Julia and Her Romeo: A Chronicle of Castle Barfield | Page 2

The fathers had the authority of the
grandfathers, and they, that of the greatgrandfathers.
It was Saturday afternoon. There was a bleak frost abroad, and even the
waters of the brook which divided the two farms were hard frozen. The

sun hung low in the western sky, lustreless as a wafer, but ruddy. The
fields were powdered with thin snow, and the earth was black by
contrast with it. Now and then a shot sounded far away, but clear and
sharp, from where the guests of my lord of Barfield were killing time in
the warren.
A labouring man, smock-frocked, billy-cocked, gaitered, and
hob-nailed, was clamping down the frozen lane, the earth ringing like
iron under iron as he walked. By his side was a fair-haired lad of nine
or ten years of age, a boy of frank and engaging countenance, carefully
and even daintily dressed, and holding up his head as if he were a lord
of the soil and knew it. The boy and the labourer were talking, and on
the frosty silence of the fields the clear treble of the boy's speech rang
out clearly and carried far. A burly man, with a surly red face, who had
stooped to button a gaiter, in a meadow just beyond the brook, and had
laid down his gun beside him the while, heard both voice and words
whilst the speaker was a hundred yards away.
'But don't you think it's very wicked, Ichabod?'
The labourer's voice only reached the listener in the meadow. He spoke
with the Barfield drawl, and his features, which were stiffened by the
frozen wind, were twisted into a look of habitual waggery.
'Well,' said he, in answer to his young companion, 'maybe, Master
Richard, it might be wicked, but it's main like natur.'
'I shan't hate Joe Mountain when I'm a man,' said the boy.
The surly man in the field, hearing these words, looked on a sudden
surlier still, and throwing up his head with a listening air, and holding
his ankle with both hands, crouched and craned his neck to listen.
'May'st have to change thy mind, Master Richard,' said the labourer.
'Why should I change my mind, Ichabod?' asked the boy, looking up at
him.

'Why?' answered Ichabod, 'thee'lt niver have it said as thee wast afraid
of any o' the Mountain lot.'
'I'm not afraid of him,' piped the engaging young cockerel 'We had a
fight in the coppice last holidays, and I beat him. The squire caught us,
and we were going to stop, but he made us go on, and he saw fair. Then
he made us shake hands after. Joe Mountain wouldn't say he'd had
enough, but the squire threw up the sponge for him. And he gave us
two half-crowns apiece, and said we were both good plucked uns.'
'Ah! 'said Ichabod, with warmth, 'he's the right sort is the squire. And
there's no sort or kind o' sport as comes amiss to him. A gentleman
after my own heart.'
'He made us shake hands and promise we'd be friends,' said Master
Richard, 'and we're going to be.'
'Make him turn the brook back first, Master Richard,' said Ichabod. The
two were almost at the bridge by this time, and the listener could hear
distinctly.
'Turn the brook back?' the boy asked. 'What do you mean, Ichabod?'
'Ax thy feyther, when thee gettest home,' answered Ichabod. 'He'll tell
thee all the rights on it. So fur as I can make out--and it was the talk o'
the country i' my grandfeyther's daysen--it amounts to this. Look here!
'He and the boy arrested their steps on the bridge, and Ichabod pointed
along the frozen track of the brook. 'Seest that hollow ten rods off? It
was in the time o' Cromwell Hast heard tell o' Cromwell, I mek no
doubt?'
'Oliver Cromwell,' said Master Richard. 'He was Lord Protector of
England. He fought King Charles.'
'Like enough,' said Ichabod. 'In his daysen, many 'ears ago, there was
the Reddys here and the Mountains there'--indicating either house in
turn by pointing with his thumb--'just as they be now. The Reddy o'
that day--he was thy grandfeyther's grand-feyther as like as not--maybe

he was his grandfeyther for aught as I can tell, for it's a deadly-dreadful
heap o' time long past--the Reddy o' that day went to the wars, and fowt
for Cromwell. The Mountain o' that time stopped at hum. Up to then
they'd niver been misfriended as fur as I know. That's how it's put about,
anyway. But whilst the Reddy was away what's the Mountain do?'
The boy was looking at Ichabod, and Ichabod, stooping a little to be the
more impressive, was looking at him. The surly-faced man with the
gun had hitherto been concealed by the hedge