"I tell you, we can and we will pay."
"But should you not be able at any time, I warn you what to expect. I've a fancy for that jersey you wear with 'Gloriana' right across the breast. I'll pull it off and draw it on myself." He ground his teeth. "I will have it, if only to wrap me in, in my grave. I will cross my arms over it, as you do now, and set my teeth, and not a devil in hell shall tear it off me."
"I tell you we will pay."
"Let me alone, let me talk. This is better than money. I will rip the tiling off the roof and fling it down between the rafters, if you refuse to stir; I will cast it at your mother and you, Glory. The red cap will not protect your skull from a tile, will it? And yet you say, I am not your master. You do not belong to me, as do the marshes and the saltings, and the wild duck."
"I tell you we will pay," repeated the girl passionately, as she wrenched her shoulder from his iron grip.
"You don't belong to me!" jeered Elijah. Then slapping the arm of the widow's chair, and pointing over his shoulder at Mehalah, he said scornfully: "She says she does not belong to me, as though she believed it. But she does, and you do, and so does the chair, and the log that smoulders on the hearth, and the very hearth itself, with its heat, the hungry ever-devouring belly of the house. I've bought the Ray and all that is on it for eight hundred pounds. I saw it on the paper, it stands in writing and may not be broke through. Lawyers' scripture binds and looses as Bible scripture. I will stick to my rights, to every thread and breath of them. She is mine."
"But, Elijah, be reasonable," said the widow, lifting her hand appealingly. The fit of ague was passing away. "We are in a Christian land. We are not slaves to be bought and sold like cattle."
"If you cannot pay the rent, I can take everything from you. I can throw you out of this chair down on those bricks. I can take the crock and all the meat in it. I can take the bed on which you sleep. I can take the clothes off your back." Turning suddenly round on the girl he glared, "I will rip the jersey off her, and wear it till I rot.
