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Lorna Doone, A Romance of Exmoor
by R. D. Blackmore
Preface
This work is called a 'romance,' because the incidents,
characters, time, and scenery, are alike romantic. And
in shaping this old tale, the Writer neither dares, nor
desires, to claim for it the dignity or cumber it with
the difficulty of an historic novel.
And yet he thinks that the outlines are filled in more
carefully, and the situations (however simple) more
warmly coloured and quickened, than a reader would
expect to find in what is called a 'legend.'
And he knows that any son of Exmoor, chancing on this
volume, cannot fail to bring to mind the nurse-tales of
his childhood--the savage deeds of the outlaw Doones in
the depth of Bagworthy Forest, the beauty of the
hapless maid brought up in the midst of them, the plain
John Ridd's Herculean power, and (memory's too
congenial food) the exploits of Tom Faggus.
March, 1869.
CONTENTS
I. ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION
II. AN IMPORTANT ITEM
III. THE WARPATH OF THE DOONES
IV. A VERY RASH VISIT
V. AN ILLEGAL SETTLEMENT
VI. NECESSARY PRACTICE
VII. HARD IT IS TO CLIMB
VIII. A BOY AND A GIRL
IX. THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME
X. A BRAVE RESCUE AND A ROUGH RIDE
XI. TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER
XII. A MAN JUSTLY POPULAR
XIII. MASTER HUCKABACK COMES IN
XIV. A MOTION WHICH ENDS IN A MULL
XV. MASTER HUCKABACK FAILS OF WARRANT
XVI. LORNA GROWS FORMIDABLE
XVII. JOHN IS CLEARLY BEWITCHED
XVIII. WITCHERY LEADS TO WITCHCRAFT
XIX. ANOTHER DANGEROUS INTERVIEW
XX. LORNA BEGINS HER STORY
XXI. LORNA ENDS HER STORY
XXII. A LONG SPRING MONTH
XXIII. A ROYAL INVITATION
XXIV. A SAFE PASS FOR KING'S MESSENGER
XXV. A GREAT MAN ATTENDS TO BUSINESS
XXVI. JOHN IS DRAINED AND CAST ASIDE
XXVII. HOME AGAIN AT LAST
XXVIII. JOHN HAS HOPE OF LORNA
XXIX. REAPING LEADS TO REVELLING
XXX. ANNIE GETS THE BEST OF IT
XXXI. JOHN FRY'S ERRAND
XXXII. FEEDING OF THE PIGS
XXXIII. AN EARLY MORNING CALLING
XXXIV. TWO NEGATIVES MAKE AN AFFIRMATIVE
XXXV. RUTH IS NOT LIKE LORNA
XXXVI. JOHN RETURNS TO BUSINESS
XXXVII. A VERY DESPERATE VENTURE
XXXVIII. A GOOD TURN FOR JEREMY
XXXIX. A TROUBLED STATE AND A FOOLISH JOKE
XL. TWO FOOLS TOGETHER
XLI. COLD COMFORT
XLII. THE GREAT WINTER
XLIII. NOT TOO SOON
XLIV. BROUGHT HOME AT LAST
XLV. A CHANGE LONG NEEDED
XLVI. SQUIRE FAGGUS MAKES SOME LUCKY HITS
XLVII. JEREMY IN DANGER
XLVIII. EVERY MAN MUST DEFEND HIMSELF
XLIX. MAIDEN SENTINELS ARE BEST
L. A MERRY MEETING A SAD ONE
LI. A VISIT FROM THE COUNSELLOR
LII. THE WAY TO MAKE THE CREAM RISE
LIII. JEREMY FINDS OUT SOMETHING
LIV. MUTUAL DISCOMFITURE
LV. GETTING INTO CHANCERY
LVI. JOHN BECOMES TOO POPULAR
LVII. LORNA KNOWS HER NURSE
LVIII. MASTER HUCKABACK'S SECRET
LIX. LORNA GONE AWAY
LX. ANNIE LUCKIER THAN JOHN
LXI. THEREFORE HE SEEKS COMFORT
LXII. THE KING MUST NOT BE PRAYED FOR
LXIII. JOHN IS WORSTED BY THE WOMEN
LXIV. SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES
LXV. FALLING AMONG LAMBS
LXVI. SUITABLE DEVOTION
LXVII. LORNA STILL IS LORNA
LXVIII. JOHN IS JOHN NO LONGER
LXIX. NOT TO BE PUT UP WITH
LXX. COMPELLED TO VOLUNTEER
LXXI. A LONG ACCOUNT SETTLED
LXXII. THE COUNSELLOR AND THE CARVER
LXXIII. HOW TO GET OUT OF CHANCERY
LXXIV. DRIVEN BEYOND ENDURANCE
LXXV. LIFE AND LORNA COME AGAIN
CHAPTER I
ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION
If anybody cares to read a simple tale told simply, I,
John Ridd, of the parish of Oare, in the county of
Somerset, yeoman and churchwarden, have seen and had a
share in some doings of this neighborhood, which I will
try to set down in order, God sparing my life and
memory. And they who light upon this book should bear
in mind not only that I write for the clearing of our
parish from ill fame and calumny, but also a thing
which will, I trow, appear too often in it, to
wit--that I am nothing more than a plain unlettered
man, not read in foreign languages, as a gentleman
might be, nor gifted with long words (even in mine own
tongue), save what I may have won from the Bible or
Master William Shakespeare, whom, in the face of common
opinion, I do value highly. In short, I am an
ignoramus, but pretty well for a yeoman.
My father being of good substance, at least as we
reckon in Exmoor, and seized in his own right, from
many generations, of one, and that the best and
largest, of the three farms into which our parish is
divided (or rather the cultured part thereof), he John
Ridd, the elder, churchwarden, and overseer, being a
great admirer of learning, and well able to write his
name, sent me his only son to be schooled at Tiverton,
in the county of Devon. For the chief boast of that
ancient town (next to its woollen staple) is a worthy
grammar-school, the largest in the west of England,
founded and handsomely endowed in the year 1604 by
Master Peter Blundell, of that same place, clothier.
Here, by the time I was twelve years old, I had risen
into the upper school, and could make bold with
Eutropius and Caesar--by aid of an English version--and
as much as six lines of Ovid. Some even said that I
might, before manhood, rise almost to the third form,
being of a perservering nature; albeit, by full consent
of all (except my mother), thick-headed. But that
would have been, as I now perceive, an ambition beyond
a farmer's son; for there is but one form above it, and
that made of masterful scholars, entitled rightly
'monitors'. So it came to pass, by the grace of God,
that I was called away from learning, whilst sitting at
the desk of the junior first in the upper school, and
beginning the Greek verb [Greek word].
My eldest grandson makes bold to say that I never could
have learned [Greek word], ten pages further on, being
all he himself could manage, with plenty of stripes to
help him. I know that he hath more head than I--though
never will he have such body; and am thankful to have
stopped betimes, with a meek and wholesome head-piece.
But if you doubt of my having been there, because now I
know so little, go and see my name, 'John Ridd,' graven
on that very form. Forsooth, from the time I was
strong enough to open a knife and to spell my name, I
began to grave it in the oak, first of the block
whereon I sate, and then of the desk in front of it,
according as I was promoted from one to other of them:
and there my grandson reads it now, at this present
time of writing, and hath fought a boy for scoffing at
it--'John Ridd his name'--and done again in 'winkeys,'
a mischievous but cheerful device, in which we took
great pleasure.
This is the manner of a 'winkey,' which I here set
down, lest child of mine, or grandchild, dare to make
one on my premises; if he does, I shall know the mark
at once, and score it well upon him. The scholar
obtains, by prayer or price, a handful of saltpetre,
and then with the knife wherewith he should rather be
trying to mend his pens, what does he do but scoop a
hole where the desk is some three inches thick. This
hole should be left with the middle exalted, and the
circumfere dug more deeply. Then let him fill it with
saltpetre, all save a little space in the midst, where
the boss of the wood is. Upon that boss (and it will
be the better if a splinter of timber rise upward) he
sticks the end of his candle of tallow, or 'rat's
tail,' as we called it, kindled and burning smoothly.
Anon, as he reads by that light his lesson, lifting his
eyes now and then it may be, the fire of candle lays
hold of the petre with a spluttering noise and a
leaping. Then should the pupil seize his pen, and,
regardless of the nib, stir bravely, and he will see a
glow as of burning mountains, and a rich smoke, and
sparks going merrily; nor will it cease, if he stir
wisely, and there be a good store of petre, until the
wood is devoured through, like the sinking of a
well-shaft. Now well may it go with the head of a boy
intent upon his primer, who betides to sit thereunder!
But, above all things, have good care to exercise this
art before the master strides up to his desk, in the
early gray of the morning.
Other customs, no less worthy, abide in the school of
Blundell, such as the singeing of nightcaps; but though
they have a pleasant savour, and refreshing to think
of, I may not stop to note them, unless it be that
goodly one at the incoming of a flood. The
school-house stands beside a stream, not very large,
called Lowman, which flows into the broad river of Exe,
about a mile below. This Lowman stream, although it be
not fond of brawl and violence (in the manner of our
Lynn), yet is wont to flood into a mighty head of
waters when the storms of rain provoke it; and most of
all when its little co-mate, called the Taunton
Brook--where I have plucked the very best cresses that
ever man put salt on--comes foaming down like a great
roan horse, and rears at the leap of the hedgerows.
Then are the gray stone walls of Blundell on every side
encompassed, the vale is spread over with looping
waters, and it is a hard thing for the day-boys to get
home to their suppers.
And in that time, old Cop, the porter (so called
because he hath copper boots to keep the wet from his
stomach, and a nose of copper also, in right of other
waters), his place is to stand at the gate, attending
to the flood-boards grooved into one another, and so to
watch the torrents rise, and not be washed away, if it
please God he may help it. But long ere the flood hath
attained this height, and while it is only waxing,
certain boys of deputy will watch at the stoop of the
drain-holes, and be apt to look outside the walls when
Cop is taking a cordial. And in the very front of the
gate, just without the archway, where the ground is
paved most handsomely, you may see in copy-letters done
a great P.B. of white pebbles. Now, it is the custom
and the law that when the invading waters, either
fluxing along the wall from below the road-bridge, or
pouring sharply across the meadows from a cut called
Owen's Ditch--and I myself have seen it come both
ways--upon the very instant when the waxing element
lips though it be but a single pebble of the founder's
letters, it is in the license of any boy, soever small
and undoctrined, to rush into the great school-rooms,
where a score of masters sit heavily, and scream at the
top of his voice, 'P.B.'
Then, with a yell, the boys leap up, or break away from
their standing; they toss their caps to the
black-beamed roof, and haply the very books after them;
and the great boys vex no more the small ones, and the
small boys stick up to the great ones. One with
another, hard they go, to see the gain of the waters,
and the tribulation of Cop, and are prone to kick the
day-boys out, with words of scanty compliment. Then
the masters look at one another, having no class to
look to, and (boys being no more left to watch) in a
manner they put their mouths up. With a spirited bang
they close their books, and make invitation the one to
the other for pipes and foreign cordials, recommending
the chance of the time, and the comfort away from cold
water.
But, lo! I am dwelling on little things and the
pigeons' eggs of the infancy, forgetting the bitter and
heavy life gone over me since then. If I am neither a
hard man nor a very close one, God knows I have had no
lack of rubbing and pounding to make stone of me. Yet
can I not somehow believe that we ought to hate one
another, to live far asunder, and block the mouth each
of his little den; as do the wild beasts of the wood,
and the hairy outrangs now brought over, each with a
chain upon him. Let that matter be as it will. It is
beyond me to unfold, and mayhap of my grandson's
grandson. All I know is that wheat is better than when
I began to sow it.
CHAPTER II
AN IMPORTANT ITEM
Now the cause of my leaving Tiverton school, and the
way of it, were as follows. On the 29th day of
November, in the year of our Lord 1673, the very day
when I was twelve years old, and had spent all my
substance in sweetmeats, with which I made treat to the
little boys, till the large boys ran in and took them,
we came out of school at five o'clock, as the rule is
upon Tuesdays. According to custom we drove the
day-boys in brave rout down the causeway from the
school-porch even to the gate where Cop has his
dwelling and duty. Little it recked us and helped them
less, that they were our founder's citizens, and haply
his own grand-nephews (for he left no direct
descendants), neither did we much inquire what their
lineage was. For it had long been fixed among us, who
were of the house and chambers, that these same
day-boys were all 'caddes,' as we had discovered to
call it, because they paid no groat for their
schooling, and brought their own commons with them. In
consumption of these we would help them, for our fare
in hall fed appetite; and while we ate their victuals,
we allowed them freely to talk to us. Nevertheless, we
could not feel, when all the victuals were gone, but
that these boys required kicking from the premises of
Blundell. And some of them were shopkeepers' sons,
young grocers, fellmongers, and poulterers, and these
to their credit seemed to know how righteous it was to
kick them. But others were of high family, as any
need be, in Devon--Carews, and Bouchiers, and Bastards,
and some of these would turn sometimes, and strike the
boy that kicked them. But to do them justice, even
these knew that they must be kicked for not paying.
After these 'charity-boys' were gone, as in contumely
we called them--'If you break my bag on my head,' said
one, 'how will feed thence to-morrow?'--and after old
Cop with clang of iron had jammed the double gates in
under the scruff-stone archway, whereupon are Latin
verses, done in brass of small quality, some of us who
were not hungry, and cared not for the supper-bell,
having sucked much parliament and dumps at my only
charges--not that I ever bore much wealth, but because
I had been thrifting it for this time of my birth--we
were leaning quite at dusk against the iron bars of the
gate some six, or it may be seven of us, small boys
all, and not conspicuous in the closing of the daylight
and the fog that came at eventide, else Cop would have
rated us up the green, for he was churly to little boys
when his wife had taken their money. There was plenty
of room for all of us, for the gate will hold nine boys
close-packed, unless they be fed rankly, whereof is
little danger; and now we were looking out on the road
and wishing we could get there; hoping, moreover, to
see a good string of pack-horses come by, with troopers
to protect them. For the day-boys had brought us word
that some intending their way to the town had lain that
morning at Sampford Peveril, and must be in ere
nightfall, because Mr. Faggus was after them. Now Mr.
Faggus was my first cousin and an honour to the family,
being a Northmolton man of great renown on the highway
from Barum town even to London. Therefore of course, I
hoped that he would catch the packmen, and the boys
were asking my opinion as of an oracle, about it.
A certain boy leaning up against me would not allow my
elbow room, and struck me very sadly in the stomach
part, though his own was full of my parliament. And
this I felt so unkindly, that I smote him straightway
in the face without tarrying to consider it, or
weighing the question duly. Upon this he put his head
down, and presented it so vehemently at the middle of
my waistcoat, that for a minute or more my breath
seemed dropped, as it were, from my pockets, and my
life seemed to stop from great want of ease. Before I
came to myself again, it had been settled for us that
we should move to the 'Ironing-box,' as the triangle of
turf is called where the two causeways coming from the
school-porch and the hall-porch meet, and our fights
are mainly celebrated; only we must wait until the
convoy of horses had passed, and then make a ring by
candlelight, and the other boys would like it. But
suddenly there came round the post where the letters of
our founder are, not from the way of Taunton but from
the side of Lowman bridge, a very small string of
horses, only two indeed (counting for one the pony),
and a red-faced man on the bigger nag.
'Plaise ye, worshipful masters,' he said, being feared
of the gateway, 'carn 'e tull whur our Jan Ridd be?'
'Hyur a be, ees fai, Jan Ridd,' answered a sharp little
chap, making game of John Fry's language.
'Zhow un up, then,' says John Fry poking his whip
through the bars at us; 'Zhow un up, and putt un aowt.'
The other little chaps pointed at me, and some began to
hallo; but I knew what I was about.
'Oh, John, John,' I cried, 'what's the use of your
coming now, and Peggy over the moors, too, and it so
cruel cold for her? The holidays don't begin till
Wednesday fortnight, John. To think of your not
knowing that!'
John Fry leaned forward in the saddle, and turned his
eyes away from me; and then there was a noise in his
throat like a snail crawling on a window-pane.
'Oh, us knaws that wull enough, Maister Jan; reckon
every Oare-man knaw that, without go to skoo-ull, like
you doth. Your moother have kept arl the apples up,
and old Betty toorned the black puddens, and none dare
set trap for a blagbird. Arl for thee, lad; every bit
of it now for thee!'
He checked himself suddenly, and frightened me. I knew
that John Fry's way so well.
'And father, and father--oh, how is father?' I pushed
the boys right and left as I said it. 'John, is father
up in town! He always used to come for me, and leave
nobody else to do it.'
'Vayther'll be at the crooked post, tother zide o'
telling-house.* Her coodn't lave 'ouze by raison of
the Chirstmas bakkon comin' on, and zome o' the cider
welted.'
* The 'telling-houses' on the moor are rude cots where
the shepherds meet to 'tell' their sheep at the end of
the pasturing season.
He looked at the nag's ears as he said it; and, being
up to John Fry's ways, I knew that it was a lie. And
my heart fell like a lump of lead, and I leaned back on
the stay of the gate, and longed no more to fight
anybody. A sort of dull power hung over me, like the
cloud of a brooding tempest, and I feared to be told
anything. I did not even care to stroke the nose of my
pony Peggy, although she pushed it in through the
rails, where a square of broader lattice is, and
sniffed at me, and began to crop gently after my
fingers. But whatever lives or dies, business must be
attended to; and the principal business of good
Christians is, beyond all controversy, to fight with
one another.
'Come up, Jack,' said one of the boys, lifting me under
the chin; 'he hit you, and you hit him, you know.'
'Pay your debts before you go,' said a monitor,
striding up to me, after hearing how the honour lay;
'Ridd, you must go through with it.'
'Fight, for the sake of the junior first,' cried the
little fellow in my ear, the clever one, the head of
our class, who had mocked John Fry, and knew all about
the aorists, and tried to make me know it; but I never
went more than three places up, and then it was an
accident, and I came down after dinner. The boys were
urgent round me to fight, though my stomach was not up
for it; and being very slow of wit (which is not
chargeable on me), I looked from one to other of them,
seeking any cure for it. Not that I was afraid of
fighting, for now I had been three years at Blundell's,
and foughten, all that time, a fight at least once
every week, till the boys began to know me; only that
the load on my heart was not sprightly as of the
hay-field. It is a very sad thing to dwell on; but
even now, in my time of wisdom, I doubt it is a fond
thing to imagine, and a motherly to insist upon, that
boys can do without fighting. Unless they be very good
boys, and afraid of one another.
'Nay,' I said, with my back against the wrought-iron
stay of the gate, which was socketed into Cop's
house-front: 'I will not fight thee now, Robin Snell,
but wait till I come back again.'
'Take coward's blow, Jack Ridd, then,' cried half a
dozen little boys, shoving Bob Snell forward to do it;
because they all knew well enough, having striven with
me ere now, and proved me to be their master--they
knew, I say, that without great change, I would never
accept that contumely. But I took little heed of them,
looking in dull wonderment at John Fry, and Smiler, and
the blunderbuss, and Peggy. John Fry was scratching
his head, I could see, and getting blue in the face, by
the light from Cop's parlour-window, and going to and
fro upon Smiler, as if he were hard set with it. And
all the time he was looking briskly from my eyes to the
fist I was clenching, and methought he tried to wink at
me in a covert manner; and then Peggy whisked her tail.
'Shall I fight, John?' I said at last; 'I would an you
had not come, John.'
'Chraist's will be done; I zim thee had better faight,
Jan,' he answered, in a whisper, through the gridiron
of the gate; 'there be a dale of faighting avore thee.
Best wai to begin gude taime laike. Wull the geatman
latt me in, to zee as thee hast vair plai, lad?'
He looked doubtfully down at the colour of his cowskin
boots, and the mire upon the horses, for the sloughs
were exceedingly mucky. Peggy, indeed, my sorrel
pony, being lighter of weight, was not crusted much
over the shoulders; but Smiler (our youngest sledder)
had been well in over his withers, and none would have
deemed him a piebald, save of red mire and black mire.
The great blunderbuss, moreover, was choked with a
dollop of slough-cake; and John Fry's sad-coloured
Sunday hat was indued with a plume of marish-weed.
All this I saw while he was dismounting, heavily and
wearily, lifting his leg from the saddle-cloth as if
with a sore crick in his back.
By this time the question of fighting was gone quite
out of our discretion; for sundry of the elder boys,
grave and reverend signors, who had taken no small
pleasure in teaching our hands to fight, to ward, to
parry, to feign and counter, to lunge in the manner of
sword-play, and the weaker child to drop on one knee
when no cunning of fence might baffle the onset--these
great masters of the art, who would far liefer see us
little ones practise it than themselves engage, six or
seven of them came running down the rounded causeway,
having heard that there had arisen 'a snug little mill'
at the gate. Now whether that word hath origin in a
Greek term meaning a conflict, as the best-read boys
asseverated, or whether it is nothing more than a
figure of similitude, from the beating arms of a mill,
such as I have seen in counties where are no
waterbrooks, but folk make bread with wind--it is not
for a man devoid of scholarship to determine. Enough
that they who made the ring intituled the scene a
'mill,' while we who must be thumped inside it tried to
rejoice in their pleasantry, till it turned upon the
stomach.
Moreover, I felt upon me now a certain responsibility,
a dutiful need to maintain, in the presence of John
Fry, the manliness of the Ridd family, and the honour
of Exmoor. Hitherto none had worsted me, although in
the three years of my schooling, I had fought more than
threescore battles, and bedewed with blood every plant
of grass towards the middle of the Ironing-box. And
this success I owed at first to no skill of my own;
until I came to know better; for up to twenty or thirty
fights, I struck as nature guided me, no wiser than a
father-long-legs in the heat of a lanthorn; but I had
conquered, partly through my native strength, and the
Exmoor toughness in me, and still more that I could not
see when I had gotten my bellyful. But now I was like
to have that and more; for my heart was down, to begin
with; and then Robert Snell was a bigger boy than I had
ever encountered, and as thick in the skull and hard in
the brain as even I could claim to be.
I had never told my mother a word about these frequent
strivings, because she was soft-hearted; neither had I
told by father, because he had not seen it. Therefore,
beholding me still an innocent-looking child, with fair
curls on my forehead, and no store of bad language,
John Fry thought this was the very first fight that
ever had befallen me; and so when they let him at the
gate, 'with a message to the headmaster,' as one of the
monitors told Cop, and Peggy and Smiler were tied to
the railings, till I should be through my business,
John comes up to me with the tears in his eyes, and
says, 'Doon't thee goo for to do it, Jan; doon't thee
do it, for gude now.' But I told him that now it was
much too late to cry off; so he said, 'The Lord be with
thee, Jan, and turn thy thumb-knuckle inwards.'
It was not a very large piece of ground in the angle of
the causeways, but quite big enough to fight upon,
especially for Christians, who loved to be cheek by
jowl at it. The great boys stood in a circle around,
being gifted with strong privilege, and the little boys
had leave to lie flat and look through the legs of the
great boys. But while we were yet preparing, and the
candles hissed in the fog-cloud, old Phoebe, of more
than fourscore years, whose room was over the
hall-porch, came hobbling out, as she always did, to
mar the joy of the conflict. No one ever heeded her,
neither did she expect it; but the evil was that two
senior boys must always lose the first round of the
fight, by having to lead her home again.
I marvel how Robin Snell felt. Very likely he thought
nothing of it, always having been a boy of a hectoring
and unruly sort. But I felt my heart go up and down as
the boys came round to strip me; and greatly fearing to
be beaten, I blew hot upon my knuckles. Then pulled I
off my little cut jerkin, and laid it down on my head
cap, and over that my waistcoat, and a boy was proud to
take care of them. Thomas Hooper was his name, and I
remember how he looked at me. My mother had made that
little cut jerkin, in the quiet winter evenings. And
taken pride to loop it up in a fashionable way, and I
was loth to soil it with blood, and good filberds were
in the pocket. Then up to me came Robin Snell (mayor
of Exeter thrice since that), and he stood very square,
and looking at me, and I lacked not long to look at
him. Round his waist he had a kerchief busking up his
small-clothes, and on his feet light pumpkin shoes, and
all his upper raiment off. And he danced about in a
way that made my head swim on my shoulders, and he
stood some inches over me. But I, being muddled with
much doubt about John Fry and his errand, was only
stripped of my jerkin and waistcoat, and not comfortable
to begin.
'Come now, shake hands,' cried a big boy, jumping in
joy of the spectacle, a third-former nearly six feet
high; 'shake hands, you little devils. Keep your pluck
up, and show good sport, and Lord love the better man
of you.'
Robin took me by the hand, and gazed at me
disdainfully, and then smote me painfully in the face,
ere I could get my fence up.
'Whutt be 'bout, lad?' cried John Fry; 'hutt un again,
Jan, wull 'e? Well done then, our Jan boy.'
For I had replied to Robin now, with all the weight and
cadence of penthemimeral caesura (a thing, the name of
which I know, but could never make head nor tail of
it), and the strife began in a serious style, and the
boys looking on were not cheated. Although I could not
collect their shouts when the blows were ringing upon
me, it was no great loss; for John Fry told me
afterwards that their oaths went up like a furnace
fire. But to these we paid no heed or hap, being in
the thick of swinging, and devoid of judgment. All I
know is, I came to my corner, when the round was over,
with very hard pumps in my chest, and a great desire to
fall away.
'Time is up,' cried head-monitor, ere ever I got my
breath again; and when I fain would have lingered
awhile on the knee of the boy that held me. John Fry
had come up, and the boys were laughing because he
wanted a stable lanthorn, and threatened to tell my
mother.
'Time is up,' cried another boy, more headlong than
head-monitor. 'If we count three before the come of
thee, thwacked thou art, and must go to the women.' I
felt it hard upon me. He began to count, one, too,
three--but before the 'three' was out of his mouth, I
was facing my foe, with both hands up, and my breath
going rough and hot, and resolved to wait the turn of
it. For I had found seat on the knee of a boy sage and
skilled to tutor me, who knew how much the end very
often differs from the beginning. A rare ripe scholar
he was; and now he hath routed up the Germans in the
matter of criticism. Sure the clever boys and men have
most love towards the stupid ones.
'Finish him off, Bob,' cried a big boy, and that I
noticed especially, because I thought it unkind of him,
after eating of my toffee as he had that afternoon;
'finish him off, neck and crop; he deserves it for
sticking up to a man like you.'
But I was not so to be finished off, though feeling in
my knuckles now as if it were a blueness and a sense of
chilblain. Nothing held except my legs, and they were
good to help me. So this bout, or round, if you
please, was foughten warily by me, with gentle
recollection of what my tutor, the clever boy, had told
me, and some resolve to earn his praise before I came
back to his knee again. And never, I think, in all my
life, sounded sweeter words in my ears (except when my
love loved me) than when my second and backer, who had
made himself part of my doings now, and would have wept
to see me beaten, said,--
'Famously done, Jack, famously! Only keep your wind up,
Jack, and you'll go right through him!'
Meanwhile John Fry was prowling about, asking the boys
what they thought of it, and whether I was like to be
killed, because of my mother's trouble. But finding
now that I had foughten three-score fights already, he
came up to me woefully, in the quickness of my
breathing, while I sat on the knee of my second, with a
piece of spongious coralline to ease me of my bloodshed,
and he says in my ears, as if he was clapping spurs
into a horse,--
'Never thee knack under, Jan, or never coom naigh
Hexmoor no more.'
With that it was all up with me. A simmering buzzed in
my heavy brain, and a light came through my eyeplaces.
At once I set both fists again, and my heart stuck to
me like cobbler's wax. Either Robin Snell should kill
me, or I would conquer Robin Snell. So I went in again
with my courage up, and Bob came smiling for victory,
and I hated him for smiling. He let at me with his
left hand, and I gave him my right between his eyes,
and he blinked, and was not pleased with it. I feared
him not, and spared him not, neither spared myself. My
breath came again, and my heart stood cool, and my eyes
struck fire no longer. Only I knew that I would die
sooner than shame my birthplace. How the rest of it
was I know not; only that I had the end of it, and
helped to put Robin in bed.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR-PATH OF THE DOONES
From Tiverton town to the town of Oare is a very long
and painful road, and in good truth the traveller must
make his way, as the saying is; for the way is still
unmade, at least, on this side of Dulverton, although
there is less danger now than in the time of my
schooling; for now a good horse may go there without
much cost of leaping, but when I was a boy the spurs
would fail, when needed most, by reason of the
slough-cake. It is to the credit of this age, and our
advance upon fatherly ways, that now we have laid down
rods and fagots, and even stump-oaks here and there, so
that a man in good daylight need not sink, if he be
quite sober. There is nothing I have striven at more
than doing my duty, way-warden over Exmoor.
But in those days, when I came from school (and good
times they were, too, full of a warmth and fine
hearth-comfort, which now are dying out), it was a sad
and sorry business to find where lay the highway. We
are taking now to mark it off with a fence on either
side, at least, when a town is handy; but to me his
seems of a high pretence, and a sort of landmark, and
channel for robbers, though well enough near London,
where they have earned a race-course.
We left the town of the two fords, which they say is
the meaning of it, very early in the morning, after
lying one day to rest, as was demanded by the nags,
sore of foot and foundered. For my part, too, I was
glad to rest, having aches all over me, and very heavy
bruises; and we lodged at the sign of the White Horse
Inn, in the street called Gold Street, opposite where
the souls are of John and Joan Greenway, set up in gold
letters, because we must take the homeward way at
cockcrow of the morning. Though still John Fry was dry
with me of the reason of his coming, and only told lies
about father, and could not keep them agreeable, I
hoped for the best, as all boys will, especially after
a victory. And I thought, perhaps father had sent for
me because he had a good harvest, and the rats were bad
in the corn-chamber.
It was high noon before we were got to Dulverton that
day, near to which town the river Exe and its big
brother Barle have union. My mother had an uncle
living there, but we were not to visit his house this
time, at which I was somewhat astonished, since we
needs must stop for at least two hours, to bait our
horses thorough well, before coming to the black
bogway. The bogs are very good in frost, except where
the hot-springs rise; but as yet there had been no
frost this year, save just enough to make the
blackbirds look big in the morning. In a hearty
black-frost they look small, until the snow falls over
them.
The road from Bampton to Dulverton had not been very
delicate, yet nothing to complain of much--no deeper,
indeed, than the hocks of a horse, except in the rotten
places. The day was inclined to be mild and foggy, and
both nags sweated freely; but Peggy carrying little
weight (for my wardrobe was upon Smiler, and John Fry
grumbling always), we could easily keep in front, as
far as you may hear a laugh.
John had been rather bitter with me, which methought
was a mark of ill taste at coming home for the
holidays; and yet I made allowance for John, because he
had never been at school, and never would have chance
to eat fry upon condition of spelling it; therefore I
rode on, thinking that he was hard-set, like a saw, for
his dinner, and would soften after tooth-work. And yet
at his most hungry times, when his mind was far gone
upon bacon, certes he seemed to check himself and look
at me as if he were sorry for little things coming over
great.
But now, at Dulverton, we dined upon the rarest and
choicest victuals that ever I did taste. Even now, at
my time of life, to think of it gives me appetite, as
once and awhile to think of my first love makes me love
all goodness. Hot mutton pasty was a thing I had often
heard of from very wealthy boys and men, who made a
dessert of dinner; and to hear them talk of it made my
lips smack, and my ribs come inwards.
And now John Fry strode into the hostel, with the air
and grace of a short-legged man, and shouted as loud as
if he was calling sheep upon Exmoor,--
'Hot mooton pasty for twoo trarv'lers, at number vaive,
in vaive minnits! Dish un up in the tin with the
grahvy, zame as I hardered last Tuesday.'
Of course it did not come in five minutes, nor yet in
ten or twenty; but that made it all the better when it
came to the real presence; and the smell of it was
enough to make an empty man thank God for the room
there was inside him. Fifty years have passed me
quicker than the taste of that gravy.
It is the manner of all good boys to be careless of
apparel, and take no pride in adornment. Good lack, if
I see a boy make to do about the fit of his crumpler,
and the creasing of his breeches, and desire to be shod
for comeliness rather than for use, I cannot 'scape the
mark that God took thought to make a girl of him. Not
so when they grow older, and court the regard of the
maidens; then may the bravery pass from the inside to
the outside of them; and no bigger fools are they, even
then, than their fathers were before them. But God
forbid any man to be a fool to love, and be loved, as I
have been. Else would he have prevented it.
When the mutton pasty was done, and Peggy and Smiler
had dined well also, out I went to wash at the pump,
being a lover of soap and water, at all risk, except of
my dinner. And John Fry, who cared very little to
wash, save Sabbath days in his own soap, and who had
kept me from the pump by threatening loss of the dish,
out he came in a satisfied manner, with a piece of
quill in his hand, to lean against a door-post, and
listen to the horses feeding, and have his teeth ready
for supper.
Then a lady's-maid came out, and the sun was on her
face, and she turned round to go back again; but put a
better face upon it, and gave a trip and hitched her
dress, and looked at the sun full body, lest the
hostlers should laugh that she was losing her
complexion. With a long Italian glass in her fingers
very daintily, she came up to the pump in the middle of
the yard, where I was running the water off all my head
and shoulders, and arms, and some of my breast even,
and though I had glimpsed her through the sprinkle, it
gave me quite a turn to see her, child as I was, in my
open aspect. But she looked at me, no whit abashed,
making a baby of me, no doubt, as a woman of thirty
will do, even with a very big boy when they catch him
on a hayrick, and she said to me in a brazen manner, as
if I had been nobody, while I was shrinking behind the
pump, and craving to get my shirt on, 'Good leetle boy,
come hither to me. Fine heaven! how blue your eyes
are, and your skin like snow; but some naughty man has
beaten it black. Oh, leetle boy, let me feel it. Ah,
how then it must have hurt you! There now, and you
shall love me.'
All this time she was touching my breast, here and
there, very lightly, with her delicate brown fingers,
and I understood from her voice and manner that she was
not of this country, but a foreigner by extraction.
And then I was not so shy of her, because I could talk
better English than she; and yet I longed for my
jerkin, but liked not to be rude to her.
'If you please, madam, I must go. John Fry is waiting
by the tapster's door, and Peggy neighing to me. If
you please, we must get home to-night; and father will
be waiting for me this side of the telling-house.'
'There, there, you shall go, leetle dear, and perhaps I
will go after you. I have taken much love of you. But
the baroness is hard to me. How far you call it now to
the bank of the sea at Wash--Wash--'
'At Watchett, likely you mean, madam. Oh, a very long
way, and the roads as soft as the road to Oare.'
'Oh-ah, oh-ah--I shall remember; that is the place
where my leetle boy live, and some day I will come seek
for him. Now make the pump to flow, my dear, and give
me the good water. The baroness will not touch unless
a nebule be formed outside the glass.'
I did not know what she meant by that; yet I pumped for
her very heartily, and marvelled to see her for fifty
times throw the water away in the trough, as if it was
not good enough. At last the water suited her, with a
likeness of fog outside the glass, and the gleam of a
crystal under it, and then she made a curtsey to me, in
a sort of mocking manner, holding the long glass by the
foot, not to take the cloud off; and then she wanted to
kiss me; but I was out of breath, and have always been
shy of that work, except when I come to offer it; and
so I ducked under the pump-handle, and she knocked her
chin on the knob of it; and the hostlers came out, and
asked whether they would do as well.
Upon this, she retreated up the yard, with a certain
dark dignity, and a foreign way of walking, which
stopped them at once from going farther, because it was
so different from the fashion of their sweethearts.
One with another they hung back, where half a cart-load
of hay was, and they looked to be sure that she would
not turn round; and then each one laughed at the rest
of them.
Now, up to the end of Dulverton town, on the northward
side of it, where the two new pig-sties be, the Oare
folk and the Watchett folk must trudge on together,
until we come to a broken cross, where a murdered man
lies buried. Peggy and Smiler went up the hill, as if
nothing could be too much for them, after the beans
they had eaten, and suddenly turning a corner of trees,
we happened upon a great coach and six horses labouring
very heavily. John Fry rode on with his hat in his
hand, as became him towards the quality; but I was
amazed to that degree, that I left my cap on my head,
and drew bridle without knowing it.
For in the front seat of the coach, which was half-way
open, being of the city-make, and the day in want of
air, sate the foreign lady, who had met me at the pump
and offered to salute me. By her side was a little
girl, dark-haired and very wonderful, with a wealthy
softness on her, as if she must have her own way. I
could not look at her for two glances, and she did not
look at me for one, being such a little child, and busy
with the hedges. But in the honourable place sate a
handsome lady, very warmly dressed, and sweetly
delicate of colour. And close to her was a lively
child, two or it may be three years old, bearing a
white cockade in his hat, and staring at all and
everybody. Now, he saw Peggy, and took such a liking
to her, that the lady his mother--if so she were--was
forced to look at my pony and me. And, to tell the
truth, although I am not of those who adore the high
folk, she looked at us very kindly, and with a
sweetness rarely found in the women who milk the cows
for us.
