The mother, it must be understood, had long been dead, and there was no mediator between the stern old man and his fiery-tempered son. Old Sibbold was descended of a good family—one that had once held a position, not only in the county but in the country—and he dwelt much on the past, recalling the time when a Sibbold had held a bishop a prisoner for King John.
He pored over the deeds in his old oak chest—a press, which stood on four carved legs, and was closed with a ponderous padlock. That chest, if it could be found now, would be worth its weight, not in gold merely, but in diamonds. At that time these deeds and parchments were of little value; they related mostly to bygone days, and Arthur ridiculed his father’s patient study of their crabbed handwriting.
What was the use of dwelling on the past?—up and speculate on the present!
Irritated beyond measure, old Sibbold would reply that half the county belonged to him, and he could prove it. All that they could see from that window was his.
“Why,” said Arthur, “all we can see is the Lea, which is as barren as the crown of my hat, except in weeds and bulrushes!”
“Barren or not, they’re mine,” said Sibbold, closing his chest; “and I will make those squatters pay!”
For the Lea was that piece of waste ground which the brook had overflowed, and in a sense rendered fertile.
From that hour began a persecution of the basket-makers who had settled on the little islets in the marsh. Sibbold had an undoubted parchment right—whether he had a moral and true right to a place he had never touched with spade or plough is a different matter. He claimed a rent. The cotters refused to pay. Their chieftain, old Will Baskette, wanted to compromise matters, and offered a small quit-rent.
Now everyone knows that quit-rent and rent are very different things in a legal point of view. A man who pays rent can be served with notice to quit. A man who pays quit-rent has a claim upon the soil, and cannot be ejected. Sibbold refused the quit-rent, and had the squatters served with a notice. They went on cutting reeds, weaving baskets, and shooting wildfowl, just the same; till one day old Sibbold, accompanied with a posse of constables (there were no police in those days), walked into the marsh with his jackboots on; and, while one of the cotters was absent selling his baskets, began to tear the little hut down, despite the curses of the women and the wailing of the children. But the hut, as it happened, was stronger in reality than appearance, and resisted the attack, till one of the constables suggested fire.
A burning brand from the cottage hearth was applied by old Sibbold himself to the reed thatch, and in a moment up shot a fierce blaze which left nothing but ashes, and sod walls two feet high. One can imagine the temper a man of gypsy blood would be in when, on returning home, he found his children crying and the women silent, sitting among the ruins. From that hour a spirit of revenge took possession of the dwellers in this Dismal Swamp of hostility to the village.
Hitherto these half savage people had paid of their own free will a kind of tribute to the regular house-folk of Wolf’s Glow. The farmers’ wives received useful presents of baskets and clothes-pegs, and every now and then half a dozen wild ducks were found on the threshold in the morning. The clergyman was treated in a similar manner; and being known to have a penchant for snipes and woodcocks, his table was well supplied in the season. Sometimes there were other things left in a mysterious way at the door—such as a bladder full of the finest brandy or Hollands gin, or a packet of tobacco or snuff.
This was generally after the visit of the gypsy tribe, who were smugglers to a considerable extent. No farmer ever missed a lamb or a horse: such property was far safer since the settlement of the Dismal Swamp.
But now the village had attacked the Swamp, the Swamp retaliated on the village, and a regular war commenced. The farmers’ sheep began to disappear—none so often as old Sibbold’s. Once a valuable horse of his was lost. This drove him to the verge of frenzy. He went down to the Swamp, and presently returned swearing and vowing vengeance—he had been shot at. This aroused the clergyman into action. He went to the Swamp, and was received with respect. He talked of conciliation, and reproved them, especially speaking of the sin of murder. They listened, but utterly scouted the idea.
“We steal,” they said, openly. “It is our revenge; but we do not murder. Sibbold was not fired at. One of our young men was seeking ducks—he did not know that Sibbold at the same moment was creeping noiselessly through the reeds to fire our huts. He shot at the ducks, and some of the pellets glanced off Sibbold’s jackboots. That’s the truth.”
And it was the truth. But Sibbold vowed vengeance, and was heard to say that he would have their blood. He refused to see the clergyman who came to mediate and explain. He accused him of complicity, and reviled him.
James, as usual, agreed with and seconded him. Arthur sided with the squatters, and said so openly. Sibbold cursed him. Arthur said pointedly that when he inherited the land the squatters should be unmolested. Sibbold struck him with an ash stick.
Arthur left the house and went to the Swamp. He called on old Will Baskette, and expressed his hatred of his father’s tyranny. He asked to be taught to make baskets, and
