"Indeed he does? And why disna Andrew Lashcairn come tae dae his own
begging?"

Marcella stared at him and her eyes flashed with indignation though her
knees were trembling.

"He is not begging, Mr. Braid. But the beasts are crying for food and
he's needin' the corn the night."

The people in the shop stopped talking about prices and listened
greedily. They knew what Marcella did not.

"Then ye'll tell him tae go on needin'. When he's paid for the last
sack, an' the one afore that, he'll be gettin' more."

"But of course he'll pay," she cried. "My father is busy, and he can't
mind things always. If you ask him, he'll pay."

The man laughed.

"He will, fine he will! No, Mistress Marcella, ye can tell yer father
not tae go sendin' children beggin' for credit whiles he hugs his bar'l.
The corn's here safe enough when he chooses to pay for't."

Marcella went homewards, her mind a maelstrom of conflict. She knew
nothing about money; it had never occurred to her that her father had
none, and the cryptic allusion to the "bar'l" was even more puzzling.
She knew that her father was a man to be feared, but he had always been
the same; she expected nothing else of him, or of fathers generally. She