Then I took off my cap to the beautiful lady, without
asking wherefore; and she put up her hand and kissed it
to me, thinking, perhaps, that I looked like a gentle
and good little boy; for folk always called me
innocent, though God knows I never was that. But now
the foreign lady, or lady's maid, as it might be, who
had been busy with little dark eyes, turned upon all
this going-on, and looked me straight in the face. I
was about to salute her, at a distance, indeed, and not
with the nicety she had offered to me, but, strange to
say, she stared at my eyes as if she had never seen me
before, neither wished to see me again. At this I was
so startled, such things beings out of my knowledge,
that I startled Peggy also with the muscle of my legs,
and she being fresh from stable, and the mire scraped
off with cask-hoop, broke away so suddenly that I could
do no more than turn round and lower my cap, now five
months old, to the beautiful lady. Soon I overtook
John Fry, and asked him all about them, and how it was
that we had missed their starting from the hostel. But
John would never talk much till after a gallon of
cider; and all that I could win out of him was that
they were 'murdering Papishers,' and little he cared to
do with them, or the devil, as they came from. And a
good thing for me, and a providence, that I was gone
down Dulverton town to buy sweetstuff for Annie, else
my stupid head would have gone astray with their great
out-coming.
We saw no more of them after that, but turned into the
sideway; and soon had the fill of our hands and eyes to
look to our own going. For the road got worse and
worse, until there was none at all, and perhaps the
purest thing it could do was to be ashamed to show
itself. But we pushed on as best we might, with doubt
of reaching home any time, except by special grace of
God.
The fog came down upon the moors as thick as ever I saw
it; and there was no sound of any sort, nor a breath of
wind to guide us. The little stubby trees that stand
here and there, like bushes with a wooden leg to them,
were drizzled with a mess of wet, and hung their points
with dropping. Wherever the butt-end of a hedgerow
came up from the hollow ground, like the withers of a
horse, holes of splash were pocked and pimpled in the
yellow sand of coneys, or under the dwarf tree's ovens.
But soon it was too dark to see that, or anything else,
I may say, except the creases in the dusk, where
prisoned light crept up the valleys.
After awhile even that was gone, and no other comfort
left us except to see our horses' heads jogging to
their footsteps, and the dark ground pass below us,
lighter where the wet was; and then the splash, foot
after foot, more clever than we can do it, and the
orderly jerk of the tail, and the smell of what a horse
is.
John Fry was bowing forward with sleep upon his saddle,
and now I could no longer see the frizzle of wet upon
his beard--for he had a very brave one, of a bright red
colour, and trimmed into a whale-oil knot, because he
was newly married--although that comb of hair had been
a subject of some wonder to me, whether I, in God's
good time, should have the like of that, handsomely set
with shining beads, small above and large below, from
the weeping of the heaven. But still I could see the
jog of his hat--a Sunday hat with a top to it--and some
of his shoulder bowed out in the mist, so that one
could say 'Hold up, John,' when Smiler put his foot in.
'Mercy of God! where be us now?' said John Fry, waking
suddenly; 'us ought to have passed hold hash, Jan.
Zeen it on the road, have 'ee?'
'No indeed, John; no old ash. Nor nothing else to my
knowing; nor heard nothing, save thee snoring.'
'Watt a vule thee must be then, Jan; and me myzell no
better. Harken, lad, harken!'
We drew our horses up and listened, through the
thickness of the air, and with our hands laid to our
ears. At first there was nothing to hear, except the
panting of the horses and the trickle of the eaving
drops from our head-covers and clothing, and the soft
sounds of the lonely night, that make us feel, and try
not to think. Then there came a mellow noise, very low
and mournsome, not a sound to be afraid of, but to long
to know the meaning, with a soft rise of the hair.
Three times it came and went again, as the shaking of a
thread might pass away into the distance; and then I
touched John Fry to know that there was something near
me.
'Doon't 'e be a vule, Jan! Vaine moozick as iver I
'eer. God bless the man as made un doo it.'
'Have they hanged one of the Doones then, John?'
'Hush, lad; niver talk laike o' thiccy. Hang a Doone!
God knoweth, the King would hang pretty quick if her
did.'
'Then who is it in the chains, John?'
I felt my spirit rise as I asked; for now I had crossed
Exmoor so often as to hope that the people sometimes
deserved it, and think that it might be a lesson to the
rogues who unjustly loved the mutton they were never
born to. But, of course, they were born to hanging,
when they set themselves so high.
'It be nawbody,' said John, 'vor us to make a fush
about. Belong to t'other zide o' the moor, and come
staling shape to our zide. Red Jem Hannaford his
name. Thank God for him to be hanged, lad; and good
cess to his soul for craikin' zo.'
So the sound of the quiet swinging led us very
modestly, as it came and went on the wind, loud and low
pretty regularly, even as far as the foot of the gibbet
where the four cross-ways are.
'Vamous job this here,' cried John, looking up to be
sure of it, because there were so many; 'here be my own
nick on the post. Red Jem, too, and no doubt of him;
he do hang so handsome like, and his ribs up laike a
horse a'most. God bless them as discoovered the way to
make a rogue so useful. Good-naight to thee, Jem, my
lad; and not break thy drames with the craikin'.'
John Fry shook his bridle-arm, and smote upon Smiler
merrily, as he jogged into the homeward track from the
guiding of the body. But I was sorry for Red Jem, and
wanted to know more about him, and whether he might not
have avoided this miserable end, and what his wife and
children thought of it, if, indeed, he had any.
But John would talk no more about it; and perhaps he
was moved with a lonesome feeling, as the creaking
sound came after us.
'Hould thee tongue, lad,' he said sharply; 'us be naigh
the Doone-track now, two maile from Dunkery Beacon
hill, the haighest place of Hexmoor. So happen they be
abroad to-naight, us must crawl on our belly-places,
boy.'
I knew at once what he meant--those bloody Doones of
Bagworthy, the awe of all Devon and Somerset, outlaws,
traitors, murderers. My little legs began to tremble
to and fro upon Peggy's sides, as I heard the dead
robber in chains behind us, and thought of the live
ones still in front.
'But, John,' I whispered warily, sidling close to his
saddle-bow; 'dear John, you don't think they will see
us in such a fog as this?'
'Never God made vog as could stop their eyesen,' he
whispered in answer, fearfully; 'here us be by the
hollow ground. Zober, lad, goo zober now, if thee wish
to see thy moother.'
For I was inclined, in the manner of boys, to make a
run of the danger, and cross the Doone-track at full
speed; to rush for it, and be done with it. But even
then I wondered why he talked of my mother so, and said
not a word of father.
We were come to a long deep 'goyal,' as they call it on
Exmoor, a word whose fountain and origin I have nothing
to do with. Only I know that when little boys laughed
at me at Tiverton, for talking about a 'goyal,' a big
boy clouted them on the head, and said that it was in
Homer, and meant the hollow of the hand. And another
time a Welshman told me that it must be something like
the thing they call a 'pant' in those parts. Still I
know what it means well enough--to wit, a long trough
among wild hills, falling towards the plain country,
rounded at the bottom, perhaps, and stiff, more than
steep, at the sides of it. Whether it be straight or
crooked, makes no difference to it.
We rode very carefully down our side, and through the
soft grass at the bottom, and all the while we listened
as if the air was a speaking-trumpet. Then gladly we
breasted our nags to the rise, and were coming to the
comb of it, when I heard something, and caught John's
arm, and he bent his hand to the shape of his ear. It
was the sound of horses' feet knocking up through
splashy ground, as if the bottom sucked them. Then a
grunting of weary men, and the lifting noise of
stirrups, and sometimes the clank of iron mixed with
the wheezy croning of leather and the blowing of hairy
nostrils.
'God's sake, Jack, slip round her belly, and let her go
where she wull.'
As John Fry whispered, so I did, for he was off Smiler
by this time; but our two pads were too fagged to go
far, and began to nose about and crop, sniffing more
than they need have done. I crept to John's side very
softly, with the bridle on my arm.
'Let goo braidle; let goo, lad. Plaise God they take
them for forest-ponies, or they'll zend a bullet
through us.'
I saw what he meant, and let go the bridle; for now the
mist was rolling off, and we were against the sky-line
to the dark cavalcade below us. John lay on the ground
by a barrow of heather, where a little gullet was, and
I crept to him, afraid of the noise I made in dragging
my legs along, and the creak of my cord breeches. John
bleated like a sheep to cover it--a sheep very cold and
trembling.
Then just as the foremost horseman passed, scarce
twenty yards below us, a puff of wind came up the glen,
and the fog rolled off before it. And suddenly a
strong red light, cast by the cloud-weight downwards,
spread like fingers over the moorland, opened the
alleys of darkness, and hung on the steel of the
riders.
'Dunkery Beacon,' whispered John, so close into my ear,
that I felt his lips and teeth ashake; 'dursn't fire it
now except to show the Doones way home again, since the
naight as they went up and throwed the watchmen atop of
it. Why, wutt be 'bout, lad? God's sake--'
For I could keep still no longer, but wriggled away
from his arm, and along the little gullet, still going
flat on my breast and thighs, until I was under a grey
patch of stone, with a fringe of dry fern round it;
there I lay, scarce twenty feet above the heads of the
riders, and I feared to draw my breath, though prone to
do it with wonder.
For now the beacon was rushing up, in a fiery storm to
heaven, and the form of its flame came and went in the
folds, and the heavy sky was hovering. All around it
was hung with red, deep in twisted columns, and then a
giant beard of fire streamed throughout the darkness.
The sullen hills were flanked with light, and the
valleys chined with shadow, and all the sombrous moors
between awoke in furrowed anger.
But most of all the flinging fire leaped into the rocky
mouth of the glen below me, where the horsemen passed
in silence, scarcely deigning to look round. Heavy men
and large of stature, reckless how they bore their
guns, or how they sate their horses, with leathern
jerkins, and long boots, and iron plates on breast and
head, plunder heaped behind their saddles, and flagons
slung in front of them; I counted more than thirty
pass, like clouds upon red sunset. Some had carcasses
of sheep swinging with their skins on, others had deer,
and one had a child flung across his saddle-bow.
Whether the child were dead, or alive, was more than I
could tell, only it hung head downwards there, and must
take the chance of it. They had got the child, a very
young one, for the sake of the dress, no doubt, which
they could not stop to pull off from it; for the dress
shone bright, where the fire struck it, as if with gold
and jewels. I longed in my heart to know most sadly
what they would do with the little thing, and whether
they would eat it.
It touched me so to see that child, a prey among those
vultures, that in my foolish rage and burning I stood
up and shouted to them leaping on a rock, and raving
out of all possession. Two of them turned round, and
one set his carbine at me, but the other said it was
but a pixie, and bade him keep his powder. Little they
knew, and less thought I, that the pixie then before
them would dance their castle down one day.
John Fry, who in the spring of fright had brought
himself down from Smiler's side, as if he were dipped
in oil, now came up to me, all risk being over, cross,
and stiff, and aching sorely from his wet couch of
heather.
'Small thanks to thee, Jan, as my new waife bain't a
widder. And who be you to zupport of her, and her son,
if she have one? Zarve thee right if I was to chuck
thee down into the Doone-track. Zim thee'll come to
un, zooner or later, if this be the zample of thee.'
And that was all he had to say, instead of thanking
God! For if ever born man was in a fright, and ready to
thank God for anything, the name of that man was John
Fry not more than five minutes agone.
However, I answered nothing at all, except to be
ashamed of myself; and soon we found Peggy and Smiler
in company, well embarked on the homeward road, and
victualling where the grass was good. Right glad they
were to see us again--not for the pleasure of carrying,
but because a horse (like a woman) lacks, and is better
without, self-reliance.
My father never came to meet us, at either side of the
telling-house, neither at the crooked post, nor even
at home-linhay although the dogs kept such a noise that
he must have heard us. Home-side of the linhay, and
under the ashen hedge-row, where father taught me to
catch blackbirds, all at once my heart went down, and
all my breast was hollow. There was not even the
lanthorn light on the peg against the cow's house, and
nobody said 'Hold your noise!' to the dogs, or shouted
'Here our Jack is!'
I looked at the posts of the gate, in the dark, because
they were tall, like father, and then at the door of
the harness-room, where he used to smoke his pipe and
sing. Then I thought he had guests perhaps--people
lost upon the moors--whom he could not leave unkindly,
even for his son's sake. And yet about that I was
jealous, and ready to be vexed with him, when he should
begin to make much of me. And I felt in my pocket for
the new pipe which I had brought him from Tiverton, and
said to myself, 'He shall not have it until to-morrow
morning.'
Woe is me! I cannot tell. How I knew I know not
now--only that I slunk away, without a tear, or thought
of weeping, and hid me in a saw-pit. There the timber,
over-head, came like streaks across me; and all I
wanted was to lack, and none to tell me anything.
By-and-by, a noise came down, as of woman's weeping;
and there my mother and sister were, choking and
holding together. Although they were my dearest loves,
I could not bear to look at them, until they seemed to
want my help, and put their hands before their eyes.
CHAPTER IV
A VERY RASH VISIT
My dear father had been killed by the Doones of
Bagworthy, while riding home from Porlock market, on
the Saturday evening. With him were six
brother-farmers, all of them very sober; for father
would have no company with any man who went beyond half
a gallon of beer, or a single gallon of cider. The
robbers had no grudge against him; for he had never
flouted them, neither made overmuch of outcry, because
they robbed other people. For he was a man of such
strict honesty, and due parish feeling, that he knew it
to be every man's own business to defend himself and
his goods; unless he belonged to our parish, and then
we must look after him.
These seven good farmers were jogging along, helping
one another in the troubles of the road, and singing
goodly hymns and songs to keep their courage moving,
when suddenly a horseman stopped in the starlight full
across them.
By dress and arms they knew him well, and by his size
and stature, shown against the glimmer of the evening
star; and though he seemed one man to seven, it was in
truth one man to one. Of the six who had been singing
songs and psalms about the power of God, and their own
regeneration--such psalms as went the round, in those
days, of the public-houses--there was not one but
pulled out his money, and sang small beer to a Doone.
But father had been used to think that any man who was
comfortable inside his own coat and waistcoat deserved
to have no other set, unless he would strike a blow for
them. And so, while his gossips doffed their hats, and
shook with what was left of them, he set his staff
above his head, and rode at the Doone robber. With a
trick of his horse, the wild man escaped the sudden
onset, although it must have amazed him sadly that any
durst resist him. Then when Smiler was carried away
with the dash and the weight of my father (not being
brought up to battle, nor used to turn, save in plough
harness), the outlaw whistled upon his thumb, and
plundered the rest of the yeoman. But father, drawing
at Smiler's head, to try to come back and help them,
was in the midst of a dozen men, who seemed to come out
of a turf-rick, some on horse, and some a-foot.
Nevertheless, he smote lustily, so far as he could see;
and being of great size and strength, and his blood
well up, they had no easy job with him. With the play
of his wrist, he cracked three or four crowns, being
always famous at single-stick; until the rest drew
their horses away, and he thought that he was master,
and would tell his wife about it.
But a man beyond the range of staff was crouching by
the peat-stack, with a long gun set to his shoulder,
and he got poor father against the sky, and I cannot
tell the rest of it. Only they knew that Smiler came
home, with blood upon his withers, and father was found
in the morning dead on the moor, with his ivy-twisted
cudgel lying broken under him. Now, whether this were
an honest fight, God judge betwixt the Doones and me.
It was more of woe than wonder, being such days of
violence, that mother knew herself a widow, and her
children fatherless. Of children there were only
three, none of us fit to be useful yet, only to comfort
mother, by making her to work for us. I, John Ridd,
was the eldest, and felt it a heavy thing on me; next
came sister Annie, with about two years between us; and
then the little Eliza.
Now, before I got home and found my sad loss--and no
boy ever loved his father more than I loved
mine--mother had done a most wondrous thing, which made
all the neighbours say that she must be mad, at least.
Upon the Monday morning, while her husband lay
unburied, she cast a white hood over her hair, and
gathered a black cloak round her, and, taking counsel
of no one, set off on foot for the Doone-gate.
In the early afternoon she came to the hollow and
barren entrance, where in truth there was no gate, only
darkness to go through. If I get on with this story, I
shall have to tell of it by-and-by, as I saw it
afterwards; and will not dwell there now. Enough that
no gun was fired at her, only her eyes were covered
over, and somebody led her by the hand, without any
wish to hurt her.
A very rough and headstrong road was all that she
remembered, for she could not think as she wished to
do, with the cold iron pushed against her. At the end
of this road they delivered her eyes, and she could
scarce believe them.
For she stood at the head of a deep green valley,
carved from out the mountains in a perfect oval, with a
fence of sheer rock standing round it, eighty feet or a
hundred high; from whose brink black wooded hills swept
up to the sky-line. By her side a little river glided
out from underground with a soft dark babble, unawares
of daylight; then growing brighter, lapsed away, and
fell into the valley. Then, as it ran down the meadow,
alders stood on either marge, and grass was blading out
upon it, and yellow tufts of rushes gathered, looking
at the hurry. But further down, on either bank, were
covered houses built of stone, square and roughly
cornered, set as if the brook were meant to be the
street between them. Only one room high they were, and
not placed opposite each other, but in and out as
skittles are; only that the first of all, which proved
to be the captain's, was a sort of double house, or
rather two houses joined together by a plank-bridge,
over the river.
Fourteen cots my mother counted, all very much of a
pattern, and nothing to choose between them, unless it
were the captain's. Deep in the quiet valley there,
away from noise, and violence, and brawl, save that of
the rivulet, any man would have deemed them homes of
simple mind and innocence. Yet not a single house
stood there but was the home of murder.
Two men led my mother down a steep and gliddery
stair-way, like the ladder of a hay-mow; and thence
from the break of the falling water as far as the house
of the captain. And there at the door they left her
trembling, strung as she was, to speak her mind.
Now, after all, what right had she, a common farmer's
widow, to take it amiss that men of birth thought fit
to kill her husband. And the Doones were of very high
birth, as all we clods of Exmoor knew; and we had
enough of good teaching now--let any man say the
contrary--to feel that all we had belonged of right to
those above us. Therefore my mother was half-ashamed
that she could not help complaining.
But after a little while, as she said, remembrance of
her husband came, and the way he used to stand by her
side and put his strong arm round her, and how he liked
his bacon fried, and praised her kindly for it--and so
the tears were in her eyes, and nothing should gainsay
them.
A tall old man, Sir Ensor Doone, came out with a
bill-hook in his hand, hedger's gloves going up his
arms, as if he were no better than a labourer at
ditch-work. Only in his mouth and eyes, his gait, and
most of all his voice, even a child could know and feel
that here was no ditch-labourer. Good cause he has
found since then, perhaps, to wish that he had been
one.
With his white locks moving upon his coat, he stopped
and looked down at my mother, and she could not help
herself but curtsey under the fixed black gazing.
'Good woman, you are none of us. Who has brought you
hither? Young men must be young--but I have had too
much of this work.'
And he scowled at my mother, for her comeliness; and
yet looked under his eyelids as if he liked her for it.
But as for her, in her depth of love-grief, it struck
scorn upon her womanhood; and in the flash she spoke.
'What you mean I know not. Traitors! cut-throats!
cowards! I am here to ask for my husband.' She could
not say any more, because her heart was now too much
for her, coming hard in her throat and mouth; but she
opened up her eyes at him.
'Madam,' said Sir Ensor Doone--being born a gentleman,
although a very bad one--'I crave pardon of you. My
eyes are old, or I might have known. Now, if we have
your husband prisoner, he shall go free without
ransoms, because I have insulted you.'
'Sir,' said my mother, being suddenly taken away with
sorrow, because of his gracious manner, 'please to let
me cry a bit.'
He stood away, and seemed to know that women want no
help for that. And by the way she cried he knew that
they had killed her husband. Then, having felt of
grief himself, he was not angry with her, but left her
to begin again.
'Loth would I be,' said mother, sobbing with her new
red handkerchief, and looking at the pattern of it,
'loth indeed, Sir Ensor Doone, to accuse any one
unfairly. But I have lost the very best husband God
ever gave to a woman; and I knew him when he was to
your belt, and I not up to your knee, sir; and never an
unkind word he spoke, nor stopped me short in speaking.
All the herbs he left to me, and all the bacon-curing,
and when it was best to kill a pig, and how to treat
the maidens. Not that I would ever wish--oh, John, it
seems so strange to me, and last week you were
everything.'
Here mother burst out crying again, not loudly, but
turning quietly, because she knew that no one now would
ever care to wipe the tears. And fifty or a hundred
things, of weekly and daily happening, came across my
mother, so that her spirit fell like slackening lime.
'This matter must be seen to; it shall be seen to at
once,' the old man answered, moved a little in spite of
all his knowledge. 'Madam, if any wrong has been
done, trust the honour of a Doone; I will redress it to
my utmost. Come inside and rest yourself, while I ask
about it. What was your good husband's name, and when
and where fell this mishap?'
'Deary me,' said mother, as he set a chair for her very
polite, but she would not sit upon it; 'Saturday
morning I was a wife, sir; and Saturday night I was a
widow, and my children fatherless. My husband's name
was John Ridd, sir, as everybody knows; and there was
not a finer or better man in Somerset or Devon. He was
coming home from Porlock market, and a new gown for me
on the crupper, and a shell to put my hair up--oh,
John, how good you were to me!'
Of that she began to think again, and not to believe
her sorrow, except as a dream from the evil one,
because it was too bad upon her, and perhaps she would
awake in a minute, and her husband would have the laugh
of her. And so she wiped her eyes and smiled, and
looked for something.
'Madam, this is a serious thing,' Sir Ensor Doone said
graciously, and showing grave concern: 'my boys are a
little wild, I know. And yet I cannot think that they
would willingly harm any one. And yet--and yet, you
do look wronged. Send Counsellor to me,' he shouted,
from the door of his house; and down the valley went
the call, 'Send Counsellor to Captain.'
Counsellor Doone came in ere yet my mother was herself
again; and if any sight could astonish her when all her
sense of right and wrong was gone astray with the force
of things, it was the sight of the Counsellor. A
square-built man of enormous strength, but a foot below
the Doone stature (which I shall describe hereafter),
he carried a long grey beard descending to the leather
of his belt. Great eyebrows overhung his face, like
ivy on a pollard oak, and under them two large brown
eyes, as of an owl when muting. And he had a power of
hiding his eyes, or showing them bright, like a blazing
fire. He stood there with his beaver off, and mother
tried to look at him, but he seemed not to descry her.
'Counsellor,' said Sir Ensor Doone, standing back in
his height from him, 'here is a lady of good repute--'-
'Oh, no, sir; only a woman.'
'Allow me, madam, by your good leave. Here is a lady,
Counsellor, of great repute in this part of the
country, who charges the Doones with having unjustly
slain her husband--'
'Murdered him! murdered him!' cried my mother, 'if ever
there was a murder. Oh, sir! oh, sir! you know it.'
'The perfect rights and truth of the case is all I wish
to know,' said the old man, very loftily: 'and justice
shall be done, madam.'
'Oh, I pray you--pray you, sirs, make no matter of
business of it. God from Heaven, look on me!'
'Put the case,' said the Counsellor.
'The case is this,' replied Sir Ensor, holding one hand
up to mother: 'This lady's worthy husband was slain, it
seems, upon his return from the market at Porlock, no
longer ago than last Saturday night. Madam, amend me
if I am wrong.'
'No longer, indeed, indeed, sir. Sometimes it seems a
twelvemonth, and sometimes it seems an hour.'
'Cite his name,' said the Counsellor, with his eyes
still rolling inwards.
'Master John Ridd, as I understand. Counsellor, we
have heard of him often; a worthy man and a peaceful
one, who meddled not with our duties. Now, if any of
our boys have been rough, they shall answer it dearly.
And yet I can scarce believe it. For the folk about
these parts are apt to misconceive of our sufferings,
and to have no feeling for us. Counsellor, you are our
record, and very stern against us; tell us how this
matter was.'
'Oh, Counsellor!' my mother cried; 'Sir Counsellor, you
will be fair: I see it in your countenance. Only tell
me who it was, and set me face to face with him, and I
will bless you, sir, and God shall bless you, and my
children.'
The square man with the long grey beard, quite unmoved
by anything, drew back to the door and spoke, and his
voice was like a fall of stones in the bottom of a
mine.
'Few words will be enow for this. Four or five of our
best-behaved and most peaceful gentlemen went to the
little market at Porlock with a lump of money. They
bought some household stores and comforts at a very
high price, and pricked upon the homeward road, away
from vulgar revellers. When they drew bridle to rest
their horses, in the shelter of a peat-rick, the night
being dark and sudden, a robber of great size and
strength rode into the midst of them, thinking to kill
or terrify. His arrogance and hardihood at the first
amazed them, but they would not give up without a blow
goods which were on trust with them. He had smitten
three of them senseless, for the power of his arm was
terrible; whereupon the last man tried to ward his blow
with a pistol. Carver, sir, it was, our brave and
noble Carver, who saved the lives of his brethren and
his own; and glad enow they were to escape.
Notwithstanding, we hoped it might be only a
flesh-wound, and not to speed him in his sins.'
As this atrocious tale of lies turned up joint by joint
before her, like a 'devil's coach-horse,'* mother was
too much amazed to do any more than look at him, as if
the earth must open. But the only thing that opened
was the great brown eyes of the Counsellor, which
rested on my mother's face with a dew of sorrow, as he
spoke of sins.
* The cock-tailed beetle has earned this name in the
West of England.
She, unable to bear them, turned suddenly on Sir Ensor,
and caught (as she fancied) a smile on his lips, and a
sense of quiet enjoyment.
'All the Doones are gentlemen,' answered the old man
gravely, and looking as if he had never smiled since he
was a baby. 'We are always glad to explain, madam, any
mistake which the rustic people may fall upon about us;
and we wish you clearly to conceive that we do not
charge your poor husband with any set purpose of
robbery, neither will we bring suit for any attainder
of his property. Is it not so, Counsellor?'
'Without doubt his land is attainted; unless is mercy
you forbear, sir.'
'Counsellor, we will forbear. Madam, we will forgive
him. Like enough he knew not right from wrong, at that
time of night. The waters are strong at Porlock, and
even an honest man may use his staff unjustly in this
unchartered age of violence and rapine.'
The Doones to talk of rapine! Mother's head went round
so that she curtseyed to them both, scarcely knowing
where she was, but calling to mind her manners. All
the time she felt a warmth, as if the right was with
her, and yet she could not see the way to spread it out
before them. With that, she dried her tears in haste
and went into the cold air, for fear of speaking
mischief.
But when she was on the homeward road, and the
sentinels had charge of her, blinding her eyes, as if
she were not blind enough with weeping, some one came
in haste behind her, and thrust a heavy leathern bag
into the limp weight of her hand.
'Captain sends you this,' he whispered; 'take it to the
little ones.'
But mother let it fall in a heap, as if it had been a
blind worm; and then for the first time crouched before
God, that even the Doones should pity her.
CHAPTER V
AN ILLEGAL SETTLEMENT
Good folk who dwell in a lawful land, if any such
there be, may for want of exploration, judge our
neighbourhood harshly, unless the whole truth is set
before them. In bar of such prejudice, many of us ask
leave to explain how and why it was the robbers came to
that head in the midst of us. We would rather not have
had it so, God knows as well as anybody; but it grew
upon us gently, in the following manner. Only let all
who read observe that here I enter many things which
came to my knowledge in later years.
In or about the year of our Lord 1640, when all the
troubles of England were swelling to an outburst, great
estates in the North country were suddenly confiscated,
through some feud of families and strong influence at
Court, and the owners were turned upon the world, and
might think themselves lucky to save their necks.
These estates were in co-heirship, joint tenancy I
think they called it, although I know not the meaning,
only so that if either tenant died, the other living,
all would come to the live one in spite of any
testament.
One of the joint owners was Sir Ensor Doone, a
gentleman of brisk intellect; and the other owner was
his cousin, the Earl of Lorne and Dykemont.
Lord Lorne was some years the elder of his cousin,
Ensor Doone, and was making suit to gain severance of
the cumbersome joint tenancy by any fair apportionment,
when suddenly this blow fell on them by wiles and
woman's meddling; and instead of dividing the land,
they were divided from it.
The nobleman was still well-to-do, though crippled in
his expenditure; but as for the cousin, he was left a
beggar, with many to beg from him. He thought that the
other had wronged him, and that all the trouble of law
befell through his unjust petition. Many friends
advised him to make interest at Court; for having done
no harm whatever, and being a good Catholic, which Lord
Lorne was not, he would be sure to find hearing there,
and probably some favour. But he, like a very
hot-brained man, although he had long been married to
the daughter of his cousin (whom he liked none the more
for that), would have nothing to say to any attempt at
making a patch of it, but drove away with his wife and
sons, and the relics of his money, swearing hard at
everybody. In this he may have been quite wrong;
probably, perhaps, he was so; but I am not convinced at
all but what most of us would have done the same.
Some say that, in the bitterness of that wrong and
outrage, he slew a gentleman of the Court, whom he
supposed to have borne a hand in the plundering of his
fortunes. Others say that he bearded King Charles the
First himself, in a manner beyond forgiveness. One
thing, at any rate, is sure--Sir Ensor was attainted,
and made a felon outlaw, through some violent deed
ensuing upon his dispossession.
He had searched in many quarters for somebody to help
him, and with good warrant for hoping it, inasmuch as
he, in lucky days, had been open-handed and cousinly to
all who begged advice of him. But now all these
provided him with plenty of good advice indeed, and
great assurance of feeling, but not a movement of leg,
or lip, or purse-string in his favour. All good people
of either persuasion, royalty or commonalty, knowing
his kitchen-range to be cold, no longer would play
turnspit. And this, it may be, seared his heart more
than loss of land and fame.
In great despair at last, he resolved to settle in some
outlandish part, where none could be found to know him;
and so, in an evil day for us, he came to the West of
England. Not that our part of the world is at all
outlandish, according to my view of it (for I never
found a better one), but that it was known to be
rugged, and large, and desolate. And here, when he had
discovered a place which seemed almost to be made for
him, so withdrawn, so self-defended, and uneasy of
access, some of the country-folk around brought him
little offerings--a side of bacon, a keg of cider, hung
mutton, or a brisket of venison; so that for a little
while he was very honest. But when the newness of his
coming began to wear away, and our good folk were apt
to think that even a gentleman ought to work or pay
other men for doing it, and many farmers were grown
weary of manners without discourse to them, and all
cried out to one another how unfair it was that owning
such a fertile valley young men would not spade or
plough by reason of noble lineage--then the young
Doones growing up took things they would not ask for.
And here let me, as a solid man, owner of five hundred
acres (whether fenced or otherwise, and that is my own
business), churchwarden also of this parish (until I go
to the churchyard), and proud to be called the parson's
friend--for a better man I never knew with tobacco and
strong waters, nor one who could read the lessons so
well and he has been at Blundell's too--once for all
let me declare, that I am a thorough-going
Church-and-State man, and Royalist, without any mistake
about it. And this I lay down, because some people
judging a sausage by the skin, may take in evil part my
little glosses of style and glibness, and the mottled
nature of my remarks and cracks now and then on the
frying-pan. I assure them I am good inside, and not a
bit of rue in me; only queer knots, as of marjoram, and
a stupid manner of bursting.
There was not more than a dozen of them, counting a few
retainers who still held by Sir Ensor; but soon they
grew and multiplied in a manner surprising to think of.
Whether it was the venison, which we call a
strengthening victual, or whether it was the Exmoor
mutton, or the keen soft air of the moorlands, anyhow
the Doones increased much faster than their honesty.
At first they had brought some ladies with them, of
good repute with charity; and then, as time went on,
they added to their stock by carrying. They carried
off many good farmers' daughters, who were sadly
displeased at first; but took to them kindly after
awhile, and made a new home in their babies. For
women, as it seems to me, like strong men more than
weak ones, feeling that they need some staunchness,
something to hold fast by.
And of all the men in our country, although we are of a
thick-set breed, you scarce could find one in
three-score fit to be placed among the Doones, without
looking no more than a tailor. Like enough, we could
meet them man for man (if we chose all around the crown
and the skirts of Exmoor), and show them what a
cross-buttock means, because we are so stuggy; but in
regard of stature, comeliness, and bearing, no woman
would look twice at us. Not but what I myself, John
Ridd, and one or two I know of--but it becomes me best
not to talk of that, although my hair is gray.
Perhaps their den might well have been stormed, and
themselves driven out of the forest, if honest people
had only agreed to begin with them at once when first
they took to plundering. But having respect for their
good birth, and pity for their misfortunes, and perhaps
a little admiration at the justice of God, that robbed
men now were robbers, the squires, and farmers, and
shepherds, at first did nothing more than grumble
gently, or even make a laugh of it, each in the case of
others. After awhile they found the matter gone too
far for laughter, as violence and deadly outrage
stained the hand of robbery, until every woman clutched
her child, and every man turned pale at the very name
of Doone. For the sons and grandsons of Sir Ensor grew
up in foul liberty, and haughtiness, and hatred, to
utter scorn of God and man, and brutality towards dumb
animals. There was only one good thing about them, if
indeed it were good, to wit, their faith to one
another, and truth to their wild eyry. But this only
made them feared the more, so certain was the revenge
they wreaked upon any who dared to strike a Doone. One
night, some ten years ere I was born, when they were
sacking a rich man's house not very far from Minehead,
a shot was fired at them in the dark, of which they
took little notice, and only one of them knew that any
harm was done. But when they were well on the homeward
road, not having slain either man or woman, or even
burned a house down, one of their number fell from his
saddle, and died without so much as a groan. The youth
had been struck, but would not complain, and perhaps
took little heed of the wound, while he was bleeding
inwardly. His brothers and cousins laid him softly on
a bank of whortle-berries, and just rode back to the
lonely hamlet where he had taken his death-wound. No
man nor woman was left in the morning, nor house for
any to dwell in, only a child with its reason gone.*
*This vile deed was done, beyond all doubt.
This affair made prudent people find more reason to let
them alone than to meddle with them; and now they had
so entrenched themselves, and waxed so strong in
number, that nothing less than a troop of soldiers
could wisely enter their premises; and even so it might
turn out ill, as perchance we shall see by-and-by.
For not to mention the strength of the place, which I
shall describe in its proper order when I come to visit
it, there was not one among them but was a mighty man,
straight and tall, and wide, and fit to lift four
hundredweight. If son or grandson of old Doone, or one
of the northern retainers, failed at the age of twenty,
while standing on his naked feet to touch with his
forehead the lintel of Sir Ensor's door, and to fill
the door frame with his shoulders from sidepost even to
sidepost, he was led away to the narrow pass which made
their valley so desperate, and thrust from the crown
with ignominy, to get his own living honestly. Now,
the measure of that doorway is, or rather was, I ought
to say, six feet and one inch lengthwise, and two feet
all but two inches taken crossways in the clear. Yet I
not only have heard but know, being so closely mixed
with them, that no descendant of old Sir Ensor, neither
relative of his (except, indeed, the Counsellor, who
was kept by them for his wisdom), and no more than two
of their following ever failed of that test, and
relapsed to the difficult ways of honesty.
Not that I think anything great of a standard the like
of that: for if they had set me in that door-frame at
the age of twenty, it is like enough that I should have
walked away with it on my shoulders, though I was not
come to my full strength then: only I am speaking now
of the average size of our neighbourhood, and the
Doones were far beyond that. Moreover, they were
taught to shoot with a heavy carbine so delicately and
wisely, that even a boy could pass a ball through a
rabbit's head at the distance of fourscore yards. Some
people may think nought of this, being in practice with
longer shots from the tongue than from the shoulder;
nevertheless, to do as above is, to my ignorance, very
good work, if you can be sure to do it. Not one word
do I believe of Robin Hood splitting peeled wands at
seven-score yards, and such like. Whoever wrote such
stories knew not how slippery a peeled wand is, even if
one could hit it, and how it gives to the onset. Now,
let him stick one in the ground, and take his bow and
arrow at it, ten yards away, or even five.
Now, after all this which I have written, and all the
rest which a reader will see, being quicker of mind
than I am (who leave more than half behind me, like a
man sowing wheat, with his dinner laid in the ditch too
near his dog), it is much but what you will understand
the Doones far better than I did, or do even to this
moment; and therefore none will doubt when I tell them
that our good justiciaries feared to make an ado, or
hold any public inquiry about my dear father's death.
