‘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.