You couldn’t absolutely say there was a screw loose in him, because to love your only child with all right and proper devotion is in the order of nature; but to come between a daughter and her future mate, when the mate was a man like me, seemed weak-minded, to say no more.  A very selfish man in fact, and the thought of Jenny having a home of her own away from him, though to any decent father a right and proper thing to happen, got Joshua Owlet in a rage, and I had to exercise unbounded patience.  He was a small-brained man, and that sort is the most obstinate.

“Such a woman be bound to wed, Mr. Owlet,” I told him, “and lucky for you in your humble way of life that she’s fallen in with one that can make her a home worthy of her and lift her up in the land.  And if you love her so fierce, surely the first thing you did ought to feel is that, when she takes me, your mind will be at rest about her for evermore.  I ain’t retiring yet and, be it as it will, I’m Devonshire, and the home I determine upon won’t be very far ways off, and she’ll be within call and you’ll find yourself welcome under my roof in reason.”

He scratched in his grey beard and looked at me out of his shifty eyes, and if looks could have killed he’d have struck me dead, for he was a malicious sort of man and a pretty good hater.  Owlet wore rags for choice and he picked up a living making clothes-pegs and weaving osier baskets.  That was his mean fashion of life, and he was allowed to get his material down in Oakshotts swamps, where the river overflowed and the woodcock and snipe offered sport in winter.  But the keepers hated Owlet poking about, because they said he took more than withies from the osier beds.

Well, the man most steadfastly refused to sanction the match and held off and cussed and said he was Jenny’s duty and she didn’t ought to dream of leaving him under any conditions.  Of course he held no power over her and at heart she never liked him very much, because he’d served her mother bad and she remembered it.  But she told me straight that I was first, father or no father, and that she’d come to me when I was ready to take her.  So I could afford to feel no fear from Joshua and went my own way and dwelt on a clever scheme by which I’d bide along with Sir Walter after marriage and see my wife uplifted in the establishment—­to help the housekeeper or something like that.  For well I knew my master would pleasure me a long way before he’d lose me.  I’d served him steadfast and we’d faced death together in the Great War.

And so I settled down in my usual large and patient spirit and just kept friendly touch with Jenny’s father and no more.  Nor did Jenny say much upon the future when she was home, and so, no doubt, Joshua got to hope he’d have his way in the long run.