“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 small, a dead uncle, however good he was, can’t be expected to come between a man and the joy of a live sweetheart, who has said “Yes” to him.

II

Then came a night of stars, and once again Amos Gregory was shook up to his heels by somebody running in hot haste with news just as the farmer was about to go to bed.  And once more it was his nephew, Ernest, who brought the tale.

“I’ve found a wondrous pit in the rough ground beyond Four Acre Field,” he said.  “I came upon it this afternoon, rabbiting, and but for the blessing of God, should have falled in, for the top’s worn away and some big stones have fallen in.  ’Tis just off the path in that clitter of stone beside the stile.”

The young man was panting and so excited that his words tripped each other; but his uncle didn’t see for the minute why he should be, and spoke according.

“My father always thought there was a shaft hole there,” answered Amos, “and very likely there may be, and time have worn it to the light, for Vitifer Mine used to run out into a lot of passages that be deserted now, and there’s the famous adit in Smallcumbe Goyle, half a mile away, to the west, long deserted now; and when I was a child, me and my brothers often played in the mouth of it.  The place was blocked years ago by a fall from the roof.  But why for you want to run to me with this story at such an hour, Ernest, I can’t well say.  Us ought to be abed, and Sarah will soon larn you to keep better hours, I reckon.  You’re a lot too excitable and I could wish it altered.”