Page:Mehalah 1920.djvu/51

Rh laughed; "she is a damned fine girl. Listen to me, mistress, that daughter of yours, Glory, is too good-looking to be mewed up on the Ray. You should marry her, and then settle yourself comfortably down for the rest of your days in your son-in-law's house." "Ah! Master Rebow, she is poor, she is, and now young men look out for money."

"You don't want a very young man for such as she. Why, she is as wild as a gipsy, and needs a firm hand to keep her. He that has hold of her should hold fast." The widow shook her head. "We don't see many folks on the Ray. She will have to marry a fellow on the water."

"No, she won't," said Rebow angrily. "Damn her, she shall marry a farmer, who owns land and marshes, and saltings, and housen, and takes rents, and don't mind to drop some eight hundred pound on a bit of a farm that takes his fancy." "Such men are not easy to be got."

"No, there you are right, mistress; but when you find one, why" he drew his pipe over the inscription on the fire-place. "I'm the man, and now you hold me, hold fast." "You, master!"

"Aye, I. I like the girl. By God! I will have Glory, She was born for me. There is not another girl I have seen that I would give an oystershell for, but she—she—she makes my blood run like melted lead, and my heart here gnaws and burns in my breast like a fiery rat. I tell you I will have her, I will."

"If it only rested with me," moaned the widow. "Look here," said Rebow. "Lay that pan on one side and follow me. I'll show you over the house." He caught her by the wrist, and dragged her from room to room, and up the stairs. When he had brought her back to the principal apartment in which they had been sitting, he chuckled with pride, "Ain't it a good house? It's twenty times better than the Ray, It is more comfortable, and there are more rooms. And all these marshes and meadows are mine, and I have also some cornfields in Virley, on the mainland. And then the Ray is mine, with the saltings and all thereon;—I bought it for eight hundred pounds."