They would all have had to ride home that night, and
who could say what might betide them. Least said
soonest mended, because less chance of breaking.
So we buried him quietly--all except my mother, indeed,
for she could not keep silence--in the sloping little
churchyard of Oare, as meek a place as need be, with
the Lynn brook down below it. There is not much of
company there for anybody's tombstone, because the
parish spreads so far in woods and moors without
dwelling-house. If we bury one man in three years, or
even a woman or child, we talk about it for three
months, and say it must be our turn next, and scarcely
grow accustomed to it until another goes.
Annie was not allowed to come, because she cried so
terribly; but she ran to the window, and saw it all,
mooing there like a little calf, so frightened and so
left alone. As for Eliza, she came with me, one on
each side of mother, and not a tear was in her eyes,
but sudden starts of wonder, and a new thing to be
looked at unwillingly, yet curiously. Poor little
thing! she was very clever, the only one of our
family--thank God for the same--but none the more for
that guessed she what it is to lose a father.
CHAPTER VI
NECESSARY PRACTICE
About the rest of all that winter I remember very
little, being only a young boy then, and missing my
father most out of doors, as when it came to the
bird-catching, or the tracking of hares in the snow, or
the training of a sheep-dog. Oftentimes I looked at
his gun, an ancient piece found in the sea, a little
below Glenthorne, and of which he was mighty proud,
although it was only a match-lock; and I thought of the
times I had held the fuse, while he got his aim at a
rabbit, and once even at a red deer rubbing among the
hazels. But nothing came of my looking at it, so far
as I remember, save foolish tears of my own perhaps,
till John Fry took it down one day from the hooks where
father's hand had laid it; and it hurt me to see how
John handled it, as if he had no memory.
'Bad job for he as her had not got thiccy the naight as
her coom acrass them Doones. Rackon Varmer Jan 'ood
a-zhown them the wai to kingdom come, 'stead of gooin'
herzel zo aisy. And a maight have been gooin' to
market now, 'stead of laying banked up over yanner.
Maister Jan, thee can zee the grave if thee look alang
this here goon-barryel. Buy now, whutt be blubberin'
at? Wish I had never told thee.'
'John Fry, I am not blubbering; you make a great
mistake, John. You are thinking of little Annie. I
cough sometimes in the winter-weather, and father gives
me lickerish--I mean--I mean--he used to. Now let me
have the gun, John.'
'Thee have the goon, Jan! Thee isn't fit to putt un to
thy zhoulder. What a weight her be, for sure!'
'Me not hold it, John! That shows how much you know
about it. Get out of the way, John; you are opposite
the mouth of it, and likely it is loaded.'
John Fry jumped in a livelier manner than when he was
doing day-work; and I rested the mouth on a cross
rack-piece, and felt a warm sort of surety that I could
hit the door over opposite, or, at least, the cobwall
alongside of it, and do no harm in the orchard. But
John would not give me link or fuse, and, on the whole,
I was glad of it, though carrying on as boys do,
because I had heard my father say that the Spanish gun
kicked like a horse, and because the load in it came
from his hand, and I did not like to undo it. But I
never found it kick very hard, and firmly set to the
shoulder, unless it was badly loaded. In truth, the
thickness of the metal was enough almost to astonish
one; and what our people said about it may have been
true enough, although most of them are such liars--at
least, I mean, they make mistakes, as all mankind must
do. Perchance it was no mistake at all to say that
this ancient gun had belonged to a noble Spaniard, the
captain of a fine large ship in the 'Invincible
Armada,' which we of England managed to conquer, with
God and the weather helping us, a hundred years ago or
more--I can't say to a month or so.
After a little while, when John had fired away at a rat
the charge I held so sacred, it came to me as a natural
thing to practise shooting with that great gun, instead
of John Fry's blunderbuss, which looked like a bell
with a stalk to it. Perhaps for a boy there is nothing
better than a good windmill to shoot at, as I have seen
them in flat countries; but we have no windmills upon
the great moorland, yet here and there a few
barn-doors, where shelter is, and a way up the hollows.
And up those hollows you can shoot, with the help of
the sides to lead your aim, and there is a fair chance
of hitting the door, if you lay your cheek to the
barrel, and try not to be afraid of it.
Gradually I won such skill, that I sent nearly all the
lead gutter from the north porch of our little church
through our best barn-door, a thing which has often
repented me since, especially as churchwarden, and made
me pardon many bad boys; but father was not buried on
that side of the church.
But all this time, while I was roving over the hills or
about the farm, and even listening to John Fry, my
mother, being so much older and feeling trouble longer,
went about inside the house, or among the maids and
fowls, not caring to talk to the best of them, except
when she broke out sometimes about the good master they
had lost, all and every one of us. But the fowls would
take no notice of it, except to cluck for barley; and
the maidens, though they had liked him well, were
thinking of their sweethearts as the spring came on.
Mother thought it wrong of them, selfish and
ungrateful; and yet sometimes she was proud that none
had such call as herself to grieve for him. Only Annie
seemed to go softly in and out, and cry, with nobody
along of her, chiefly in the corner where the bees are
and the grindstone. But somehow she would never let
anybody behold her; being set, as you may say, to think
it over by herself, and season it with weeping. Many
times I caught her, and many times she turned upon me,
and then I could not look at her, but asked how long to
dinner-time.
Now in the depth of the winter month, such as we call
December, father being dead and quiet in his grave a
fortnight, it happened me to be out of powder for
practice against his enemies. I had never fired a shot
without thinking, 'This for father's murderer'; and
John Fry said that I made such faces it was a wonder
the gun went off. But though I could hardly hold the
gun, unless with my back against a bar, it did me good
to hear it go off, and hope to have hitten his enemies.
'Oh, mother, mother,' I said that day, directly after
dinner, while she was sitting looking at me, and almost
ready to say (as now she did seven times in a week),
'How like your father you are growing! Jack, come here
and kiss me'--'oh, mother, if you only knew how much I
want a shilling!'
'Jack, you shall never want a shilling while I am alive
to give thee one. But what is it for, dear heart, dear
heart?'
'To buy something over at Porlock, mother. Perhaps I
will tell you afterwards. If I tell not it will be for
your good, and for the sake of the children.'
'Bless the boy, one would think he was threescore years
of age at least. Give me a little kiss, you Jack, and
you shall have the shilling.'
For I hated to kiss or be kissed in those days: and so
all honest boys must do, when God puts any strength in
them. But now I wanted the powder so much that I went
and kissed mother very shyly, looking round the corner
first, for Betty not to see me.
But mother gave me half a dozen, and only one shilling
for all of them; and I could not find it in my heart to
ask her for another, although I would have taken it.
In very quick time I ran away with the shilling in my
pocket, and got Peggy out on the Porlock road without
my mother knowing it. For mother was frightened of
that road now, as if all the trees were murderers, and
would never let me go alone so much as a hundred yards
on it. And, to tell the truth, I was touched with fear
for many years about it; and even now, when I ride at
dark there, a man by a peat-rick makes me shiver, until
I go and collar him. But this time I was very bold,
having John Fry's blunderbuss, and keeping a sharp
look-out wherever any lurking place was. However, I
saw only sheep and small red cattle, and the common
deer of the forest, until I was nigh to Porlock town,
and then rode straight to Mr. Pooke's, at the sign of
the Spit and Gridiron.
Mr. Pooke was asleep, as it happened, not having much
to do that day; and so I fastened Peggy by the handle
of a warming-pan, at which she had no better manners
than to snort and blow her breath; and in I walked with
a manful style, bearing John Fry's blunderbuss. Now
Timothy Pooke was a peaceful man, glad to live without
any enjoyment of mind at danger, and I was tall and
large already as most lads of a riper age. Mr. Pooke,
as soon as he opened his eyes, dropped suddenly under
the counting-board, and drew a great frying-pan over
his head, as if the Doones were come to rob him, as
their custom was, mostly after the fair-time. It made
me feel rather hot and queer to be taken for a robber;
and yet methinks I was proud of it.
'Gadzooks, Master Pooke,' said I, having learned fine
words at Tiverton; 'do you suppose that I know not then
the way to carry firearms? An it were the old Spanish
match-lock in the lieu of this good flint-engine, which
may be borne ten miles or more and never once go off,
scarcely couldst thou seem more scared. I might point
at thee muzzle on--just so as I do now--even for an
hour or more, and like enough it would never shoot
thee, unless I pulled the trigger hard, with a crock
upon my finger; so you see; just so, Master Pooke, only
a trifle harder.'
'God sake, John Ridd, God sake, dear boy,' cried Pooke,
knowing me by this time; 'don't 'e, for good love now,
don't 'e show it to me, boy, as if I was to suck it.
Put 'un down, for good, now; and thee shall have the
very best of all is in the shop.'
'Ho!' I replied with much contempt, and swinging round
the gun so that it fetched his hoop of candles down,
all unkindled as they were: 'Ho! as if I had not
attained to the handling of a gun yet! My hands are
cold coming over the moors, else would I go bail to
point the mouth at you for an hour, sir, and no cause
for uneasiness.'
But in spite of all assurances, he showed himself
desirous only to see the last of my gun and me. I dare
say 'villainous saltpetre,' as the great playwright
calls it, was never so cheap before nor since. For my
shilling Master Pooke afforded me two great packages
over-large to go into my pockets, as well as a mighty
chunk of lead, which I bound upon Peggy's withers. And
as if all this had not been enough, he presented me
with a roll of comfits for my sister Annie, whose
gentle face and pretty manners won the love of
everybody.
There was still some daylight here and there as I rose
the hill above Porlock, wondering whether my mother
would be in a fright, or would not know it. The two
great packages of powder, slung behind my back, knocked
so hard against one another that I feared they must
either spill or blow up, and hurry me over Peggy's ears
from the woollen cloth I rode upon. For father always
liked a horse to have some wool upon his loins whenever
he went far from home, and had to stand about, where
one pleased, hot, and wet, and panting. And father
always said that saddles were meant for men full-grown
and heavy, and losing their activity; and no boy or
young man on our farm durst ever get into a saddle,
because they all knew that the master would chuck them
out pretty quickly. As for me, I had tried it once,
from a kind of curiosity; and I could not walk for two
or three days, the leather galled my knees so. But
now, as Peggy bore me bravely, snorting every now and
then into a cloud of air, for the night was growing
frosty, presently the moon arose over the shoulder of a
hill, and the pony and I were half glad to see her, and
half afraid of the shadows she threw, and the images
all around us. I was ready at any moment to shoot at
anybody, having great faith in my blunderbuss, but
hoping not to prove it. And as I passed the narrow
place where the Doones had killed my father, such a
fear broke out upon me that I leaned upon the neck of
Peggy, and shut my eyes, and was cold all over.
However, there was not a soul to be seen, until we came
home to the old farmyard, and there was my mother
crying sadly, and Betty Muxworthy scolding.
'Come along, now,' I whispered to Annie, the moment
supper was over; 'and if you can hold your tongue,
Annie, I will show you something.'
She lifted herself on the bench so quickly, and flushed
so rich with pleasure, that I was obliged to stare hard
away, and make Betty look beyond us. Betty thought I
had something hid in the closet beyond the clock-case,
and she was the more convinced of it by reason of my
denial. Not that Betty Muxworthy, or any one else, for
that matter, ever found me in a falsehood, because I
never told one, not even to my mother--or, which is
still a stronger thing, not even to my sweetheart (when
I grew up to have one)--but that Betty being wronged in
the matter of marriage, a generation or two agone, by a
man who came hedging and ditching, had now no mercy,
except to believe that men from cradle to grave are
liars, and women fools to look at them.
When Betty could find no crime of mine, she knocked me
out of the way in a minute, as if I had been nobody;
and then she began to coax 'Mistress Annie,' as she
always called her, and draw the soft hair down her
hands, and whisper into the little ears. Meanwhile,
dear mother was falling asleep, having been troubled so
much about me; and Watch, my father's pet dog, was
nodding closer and closer up into her lap.
'Now, Annie, will you come?' I said, for I wanted her
to hold the ladle for melting of the lead; 'will you
come at once, Annie? or must I go for Lizzie, and let
her see the whole of it?'
'Indeed, then, you won't do that,' said Annie; 'Lizzie
to come before me, John; and she can't stir a pot of
brewis, and scarce knows a tongue from a ham, John, and
says it makes no difference, because both are good to
eat! Oh, Betty, what do you think of that to come of
all her book-learning?'
'Thank God he can't say that of me,' Betty answered
shortly, for she never cared about argument, except on
her own side; 'thank he, I says, every marning a'most,
never to lead me astray so. Men is desaving and so is
galanies; but the most desaving of all is books, with
their heads and tails, and the speckots in 'em, lik a
peg as have taken the maisles. Some folk purtends to
laugh and cry over them. God forgive them for liars!'
It was part of Betty's obstinacy that she never would
believe in reading or the possibility of it, but
stoutly maintained to the very last that people first
learned things by heart, and then pretended to make
them out from patterns done upon paper, for the sake of
astonishing honest folk just as do the conjurers. And
even to see the parson and clerk was not enough to
convince her; all she said was, 'It made no odds, they
were all the same as the rest of us.' And now that she
had been on the farm nigh upon forty years, and had
nursed my father, and made his clothes, and all that he
had to eat, and then put him in his coffin, she was
come to such authority, that it was not worth the wages
of the best man on the place to say a word in answer to
Betty, even if he would face the risk to have ten for
one, or twenty.
Annie was her love and joy. For Annie she would do
anything, even so far as to try to smile, when the
little maid laughed and danced to her. And in truth I
know not how it was, but every one was taken with Annie
at the very first time of seeing her. She had such
pretty ways and manners, and such a look of kindness,
and a sweet soft light in her long blue eyes full of
trustful gladness. Everybody who looked at her seemed
to grow the better for it, because she knew no evil.
And then the turn she had for cooking, you never would
have expected it; and how it was her richest mirth to
see that she had pleased you. I have been out on the
world a vast deal as you will own hereafter, and yet
have I never seen Annie's equal for making a weary man
comfortable.
CHAPTER VII
HARD IT IS TO CLIMB
So many a winter night went by in a hopeful and
pleasant manner, with the hissing of the bright round
bullets, cast into the water, and the spluttering of
the great red apples which Annie was roasting for me.
We always managed our evening's work in the chimney of
the back-kitchen, where there was room to set chairs
and table, in spite of the fire burning. On the
right-hand side was a mighty oven, where Betty
threatened to bake us; and on the left, long sides of
bacon, made of favoured pigs, and growing very brown
and comely. Annie knew the names of all, and ran up
through the wood-smoke, every now and then, when a
gentle memory moved her, and asked them how they were
getting on, and when they would like to be eaten. Then
she came back with foolish tears, at thinking of that
necessity; and I, being soft in a different way, would
make up my mind against bacon.
But, Lord bless you! it was no good. Whenever it came
to breakfast-time, after three hours upon the moors, I
regularly forgot the pigs, but paid good heed to the
rashers. For ours is a hungry county, if such there be
in England; a place, I mean, where men must eat, and
are quick to discharge the duty. The air of the moors
is so shrewd and wholesome, stirring a man's
recollection of the good things which have betided him,
and whetting his hope of something still better in the
future, that by the time he sits down to a cloth, his
heart and stomach are tuned too well to say 'nay' to
one another.
Almost everybody knows, in our part of the world at
least, how pleasant and soft the fall of the land is
round about Plover's Barrows farm. All above it is
strong dark mountain, spread with heath, and desolate,
but near our house the valleys cove, and open warmth
and shelter. Here are trees, and bright green grass,
and orchards full of contentment, and a man may scarce
espy the brook, although he hears it everywhere. And
indeed a stout good piece of it comes through our
farm-yard, and swells sometimes to a rush of waves,
when the clouds are on the hill-tops. But all below,
where the valley bends, and the Lynn stream comes along
with it, pretty meadows slope their breast, and the sun
spreads on the water. And nearly all of this is ours,
till you come to Nicholas Snowe's land.
But about two miles below our farm, the Bagworthy water
runs into the Lynn, and makes a real river of it.
Thence it hurries away, with strength and a force of
wilful waters, under the foot of a barefaced hill, and
so to rocks and woods again, where the stream is
covered over, and dark, heavy pools delay it. There
are plenty of fish all down this way, and the farther
you go the larger they get, having deeper grounds to
feed in; and sometimes in the summer months, when
mother could spare me off the farm, I came down here,
with Annie to help (because it was so lonely), and
caught well-nigh a basketful of little trout and
minnows, with a hook and a bit of worm on it, or a
fern-web, or a blow-fly, hung from a hazel pulse-stick.
For of all the things I learned at Blundell's,
only two abode with me, and one of these was the knack
of fishing, and the other the art of swimming. And
indeed they have a very rude manner of teaching
children to swim there; for the big boys take the
little boys, and put them through a certain process,
which they grimly call 'sheep-washing.' In the third
meadow from the gate of the school, going up the river,
there is a fine pool in the Lowman, where the Taunton
brook comes in, and they call it the Taunton Pool. The
water runs down with a strong sharp stickle, and then
has a sudden elbow in it, where the small brook
trickles in; and on that side the bank is steep, four
or it may be five feet high, overhanging loamily; but
on the other side it is flat, pebbly, and fit to land
upon. Now the large boys take the small boys, crying
sadly for mercy, and thinking mayhap, of their mothers,
with hands laid well at the back of their necks, they
bring them up to the crest of the bank upon the eastern
side, and make them strip their clothes off. Then the
little boys, falling on their naked knees, blubber
upwards piteously; but the large boys know what is good
for them, and will not be entreated. So they cast them
down, one after other into the splash of the water, and
watch them go to the bottom first, and then come up and
fight for it, with a blowing and a bubbling. It is a
very fair sight to watch when you know there is little
danger, because, although the pool is deep, the current
is sure to wash a boy up on the stones, where the end
of the depth is. As for me, they had no need to throw
me more than once, because I jumped of my own accord,
thinking small things of the Lowman, after the violent
Lynn. Nevertheless, I learnt to swim there, as all
the other boys did; for the greatest point in learning
that is to find that you must do it. I loved the water
naturally, and could not long be out of it; but even
the boys who hated it most, came to swim in some
fashion or other, after they had been flung for a year
or two into the Taunton pool.
But now, although my sister Annie came to keep me
company, and was not to be parted from me by the tricks
of the Lynn stream, because I put her on my back and
carried her across, whenever she could not leap it, or
tuck up her things and take the stones; yet so it
happened that neither of us had been up the Bagworthy
water. We knew that it brought a good stream down, as
full of fish as of pebbles; and we thought that it must
be very pretty to make a way where no way was, nor even
a bullock came down to drink. But whether we were
afraid or not, I am sure I cannot tell, because it is
so long ago; but I think that had something to do with
it. For Bagworthy water ran out of Doone valley, a
mile or so from the mouth of it.
But when I was turned fourteen years old, and put into
good small-clothes, buckled at the knee, and strong
blue worsted hosen, knitted by my mother, it happened
to me without choice, I may say, to explore the
Bagworthy water. And it came about in this wise.
My mother had long been ailing, and not well able to
eat much; and there is nothing that frightens us so
much as for people to have no love of their victuals.
Now I chanced to remember that once at the time of the
holidays I had brought dear mother from Tiverton a jar
of pickled loaches, caught by myself in the Lowman
river, and baked in the kitchen oven, with vinegar, a
few leaves of bay, and about a dozen pepper-corns. And
mother had said that in all her life she had never
tasted anything fit to be compared with them. Whether
she said so good a thing out of compliment to my skill
in catching the fish and cooking them, or whether she
really meant it, is more than I can tell, though I
quite believe the latter, and so would most people who
tasted them; at any rate, I now resolved to get some
loaches for her, and do them in the self-same manner,
just to make her eat a bit.
There are many people, even now, who have not come to
the right knowledge what a loach is, and where he
lives, and how to catch and pickle him. And I will not
tell them all about it, because if I did, very likely
there would be no loaches left ten or twenty years
after the appearance of this book. A pickled minnow is
very good if you catch him in a stickle, with the
scarlet fingers upon him; but I count him no more than
the ropes in beer compared with a loach done properly.
Being resolved to catch some loaches, whatever trouble
it cost me, I set forth without a word to any one, in
the forenoon of St. Valentine's day, 1675-6, I think
it must have been. Annie should not come with me,
because the water was too cold; for the winter had been
long, and snow lay here and there in patches in the
hollow of the banks, like a lady's gloves forgotten.
And yet the spring was breaking forth, as it always
does in Devonshire, when the turn of the days is over;
and though there was little to see of it, the air was
full of feeling.
It puzzles me now, that I remember all those young
impressions so, because I took no heed of them at the
time whatever; and yet they come upon me bright, when
nothing else is evident in the gray fog of experience.
I am like an old man gazing at the outside of his
spectacles, and seeing, as he rubs the dust, the image
of his grandson playing at bo-peep with him.
But let me be of any age, I never could forget that
day, and how bitter cold the water was. For I doffed
my shoes and hose, and put them into a bag about my
neck; and left my little coat at home, and tied my
shirt-sleeves back to my shoulders. Then I took a
three-pronged fork firmly bound to a rod with cord, and
a piece of canvas kerchief, with a lump of bread inside
it; and so went into the pebbly water, trying to think
how warm it was. For more than a mile all down the
Lynn stream, scarcely a stone I left unturned, being
thoroughly skilled in the tricks of the loach, and
knowing how he hides himself. For being gray-spotted,
and clear to see through, and something like a
cuttle-fish, only more substantial, he will stay quite
still where a streak of weed is in the rapid water,
hoping to be overlooked, not caring even to wag his
tail. Then being disturbed he flips away, like
whalebone from the finger, and hies to a shelf of
stone, and lies with his sharp head poked in under it;
or sometimes he bellies him into the mud, and only
shows his back-ridge. And that is the time to spear
him nicely, holding the fork very gingerly, and
allowing for the bent of it, which comes to pass, I
know not how, at the tickle of air and water.
Or if your loach should not be abroad when first you
come to look for him, but keeping snug in his little
home, then you may see him come forth amazed at the
quivering of the shingles, and oar himself and look at
you, and then dart up-stream, like a little grey
streak; and then you must try to mark him in, and
follow very daintily. So after that, in a sandy place,
you steal up behind his tail to him, so that he cannot
set eyes on you, for his head is up-stream always, and
there you see him abiding still, clear, and mild, and
affable. Then, as he looks so innocent, you make full
sure to prog him well, in spite of the wry of the
water, and the sun making elbows to everything, and the
trembling of your fingers. But when you gird at him
lovingly, and have as good as gotten him, lo! in the
go-by of the river he is gone as a shadow goes, and
only a little cloud of mud curls away from the points
of the fork.
A long way down that limpid water, chill and bright as
an iceberg, went my little self that day on man's
choice errand--destruction. All the young fish seemed
to know that I was one who had taken out God's
certificate, and meant to have the value of it; every
one of them was aware that we desolate more than
replenish the earth. For a cow might come and look
into the water, and put her yellow lips down; a
kingfisher, like a blue arrow, might shoot through the
dark alleys over the channel, or sit on a dipping
withy-bough with his beak sunk into his
breast-feathers; even an otter might float downstream
likening himself to a log of wood, with his flat head
flush with the water-top, and his oily eyes peering
quietly; and yet no panic would seize other life, as it
does when a sample of man comes.
Now let not any one suppose that I thought of these
things when I was young, for I knew not the way to do
it. And proud enough in truth I was at the universal
fear I spread in all those lonely places, where I
myself must have been afraid, if anything had come up
to me. It is all very pretty to see the trees big with
their hopes of another year, though dumb as yet on the
subject, and the waters murmuring gaiety, and the banks
spread out with comfort; but a boy takes none of this
to heart; unless he be meant for a poet (which God can
never charge upon me), and he would liefer have a good
apple, or even a bad one, if he stole it.
When I had travelled two miles or so, conquered now and
then with cold, and coming out to rub my legs into a
lively friction, and only fishing here and there,
because of the tumbling water; suddenly, in an open
space, where meadows spread about it, I found a good
stream flowing softly into the body of our brook. And
it brought, so far as I could guess by the sweep of it
under my knee-caps, a larger power of clear water than
the Lynn itself had; only it came more quietly down,
not being troubled with stairs and steps, as the
fortune of the Lynn is, but gliding smoothly and
forcibly, as if upon some set purpose.
Hereupon I drew up and thought, and reason was much
inside me; because the water was bitter cold, and my
little toes were aching. So on the bank I rubbed them
well with a sprout of young sting-nettle, and having
skipped about awhile, was kindly inclined to eat a bit.
Now all the turn of all my life hung upon that moment.
But as I sat there munching a crust of Betty
Muxworthy's sweet brown bread, and a bit of cold bacon
along with it, and kicking my little red heels against
the dry loam to keep them warm, I knew no more than
fish under the fork what was going on over me. It
seemed a sad business to go back now and tell Annie
there were no loaches; and yet it was a frightful
thing, knowing what I did of it, to venture, where no
grown man durst, up the Bagworthy water. And please to
recollect that I was only a boy in those days, fond
enough of anything new, but not like a man to meet it.
However, as I ate more and more, my spirit arose within
me, and I thought of what my father had been, and how
he had told me a hundred times never to be a coward.
And then I grew warm, and my little heart was ashamed
of its pit-a-patting, and I said to myself, 'now if
father looks, he shall see that I obey him.' So I put
the bag round my back again, and buckled my breeches
far up from the knee, expecting deeper water, and
crossing the Lynn, went stoutly up under the branches
which hang so dark on the Bagworthy river.
I found it strongly over-woven, turned, and torn with
thicket-wood, but not so rocky as the Lynn, and more
inclined to go evenly. There were bars of chafed
stakes stretched from the sides half-way across the
current, and light outriders of pithy weed, and blades
of last year's water-grass trembling in the quiet
places, like a spider's threads, on the transparent
stillness, with a tint of olive moving it. And here
and there the sun came in, as if his light was sifted,
making dance upon the waves, and shadowing the pebbles.
Here, although affrighted often by the deep, dark
places, and feeling that every step I took might never
be taken backward, on the whole I had very comely sport
of loaches, trout, and minnows, forking some, and
tickling some, and driving others to shallow nooks,
whence I could bail them ashore. Now, if you have ever
been fishing, you will not wonder that I was led on,
forgetting all about danger, and taking no heed of the
time, but shouting in a childish way whenever I caught
a 'whacker' (as we called a big fish at Tiverton); and
in sooth there were very fine loaches here, having more
lie and harbourage than in the rough Lynn stream,
though not quite so large as in the Lowman, where I
have even taken them to the weight of half a pound.
But in answer to all my shouts there never was any
sound at all, except of a rocky echo, or a scared bird
hustling away, or the sudden dive of a water-vole; and
the place grew thicker and thicker, and the covert grew
darker above me, until I thought that the fishes might
have good chance of eating me, instead of my eating the
fishes.
For now the day was falling fast behind the brown of
the hill-tops, and the trees, being void of leaf and
hard, seemed giants ready to beat me. And every moment
as the sky was clearing up for a white frost, the cold
of the water got worse and worse, until I was fit to
cry with it. And so, in a sorry plight, I came to an
opening in the bushes, where a great black pool lay in
front of me, whitened with snow (as I thought) at the
sides, till I saw it was only foam-froth.
Now, though I could swim with great ease and comfort,
and feared no depth of water, when I could fairly come
to it, yet I had no desire to go over head and ears
into this great pool, being so cramped and weary, and
cold enough in all conscience, though wet only up to
the middle, not counting my arms and shoulders. And
the look of this black pit was enough to stop one from
diving into it, even on a hot summer's day with
sunshine on the water; I mean, if the sun ever shone
there. As it was, I shuddered and drew back; not alone
at the pool itself and the black air there was about
it, but also at the whirling manner, and wisping of
white threads upon it in stripy circles round and
round; and the centre still as jet.
But soon I saw the reason of the stir and depth of that
great pit, as well as of the roaring sound which long
had made me wonder. For skirting round one side, with
very little comfort, because the rocks were high and
steep, and the ledge at the foot so narrow, I came to a
sudden sight and marvel, such as I never dreamed of.
For, lo! I stood at the foot of a long pale slide of
water, coming smoothly to me, without any break or
hindrance, for a hundred yards or more, and fenced on
either side with cliff, sheer, and straight, and
shining. The water neither ran nor fell, nor leaped
with any spouting, but made one even slope of it, as if
it had been combed or planed, and looking like a plank
of deal laid down a deep black staircase. However,
there was no side-rail, nor any place to walk upon,
only the channel a fathom wide, and the perpendicular
walls of crag shutting out the evening.
The look of this place had a sad effect, scaring me
very greatly, and making me feel that I would give
something only to be at home again, with Annie cooking
my supper, and our dog Watch sniffing upward. But
nothing would come of wishing; that I had long found
out; and it only made one the less inclined to work
without white feather. So I laid the case before me in
a little council; not for loss of time, but only that I
wanted rest, and to see things truly.
Then says I to myself--'John Ridd, these trees, and
pools, and lonesome rocks, and setting of the sunlight
are making a gruesome coward of thee. Shall I go back
to my mother so, and be called her fearless boy?'
Nevertheless, I am free to own that it was not any fine
sense of shame which settled my decision; for indeed
there was nearly as much of danger in going back as in
going on, and perhaps even more of labour, the journey
being so roundabout. But that which saved me from
turning back was a strange inquisitive desire, very
unbecoming in a boy of little years; in a word, I would
risk a great deal to know what made the water come down
like that, and what there was at the top of it.
Therefore, seeing hard strife before me, I girt up my
breeches anew, with each buckle one hole tighter, for
the sodden straps were stretching and giving, and
mayhap my legs were grown smaller from the coldness of
it. Then I bestowed my fish around my neck more
tightly, and not stopping to look much, for fear of
fear, crawled along over the fork of rocks, where the
water had scooped the stone out, and shunning thus the
ledge from whence it rose like the mane of a white
horse into the broad black pool, softly I let my feet
into the dip and rush of the torrent.
And here I had reckoned without my host, although (as I
thought) so clever; and it was much but that I went
down into the great black pool, and had never been
heard of more; and this must have been the end of me,
except for my trusty loach-fork. For the green wave
came down like great bottles upon me, and my legs were
gone off in a moment, and I had not time to cry out
with wonder, only to think of my mother and Annie, and
knock my head very sadly, which made it go round so
that brains were no good, even if I had any. But all
in a moment, before I knew aught, except that I must
die out of the way, with a roar of water upon me, my
fork, praise God stuck fast in the rock, and I was
borne up upon it. I felt nothing except that here was
another matter to begin upon; and it might be worth
while, or again it might not, to have another fight for
it. But presently the dash of the water upon my face
revived me, and my mind grew used to the roar of it,
and meseemed I had been worse off than this, when first
flung into the Lowman.
Therefore I gathered my legs back slowly, as if they
were fish to be landed, stopping whenever the water
flew too strongly off my shin-bones, and coming along
without sticking out to let the wave get hold of me.
And in this manner I won a footing, leaning well
forward like a draught-horse, and balancing on my
strength as it were, with the ashen stake set behind
me. Then I said to my self, 'John Ridd, the sooner you
get yourself out by the way you came, the better it
will be for you.' But to my great dismay and affright,
I saw that no choice was left me now, except that I
must climb somehow up that hill of water, or else be
washed down into the pool and whirl around it till it
drowned me. For there was no chance of fetching back
by the way I had gone down into it, and further up was
a hedge of rock on either side of the waterway, rising
a hundred yards in height, and for all I could tell
five hundred, and no place to set a foot in.
Having said the Lord's Prayer (which was all I knew),
and made a very bad job of it, I grasped the good
loach-stick under a knot, and steadied me with my left
hand, and so with a sigh of despair began my course up
the fearful torrent-way. To me it seemed half a mile
at least of sliding water above me, but in truth it was
little more than a furlong, as I came to know
afterwards. It would have been a hard ascent even
without the slippery slime and the force of the river
over it, and I had scanty hope indeed of ever winning
the summit. Nevertheless, my terror left me, now I was
face to face with it, and had to meet the worst; and I
set myself to do my best with a vigour and sort of
hardness which did not then surprise me, but have done
so ever since.
The water was only six inches deep, or from that to
nine at the utmost, and all the way up I could see my
feet looking white in the gloom of the hollow, and here
and there I found resting-place, to hold on by the
cliff and pant awhile. And gradually as I went on, a
warmth of courage breathed in me, to think that perhaps
no other had dared to try that pass before me, and to
wonder what mother would say to it. And then came
thought of my father also, and the pain of my feet
abated.
How I went carefully, step by step, keeping my arms in
front of me, and never daring to straighten my knees is
more than I can tell clearly, or even like now to think
of, because it makes me dream of it. Only I must
acknowledge that the greatest danger of all was just
where I saw no jeopardy, but ran up a patch of black
ooze-weed in a very boastful manner, being now not far
from the summit.
Here I fell very piteously, and was like to have broken
my knee-cap, and the torrent got hold of my other leg
while I was indulging the bruised one. And then a vile
knotting of cramp disabled me, and for awhile I could
only roar, till my mouth was full of water, and all of
my body was sliding. But the fright of that brought me
to again, and my elbow caught in a rock-hole; and so I
managed to start again, with the help of more humility.
Now being in the most dreadful fright, because I was so
near the top, and hope was beating within me, I
laboured hard with both legs and arms, going like a
mill and grunting. At last the rush of forked water,
where first it came over the lips of the fall, drove me
into the middle, and I stuck awhile with my toe-balls
on the slippery links of the pop-weed, and the world
was green and gliddery, and I durst not look behind me.
Then I made up my mind to die at last; for so my legs
would ache no more, and my breath not pain my heart so;
only it did seem such a pity after fighting so long to
give in, and the light was coming upon me, and again I
fought towards it; then suddenly I felt fresh air, and
fell into it headlong.
CHAPTER VIII
A BOY AND A GIRL
When I came to myself again, my hands were full of
young grass and mould, and a little girl kneeling at my
side was rubbing my forehead tenderly with a dock-leaf
and a handkerchief.
'Oh, I am so glad,' she whispered softly, as I opened
my eyes and looked at her; 'now you will try to be
better, won't you?'
I had never heard so sweet a sound as came from between
her bright red lips, while there she knelt and gazed at
me; neither had I ever seen anything so beautiful as
the large dark eyes intent upon me, full of pity and
wonder. And then, my nature being slow, and perhaps,
for that matter, heavy, I wandered with my hazy eyes
down the black shower of her hair, as to my jaded gaze
it seemed; and where it fell on the turf, among it
(like an early star) was the first primrose of the
season. And since that day I think of her, through all
the rough storms of my life, when I see an early
primrose. Perhaps she liked my countenance, and indeed
I know she did, because she said so afterwards;
although at the time she was too young to know what
made her take to me. Not that I had any beauty, or
ever pretended to have any, only a solid healthy face,
which many girls have laughed at.
Thereupon I sate upright, with my little trident still
in one hand, and was much afraid to speak to her, being
conscious of my country-brogue, lest she should cease
to like me. But she clapped her hands, and made a
trifling dance around my back, and came to me on the
other side, as if I were a great plaything.
'What is your name?' she said, as if she had every
right to ask me; 'and how did you come here, and what
are these wet things in this great bag?'
'You had better let them alone,' I said; 'they are
loaches for my mother. But I will give you some, if
you like.'
'Dear me, how much you think of them! Why, they are
only fish. But how your feet are bleeding! oh, I must
tie them up for you. And no shoes nor stockings! Is
your mother very poor, poor boy?'
'No,' I said, being vexed at this; 'we are rich enough
to buy all this great meadow, if we chose; and here my
shoes and stockings be.'
'Why, they are quite as wet as your feet; and I cannot
bear to see your feet. Oh, please to let me manage
them; I will do it very softly.'
'Oh, I don't think much of that,' I replied; 'I shall
put some goose-grease to them. But how you are looking
at me! I never saw any one like you before. My name is
John Ridd. What is your name?'
'Lorna Doone,' she answered, in a low voice, as if
afraid of it, and hanging her head so that I could see
only her forehead and eyelashes; 'if you please, my
name is Lorna Doone; and I thought you must have known
it.'
Then I stood up and touched her hand, and tried to make
her look at me; but she only turned away the more.
Young and harmless as she was, her name alone made
guilt of her. Nevertheless I could not help looking at
her tenderly, and the more when her blushes turned into
tears, and her tears to long, low sobs.
'Don't cry,' I said, 'whatever you do. I am sure you
have never done any harm. I will give you all my fish
Lorna, and catch some more for mother; only don't be
angry with me.'
