Chapter 3

Mrs. Busker was strong on the family quarrel. A family quarrel was a great thing in her estimation, almost as good as a family ghost, and she gave Dick the whole history of the incident of the brook and of many others which had grown out of it, among them one concerning the death of a certain Reddy which had tragically come to pass a year or two before his birth. The said Reddy had been found one November evening stark and cold at the corner of the parson’s spinney, with an empty gun grasped in his stiffened hand, and a whole charge of small shot in his breast. Crowner’s quest had resulted in a verdict of death by misadventure, and the generally received explanation was that the young fellow’s own gun had worked the mischief by careless handling in passing through stiff undergrowth. But a certain ne’er-do-well Mountain, a noted striker and tosspot of the district, had mysteriously disappeared about that date, and had never since come within scope of Castle Barfield knowledge. Ugly rumours had got afloat, vague and formless, and soon to die out of general memory. Dick listened open-mouthed to all this, and when the narrative was concluded, held his peace for at least two minutes.

‘_She_ isn’t wicked, is she, Aunt Jenny?’ he suddenly demanded.

‘She? Who? ‘asked Mrs. Eusker in return. ‘The little girl, Julia.’

‘Wicked? Sakes alive, whativer is the boy talking about? Wicked? O’ course not. She’s a dear good little thing as iver lived.’

‘Ichabod said that all the Mountains were wicked. But I know Joe isn’t--at least, not very. He promised me a monkey and a parrot--a green parrot, when he came back from running away. But he didn’t run away, because father found him and took him home. His father gave him an awful thrashing. He often thrashes him, Joe says. Father never thrashes me. What does his father thrash him for?’ ‘Mr. Mountain’s a harder man than your father, my dear. An’ I fear as Joe’s a bit wild, like his father when he was a boy, and obstinit. Theer niver was a obstinater man i’ this earth than Samson Mountain, I do believe, an’ Joe’s got a bit on it in him.’

‘She’s pretty,’ said Dick, returning with sudden childish inconsequence to the subject uppermost in his thoughts. ‘Joe isn’t Why is it that the girls are always prettier than the boys?’

‘I used to think it was the other way about when I was a gell,’ said Aunt Jenny, with perfect simplicity. ‘But she is pretty, that’s true. But then her mother was a likely lass, an’ Samson warn’t bad lookin’, if he hadn’t ha’ been so fierce an’ cussid. An’ to think as it should be you, of all the lads i’ Barfield, as should save a Mountain. An’ a gell too.. I suppose as you’ll be a settin’ up to fall in love wi’ her now, like Romeo and Juliet?’

‘What was that? ‘asked the boy.

‘It’s a play, my dear, wrote by a clever man as has been dead iver so many ‘ears, William Shaakespeare.’

‘Shakespeare?’ said Dick. ‘I know. It’s a big book on one of the shelves at home, full of poetry. But what’s Romeo and Juliet?’

