Julia and Her Romeo: A Chronicle of Castle Barfield | Page 6

if they
could find out anything to do it for.'
'If they could!' Samson assented. 'Abel Eeddy was a bragger and a
boaster from his cradle days.'
'That's where it is,' cried Mrs. Mountain, in a tone which implied that
Samson had made a discovery of the first importance, and that this
discovery unexpectedly confirmed her own argument. 'Let 'em have the
least little bit of a chance for a brag, and where be you?'
'You might trust 'em to tek advantage on it if they had it,' said her
husband.
'Of course you might,' said she, with warmth, 'and that's why I'm fearful
on it.'
'Fearful o' what?' demanded Samson.

'O' these here scornful fine-gentleman ways as'll be a thorn in our Joe's
side as long as he lives, poor little chap, unless we put him in the way
to combat again 'em.'
'Ah!' Samson growled, suddenly enlightened. 'I see now what thee
beest drivin' at. Now, you take a straight sayin' from me, Mary Ann. I'll
have no fine-mouthed, false-natur'd corruption i' my household. If the
Reddys choose to breed up that young imp of theirn to drawl fine and
to talk smooth above his station--let 'em.'
'Well, Samson,' returned Mrs. Mountain, who knew by long experience
when her husband was malleable, 'you know best, and you're the master
here, as it's on'y fit and becomin' an' in the rightful nature o' things as
you should be.'
The first effect of the oil of flattery seemed to be to harden him.
'I be, and I mean to be,' he answered, with added surliness. 'If the
speech and the clothes and the vittles as have been good enough for me
ain't good enough for any young upstart as may follow after me, it is a
pity.'
Mary Ann kept silence and looked meek. Samson growled and bullied
a little, and wore the airs of a dictator. By and by a serving-maid came
in and began to arrange the table for tea, and a little later a boy and a
girl stole noiselessly into the room.
'Joe,' said Samson sternly, 'come here!' The boy approached him with
evident dread. 'What's this I hear about thee and that young villin of a
Reddy?'
'I don't know, father,' the boy answered.
'I heard him makin' a boast this afternoon,' said Samson, rolling
bullyingly in his arm-chair, 'as you and him had fowt last holidays, and
as he gi'en you a hiding.'
Joe said nothing, but looked as if he expected the experience to be

repeated.
'Now, what ha' you got to say to that?' demanded his father.
'Why,' began Joe, edging back a little, 'he's bigger nor I be, an' six
months o'der.'
'Do you mean to tell me,' cried Samson, reaching out a hand and
seizing the little fellow by the jacket, 'do you mean to tell me as you
allowed to have enough to that young villin?'
'No,' Joe protested. 'That I niver did. It was the squire as parted us.'
'You remember this,' said his father, shaking him to emphasise the
promise. 'If ever you agree to tek a hiding from a Reddy you've got one
to follow on from me. D'ye hear?'
'Yes, father.'
'Tek heed as well as hear. D'ye hear?'
'Yes, father.'
'And here's another thing, mind you. It's brought to me as you and him
shook hands and took on to be friends with one another. Is that trew?'
Joe looked guilty, but made no answer. 'Is it trew?' Still Joe returned no
answer, and his father changing the hand with which he held him, for
his own greater convenience, knocked him off his feet, restored him to
his balance, knocked him off his feet again, and again settled him.
'Now,' said Samson, 'is it trew?'
The boy tried to recoil from the uplifted threatening hand, and cried out
'No!'
'Now,' said Samson, rising with a grim satisfaction, 'that's a lie. There's
nothin' i' the world as I abhor from like a lie I'll teach thee to tell me
lies. Goo into the brewus and tek thy shirt off; March!'
The little girl clung to her mother's skirts crying and trembling. The

mother herself was trembling, and had turned pale.
'Hush, hush, my pretty,' she said, caressing the child, and averting her
eyes from Joe.
'March!' said Samson, and Joe slunk out of the room, hardening his
heart as well as might be for endurance. But when he was once out of
sight of the huge bullying figure and threatening eye and hand, the
sight of his cap lying upon a chair in the hall supplied him with an
inspiration. He seized the cap, slipped out at the front door, and ran.
The early winter night was falling fast by this time. Half a dozen stars
twinkled intermittently