than us Merripit people; but I never found him anything but well behaved
and civil spoken to his elders, and I went so far sometimes as to ask his
Uncle Amos why for he didn't like the man. Because the master of Furze
Hill never did care about Ernest, though Joe Gregory, with whom the young
fellow lived at Vitifer, thought very highly of him indeed.

And Amos confessed he hadn't got no deep cause to dislike his nephew.

"To be plain, 'tis a woman's reason and no more," admitted Amos. "Ernest
have got a glide in his eye, poor chap, and God knows that's not a fault,
and yet I never can abide that affliction and it would put me off an angel
from heaven if the holy creature squinted."

It was a silly prejudice of the man, and in time I think he got it under
and granted that you did ought to judge a person by their acts and not by
their eyes; but human nature has its ingrained likes and dislikes, and I
for one couldn't question Amos, because I hate a hunchback, and I wouldn't
trust one of they humped people--man or woman--with anything that belonged
to me. The broadest-minded of us have got a weak spot like that somewhere
and hate some harmless thing if 'tis only a spider.

But, after he'd been along at Vitifer five years, I don't think a living
soul felt anything but kindly to Ernest, and when it was rumoured that
he'd got brave enough to go courting Sarah White from Postbridge,
everybody wished him luck, including his uncles--especially Amos himself;
for Joe's younger brother was very friendly to the Postbridge Whites, and
them who thought they knew, always said how he'd offered for Jenny White
twenty-five years before and might very like have won her if she hadn't
loved the water-keeper on East Dart better and married him instead.

Then happened the wondrous mystery of Joe Gregory. 'Twas just before
Christmas--rough stormy weather and not much doing on the high
ground--when Joe set out early one morning for Exeter to see his lawyers.
He'd done very well that year--better than Amos--and he was taking a
matter of one hundred and fifty pounds in cash to Exeter for his man of
business to invest for him. And Ernest drove him in to Ashburton, at
cocklight of a stormy day, and was going in again that evening to meet his
uncle and fetch him home.

All went well, and at the appointed time Joe's nephew set out once more
with a light trap and a clever horse, after dark, to meet the evening
train. And no more was heard till some