“Keep by me, Will,” said my father; “thou shalt come to no harm—nor shall I, for that matter.”
When we were a few yards from him, Rupert Watson broke out upon my father in a loud voice, so that men came running along the marketplace and from the shambles to see who it was that caused such a commotion.
“So, Master Dale!” shouted Rupert Watson; “so you dare to show your face here after your work t’other night! It were better, perhaps, that you were in gaol for a horse-thief. A pretty jest, to steal another’s cattle and clap them into pound! An you and your men had not been drunk with your rioting, I would take the law of you!”
Then my father stood squarely in front of him, and looked Rupert Watson in the face. “Master Watson,” said he, “when you talk of jest and riot, I understand you not. What I do understand is this that you turned your horses upon my land, from whence I removed them to the parish pound. And I warn you, Master Watson, in the presence of these gentlemen, that this I shall do again if ever you offend in like manner.”
Then the cloud on Rupert Watson’s face grew black indeed, and he poured upon my father a torrent of vulgar abuse. “Thy land!” quoth he. “Land of thine or thy fathers it never was. And I will turn my cattle upon it this night, and if thou, or any of thy men, dare to set foot upon the land, I will shoot the trespassers through the head!”
“Master Watson,” said my father, “I care nothing for your threats. What I can do for myself, I will do; what I cannot do, the law shall do for me.”
“Ay, ay,” said someone in the crowd; “law is a good word. Your two families have disputed this matter for generations; why not go to law and have done with it?”
“As for shooting of men through the head,” said another, “ ’tis poor talk, and I trow the magistrates would have somewhat to say to it.”
“Who asked thy counsel?” said Rupert Watson. “A man hath a right to defend his own, hath he not? The land, I say, is mine.”
“I neither know nor care whose the land is,” said an old farmer at our elbow; “but this I do know, Rupert, that thou hast never put cattle on it since Castle Hill came into thy hands. Why hast suddenly fallen in love with it? ’Tis but an acre or two at most.”
“The land, I say, is mine,” said Rupert Watson once more. “And mine it shall be. So look to yourself, William Dale, for if I find you or yours setting foot upon it I will shoot you, I say, as I would a dog!”
“I care not for your threatening, Master Watson,” answered my father. “You may take your own course. But if ever I find cattle of yours on my land again, into the parish pound they will go. And now stand aside, and let me and my lad pass.”
And therewith he strode up on a sudden, and Rupert Watson, with one glance at his great form and determined face, slunk out of the doorway, and we went inside the inn and dined at the ordinary. And while we were dining I saw Rupert Watson enter, and retire into a corner with a little person whose manners reminded me of a weasel. My father told me this was Lawyer Sharpe, of Wakefield.
“ ’Tis the most unscrupulous attorney that ever lived, Will, boy,” said my father, “and I doubt not he and Watson are contriving some scheme against me, which they are welcome to do. I care for nothing of their invention.”
It was vastly to my liking that most of those to whom we spoke that day sided with my father, and condemned Rupert Watson, both for turning out his horses on the debatable piece of land, and likewise for creating a disturbance at the inn door. For though no man, not even the oldest, could rightly say if the land belonged to Dales or to Watsons, they yet remembered that for fifty years the trouble had been allowed to rest, and that it was now revived through no fault of my father’s.
“Rupert Watson,” said the old farmer who had spoken at the inn door, “is in the wrong this time. Let sleeping dogs lie, say I. Now he has stirred the dog up, and must not complain if it show its teeth. But mind you, Master Dale, I know not if the land be yours or his.”
“It has always been held to be ours in our family,” said my father.
“Ay, marry, and to be theirs in their family. My advice is, go to law, if ye can settle it in no different fashion. Though law is but a parlous method of deciding a question like yon. Whether ye lose or win, the lawyers will have your money.”
“It is for him to decide,” said my father; “I shall do nothing—only this, that if he sends his cattle on the land again, I shall again put them into pound.”
So we went home that Saturday, and that evening, and for many a following evening, strict watch was kept upon the narrow strip of meadow-land, for my father was determined that every inch of his acres should be protected. But Rupert Watson made no further movement, and the weeks passed by till it was October, and we heard no more of the matter.
Nevertheless our enemy—for I can call him by no other name, considering his deeds—was not idle in his efforts to vex and annoy us. For one Saturday, early in October, as I was talking to Jacob Trusty in the fold, there came riding in at our gate a man on a brown mare, whose face was strange to both of us, and
