The Birthright

One day – it was before my father died – I had climbed Trescowal Tor, just to feast my eyes upon so much loveliness, when I saw Richard Tresidder walking with his mother toward the Pennington woods. Now a great desire came into my heart, not to see Tresidder, but to speak to his mother, whom I knew to be the evil genius of my family. And so I made my way to the woods, and stood in the pathway as they came up.

They both knew me, not only through my likeness to my father, but because of my size, for it is well known that the Pennington family on the male side are at least six inches taller than the ordinary run of men.

"Do you know you are trespassing?" asked Tresidder.

"My name is Jasper Pennington," I said, proudly.

"Then get off my lands at once," he said, sternly, and with a black look.

"Not until I have had a good look on the man and woman who have robbed my father and me," I said – and I knew I had aroused the devil in them as I spoke. For the woman who had robbed us fairly glared at me, while Tresidder grasped his stick as though he would strike me. The woman was nearing seventy, but she was strong and hale, and her eyes flashed like those of a young girl. I saw, too, that she must have been handsome when she was young. I marked the cruel, resolute expression of her mouth, and I did not wonder at the difficulty my grandfather had in resisting her.

"I will have you put in the stocks, and then taken to the lockup, if you are not gone at once," said Tresidder, savagely.

"I will give your three sons the chance of doing this," I said, with a laugh. "Three Tresidders against one Pennington isn't bad in fair fight. Of course, where cunning and cheatery comes in I should be nowhere. Or perhaps," I continued, "you would like to try yourself. I am only eighteen, and you are in the prime of your life; still, I should be pleased to give you the chance."

But he laid no hands on me; instead, he put a whistle to his mouth and blew.

"Yes," I said, "get some one else to do the work you are afraid to try yourself; that's a Tresidder all over. Well, I'll go now; I've had a good look at you both, and I shall know you again."

With that I turned and walked away, for, if the truth must be told, I did not care about fighting with Tresidder's minions, and my father had told me many times to be careful.

The path was very crooked, and the foliage was very thick, so that I had not gone more than a few steps before I was out of their sight. Acting on the impulse of the moment, I stopped and listened.

"A regular Pennington," I heard the old woman say. "You must be careful, Richard, for he has more brains than his father. He has all the good looks of the family, too. We must be silent about all our plans, for if he knows he will spoil them. Remember the will."

"I do remember; that is why I am anxious about our boys. Still, there can be no fear, and it will not be so very long before we shall get her. That settled, and Nick will be all right."

I heard no more after that, but I wondered often what he meant. I told my father, too, but he could give me no hint toward the solution of Tresidder's words.

After my father's death I ceased to think so much of Pennington; for I had Elmwater Barton to look after. I was determined to make the farm pay, and now that all the responsibility rested on me, I made up my mind that the Tresidders should not play fast and loose with me, as they had done with my father. In order to do this I looked carefully around me for a man in whom I could trust; for, be it remembered, this was a very difficult matter. My father had engaged two hinds, and each of these had been bribed by the Tresidders to injure his property. You see, his enemies had almost supreme power in the parish, and they used it to his injury. Still, I knew that the Tresidders must have enemies as well as other people, and it was for me to find out who they were. This I had no great difficulty in doing. A man named William Dawe had farmed a place named Treviscoe, on the Pennington estate, and the poor fellow had several seasons of bad luck. One year his turnip crop failed; the next the foot and mouth disease got hold of his cattle; and the next, during the lambing season, he lost a great number of sheep. Indeed, so bad was his luck that he was unable to pay his rent. Perhaps Tresidder would have been lenient with him but for two things: one was that he had refused to take sides with him against my father, and another was that when Nick Tresidder insulted William Dawe's daughter the farmer gave him a thrashing. The end of all this was that William Dawe was sold up, and even then he was not free from all his difficulties.

One of the first important things I did after my father's death, therefore, after a serious conversation with the farmer, was to lure him to come to Elmwater Barton, with his wife and son and daughter, in order to manage the farm. I do not think in all my life I have ever seen a man so grateful.

"Will you come, William?" I asked, when I told him what wages I could afford to give.

"Come, Maaster Jasper, come! I reck'n I will! Why – " And then he caught at my hand, and behaved in a way that made me think for the time that I was serving him only, and not myself at all.

