Part 18 (1/2)
”Then you will not do Mrs. Peake this little favor, sir?” he asked.
”Business is business with me, young man. Sometimes it is one person's day, and then the tables turn, and it is another's. This happens to be my time. According to the strict construction of the law, and the wording of the mortgage, the failure to pay the interest on time, with three days' grace, const.i.tutes a lien on the property. I have a use for that cottage--in fact, a relative of mine fancies it. Here, I will give Nancy a chance to redeem her home. Wait a minute or two.”
He wrote rapidly on a sheet of paper, signed the same, and held it out.
”Seven days I agree to wait, and if the princ.i.p.al and delayed interest are not handed over to me by next Tuesday, just one week from to-day, on Wednesday they will have to vacate. That will do, boy. Tell Nancy I only do that because of our old friends.h.i.+p. Had it been anyone else they would have cleared out before this. You can go now.”
Darry had to bite his lips harder than ever to keep from telling the skinflint just what he thought of him.
Thrusting the paper in his pocket he stalked from the den of the human spider, his mind in a whirl; but grimly determined to try and find some means for saving the humble home of Abner Peake from the hand of the spoiler.
CHAPTER XVII
ABNER TELLS A LITTLE HISTORY
As he walked home that evening Darry was figuring. Fourteen dollars was not going far when the sum required, according to the figures Mr.
Quarles had written out, reached the grand total of a hundred and eleven dollars and thirty-seven cents.
He had had much more than that on board the poor old _Falcon_ when she went to pieces, the amount of his savings for several years; but there was no use of his thinking about that.
To whom could he look for a.s.sistance?
He had not a friend, save new ones in the village; and even Mr. Keeler would be apt to decline to lend him money. Times were hard, collections very slow--he had heard this said many times of late--and to small merchants the sum of a hundred dollars means much.
Darry thought it best not to say anything just then to Mrs. Peake, though a little later he must tell her about his visit to the money lender, and deliver the message Mr. Quarles had sent to her.
He was due to cross the sound on the morrow, and perhaps it would be best to tell Abner first; he might have been making some arrangement to get someone else to a.s.sume the mortgage, and pay the lawyer off.
So Darry tried to a.s.sume a cheerfulness he was far from feeling.
Long he lay awake that night, thinking and trying to lay out some plan of action that might promise results.
In the morning Darry visited his traps.
Only one victim rewarded his labor, and this added to his gloom.
He finished all his various ch.o.r.es, and they were many, for he had taken numerous duties upon his shoulders in order to spare Abner's wife.
As before, it was nearly the middle of the afternoon before he could get away.
Mr. Keeler loaded him down with packages intended for the station-keeper; indeed Darry had to make two trips between the store and his boat before he had all his cargo aboard.
The weather was what a sailor would call ”dirty”; that is, it gave promise of turning into more or less of a storm, and wise mariners would be keeping a weather eye out for a safe and snug harbor.
Darry had no fear. He believed he knew that bay like a book now, and since he had tinkered with the boat and placed it in fair condition he thought it could stand any sea that might meet him in his pa.s.sage to and fro between the mainland and the stretch of sand acting as a buffer to the ocean tides.
It was a dead calm when he started, and he was compelled to use the oars; but by the time he reached the middle a breeze sprang up, and quick to take advantage of his opportunity he spread his bit of a sail, and went flying along like a frightened gull.
Abner was always glad to see him, and taking advantage of the first chance to get the life saver alone, Darry told of his recent experience with the loan shark.
The other looked very downcast; indeed, Darry could not remember having ever seen him appear so disheartened.