may; I do'ant main nothin' wrong,
Jasper. Margaret Quethiock es well off, and her father do oan the
Barton. Think about it, Jasper. And then ef you do ever have a son,
you'll tell 'im to be kind to Eli, wa'ant 'ee now, Jasper?"

"Yes," said my father, wondering all the time why he should give the
promise. And that was all the conversation they had together at that
time, for my father told me, and he was always a truthful man. But his
cattle got better from that time, and as Mr. Quethiock, of Falmouth,
lent him L300 he was able to tide over his difficulty.

A little while later my father married Margaret Quethiock, and the
fortune that her father gave her was L200, besides the L300 he had
borrowed, and Elmwater Barton rent free during her lifetime. If she died
before my father, the question of rent was to be considered. They had
been married about two years when I was born; but my mother died at my
birth, so I never knew a mother's care and love.

My grandfather Quethiock said nothing about rent after my mother's
death, but my father did not become a rich man. Somehow things were
constantly going wrong with him, and he was in endless trouble about
money matters. It was his stepmother, he told me, who was constantly
persecuting him, because she feared his getting rich, while her son, who
enjoyed my father's wealth, had all sorts of people ready to do his
will. Only for him to hint at a thing, and his satellites would do it.
Thus, one day a herd of cattle would get into a cornfield and destroy
it; and on another, without any apparent reason, a corn-mow would catch
fire. We could never trace it to them, but we always knew by the
jeering laugh on Tresidder's face when he passed us who was the cause of
our trouble.

All this shortened my father's life. When I was nineteen, at the time
when he should have been in his prime, he was a worn-out old man; and
so, when sickness overtook him, he had no strength to fight against it.
It was during this sickness that he told me some of the things I have
written, and also informed me of other matters which will be related
later.

I was with him shortly before he died, and then he said to me very
earnestly, "I leave you Elmwater Barton, Jasper, for I don't think your
grandfather Quethiock will ever charge you rent, and he told me it
should be yours completely at his death; but your real property is
Pennington, my boy. Now I want you to make me a promise."

"I will promise anything