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 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 side had their own way. Mr. Greenfell teaches history at school, and he says so.'

This was nothing to Ichabod, whose intellect was not constructed for the reception of historical evidences.

'Then ax thy feyther, Master Richard,' he answered; 'he'll tell thee the rights on it.'

The boy walked on pondering, as children of his age will do. The seniors would be surprised pretty often if they could guess how deep and far the young thoughts go, but, then, the seniors have forgotten their own young days, or were never of a thinking habit. Ichabod clamped along with his mind on beer. The boy thought his own thoughts, and each was indifferent for a while to outer signs and sounds. But suddenly a little girl ran round a corner of the devious lane with a brace of young savages in pursuit. The youthful savages had each an armful of snowballs, and they were pelting the child with more animus than seemed befitting. The very tightness with which the balls were pressed seemed to say that they were bent less on sport than mischief, and they came whooping and dancing round the corner with such rejoicing cruelty as only boys or uncivilised men can feel. The little girl was sobbing, half in distress, and half because of the haste she had made, and Master Richard's juvenile soul burnt within him at the sight like that of a knight-errant. He had read a great deal about knights-errant for the time which had been as yet allowed him for the pursuit of literature, and he was by nature a boy of much fire and gentleness, and a very sympathetic imagination. So the big heart in the small body swelled with pity and grew hot with valour, and, without parley, he smote the foremost boy, who happened to be the bigger of the two, and went headlong into fight with him.

Ichabod followed the young master's lead without knowing, or in the smallest degree caring, why, and tried to seize the