She flung her little soft arms up in the passion of her
tears, and looked at me so piteously, that what did I
do but kiss her. It seemed to be a very odd thing,
when I came to think of it, because I hated kissing so,
as all honest boys must do. But she touched my heart
with a sudden delight, like a cowslip-blossom (although
there were none to be seen yet), and the sweetest
flowers of spring.
She gave me no encouragement, as my mother in her place
would have done; nay, she even wiped her lips (which
methought was rather rude of her), and drew away, and
smoothed her dress, as if I had used a freedom. Then I
felt my cheeks grow burning red, and I gazed at my legs
and was sorry. For although she was not at all a proud
child (at any rate in her countenance), yet I knew that
she was by birth a thousand years in front of me. They
might have taken and framed me, or (which would be more
to the purpose) my sisters, until it was time for us to
die, and then have trained our children after us, for
many generations; yet never could we have gotten that
look upon our faces which Lorna Doone had naturally, as
if she had been born to it.
Here was I, a yeoman's boy, a yeoman every inch of me,
even where I was naked; and there was she, a lady born,
and thoroughly aware of it, and dressed by people of
rank and taste, who took pride in her beauty and set it
to advantage. For though her hair was fallen down by
reason of her wildness, and some of her frock was
touched with wet where she had tended me so, behold her
dress was pretty enough for the queen of all the
angels. The colours were bright and rich indeed, and
the substance very sumptuous, yet simple and free from
tinsel stuff, and matching most harmoniously. All
from her waist to her neck was white, plaited in close
like a curtain, and the dark soft weeping of her hair,
and the shadowy light of her eyes (like a wood rayed
through with sunset), made it seem yet whiter, as if it
were done on purpose. As for the rest, she knew what
it was a great deal better than I did, for I never
could look far away from her eyes when they were opened
upon me.
Now, seeing how I heeded her, and feeling that I had
kissed her, although she was such a little girl, eight
years old or thereabouts, she turned to the stream in a
bashful manner, and began to watch the water, and
rubbed one leg against the other.
I, for my part, being vexed at her behaviour to me,
took up all my things to go, and made a fuss about it;
to let her know I was going. But she did not call me
back at all, as I had made sure she would do; moreover,
I knew that to try the descent was almost certain death
to me, and it looked as dark as pitch; and so at the
mouth I turned round again, and came back to her, and
said, 'Lorna.'
'Oh, I thought you were gone,' she answered; 'why did
you ever come here? Do you know what they would do to
us, if they found you here with me?'
'Beat us, I dare say, very hard; or me, at least. They
could never beat you,'
'No. They would kill us both outright, and bury us
here by the water; and the water often tells me that I
must come to that.'
'But what should they kill me for?'
'Because you have found the way up here, and they never
could believe it. Now, please to go; oh, please to go.
They will kill us both in a moment. Yes, I like you
very much'--for I was teasing her to say it--'very much
indeed, and I will call you John Ridd, if you like;
only please to go, John. And when your feet are well,
you know, you can come and tell me how they are.'
'But I tell you, Lorna, I like you very much
indeed--nearly as much as Annie, and a great deal more
than Lizzie. And I never saw any one like you, and I
must come back again to-morrow, and so must you, to see
me; and I will bring you such lots of things--there
are apples still, and a thrush I caught with only one
leg broken, and our dog has just had puppies--'
'Oh, dear, they won't let me have a dog. There is not
a dog in the valley. They say they are such noisy
things--'
'Only put your hand in mine--what little things they
are, Lorna! And I will bring you the loveliest dog; I
will show you just how long he is.'
'Hush!' A shout came down the valley, and all my heart
was trembling, like water after sunset, and Lorna's
face was altered from pleasant play to terror. She
shrank to me, and looked up at me, with such a power of
weakness, that I at once made up my mind to save her or
to die with her. A tingle went through all my bones,
and I only longed for my carbine. The little girl took
courage from me, and put her cheek quite close to mine.
'Come with me down the waterfall. I can carry you
easily; and mother will take care of you.'
'No, no,' she cried, as I took her up: 'I will tell you
what to do. They are only looking for me. You see
that hole, that hole there?'
She pointed to a little niche in the rock which verged
the meadow, about fifty yards away from us. In the
fading of the twilight I could just descry it.
'Yes, I see it; but they will see me crossing the grass
to get there.'
'Look! look!' She could hardly speak. 'There is a way
out from the top of it; they would kill me if I told
it. Oh, here they come, I can see them.'
The little maid turned as white as the snow which hung
on the rocks above her, and she looked at the water and
then at me, and she cried, 'Oh dear! oh dear!' And then
she began to sob aloud, being so young and unready.
But I drew her behind the withy-bushes, and close down
to the water, where it was quiet and shelving deep, ere
it came to the lip of the chasm. Here they could not
see either of us from the upper valley, and might have
sought a long time for us, even when they came quite
near, if the trees had been clad with their summer
clothes. Luckily I had picked up my fish and taken my
three-pronged fork away.
Crouching in that hollow nest, as children get together
in ever so little compass, I saw a dozen fierce men
come down, on the other side of the water, not bearing
any fire-arms, but looking lax and jovial, as if they
were come from riding and a dinner taken hungrily.
'Queen, queen!' they were shouting, here and there, and
now and then: 'where the pest is our little queen
gone?'
'They always call me "queen," and I am to be queen
by-and-by,' Lorna whispered to me, with her soft cheek
on my rough one, and her little heart beating against
me: 'oh, they are crossing by the timber there, and
then they are sure to see us.'
'Stop,' said I; 'now I see what to do. I must get into
the water, and you must go to sleep.'
'To be sure, yes, away in the meadow there. But how
bitter cold it will be for you!'
She saw in a moment the way to do it, sooner than I
could tell her; and there was no time to lose.
'Now mind you never come again,' she whispered over her
shoulder, as she crept away with a childish twist
hiding her white front from me; 'only I shall come
sometimes--oh, here they are, Madonna!'
Daring scarce to peep, I crept into the water, and lay
down bodily in it, with my head between two blocks of
stone, and some flood-drift combing over me. The dusk
was deepening between the hills, and a white mist lay
on the river; but I, being in the channel of it, could
see every ripple, and twig, and rush, and glazing of
twilight above it, as bright as in a picture; so that
to my ignorance there seemed no chance at all but what
the men must find me. For all this time they were
shouting and swearing, and keeping such a hullabaloo,
that the rocks all round the valley rang, and my heart
quaked, so (what with this and the cold) that the water
began to gurgle round me, and to lap upon the pebbles.
Neither in truth did I try to stop it, being now so
desperate, between the fear and the wretchedness; till
I caught a glimpse of the little maid, whose beauty and
whose kindliness had made me yearn to be with her. And
then I knew that for her sake I was bound to be brave
and hide myself. She was lying beneath a rock, thirty
or forty yards from me, feigning to be fast asleep,
with her dress spread beautifully, and her hair drawn
over her.
Presently one of the great rough men came round a
corner upon her; and there he stopped and gazed awhile
at her fairness and her innocence. Then he caught her
up in his arms, and kissed her so that I heard him; and
if I had only brought my gun, I would have tried to
shoot him.
'Here our queen is! Here's the queen, here's the
captain's daughter!' he shouted to his comrades; 'fast
asleep, by God, and hearty! Now I have first claim to
her; and no one else shall touch the child. Back to
the bottle, all of you!'
He set her dainty little form upon his great square
shoulder, and her narrow feet in one broad hand; and so
in triumph marched away, with the purple velvet of her
skirt ruffling in his long black beard, and the silken
length of her hair fetched out, like a cloud by the
wind behind her. This way of her going vexed me so,
that I leaped upright in the water, and must have been
spied by some of them, but for their haste to the
wine-bottle. Of their little queen they took small
notice, being in this urgency; although they had
thought to find her drowned; but trooped away after one
another with kindly challenge to gambling, so far as I
could make them out; and I kept sharp watch, I assure
you.
Going up that darkened glen, little Lorna, riding still
the largest and most fierce of them, turned and put up
a hand to me, and I put up a hand to her, in the thick
of the mist and the willows.
She was gone, my little dear (though tall of her age
and healthy); and when I got over my thriftless fright,
I longed to have more to say to her. Her voice to me
was so different from all I had ever heard before, as
might be a sweet silver bell intoned to the small
chords of a harp. But I had no time to think about
this, if I hoped to have any supper.
I crept into a bush for warmth, and rubbed my shivering
legs on bark, and longed for mother's fagot. Then as
daylight sank below the forget-me-not of stars, with a
sorrow to be quit, I knew that now must be my time to
get away, if there were any.
Therefore, wringing my sodden breaches, I managed to
crawl from the bank to the niche in the cliff which
Lorna had shown me.
Through the dusk I had trouble to see the mouth, at
even the five land-yards of distance; nevertheless, I
entered well, and held on by some dead fern-stems, and
did hope that no one would shoot me.
But while I was hugging myself like this, with a boyish
manner of reasoning, my joy was like to have ended in
sad grief both to myself and my mother, and haply to
all honest folk who shall love to read this history.
For hearing a noise in front of me, and like a coward
not knowing where, but afraid to turn round or think of
it, I felt myself going down some deep passage into a
pit of darkness. It was no good to catch the sides,
the whole thing seemed to go with me. Then, without
knowing how, I was leaning over a night of water.
This water was of black radiance, as are certain
diamonds, spanned across with vaults of rock, and
carrying no image, neither showing marge nor end, but
centred (at it might be) with a bottomless indrawal.
With that chill and dread upon me, and the sheer rock
all around, and the faint light heaving wavily on the
silence of this gulf, I must have lost my wits and gone
to the bottom, if there were any.
But suddenly a robin sang (as they will do after dark,
towards spring) in the brown fern and ivy behind me. I
took it for our little Annie's voice (for she could
call any robin), and gathering quick warm comfort,
sprang up the steep way towards the starlight.
Climbing back, as the stones glid down, I heard the
cold greedy wave go japping, like a blind black dog,
into the distance of arches and hollow depths of
darkness.
CHAPTER IX
THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME
I can assure you, and tell no lie (as John Fry always
used to say, when telling his very largest), that I
scrambled back to the mouth of that pit as if the evil
one had been after me. And sorely I repented now of
all my boyish folly, or madness it might well be
termed, in venturing, with none to help, and nothing to
compel me, into that accursed valley. Once let me get
out, thinks I, and if ever I get in again, without
being cast in by neck and by crop, I will give our
new-born donkey leave to set up for my schoolmaster.
How I kept that resolution we shall see hereafter. It
is enough for me now to tell how I escaped from the den
that night. First I sat down in the little opening
which Lorna had pointed out to me, and wondered whether
she had meant, as bitterly occurred to me, that I
should run down into the pit, and be drowned, and give
no more trouble. But in less than half a minute I was
ashamed of that idea, and remembered how she was vexed
to think that even a loach should lose his life. And
then I said to myself, 'Now surely she would value me
more than a thousand loaches; and what she said must be
quite true about the way out of this horrible place.'
Therefore I began to search with the utmost care and
diligence, although my teeth were chattering, and all
my bones beginning to ache with the chilliness and the
wetness. Before very long the moon appeared, over the
edge of the mountain, and among the trees at the top of
it; and then I espied rough steps, and rocky, made as
if with a sledge-hammer, narrow, steep, and far
asunder, scooped here and there in the side of the
entrance, and then round a bulge of the cliff, like the
marks upon a great brown loaf, where a hungry child has
picked at it. And higher up, where the light of the
moon shone broader upon the precipice, there seemed to
be a rude broken track, like the shadow of a crooked
stick thrown upon a house-wall.
Herein was small encouragement; and at first I was
minded to lie down and die; but it seemed to come amiss
to me. God has His time for all of us; but He seems to
advertise us when He does not mean to do it. Moreover,
I saw a movement of lights at the head of the valley,
as if lanthorns were coming after me, and the
nimbleness given thereon to my heels was in front of
all meditation.
Straightway I set foot in the lowest stirrup (as I
might almost call it), and clung to the rock with my
nails, and worked to make a jump into the second
stirrup. And I compassed that too, with the aid of my
stick; although, to tell you the truth, I was not at
that time of life so agile as boys of smaller frame
are, for my size was growing beyond my years, and the
muscles not keeping time with it, and the joints of my
bones not closely hinged, with staring at one another.
But the third step-hole was the hardest of all, and the
rock swelled out on me over my breast, and there seemed
to be no attempting it, until I espied a good stout
rope hanging in a groove of shadow, and just managed to
reach the end of it.
How I clomb up, and across the clearing, and found my
way home through the Bagworthy forest, is more than I
can remember now, for I took all the rest of it then as
a dream, by reason of perfect weariness. And indeed it
was quite beyond my hopes to tell so much as I have
told, for at first beginning to set it down, it was all
like a mist before me. Nevertheless, some parts grew
clearer, as one by one I remembered them, having taken
a little soft cordial, because the memory frightens me.
For the toil of the water, and danger of labouring up
the long cascade or rapids, and then the surprise of
the fair young maid, and terror of the murderers, and
desperation of getting away--all these are much to me
even now, when I am a stout churchwarden, and sit by
the side of my fire, after going through many far worse
adventures, which I will tell, God willing. Only the
labour of writing is such (especially so as to
construe, and challenge a reader on parts of speech,
and hope to be even with him); that by this pipe which
I hold in my hand I ever expect to be beaten, as in the
days when old Doctor Twiggs, if I made a bad stroke in
my exercise, shouted aloud with a sour joy, 'John Ridd,
sirrah, down with your small-clothes!'
Let that be as it may, I deserved a good beating that
night, after making such a fool of myself, and grinding
good fustian to pieces. But when I got home, all the
supper was in, and the men sitting at the white table,
and mother and Annie and Lizzie near by, all eager, and
offering to begin (except, indeed, my mother, who was
looking out at the doorway), and by the fire was Betty
Muxworthy, scolding, and cooking, and tasting her work,
all in a breath, as a man would say. I looked through
the door from the dark by the wood-stack, and was half
of a mind to stay out like a dog, for fear of the
rating and reckoning; but the way my dear mother was
looking about and the browning of the sausages got the
better of me.
But nobody could get out of me where I had been all the
day and evening; although they worried me never so
much, and longed to shake me to pieces, especially
Betty Muxworthy, who never could learn to let well
alone. Not that they made me tell any lies, although
it would have served them right almost for intruding on
other people's business; but that I just held my
tongue, and ate my supper rarely, and let them try
their taunts and jibes, and drove them almost wild
after supper, by smiling exceeding knowingly. And
indeed I could have told them things, as I hinted once
or twice; and then poor Betty and our little Lizzie
were so mad with eagerness, that between them I went
into the fire, being thoroughly overcome with laughter
and my own importance.
Now what the working of my mind was (if, indeed it
worked at all, and did not rather follow suit of body)
it is not in my power to say; only that the result of
my adventure in the Doone Glen was to make me dream a
good deal of nights, which I had never done much
before, and to drive me, with tenfold zeal and purpose,
to the practice of bullet-shooting. Not that I ever
expected to shoot the Doone family, one by one, or even
desired to do so, for my nature is not revengeful; but
that it seemed to be somehow my business to understand
the gun, as a thing I must be at home with.
I could hit the barn-door now capitally well with the
Spanish match-lock, and even with John Fry's
blunderbuss, at ten good land-yards distance, without
any rest for my fusil. And what was very wrong of me,
though I did not see it then, I kept John Fry there, to
praise my shots, from dinner-time often until the grey
dusk, while he all the time should have been at work
spring-ploughing upon the farm. And for that matter
so should I have been, or at any rate driving the
horses; but John was by no means loath to be there,
instead of holding the plough-tail. And indeed, one of
our old sayings is,--
For pleasure's sake I would liefer wet,
Than ha' ten lumps of gold for each one of my sweat.
And again, which is not a bad proverb, though unthrifty
and unlike a Scotsman's,--
God makes the wheat grow greener,
While farmer be at his dinner.
And no Devonshire man, or Somerset either (and I belong
to both of them), ever thinks of working harder than
God likes to see him.
Nevertheless, I worked hard at the gun, and by the time
that I had sent all the church-roof gutters, so far as
I honestly could cut them, through the red pine-door, I
began to long for a better tool that would make less
noise and throw straighter. But the sheep-shearing
came and the hay-season next, and then the harvest of
small corn, and the digging of the root called 'batata'
(a new but good thing in our neighbourhood, which our
folk have made into 'taties'), and then the sweating of
the apples, and the turning of the cider-press, and the
stacking of the firewood, and netting of the woodcocks,
and the springles to be minded in the garden and by the
hedgerows, where blackbirds hop to the molehills in the
white October mornings, and grey birds come to look for
snails at the time when the sun is rising.
It is wonderful how time runs away, when all these
things and a great many others come in to load him down
the hill and prevent him from stopping to look about.
And I for my part can never conceive how people who
live in towns and cities, where neither lambs nor birds
are (except in some shop windows), nor growing corn,
nor meadow-grass, nor even so much as a stick to cut or
a stile to climb and sit down upon--how these poor folk
get through their lives without being utterly weary of
them, and dying from pure indolence, is a thing God
only knows, if His mercy allows Him to think of it.
How the year went by I know not, only that I was abroad
all day, shooting, or fishing, or minding the farm, or
riding after some stray beast, or away by the seaside
below Glenthorne, wondering at the great waters, and
resolving to go for a sailor. For in those days I had
a firm belief, as many other strong boys have, of being
born for a seaman. And indeed I had been in a boat
nearly twice; but the second time mother found it out,
and came and drew me back again; and after that she
cried so badly, that I was forced to give my word to
her to go no more without telling her.
But Betty Muxworthy spoke her mind quite in a different
way about it, the while she was wringing my hosen, and
clattering to the drying-horse.
'Zailor, ees fai! ay and zarve un raight. Her can't
kape out o' the watter here, whur a' must goo vor to
vaind un, zame as a gurt to-ad squalloping, and mux up
till I be wore out, I be, wi' the very saight of 's
braiches. How wil un ever baide aboard zhip, wi' the
watter zinging out under un, and comin' up splash when
the wind blow. Latt un goo, missus, latt un goo, zay I
for wan, and old Davy wash his clouts for un.'
And this discourse of Betty's tended more than my
mother's prayers, I fear, to keep me from going. For I
hated Betty in those days, as children always hate a
cross servant, and often get fond of a false one. But
Betty, like many active women, was false by her
crossness only; thinking it just for the moment
perhaps, and rushing away with a bucket; ready to stick
to it, like a clenched nail, if beaten the wrong way
with argument; but melting over it, if you left her, as
stinging soap, left along in a basin, spreads all
abroad without bubbling.
But all this is beyond the children, and beyond me too
for that matter, even now in ripe experience; for I
never did know what women mean, and never shall except
when they tell me, if that be in their power. Now let
that question pass. For although I am now in a place
of some authority, I have observed that no one ever
listens to me, when I attempt to lay down the law; but
all are waiting with open ears until I do enforce it.
And so methinks he who reads a history cares not much
for the wisdom or folly of the writer (knowing well
that the former is far less than his own, and the
latter vastly greater), but hurries to know what the
people did, and how they got on about it. And this I
can tell, if any one can, having been myself in the
thick of it.
The fright I had taken that night in Glen Doone
satisfied me for a long time thereafter; and I took
good care not to venture even in the fields and woods
of the outer farm, without John Fry for company. John
was greatly surprised and pleased at the value I now
set upon him; until, what betwixt the desire to vaunt
and the longing to talk things over, I gradually laid
bare to him nearly all that had befallen me; except,
indeed, about Lorna, whom a sort of shame kept me from
mentioning. Not that I did not think of her, and wish
very often to see her again; but of course I was only a
boy as yet, and therefore inclined to despise young
girls, as being unable to do anything, and only meant
to listen to orders. And when I got along with the
other boys, that was how we always spoke of them, if we
deigned to speak at all, as beings of a lower order,
only good enough to run errands for us, and to nurse
boy-babies.
And yet my sister Annie was in truth a great deal more
to me than all the boys of the parish, and of Brendon,
and Countisbury, put together; although at the time I
never dreamed it, and would have laughed if told so.
Annie was of a pleasing face, and very gentle manner,
almost like a lady some people said; but without any
airs whatever, only trying to give satisfaction. And
if she failed, she would go and weep, without letting
any one know it, believing the fault to be all her own,
when mostly it was of others. But if she succeeded in
pleasing you, it was beautiful to see her smile, and
stroke her soft chin in a way of her own, which she
always used when taking note how to do the right thing
again for you. And then her cheeks had a bright clear
pink, and her eyes were as blue as the sky in spring,
and she stood as upright as a young apple-tree, and no
one could help but smile at her, and pat her brown
curls approvingly; whereupon she always curtseyed. For
she never tried to look away when honest people gazed
at her; and even in the court-yard she would come and
help to take your saddle, and tell (without your asking
her) what there was for dinner.
And afterwards she grew up to be a very comely maiden,
tall, and with a well-built neck, and very fair white
shoulders, under a bright cloud of curling hair. Alas!
poor Annie, like most of the gentle maidens--but tush,
I am not come to that yet; and for the present she
seemed to me little to look at, after the beauty of
Lorna Doone.
CHAPTER X
A BRAVE RESCUE AND A ROUGH RIDE
It happened upon a November evening (when I was about
fifteen years old, and out-growing my strength very
rapidly, my sister Annie being turned thirteen, and a
deal of rain having fallen, and all the troughs in the
yard being flooded, and the bark from the wood-ricks
washed down the gutters, and even our water-shoot going
brown) that the ducks in the court made a terrible
quacking, instead of marching off to their pen, one
behind another. Thereupon Annie and I ran out to see
what might be the sense of it. There were thirteen
ducks, and ten lily-white (as the fashion then of ducks
was), not I mean twenty-three in all, but ten white and
three brown-striped ones; and without being nice about
their colour, they all quacked very movingly. They
pushed their gold-coloured bills here and there (yet
dirty, as gold is apt to be), and they jumped on the
triangles of their feet, and sounded out of their
nostrils; and some of the over-excited ones ran along
low on the ground, quacking grievously with their bills
snapping and bending, and the roof of their mouths
exhibited.
Annie began to cry 'Dilly, dilly, einy, einy, ducksey,'
according to the burden of a tune they seem to have
accepted as the national duck's anthem; but instead of
being soothed by it, they only quacked three times as
hard, and ran round till we were giddy. And then they
shook their tails together, and looked grave, and went
round and round again. Now I am uncommonly fond of
ducks, both roasted and roasting and roystering; and it
is a fine sight to behold them walk, poddling one after
other, with their toes out, like soldiers drilling, and
their little eyes cocked all ways at once, and the way
that they dib with their bills, and dabble, and throw
up their heads and enjoy something, and then tell the
others about it. Therefore I knew at once, by the way
they were carrying on, that there must be something or
other gone wholly amiss in the duck-world. Sister
Annie perceived it too, but with a greater quickness;
for she counted them like a good duck-wife, and could
only tell thirteen of them, when she knew there ought
to be fourteen.
And so we began to search about, and the ducks ran to
lead us aright, having come that far to fetch us; and
when we got down to the foot of the court-yard where
the two great ash-trees stand by the side of the little
water, we found good reason for the urgence and
melancholy of the duck-birds. Lo! the old white drake,
the father of all, a bird of high manners and chivalry,
always the last to help himself from the pan of
barley-meal, and the first to show fight to a dog or
cock intruding upon his family, this fine fellow, and
pillar of the state, was now in a sad predicament, yet
quacking very stoutly. For the brook, wherewith he had
been familiar from his callow childhood, and wherein he
was wont to quest for water-newts, and tadpoles, and
caddis-worms, and other game, this brook, which
afforded him very often scanty space to dabble in, and
sometimes starved the cresses, was now coming down in a
great brown flood, as if the banks never belonged to
it. The foaming of it, and the noise, and the cresting
of the corners, and the up and down, like a wave of the
sea, were enough to frighten any duck, though bred upon
stormy waters, which our ducks never had been.
There is always a hurdle six feet long and four and a
half in depth, swung by a chain at either end from an
oak laid across the channel. And the use of this
hurdle is to keep our kine at milking time from
straying away there drinking (for in truth they are
very dainty) and to fence strange cattle, or Farmer
Snowe's horses, from coming along the bed of the brook
unknown, to steal our substance. But now this hurdle,
which hung in the summer a foot above the trickle,
would have been dipped more than two feet deep but for
the power against it. For the torrent came down so
vehemently that the chains at full stretch were
creaking, and the hurdle buffeted almost flat, and
thatched (so to say) with the drift-stuff, was going
see-saw, with a sulky splash on the dirty red comb of
the waters. But saddest to see was between two bars,
where a fog was of rushes, and flood-wood, and
wild-celery haulm, and dead crowsfoot, who but our
venerable mallard jammed in by the joint of his
shoulder, speaking aloud as he rose and fell, with his
top-knot full of water, unable to comprehend it, with
his tail washed far away from him, but often compelled
to be silent, being ducked very harshly against his
will by the choking fall-to of the hurdle.
For a moment I could not help laughing, because, being
borne up high and dry by a tumult of the torrent, he
gave me a look from his one little eye (having lost one
in fight with the turkey-cock), a gaze of appealing
sorrow, and then a loud quack to second it. But the
quack came out of time, I suppose, for his throat got
filled with water, as the hurdle carried him back
again. And then there was scarcely the screw of his
tail to be seen until he swung up again, and left small
doubt by the way he sputtered, and failed to quack, and
hung down his poor crest, but what he must drown in
another minute, and frogs triumph over his body.
Annie was crying, and wringing her hands, and I was
about to rush into the water, although I liked not the
look of it, but hoped to hold on by the hurdle, when a
man on horseback came suddenly round the corner of the
great ash-hedge on the other side of the stream, and
his horse's feet were in the water.
'Ho, there,' he cried; 'get thee back, boy. The flood
will carry thee down like a straw. I will do it for
thee, and no trouble.'
With that he leaned forward, and spoke to his mare--she
was just of the tint of a strawberry, a young thing,
very beautiful--and she arched up her neck, as
misliking the job; yet, trusting him, would attempt it.
She entered the flood, with her dainty fore-legs
sloped further and further in front of her, and her
delicate ears pricked forward, and the size of her
great eyes increasing, but he kept her straight in the
turbid rush, by the pressure of his knee on her. Then
she looked back, and wondered at him, as the force of
the torrent grew stronger, but he bade her go on; and
on she went, and it foamed up over her shoulders; and
she tossed up her lip and scorned it, for now her
courage was waking. Then as the rush of it swept her
away, and she struck with her forefeet down the stream,
he leaned from his saddle in a manner which I never
could have thought possible, and caught up old Tom with
his left hand, and set him between his holsters, and
smiled at his faint quack of gratitude. In a moment
all these were carried downstream, and the rider lay
flat on his horse, and tossed the hurdle clear from
him, and made for the bend of smooth water.
They landed some thirty or forty yards lower, in the
midst of our kitchen-garden, where the winter-cabbage
was; but though Annie and I crept in through the hedge,
and were full of our thanks and admiring him, he would
answer us never a word, until he had spoken in full to
the mare, as if explaining the whole to her.
'Sweetheart, I know thou couldst have leaped it,' he
said, as he patted her cheek, being on the ground by
this time, and she was nudging up to him, with the
water pattering off her; 'but I had good reason, Winnie
dear, for making thee go through it.'
She answered him kindly with her soft eyes, and smiled
at him very lovingly, and they understood one another.
Then he took from his waistcoat two peppercorns, and
made the old drake swallow them, and tried him softly
upon his legs, where the leading gap in the hedge was.
Old Tom stood up quite bravely, and clapped his wings,
and shook off the wet from his tail-feathers; and then
away into the court-yard, and his family gathered
around him, and they all made a noise in their throats,
and stood up, and put their bills together, to thank
God for this great deliverance.
Having taken all this trouble, and watched the end of
that adventure, the gentleman turned round to us with a
pleasant smile on his face, as if he were lightly
amused with himself; and we came up and looked at him.
He was rather short, about John Fry's height, or may be
a little taller, but very strongly built and springy,
as his gait at every step showed plainly, although his
legs were bowed with much riding, and he looked as if
he lived on horseback. To a boy like me he seemed very
old, being over twenty, and well-found in beard; but he
was not more than four-and-twenty, fresh and ruddy
looking, with a short nose and keen blue eyes, and a
merry waggish jerk about him, as if the world were not
in earnest. Yet he had a sharp, stern way, like the
crack of a pistol, if anything misliked him; and we
knew (for children see such things) that it was safer
to tickle than buffet him.
'Well, young uns, what be gaping at?' He gave pretty
Annie a chuck on the chin, and took me all in without
winking.
'Your mare,' said I, standing stoutly up, being a tall
boy now; 'I never saw such a beauty, sir. Will you let
me have a ride of her?'
'Think thou couldst ride her, lad? She will have no
burden but mine. Thou couldst never ride her. Tut! I
would be loath to kill thee.'
'Ride her!' I cried with the bravest scorn, for she
looked so kind and gentle; 'there never was horse upon
Exmoor foaled, but I could tackle in half an hour.
Only I never ride upon saddle. Take them leathers off
of her.'
He looked at me with a dry little whistle, and thrust
his hands into his breeches-pockets, and so grinned
that I could not stand it. And Annie laid hold of me
in such a way that I was almost mad with her. And he
laughed, and approved her for doing so. And the worst
of all was--he said nothing.
'Get away, Annie, will you? Do you think I'm a fool,
good sir! Only trust me with her, and I will not
override her.'
'For that I will go bail, my son. She is liker to
override thee. But the ground is soft to fall upon,
after all this rain. Now come out into the yard, young
man, for the sake of your mother's cabbages. And the
mellow straw-bed will be softer for thee, since pride
must have its fall. I am thy mother's cousin, boy, and
am going up to house. Tom Faggus is my name, as
everybody knows; and this is my young mare, Winnie.'
What a fool I must have been not to know it at once!
Tom Faggus, the great highwayman, and his young
blood-mare, the strawberry! Already her fame was
noised abroad, nearly as much as her master's; and my
longing to ride her grew tenfold, but fear came at the
back of it. Not that I had the smallest fear of what
the mare could do to me, by fair play and
horse-trickery, but that the glory of sitting upon her
seemed to be too great for me; especially as there were
rumours abroad that she was not a mare after all, but a
witch. However, she looked like a filly all over, and
wonderfully beautiful, with her supple stride, and soft
slope of shoulder, and glossy coat beaded with water,
and prominent eyes full of docile fire. Whether this
came from her Eastern blood of the Arabs newly
imported, and whether the cream-colour, mixed with our
bay, led to that bright strawberry tint, is certainly
more than I can decide, being chiefly acquaint with
farm-horses. And these come of any colour and form;
you never can count what they will be, and are lucky to
get four legs to them.
Mr. Faggus gave his mare a wink, and she walked
demurely after him, a bright young thing, flowing over
with life, yet dropping her soul to a higher one, and
led by love to anything; as the manner is of females,
when they know what is the best for them. Then Winnie
trod lightly upon the straw, because it had soft muck
under it, and her delicate feet came back again.
'Up for it still, boy, be ye?' Tom Faggus stopped, and
the mare stopped there; and they looked at me
provokingly.
'Is she able to leap, sir? There is good take-off on
this side of the brook.'
Mr. Faggus laughed very quietly, turning round to
Winnie so that she might enter into it. And she, for
her part, seemed to know exactly where the fun lay.
'Good tumble-off, you mean, my boy. Well, there can be
small harm to thee. I am akin to thy family, and know
the substance of their skulls.'
'Let me get up,' said I, waxing wroth, for reasons I
cannot tell you, because they are too manifold; 'take
off your saddle-bag things. I will try not to squeeze
her ribs in, unless she plays nonsense with me.'
Then Mr. Faggus was up on his mettle, at this proud
speech of mine; and John Fry was running up all the
while, and Bill Dadds, and half a dozen. Tom Faggus
gave one glance around, and then dropped all regard for
me. The high repute of his mare was at stake, and what
was my life compared to it? Through my defiance, and
stupid ways, here was I in a duello, and my legs not
come to their strength yet, and my arms as limp as a
herring.
Something of this occurred to him even in his wrath
with me, for he spoke very softly to the filly, who now
could scarce subdue herself; but she drew in her
nostrils, and breathed to his breath and did all she
could to answer him.
'Not too hard, my dear,' he said: 'led him gently down
on the mixen. That will be quite enough.' Then he
turned the saddle off, and I was up in a moment. She
began at first so easily, and pricked her ears so
lovingly, and minced about as if pleased to find so
light a weight upon her, that I thought she knew I
could ride a little, and feared to show any capers.
'Gee wug, Polly!' cried I, for all the men were now
looking on, being then at the leaving-off time: 'Gee
wug, Polly, and show what thou be'est made of.' With
that I plugged my heels into her, and Billy Dadds flung
his hat up.
Nevertheless, she outraged not, though her eyes were
frightening Annie, and John Fry took a pick to keep him
safe; but she curbed to and fro with her strong
forearms rising like springs ingathered, waiting and
quivering grievously, and beginning to sweat about it.
Then her master gave a shrill clear whistle, when her
ears were bent towards him, and I felt her form beneath
me gathering up like whalebone, and her hind-legs
coming under her, and I knew that I was in for it.
First she reared upright in the air, and struck me full
on the nose with her comb, till I bled worse than Robin
Snell made me; and then down with her fore-feet deep in
the straw, and her hind-feet going to heaven. Finding
me stick to her still like wax, for my mettle was up as
hers was, away she flew with me swifter than ever I
went before, or since, I trow. She drove full-head at
the cobwall--'Oh, Jack, slip off,' screamed Annie--then
she turned like light, when I thought to crush her, and
ground my left knee against it. 'Mux me,' I cried, for
my breeches were broken, and short words went the
furthest--'if you kill me, you shall die with me.' Then
she took the court-yard gate at a leap, knocking my
words between my teeth, and then right over a quick set
hedge, as if the sky were a breath to her; and away for
the water-meadows, while I lay on her neck like a child
at the breast and wished I had never been born.
Straight away, all in the front of the wind, and
scattering clouds around her, all I knew of the speed
we made was the frightful flash of her shoulders, and
her mane like trees in a tempest. I felt the earth
under us rushing away, and the air left far behind us,
and my breath came and went, and I prayed to God, and
was sorry to be so late of it.
All the long swift while, without power of thought, I
clung to her crest and shoulders, and dug my nails into
her creases, and my toes into her flank-part, and was
proud of holding on so long, though sure of being
beaten. Then in her fury at feeling me still, she
rushed at another device for it, and leaped the wide
water-trough sideways across, to and fro, till no
breath was left in me. The hazel-boughs took me too
hard in the face, and the tall dog-briers got hold of
me, and the ache of my back was like crimping a fish;
till I longed to give up, thoroughly beaten, and lie
there and die in the cresses. But there came a shrill
whistle from up the home-hill, where the people had
hurried to watch us; and the mare stopped as if with a
bullet, then set off for home with the speed of a
swallow, and going as smoothly and silently. I never
had dreamed of such delicate motion, fluent, and
graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting over
the flowers, but swift as the summer lightning. I sat
up again, but my strength was all spent, and no time
left to recover it, and though she rose at our gate
like a bird, I tumbled off into the mixen.
CHAPTER XI
TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER
'Well done, lad,' Mr. Faggus said good naturedly; for
all were now gathered round me, as I rose from the
ground, somewhat tottering, and miry, and crest-fallen,
but otherwise none the worse (having fallen upon my
head, which is of uncommon substance); nevertheless
John Fry was laughing, so that I longed to clout his
ears for him; 'Not at all bad work, my boy; we may
teach you to ride by-and-by, I see; I thought not to
see you stick on so long--'
'I should have stuck on much longer, sir, if her sides
had not been wet. She was so slippery--'-
'Boy, thou art right. She hath given many the slip.
Ha, ha! Vex not, Jack, that I laugh at thee. She is
like a sweetheart to me, and better, than any of them
be. It would have gone to my heart if thou hadst
conquered. None but I can ride my Winnie mare.'
'Foul shame to thee then, Tom Faggus,' cried mother,
coming up suddenly, and speaking so that all were
amazed, having never seen her wrathful; 'to put my boy,
my boy, across her, as if his life were no more than
thine! The only son of his father, an honest man, and a
quiet man, not a roystering drunken robber! A man would
have taken thy mad horse and thee, and flung them both
into horse-pond--ay, and what's more, I'll have it done
now, if a hair of his head is injured. Oh, my boy, my
boy! What could I do without thee? Put up the other
arm, Johnny.' All the time mother was scolding so, she
was feeling me, and wiping me; while Faggus tried to
look greatly ashamed, having sense of the ways of
women.
'Only look at his jacket, mother!' cried Annie; 'and a
shillingsworth gone from his small-clothes!'