In a few days William was settled down at the Barton, and right well did he arrange for the harvest, and right hard did both he and his son work for me. Indeed, both William and his son George seemed ready to work their arms off for me, and were both anxious to serve me night and day. George Dawe was a strapping fellow of twenty-five, nearly as tall and strong as myself, though not quite. This was proved one day when we wrestled down in the calves' meadow. I had hard work to master him, for George had taken the wrestling prize at St. Eve's Feast for three years in succession. I was proud to have thrown him, especially as I had not yet got my full strength, not being twenty years of age. George had had a varied experience. He had been to sea in a trading vessel, and, if the truth must be confessed, had done a fair amount of smuggling. Be that as it may, George Dawe loved me like a brother, and nothing was too much for him to do for me. Thus I regarded myself as very fortunate. Eliza Dawe, too, was a careful, sensible woman, while Selina, her daughter, was a strapping, healthy wench who could do as much work as two ordinary women.

Now, I say this was a great help to me, for they all watched my interests closely.

"Lev any ov the Trezidders try any ov their dirty capers now," said George to me, "and we'll laive 'em knaw."

Those who know nothing about farming can have no idea what a great amount of harm a seemingly little mistake can do. Suppose, for instance, there are two ten-acred fields side by side. Suppose the month is early July, when the corn has nearly reached its full height, and the heads have all bursted ready to ripen. Well, suppose, again, that one of these ten-acred fields has barley, or oats, or wheat, while the other is a browsing field in which twenty or thirty head of cattle are feeding. Then let some evil-disposed person open the gate between these two fields, and the thirty head of cattle get into the cornfield – what happens? Why, £20 worth of damage can be done in a single night. And things like this were often happening in my father's days, and thus he was kept poor.

But things changed after I got George Dawe on the Barton. His eyes seemed to be everywhere, and always in my interests.

Let me give one example (and then I will soon get on to my story proper) how George Dawe saved me a large amount of money, and at the same time helped me to teach the Tresidders a lesson.

It was the June after I had got William Dawe's family to live with me. We had had several dry weeks, so that the fields had become parched and bare, and we were anxious lest the sheep should not have enough grass. One field had been planted with vatches, which, as every farmer knows, grow quickly and are cut for the horses.

"William," I said to Dawe one day, "I am afraid we shall have to sacrifice a hay field. The browsing fields are all brown; the sheep can't get enough to eat. We must be careful not to turn them there when the dew is on the grass, though, or they'll get vlayed."

"I wudden trouble, Maaster Jasper; ship c'n nibble a lot on a dewy mornin', and we sh'll git rain zoon, I reck'n."

"Well, as you think best; but I fancy we'd better turn the biggest lot into the 'Sheeps' Close' to-night." The "Sheeps' Close" was the name of one of the best meadows, which at this time was very bare owing to the long spell of dry, hot weather.

Well, I had to ride to Truro that afternoon, so I did not get home till late at night. I found George Dawe waiting up for me.

"Anything the matter, George?" I asked.

"Iss, ther es, Maaster Jasper."

"What?" I asked.

"The Trezidders be up to the ould gaame. When I wos comin' 'ome from St. Eve two or dree 'ours agone, I 'eared young Nick plannin' ev it weth Buddle."

"Explain, George," I said.

George told his story, with the result that we made our way to the "Sheeps' Close" and hid behind the hedge. Just before dawn – that is, about three o'clock in the morning – we saw two men coming toward the gateway. We saw them unfasten the gate and open it wide, then we heard one say to the other, "Now let's fetch up the sheep, and the fool will be worth a bit less money in a few hours."

Then they went away, and in a little while we heard them "whishing" up the sheep. George closed the gate, and we both waited until they came up. There were a hundred and seventy-five sheep in the flock, and they brought them up for the purpose of turning them into the vatches. Here they would be knee-deep in rank vegetation, and the poor things, glad to get to such juicy meat, would eat ravenously. The result of this would be that they would get filled with wind and would swell horribly, and if not immediately relieved would die a painful death. If the design succeeded in this case I should be hundreds of pounds poorer before the men would be at their work.

It may be imagined, therefore, that my blood was pretty hot, and that my feelings toward the Tresidders were not those of a lover, and I will leave it to any fair-minded man whether my anger was not reasonable.

As I said, George and I waited by the gate until they came up. The sheep came close to the gate, as if waiting to be let in, and the two men stood behind, not knowing, evidently, why the poor creatures did not go to their death.

"What's the matter, Jacob?" asked young Nick Tresidder.

"Dunnaw, aw'm zure," answered Jacob, who was the eldest son of Tresidder's "head man" and the worst rake in the parish. "Lev us go up an' zee."

So they came up, as we expected they would.

"Why, the gaate es cloased and apsed!" cried Jacob. "The devil must 'a 'bin 'ere."