‘Romeo and Juliet was two lovers, as lived a long time ago in a place called Verona. I don’t know where it is,’ she added quickly, to stave off the imminent question already on the boy’s lips. ‘Somewhere abroad, wheer Bonyparty is. Juliet’s name was Capulet, an’ Romeo’s was Montague, an’ the Capilets and the Montagues hated each other so as they could niver meet wi’out havin’ a bit of a turn-up one with another. They was as bad as the Reddys an’ the Mountains, only i’ them daysen folks allays wore swords an’ daggers, so’s when they fowt they mostly killed each other. Well, one night old Capilet gi’en a party, an’ asked all his friends, an’ everybody wore masks, so’s they didn’t know half the time who they was a-talkin’ tew, as was the fashion i’ them times, an’ Romeo, he goes, just for divilment, an’ he puts on a mask tew, so as they didn’t know him, else they’d ha’ killed him, sure an’ certain. An’ theer he sees Juliet, an’ she was beautiful, an’ he falls plump in love wi’ her, an’ she falls in love wi’ him, an’ they meets o’ nights, i’ the moonlight, on the window-ledge outside her room, but they had to meet i’ secret, ‘cause the two fam’lies was like cat an’ dog, an’ there’d ha’ been awful doin’s if they’d been found out. Well, old Capilet--that was Juliet’s feyther--he finds a husband for Juliet, a nice chap enough, a count, like Lord Barfield, on’y younger an’ likelier. An’ Juliet, she gets welly mad, because she wants to marry Romeo. And then, to mek matters wuss, Romeo meets one o’ Juliet’s relations, a young man named Tybalt, as hates him like pison, an’ they fowt, an’ Romeo killed him. Well, the Capilets was powerful wi’ the king as ruled in Verona, like Joseph used to be with Pharaoh in the Holy Land, my dear, an’ Romeo, he has to run away an’ hide himself, else p’raps they’d ha’ hung him for killin’ Tybalt, though it was Tybalt as begun the fight, so poor Juliet’s left all alone. An’ her marriage day’s a-gettin’ near, and old Capilet, he’s stuck on her marryin’ the count, an’ the day’s been named, and everything provided for the weddin’. Well, Romeo takes a thought, an’ goes to a friar, a kind o’ priest, as was a very book-learned man, and asks if he can help him. And at first he says no, he can’t, an’ Romeo gets that crazed, he’s goin’ to kill himself, but by an’ by he thinks of a plan. He gives Juliet a bottle o’ physic stuff to send her to sleep, and make her look as if she was dead. Then her relations ‘ll be sure to bury her i’ the family vault, an’ he’ll write to Romeo to come back to Verona i’ the night-time an’ take her out o’ the vault, an’ goo away quiet wi’ her till things have blown over, an’ they can come back again. An’ Juliet takes the physic, an’ everybody thinks her dead, her father, an’ her mother, an’ her old nuss, an’ Paris--that’s the name of the gentleman as they wanted her to marry--an’ there’s such a hullabaloo an’ racket as niver was. An’ they buried her i’ the vault, wi’ all her relations, an’ the old friar thinks as it’s all a-comin’ straight. But the letter as he’d writ to Romeo niver reaches him, an’ Romeo hears as how Juliet’s really dead, and he buys a bottle o’ pison, an’ comes to Juliet’s grave i’ the night-time, an’ there he meets Paris, as has come to put flowers there an’ pray for Juliet’s soul, knowin’ no better and lovin’ her very dear. An’ him an’ Romeo fights, and Romeo kills him, an’ opens the vault, an’ go’s in, an’ theer’s Juliet, lyin’ stiff an’ stark, because the physic ain’t had time to work itself off yit. An’ he kisses her, an’ cries over her, and then he teks the pison, and dies. An’ just as he’s done it, Juliet wakes up, and finds him dead, and she takes his knife, an’ kills herself, poor thing, an’ that’s the hend on ‘em.’

The old sentimentalist’s eyes were moist, and her voice choked, as she concluded her legend. It was the first love-story Dick had ever heard, and in pity at the beautiful narrative, which no clumsiness of narration could altogether rob of its pathos, he was crying too. There is no audience like an impressionable child, and the immortal story of love and misfortune seemed very pitiful to his small and tender heart.

‘Why, theer! theer! Dick! It’s only a story, my dear, wrote in a book,’ said Mrs Jenny. ‘It most likely ain’t true, an’ if it is, it all happened sich a time ago as it’s no good a-frettin’ about it. Why, wheeriver did you get all them warts? ‘She took one of the hands with which Dick was rubbing his eyes. ‘You should have ‘em looked tew, they quite spile your hands. I must get Rufus Smith to have a look at ‘em. You know who we’m agoin’ to see, don’t you? You’ve heard tell o’ the Dudley Devil, Dick?’

‘Yes,’ said Dick. ‘Ichabod goes to him for his rheumatism.’

‘It’s on’y a step away. That’s his cottage, over there. We’ll get him to charm the warts away.’

A hundred yards farther on Mrs. Jenny checked the pony, and, dismounting from the vehicle, bade Dick tie him to an elder-shoot and follow her. They went through a gap in a ruinous hedge, and traversed a furzy field, at the farther side of which stood the wizard’s hut, a wretched place of a single story, with a shuttered window and a thatched roof full of holes and overgrown with weeds. As they approached the door a mighty clatter was audible within, and Mrs. Jenny held the boy’s hand in a tightened grasp, fearful of devilry. As they stood irresolute to advance or retreat, a big cat dashed out at the doorway with a feline imprecation, and the wizard appeared, revengefully waving a stick, and swearing furiously.

‘Cuss the brute,’ he said, ‘the divil’s in her, sure an’ sartin’.’

It seemed not unlikely to the onlookers, the cat being the wizard’s property, and therefore, by all rule and prescription, his prompter and familiar. She was not of the received colour, however, her fur being of a rusty red. But as she raised her back, and spat at her master’s visitors from under her chubbed tail, she looked demoniac enough for anything. And from the fashion in which, her anathema once launched, she sat down and betook herself to the rearrangement of her ruffled coat, it might have been conjectured that it was not purely personal to them, but that they were attacked merely as types of the human race, whose society she and her master had forsworn.