'What care I for his clothes, thou goose? Take that,
and heed thine own a bit.' And mother gave Annie a slap
which sent her swinging up against Mr. Faggus, and he
caught her, and kissed and protected her, and she
looked at him very nicely, with great tears in her soft
blue eyes. 'Oh, fie upon thee, fie upon thee!' cried
mother (being yet more vexed with him, because she had
beaten Annie); 'after all we have done for thee, and
saved thy worthless neck--and to try to kill my son for
me! Never more shall horse of thine enter stable here,
since these be thy returns to me. Small thanks to you,
John Fry, I say, and you Bill Dadds, and you Jem
Slocomb, and all the rest of your coward lot; much you
care for your master's son! Afraid of that ugly beast
yourselves, and you put a boy just breeched upon him!'
'Wull, missus, what could us do?' began John; 'Jan wudd
goo, now wudd't her, Jem? And how was us--'
'Jan indeed! Master John, if you please, to a lad of
his years and stature. And now, Tom Faggus, be off, if
you please, and think yourself lucky to go so; and if
ever that horse comes into our yard, I'll hamstring him
myself if none of my cowards dare do it.'
Everybody looked at mother, to hear her talk like that,
knowing how quiet she was day by day and how pleasant
to be cheated. And the men began to shoulder their
shovels, both so as to be away from her, and to go and
tell their wives of it. Winnie too was looking at her,
being pointed at so much, and wondering if she had done
amiss. And then she came to me, and trembled, and
stooped her head, and asked my pardon, if she had been
too proud with me.
'Winnie shall stop here to-night,' said I, for Tom
Faggus still said never a word all the while; but began
to buckle his things on, for he knew that women are to
be met with wool, as the cannon-balls were at the
siege of Tiverton Castle; 'mother, I tell you, Winnie
shall stop; else I will go away with her, I never knew
what it was, till now, to ride a horse worth riding.'
'Young man,' said Tom Faggus, still preparing sternly
to depart, 'you know more about a horse than any man on
Exmoor. Your mother may well be proud of you, but she
need have had no fear. As if I, Tom Faggus, your
father's cousin--and the only thing I am proud
of--would ever have let you mount my mare, which dukes
and princes have vainly sought, except for the courage
in your eyes, and the look of your father about you. I
knew you could ride when I saw you, and rarely you have
conquered. But women don't understand us. Good-bye,
John; I am proud of you, and I hoped to have done you
pleasure. And indeed I came full of some courtly
tales, that would have made your hair stand up. But
though not a crust have I tasted since this time
yesterday, having given my meat to a widow, I will go
and starve on the moor far sooner than eat the best
supper that ever was cooked, in a place that has
forgotten me.' With that he fetched a heavy sigh, as
if it had been for my father; and feebly got upon
Winnie's back, and she came to say farewell to me. He
lifted his hat to my mother, with a glance of sorrow,
but never a word; and to me he said, 'Open the gate,
Cousin John, if you please. You have beaten her so,
that she cannot leap it, poor thing.'
But before he was truly gone out of our yard, my mother
came softly after him, with her afternoon apron across
her eyes, and one hand ready to offer him.
Nevertheless, he made as if he had not seen her, though
he let his horse go slowly.
'Stop, Cousin Tom,' my mother said, 'a word with you,
before you go.'
'Why, bless my heart!' Tom Faggus cried, with the form
of his countenance so changed, that I verily thought
another man must have leaped into his clothes--'do I
see my Cousin Sarah? I thought every one was ashamed
of me, and afraid to offer me shelter, since I lost my
best cousin, John Ridd. 'Come here,' he used to say,
'Tom, come here, when you are worried, and my wife
shall take good care of you.' 'Yes, dear John,' I used
to answer, 'I know she promised my mother so; but
people have taken to think against me, and so might
Cousin Sarah.' Ah, he was a man, a man! If you only
heard how he answered me. But let that go, I am
nothing now, since the day I lost Cousin Ridd.' And
with that he began to push on again; but mother would
not have it so.
'Oh, Tom, that was a loss indeed. And I am nothing
either. And you should try to allow for me; though I
never found any one that did.' And mother began to cry,
though father had been dead so long; and I looked on
with a stupid surprise, having stopped from crying long
ago.
'I can tell you one that will,' cried Tom, jumping off
Winnie, in a trice, and looking kindly at mother; 'I
can allow for you, Cousin Sarah, in everything but one.
I am in some ways a bad man myself; but I know the
value of a good one; and if you gave me orders, by
God--' And he shook his fists towards Bagworthy Wood,
just heaving up black in the sundown.
'Hush, Tom, hush, for God's sake!' And mother meant
me, without pointing at me; at least I thought she did.
For she ever had weaned me from thoughts of revenge,
and even from longings for judgment. 'God knows best,
boy,' she used to say, 'let us wait His time, without
wishing it.' And so, to tell the truth, I did; partly
through her teaching, and partly through my own mild
temper, and my knowledge that father, after all, was
killed because he had thrashed them.
'Good-night, Cousin Sarah, good-night, Cousin Jack,'
cried Tom, taking to the mare again; 'many a mile I
have to ride, and not a bit inside of me. No food or
shelter this side of Exeford, and the night will be
black as pitch, I trow. But it serves me right for
indulging the lad, being taken with his looks so.'
'Cousin Tom,' said mother, and trying to get so that
Annie and I could not hear her; 'it would be a sad and
unkinlike thing for you to despise our dwelling-house.
We cannot entertain you, as the lordly inns on the road
do; and we have small change of victuals. But the men
will go home, being Saturday; and so you will have the
fireside all to yourself and the children. There are
some few collops of red deer's flesh, and a ham just
down from the chimney, and some dried salmon from
Lynmouth weir, and cold roast-pig, and some oysters.
And if none of those be to your liking, we could roast
two woodcocks in half an hour, and Annie would make the
toast for them. And the good folk made some mistake
last week, going up the country, and left a keg of old
Holland cordial in the coving of the wood-rick, having
borrowed our Smiler, without asking leave. I fear
there is something unrighteous about it. But what can
a poor widow do? John Fry would have taken it, but for
our Jack. Our Jack was a little too sharp for him.'
Ay, that I was; John Fry had got it, like a billet
under his apron, going away in the gray of the morning,
as if to kindle his fireplace. 'Why, John,' I said,
'what a heavy log! Let me have one end of it.'
'Thank'e, Jan, no need of thiccy,' he answered, turning
his back to me; 'waife wanteth a log as will last all
day, to kape the crock a zimmerin.' And he banged his
gate upon my heels to make me stop and rub them. 'Why,
John,' said I, 'you'm got a log with round holes in the
end of it. Who has been cutting gun-wads? Just lift
your apron, or I will.'
But, to return to Tom Faggus--he stopped to sup that
night with us, and took a little of everything; a few
oysters first, and then dried salmon, and then ham and
eggs, done in small curled rashers, and then a few
collops of venison toasted, and next to that a little
cold roast-pig, and a woodcock on toast to finish with,
before the Scheidam and hot water. And having changed
his wet things first, he seemed to be in fair appetite,
and praised Annie's cooking mightily, with a kind of
noise like a smack of his lips, and a rubbing of his
hands together, whenever he could spare them.
He had gotten John Fry's best small-clothes on, for he
said he was not good enough to go into my father's
(which mother kept to look at), nor man enough to fill
them. And in truth my mother was very glad that he
refused, when I offered them. But John was over-proud
to have it in his power to say that such a famous man
had ever dwelt in any clothes of his; and afterwards he
made show of them. For Mr. Faggus's glory, then,
though not so great as now it is, was spreading very
fast indeed all about our neighbourhood, and even as
far as Bridgewater.
Tom Faggus was a jovial soul, if ever there has been
one, not making bones of little things, nor caring to
seek evil. There was about him such a love of genuine
human nature, that if a traveller said a good thing, he
would give him back his purse again. It is true that
he took people's money more by force than fraud; and
the law (being used to the inverse method) was bitterly
moved against him, although he could quote precedent.
These things I do not understand; having seen so much
of robbery (some legal, some illegal), that I scarcely
know, as here we say, one crow's foot from the other.
It is beyond me and above me, to discuss these
subjects; and in truth I love the law right well, when
it doth support me, and when I can lay it down to my
liking, with prejudice to nobody. Loyal, too, to the
King am I, as behoves churchwarden; and ready to make
the best of him, as he generally requires. But after
all, I could not see (until I grew much older, and came
to have some property) why Tom Faggus, working hard,
was called a robber and felon of great; while the King,
doing nothing at all (as became his dignity), was
liege-lord, and paramount owner; with everybody to
thank him kindly for accepting tribute.
For the present, however, I learned nothing more as to
what our cousin's profession was; only that mother
seemed frightened, and whispered to him now and then
not to talk of something, because of the children being
there; whereupon he always nodded with a sage
expression, and applied himself to hollands.
'Now let us go and see Winnie, Jack,' he said to me
after supper; 'for the most part I feed her before
myself; but she was so hot from the way you drove her.
Now she must be grieving for me, and I never let her
grieve long.'
I was too glad to go with him, and Annie came slyly
after us. The filly was walking to and fro on the
naked floor of the stable (for he would not let her
have any straw, until he should make a bed for her),
and without so much as a headstall on, for he would not
have her fastened. 'Do you take my mare for a dog?' he
had said when John Fry brought him a halter. And now
she ran to him like a child, and her great eyes shone
at the lanthorn.
'Hit me, Jack, and see what she will do. I will not
let her hurt thee.' He was rubbing her ears all the
time he spoke, and she was leaning against him. Then I
made believe to strike him, and in a moment she caught
me by the waistband, and lifted me clean from the
ground, and was casting me down to trample upon me,
when he stopped her suddenly.
'What think you of that, boy? Have you horse or dog
that would do that for you? Ay, and more than that she
will do. If I were to whistle, by-and-by, in the tone
that tells my danger, she would break this stable-door
down, and rush into the room to me. Nothing will keep
her from me then, stone-wal1 or church-tower. Ah,
Winnie, Winnie, you little witch, we shall die
together.'
Then he turned away with a joke, and began to feed her
nicely, for she was very dainty. Not a husk of oat
would she touch that had been under the breath of
another horse, however hungry she might be. And with
her oats he mixed some powder, fetching it from his
saddle-bags. What this was I could not guess, neither
would he tell me, but laughed and called it
'star-shavings.' He watched her eat every morsel of it,
with two or three drinks of pure water, ministered
between whiles; and then he made her bed in a form I
had never seen before, and so we said 'Good-night' to
her.
Afterwards by the fireside he kept us very merry,
sitting in the great chimney-corner, and making us play
games with him. And all the while he was smoking
tobacco in a manner I never had seen before, not using
any pipe for it, but having it rolled in little sticks
about as long as my finger, blunt at one end and sharp
at the other. The sharp end he would put in his mouth,
and lay a brand of wood to the other, and then draw a
white cloud of curling smoke, and we never tired of
watching him. I wanted him to let me do it, but he
said, 'No, my son; it is not meant for boys.' Then
Annie put up her lips and asked, with both hands on his
knees (for she had taken to him wonderfully), 'Is it
meant for girls then cousin Tom?' But she had better
not have asked, for he gave it her to try, and she shut
both eyes, and sucked at it. One breath, however, was
quite enough, for it made her cough so violently that
Lizzie and I must thump her back until she was almost
crying. To atone for that, cousin Tom set to, and told
us whole pages of stories, not about his own doings at
all, but strangely enough they seemed to concern almost
every one else we had ever heard of. Without halting
once for a word or a deed, his tales flowed onward as
freely and brightly as the flames of the wood up the
chimney, and with no smaller variety. For he spoke
with the voices of twenty people, giving each person
the proper manner, and the proper place to speak from;
so that Annie and Lizzie ran all about, and searched
the clock and the linen-press. And he changed his face
every moment so, and with such power of mimicry that
without so much as a smile of his own, he made even
mother laugh so that she broke her new tenpenny
waistband; and as for us children, we rolled on the
floor, and Betty Muxworthy roared in the wash-up.
CHAPTER XII
A MAN JUSTLY POPULAR
Now although Mr. Faggus was so clever, and generous,
and celebrated, I know not whether, upon the whole, we
were rather proud of him as a member of our family, or
inclined to be ashamed of him. And indeed I think that
the sway of the balance hung upon the company we were
in. For instance, with the boys at Brendon--for there
is no village at Oare--I was exceeding proud to talk of
him, and would freely brag of my Cousin Tom. But with
the rich parsons of the neighbourhood, or the justices
(who came round now and then, and were glad to ride up
to a warm farm-house), or even the well-to-do tradesmen
of Porlock--in a word, any settled power, which was
afraid of losing things--with all of them we were very
shy of claiming our kinship to that great outlaw.
And sure, I should pity, as well as condemn him though
our ways in the world were so different, knowing as I
do his story; which knowledge, methinks, would often
lead us to let alone God's prerogative--judgment, and
hold by man's privilege--pity. Not that I would find
excuse for Tom's downright dishonesty, which was beyond
doubt a disgrace to him, and no credit to his kinsfolk;
only that it came about without his meaning any harm or
seeing how he took to wrong; yet gradually knowing it.
And now, to save any further trouble, and to meet those
who disparage him (without allowance for the time or
the crosses laid upon him), I will tell the history of
him, just as if he were not my cousin, and hoping to be
heeded. And I defy any man to say that a word of this
is either false, or in any way coloured by family.
Much cause he had to be harsh with the world; and yet
all acknowledged him very pleasant, when a man gave up
his money. And often and often he paid the toll for
the carriage coming after him, because he had emptied
their pockets, and would not add inconvenience. By
trade he had been a blacksmith, in the town of
Northmolton, in Devonshire, a rough rude place at the
end of Exmoor, so that many people marvelled if such a
man was bred there. Not only could he read and write,
but he had solid substance; a piece of land worth a
hundred pounds, and right of common for two hundred
sheep, and a score and a half of beasts, lifting up or
lying down. And being left an orphan (with all these
cares upon him) he began to work right early, and made
such a fame at the shoeing of horses, that the farriers
of Barum were like to lose their custom. And indeed he
won a golden Jacobus for the best-shod nag in the north
of Devon, and some say that he never was forgiven.
As to that, I know no more, except that men are
jealous. But whether it were that, or not, he fell
into bitter trouble within a month of his victory; when
his trade was growing upon him, and his sweetheart
ready to marry him. For he loved a maid of Southmolton
(a currier's daughter I think she was, and her name was
Betsy Paramore), and her father had given consent; and
Tom Faggus, wishing to look his best, and be clean of
course, had a tailor at work upstairs for him, who had
come all the way from Exeter. And Betsy's things were
ready too--for which they accused him afterwards, as if
he could help that--when suddenly, like a thunderbolt,
a lawyer's writ fell upon him.
This was the beginning of a law-suit with Sir Robert
Bampfylde, a gentleman of the neighbourhood, who tried
to oust him from his common, and drove his cattle and
harassed them. And by that suit of law poor Tom was
ruined altogether, for Sir Robert could pay for much
swearing; and then all his goods and his farm were sold
up, and even his smithery taken. But he saddled his
horse, before they could catch him, and rode away to
Southmolton, looking more like a madman than a good
farrier, as the people said who saw him. But when he
arrived there, instead of comfort, they showed him the
face of the door alone; for the news of his loss was
before him, and Master Paramore was a sound, prudent
man, and a high member of the town council. It is said
that they even gave him notice to pay for Betsy's
wedding-clothes, now that he was too poor to marry her.
This may be false, and indeed I doubt it; in the first
place, because Southmolton is a busy place for talking;
and in the next, that I do not think the action would
have lain at law, especially as the maid lost nothing,
but used it all for her wedding next month with Dick
Vellacott, of Mockham.
All this was very sore upon Tom; and he took it to
heart so grievously, that he said, as a better man
might have said, being loose of mind and property, 'The
world hath preyed on me like a wolf. God help me now
to prey on the world.'
And in sooth it did seem, for a while, as if Providence
were with him; for he took rare toll on the highway,
and his name was soon as good as gold anywhere this
side of Bristowe. He studied his business by night and
by day, with three horses all in hard work, until he
had made a fine reputation; and then it was competent
to him to rest, and he had plenty left for charity.
And I ought to say for society too, for he truly loved
high society, treating squires and noblemen (who much
affected his company) to the very best fare of the
hostel. And they say that once the King's
Justitiaries, being upon circuit, accepted his
invitation, declaring merrily that if never true bill
had been found against him, mine host should now be
qualified to draw one. And so the landlords did; and
he always paid them handsomely, so that all of them
were kind to him, and contended for his visits. Let it
be known in any township that Mr. Faggus was taking his
leisure at the inn, and straightway all the men flocked
thither to drink his health without outlay, and all the
women to admire him; while the children were set at the
cross-roads to give warning of any officers. One of
his earliest meetings was with Sir Robert Bampfylde
himself, who was riding along the Barum road with only
one serving-man after him. Tom Faggus put a pistol to
his head, being then obliged to be violent, through
want of reputation; while the serving-man pretended to
be along way round the corner. Then the baronet
pulled out his purse, quite trembling in the hurry of
his politeness. Tom took the purse, and his ring, and
time-piece, and then handed them back with a very low
bow, saying that it was against all usage for him to
rob a robber. Then he turned to the unfaithful knave,
and trounced him right well for his cowardice, and
stripped him of all his property.
But now Mr. Faggus kept only one horse, lest the
Government should steal them; and that one was the
young mare Winnie. How he came by her he never would
tell, but I think that she was presented to him by a
certain Colonel, a lover of sport, and very clever in
horseflesh, whose life Tom had saved from some
gamblers. When I have added that Faggus as yet had
never been guilty of bloodshed (for his eyes, and the
click of his pistol at first, and now his high
reputation made all his wishes respected), and that he
never robbed a poor man, neither insulted a woman, but
was very good to the Church, and of hot patriotic
opinions, and full of jest and jollity, I have said as
much as is fair for him, and shown why he was so
popular. Everybody cursed the Doones, who lived apart
disdainfully. But all good people liked Mr.
Faggus--when he had not robbed them--and many a poor
sick man or woman blessed him for other people's money;
and all the hostlers, stable-boys, and tapsters
entirely worshipped him.
I have been rather long, and perhaps tedious, in my
account of him, lest at any time hereafter his
character should be misunderstood, and his good name
disparaged; whereas he was my second cousin, and the
lover of my--But let that bide. 'Tis a melancholy
story.
He came again about three months afterwards, in the
beginning of the spring-time, and brought me a
beautiful new carbine, having learned my love of such
things, and my great desire to shoot straight. But
mother would not let me have the gun, until he averred
upon his honour that he had bought it honestly. And so
he had, no doubt, so far as it is honest to buy with
money acquired rampantly. Scarce could I stop to make
my bullets in the mould which came along with it, but
must be off to the Quarry Hill, and new target I had
made there. And he taught me then how to ride bright
Winnie, who was grown since I had seen her, but
remembered me most kindly. After making much of Annie,
who had a wondrous liking for him--and he said he was
her godfather, but God knows how he could have been,
unless they confirmed him precociously--away he went,
and young Winnie's sides shone like a cherry by
candlelight.
Now I feel that of those boyish days I have little more
to tell, because everything went quietly, as the world
for the most part does with us. I began to work at the
farm in earnest, and tried to help my mother, and when
I remembered Lorna Doone, it seemed no more than the
thought of a dream, which I could hardly call to mind.
Now who cares to know how many bushels of wheat we grew
to the acre, or how the cattle milched till we ate
them, or what the turn of the seasons was? But my
stupid self seemed like to be the biggest of all the
cattle; for having much to look after the sheep, and
being always in kind appetite, I grew four inches
longer in every year of my farming, and a matter of two
inches wider; until there was no man of my size to be
seen elsewhere upon Exmoor. Let that pass: what odds
to any how tall or wide I be? There is no Doone's door
at Plover's Barrows and if there were I could never go
through it. They vexed me so much about my size, long
before I had completed it, girding at me with paltry
jokes whose wit was good only to stay at home, that I
grew shame-faced about the matter, and feared to
encounter a looking-glass. But mother was very proud,
and said she never could have too much of me.
The worst of all to make me ashamed of bearing my head
so high--a thing I saw no way to help, for I never
could hang my chin down, and my back was like a
gatepost whenever I tried to bend it--the worst of all
was our little Eliza, who never could come to a size
herself, though she had the wine from the Sacrament at
Easter and Allhallowmas, only to be small and skinny,
sharp, and clever crookedly. Not that her body was out
of the straight (being too small for that perhaps), but
that her wit was full of corners, jagged, and strange,
and uncomfortable. You never could tell what she might
say next; and I like not that kind of women. Now God
forgive me for talking so of my own father's daughter,
and so much the more by reason that my father could not
help it. The right way is to face the matter, and then
be sorry for every one. My mother fell grievously on a
slide, which John Fry had made nigh the apple-room
door, and hidden with straw from the stable, to cover
his own great idleness. My father laid John's nose on
the ice, and kept him warm in spite of it; but it was
too late for Eliza. She was born next day with more
mind than body--the worst thing that can befall a man.
But Annie, my other sister, was now a fine fair girl,
beautiful to behold. I could look at her by the
fireside, for an hour together, when I was not too
sleepy, and think of my dear father. And she would do
the same thing by me, only wait the between of the
blazes. Her hair was done up in a knot behind, but
some would fall over her shoulders; and the dancing of
the light was sweet to see through a man's eyelashes.
There never was a face that showed the light or the
shadow of feeling, as if the heart were sun to it, more
than our dear Annie's did. To look at her carefully,
you might think that she was not dwelling on anything;
and then she would know you were looking at her, and
those eyes would tell all about it. God knows that I
try to be simple enough, to keep to His meaning in me,
and not make the worst of His children. Yet often have
I been put to shame, and ready to bite my tongue off,
after speaking amiss of anybody, and letting out my
littleness, when suddenly mine eyes have met the pure
soft gaze of Annie.
As for the Doones, they were thriving still, and no one
to come against them; except indeed by word of mouth,
to which they lent no heed whatever. Complaints were
made from time to time, both in high and low quarters
(as the rank might be of the people robbed), and once
or twice in the highest of all, to wit, the King
himself. But His Majesty made a good joke about it
(not meaning any harm, I doubt), and was so much
pleased with himself thereupon, that he quite forgave
the mischief. Moreover, the main authorities were a
long way off; and the Chancellor had no cattle on
Exmoor; and as for my lord the Chief Justice, some
rogue had taken his silver spoons; whereupon his
lordship swore that never another man would he hang
until he had that one by the neck. Therefore the
Doones went on as they listed, and none saw fit to
meddle with them. For the only man who would have
dared to come to close quarters with them, that is to
say Tom Faggus, himself was a quarry for the law, if
ever it should be unhooded. Moreover, he had
transferred his business to the neighbourhood of
Wantage, in the county of Berks, where he found the
climate drier, also good downs and commons excellent
for galloping, and richer yeomen than ours be, and
better roads to rob them on.
Some folk, who had wiser attended to their own affairs,
said that I (being sizeable now, and able to shoot not
badly) ought to do something against those Doones, and
show what I was made of. But for a time I was very
bashful, shaking when called upon suddenly, and
blushing as deep as a maiden; for my strength was not
come upon me, and mayhap I had grown in front of it.
And again, though I loved my father still, and would
fire at a word about him, I saw not how it would do him
good for me to harm his injurers. Some races are of
revengeful kind, and will for years pursue their wrong,
and sacrifice this world and the next for a moment's
foul satisfaction, but methinks this comes of some
black blood, perverted and never purified. And I doubt
but men of true English birth are stouter than so to be
twisted, though some of the women may take that turn,
if their own life runs unkindly.
Let that pass--I am never good at talking of things
beyond me. All I know is, that if I had met the Doone
who had killed my father, I would gladly have thrashed
him black and blue, supposing I were able; but would
never have fired a gun at him, unless he began that
game with me, or fell upon more of my family, or were
violent among women. And to do them justice, my mother
and Annie were equally kind and gentle, but Eliza would
flame and grow white with contempt, and not trust
herself to speak to us.
Now a strange thing came to pass that winter, when I
was twenty-one years old, a very strange thing, which
affrighted the rest, and made me feel uncomfortable.
Not that there was anything in it, to do harm to any
one, only that none could explain it, except by
attributing it to the devil. The weather was very mild
and open, and scarcely any snow fell; at any rate, none
lay on the ground, even for an hour, in the highest
part of Exmoor; a thing which I knew not before nor
since, as long as I can remember. But the nights were
wonderfully dark, as though with no stars in the
heaven; and all day long the mists were rolling upon
the hills and down them, as if the whole land were a
wash-house. The moorland was full of snipes and teal,
and curlews flying and crying, and lapwings flapping
heavily, and ravens hovering round dead sheep; yet no
redshanks nor dottrell, and scarce any golden plovers
(of which we have great store generally) but vast
lonely birds, that cried at night, and moved the whole
air with their pinions; yet no man ever saw them. It
was dismal as well as dangerous now for any man to go
fowling (which of late I loved much in the winter)
because the fog would come down so thick that the pan
of the gun was reeking, and the fowl out of sight ere
the powder kindled, and then the sound of the piece was
so dead, that the shooter feared harm, and glanced over
his shoulder. But the danger of course was far less in
this than in losing of the track, and falling into the
mires, or over the brim of a precipice.
Nevertheless, I must needs go out, being young and very
stupid, and feared of being afraid; a fear which a wise
man has long cast by, having learned of the manifold
dangers which ever and ever encompass us. And beside
this folly and wildness of youth, perchance there was
something, I know not what, of the joy we have in
uncertainty. Mother, in fear of my missing
home--though for that matter, I could smell supper,
when hungry, through a hundred land-yards of fog--my
dear mother, who thought of me ten times for one
thought about herself, gave orders to ring the great
sheep-bell, which hung above the pigeon-cote, every
ten minutes of the day, and the sound came through the
plaits of fog, and I was vexed about it, like the
letters of a copy-book. It reminded me, too, of
Blundell's bell, and the grief to go into school again.
But during those two months of fog (for we had it all
the winter), the saddest and the heaviest thing was to
stand beside the sea. To be upon the beach yourself,
and see the long waves coming in; to know that they are
long waves, but only see a piece of them; and to hear
them lifting roundly, swelling over smooth green rocks,
plashing down in the hollow corners, but bearing on all
the same as ever, soft and sleek and sorrowful, till
their little noise is over.
One old man who lived at Lynmouth, seeking to be buried
there, having been more than half over the world,
though shy to speak about it, and fain to come home to
his birthplace, this old Will Watcombe (who dwelt by
the water) said that our strange winter arose from a
thing he called the 'Gulf-stream', rushing up Channel
suddenly. He said it was hot water, almost fit for a
man to shave with, and it threw all our cold water out,
and ruined the fish and the spawning-time, and a cold
spring would come after it. I was fond of going to
Lynmouth on Sunday to hear this old man talk, for
sometimes he would discourse with me, when nobody else
could move him. He told me that this powerful flood
set in upon our west so hard sometimes once in ten
years, and sometimes not for fifty, and the Lord only
knew the sense of it; but that when it came, therewith
came warmth and clouds, and fog, and moisture, and
nuts, and fruit, and even shells; and all the tides
were thrown abroad. As for nuts he winked awhile, and
chewed a piece of tobacco; yet did I not comprehend
him. Only afterwards I heard that nuts with liquid
kernels came, travelling on the Gulf stream; for never
before was known so much foreign cordial landed upon
our coast, floating ashore by mistake in the fog, and
(what with the tossing and the mist) too much astray to
learn its duty.
Folk, who are ever too prone to talk, said that Will
Watcombe himself knew better than anybody else about
this drift of the Gulf-stream, and the places where it
would come ashore, and the caves that took the
in-draught. But De Whichehalse, our great magistrate,
certified that there was no proof of unlawful
importation; neither good cause to suspect it, at a
time of Christian charity. And we knew that it was a
foul thing for some quarrymen to say that night after
night they had been digging a new cellar at Ley Manor
to hold the little marks of respect found in the
caverns at high-water weed. Let that be, it is none of
my business to speak evil of dignities; duly we common
people joked of the 'Gulp-stream,' as we called it.
But the thing which astonished and frightened us so,
was not, I do assure you, the landing of foreign
spirits, nor the loom of a lugger at twilight in the
gloom of the winter moonrise. That which made as
crouch in by the fire, or draw the bed-clothes over us,
and try to think of something else, was a strange
mysterious sound.
At grey of night, when the sun was gone, and no red in
the west remained, neither were stars forthcoming,
suddenly a wailing voice rose along the valleys, and a
sound in the air, as of people running. It mattered
not whether you stood on the moor, or crouched behind
rocks away from it, or down among reedy places; all as
one the sound would come, now from the heart of the
earth beneath, now overhead bearing down on you. And
then there was rushing of something by, and melancholy
laughter, and the hair of a man would stand on end
before he could reason properly.
God, in His mercy, knows that I am stupid enough for
any man, and very slow of impression, nor ever could
bring myself to believe that our Father would let the
evil one get the upper hand of us. But when I had
heard that sound three times, in the lonely gloom of
the evening fog, and the cold that followed the lines
of air, I was loath to go abroad by night, even so far
as the stables, and loved the light of a candle more,
and the glow of a fire with company.
There were many stories about it, of course, all over
the breadth of the moorland. But those who had heard
it most often declared that it must be the wail of a
woman's voice, and the rustle of robes fleeing
horribly, and fiends in the fog going after her. To
that, however, I paid no heed, when anybody was with
me; only we drew more close together, and barred the
doors at sunset.
CHAPTER XIII
MASTER HUCKABACK COMES IN
Mr. Reuben Huckaback, whom many good folk in Dulverton
will remember long after my time, was my mother's
uncle, being indeed her mother's brother. He owned the
very best shop in the town, and did a fine trade in
soft ware, especially when the pack-horses came safely
in at Christmas-time. And we being now his only
kindred (except indeed his granddaughter, little Ruth
Huckaback, of whom no one took any heed), mother beheld
it a Christian duty to keep as well as could be with
him, both for love of a nice old man, and for the sake
of her children. And truly, the Dulverton people said
that he was the richest man in their town, and could
buy up half the county armigers; 'ay, and if it came to
that, they would like to see any man, at Bampton, or at
Wivelscombe, and you might say almost Taunton, who
could put down golden Jacobus and Carolus against him.
Now this old gentleman--so they called him, according
to his money; and I have seen many worse ones, more
violent and less wealthy--he must needs come away that
time to spend the New Year-tide with us; not that he
wanted to do it (for he hated country-life), but
because my mother pressing, as mothers will do to a
good bag of gold, had wrung a promise from him; and the
only boast of his life was that never yet had he broken
his word, at least since he opened business.
Now it pleased God that Christmas-time (in spite of all
the fogs) to send safe home to Dulverton, and what was
more, with their loads quite safe, a goodly string of
packhorses. Nearly half of their charge was for Uncle
Reuben, and he knew how to make the most of it. Then
having balanced his debits and credits, and set the
writs running against defaulters, as behoves a good
Christian at Christmas-tide, he saddled his horse, and
rode off towards Oare, with a good stout coat upon him,
and leaving Ruth and his head man plenty to do, and
little to eat, until they should see him again.
It had been settled between us that we should expect
him soon after noon on the last day of December. For
the Doones being lazy and fond of bed, as the manner is
of dishonest folk, the surest way to escape them was to
travel before they were up and about, to-wit, in the
forenoon of the day. But herein we reckoned without
our host: for being in high festivity, as became good
Papists, the robbers were too lazy, it seems, to take
the trouble of going to bed; and forth they rode on the
Old Year-morning, not with any view of business, but
purely in search of mischief.
We had put off our dinner till one o'clock (which to me
was a sad foregoing), and there was to be a brave
supper at six of the clock, upon New Year's-eve; and
the singers to come with their lanthorns, and do it
outside the parlour-window, and then have hot cup till
their heads should go round, after making away with the
victuals. For although there was nobody now in our
family to be churchwarden of Oare, it was well admitted
that we were the people entitled alone to that dignity;
and though Nicholas Snowe was in office by name, he
managed it only by mother's advice; and a pretty mess
he made of it, so that every one longed for a Ridd
again, soon as ever I should be old enough. This
Nicholas Snowe was to come in the evening, with his
three tall comely daughters, strapping girls, and well
skilled in the dairy; and the story was all over the
parish, on a stupid conceit of John Fry's, that I
should have been in love with all three, if there had
been but one of them. These Snowes were to come, and
come they did, partly because Mr. Huckaback liked to
see fine young maidens, and partly because none but
Nicholas Snowe could smoke a pipe now all around our
parts, except of the very high people, whom we durst
never invite. And Uncle Ben, as we all knew well, was
a great hand at his pipe, and would sit for hours over
it, in our warm chimney-corner, and never want to say
a word, unless it were inside him; only he liked to
have somebody there over against him smoking.
Now when I came in, before one o'clock, after seeing to
the cattle--for the day was thicker than ever, and we
must keep the cattle close at home, if we wished to see
any more of them--I fully expected to find Uncle Ben
sitting in the fireplace, lifting one cover and then
another, as his favourite manner was, and making sweet
mouths over them; for he loved our bacon rarely, and
they had no good leeks at Dulverton; and he was a man
who always would see his business done himself. But
there instead of my finding him with his quaint dry
face pulled out at me, and then shut up sharp not to be
cheated--who should run out but Betty Muxworthy, and
poke me with a saucepan lid.
'Get out of that now, Betty,' I said in my politest
manner, for really Betty was now become a great
domestic evil. She would have her own way so, and of
all things the most distressful was for a man to try to
reason.
'Zider-press,' cried Betty again, for she thought it a
fine joke to call me that, because of my size, and my
hatred of it; 'here be a rare get up, anyhow.'
'A rare good dinner, you mean, Betty. Well, and I have
a rare good appetite.' With that I wanted to go and
smell it, and not to stop for Betty.
'Troost thee for thiccy, Jan Ridd. But thee must keep
it bit langer, I reckon. Her baint coom, Maister
Ziderpress. Whatt'e mak of that now?'
'Do you mean to say that Uncle Ben has not arrived yet,
Betty?'
'Raived! I knaws nout about that, whuther a hath of
noo. Only I tell 'e, her baint coom. Rackon them
Dooneses hath gat 'un.'
And Betty, who hated Uncle Ben, because he never gave
her a groat, and she was not allowed to dine with him,
I am sorry to say that Betty Muxworthy grinned all
across, and poked me again with the greasy saucepan
cover. But I misliking so to be treated, strode
through the kitchen indignantly, for Betty behaved to
me even now, as if I were only Eliza.
'Oh, Johnny, Johnny,' my mother cried, running out of
the grand show-parlour, where the case of stuffed birds
was, and peacock-feathers, and the white hare killed
by grandfather; 'I am so glad you are come at last.
There is something sadly amiss, Johnny.'
Mother had upon her wrists something very wonderful, of
the nature of fal-lal as we say, and for which she had
an inborn turn, being of good draper family, and
polished above the yeomanry. Nevertheless I could
never bear it, partly because I felt it to be out of
place in our good farm-house, partly because I hate
frippery, partly because it seemed to me to have
nothing to do with father, and partly because I never
could tell the reason of my hating it. And yet the
poor soul had put them on, not to show her hands off
(which were above her station) but simply for her
children's sake, because Uncle Ben had given them. But
another thing, I never could bear for man or woman to
call me, 'Johnny,' 'Jack,' or 'John,' I cared not
which; and that was honest enough, and no smallness of
me there, I say.
'Well, mother, what is the matter, then?'
'I am sure you need not be angry, Johnny. I only hope
it is nothing to grieve about, instead of being angry.
You are very sweet-tempered, I know, John Ridd, and
perhaps a little too sweet at times'--here she meant
the Snowe girls, and I hanged my head--'but what would
you say if the people there'--she never would call them
'Doones'--'had gotten your poor Uncle Reuben, horse,
and Sunday coat, and all?'
'Why, mother, I should be sorry for them. He would set
up a shop by the river-side, and come away with all
their money.'
'That all you have to say, John! And my dinner done to
a very turn, and the supper all fit to go down, and no
worry, only to eat and be done with it! And all the new
plates come from Watchett, with the Watchett blue upon
them, at the risk of the lives of everybody, and the
capias from good Aunt Jane for stuffing a curlew with
onion before he begins to get cold, and make a woodcock
of him, and the way to turn the flap over in the inside
of a roasting pig--'
'Well, mother dear, I am very sorry. But let us have
our dinner. You know we promised not to wait for him
after one o'clock; and you only make us hungry.
Everything will be spoiled, mother, and what a pity to
think of! After that I will go to seek for him in the
thick of the fog, like a needle in a hay-band. That is
to say, unless you think'--for she looked very grave
about it--'unless you really think, mother, that I
ought to go without dinner.'
