Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/207

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DE PROFUNDIS
197

you'll have no fire to shiver by when there is ice on the ponds, if you haven't money to pay for it. The frost in your bones will make you shriek and jabber in prison."

"I have no money. I gave the last to pay off Mrs. De Witt," wailed the wretched woman. "But there are the sheep,"

"They go to pay your rent up to Lady Day, aye, and till Michaelmas. I haven't had notice yet that you are about to quit. You can't give up the farm without, and I will exact every penny of my rent."

"Then I am at your mercy," sobbed Mrs. Sharland. She turned to Mehalah and pleaded, " Haven't you a word to say, to save me?"

The girl was silent. What could she say?

"Come along, madam, it is of no use. The warrant is here, and come along you must."

"I will not go to prison. I will not. I shall die of cold and ague and rheumatics there. My bones will burst like water-pipes, and I'll shiver the teeth out of my jaws and the nails off my fingers and toes. I won't go!" she screamed. "You must carry me, I can't walk. I'm a dying old woman."

"Would you like to go back to Red Hall?" asked Elijah gravely.

"Oh! Master Rebow, if I might! I could shiver in comfort."

"You and Glory! You and Glory!" He looked from one to the other. "I don't take back one without the other."

"Take me back!" wailed Mrs. Sharland. "I know you won't be so cruel as to send me to prison. Let me go back to my arm-chair; Mehalah! promise him everything."

"I will promise him nothing," she said gloomily. "If ever I hated this man, I hate him now."

"Then she must go to prison," growled Rebow. " Now look you here, Glory! I don't ask much. I only ask you to go back with your mother, and work for me as you have worked hitherto. I do not say a word about anything else. You thought to escape me. You cannot. I have told you all along that it is impossible. As for the future, let the future determine. I wish to let you take your own