not likely
to, and so to the folks round about his home he now introduced me as his
adopted son and heir. And thus things went very pleasantly for me, and,
as children will, I soon forgot my early troubles.

I think we had nothing to cause us any vexation or sorrow at Beechcot
until Dame Barbara Stapleton and her son Jasper came to share our lot.
Jasper was then a lad of my own age, and like me an orphan, and the
nephew of Sir Thurstan. His mother, Sir Thurstan's sister, had married
Devereux Stapleton, an officer in the Queen's household, and when she
was left a widow she returned to Beechcot and quartered herself and her
boy on her brother. Thereafter we had trouble one way or another, for
Dame Barbara could not a-bear to think that I was preferred before her
own boy as Sir Thurstan's heir. Nor did she scruple to tell Sir Thurstan
her thoughts on the matter, on one occasion at any rate, for I heard
them talking in the great hall when they fancied themselves alone.

"'Tis neither right nor just," said Dame Barbara, "that you should make
one nephew your son and heir to the exclusion of the other. What! is not
Jasper as much your own flesh and blood as Humphrey?"

"You forget that Humphrey is a Salkeld in name as well as in blood,"
said Sir Thurstan. "If the lad's father, my poor brother Richard, had
lived, he would have succeeded me as lord of Beechcot. Therefore, 'tis
but right that Dick's boy should step into his father's place."

"To the hurt of my poor Jasper!" sighed Dame Barbara.

"Jasper is a Stapleton," answered Sir Thurstan. "However, sister, I will
do what is right as regards your lad. I will charge myself with the cost
of his education and training, and will give him a start in life, and
maybe leave him a goodly sum of money when I die. Therefore, make your
mind easy on that point."

But I knew, though I was then but a lad, that she would never give over
fretting herself at the thought that I was to be lord of all the broad
acres and wide moors of Beechcot, and that Jasper would be but a
landless man. And so, though she never dare flout or oppress me in any
way, for fear of Sir Thurstan's displeasure, she, without being openly
unfavorable, wasted no love on me, and no doubt often wished me out of
the way.

At that time Jasper and I contrived to get on very well together. We
were but lads, and there was no feeling of rivalry between us. Indeed, I
do not think there would ever have been rivalry between us