"gain or loss, it will fall on you, and pretty
soon. I wasn't built for a long span; my father's sins have made life
bitter to me, and I thank God the end's near. But if you have 500 pounds
to spare, I can't see why you drive me afield to borrow."

"To teach you a lesson, perhaps. As soon as you're fit for it, we'll
drive over to Damelioc, and have a try with the new owner. He'll jump at
us. The two properties went together once, and when he hears our tale,
he'll say to himself, 'Oho! here's a chance to get 'em together again.'
He'll think, of course, that you are in difficulties. But mind you stand
out, and don't you pay more than five per cent."

Here it must be explained that the great Damelioc estates, after passing
through several hands, had come in 1801 to an Irishman, a Mr. Eustatius
Burke, who had made no small part of his fortune by voting for the Union.
Mr. Burke, as Martin rightly guessed, would have given something more than
the value of Hall to add it to Damelioc; and so, when Nicholas Rosewarne
drove over and petitioned for a loan of 1500 pounds, he lent with
alacrity. He knew enough of the situation to be thoroughly deceived.
After Nanscawne, he would reach his hand out upon Hall itself. He lent
the sum at five per cent, and dreamed of an early foreclosure.

Armed with ready money, the two Rosewarnes called in the leases of their
fields, hired labourers, sowed corn, harvested, and sold at war prices.
They bought land--still upon mortgage--on the other side of the harbour,
and at the close of the great year 1812 (when the price of wheat soared
far above 6 pounds a quarter) Nicholas Rosewarne died a moderately rich
man. By this time Martin had started a victualling yard in the town, a
shipbuilding yard, and an emporium near the Barbican, Plymouth, where he
purveyed ships' stores and slop-clothing for merchant seamen. He made
money, too, as agent for most of the smuggling companies along the coast,
although he embarked little of his own wealth in the business, and never
assisted in an actual run of the goods. He had ceased to borrow actively
now, for other people's money came to him unsought, to be used.

The Rosewarnes, as large employers of labour, paid away considerable sums
weekly in wages. But those were times of paper money. All coin was
scarce, and in some villages a piece of gold would not be seen in a
twelvemonth. Martin and his father paid for labour in part by orders on
their own