And then in his direct, queer way he said: 

“What’s this I hear tell from my mother, Milly?  She says you be got to love me?”

And something in his great, hungry eyes, and the very words in his question made it so plain as need be to Milly Boon that Jack was more than glad to hear the news.  And she went up to him and kissed him; and then he very near throttled her.

’Twas a most happy and restful affair altogether; and when, about two hours after, poor Mrs. Pedlar croaked out over their heads for her soup, and axed Milly where she was got to be, the maiden cried out: 

“I be in Jack Cobley’s arms, Aunt Jane, and ’tis him owns the house, and us be going to get married direckly minute!”

No.  III

JOHN AND JANE

If you be built on a grand scale, there’s always people to feel the greatness, and though, when you hap to be a knave, their respect is a bit one-sided, still there it is:  greatness will be granted.

In the case of John Warner, he weren’t a knave, but his greatness, so to call it, took the form of such a complete and wondrous selfishness that you was bound to own a touch of genius in the masterful way he bent all things to his purpose and came out top over his neighbours.  The man was an only son, and what might have been chastened in his youth was fostered by a silly mother, who fell in love with his fine appearance and never denied him a pleasure she could grant.  And his father weren’t no wiser, so when, at five-and-twenty, he found himself an orphan and Wych Elm Farm his own, lock, stock, and barrel, young John Warner come to his kingdom with a steadfast determination to get the best he could for himself out of life and make it run to his own pattern so far as unsleeping wit of man could do.

He married a pretty woman with a bit of money and he altered a good few of his father’s ways and used Jane Slowcombe’s dowry to buy up a hundred acres alongside his own.  The land had been neglected and wanted patience and cash; but where his lasting interests were concerned, John never lacked for one, nor stinted the other.  He was a clever man and a charming man, and his cleverness and his charm appeared in many ways.  Over the steel hand of sleepless selfishness John drew the velvet glove of good manners and nice speech.  He created the false idea that he never wanted to do more than give and take in the properest spirit you could wish.  He spoke the comfortablest words ever a farmer did speak to his fellow-creatures, and many a man was lost afore he knew it when doing business with John Warner, and never realised, till it came to the turn, how a bargain which sounded so well had somehow gone against him after all.