'Oh no, John, I never thought that, thank God! Bless
Him for my children's appetites; and what is Uncle Ben
to them?'
So we made a very good dinner indeed, though wishing
that he could have some of it, and wondering how much
to leave for him; and then, as no sound of his horse
had been heard, I set out with my gun to look for him.
I followed the track on the side of the hill, from the
farm-yard, where the sledd-marks are--for we have no
wheels upon Exmoor yet, nor ever shall, I suppose;
though a dunder-headed man tried it last winter, and
broke his axle piteously, and was nigh to break his
neck--and after that I went all along on the ridge of
the rabbit-cleve, with the brook running thin in the
bottom; and then down to the Lynn stream and leaped it,
and so up the hill and the moor beyond. The fog hung
close all around me then, when I turned the crest of
the highland, and the gorse both before and behind me
looked like a man crouching down in ambush. But still
there was a good cloud of daylight, being scarce three
of the clock yet, and when a lead of red deer came
across, I could tell them from sheep even now. I was
half inclined to shoot at them, for the children did
love venison; but they drooped their heads so, and
looked so faithful, that it seemed hard measure to do
it. If one of them had bolted away, no doubt I had let
go at him.
After that I kept on the track, trudging very stoutly,
for nigh upon three miles, and my beard (now beginning
to grow at some length) was full of great drops and
prickly, whereat I was very proud. I had not so much
as a dog with me, and the place was unkind and
lonesome, and the rolling clouds very desolate; and now
if a wild sheep ran across he was scared at me as an
enemy; and I for my part could not tell the meaning of
the marks on him. We called all this part Gibbet-moor,
not being in our parish; but though there were gibbets
enough upon it, most part of the bodies was gone for
the value of the chains, they said, and the teaching of
young chirurgeons. But of all this I had little fear,
being no more a schoolboy now, but a youth
well-acquaint with Exmoor, and the wise art of the
sign-posts, whereby a man, who barred the road, now
opens it up both ways with his finger-bones, so far as
rogues allow him. My carbine was loaded and freshly
primed, and I knew myself to be even now a match in
strength for any two men of the size around our
neighbourhood, except in the Glen Doone. 'Girt Jan
Ridd,' I was called already, and folk grew feared to
wrestle with me; though I was tired of hearing about
it, and often longed to be smaller. And most of all
upon Sundays, when I had to make way up our little
church, and the maidens tittered at me.
The soft white mist came thicker around me, as the
evening fell; and the peat ricks here and there, and
the furze-hucks of the summer-time, were all out of
shape in the twist of it. By-and-by, I began to doubt
where I was, or how come there, not having seen a
gibbet lately; and then I heard the draught of the wind
up a hollow place with rocks to it; and for the first
time fear broke out (like cold sweat) upon me. And yet
I knew what a fool I was, to fear nothing but a sound!
But when I stopped to listen, there was no sound, more
than a beating noise, and that was all inside me.
Therefore I went on again, making company of myself,
and keeping my gun quite ready.
Now when I came to an unknown place, where a stone was
set up endwise, with a faint red cross upon it, and a
polish from some conflict, I gathered my courage to
stop and think, having sped on the way too hotly.
Against that stone I set my gun, trying my spirit to
leave it so, but keeping with half a hand for it; and
then what to do next was the wonder. As for finding
Uncle Ben that was his own business, or at any rate his
executor's; first I had to find myself, and plentifully
would thank God to find myself at home again, for the
sake of all our family.
The volumes of the mist came rolling at me (like great
logs of wood, pillowed out with sleepiness), and
between them there was nothing more than waiting for
the next one. Then everything went out of sight, and
glad was I of the stone behind me, and view of mine own
shoes. Then a distant noise went by me, as of many
horses galloping, and in my fright I set my gun and
said, 'God send something to shoot at.' Yet nothing
came, and my gun fell back, without my will to lower
it.
But presently, while I was thinking 'What a fool I am!'
arose as if from below my feet, so that the great stone
trembled, that long, lamenting lonesome sound, as of an
evil spirit not knowing what to do with it. For the
moment I stood like a root, without either hand or foot
to help me, and the hair of my head began to crawl,
lifting my hat, as a snail lifts his house; and my
heart like a shuttle went to and fro. But finding no
harm to come of it, neither visible form approaching, I
wiped my forehead, and hoped for the best, and resolved
to run every step of the way, till I drew our own latch
behind me.
Yet here again I was disappointed, for no sooner was I
come to the cross-ways by the black pool in the hole,
but I heard through the patter of my own feet a rough
low sound very close in the fog, as of a hobbled sheep
a-coughing. I listened, and feared, and yet listened
again, though I wanted not to hear it. For being in
haste of the homeward road, and all my heart having
heels to it, loath I was to stop in the dusk for the
sake of an aged wether. Yet partly my love of all
animals, and partly my fear of the farmer's disgrace,
compelled me to go to the succour, and the noise was
coming nearer. A dry short wheezing sound it was,
barred with coughs and want of breath; but thus I made
the meaning of it.
'Lord have mercy upon me! O Lord, upon my soul have
mercy! An if I cheated Sam Hicks last week, Lord
knowest how well he deserved it, and lied in every
stocking's mouth--oh Lord, where be I a-going?'
These words, with many jogs between them, came to me
through the darkness, and then a long groan and a
choking. I made towards the sound, as nigh as ever I
could guess, and presently was met, point-blank, by the
head of a mountain-pony. Upon its back lay a man bound
down, with his feet on the neck and his head to the
tail, and his arms falling down like stirrups. The
wild little nag was scared of its life by the
unaccustomed burden, and had been tossing and rolling
hard, in desire to get ease of it.
Before the little horse could turn, I caught him, jaded
as he was, by his wet and grizzled forelock, and he saw
that it was vain to struggle, but strove to bite me
none the less, until I smote him upon the nose.
'Good and worthy sir,' I said to the man who was riding
so roughly; 'fear nothing; no harm shall come to thee.'
'Help, good friend, whoever thou art,' he gasped, but
could not look at me, because his neck was jerked so;
'God hath sent thee, and not to rob me, because it is
done already.'
'What, Uncle Ben!' I cried, letting go the horse in
amazement, that the richest man in Dulverton--'Uncle
Ben here in this plight! What, Mr. Reuben Huckaback!'
'An honest hosier and draper, serge and longcloth
warehouseman'--he groaned from rib to rib--'at the
sign of the Gartered Kitten in the loyal town of
Dulverton. For God's sake, let me down, good fellow,
from this accursed marrow-bone; and a groat of good
money will I pay thee, safe in my house to Dulverton;
but take notice that the horse is mine, no less than
the nag they robbed from me.'
'What, Uncle Ben, dost thou not know me, thy dutiful
nephew John Ridd?'
Not to make a long story of it, I cut the thongs that
bound him, and set him astride on the little horse; but
he was too weak to stay so. Therefore I mounted him on
my back, turning the horse into horse-steps, and
leading the pony by the cords which I fastened around
his nose, set out for Plover's Barrows.
Uncle Ben went fast asleep on my back, being jaded and
shaken beyond his strength, for a man of three-score
and five; and as soon he felt assured of safety he
would talk no more. And to tell the truth he snored so
loudly, that I could almost believe that fearful noise
in the fog every night came all the way from Dulverton.
Now as soon as ever I brought him in, we set him up in
the chimney-corner, comfortable and handsome; and it
was no little delight to me to get him off my back;
for, like his own fortune, Uncle Ben was of a good
round figure. He gave his long coat a shake or two,
and he stamped about in the kitchen, until he was sure
of his whereabouts, and then he fell asleep again until
supper should be ready.
'He shall marry Ruth,' he said by-and-by to himself,
and not to me; 'he shall marry Ruth for this, and have
my little savings, soon as they be worth the having.
Very little as yet, very little indeed; and ever so
much gone to-day along of them rascal robbers.'
My mother made a dreadful stir, of course, about Uncle
Ben being in such a plight as this; so I left him to
her care and Annie's, and soon they fed him rarely,
while I went out to see to the comfort of the captured
pony. And in truth he was worth the catching, and
served us very well afterwards, though Uncle Ben was
inclined to claim him for his business at Dulverton,
where they have carts and that like. 'But,' I said,
'you shall have him, sir, and welcome, if you will only
ride him home as first I found you riding him.' And
with that he dropped it.
A very strange old man he was, short in his manner,
though long of body, glad to do the contrary things to
what any one expected of him, and always looking sharp
at people, as if he feared to be cheated. This
surprised me much at first, because it showed his
ignorance of what we farmers are--an upright race, as
you may find, scarcely ever cheating indeed, except
upon market-day, and even then no more than may be
helped by reason of buyers expecting it. Now our
simple ways were a puzzle to him, as I told him very
often; but he only laughed, and rubbed his mouth with
the back of his dry shining hand, and I think he
shortly began to languish for want of some one to
higgle with. I had a great mind to give him the pony,
because he thought himself cheated in that case; only
he would conclude that I did it with some view to a
legacy.
Of course, the Doones, and nobody else, had robbed good
Uncle Reuben; and then they grew sportive, and took his
horse, an especially sober nag, and bound the master
upon the wild one, for a little change as they told
him. For two or three hours they had fine enjoyment
chasing him through the fog, and making much sport of
his groanings; and then waxing hungry, they went their
way, and left him to opportunity. Now Mr. Huckaback
growing able to walk in a few days' time, became
thereupon impatient, and could not be brought to
understand why he should have been robbed at all.
'I have never deserved it,' he said to himself, not
knowing much of Providence, except with a small p to
it; 'I have never deserved it, and will not stand it in
the name of our lord the King, not I!' At other times
he would burst forth thus: 'Three-score years and five
have I lived an honest and laborious life, yet never
was I robbed before. And now to be robbed in my old
age, to be robbed for the first time now!'
Thereupon of course we would tell him how truly
thankful he ought to be for never having been robbed
before, in spite of living so long in this world, and
that he was taking a very ungrateful, not to say
ungracious, view, in thus repining, and feeling
aggrieved; when anyone else would have knelt and
thanked God for enjoying so long an immunity. But say
what we would, it was all as one. Uncle Ben stuck
fast to it, that he had nothing to thank God for.
CHAPTER XIV
A MOTION WHICH ENDS IN A MULL
Instead of minding his New-Year pudding, Master
Huckaback carried on so about his mighty grievance,
that at last we began to think there must be something
in it, after all; especially as he assured us that
choice and costly presents for the young people of our
household were among the goods divested. But mother
told him her children had plenty, and wanted no gold
and silver, and little Eliza spoke up and said, 'You
can give us the pretty things, Uncle Ben, when we come
in the summer to see you.'
Our mother reproved Eliza for this, although it was the
heel of her own foot; and then to satisfy our uncle,
she promised to call Farmer Nicholas Snowe, to be of
our council that evening, 'And if the young maidens
would kindly come, without taking thought to smoothe
themselves, why it would be all the merrier, and who
knew but what Uncle Huckaback might bless the day of
his robbery, etc., etc.--and thorough good honest girls
they were, fit helpmates either for shop or farm.' All
of which was meant for me; but I stuck to my platter
and answered not.
In the evening Farmer Snowe came up, leading his
daughters after him, like fillies trimmed for a fair;
and Uncle Ben, who had not seen them on the night of
his mishap (because word had been sent to stop them),
was mightily pleased and very pleasant, according to
his town bred ways. The damsels had seen good company,
and soon got over their fear of his wealth, and played
him a number of merry pranks, which made our mother
quite jealous for Annie, who was always shy and
diffident. However, when the hot cup was done, and
before the mulled wine was ready, we packed all the
maidens in the parlour and turned the key upon them;
and then we drew near to the kitchen fire to hear Uncle
Ben's proposal. Farmer Snowe sat up in the corner,
caring little to bear about anything, but smoking
slowly, and nodding backward like a sheep-dog dreaming.
Mother was in the settle, of course, knitting hard, as
usual; and Uncle Ben took to a three-legged stool, as
if all but that had been thieved from him. Howsoever,
he kept his breath from speech, giving privilege, as
was due, to mother.
'Master Snowe, you are well assured,' said mother,
colouring like the furze as it took the flame and fell
over, 'that our kinsman here hath received rough harm
on his peaceful journey from Dulverton. The times are
bad, as we all know well, and there is no sign of
bettering them, and if I could see our Lord the King I
might say things to move him! nevertheless, I have had
so much of my own account to vex for--'
'You are flying out of the subject, Sarah,' said Uncle
Ben, seeing tears in her eyes, and tired of that
matter.
'Zettle the pralimbinaries,' spoke Farmer Snowe, on
appeal from us, 'virst zettle the pralimbinaries; and
then us knows what be drivin' at.'
'Preliminaries be damned, sir,' cried Uncle Ben, losing
his temper. 'What preliminaries were there when I was
robbed; I should like to know? Robbed in this parish
as I can prove, to the eternal disgrace of Oare and the
scandal of all England. And I hold this parish to
answer for it, sir; this parish shall make it good,
being a nest of foul thieves as it is; ay, farmers, and
yeomen, and all of you. I will beggar every man in
this parish, if they be not beggars already, ay, and
sell your old church up before your eyes, but what I
will have back my tarlatan, time-piece, saddle, and
dove-tailed nag.'
Mother looked at me, and I looked at Farmer Snowe, and
we all were sorry for Master Huckaback, putting our
hands up one to another, that nobody should browbeat
him; because we all knew what our parish was, and none
the worse for strong language, however rich the man
might be. But Uncle Ben took it in a different way.
He thought that we all were afraid of him, and that
Oare parish was but as Moab or Edom, for him to cast
his shoe over.
'Nephew Jack,' he cried, looking at me when I was
thinking what to say, and finding only emptiness, 'you
are a heavy lout, sir; a bumpkin, a clodhopper; and I
shall leave you nothing, unless it be my boots to
grease.'
'Well, uncle,' I made answer, 'I will grease your boots
all the same for that, so long as you be our guest,
sir.'
Now, that answer, made without a thought, stood me for
two thousand pounds, as you shall see, by-and-by,
perhaps.
'As for the parish,' my mother cried, being too hard
set to contain herself, 'the parish can defend itself,
and we may leave it to do so. But our Jack is not like
that, sir; and I will not have him spoken of. Leave
him indeed! Who wants you to do more than to leave him
alone, sir; as he might have done you the other night;
and as no one else would have dared to do. And after
that, to think so meanly of me, and of my children!'
'Hoity, toity, Sarah! Your children, I suppose, are the
same as other people's.'
'That they are not; and never will be; and you ought to
know it, Uncle Reuben, if any one in the world ought.
Other people's children!'
'Well, well!' Uncle Reuben answered, 'I know very
little of children; except my little Ruth, and she is
nothing wonderful.'
'I never said that my children were wonderful Uncle
Ben; nor did I ever think it. But as for being good--'
Here mother fetched out her handkerchief, being
overcome by our goodness; and I told her, with my hand
to my mouth, not to notice him; though he might be
worth ten thousand times ten thousand pounds.
But Farmer Snowe came forward now, for he had some
sense sometimes; and he thought it was high time for
him to say a word for the parish.
'Maister Huckaback,' he began, pointing with his pipe
at him, the end that was done in sealing-wax, 'tooching
of what you was plaized to zay 'bout this here parish,
and no oother, mind me no oother parish but thees, I
use the vreedom, zur, for to tell 'e, that thee be a
laiar.'
Then Farmer Nicholas Snowe folded his arms across with
the bowl of his pipe on the upper one, and gave me a
nod, and then one to mother, to testify how he had done
his duty, and recked not what might come of it.
However, he got little thanks from us; for the parish
was nothing at all to my mother, compared with her
children's interests; and I thought it hard that an
uncle of mine, and an old man too, should be called a
liar, by a visitor at our fireplace. For we, in our
rude part of the world, counted it one of the worst
disgraces that could befall a man, to receive the lie
from any one. But Uncle Ben, as it seems was used to
it, in the way of trade, just as people of fashion are,
by a style of courtesy.
Therefore the old man only looked with pity at Farmer
Nicholas; and with a sort of sorrow too, reflecting how
much he might have made in a bargain with such a
customer, so ignorant and hot-headed.
'Now let us bandy words no more,' said mother, very
sweetly; 'nothing is easier than sharp words, except to
wish them unspoken; as I do many and many's the time,
when I think of my good husband. But now let us hear
from Uncle Reuben what he would have us do to remove
this disgrace from amongst us, and to satisfy him of
his goods.'
'I care not for my goods, woman,' Master Huckaback
answered grandly; 'although they were of large value,
about them I say nothing. But what I demand is this,
the punishment of those scoundrels.'
'Zober, man, zober!' cried Farmer Nicholas; 'we be too
naigh Badgery 'ood, to spake like that of they
Dooneses.'
'Pack of cowards!' said Uncle Reuben, looking first at
the door, however; 'much chance I see of getting
redress from the valour of this Exmoor! And you, Master
Snowe, the very man whom I looked to to raise the
country, and take the lead as churchwarden--why, my
youngest shopman would match his ell against you. Pack
of cowards,' cried Uncle Ben, rising and shaking his
lappets at us; 'don't pretend to answer me. Shake you
all off, that I do--nothing more to do with you!'
We knew it useless to answer him, and conveyed our
knowledge to one another, without anything to vex him.
However, when the mulled wine was come, and a good deal
of it gone (the season being Epiphany), Uncle Reuben
began to think that he might have been too hard with
us. Moreover, he was beginning now to respect Farmer
Nicholas bravely, because of the way he had smoked his
pipes, and the little noise made over them. And Lizzie
and Annie were doing their best--for now we had let the
girls out--to wake more lightsome uproar; also young
Faith Snowe was toward to keep the old men's cups
aflow, and hansel them to their liking.
So at the close of our entertainment, when the girls
were gone away to fetch and light their lanthorns (over
which they made rare noise, blowing each the other's
out for counting of the sparks to come), Master
Huckaback stood up, without much aid from the crock-
saw, and looked at mother and all of us.
'Let no one leave this place,' said he, 'until I have
said what I want to say; for saving of ill-will among
us; and growth of cheer and comfort. May be I have
carried things too far, even to the bounds of
churlishness, and beyond the bounds of good manners. I
will not unsay one word I have said, having never yet
done so in my life; but I would alter the manner of it,
and set it forth in this light. If you folks upon
Exmoor here are loath and wary at fighting, yet you are
brave at better stuff; the best and kindest I ever
knew, in the matter of feeding.'
Here he sat down with tears in his eyes, and called for
a little mulled bastard. All the maids, who were now
come back, raced to get it for him, but Annie of course
was foremost. And herein ended the expedition, a
perilous and a great one, against the Doones of
Bagworthy; an enterprise over which we had all talked
plainly more than was good for us. For my part, I
slept well that night, feeling myself at home again,
now that the fighting was put aside, and the fear of it
turned to the comfort of talking what we would have
done.
CHAPTER XV
MASTER HUCKABACK FAILS OF WARRANT
On the following day Master Huckaback, with some show
of mystery, demanded from my mother an escort into a
dangerous part of the world, to which his business
compelled him. My mother made answer to this that he
was kindly welcome to take our John Fry with him; at
which the good clothier laughed, and said that John was
nothing like big enough, but another John must serve
his turn, not only for his size, but because if he were
carried away, no stone would be left unturned upon
Exmoor, until he should be brought back again.
Hereupon my mother grew very pale, and found fifty
reasons against my going, each of them weightier than
the true one, as Eliza (who was jealous of me) managed
to whisper to Annie. On the other hand, I was quite
resolved (directly the thing was mentioned) to see
Uncle Reuben through with it; and it added much to my
self-esteem to be the guard of so rich a man.
Therefore I soon persuaded mother, with her head upon
my breast, to let me go and trust in God; and after
that I was greatly vexed to find that this dangerous
enterprise was nothing more than a visit to the Baron
de Whichehalse, to lay an information, and sue a
warrant against the Doones, and a posse to execute it.
Stupid as I always have been, and must ever be no
doubt, I could well have told Uncle Reuben that his
journey was no wiser than that of the men of Gotham;
that he never would get from Hugh de Whichehalse a
warrant against the Doones; moreover, that if he did
get one, his own wig would be singed with it. But for
divers reasons I held my peace, partly from youth and
modesty, partly from desire to see whatever please God
I should see, and partly from other causes.
We rode by way of Brendon town, Illford Bridge, and
Babbrook, to avoid the great hill above Lynmouth; and
the day being fine and clear again, I laughed in my
sleeve at Uncle Reuben for all his fine precautions.
When we arrived at Ley Manor, we were shown very
civilly into the hall, and refreshed with good ale and
collared head, and the back of a Christmas pudding. I
had never been under so fine a roof (unless it were of
a church) before; and it pleased me greatly to be so
kindly entreated by high-born folk. But Uncle Reuben
was vexed a little at being set down side by side with
a man in a very small way of trade, who was come upon
some business there, and who made bold to drink his
health after finishing their horns of ale.
'Sir,' said Uncle Ben, looking at him, 'my health would
fare much better, if you would pay me three pounds and
twelve shillings, which you have owed me these five
years back; and now we are met at the Justice's, the
opportunity is good, sir.'
After that, we were called to the Justice-room, where
the Baron himself was sitting with Colonel Harding,
another Justiciary of the King's peace, to help him. I
had seen the Baron de Whichehalse before, and was not
at all afraid of him, having been at school with his
son as he knew, and it made him very kind to me. And
indeed he was kind to everybody, and all our people
spoke well of him; and so much the more because we knew
that the house was in decadence. For the first De
Whichehalse had come from Holland, where he had been a
great nobleman, some hundred and fifty years agone.
Being persecuted for his religion, when the Spanish
power was everything, he fled to England with all he
could save, and bought large estates in Devonshire.
Since then his descendants had intermarried with
ancient county families, Cottwells, and Marwoods, and
Walronds, and Welses of Pylton, and Chichesters of
Hall; and several of the ladies brought them large
increase of property. And so about fifty years before
the time of which I am writing, there were few names in
the West of England thought more of than De
Whichehalse. But now they had lost a great deal of
land, and therefore of that which goes with land, as
surely as fame belongs to earth--I mean big reputation.
How they had lost it, none could tell; except that as
the first descendants had a manner of amassing, so the
later ones were gifted with a power of scattering.
Whether this came of good Devonshire blood opening the
sluice of Low Country veins, is beyond both my province
and my power to inquire. Anyhow, all people loved this
last strain of De Whichehalse far more than the name
had been liked a hundred years agone.
Hugh de Whichehalse, a white-haired man, of very noble
presence, with friendly blue eyes and a sweet smooth
forehead, and aquiline nose quite beautiful (as you
might expect in a lady of birth), and thin lips curving
delicately, this gentleman rose as we entered the room;
while Colonel Harding turned on his chair, and struck
one spur against the other. I am sure that, without
knowing aught of either, we must have reverenced more
of the two the one who showed respect to us. And yet
nine gentleman out of ten make this dull mistake when
dealing with the class below them!
Uncle Reuben made his very best scrape, and then walked
up to the table, trying to look as if he did not know
himself to be wealthier than both the gentlemen put
together. Of course he was no stranger to them, any
more than I was; and, as it proved afterwards, Colonel
Harding owed him a lump of money, upon very good
security. Of him Uncle Reuben took no notice, but
addressed himself to De Whichehalse.
The Baron smiled very gently, so soon as he learned the
cause of this visit, and then he replied quite
reasonably.
'A warrant against the Doones, Master Huckaback. Which
of the Doones, so please you; and the Christian names,
what be they?'
'My lord, I am not their godfather; and most like they
never had any. But we all know old Sir Ensor's name,
so that may be no obstacle.'
'Sir Ensor Doone and his sons--so be it. How many
sons, Master Huckaback, and what is the name of each
one?'
'How can I tell you, my lord, even if I had known them
all as well as my own shop-boys? Nevertheless there
were seven of them, and that should be no obstacle.'
'A warrant against Sir Ensor Doone, and seven sons of
Sir Ensor Doone, Christian names unknown, and doubted
if they have any. So far so good Master Huckaback. I
have it all down in writing. Sir Ensor himself was
there, of course, as you have given in evidence--'
'No, no, my lord, I never said that: I never said--'
'If he can prove that he was not there, you may be
indicted for perjury. But as for those seven sons of
his, of course you can swear that they were his sons
and not his nephews, or grandchildren, or even no
Doones at all?'
'My lord, I can swear that they were Doones. Moreover,
I can pay for any mistake I make. Therein need be no
obstacle.'
'Oh, yes, he can pay; he can pay well enough,' said
Colonel Harding shortly.
'I am heartily glad to hear it,' replied the Baron
pleasantly; 'for it proves after all that this robbery
(if robbery there has been) was not so very ruinous.
Sometimes people think they are robbed, and then it is
very sweet afterwards to find that they have not been
so; for it adds to their joy in their property. Now,
are you quite convinced, good sir, that these people
(if there were any) stole, or took, or even borrowed
anything at all from you?'
'My lord, do you think that I was drunk?'
'Not for a moment, Master Huckaback. Although excuse
might be made for you at this time of the year. But
how did you know that your visitors were of this
particular family?'
'Because it could be nobody else. Because, in spite of
the fog--'
'Fog!' cried Colonel Harding sharply.
'Fog!' said the Baron, with emphasis. 'Ah, that
explains the whole affair. To be sure, now I remember,
the weather has been too thick for a man to see the
head of his own horse. The Doones (if still there be
any Doones) could never have come abroad; that is as
sure as simony. Master Huckaback, for your good sake,
I am heartily glad that this charge has miscarried. I
thoroughly understand it now. The fog explains the
whole of it.'
'Go back, my good fellow,' said Colonel Harding; 'and
if the day is clear enough, you will find all your
things where you left them. I know, from my own
experience, what it is to be caught in an Exmoor fog.'
Uncle Reuben, by this time, was so put out, that he
hardly knew what he was saying.
'My lord, Sir Colonel, is this your justice! If I go to
London myself for it, the King shall know how his
commission--how a man may be robbed, and the justices
prove that he ought to be hanged at back of it; that in
his good shire of Somerset--'
'Your pardon a moment, good sir,' De Whichehalse
interrupted him; 'but I was about (having heard your
case) to mention what need be an obstacle, and, I fear,
would prove a fatal one, even if satisfactory proof
were afforded of a felony. The mal-feasance (if any)
was laid in Somerset; but we, two humble servants of
His Majesty, are in commission of his peace for the
county of Devon only, and therefore could never deal
with it.'
'And why, in the name of God,' cried Uncle Reuben now
carried at last fairly beyond himself, 'why could you
not say as much at first, and save me all this waste of
time and worry of my temper? Gentlemen, you are all in
league; all of you stick together. You think it fair
sport for an honest trader, who makes no shams as you
do, to be robbed and wellnigh murdered, so long as they
who did it won the high birthright of felony. If a
poor sheep stealer, to save his children from dying of
starvation, had dared to look at a two-month lamb, he
would swing on the Manor gallows, and all of you cry
"Good riddance!" But now, because good birth and bad
manners--' Here poor Uncle Ben, not being so strong as
before the Doones had played with him, began to foam at
the mouth a little, and his tongue went into the hollow
where his short grey whiskers were.
I forget how we came out of it, only I was greatly
shocked at bearding of the gentry so, and mother scarce
could see her way, when I told her all about it.
'Depend upon it you were wrong, John,' was all I could
get out of her; though what had I done but listen, and
touch my forelock, when called upon. 'John, you may
take my word for it, you have not done as you should
have done. Your father would have been shocked to
think of going to Baron de Whichehalse, and in his own
house insulting him! And yet it was very brave of you
John. Just like you, all over. And (as none of the
men are here, dear John) I am proud of you for doing
it.'
All throughout the homeward road, Uncle Ben had been
very silent, feeling much displeased with himself and
still more so with other people. But before he went to
bed that night, he just said to me, 'Nephew Jack, you
have not behaved so badly as the rest to me. And
because you have no gift of talking, I think that I may
trust you. Now, mark my words, this villain job shall
not have ending here. I have another card to play.'
'You mean, sir, I suppose, that you will go to the
justices of this shire, Squire Maunder, or Sir Richard
Blewitt, or--'
'Oaf, I mean nothing of the sort; they would only make
a laughing-stock, as those Devonshire people did, of
me. No, I will go to the King himself, or a man who is
bigger than the King, and to whom I have ready access.
I will not tell thee his name at present, only if thou
art brought before him, never wilt thou forget it.'
That was true enough, by the bye, as I discovered
afterwards, for the man he meant was Judge Jeffreys.
'And when are you likely to see him, sir?'
'Maybe in the spring, maybe not until summer, for I
cannot go to London on purpose, but when my business
takes me there. Only remember my words, Jack, and when
you see the man I mean, look straight at him, and tell
no lie. He will make some of your zany squires shake
in their shoes, I reckon. Now, I have been in this
lonely hole far longer than I intended, by reason of
this outrage; yet I will stay here one day more upon a
certain condition.'
'Upon what condition, Uncle Ben? I grieve that you
find it so lonely. We will have Farmer Nicholas up
again, and the singers, and--'
'The fashionable milkmaids. I thank you, let me be.
The wenches are too loud for me. Your Nanny is enough.
Nanny is a good child, and she shall come and visit
me.' Uncle Reuben would always call her 'Nanny'; he
said that 'Annie' was too fine and Frenchified for us.
'But my condition is this, Jack--that you shall guide
me to-morrow, without a word to any one, to a place
where I may well descry the dwelling of these scoundrel
Doones, and learn the best way to get at them, when the
time shall come. Can you do this for me? I will pay
you well, boy.'
I promised very readily to do my best to serve him,
but, of course, would take no money for it, not being
so poor as that came to. Accordingly, on the day
following, I managed to set the men at work on the
other side of the farm, especially that inquisitive and
busybody John Fry, who would pry out almost anything
for the pleasure of telling his wife; and then, with
Uncle Reuben mounted on my ancient Peggy, I made foot
for the westward, directly after breakfast. Uncle Ben
refused to go unless I would take a loaded gun, and
indeed it was always wise to do so in those days of
turbulence; and none the less because of late more than
usual of our sheep had left their skins behind them.
This, as I need hardly say, was not to be charged to
the appetite of the Doones, for they always said that
they were not butchers (although upon that subject
might well be two opinions); and their practice was to
make the shepherds kill and skin, and quarter for them,
and sometimes carry to the Doone-gate the prime among
the fatlings, for fear of any bruising, which spoils
the look at table. But the worst of it was that
ignorant folk, unaware of their fastidiousness, scored
to them the sheep they lost by lower-born marauders,
and so were afraid to speak of it: and the issue of
this error was that a farmer, with five or six hundred
sheep, could never command, on his wedding-day, a prime
saddle of mutton for dinner.
To return now to my Uncle Ben--and indeed he would not
let me go more than three land-yards from him--there
was very little said between us along the lane and
across the hill, although the day was pleasant. I
could see that he was half amiss with his mind about
the business, and not so full of security as an elderly
man should keep himself. Therefore, out I spake, and
said,--
'Uncle Reuben, have no fear. I know every inch of the
ground, sir; and there is no danger nigh us.'
'Fear, boy! Who ever thought of fear? 'Tis the last
thing would come across me. Pretty things those
primroses.'
At once I thought of Lorna Doone, the little maid of
six years back, and how my fancy went with her. Could
Lorna ever think of me? Was I not a lout gone by, only
fit for loach-sticking? Had I ever seen a face fit to
think of near her? The sudden flash, the quickness,
the bright desire to know one's heart, and not withhold
her own from it, the soft withdrawal of rich eyes, the
longing to love somebody, anybody, anything, not
imbrued with wickedness--
My uncle interrupted me, misliking so much silence now,
with the naked woods falling over us. For we were come
to Bagworthy forest, the blackest and the loneliest
place of all that keep the sun out. Even now, in
winter-time, with most of the wood unriddled, and the
rest of it pinched brown, it hung around us like a
cloak containing little comfort. I kept quite close to
Peggy's head, and Peggy kept quite close to me, and
pricked her ears at everything. However, we saw
nothing there, except a few old owls and hawks, and a
magpie sitting all alone, until we came to the bank of
the hill, where the pony could not climb it. Uncle Ben
was very loath to get off, because the pony seemed
company, and he thought he could gallop away on her, if
the worst came to the worst, but I persuaded him that
now he must go to the end of it. Therefore he made
Peggy fast, in a place where we could find her, and
speaking cheerfully as if there was nothing to be
afraid of, he took his staff, and I my gun, to climb
the thick ascent.
There was now no path of any kind; which added to our
courage all it lessened of our comfort, because it
proved that the robbers were not in the habit of
passing there. And we knew that we could not go
astray, so long as we breasted the hill before us;
inasmuch as it formed the rampart, or side-fence of
Glen Doone. But in truth I used the right word there
for the manner of our ascent, for the ground came forth
so steep against us, and withal so woody, that to make
any way we must throw ourselves forward, and labour as
at a breast-plough. Rough and loamy rungs of oak-root
bulged here and there above our heads; briers needs
must speak with us, using more of tooth than tongue;
and sometimes bulks of rugged stone, like great sheep,
stood across us. At last, though very loath to do it,
I was forced to leave my gun behind, because I required
one hand to drag myself up the difficulty, and one to
help Uncle Reuben. And so at last we gained the top,
and looked forth the edge of the forest, where the
ground was very stony and like the crest of a quarry;
and no more trees between us and the brink of cliff
below, three hundred yards below it might be, all
strong slope and gliddery. And now far the first time
I was amazed at the appearance of the Doones's
stronghold, and understood its nature. For when I had
been even in the valley, and climbed the cliffs to
escape from it, about seven years agone, I was no more
than a stripling boy, noting little, as boys do, except
for their present purpose, and even that soon done
with. But now, what with the fame of the Doones, and
my own recollections, and Uncle Ben's insistence, all
my attention was called forth, and the end was simple
astonishment.
The chine of highland, whereon we stood, curved to the
right and left of us, keeping about the same elevation,
and crowned with trees and brushwood. At about half a
mile in front of us, but looking as if we could throw a
stone to strike any man upon it, another crest just
like our own bowed around to meet it; but failed by
reason of two narrow clefts of which we could only see
the brink. One of these clefts was the Doone-gate,
with a portcullis of rock above it, and the other was
the chasm by which I had once made entrance. Betwixt
them, where the hills fell back, as in a perfect oval,
traversed by the winding water, lay a bright green
valley, rimmed with sheer black rock, and seeming to
have sunken bodily from the bleak rough heights above.
It looked as if no frost could enter neither wind go
ruffling; only spring, and hope, and comfort, breathe
to one another. Even now the rays of sunshine dwelt
and fell back on one another, whenever the clouds
lifted; and the pale blue glimpse of the growing day
seemed to find young encouragement.
But for all that, Uncle Reuben was none the worse nor
better. He looked down into Glen Doone first, and
sniffed as if he were smelling it, like a sample of
goods from a wholesale house; and then he looked at the
hills over yonder, and then he stared at me.
'See what a pack of fools they be?'
'Of course I do, Uncle Ben. "All rogues are fools,"
was my first copy, beginning of the alphabet.'
'Pack of stuff lad. Though true enough, and very good
for young people. But see you not how this great Doone
valley may be taken in half an hour?'
'Yes, to be sure I do, uncle; if they like to give it
up, I mean.'
'Three culverins on yonder hill, and three on the top
of this one, and we have them under a pestle. Ah, I
have seen the wars, my lad, from Keinton up to Naseby;
and I might have been a general now, if they had taken
my advice--'
But I was not attending to him, being drawn away on a
sudden by a sight which never struck the sharp eyes of
our General. For I had long ago descried that little
opening in the cliff through which I made my exit, as
before related, on the other side of the valley. No
bigger than a rabbit-hole it seemed from where we
stood; and yet of all the scene before me, that (from
my remembrance perhaps) had the most attraction. Now
gazing at it with full thought of all that it had cost
me, I saw a little figure come, and pause, and pass
into it. Something very light and white, nimble,
smooth, and elegant, gone almost before I knew that any
one had been there. And yet my heart came to my ribs,
and all my blood was in my face, and pride within me
fought with shame, and vanity with self-contempt; for
though seven years were gone, and I from my boyhood
come to manhood, and all must have forgotten me, and I
had half-forgotten; at that moment, once for all, I
felt that I was face to face with fate (however poor it
might be), weal or woe, in Lorna Doone.