"Nonsense," said Nick, "you couldn't have opened it; you must have been dreaming. There, open it."

"You tackle Nick Tresidder, an' I'll 'ave a go with Buddle," said George to me, in a whisper; "he's allays a-braggin' as 'ow 'ee c'n bait me. Now then, jump out!"

At this we both leaped forward. I took Nick Tresidder by the scruff of the neck, while George gripped Buddle like a blacksmith's vice.

The sheep jumped away frightened, while these two blackguards cried out as if the judgment day had come.

"Es et the devil?" asked Buddle.

"No," I roared out, "it isn't the devil; we're not related to you in any way, and your master won't help you."

By this time they found out who we were, and began to wriggle finely.

"Look you, Nick Tresidder," I said; "the law will do nothing for us, so we are going to take the law in our own hands."

"What do you want?" asked Tresidder.

"Nothing unfair," I said. "We are man to man. You are on my land, and you were doing a trick worthy only of the devil, your master. We will wrestle fair, as becomes Cornishmen, and you must show no mercy, for as God is above me I'll show none."

Now I will do these men justice. They were not afraid of us, and when they knew that we were people of this world and not ghosts from the other, they showed no desire to run away. Nick Tresidder was a year older than I, while Buddle always sneered when folks said that George Dawe was a better man than he. Besides, they both saw that we did not mean playing at wrestling.

But Nick Tresidder, Tresidder-like, was not fair; he jumped upon me before I was ready, a thing always regarded as cowardly at a wrestling match. I saw in a minute, too, that he knew the tricks of the art, and were I not a wrestler, too, and a strong man to boot, my arm must have been broken before I could put forth my strength. This angered me more than I like to be angered, for now, when we were to meet man to man, I felt not so bitter about the sheep. So I put forth all my strength and made him let go his vantage hold, then I put my arm around his chest, and right glad was I when I found him a strong man; so I played with him for the pleasure of wrestling, just as any true Cornishman will. But I was wrong in doing this. My father had told me never to trust a Tresidder, and I did trust him to wrestle fairly, even although he had tried to kill my sheep. While I wrestled, merely for the pleasure of wrestling, I felt a stab at my side, and I knew that a knife had entered my flesh just under my arm.

"You are a coward, Nick Tresidder," I said, "a coward in every way;" then, not knowing whether I was dangerously wounded or no, I played with him no longer, for a man cannot bear everything. I caught him in both my arms and lifted him from the ground; then I wrestled in earnest. I heard one of his ribs snap, but he did not cry out, then another, and he became but a child to me; so I let him go, and he staggered away like a drunken man.

"Now go home and tell your father what you have done," I said, "and tell him who you found in Elmwater Barton 'Sheeps' Close.'"

Then I turned to George, who was still struggling with Buddle, and who, just as I came to him, threw him heavily.

"George," I said, "I have been stabbed. Just tie this cloth tightly around my chest."

"The coward!" said George, panting; "but where es a, Maaster Jasper?"

"He won't wrestle any more for a month or two," I replied; "but I would not have hurt him so if he had not stabbed me."

So there, in the early morning light, while the birds began to sing, and the sheep tried to find food on the dewy ground, George Dawe tied a cloth tightly across my naked chest, and I could not help wincing at the pain. Just as he was finishing, Jacob Buddle got slowly up from the ground. He had been badly stunned, but no bones were broken.

"Look after your master," I said; then I saw the knife with which Nick had stabbed me lying on the ground. "There," I said, "you know that knife, I expect; your master used it while we wrestled."

But Buddle was dazed, and did not reply. So when I had put on my coat I went to Nick Tresidder, who was very faint and unable to walk, so ill had he become. Then my heart softened, and together we took him up to Pennington, and Buddle, who was by this time better, said he could manage him.

The next day I heard that Nick Tresidder had fallen from his horse and broken his ribs, and Dr. Hawke, who had been called in, said that he must remain in bed many days. But of this I am sure, although neither George Dawe nor I said a word, Richard Tresidder knew the truth.

Now I have told this, not because I delight in such things, but because I want it to be known how I was treated, and what I had to contend with, for this was but a sample of the many ways in which the Tresidders had tried to harm me. I have often wondered why they felt so evilly toward me, seeing that they were rich at my cost, and I have come to the conclusion that it is a law of human nature for a man to hate those whom he has treated unjustly. But I am an unlearned man, and the heart of man – and woman – is past finding out.

And now I must tell how, in spite of myself, I was drawn more and more into contact with the Tresidders, with other matters which strangely affected my life later on.