"My nephew Ernest, is carrying on there," he told me, "and he's a good farmer enough and can be trusted to do all that's right; but there's no money to be touched and I must find out if they'll tell me what have got to be done and how the law stands."
He was a lot cut up, for him and his brother had always been very good friends; and he was troubled for his nephew also, because Ernest had lost his nerve a good deal over the tragedy.
"He's taking on very bad and can't get over it," said Amos to me. "The natural weakness of his character have come out under this shock, and the poor chap be like a fowl running about with its head off. He never had more wits than please God he should have, and this great disaster finds him unmanned. He will have it his uncle's alive. He's heard of men losing their memory and getting into wrong trains and so on. But I tell him that with all the noise that's been made over the country, if Joe was living, though he might be as mad as a hatter, 'tis certain by now we should have wind of him."
"Certain sure," I said. "He's a goner without a doubt, and 'twill take a miracle ever to get to the bottom of this."
I was reminded of them words a fortnight later, for it did take a miracle to find the shocking truth. In fact you may say it took two. And one without the other might just as well not have happened. And 'tis no good saying the days of miracles be passed, 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."