CHAPTER XVI
LORNA GROWING FORMIDABLE
Having reconnoitred thus the position of the enemy,
Master Huckaback, on the homeward road, cross-examined
me in a manner not at all desirable. For he had noted
my confusion and eager gaze at something unseen by him
in the valley, and thereupon he made up his mind to
know everything about it. In this, however, he partly
failed; for although I was no hand at fence, and would
not tell him a falsehood, I managed so to hold my peace
that he put himself upon the wrong track, and continued
thereon with many vaunts of his shrewdness and
experience, and some chuckles at my simplicity. Thus
much however, he learned aright, that I had been in the
Doone valley several years before, and might be brought
upon strong inducement to venture there again. But as
to the mode of my getting in, the things I saw, and my
thoughts upon them, he not only failed to learn the
truth, but certified himself into an obstinacy of
error, from which no after-knowledge was able to
deliver him. And this he did, not only because I
happened to say very little, but forasmuch as he
disbelieved half of the truth I told him, through his
own too great sagacity.
Upon one point, however, he succeeded more easily than
he expected, viz. in making me promise to visit the
place again, as soon as occasion offered, and to hold
my own counsel about it. But I could not help smiling
at one thing, that according to his point of view my
own counsel meant my own and Master Reuben Huckaback's.
Now he being gone, as he went next day, to his
favourite town of Dulverton, and leaving behind him
shadowy promise of the mountains he would do for me, my
spirit began to burn and pant for something to go on
with; and nothing showed a braver hope of movement and
adventure than a lonely visit to Glen Doone, by way of
the perilous passage discovered in my boyhood.
Therefore I waited for nothing more than the slow
arrival of new small-clothes made by a good tailor at
Porlock, for I was wishful to look my best; and when
they were come and approved, I started, regardless of
the expense, and forgetting (like a fool) how badly
they would take the water.
What with urging of the tailor, and my own misgivings,
the time was now come round again to the high-day of
St. Valentine, when all our maids were full of lovers,
and all the lads looked foolish. And none of them more
sheepish or innocent than I myself, albeit twenty-one
years old, and not afraid of men much, but terrified of
women, at least, if they were comely. And what of all
things scared me most was the thought of my own size,
and knowledge of my strength, which came like knots
upon me daily. In honest truth I tell this thing,
(which often since hath puzzled me, when I came to mix
with men more), I was to that degree ashamed of my
thickness and my stature, in the presence of a woman,
that I would not put a trunk of wood on the fire in the
kitchen, but let Annie scold me well, with a smile to
follow, and with her own plump hands lift up a little
log, and fuel it. Many a time I longed to be no bigger
than John Fry was; whom now (when insolent) I took with
my left hand by the waist-stuff, and set him on my hat,
and gave him little chance to tread it; until he spoke
of his family, and requested to come down again.
Now taking for good omen this, that I was a seven-year
Valentine, though much too big for a Cupidon, I chose a
seven-foot staff of ash, and fixed a loach-fork in it,
to look as I had looked before; and leaving word upon
matters of business, out of the back door I went, and
so through the little orchard, and down the brawling
Lynn-brook. Not being now so much afraid, I struck
across the thicket land between the meeting waters, and
came upon the Bagworthy stream near the great black
whirlpool. Nothing amazed me so much as to find how
shallow the stream now looked to me, although the pool
was still as black and greedy as it used to be. And
still the great rocky slide was dark and difficult to
climb; though the water, which once had taken my knees,
was satisfied now with my ankles. After some labour, I
reached the top; and halted to look about me well,
before trusting to broad daylight.
The winter (as I said before) had been a very mild one;
and now the spring was toward so that bank and bush
were touched with it. The valley into which I gazed
was fair with early promise, having shelter from the
wind and taking all the sunshine. The willow-bushes
over the stream hung as if they were angling with
tasseled floats of gold and silver, bursting like a
bean-pod. Between them came the water laughing, like a
maid at her own dancing, and spread with that young
blue which never lives beyond the April. And on
either bank, the meadow ruffled as the breeze came by,
opening (through new tuft, of green) daisy-bud or
celandine, or a shy glimpse now and then of the
love-lorn primrose.
Though I am so blank of wit, or perhaps for that same
reason, these little things come and dwell with me, and
I am happy about them, and long for nothing better. I
feel with every blade of grass, as if it had a history;
and make a child of every bud as though it knew and
loved me. And being so, they seem to tell me of my own
delusions, how I am no more than they, except in self-
importance.
While I was forgetting much of many things that harm
one, and letting of my thoughts go wild to sounds and
sights of nature, a sweeter note than thrush or ouzel
ever wooed a mate in, floated on the valley breeze at
the quiet turn of sundown. The words were of an
ancient song, fit to laugh or cry at.
Love, an if there be one,
Come my love to be,
My love is for the one
Loving unto me.
Not for me the show, love,
Of a gilded bliss;
Only thou must know, love,
What my value is.
If in all the earth, love,
Thou hast none but me,
This shall be my worth, love:
To be cheap to thee.
But, if so thou ever
Strivest to be free,
'Twill be my endeavour
To be dear to thee.
So shall I have plea, love,
Is thy heart andbreath
Clinging still to thee, love,
In the doom of death.
All this I took in with great eagerness, not for the
sake of the meaning (which is no doubt an allegory),
but for the power and richness, and softness of the
singing, which seemed to me better than we ever had
even in Oare church. But all the time I kept myself in
a black niche of the rock, where the fall of the water
began, lest the sweet singer (espying me) should be
alarmed, and flee away. But presently I ventured to
look forth where a bush was; and then I beheld the
loveliest sight--one glimpse of which was enough to
make me kneel in the coldest water.
By the side of the stream she was coming to me, even
among the primroses, as if she loved them all; and
every flower looked the brighter, as her eyes were on
them, I could not see what her face was, my heart so
awoke and trembled; only that her hair was flowing from
a wreath of white violets, and the grace of her coming
was like the appearance of the first wind-flower. The
pale gleam over the western cliffs threw a shadow of
light behind her, as if the sun were lingering. Never
do I see that light from the closing of the west, even
in these my aged days, without thinking of her. Ah me,
if it comes to that, what do I see of earth or heaven,
without thinking of her?
The tremulous thrill of her song was hanging on her
open lips; and she glanced around, as if the birds were
accustomed to make answer. To me it was a thing of
terror to behold such beauty, and feel myself the while
to be so very low and common. But scarcely knowing
what I did, as if a rope were drawing me, I came from
the dark mouth of the chasm; and stood, afraid to look
at her.
She was turning to fly, not knowing me, and frightened,
perhaps, at my stature, when I fell on the grass (as I
fell before her seven years agone that day), and I just
said, 'Lorna Doone!'
She knew me at once, from my manner and ways, and a
smile broke through her trembling, as sunshine comes
through aspen-leaves; and being so clever, she saw, of
course, that she needed not to fear me.
'Oh, indeed,' she cried, with a feint of anger (because
she had shown her cowardice, and yet in her heart she
was laughing); 'oh, if you please, who are you, sir,
and how do you know my name?'
'I am John Ridd,' I answered; 'the boy who gave you
those beautiful fish, when you were only a little
thing, seven years ago to-day.'
'Yes, the poor boy who was frightened so, and obliged
to hide here in the water.'
'And do you remember how kind you were, and saved my
life by your quickness, and went away riding upon a
great man's shoulder, as if you had never seen me, and
yet looked back through the willow-trees?'
'Oh, yes, I remember everything; because it was so rare
to see any except--I mean because I happen to remember.
But you seem not to remember, sir, how perilous this
place is.'
For she had kept her eyes upon me; large eyes of a
softness, a brightness, and a dignity which made me
feel as if I must for ever love and yet for ever know
myself unworthy. Unless themselves should fill with
love, which is the spring of all things. And so I
could not answer her, but was overcome with thinking
and feeling and confusion. Neither could I look again;
only waited for the melody which made every word like a
poem to me, the melody of her voice. But she had not
the least idea of what was going on with me, any more
than I myself had.
'I think, Master Ridd, you cannot know,' she said, with
her eyes taken from me, 'what the dangers of this place
are, and the nature of the people.'
'Yes, I know enough of that; and I am frightened
greatly, all the time, when I do not look at you.'
She was too young to answer me in the style some
maidens would have used; the manner, I mean, which now
we call from a foreign word 'coquettish.' And more than
that, she was trembling from real fear of violence,
lest strong hands might be laid on me, and a miserable
end of it. And to tell the truth, I grew afraid;
perhaps from a kind of sympathy, and because I knew
that evil comes more readily than good to us.
Therefore, without more ado, or taking any
advantage--although I would have been glad at heart, if
needs had been, to kiss her (without any thought of
rudeness)--it struck me that I had better go, and have
no more to say to her until next time of coming. So
would she look the more for me and think the more about
me, and not grow weary of my words and the want of
change there is in me. For, of course, I knew what a
churl I was compared to her birth and appearance; but
meanwhile I might improve myself and learn a musical
instrument. 'The wind hath a draw after flying straw'
is a saying we have in Devonshire, made, peradventure,
by somebody who had seen the ways of women.
'Mistress Lorna, I will depart'--mark you, I thought
that a powerful word--'in fear of causing disquiet. If
any rogue shot me it would grieve you; I make bold to
say it, and it would be the death of mother. Few
mothers have such a son as me. Try to think of me now
and then, and I will bring you some new-laid eggs, for
our young blue hen is beginning.'
'I thank you heartily,' said Lorna; 'but you need not
come to see me. You can put them in my little bower,
where I am almost always--I mean whither daily I repair
to read and to be away from them.'
'Only show me where it is. Thrice a day I will come
and stop--'
'Nay, Master Ridd, I would never show thee--never,
because of peril--only that so happens it thou hast
found the way already.'
And she smiled with a light that made me care to cry
out for no other way, except to her dear heart. But
only to myself I cried for anything at all, having
enough of man in me to be bashful with young maidens.
So I touched her white hand softly when she gave it to
me, and (fancying that she had sighed) was touched at
heart about it, and resolved to yield her all my goods,
although my mother was living; and then grew angry with
myself (for a mile or more of walking) to think she
would condescend so; and then, for the rest of the
homeward road, was mad with every man in the world who
would dare to think of having her.
CHAPTER XVII
JOHN IS CLEARLY BEWITCHED
To forget one's luck of life, to forget the cark of
care and withering of young fingers; not to feel, or
not be moved by, all the change of thought and heart,
from large young heat to the sinewy lines and dry bones
of old age--this is what I have to do ere ever I can
make you know (even as a dream is known) how I loved my
Lorna. I myself can never know; never can conceive, or
treat it as a thing of reason, never can behold myself
dwelling in the midst of it, and think that this was I;
neither can I wander far from perpetual thought of it.
Perhaps I have two farrows of pigs ready for the
chapman; perhaps I have ten stones of wool waiting for
the factor. It is all the same. I look at both, and
what I say to myself is this: 'Which would Lorna choose
of them?' Of course, I am a fool for this; any man may
call me so, and I will not quarrel with him, unless he
guess my secret. Of course, I fetch my wit, if it be
worth the fetching, back again to business. But there
my heart is and must be; and all who like to try can
cheat me, except upon parish matters.
That week I could do little more than dream and dream
and rove about, seeking by perpetual change to find the
way back to myself. I cared not for the people round
me, neither took delight in victuals; but made believe
to eat and drink and blushed at any questions. And
being called the master now, head-farmer, and chief
yeoman, it irked me much that any one should take
advantage of me; yet everybody did so as soon as ever
it was known that my wits were gone moon-raking. For
that was the way they looked at it, not being able to
comprehend the greatness and the loftiness. Neither do
I blame them much; for the wisest thing is to laugh at
people when we cannot understand them. I, for my part,
took no notice; but in my heart despised them as beings
of a lesser nature, who never had seen Lorna. Yet I
was vexed, and rubbed myself, when John Fry spread all
over the farm, and even at the shoeing forge, that a
mad dog had come and bitten me, from the other side of
Mallond.
This seems little to me now; and so it might to any
one; but, at the time, it worked me up to a fever of
indignity. To make a mad dog of Lorna, to compare all
my imaginings (which were strange, I do assure you--the
faculty not being apt to work), to count the raising of
my soul no more than hydrophobia! All this acted on me
so, that I gave John Fry the soundest threshing that
ever a sheaf of good corn deserved, or a bundle of
tares was blessed with. Afterwards he went home, too
tired to tell his wife the meaning of it; but it proved
of service to both of them, and an example for their
children.
Now the climate of this country is--so far as I can
make of it--to throw no man into extremes; and if he
throw himself so far, to pluck him back by change of
weather and the need of looking after things. Lest we
should be like the Southerns, for whom the sky does
everything, and men sit under a wall and watch both
food and fruit come beckoning. Their sky is a mother
to them; but ours a good stepmother to us--fearing to
hurt by indulgence, and knowing that severity and
change of mood are wholesome.
The spring being now too forward, a check to it was
needful; and in the early part of March there came a
change of weather. All the young growth was arrested
by a dry wind from the east, which made both face and
fingers burn when a man was doing ditching. The
lilacs and the woodbines, just crowding forth in little
tufts, close kernelling their blossom, were ruffled
back, like a sleeve turned up, and nicked with brown at
the corners. In the hedges any man, unless his eyes
were very dull, could see the mischief doing. The
russet of the young elm-bloom was fain to be in its
scale again; but having pushed forth, there must be,
and turn to a tawny colour. The hangers of the hazel,
too, having shed their dust to make the nuts, did not
spread their little combs and dry them, as they ought
to do; but shrivelled at the base and fell, as if a
knife had cut them. And more than all to notice was
(at least about the hedges) the shuddering of
everything and the shivering sound among them toward
the feeble sun; such as we make to a poor fireplace
when several doors are open. Sometimes I put my face
to warm against the soft, rough maple-stem, which feels
like the foot of a red deer; but the pitiless east wind
came through all, and took and shook the caved hedge
aback till its knees were knocking together, and
nothing could be shelter. Then would any one having
blood, and trying to keep at home with it, run to a
sturdy tree and hope to eat his food behind it, and
look for a little sun to come and warm his feet in the
shelter. And if it did he might strike his breast, and
try to think he was warmer.
But when a man came home at night, after long day's
labour, knowing that the days increased, and so his
care should multiply; still he found enough of light to
show him what the day had done against him in his
garden. Every ridge of new-turned earth looked like an
old man's muscles, honeycombed, and standing out void
of spring, and powdery. Every plant that had rejoiced
in passing such a winter now was cowering, turned away,
unfit to meet the consequence. Flowing sap had stopped
its course; fluted lines showed want of food, and if
you pinched the topmost spray, there was no rebound or
firmness.
We think a good deal, in a quiet way, when people ask
us about them--of some fine, upstanding pear-trees,
grafted by my grandfather, who had been very greatly
respected. And he got those grafts by sheltering a
poor Italian soldier, in the time of James the First, a
man who never could do enough to show his grateful
memories. How he came to our place is a very difficult
story, which I never understood rightly, having heard
it from my mother. At any rate, there the pear-trees
were, and there they are to this very day; and I wish
every one could taste their fruit, old as they are, and
rugged.
Now these fine trees had taken advantage of the west
winds, and the moisture, and the promise of the spring
time, so as to fill the tips of the spray-wood and the
rowels all up the branches with a crowd of eager
blossom. Not that they were yet in bloom, nor even
showing whiteness, only that some of the cones were
opening at the side of the cap which pinched them; and
there you might count perhaps, a dozen nobs, like very
little buttons, but grooved, and lined, and huddling
close, to make room for one another. And among these
buds were gray-green blades, scarce bigger than a hair
almost, yet curving so as if their purpose was to
shield the blossom.
Other of the spur-points, standing on the older wood
where the sap was not so eager, had not burst their
tunic yet, but were flayed and flaked with light,
casting off the husk of brown in three-cornered
patches, as I have seen a Scotchman's plaid, or as his
legs shows through it. These buds, at a distance,
looked as if the sky had been raining cream upon them.
Now all this fair delight to the eyes, and good promise
to the palate, was marred and baffled by the wind and
cutting of the night-frosts. The opening cones were
struck with brown, in between the button buds, and on
the scapes that shielded them; while the foot part of
the cover hung like rags, peeled back, and quivering.
And there the little stalk of each, which might have
been a pear, God willing, had a ring around its base,
and sought a chance to drop and die. The others which
had not opened comb, but only prepared to do it, were a
little better off, but still very brown and unkid, and
shrivelling in doubt of health, and neither peart nor
lusty.
Now this I have not told because I know the way to do
it, for that I do not, neither yet have seen a man who
did know. It is wonderful how we look at things, and
never think to notice them; and I am as bad as anybody,
unless the thing to be observed is a dog, or a horse,
or a maiden. And the last of those three I look at,
somehow, without knowing that I take notice, and
greatly afraid to do it, only I knew afterwards (when
the time of life was in me), not indeed, what the
maiden was like, but how she differed from others.
Yet I have spoken about the spring, and the failure of
fair promise, because I took it to my heart as token of
what would come to me in the budding of my years and
hope. And even then, being much possessed, and full of
a foolish melancholy, I felt a sad delight at being
doomed to blight and loneliness; not but that I managed
still (when mother was urgent upon me) to eat my share
of victuals, and cuff a man for laziness, and see that
a ploughshare made no leaps, and sleep of a night
without dreaming. And my mother half-believing, in her
fondness and affection, that what the parish said was
true about a mad dog having bitten me, and yet arguing
that it must be false (because God would have prevented
him), my mother gave me little rest, when I was in the
room with her. Not that she worried me with questions,
nor openly regarded me with any unusual meaning, but
that I knew she was watching slyly whenever I took a
spoon up; and every hour or so she managed to place a
pan of water by me, quite as if by accident, and
sometimes even to spill a little upon my shoe or
coat-sleeve. But Betty Muxworthy was worst; for,
having no fear about my health, she made a villainous
joke of it, and used to rush into the kitchen, barking
like a dog, and panting, exclaiming that I had bitten
her, and justice she would have on me, if it cost her a
twelvemonth's wages. And she always took care to do
this thing just when I had crossed my legs in the
corner after supper, and leaned my head against the
oven, to begin to think of Lorna.
However, in all things there is comfort, if we do not
look too hard for it; and now I had much satisfaction,
in my uncouth state, from labouring, by the hour
together, at the hedging and the ditching, meeting the
bitter wind face to face, feeling my strength increase,
and hoping that some one would be proud of it. In the
rustling rush of every gust, in the graceful bend of
every tree, even in the 'lords and ladies,' clumped in
the scoops of the hedgerow, and most of all in the soft
primrose, wrung by the wind, but stealing back, and
smiling when the wrath was passed--in all of these, and
many others there was aching ecstasy, delicious pang of
Lorna.
But however cold the weather was, and however hard the
wind blew, one thing (more than all the rest) worried
and perplexed me. This was, that I could not settle,
turn and twist as I might, how soon I ought to go again
upon a visit to Glen Doone. For I liked not at all the
falseness of it (albeit against murderers), the
creeping out of sight, and hiding, and feeling as a spy
might. And even more than this. I feared how Lorna
might regard it; whether I might seem to her a prone
and blunt intruder, a country youth not skilled in
manners, as among the quality, even when they rob us.
For I was not sure myself, but that it might be very
bad manners to go again too early without an
invitation; and my hands and face were chapped so badly
by the bitter wind, that Lorna might count them
unsightly things, and wish to see no more of them.
However, I could not bring myself to consult any one
upon this point, at least in our own neighbourhood, nor
even to speak of it near home. But the east wind
holding through the month, my hands and face growing
worse and worse, and it having occurred to me by this
time that possibly Lorna might have chaps, if she came
abroad at all, and so might like to talk about them and
show her little hands to me, I resolved to take another
opinion, so far as might be upon this matter, without
disclosing the circumstances.
Now the wisest person in all our parts was reckoned to
be a certain wise woman, well known all over Exmoor by
the name of Mother Melldrum. Her real name was Maple
Durham, as I learned long afterwards; and she came of
an ancient family, but neither of Devon nor Somerset.
Nevertheless she was quite at home with our proper
modes of divination; and knowing that we liked them
best--as each man does his own religion--she would
always practise them for the people of the country.
And all the while, she would let us know that she kept
a higher and nobler mode for those who looked down upon
this one, not having been bred and born to it.
Mother Melldrum had two houses, or rather she had none
at all, but two homes wherein to find her, according to
the time of year. In summer she lived in a pleasant
cave, facing the cool side of the hill, far inland near
Hawkridge and close above Tarr-steps, a wonderful
crossing of Barle river, made (as everybody knows) by
Satan, for a wager. But throughout the winter, she
found sea-air agreeable, and a place where things could
be had on credit, and more occasion of talking. Not
but what she could have credit (for every one was
afraid of her) in the neighbourhood of Tarr-steps; only
there was no one handy owning things worth taking.
Therefore, at the fall of the leaf, when the woods grew
damp and irksome, the wise woman always set her face to
the warmer cliffs of the Channel; where shelter was,
and dry fern bedding, and folk to be seen in the
distance, from a bank upon which the sun shone. And
there, as I knew from our John Fry (who had been to her
about rheumatism, and sheep possessed with an evil
spirit, and warts on the hand of his son, young John),
any one who chose might find her, towards the close of
a winter day, gathering sticks and brown fern for fuel,
and talking to herself the while, in a hollow stretch
behind the cliffs; which foreigners, who come and go
without seeing much of Exmoor, have called the Valley
of Rocks.
This valley, or goyal, as we term it, being small for a
valley, lies to the west of Linton, about a mile from
the town perhaps, and away towards Ley Manor. Our
homefolk always call it the Danes, or the Denes, which
is no more, they tell me, than a hollow place, even as
the word 'den' is. However, let that pass, for I know
very little about it; but the place itself is a pretty
one, though nothing to frighten anybody, unless he hath
lived in a gallipot. It is a green rough-sided hollow,
bending at the middle, touched with stone at either
crest, and dotted here and there with slabs in and out
the brambles. On the right hand is an upward crag,
called by some the Castle, easy enough to scale, and
giving great view of the Channel. Facing this, from
the inland side and the elbow of the valley, a queer
old pile of rock arises, bold behind one another, and
quite enough to affright a man, if it only were ten
times larger. This is called the Devil's Cheese-ring,
or the Devil's Cheese-knife, which mean the same thing,
as our fathers were used to eat their cheese from a
scoop; and perhaps in old time the upmost rock (which
has fallen away since I knew it) was like to such an
implement, if Satan eat cheese untoasted.
But all the middle of this valley was a place to rest
in; to sit and think that troubles were not, if we
would not make them. To know the sea outside the
hills, but never to behold it; only by the sound of
waves to pity sailors labouring. Then to watch the
sheltered sun, coming warmly round the turn, like a
guest expected, full of gentle glow and gladness,
casting shadow far away as a thing to hug itself, and
awakening life from dew, and hope from every spreading
bud. And then to fall asleep and dream that the fern
was all asparagus.
Alas, I was too young in those days much to care for
creature comforts, or to let pure palate have things
that would improve it. Anything went down with me, as
it does with most of us. Too late we know the good
from bad; the knowledge is no pleasure then; being
memory's medicine rather than the wine of hope.
Now Mother Melldrum kept her winter in this vale of
rocks, sheltering from the wind and rain within the
Devil's Cheese-ring, which added greatly to her fame
because all else, for miles around, were afraid to go
near it after dark, or even on a gloomy day. Under
eaves of lichened rock she had a winding passage, which
none that ever I knew of durst enter but herself. And
to this place I went to seek her, in spite of all
misgivings, upon a Sunday in Lenten season, when the
sheep were folded.
Our parson (as if he had known my intent) had preached
a beautiful sermon about the Witch of Endor, and the
perils of them that meddle wantonly with the unseen
Powers; and therein he referred especially to the
strange noise in the neighbourhood, and upbraided us
for want of faith, and many other backslidings. We
listened to him very earnestly, for we like to hear
from our betters about things that are beyond us, and
to be roused up now and then, like sheep with a good
dog after them, who can pull some wool without biting.
Nevertheless we could not see how our want of faith
could have made that noise, especially at night time,
notwithstanding which we believed it, and hoped to do a
little better.
And so we all came home from church; and most of the
people dined with us, as they always do on Sundays,
because of the distance to go home, with only words
inside them. The parson, who always sat next to
mother, was afraid that he might have vexed us, and
would not have the best piece of meat, according to his
custom. But soon we put him at his ease, and showed
him we were proud of him; and then he made no more to
do, but accepted the best of the sirloin.
CHAPTER XVIII
WITCHERY LEADS TO WITCHCRAFT
Although wellnigh the end of March, the wind blew wild
and piercing, as I went on foot that afternoon to
Mother Melldrum's dwelling. It was safer not to take a
horse, lest (if anything vexed her) she should put a
spell upon him; as had been done to Farmer Snowe's
stable by the wise woman of Simonsbath.
The sun was low on the edge of the hills by the time I
entered the valley, for I could not leave home till the
cattle were tended, and the distance was seven miles or
more. The shadows of rocks fell far and deep, and the
brown dead fern was fluttering, and brambles with their
sere leaves hanging, swayed their tatters to and fro,
with a red look on them. In patches underneath the
crags, a few wild goats were browsing; then they tossed
their horns, and fled, and leaped on ledges, and stared
at me. Moreover, the sound of the sea came up, and
went the length of the valley, and there it lapped on a
butt of rocks, and murmured like a shell.
Taking things one with another, and feeling all the
lonesomeness, and having no stick with me, I was much
inclined to go briskly back, and come at a better
season. And when I beheld a tall grey shape, of
something or another, moving at the lower end of the
valley, where the shade was, it gave me such a stroke
of fear, after many others, that my thumb which lay in
mother's Bible (brought in my big pocket for the sake
of safety) shook so much that it came out, and I could
not get it in again. 'This serves me right,' I said to
myself, 'for tampering with Beelzebub. Oh that I had
listened to parson!'
And thereupon I struck aside; not liking to run away
quite, as some people might call it; but seeking to
look like a wanderer who was come to see the valley,
and had seen almost enough of it. Herein I should
have succeeded, and gone home, and then been angry at
my want of courage, but that on the very turn and
bending of my footsteps, the woman in the distance
lifted up her staff to me, so that I was bound to stop.
And now, being brought face to face, by the will of God
(as one might say) with anything that might come of it,
I kept myself quite straight and stiff, and thrust away
all white feather, trusting in my Bible still, hoping
that it would protect me, though I had disobeyed it.
But upon that remembrance, my conscience took me by the
leg, so that I could not go forward.
All this while, the fearful woman was coming near and
more near to me; and I was glad to sit down on a rock
because my knees were shaking so. I tried to think of
many things, but none of them would come to me; and I
could not take my eyes away, though I prayed God to be
near me.
But when she was come so nigh to me that I could descry
her features, there was something in her countenance
that made me not dislike her. She looked as if she had
been visited by many troubles, and had felt them one by
one, yet held enough of kindly nature still to grieve
for others. Long white hair, on either side, was
falling down below her chin; and through her wrinkles
clear bright eyes seemed to spread themselves upon me.
Though I had plenty of time to think, I was taken by
surprise no less, and unable to say anything; yet eager
to hear the silence broken, and longing for a noise or
two.
'Thou art not come to me,' she said, looking through my
simple face, as if it were but glass, 'to be struck for
bone-shave, nor to be blessed for barn-gun. Give me
forth thy hand, John Ridd; and tell why thou art come
to me.'
But I was so much amazed at her knowing my name and all
about me, that I feared to place my hand in her power,
or even my tongue by speaking.
'Have no fear of me, my son; I have no gift to harm
thee; and if I had, it should be idle. Now, if thou
hast any wit, tell me why I love thee.'
'I never had any wit, mother,' I answered in our
Devonshire way; 'and never set eyes on thee before, to
the furthest of my knowledge.'
'And yet I know thee as well, John, as if thou wert my
grandson. Remember you the old Oare oak, and the bog
at the head of Exe, and the child who would have died
there, but for thy strength and courage, and most of
all thy kindness? That was my granddaughter, John; and
all I have on earth to love.'
Now that she came to speak of it, with the place and
that, so clearly, I remembered all about it (a thing
that happened last August), and thought how stupid I
must have been not to learn more of the little girl who
had fallen into the black pit, with a basketful of
whortleberries, and who might have been gulfed if her
little dog had not spied me in the distance. I carried
her on my back to mother; and then we dressed her all
anew, and took her where she ordered us; but she did
not tell us who she was, nor anything more than her
Christian name, and that she was eight years old, and
fond of fried batatas. And we did not seek to ask her
more; as our manner is with visitors.
But thinking of this little story, and seeing how she
looked at me, I lost my fear of Mother Melldrum, and
began to like her; partly because I had helped her
grandchild, and partly that if she were so wise, no
need would have been for me to save the little thing
from drowning. Therefore I stood up and said, though
scarcely yet established in my power against hers,--
'Good mother, the shoe she lost was in the mire, and
not with us. And we could not match it, although we
gave her a pair of sister Lizzie's.'
'My son, what care I for her shoe? How simple thou
art, and foolish! according to the thoughts of some.
Now tell me, for thou canst not lie, what has brought
thee to me.'
Being so ashamed and bashful, I was half-inclined to
tell her a lie, until she said that I could not do it;
and then I knew that I could not.
'I am come to know,' I said, looking at a rock the
while, to keep my voice from shaking, 'when I may go to
see Lorna Doone.'
No more could I say, though my mind was charged to ask
fifty other questions. But although I looked away, it
was plain that I had asked enough. I felt that the
wise woman gazed at me in wrath as well as sorrow; and
then I grew angry that any one should seem to make
light of Lorna.
'John Ridd,' said the woman, observing this (for now I
faced her bravely), 'of whom art thou speaking? Is it
a child of the men who slew your father?'
'I cannot tell, mother. How should I know? And what
is that to thee?'
'It is something to thy mother, John, and something to
thyself, I trow; and nothing worse could befall thee.'
I waited for her to speak again, because she had spoken
so sadly that it took my breath away.
'John Ridd, if thou hast any value for thy body or thy
soul, thy mother, or thy father's name, have nought to
do with any Doone.'
She gazed at me in earnest so, and raised her voice in
saying it, until the whole valley, curving like a great
bell echoed 'Doone,' that it seemed to me my heart was
gone for every one and everything. If it were God's
will for me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come
out of the rocks, and I would try to believe it. But
no sign came, and I turned to the woman, and longed
that she had been a man.
'You poor thing, with bones and blades, pails of water,
and door-keys, what know you about the destiny of a
maiden such as Lorna? Chilblains you may treat, and
bone-shave, ringworm, and the scaldings; even scabby
sheep may limp the better for your strikings. John the
Baptist and his cousins, with the wool and hyssop, are
for mares, and ailing dogs, and fowls that have the
jaundice. Look at me now, Mother Melldrum, am I like a
fool?'
'That thou art, my son. Alas that it were any other!
Now behold the end of that; John Ridd, mark the end of
it.'
She pointed to the castle-rock, where upon a narrow
shelf, betwixt us and the coming stars, a bitter fight
was raging. A fine fat sheep, with an honest face, had
clomb up very carefully to browse on a bit of juicy
grass, now the dew of the land was upon it. To him,
from an upper crag, a lean black goat came hurrying,
with leaps, and skirmish of the horns, and an angry
noise in his nostrils. The goat had grazed the place
before, to the utmost of his liking, cropping in and
out with jerks, as their manner is of feeding.
Nevertheless he fell on the sheep with fury and great
malice.
The simple wether was much inclined to retire from the
contest, but looked around in vain for any way to peace
and comfort. His enemy stood between him and the last
leap he had taken; there was nothing left him but to
fight, or be hurled into the sea, five hundred feet
below.
'Lie down, lie down!' I shouted to him, as if he were a
dog, for I had seen a battle like this before, and knew
that the sheep had no chance of life except from his
greater weight, and the difficulty of moving him.
'Lie down, lie down, John Ridd!' cried Mother Melldrum,
mocking me, but without a sign of smiling.
The poor sheep turned, upon my voice, and looked at me
so piteously that I could look no longer; but ran with
all my speed to try and save him from the combat. He
saw that I could not be in time, for the goat was
bucking to leap at him, and so the good wether stooped
his forehead, with the harmless horns curling aside of
it; and the goat flung his heels up, and rushed at him,
with quick sharp jumps and tricks of movement, and the
points of his long horns always foremost, and his
little scut cocked like a gun-hammer.
As I ran up the steep of the rock, I could not see what
they were doing, but the sheep must have fought very
bravely at last, and yielded his ground quite slowly,
and I hoped almost to save him. But just as my head
topped the platform of rock, I saw him flung from it
backward, with a sad low moan and a gurgle. His body
made quite a short noise in the air, like a bucket
thrown down a well shaft, and I could not tell when it
struck the water, except by the echo among the rocks.
So wroth was I with the goat at the moment (being
somewhat scant of breath and unable to consider), that
I caught him by the right hind-leg, before he could
turn from his victory, and hurled him after the sheep,
to learn how he liked his own compulsion.
CHAPTER XIX
ANOTHER DANGEROUS INTERVIEW
Although I left the Denes at once, having little heart
for further questions of the wise woman, and being
afraid to visit her house under the Devil's Cheese-ring
(to which she kindly invited me), and although I ran
most part of the way, it was very late for farm-house
time upon a Sunday evening before I was back at
Plover's Barrows. My mother had great desire to know
all about the matter; but I could not reconcile it with
my respect so to frighten her. Therefore I tried to
sleep it off, keeping my own counsel; and when that
proved of no avail, I strove to work it away, it might
be, by heavy outdoor labour, and weariness, and good
feeding. These indeed had some effect, and helped to
pass a week or two, with more pain of hand than heart
to me.
But when the weather changed in earnest, and the frost
was gone, and the south-west wind blew softly, and the
lambs were at play with the daisies, it was more than I
could do to keep from thought of Lorna. For now the
fields were spread with growth, and the waters clad
with sunshine, and light and shadow, step by step,
wandered over the furzy cleves. All the sides of the
hilly wood were gathered in and out with green,
silver-grey, or russet points, according to the several
manner of the trees beginning. And if one stood
beneath an elm, with any heart to look at it, lo! all
the ground was strewn with flakes (too small to know
their meaning), and all the sprays above were rasped
and trembling with a redness. And so I stopped beneath
the tree, and carved L.D. upon it, and wondered at
the buds of thought that seemed to swell inside me.
The upshot of it all was this, that as no Lorna came to
me, except in dreams or fancy, and as my life was not
worth living without constant sign of her, forth I must
again to find her, and say more than a man can tell.
Therefore, without waiting longer for the moving of the
spring, dressed I was in grand attire (so far as I had
gotten it), and thinking my appearance good, although
with doubts about it (being forced to dress in the
hay-tallat), round the corner of the wood-stack went I
very knowingly--for Lizzie's eyes were wondrous
sharp--and then I was sure of meeting none who would
care or dare to speak of me.
It lay upon my conscience often that I had not made
dear Annie secret to this history; although in all
things I could trust her, and she loved me like a lamb.
Many and many a time I tried, and more than once began
the thing; but there came a dryness in my throat, and a
knocking under the roof of my mouth, and a longing to
put it off again, as perhaps might be the wisest. And
then I would remember too that I had no right to speak
of Lorna as if she were common property.
This time I longed to take my gun, and was half
resolved to do so; because it seemed so hard a thing to
be shot at and have no chance of shooting; but when I
came to remember the steepness and the slippery nature
of the waterslide, there seemed but little likelihood
of keeping dry the powder. Therefore I was armed with
nothing but a good stout holly staff, seasoned well for
many a winter in our back-kitchen chimney.
Although my heart was leaping high with the prospect of
some adventure, and the fear of meeting Lorna, I could
not but be gladdened by the softness of the weather,
and the welcome way of everything. There was that
power all round, that power and that goodness, which
make us come, as it were, outside our bodily selves, to
share them. Over and beside us breathes the joy of
hope and promise; under foot are troubles past; in the
distance bowering newness tempts us ever forward. We
quicken with largesse of life, and spring with vivid
mystery.
And, in good sooth, I had to spring, and no mystery
about it, ere ever I got to the top of the rift leading
into Doone-glade. For the stream was rushing down in
strength, and raving at every corner; a mort of rain
having fallen last night and no wind come to wipe it.
However, I reached the head ere dark with more
difficulty than danger, and sat in a place which
comforted my back and legs desirably.
Hereupon I grew so happy at being on dry land again,
and come to look for Lorna, with pretty trees around
me, that what did I do but fall asleep with the
holly-stick in front of me, and my best coat sunk in a
bed of moss, with water and wood-sorrel. Mayhap I had
not done so, nor yet enjoyed the spring so much, if so
be I had not taken three parts of a gallon of cider at
home, at Plover's Barrows, because of the lowness and
sinking ever since I met Mother Melldrum.
