Being, as you may say, the centre of the story, for Milly Parable and my son, Rupert, though they bulk large in the tale, be less than me, it’s difficult to set it out.  And the affair itself growed into such a proper tangle at the finish that my pen may fail afore the end; but I’ll stick so near as memory serves me to the facts, and, though others may not shine too bright afore I finish, the tale won’t cast no discredit upon me in any fairminded ear.

I married at twenty and had four children and they was grown up, all but Albert, before I lost John Stocks, my first husband.  Albert, top flower of the basket, he died as a bright child of ten year old.  His brain was too big for his head and expanded and killed him.  And that left Jane, my first, married to Ford, the baker, and John, called after his father, and known to me as ‘Mother’s Joy,’ and Rupert, who got to be called ’Mother’s Misfortune,’ because he was a shifty and tolerable wicked boy with lawless manners and no thought for any living creature but self.  John was good as gold, but a thought simple.  He married and had five childer in four years and never knew where to turn for a penny.  But the good will and big heart of the man was always there, and if he could have helped his parents and come by money honest, he’d have certainly done it.  A glutton for work and in church twice every Sunday; but his work was hedge-tacking and odd jobs, and he never done either in a way to get any lasting fame.  I wouldn’t say I was proud of him, and yet I knew he went straight and done his duty to the best of his poor powers.  His wife was such another—­the salt of the earth in a manner of speaking, if rightly understood, but no knack of making her mark in the world—­in fact a very godly, unnoticeable, unlucky fashion of woman.  I knew they’d be rewarded hereafter, where brains be dust in the balance, but meantime I’d sometimes turn to mark Rupert flourishing like the green bay tree and making money and putting it away and biding single and keeping his secrets close as the grave.

I never saw none of his earnings and more didn’t his father.  He was under-keeper to Tudor Manor and very well thought on; but a miser of speech, as well as cash, and none knew what was in his heart.  He lived at the north lodge of the big place and woke a lot of curiosity, as secrecy will; but at eight-and-twenty years of age he was granted to be a man very skilled in his business, and the head-keeper, Mr. Vallance, thought a lot of him, and the two men under him went in fear.  So also did the poachers, for he was terrible skilled in their habits, and only his bringing up and a patient father and mother had turned the balance and made him the protector of game instead of a robber himself.  So there it was:  my eldest had a heart of gold and no intellects, as often happens, while Rupert hadn’t no heart at all, but the Lord willed him wits above ordinary.  He’d come to supper of a Sunday and eat enormous; though