The Birthright

by Joseph Hocking

"But," said my father, "Mary has promised to be my wife, promised again and again."

"And do you think," asked the Squire, "that I would allow my only daughter to marry a tenant farmer, a wild young scamp that his father disinherited? Leave the house, I tell you!"

I have heard that Mary pleaded with her father, but I will not vouch for the truth of that. Certain it is that some time after she became married to Richard Tresidder.

Thus it was that Richard Tresidder robbed Jasper Pennington not only of his home and lands, but his love.

Now, my father prospered at Elmwater Barton. He was a clever man, and fortune favoured him. He began to lay by money, and he farmed the land so well that folks said he would in a few years, by the blessing of God, have enough to buy back the Pennington estates, according to the terms of his father's will. This was told Richard Tresidder and his mother one day, and they both laughed. About this time my father's cattle began to die. No one could explain why, but die they did, until many rumours were afloat, and people whispered that the cattle were bewitched. Anyhow, it was asserted that Richard Tresidder had been seen talking with Betsey Fraddam, the witch, while many delicacies had been taken to Betsey's cottage from Pennington.

Now, as I said, there will be many things in this narrative which I, an unlearned man, cannot explain. Still, I must tell of matters as they occurred, this, among others, especially as my relations with Eli Fraddam, Betsey's son, have been condemned by Parson Inch. It is said that the Fraddam family has witchcraft in its veins. Anyhow, it is well known that Betsey was regarded as a witch, while Eli, her son—but of the poor gnome I will tell later on.

My father tried everything to cure his cattle, but could not, and what was more perplexing was the fact that other people's cattle in fields adjoining suffered not at all. In a few months he was driven to extremities; he saw his chances of buying back his old home slipping through his fingers, and what maddened him most was that whenever he passed Richard Tresidder, the man who lived on his estates, laughed him in the face.

One day my father was in a field adjoining the Pennington lands when he saw Richard Tresidder.

"Well, farmer," said Tresidder, with a sneer, "and how are you getting on?"

Whereupon my father accused him of having dealings with Betsey Fraddam, and told him he was a black-hearted knave, and other things concerning himself, which maddened Richard Tresidder so that he jumped over the hedge that divided them and struck my father with his heavy riding-whip.