‘Cuss her!’ reiterated the wizard. ‘Where’s her got tew? My soul, what’s this?’

He peered with a short-sighted terror-stricken scowl on Mrs. Jenny and her charge, as if for a moment the fancy had crossed him that his refractory familiar had taken their shapes. His gray lips muttered something, and his fingers worked oddly as he took a step or two forward, clearly outlined in the cold winter sunshine against the black void beyond his open door.

‘Why, Rufus, what’s the matter?’ asked Mrs. Jenny. ‘Don’t look like that at a body.’

‘It’s you, mum?’ said the necromancer. A look of relief came into his wizened face. ‘I didn’t know but what it might be----’ His voice trailed off into an indistinct murmur, and he smeared his hand heavily across his face, and looked at it, mistrustfully, as if he rather expected to find something else in its place. ‘Cuss her!’ he said again, looking round for the cat.

‘What’s she done?’ demanded Mrs. Jenny.

‘Done? Ate up all my brekfus, that’s what she’s done,’ rejoined the wizard. The familiar grinned with a relish of the situation so fiendishly human that Dick clung closer to Mrs. Rusker’s hand, and devoutly wished himself back in the trap. To his childish sense the incongruity of one gifted with demoniac powers being helpless to prevent the depredations of his own domestic animal did not appeal. As for Mrs. Jenny, she had piously believed in witchcraft all her life, and was quite as insensible to the absurdity as he.

‘I want you to look at this young gentleman’s hands,’ said Mrs. Busker. ‘He’s got warts that bad. I suppose you can charm ‘em away for him?’

Appealed to on a point of his art, the wizard’s air changed altogether. He assumed an aspect of wooden majesty.

‘Why, yis,’ he said. ‘I think I’m equal to that Step inside, mum, and bring the young gentleman with you.’

‘Couldn’t you-------’ Mrs. Busker hesitatingly began, ‘couldn’t you do it outside?’

‘The forms and ceremonies,’ said the necromancer, with an increase of woodenness in his manner, ‘cannot be applied out o’ doors. Arter you, mum.’

He ushered them into the one room of his hut, and the cat, with her tail floating above her like a banner, entered too, evading a kick, and sprang upon a rotten deal shelf, which apparently acted as both dresser and table.

Rufus closed the ruinous door, thereby intensifying the gloom which reigned within the place. The floor was of simple earth, unboarded, and the air smelt of it Here and there a fine spear of ghostly sunlight pierced a crack in roof or wall. By the time their eyes had become accustomed to the gloom they saw that Rufus, on his knees on the floor, was scratching a circle about himself with a scrap of a broken pot, and the indistinct rhythmic murmur of the spell he muttered reached their ears.

The cat, perched upon the dresser, purred as if her internal machinery were running down to final collapse, and her contracting and dilating eyes borrowed infernal fires from the chance ray of sunshine in which she sat. The brute’s rusty red head, so lit, fascinated Dick, and the mingled rhythms of her purring and the wizard’s mounted and mounted, until to his bewildered mind the whole world seemed filled with their murmur, and the demoniac head seemed to dilate as he gazed at it. Suddenly, Rufus paused in his sing-song, and the cat’s purr ceased with it, as though her share of the charm was done.

‘Come into the ring,’ said Rufus. His voice was shaky, and if there had been light enough to see it, his face was gray with terror of his own hocus-pocus. The cat’s head had dropped out of the line of sunlight, and she had coiled herself up on the dresser among a disorderly litter of crockery ware. Dick, relieved from the fascination of her too-visible presence, obeyed the summons, and Rufus, seating himself upon a broken stool, took his hand in moist and quivering fingers, and touching the warts one by one, recommenced his mumble. It had proceeded for a minute or so, when a crash, which, following as it did on the dead stillness, an earthquake could scarce have equalled, elicited a scream from Mrs. Jenny and brought the wizard to his knees with a yell of terror.

‘My blessid!’ he cried, with clacking jaws, ‘I’ve done it at last! Get thee behind me, Satan!’

In terror-stricken earnest he believed that the Great Personage he had passed all his life in trying to raise had answered to his call at last. So, though it was unquestionably a relief to him to find that the appalling clatter had merely been caused by his familiar’s pursuit of a mouse among the crockery, a shade of disappointment may have followed the discovery.

