Julia And Her Romeo: A Chronicle Of Castle Barfield / From Schwartz" by David Christie Murray"

rts in those days, and he was known as the Dudley Devil. In these enlightened times he would have been dealt with as a rogue and vagabond, and, not to bear too hardly upon an historical

torically true in my childhood-though, like other things, it may have ceased to be historically true since then-that it was in this disguise of the great gray tom-cat that he met his death. He was fired at by a farmer, the wounded cat crawled into

n the ancient town of Bewdley. He was a lean man, with a look of surly fear. It is likely enough that he half expected some of his invocations to come true one fine day or other, with consequences painful to himselt The old notions are

said, upon occasions, to hold a candle to the devil. With a similar diversion from general principle, Rufus was known occasionally to perform acts of harmless utility. He charmed away warts and corns, he prepared love philtres, and sold lucky stones. He foreran the soci

med away would be naturally assisted towards faith by the aspect of the polecat's skeleton, the skulls of two or three local criminals, and the shrivelled, mummified dead things which hung about the walls or depe

motherly, foolish, good creature, who, next to the reading of plays and romances, loved to have children about her and to make them happy. On this particular day she had Master Richard with her. She kept up her acquaintance with both h

e never met either of her quondam lovers without some touch of old-world coquetry in her manner. The faintest and most far-away touch of anything she could call romance was precious to the old woman, and having a rare good heart of her own under all her superannuated follies, she adored the children. Dick was her especial favourite, as was only natural, for he was pret

counsellor and confidante from his earliest years, and the little parlour, with its antiquated furniture and works of art-in wool, its haunting odour of pot-pourri emanating from the big china jar upon the mantelshelf, and its moist warm atmosphere

soon after its occurrence, and lost nothing in the telling. Mrs. Jenny would have found a romance in circumstances much less easily usable to that end than those of the scion of one house rescuing the daughter of a rival and inimical line, and here was material enough for foolish

gle of harness, and an occasional sneeze at the frosty air. They passed the field of battle on the road, and Dick pointed it out. Then, as was natural, he turned to the family feud, and retailed all he had heard from Ichabod, supplem

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

s she, Aunt Jenny?'

Eusker in return. 'Th

talking about? Wicked? O' course not. She'

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 f

onsequence to the subject uppermost in his thoughts. 'Joe isn

er 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

that? 'ask

clever man as has been dead iver s

big book on one of the shelves at home, fu

, 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 va

d, and in pity at the beautiful narrative, which no clumsiness of narration could altogether rob of its pathos, he was crying too. There is

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 t

Ichabod goes to him

his cottage, over there. We'll

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

aid, 'the divil's in h

. 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 hersel

wizard. 'Where's her got

d him that his refractory familiar had taken their shapes. His gray lips muttered something, and his fingers worked oddly

er?' asked Mrs. Jenny. 'Don'

His voice trailed off into an indistinct murmur, and he smeared his hand heavily across his face, and looked at it, mistrus

one?' demande

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 depre

hands,' said Mrs. Busker. 'He's got warts that

e wizard's air changed altogether. He

qual to that Step inside, mum, and

sker hesitatingly began, '

, with an increase of woodenness in his manner,

loating above her like a banner, entered too, evading a kick, and sprang u

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 k

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

mong 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,

acking jaws, 'I've done it at l

to his call at last. So, though it was unquestionably a relief to him to find that the appalling clatter had merely been

morning, and with additional unction. 'Her'll