“It will come right,” said Pasco. “There is no need for this heat, I tell you. I have seen Farmer Pooke, and he will advance me five hundred pounds.”
“And five hundred pounds will not suffice to meet all the claims.”
“You promised me the loan of them, did you not, Kitty?” asked her uncle, scarcely raising his head to look at her.
“Yes, you are heartily welcome to them,” said the girl.
“They shall not be touched!” exclaimed Zerah, leaning her fists on the table.
“That is as Jason thinks and chooses,” answered Pasco. “He is trustee for Kitty, not you. He got me into the hobble, and must get me out.”
“What!—did he get you into this about the wool?”
“I should have managed about the wool, were it not for the Brimpts business.”
“I can manage well enough when not drawn away into foreign speculations. Jason persuaded me against my will to embark in this timber business, and that is it which is creating this obstruction. He got me in—he must get me out. Kate’s a good girl,—she helps, and don’t rate and rant as you do, Zerah.”
“I don’t say she is not a good girl,” retorted Zerah. “What I say is, you are a bad uncle to desire to rob her”—
“Rob her? I ask only a loan for a few weeks. Her money and that from Pooke will set us on our feet again.”
At that moment, the man just alluded to came in with much noise. His face was red, his expression one of great anger, and without a greeting, he roared forth—
“It is an insult. The girl is an idiot. She has refused him—him—a Pooke!”
“Who? What?” asked Zerah, letting go the table and staggering back, overcome by a dreadful anticipation of evil.
“Who? What?” retorted Pooke, shaking his red face and then his great flabby hand at Kate. “She—Kitty Alone—has said No to my John!”
Zerah uttered an exclamation of dismay. Pasco’s jaw fell, and, drawing in his feet, he pulled his hands from his pockets and leaned them on the arms of the settle, to be ready to lift himself.
“She—that chit—has dared to refuse him!” roared Pooke. “Not that I wanted her as my daughter. Heaven defend! I think my John is worth better girls than she. But that she should have refused him—my John—she who ought to have gone down on her knees and thanked him if he gave her a look—that she should have the impudence—the—the”—he choked with rage. “Now, not one penny of mine shall you have, not on note of hand, on no security of your beggarly house—a cockle and winkle eating tea-house—bah!—not a penny!”