait, entered the farm-house.

Pooke senior was a stout man, as became a yeoman of substance; he had a red, puffed face, with stony dark eyes; his hands were enormous, and their backs were covered with hair.

Pooke and Pepperill had not been on the best of terms. Pooke for some time had been churchwarden, but in a fit of pique had thrown up the office, when Pepperill had been elected in his room. But Pooke had not intended his resignation to be accepted seriously. He had withdrawn to let the parish feel that it had absolutely no one else fit to take his place, and he had anticipated that he would have been entreated to reconsider his resignation. When, however, Pepperill stepped into his vacant office, and everything went on as usual, Pooke was very irate, and spoke of the supplanter with bitterness and contempt.

“How do y’ do?” said Pooke, and extended his hand with gracious condescension, such as he only used to the rector and to those whom he considered sufficiently well-off to deserve his salutation. “What have you come here about?—that matter of Jan?”

“Well, now,” answered Pepperill, with a side look at a servant, “between ourselves, you know, we are men who conduct business in a different way from the general run.”

“Get along with you, Anne,” said Pooke to the maid. “Now we are by ourselves, what is it? That boy Jan is headstrong. It runs in the blood. I married, clean contrary to my father’s wishes, just because I knew he didn’t like the girl. I don’t think that it was anything else made me do it. But your niece, Kitty, has money.”

“Money? oh, of course! We are a moneyed family.”

“That is well. Mine is a moneyed family. One cannot be comfortable oneself without money, nor have anything to do comfortably with other people unless they’re moneyed. I have often thought there is a great gulf fixed between the comfortably off and those who are in poor circumstances, and those who are in comfort can’t pass to the other side—not right they should; let them make their associates among the comfortably off. That’s my doctrine.”

“And mine also,” said Pasco. “I like to hear you talk like this—it’s wholesome.”

“Well, and what do you want with me?”

Pepperill crossed his legs, uncrossed them, and crossed them again.

“I’ve been doing a lot o’ business lately,” said he.

“So I hear. But do you want to do business with me? I bought your orchard and meadow. There I think you did wrong. Hold on to land; never let that go—that’s my doctrine. You got rid of it, and where are you now? In Coombe Cellars, without as much as five acres around it of your own.”

“I never was calculated to be a farmer,” said Pasco. “My head was always set on a commercial life, and I can’t say I regret it. A lot of money has passed through my hands.”

“I don’t care so much for the passing as the sticking of money,” retorted Pooke.

“Well, in my line, money comes in with a tide and goes out with a tide. When it is out, it is very much out indeed; but I have only to wait awhile, and, sure as anything in nature, in comes the tide once more.”

Pooke’s stony eye was fixed on Pepperill.

“Which is it now—high tide or low water?”

“There it is—low.”

“Oh!”

Pooke thrust his chair back, and looked at the space between him and Pepperill, as though it were the great gulf fixed, across which no communication was possible.

“Merely temporary,” said Pasco, with affected indifference. “Nevertheless, unpleasant rather; not that I am inconvenienced and straitened myself, but that I am unable to extend my money ventures. You see, I have been buying a great oak wood on Dartmoor—splendid oak, hard as iron; will make men-of-war, with which we shall bamboozle the French and Spaniards. Then I’ve bought in a quantity of wool.”

“What, now? It is worth nothing.”

“Exactly—because there is a panic. In my business this is a time for buying. There will be a rebound, and I shall sell. It is the same with coals. I lay in now when cheap, and sell when dear—in winter.”

“What do you want with me?” asked Pooke suspiciously.

“The thing is this. I find I have to pay for the timber before I can sell a stick to Government, and I haven’t the cash at this instant. I’ve had to pay for the wool,—I bought in two years’ fleeces,—and for the coals, and if I could lay my hand on four hundred pounds”—

“Four hundred pound ain’t things easy laid hands on.”

“I want the money for three months at the outside. I’ll give you my note of hand, and what interest you demand.”

“Likely to make a good thing out of Government? I’ve always heard as dealing with Government is like dealing with fools—all gain your side, all loss theirs.”

“Well! ’Tis something like that,” said Pepperill, with a knowing wink. “But don’t trouble yourself; if you can’t conveniently raise four or five hundred, I can easily go elsewhere. I came to you, because my wife said there was likely to be a marriage between the families, and so I thought you might help me to make this hit.”

“Now, look here,” said Pooke. “I’ve often had a notion I should like to deal with Government. I’ve a lot of hay and straw.”

“I’m your man. Trust me. If I get to deal with Government about the timber, they’ll have confidence in me, for the oak is about first-rate, and no mistake. They’ll become confiding, and I’ll speak a word for you. But if you haven’t any loose cash, such as four or five hundred pounds”— Pepperill stood up, and took his hat.

“Don’t go in a hurry,” said Pooke. “That’s been my ambition, to deal with Government. Then if one has mouldy hay, one can get rid of it at a good figure, and Government is so innocent, it will buy barley straw for wheaten.”

“If you are so hard up that you have no money”—

“I—I hard up? Sit down again, Pasco.”

Pooke considered for a moment, and then said, “Now, I know well enough that in business matters sometimes one wants a loan. It is always so. If you’ll just give me a leg up with Government, I don’t mind accommodating you. But—I must have security.”

“On my stores?”

“No; they might sell out. On your house.”

“Won’t my note of hand do?”

“No, it won’t,” answered Pooke. “See here: my Jan has gone down your way to make it up with Kitty. When they have settled, you get me your deeds, and then I don’t mind advancing the sum you want on that security—that is, if Kitty accepts Jan.”

“She will do so, of course,” said Pepperill.

“Well, of course,” said Pooke.