War for a right of way led up to the murder. The Dismal Gibcat owned a field, across which people had walked since the world began, according to the testimony of the Yellow Leaf, who was the final court of appeal in all such matters. When a stone coffin was disinterred, or a few Roman coins were turned up, the Yellow Leaf was invariably summoned to decide the question of ownership. He might confess that the stone coffin had been made before his time, although he would give the name of the mason, and narrate a few anecdotes concerning the eccentric parishioner who had preferred this method of burial. While he would possess a clear recollection of the thriftless farmer who had dropped the money while ploughing through a hole in his pocket. The Yellow Leaf declared he had crossed that field thousands of times when he was a mere bud, and went on to state that, if the people allowed the Dismal Gibcat to triumph over them, they would find themselves back in the dark ages, bereft of all the privileges which Magna Charta, the post office, and Captain Drake had obtained for them. The Dismal Gibcat began by ploughing the field and planting it with potatoes. Then he lay in wait for the first trespasser, who chanced to be the vicar on his way to baptise a sick baby. Undismayed by the importance of his capture, the Dismal Gibcat informed the vicar he was committing an unfriendly act by trespassing across his vested property. The vicar, with some warmth, asserted there was a path. The Dismal Gibcat, with exceeding dullness, replied that a man who had received his education at a public school and an ancient university ought to be able to distinguish between tilled land and thoroughfare. The vicar declared that, if there was at the moment no path, it could only be because the Dismal Gibcat had maliciously removed it, although he did not use the word maliciously in an offensive manner. The Dismal Gibcat replied that, as there was no path, the vicar could not walk along it; and, as he was obviously trying to make one--with a pair of boots quite suitable for the purpose--he was committing an act of trespass, and by the law of England a trespasser might be removed by force. The vicar explained that he could not stay to argue the matter lest, while they were quarrelling, the poor little baby should become an unbaptised spirit. The Dismal Gibcat declared that his vested rights were more to him than baptised babies, and ordered the vicar to get off his potatoes by the way he had come. Finally the vicar abandoned a portion of his Christianity and threatened to hit the Dismal Gibcat upon the head with his toy font. Civil war having thus broken out, the entire population of military age, headed by Captain Drake and the Yellow Leaf, promenaded across the field and trampled out a new pathway. The Dismal Gibcat replied by putting up barbed wire entanglements.