Julia and Her Romeo: A Chronicle of Castle Barfield | Page 3

beside which he had
knelt to fasten his gaiter, and neither of the two had suspected his
presence. It was natural, therefore, that both of them should start a little
when his voice reached them.
'Well?' The voice was sour and surly, like the face, and the word was
rapped out sharp and clear. Master Richard and Ichabod turned with
one accord. 'Well?' says the surly man, 'what does the Mountain do?'
Ichabod, less discomfited by the suddenness of the interruption than
might have been expected of him, rubbed the frozen base of his nose
with a cold forefinger and grinned. Master Richard looked from one to
the other with a frank and fearless interest and inquiry which became
him very prettily. The surly man bestowed a passing scowl upon him,
and turned his angry regard again upon Ichabod.
'Come, now,' he said, 'you backbiting, scandal-mongering old liar!
What does the Mountain do? Out with it!'
'Why, nayther thee nor me was there at the time, gaffer,' responded
Ichabod, his frosty features still creased with a grin. 'So nayther thee
nor me can talk for certain. Can us?'
'I suppose,' said the surly, burly man, 'you're going to stuff that young
monkey with the old lie about the stream being turned?'
Ichabod made no verbal response, but continued to rub his nose with
his forefinger, and to grin with an aspect of uncertain humour. The
surly man stooped for his gun, threw it over his arm, and stared at
Ichabod and his young companion with eyes of hatred and disdain.

Then, having somewhat relieved his feelings by a curse or two, he
turned his back and went off with a long, heavy, dogged-looking stride,
his feet crunching noisily through the frosty grasses.
'It eeat for me to talk about my betters, and them as the Lord has put in
authority over us,' said Ichabod, with an expression which belied these
words of humility; 'but I put it to thee, Master Richard. Dost think that
old Mountain theer looks like a likeable un? No, no. Might as well
expect cat an' dog t' agree as Reddy and Mountain.'
This speech was made in a carefully modulated tone, when he and the
boy were at some distance from the surly man, who was still visible,
three or four fields away.
'What was it about the brook, Ichabod?' asked Master Richard.
'Why,' said Ichabod, 'when that old longaway grandfeyther o' thine was
away a-fighting for Cromwell, 'tis said his neighbour turned the brook
so as to bring in four-score acres o' land as ud niver have been his by
right. The Reddy o' that day died in the wars, and his widder could mek
no head again the Mountain lot; but her taught her son to hate 'em and
look down upon 'em, and hated an' looked down upon is the name on
'em from that day to this.'
'But Joe Mountain didn't do it,' said Master Richard.
'No, no,' assented Ichabod. 'But it's i' this way. It's i' the blood. What's
bred i' the bone will come out i' the flesh. Afore thee makest friends
with young Joe Mountain, Master Richard, thee ax thy feyther.'
Master Richard, lapsing into silence, thought things over.
'Ichabod,' he said at last, 'is a boy bound to be bad if he has a bad
grandfather?'
'Sure!' said Ichabod, who was not going to be worsted in argument for
want of corroborative fact if he could help it.

Master Richard thought things over a little while longer, and returned
to the charge.
'Suppose the boy with the bad grandfather had a good grandmother,
Ichabod?'
'None of the Mountain lot ever had,' Ichabod replied. There was no
item in Ichabod's creed more fixed than this--the Mountains of
Mountain Farm were hateful and contemptible. He had imbibed the
belief with his mother's milk and his father's counsel. His grandfather
had known it for the one cardinal certainty of nature.
Just as the serving-men of Capulet hated the serving-men of Montague,
so the oldest servants of the Mountains hated the older servants of the
Reddys. The men made the masters' quarrel their own. There was a
feudal spirit in the matter, and half the fights of this outlying district of
the parish were provoked by that ancient history of the brook. At this
time of day it mattered very little indeed if the history was true or false,
for neither proof nor disproof was possible, and the real mischief was
done past remedy in any case.
'Are you sure our side fought for Cromwell, Ichabod?' Master Richard.
asked, after another long and thoughtful silence.
'To be sure,' said Ichabod.
'I don't think it can be true, then, about the brook,' said the boy,
'because Cromwell won, and everybody who was on his