d, because they ban't.

I heard later that the lawyers let Amos read his brother's will and got a
power of attorney for him to act and carry on. And the will left Vitifer
Farm to Amos, on the condition that he would keep on his nephew Ernest. It
was four year old; and the codicil, that Joe wrote the day he disappeared,
ordained that when Amos died, Vitifer shouldn't be sold to Duchy, but
handed down to the next generation of the Gregorys in the shape of Ernest.

Well, Amos had no quarrel with that, and when he went home, he asked his
nephew if he'd known about the codicil, and he said he had not. And when
he learned of his uncle's kind thought for him, he broke down and wept
like a child, till Amos had to speak rough and tell him to keep a stiff
upper lip and bear himself more manly.

"If you be going to behave like a girl over this fearful loss, I shan't
have no use for you at Vitifer," Amos warned the young chap. "You must
face this very sad and terrible come-along-of-it same as I be doing. And
you must show me what you're good for, else I may do something you won't
like. This tragedy reminds me, Ernest," he said, "that I haven't made my
own will yet, and as you be my next-of-kin, if your poor uncle have gone
home, that means you'll inherit Furze Hill also in course of time and be
able to run a ring fence round both places. But that remains to be seen;
and if you are going to show that you haven't got manhood enough to face
the ups and downs of life, then I shall turn elsewhere for one to follow
me and young Adam White, my godson, may hap to be the man."

He gave his nephew a bit more advice and told him he'd best to go on
courting the maiden, Sarah White, to distract his mind.

"For you're the sort," said Amos, "that be better with a strong-willed
woman at your elbow in my opinion, and if Sally takes you, I shall be glad
of it."

So Ernest bucked up a bit from that day forth, and no doubt the fact that
he was to have Vitifer in the course of nature, decided Sarah, for she
agreed to wed the young man ten days afterwards, and Amos was pleased, and
decided that the wedding should fall out next Easter.

Ernest Gregory, as we all marked, was a changed man from that hour; for
though he was built to feel trouble very keen, he hadn't the intellects to
feel it very deep, and in the glory of winning Sarah, he beamed forth
again like the sun from a cloud. And nobody blamed him, because, whether
your heart be large or smal