‘Cuss her!’ he said, for the third time that morning, and with additional unction. ‘Her’ll be the death of me some day, I know her will!’

IV

A summer sunset filled all the sky above Castle Barfield and its encircling fields. The sun had disappeared, leaving behind him a broad reflected track of glory where, here and there, a star was faintly visible. A light wind was blowing from the hollow which sheltered the town towards the higher land whereon the rival houses of Eeddy and Mountain faced each other. Below, it was already almost night, and as the wind blew the shadow mounted, as if the wind carried it. The rose and gold left by the departing sun faded down the sky, and settled at the horizon into a broad band of deep-toned fire, which, to one facing it in ascending from the lower ground, seemed to bind the two houses together. Some such fancy might have been in the head of Mrs. Jenny Rusker, as she went in the warm evening air towards the little eminence on which stood the long low-built house of Samson Mountain, already a-twinkle with occasional lights in the gloom, its own bulk cast against the fast-fading band of sunset.

Mrs. Jenny, hale and vigorous yet, and still a widow, was older by fifteen years than on the day when she unfolded to Dick Reddy the story of Romeo and Juliet. Fifteen years was a good slice out of a lifetime, even in Castle Barfield in the first half of the century, when time slipped by so quietly and left so little trace to mark his flight.

She passed the gate which opened on the public road, and entered the Mountain domain. The air was so still that the bubble of the boundary brook was clearly audible a hundred yards away, with nothing to accent it but the slow heavy flap of a late crow, winging his reluctant flight homewards, and save for him, sky and earth alike seemed empty of life, and delivered wholly to the clinging peace of evening. So that when Mrs. Jenny came to the only clump of trees in her line of progress between the gate and the house the little scream of surprise with which she found herself suddenly face to face with an unexpected human figure was justified.

‘Sh-h-h! ‘said the figure’s owner. ‘Don’t you know me, Aunt Jenny?’

‘Dick!’ said Mrs. Jenny, peering at him. ‘So it is. You welly frightened the life out o’ me. What brings you here, of all places in the world?’

‘Can’t you guess?’ asked Dick. He was tall and broad-shouldered now, an admirable fulfilment of the physical promise of his boyhood, and far overtopped Mrs. Rusker. ‘It isn’t for the first time.’

‘I feared not,’ said the old woman. ‘You was allays main venturesome.’

‘It will be for the last, for some time, Aunt Jenny. I leave Castle Barfield to-morrow.’

‘Leave Barfield?’ cried the old woman. ‘Why, Dick, wheer are ye goin’? You ain’t agoin’ to do nothin’ rash, that I do hope.’

‘I am going to London,’ said Dick, ‘and I must see Julia before I go. You must help me. You are going to the house now, aren’t you?’

‘Going to London?’ repeated Mrs. Eusker, who had no ears for the last words after that announcement. ‘What’s made you so hot foot to go to London all of a minute like?’

‘It was decided to-day. My father suspects what is going on. I feel sure of it, though he has never said a word about it. You know he always meant to make a doctor of me--it was my own choice when I was quite a little fellow, and it has always been understood. Last month he asked me if I was of the same mind still, and to-day he told me that my seat is taken in the coach from Birmingham. You know my father, Aunt Jenny, as well as I do. He has been a very good father to me, and I would not give him pain or trouble for the world. I could not refuse. Indeed, it is my last chance of ever doing anything for myself and making a home for Julia.’

‘My dear, they’ll never hear on it, nayther of ‘em. Samson Mountain ‘d rather see his daughter in her coffin than married to any kin of Abel Reddy’s. Though he loves her, too, in a kind o’ way. An’ your father’s jist as hard; he’s on’y quieter with it, that’s all They’ll niver consent Niver, i’ this world.’

‘Then we must do without their consent, that’s all. I must see Julia to-night, and you must help me. Tell her that I am here and must see her. Oh, Aunt Jenny, you are surely not going to desert us now, after helping us so often.’

‘I’m dub’ous, my dear. I hope good may come of it, but I’m dub’ous. I’m doubtful if I did right in helping you, again your father’s will, an’ Mr. Mountain’s, too.’

‘You won’t refuse to do so little, after doing so much,’ pleaded the young man. ‘Why, it was at your house that I used to meet her, when we were children together, and you first christened us Romeo and Juliet.’

‘A name o’ bad omen, my dear. I wish I hadn’t gi’en it to you now.’

‘For niver was a story o’ more woe, Than this o’ Jewliet an’ her Romeo.’

