Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/16

6 She remained motionless, with folded arms. He laid his heavy palm on her shoulder.

"Give me your hand, and mine is light; I will help you. Let me lay it on you and it will crush you. Escape it you cannot. This way or that. My hand will clasp or crush."

She did not stir.

"The wild fowl that fly here are mine, the fish that swim in the fleets are mine," he went on; "I can shoot and net them."

"So can I, and so can anyone," said the girl haughtily.

"Let them try it on," said Elijah; "I am not one to be trifled with, as the world well knows. I will bear no poaching here. I have bought the Ray, and the fish are mine, and the fowl are mine, and you are mine also. Let him touch who dares."

"The wild fowl are free for any man to shoot, the fish are free for any man to net," said the girl scornfully.

"That is not my doctrine," answered Elijah. "What is on my soil and in my waters is mine, I may do with them what I will, and so also all that lives on my estate is mine." Returning with doggedness to his point, "As you live in my house and on my land, you are mine."

"Mother," said the girl, "give him notice, and quit the Ray."

"I could not do it, Mehalah," answered the woman. "I've lived all my life on the marshes, and I cannot quit them. But this is a healthy spot, and not like the marshes of Dairy House where once we were, and where I ketched the chill!"

"You cannot go till you have paid me the rent," said Rebow.

"That," answered Mehalah, "we will do assuredly."

"So you promise, Glory!" said Rebow. "But should you fail to do it, I could take every stick here:—That chair in which your mother shivers, those dishes yonder, the bed you sleep in, the sprucehutch in which you keep your clothes. I could pluck the clock, the heart of the house, out of it. I could tear that defiant red cap off your head. I could drive you both out without a cover into the whistling east wind and biting frost."