It was only when the silence had grown ominous and painful, that she said, slowly and with difficulty—­

“I’m sorry to look like going against you, Tom, but I can’t see it right you should sell the farm.”

“It’ll make no difference to you and the young ones.  I’ll see to that.”

“It’s not right and you mustn’t do it.”

“Mustn’t do it!—­And it’s as good as done!”

“It can’t be done until your mother and I consent, and we can’t see it’s a right thing to do.”

“Can’t you see that you’re only saving the farm for Tom?” he argued wrathfully, bottling his anger as well as he could.  “It’s nothing to you and the young ones in any case.”

“I know, but all the same it’s not right.  If it was to buy another farm it would be different, for you could leave it as you choose.  But to throw away the money on those mines—­”

This was a lapse from diplomacy and old Tom resented it.

“Throw the money away!” he shouted, casting all restraint to the winds.  “Who’s going to throw the money away?  It’s like you women.  You never can see beyond the ends of your noses.  I’ll tell you what I’ll do—­I’ll pay you out your dower right in hard cash.  Will that satisfy you?”

If he died she would have a life interest in one-third of the farm, but could not, of course, will it to Nance or Bernel.  If he sold the farm and paid her her lawful third in cash, she could do what she chose with it.  It was therefore distinctly to her own interest to fall in with his plan.

But, dearly as she would have liked to make some provision, however small, for Nance and Bernel, her whole Sark soul was up in arms against the idea of selling the farm.

It would feel like a break-up of life.  Nothing, she was sure, would ever be the same again.

“It’s not right,” she said simply.

“You’re a fool—­” and then the look on her quiet face—­such a look as she might have worn if he had struck her—­penetrated the storm-cloud of his anger.  He remembered her years of wifely patience and faithful service, “—­a foolish woman.  A Sark wife should know which side of her bread the butter is on.  Can’t you see—­”

“I know all that, Tom, but I hope you’ll give up this notion of selling the farm.  Your mother feels just as I do about it.  We’ve talked it over—­”

“I’ll talk to her,” and he went in at once to the old lady’s room.

But Grannie gave him no time for argument.

“It’s you’s the fool, Tom,” she said decisively, as he crossed the threshold.  “There’s not enough silver in Sark to make a plate for your coffin.”

“I brought out more’n enough to make your plate and mine, myself to-day,” he said triumphantly.

“Ah, bah!  You’d have done better for yourself and for Sark if you’d let it lie.”

“I’d have done better still if I’d got twice as much.”

“If the good God set silver inside Sark, it was because He thought it was the best place for it, and it’s not for the likes of you to be trying to get it out.”