‘I don’t believe much in omens,’ said Dick. ‘But you will tell Julia that I am here, won’t you? It’s the last time, for ever so long.’

‘I’ll tell her,’ said Mrs. Rusker. ‘But don’t stay here; goo down to the Five Ash. Mr. Mountain’s gone to Burmungem, an’ he’ll come across this way when he comes back. You must tek a bit o’ care, Dick, for the gell’s sake.’

‘I’ll take care, dear. It’s good-bye this time, Aunt. You’ve been very good to me always, and I shan’t forget your kindness while I’m away. And you’ll be good to Julia, too, while--while I’m away, won’t you?’

Mrs. Rusker’s objections had never had any heart in them, and had been merely perfunctory, and such as she conceived her age and semi-maternal authority compelled her to make. She was wholly given over to Dick and Julia, and all her simple craft was for their service. She kissed him, and cried over him, and so they parted, he bound for the Five Ash field, and she for the farmhouse.

‘Why, lacsaday, Jenny, whativer is the matter?’ asked Mrs. Mountain, when her visitor entered her sitting-room, and gave her tear-stained cheek to her old friend’s embrace. Julia, a lithe, graceful girl, rose at the query from the other side of the little table, and came to Mrs. Rusker’s side.

‘Why, you’re cryin’,’ continued the elder woman. ‘What is it, my dear, as has upset you i’ this wise?’

‘Well, my dear,’ said Mrs. Rusker, wiping her eyes and smoothing her dress, as if her grief was done with and put away, ‘it ain’t a trouble as I expects sympathy from you in.’

Mother and daughter exchanged glances.

‘It must be a queer sort o’ trouble, then,’ said Mrs. Mountain; ‘an’ you might tell me what it is afore you say that, Mrs. Rusker, arter all these ‘ears as we’n knowed each other.’

‘Well, if you must know, I’ve jist sin young Reddy, i’ the road, jist outside the Five Ash.’ Julia’s hand was on her shoulder as she spoke, and she felt the soft touch tremble. ‘He’s a-leavin’ Barfield, agoin’ to London, for a long time.’

‘Oh, that’s the matter, is it? Well, I don’t know anythin’ agin the young man, barrin’ as he is a Reddy. An’ for the matter o’ that, though o’ course a woman has no ch’ice but to stand by the kin as her marries into, I niver found much harm in ‘em, unless it is as they’re a bit stuck up. I know as you was allays fond on him, an’ I hope the young man ‘ll do well. I’ve often said to Samson as it was all rubbidge, a-keepin’ up a old quarrel like that, as keeps two dacent fam’lys at daggers drawn. Theer, theer, let Julia get you a cup o’ tay, an’ let’s talk o’ somethin’ cheerful.’

‘I’ll go and send it in to you,’ said Julia. She exchanged one quick glance of intelligence with the widow as she left the room. The old woman had done her errand, and Julia knew where to seek her lover. She found her hat in the hall, and slipped out by the back way, after directing the servant to take in the required refreshment to Mrs. Busker. It was bright moonlight now, and as she ran lightly across the Five Ash field in her white summer dress, Dick, waiting in the shelter of the hedge, saw her plainly, and advanced to meet her.

‘Oh, Dick, is it true?’

He took her in his arms and kissed her before he answered. ‘Yes, dear, it’s true. I am going to London.’

‘But why so suddenly, so soon?’

‘I must, dear. It is my own choice. I am going to study, to fit myself to take my place in the world, and to find a home for you. Be brave, dear. It is only for a little time.’

‘It is all so sudden.’

‘Yes. I had hoped to stay a little longer, to see more of you, to get used to my happiness before I lost it. But my father suspects, I am sure, if he does not know, and I dared not refuse. It hurts me to go, but what can I do? You know the man he is. And there is only one thing in the world that your father would help him to do--to separate us. I must go away and make a home for you with my own hands; we can expect no help from them. If we are true to each other we shall be happy yet. Our love may end the ridiculous family squabble which has lasted all these generations. But it would be madness to speak yet.’

‘It is that which makes me so unhappy, Dick. Why am I not like other girls? Why can’t you come to the farm and ask my father’s leave to court me, as other girls’ sweethearts do, and as you would like to do? I can’t help feeling that this is wrong, meeting you in secret, and being engaged to you against my father’s will, without his knowledge.’

‘The quarrel is not of our making, Julia. We only suffer by it. I hope we shall bring it to an end, and teach two honest men to live at peace together, as they ought. Why, you’re crying.’