r
coming to Scrooby gathered awhile in a stone church named for him.

Bradford's native town also, despite its quiet rural beauty, lay upon
the Great Northern Road to Scotland, as now on the railroad named after
it the express comes thundering by from the grimy granite houses of
Edinboro, bound for the mighty metropolis before midnight of the
afternoon it started. But the old dirt road was only a few feet wide,
almost a stranger to horse-drawn vehicles, especially pleasure
carriages, even the ladies of the Elizabethan era using mostly their
mounts, as those in America later rode on their pillions.

More agreeable, locally, were the meadow paths along the Idle, and other
leisurely streams of this boy's neighborhood. His family name was
originally applied to those who lived at some convenient Broad Ford,
many desirable crossings having some descriptive or defining term, like
Ox Ford and Cam Bridge.

His taste for Latin might well have been intensified by the very name of
his Austerfield, which, earlier than the Anglo-Saxon localities, was
probably named for the imperial Roman commander Ostorius, who had a
defensive earthwork at his station near here. Its remains attested its
military importance. And though the northern peasantry in young
William's time were so untutored or morally lax, or both, that they were
unacquainted with even their English Bible, it is not strange if these
historical associations induced the more intelligent and refined yeomen
to possess Latin books. It has been supposed that his own family owned
them, with English works, all of which were rare and costly; and in
addition to this likelihood, it is known that Rev. Mr. Silvester of
Alkly had a classical collection in his own library. As this clergyman
was a family friend and the guardian of William's cousins, the
Austerfield boy would naturally become a visitor at the neighboring
parsonage.

Wills and records indicate that the Bradfords in general were of good
repute and moved in the best society of that too decadent period. The
Austerfield branch were yeomen, once so important in the English commons
that they ranked next to the gentry.

At the north end of the village the house still stands which tradition
claims as our Bradford's birthplace. It is of substantial brick,
exceedingly rare in his day and a sign of social distinction. Many
houses of the time were quite attractive in appearance with their red
roofs, green shutters and yellow doorste