There was a little runnel going softly down beside me,
falling from the upper rock by the means of moss and
grass, as if it feared to make a noise, and had a
mother sleeping. Now and then it seemed to stop, in
fear of its own dropping, and wait for some orders; and
the blades of grass that straightened to it turned
their points a little way, and offered their allegiance
to wind instead of water. Yet before their carkled
edges bent more than a driven saw, down the water came
again with heavy drops and pats of running, and bright
anger at neglect.
This was very pleasant to me, now and then, to gaze at,
blinking as the water blinked, and falling back to
sleep again. Suddenly my sleep was broken by a shade
cast over me; between me and the low sunlight Lorna
Doone was standing.
'Master Ridd, are you mad?' she said, and took my hand
to move me.
'Not mad, but half asleep,' I answered, feigning not to
notice her, that so she might keep hold of me.
'Come away, come away, if you care for life. The
patrol will be here directly. Be quick, Master Ridd,
let me hide thee.'
'I will not stir a step,' said I, though being in the
greatest fright that might be well imagined,' unless
you call me "John."'
'Well, John, then--Master John Ridd, be quick, if you
have any to care for you.'
'I have many that care for me,' I said, just to let her
know; 'and I will follow you, Mistress Lorna, albeit
without any hurry, unless there be peril to more than
me.'
Without another word she led me, though with many timid
glances towards the upper valley, to, and into, her
little bower, where the inlet through the rock was. I
am almost sure that I spoke before (though I cannot now
go seek for it, and my memory is but a worn-out tub) of
a certain deep and perilous pit, in which I was like to
drown myself through hurry and fright of boyhood. And
even then I wondered greatly, and was vexed with Lorna
for sending me in that heedless manner into such an
entrance. But now it was clear that she had been right
and the fault mine own entirely; for the entrance to
the pit was only to he found by seeking it. Inside
the niche of native stone, the plainest thing of all to
see, at any rate by day light, was the stairway hewn
from rock, and leading up the mountain, by means of
which I had escaped, as before related. To the right
side of this was the mouth of the pit, still looking
very formidable; though Lorna laughed at my fear of it,
for she drew her water thence. But on the left was a
narrow crevice, very difficult to espy, and having a
sweep of grey ivy laid, like a slouching beaver, over
it. A man here coming from the brightness of the outer
air, with eyes dazed by the twilight, would never think
of seeing this and following it to its meaning.
Lorna raised the screen for me, but I had much ado to
pass, on account of bulk and stature. Instead of being
proud of my size (as it seemed to me she ought to be)
Lorna laughed so quietly that I was ready to knock my
head or elbows against anything, and say no more about
it. However, I got through at last without a word of
compliment, and broke into the pleasant room, the lone
retreat of Lorna.
The chamber was of unhewn rock, round, as near as might
be, eighteen or twenty feet across, and gay with rich
variety of fern and moss and lichen. The fern was in
its winter still, or coiling for the spring-tide; but
moss was in abundant life, some feathering, and some
gobleted, and some with fringe of red to it. Overhead
there was no ceiling but the sky itself, flaked with
little clouds of April whitely wandering over it. The
floor was made of soft low grass, mixed with moss and
primroses; and in a niche of shelter moved the delicate
wood-sorrel. Here and there, around the sides, were
'chairs of living stone,' as some Latin writer says,
whose name has quite escaped me; and in the midst a
tiny spring arose, with crystal beads in it, and a soft
voice as of a laughing dream, and dimples like a
sleeping babe. Then, after going round a little, with
surprise of daylight, the water overwelled the edge,
and softly went through lines of light to shadows and
an untold bourne.
While I was gazing at all these things with wonder and
some sadness, Lorna turned upon me lightly (as her
manner was) and said,--
'Where are the new-laid eggs, Master Ridd? Or hath
blue hen ceased laying?'
I did not altogether like the way in which she said it
with a sort of dialect, as if my speech could be
laughed at.
'Here be some,' I answered, speaking as if in spite of
her. 'I would have brought thee twice as many, but
that I feared to crush them in the narrow ways,
Mistress Lorna.'
And so I laid her out two dozen upon the moss of the
rock-ledge, unwinding the wisp of hay from each as it
came safe out of my pocket. Lorna looked with growing
wonder, as I added one to one; and when I had placed
them side by side, and bidden her now to tell them, to
my amazement what did she do but burst into a flood of
tears.
'What have I done?' I asked, with shame, scarce daring
even to look at her, because her grief was not like
Annie's--a thing that could be coaxed away, and left a
joy in going--'oh, what have I done to vex you so?'
'It is nothing done by you, Master Ridd,' she answered,
very proudly, as if nought I did could matter; 'it is
only something that comes upon me with the scent of the
pure true clover-hay. Moreover, you have been too
kind; and I am not used to kindness.'
Some sort of awkwardness was on me, at her words and
weeping, as if I would like to say something, but
feared to make things worse perhaps than they were
already. Therefore I abstained from speech, as I would
in my own pain. And as it happened, this was the way
to make her tell me more about it. Not that I was
curious, beyond what pity urged me and the strange
affairs around her; and now I gazed upon the floor,
lest I should seem to watch her; but none the less for
that I knew all that she was doing.
Lorna went a little way, as if she would not think of
me nor care for one so careless; and all my heart gave
a sudden jump, to go like a mad thing after her; until
she turned of her own accord, and with a little sigh
came back to me. Her eyes were soft with trouble's
shadow, and the proud lift of her neck was gone, and
beauty's vanity borne down by woman's want of
sustenance.
'Master Ridd,' she said in the softest voice that ever
flowed between two lips, 'have I done aught to offend
you?'
Hereupon it went hard with me, not to catch her up and
kiss her, in the manner in which she was looking; only
it smote me suddenly that this would be a low advantage
of her trust and helplessness. She seemed to know
what I would be at, and to doubt very greatly about it,
whether as a child of old she might permit the usage.
All sorts of things went through my head, as I made
myself look away from her, for fear of being tempted
beyond what I could bear. And the upshot of it was
that I said, within my heart and through it, 'John
Ridd, be on thy very best manners with this lonely
maiden.'
Lorna liked me all the better for my good forbearance;
because she did not love me yet, and had not thought
about it; at least so far as I knew. And though her
eyes were so beauteous, so very soft and kindly, there
was (to my apprehension) some great power in them, as
if she would not have a thing, unless her judgment
leaped with it.
But now her judgment leaped with me, because I had
behaved so well; and being of quick urgent nature--such
as I delight in, for the change from mine own
slowness--she, without any let or hindrance, sitting
over against me, now raising and now dropping fringe
over those sweet eyes that were the road-lights of her
tongue, Lorna told me all about everything I wished to
know, every little thing she knew, except indeed that
point of points, how Master Ridd stood with her.
Although it wearied me no whit, it might be wearisome
for folk who cannot look at Lorna, to hear the story
all in speech, exactly as she told it; therefore let me
put it shortly, to the best of my remembrance.
Nay, pardon me, whosoever thou art, for seeming fickle
and rude to thee; I have tried to do as first proposed,
to tell the tale in my own words, as of another's
fortune. But, lo! I was beset at once with many heavy
obstacles, which grew as I went onward, until I knew
not where I was, and mingled past and present. And two
of these difficulties only were enough to stop me; the
one that I must coldly speak without the force of pity,
the other that I, off and on, confused myself with
Lorna, as might be well expected.
Therefore let her tell the story, with her own sweet
voice and manner; and if ye find it wearisome, seek in
yourselves the weariness.
CHAPTER XX
LORNA BEGINS HER STORY
'I cannot go through all my thoughts so as to make
them clear to you, nor have I ever dwelt on things, to
shape a story of them. I know not where the beginning
was, nor where the middle ought to be, nor even how at
the present time I feel, or think, or ought to think.
If I look for help to those around me, who should tell
me right and wrong (being older and much wiser), I meet
sometimes with laughter, and at other times with anger.
'There are but two in the world who ever listen and try
to help me; one of them is my grandfather, and the
other is a man of wisdom, whom we call the Counsellor.
My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doone, is very old and harsh
of manner (except indeed to me); he seems to know what
is right and wrong, but not to want to think of it.
The Counsellor, on the other hand, though full of life
and subtleties, treats my questions as of play, and not
gravely worth his while to answer, unless he can make
wit of them.
'And among the women there are none with whom I can
hold converse, since my Aunt Sabina died, who took such
pains to teach me. She was a lady of high repute and
lofty ways, and learning, but grieved and harassed more
and more by the coarseness, and the violence, and the
ignorance around her. In vain she strove, from year to
year, to make the young men hearken, to teach them what
became their birth, and give them sense of honour. It
was her favourite word, poor thing! and they called her
"Old Aunt Honour." Very often she used to say that I
was her only comfort, and I am sure she was my only
one; and when she died it was more to me than if I had
lost a mother.
'For I have no remembrance now of father or of mother,
although they say that my father was the eldest son of
Sir Ensor Doone, and the bravest and the best of them.
And so they call me heiress to this little realm of
violence; and in sorry sport sometimes, I am their
Princess or their Queen.
'Many people living here, as I am forced to do, would
perhaps be very happy, and perhaps I ought to be so.
We have a beauteous valley, sheltered from the cold of
winter and power of the summer sun, untroubled also by
the storms and mists that veil the mountains; although
I must acknowledge that it is apt to rain too often.
The grass moreover is so fresh, and the brook so bright
and lively, and flowers of so many hues come after one
another that no one need be dull, if only left alone
with them.
'And so in the early days perhaps, when morning
breathes around me, and the sun is going upward, and
light is playing everywhere, I am not so far beside
them all as to live in shadow. But when the evening
gathers down, and the sky is spread with sadness, and
the day has spent itself; then a cloud of lonely
trouble falls, like night, upon me. I cannot see the
things I quest for of a world beyond me; I cannot join
the peace and quiet of the depth above me; neither have
I any pleasure in the brightness of the stars.
'What I want to know is something none of them can tell
me--what am I, and why set here, and when shall I be
with them? I see that you are surprised a little at
this my curiosity. Perhaps such questions never spring
in any wholesome spirit. But they are in the depths of
mine, and I cannot be quit of them.
'Meantime, all around me is violence and robbery,
coarse delight and savage pain, reckless joke and
hopeless death. Is it any wonder that I cannot sink
with these, that I cannot so forget my soul, as to live
the life of brutes, and die the death more horrible
because it dreams of waking? There is none to lead me
forward, there is none to teach me right; young as I
am, I live beneath a curse that lasts for ever.'
Here Lorna broke down for awhile, and cried so very
piteously, that doubting of my knowledge, and of any
power to comfort, I did my best to hold my peace, and
tried to look very cheerful. Then thinking that might
be bad manners, I went to wipe her eyes for her.
'Master Ridd,' she began again, 'I am both ashamed and
vexed at my own childish folly. But you, who have a
mother, who thinks (you say) so much of you, and
sisters, and a quiet home; you cannot tell (it is not
likely) what a lonely nature is. How it leaps in mirth
sometimes, with only heaven touching it; and how it
falls away desponding, when the dreary weight creeps
on.
'It does not happen many times that I give way like
this; more shame now to do so, when I ought to
entertain you. Sometimes I am so full of anger, that I
dare not trust to speech, at things they cannot hide
from me; and perhaps you would be much surprised that
reckless men would care so much to elude a young girl's
knowledge. They used to boast to Aunt Sabina of
pillage and of cruelty, on purpose to enrage her; but
they never boast to me. It even makes me smile
sometimes to see how awkwardly they come and offer for
temptation to me shining packets, half concealed, of
ornaments and finery, of rings, or chains, or jewels,
lately belonging to other people.
'But when I try to search the past, to get a sense of
what befell me ere my own perception formed; to feel
back for the lines of childhood, as a trace of
gossamer, then I only know that nought lives longer
than God wills it. So may after sin go by, for we are
children always, as the Counsellor has told me; so may
we, beyond the clouds, seek this infancy of life, and
never find its memory.
'But I am talking now of things which never come across
me when any work is toward. It might have been a good
thing for me to have had a father to beat these rovings
out of me; or a mother to make a home, and teach me how
to manage it. For, being left with none--I think; and
nothing ever comes of it. Nothing, I mean, which I can
grasp and have with any surety; nothing but faint
images, and wonderment, and wandering. But often, when
I am neither searching back into remembrance, nor
asking of my parents, but occupied by trifles,
something like a sign, or message, or a token of some
meaning, seems to glance upon me. Whether from the
rustling wind, or sound of distant music, or the
singing of a bird, like the sun on snow it strikes me
with a pain of pleasure.
'And often when I wake at night, and listen to the
silence, or wander far from people in the grayness of
the evening, or stand and look at quiet water having
shadows over it, some vague image seems to hover on the
skirt of vision, ever changing place and outline, ever
flitting as I follow. This so moves and hurries me, in
the eagerness and longing, that straightway all my
chance is lost; and memory, scared like a wild bird,
flies. Or am I as a child perhaps, chasing a flown
cageling, who among the branches free plays and peeps
at the offered cage (as a home not to be urged on him),
and means to take his time of coming, if he comes at
all?
'Often too I wonder at the odds of fortune, which made
me (helpless as I am, and fond of peace and reading)
the heiress of this mad domain, the sanctuary of
unholiness. It is not likely that I shall have much
power of authority; and yet the Counsellor creeps up to
be my Lord of the Treasury; and his son aspires to my
hand, as of a Royal alliance. Well, "honour among
thieves," they say; and mine is the first honour:
although among decent folk perhaps, honesty is better.
'We should not be so quiet here, and safe from
interruption but that I have begged one privilege
rather than commanded it. This was that the lower end,
just this narrowing of the valley, where it is most
hard to come at, might be looked upon as mine, except
for purposes of guard. Therefore none beside the
sentries ever trespass on me here, unless it be my
grandfather, or the Counsellor or Carver.
'By your face, Master Ridd, I see that you have heard
of Carver Doone. For strength and courage and resource
he bears the first repute among us, as might well be
expected from the son of the Counsellor. But he
differs from his father, in being very hot and savage,
and quite free from argument. The Counsellor, who is
my uncle, gives his son the best advice; commending all
the virtues, with eloquence and wisdom; yet himself
abstaining from them accurately and impartially.
'You must be tired of this story, and the time I take
to think, and the weakness of my telling; but my life
from day to day shows so little variance. Among the
riders there is none whose safe return I watch for--I
mean none more than other--and indeed there seems no
risk, all are now so feared of us. Neither of the old
men is there whom I can revere or love (except alone my
grandfather, whom I love with trembling): neither of
the women any whom I like to deal with, unless it be a
little maiden whom I saved from starving.
'A little Cornish girl she is, and shaped in western
manner, not so very much less in width than if you take
her lengthwise. Her father seems to have been a miner,
a Cornishman (as she declares) of more than average
excellence, and better than any two men to be found in
Devonshire, or any four in Somerset. Very few things
can have been beyond his power of performance, and yet
he left his daughter to starve upon a peat-rick. She
does not know how this was done, and looks upon it as a
mystery, the meaning of which will some day be clear,
and redound to her father's honour. His name was Simon
Carfax, and he came as the captain of a gang from one
of the Cornish stannaries. Gwenny Carfax, my young
maid, well remembers how her father was brought up from
Cornwall. Her mother had been buried, just a week or
so before; and he was sad about it, and had been off
his work, and was ready for another job. Then people
came to him by night, and said that he must want a
change, and everybody lost their wives, and work was
the way to mend it. So what with grief, and
over-thought, and the inside of a square bottle, Gwenny
says they brought him off, to become a mighty captain,
and choose the country round. The last she saw of him
was this, that he went down a ladder somewhere on the
wilds of Exmoor, leaving her with bread and cheese, and
his travelling-hat to see to. And from that day to
this he never came above the ground again; so far as we
can hear of.
'But Gwenny, holding to his hat, and having eaten the
bread and cheese (when he came no more to help her),
dwelt three days near the mouth of the hole; and then
it was closed over, the while that she was sleeping.
With weakness and with want of food, she lost herself
distressfully, and went away for miles or more, and lay
upon a peat-rick, to die before the ravens.
'That very day I chanced to return from Aunt Sabina's
dying-place; for she would not die in Glen Doone, she
said, lest the angels feared to come for her; and so
she was taken to a cottage in a lonely valley. I was
allowed to visit her, for even we durst not refuse the
wishes of the dying; and if a priest had been desired,
we should have made bold with him. Returning very
sorrowful, and caring now for nothing, I found this
little stray thing lying, her arms upon her, and not a
sign of life, except the way that she was biting.
Black root-stuff was in her mouth, and a piece of dirty
sheep's wool, and at her feet an old egg-shell of some
bird of the moorland.
'I tried to raise her, but she was too square and heavy
for me; and so I put food in her mouth, and left her to
do right with it. And this she did in a little time;
for the victuals were very choice and rare, being what
I had taken over to tempt poor Aunt Sabina. Gwenny ate
them without delay, and then was ready to eat the
basket and the ware that contained them.
'Gwenny took me for an angel--though I am little like
one, as you see, Master Ridd; and she followed me,
expecting that I would open wings and fly when we came
to any difficulty. I brought her home with me, so far
as this can be a home, and she made herself my sole
attendant, without so much as asking me. She has
beaten two or three other girls, who used to wait upon
me, until they are afraid to come near the house of my
grandfather. She seems to have no kind of fear even of
our roughest men; and yet she looks with reverence and
awe upon the Counsellor. As for the wickedness, and
theft, and revelry around her, she says it is no
concern of hers, and they know their own business best.
By this way of regarding men she has won upon our
riders, so that she is almost free from all control of
place and season, and is allowed to pass where none
even of the youths may go. Being so wide, and short,
and flat, she has none to pay her compliments; and,
were there any, she would scorn them, as not being
Cornishmen. Sometimes she wanders far, by moonlight,
on the moors and up the rivers, to give her father (as
she says) another chance of finding her, and she comes
back not a wit defeated, or discouraged, or depressed,
but confident that he is only waiting for the proper
time.
'Herein she sets me good example of a patience and
contentment hard for me to imitate. Oftentimes I am
vexed by things I cannot meddle with, yet which cannot
be kept from me, that I am at the point of flying from
this dreadful valley, and risking all that can betide
me in the unknown outer world. If it were not for my
grandfather, I would have done so long ago; but I
cannot bear that he should die with no gentle hand to
comfort him; and I fear to think of the conflict that
must ensue for the government, if there be a disputed
succession.
'Ah me! We are to be pitied greatly, rather than
condemned, by people whose things we have taken from
them; for I have read, and seem almost to understand
about it, that there are places on the earth where
gentle peace, and love of home, and knowledge of one's
neighbours prevail, and are, with reason, looked for as
the usual state of things. There honest folk may go to
work in the glory of the sunrise, with hope of coming
home again quite safe in the quiet evening, and finding
all their children; and even in the darkness they have
no fear of lying down, and dropping off to slumber, and
hearken to the wind of night, not as to an enemy trying
to find entrance, but a friend who comes to tell the
value of their comfort.
'Of all this golden ease I hear, but never saw the like
of it; and, haply, I shall never do so, being born to
turbulence. Once, indeed, I had the offer of escape,
and kinsman's aid, and high place in the gay, bright
world; and yet I was not tempted much, or, at least,
dared not to trust it. And it ended very sadly, so
dreadfully that I even shrink from telling you about
it; for that one terror changed my life, in a moment,
at a blow, from childhood and from thoughts of play and
commune with the flowers and trees, to a sense of death
and darkness, and a heavy weight of earth. Be content
now, Master Ridd ask me nothing more about it, so your
sleep be sounder.'
But I, John Ridd, being young and new, and very fond of
hearing things to make my blood to tingle, had no more
of manners than to urge poor Lorna onwards, hoping,
perhaps, in depth of heart, that she might have to hold
by me, when the worst came to the worst of it.
Therefore she went on again.
CHAPTER XXI
LORNA ENDS HER STORY
'It is not a twelvemonth yet, although it seems ten
years agone, since I blew the downy globe to learn the
time of day, or set beneath my chin the veinings of the
varnished buttercup, or fired the fox-glove cannonade,
or made a captive of myself with dandelion fetters; for
then I had not very much to trouble me in earnest, but
went about, romancing gravely, playing at bo-peep with
fear, making for myself strong heroes of gray rock or
fir-tree, adding to my own importance, as the children
love to do.
'As yet I had not truly learned the evil of our living,
the scorn of law, the outrage, and the sorrow caused to
others. It even was a point with all to hide the
roughness from me, to show me but the gallant side, and
keep in shade the other. My grandfather, Sir Ensor
Doone, had given strictest order, as I discovered
afterwards, that in my presence all should be seemly,
kind, and vigilant. Nor was it very difficult to keep
most part of the mischief from me, for no Doone ever
robs at home, neither do they quarrel much, except at
times of gambling. And though Sir Ensor Doone is now
so old and growing feeble, his own way he will have
still, and no one dare deny him. Even our fiercest and
most mighty swordsmen, seared from all sense of right
or wrong, yet have plentiful sense of fear, when
brought before that white-haired man. Not that he is
rough with them, or querulous, or rebukeful; but that
he has a strange soft smile, and a gaze they cannot
answer, and a knowledge deeper far than they have of
themselves. Under his protection, I am as safe from
all those men (some of whom are but little akin to me)
as if I slept beneath the roof of the King's Lord
Justiciary.
'But now, at the time I speak of, one evening of last
summer, a horrible thing befell, which took all play of
childhood from me. The fifteenth day of last July was
very hot and sultry, long after the time of sundown;
and I was paying heed of it, because of the old saying
that if it rain then, rain will fall on forty days
thereafter. I had been long by the waterside at this
lower end of the valley, plaiting a little crown of
woodbine crocketed with sprigs of heath--to please my
grandfather, who likes to see me gay at supper-time.
Being proud of my tiara, which had cost some trouble, I
set it on my head at once, to save the chance of
crushing, and carrying my gray hat, ventured by a path
not often trod. For I must be home at the supper-time,
or grandfather would be exceeding wrath; and the worst
of his anger is that he never condescends to show it.
'Therefore, instead of the open mead, or the windings
of the river, I made short cut through the ash-trees
covert which lies in the middle of our vale, with the
water skirting or cleaving it. You have never been up
so far as that--at least to the best of my
knowledge--but you see it like a long gray spot, from
the top of the cliffs above us. Here I was not likely
to meet any of our people because the young ones are
afraid of some ancient tale about it, and the old ones
have no love of trees where gunshots are uncertain.
'It was more almost than dusk, down below the
tree-leaves, and I was eager to go through, and be
again beyond it. For the gray dark hung around me,
scarcely showing shadow; and the little light that
glimmered seemed to come up from the ground. For the
earth was strown with the winter-spread and coil of
last year's foliage, the lichened claws of chalky
twigs, and the numberless decay which gives a light in
its decaying. I, for my part, hastened shyly, ready to
draw back and run from hare, or rabbit, or small field-
mouse.
'At a sudden turn of the narrow path, where it stopped
again to the river, a man leaped out from behind a
tree, and stopped me, and seized hold of me. I tried
to shriek, but my voice was still; I could only hear my
heart.
'"Now, Cousin Lorna, my good cousin," he said, with
ease and calmness; "your voice is very sweet, no doubt,
from all that I can see of you. But I pray you keep it
still, unless you would give to dusty death your very
best cousin and trusty guardian, Alan Brandir of Loch
Awe.'
'"You my guardian!" I said, for the idea was too
ludicrous; and ludicrous things always strike me first,
through some fault of nature.
'"I have in truth that honour, madam," he answered,
with a sweeping bow; "unless I err in taking you for
Mistress Lorna Doone."
'"You have not mistaken me. My name is Lorna Doone."
'He looked at me, with gravity, and was inclined to
make some claim to closer consideration upon the score
of kinship; but I shrunk back, and only said, "Yes, my
name is Lorna Doone."
'"Then I am your faithful guardian, Alan Brandir of
Loch Awe; called Lord Alan Brandir, son of a worthy
peer of Scotland. Now will you confide in me?"
'"I confide in you!" I cried, looking at him with
amazement; "why, you are not older than I am!"
'"Yes I am, three years at least. You, my ward, are
not sixteen. I, your worshipful guardian, am almost
nineteen years of age."
'Upon hearing this I looked at him, for that seemed
then a venerable age; but the more I looked the more I
doubted, although he was dressed quite like a man. He
led me in a courtly manner, stepping at his tallest to
an open place beside the water; where the light came as
in channel, and was made the most of by glancing waves
and fair white stones.
'"Now am I to your liking, cousin?" he asked, when I
had gazed at him, until I was almost ashamed, except at
such a stripling." Does my Cousin Lorna judge kindly
of her guardian, and her nearest kinsman? In a word,
is our admiration mutual?"
'"Truly I know not," I said; "but you seem
good-natured, and to have no harm in you. Do they
trust you with a sword?"
'For in my usage among men of stature and strong
presence, this pretty youth, so tricked and slender,
seemed nothing but a doll to me. Although he scared me
in the wood, now that I saw him in good twilight, lo!
he was but little greater than my little self; and so
tasselled and so ruffled with a mint of bravery, and a
green coat barred with red, and a slim sword hanging
under him, it was the utmost I could do to look at him
half-gravely.
'"I fear that my presence hath scarce enough of
ferocity about it" (he gave a jerk to his sword as he
spoke, and clanked it on the brook-stones); "yet do I
assure you, cousin, that I am not without some prowess;
and many a master of defence hath this good sword of
mine disarmed. Now if the boldest and biggest robber
in all this charming valley durst so much as breathe
the scent of that flower coronal, which doth not adorn
but is adorned"--here he talked some nonsense--"I would
cleave him from head to foot, ere ever he could fly or
cry."
'"Hush!" I said; "talk not so loudly, or thou mayst
have to do both thyself, and do them both in vain."
'For he was quite forgetting now, in his bravery before
me, where he stood, and with whom he spoke, and how the
summer lightning shone above the hills and down the
hollow. And as I gazed on this slight fair youth,
clearly one of high birth and breeding (albeit
over-boastful), a chill of fear crept over me; because
he had no strength or substance, and would be no more
than a pin-cushion before the great swords of the
Doones.
'"I pray you be not vexed with me," he answered, in a
softer voice; "for I have travelled far and sorely, for
the sake of seeing you. I know right well among whom I
am, and that their hospitality is more of the knife
than the salt-stand. Nevertheless I am safe enough,
for my foot is the fleetest in Scotland, and what are
these hills to me? Tush! I have seen some border
forays among wilder spirits and craftier men than these
be. Once I mind some years agone, when I was quite a
stripling lad--"
'"Worshipful guardian," I said, "there is no time now
for history. If thou art in no haste, I am, and
cannot stay here idling. Only tell me how I am akin
and under wardship to thee, and what purpose brings
thee here."
'"In order, cousin--all things in order, even with fair
ladies. First, I am thy uncle's son, my father is thy
mother's brother, or at least thy grandmother's--unless
I am deceived in that which I have guessed, and no
other man. For my father, being a leading lord in the
councils of King Charles the Second, appointed me to
learn the law, not for my livelihood, thank God, but
because he felt the lack of it in affairs of state.
But first your leave, young Mistress Lorna; I cannot
lay down legal maxims, without aid of smoke."
'He leaned against a willow-tree, and drawing from a
gilded box a little dark thing like a stick, placed it
between his lips, and then striking a flint on steel
made fire and caught it upon touchwood. With this he
kindled the tip of the stick, until it glowed with a
ring of red, and then he breathed forth curls of smoke,
blue and smelling on the air like spice. I had never
seen this done before, though acquainted with
tobacco-pipes; and it made me laugh, until I thought of
the peril that must follow it.
'"Cousin, have no fear," he said; "this makes me all
the safer; they will take me for a glow-worm, and thee
for the flower it shines upon. But to return--of law I
learned as you may suppose, but little; although I have
capacities. But the thing was far too dull for me.
All I care for is adventure, moving chance, and hot
encounter; therefore all of law I learned was how to
live without it. Nevertheless, for amusement's sake,
as I must needs be at my desk an hour or so in the
afternoon, I took to the sporting branch of the law,
the pitfalls, and the ambuscades; and of all the traps
to be laid therein, pedigrees are the rarest. There is
scarce a man worth a cross of butter, but what you may
find a hole in his shield within four generations. And
so I struck our own escutcheon, and it sounded hollow.
There is a point--but heed not that; enough that being
curious now, I followed up the quarry, and I am come to
this at last--we, even we, the lords of Loch Awe, have
an outlaw for our cousin, and I would we had more, if
they be like you."
'"Sir," I answered, being amused by his manner, which
was new to me (for the Doones are much in earnest),
"surely you count it no disgrace to be of kin to Sir
Ensor Doone, and all his honest family!"
'"If it be so, it is in truth the very highest honour
and would heal ten holes in our escutcheon. What noble
family but springs from a captain among robbers? Trade
alone can spoil our blood; robbery purifies it. The
robbery of one age is the chivalry of the next. We may
start anew, and vie with even the nobility of France,
if we can once enrol but half the Doones upon our
lineage."
'"I like not to hear you speak of the Doones, as if
they were no more than that," I exclaimed, being now
unreasonable; "but will you tell me, once for all, sir,
how you are my guardian?"
'"That I will do. You are my ward because you were my
father's ward, under the Scottish law; and now my
father being so deaf, I have succeeded to that
right--at least in my own opinion--under which claim I
am here to neglect my trust no longer, but to lead you
away from scenes and deeds which (though of good repute
and comely) are not the best for young gentlewomen.
There spoke I not like a guardian? After that can you
mistrust me?"
'"But," said I, "good Cousin Alan (if I may so call
you), it is not meet for young gentlewomen to go away
with young gentlemen, though fifty times their
guardians. But if you will only come with me, and
explain your tale to my grandfather, he will listen to
you quietly, and take no advantage of you."
'"I thank you much, kind Mistress Lorna, to lead the
goose into the fox's den! But, setting by all thought
of danger, I have other reasons against it. Now, come
with your faithful guardian, child. I will pledge my
honour against all harm, and to bear you safe to
London. By the law of the realm, I am now entitled to
the custody of your fair person, and of all your
chattels."
'"But, sir, all that you have learned of law, is how to
live without it."
'"Fairly met, fair cousin mine! Your wit will do me
credit, after a little sharpening. And there is none
to do that better than your aunt, my mother. Although
she knows not of my coming, she is longing to receive
you. Come, and in a few months' time you shall set the
mode at Court, instead of pining here, and weaving
coronals of daisies."
'I turned aside, and thought a little. Although he
seemed so light of mind, and gay in dress and manner, I
could not doubt his honesty; and saw, beneath his
jaunty air, true mettle and ripe bravery. Scarce had I
thought of his project twice, until he spoke of my
aunt, his mother, but then the form of my dearest
friend, my sweet Aunt Sabina, seemed to come and bid me
listen, for this was what she prayed for. Moreover I
felt (though not as now) that Doone Glen was no place
for me or any proud young maiden. But while I thought,
the yellow lightning spread behind a bulk of clouds,
three times ere the flash was done, far off and void of
thunder; and from the pile of cloud before it, cut as
from black paper, and lit to depths of blackness by the
blaze behind it, a form as of an aged man, sitting in a
chair loose-mantled, seemed to lift a hand and warn.
'This minded me of my grandfather, and all the care I
owed him. Moreover, now the storm was rising and I
began to grow afraid; for of all things awful to me
thunder is the dreadfulest. It doth so growl, like a
lion coming, and then so roll, and roar, and rumble,
out of a thickening darkness, then crack like the last
trump overhead through cloven air and terror, that all
my heart lies low and quivers, like a weed in water. I
listened now for the distant rolling of the great black
storm, and heard it, and was hurried by it. But the
youth before me waved his rolled tobacco at it, and
drawled in his daintiest tone and manner,--
'"The sky is having a smoke, I see, and dropping
sparks, and grumbling. I should have thought these
Exmoor hills too small to gather thunder."
'"I cannot go, I will not go with you, Lord Alan
Brandir," I answered, being vexed a little by those
words of his. "You are not grave enough for me, you
are not old enough for me. My Aunt Sabina would not
have wished it; nor would I leave my grandfather,
without his full permission. I thank you much for
coming, sir; but be gone at once by the way you came;
and pray how did you come, sir?"
'"Fair cousin, you will grieve for this; you will
mourn, when you cannot mend it. I would my mother had
been here, soon would she have persuaded you. And
yet," he added, with the smile of his accustomed
gaiety, "it would have been an unco thing, as we say in
Scotland, for her ladyship to have waited upon you, as
her graceless son has done, and hopes to do again ere
long. Down the cliffs I came, and up them I must make
way back again. Now adieu, fair Cousin Lorna, I see
you are in haste tonight; but I am right proud of my
guardianship. Give me just one flower for token"--
here he kissed his hand to me, and I threw him a truss
of woodbine--"adieu, fair cousin, trust me well, I will
soon be here again."
'"That thou never shalt, sir," cried a voice as loud as
a culverin; and Carver Doone had Alan Brandir as a
spider hath a fly. The boy made a little shriek at
first, with the sudden shock and the terror; then he
looked, methought, ashamed of himself, and set his face
to fight for it. Very bravely he strove and struggled,
to free one arm and grasp his sword; but as well might
an infant buried alive attempt to lift his gravestone.
Carver Doone, with his great arms wrapped around the
slim gay body, smiled (as I saw by the flash from
heaven) at the poor young face turned up to him; then
(as a nurse bears off a child, who is loath to go to
bed), he lifted the youth from his feet, and bore him
away into the darkness.
'I was young then. I am older now; older by ten years,
in thought, although it is not a twelvemonth since. If
that black deed were done again, I could follow, and
could combat it, could throw weak arms on the murderer,
and strive to be murdered also. I am now at home with
violence; and no dark death surprises me.
'But, being as I was that night, the horror overcame
me. The crash of thunder overhead, the last despairing
look, the death-piece framed with blaze of
lightning--my young heart was so affrighted that I
could not gasp. My breath went from me, and I knew not
where I was, or who, or what. Only that I lay, and
cowered, under great trees full of thunder; and could
neither count, nor moan, nor have my feet to help me.
'Yet hearkening, as a coward does, through the brushing
of the wind, and echo of far noises, I heard a sharp
sound as of iron, and a fall of heavy wood. No unmanly
shriek came with it, neither cry for mercy. Carver
Doone knows what it was; and so did Alan Brandir.'
Here Lorna Doone could tell no more, being overcome
with weeping. Only through her tears she whispered,
as a thing too bad to tell, that she had seen that
giant Carver, in a few days afterwards, smoking a
little round brown stick, like those of her poor
cousin. I could not press her any more with
questions, or for clearness; although I longed very
much to know whether she had spoken of it to her
grandfather or the Counsellor. But she was now in such
condition, both of mind and body, from the force of her
own fear multiplied by telling it, that I did nothing
more than coax her, at a distance humbly; and so that
she could see that some one was at least afraid of her.
This (although I knew not women in those days, as now I
do, and never shall know much of it), this, I say, so
brought her round, that all her fear was now for me,
and how to get me safely off, without mischance to any
one. And sooth to say, in spite of longing just to see
if Master Carver could have served me such a trick--as
it grew towards the dusk, I was not best pleased to be
there; for it seemed a lawless place, and some of
Lorna's fright stayed with me as I talked it away from
her.
CHAPTER XXII
After hearing that tale from Lorna, I went home in
sorry spirits, having added fear for her, and misery
about, to all my other ailments. And was it not quite
certain now that she, being owned full cousin to a peer
and lord of Scotland (although he was a dead one), must
have nought to do with me, a yeoman's son, and bound to
be the father of more yeomen? I had been very sorry
when first I heard about that poor young popinjay, and
would gladly have fought hard for him; but now it
struck me that after all he had no right to be there,
prowling (as it were) for Lorna, without any
invitation: and we farmers love not trespass. Still,
if I had seen the thing, I must have tried to save him.
Moreover, I was greatly vexed with my own hesitation,
stupidity, or shyness, or whatever else it was, which
had held me back from saying, ere she told her story,
what was in my heart to say, videlicet, that I must die
unless she let me love her. Not that I was fool enough
to think that she would answer me according to my
liking, or begin to care about me for a long time yet;
if indeed she ever should, which I hardly dared to
hope. But that I had heard from men more skillful in
the matter that it is wise to be in time, that so the
maids may begin to think, when they know that they are
thought of. And, to tell the truth, I had bitter
fears, on account of her wondrous beauty, lest some
young fellow of higher birth and finer parts, and
finish, might steal in before poor me, and cut me out
altogether. Thinking of which, I used to double my
great fist, without knowing it, and keep it in my
pocket ready.
But the worst of all was this, that in my great dismay
and anguish to see Lorna weeping so, I had promised not
to cause her any further trouble from anxiety and fear
of harm. And this, being brought to practice, meant
that I was not to show myself within the precincts of
Glen Doone, for at least another month. Unless indeed
(as I contrived to edge into the agreement) anything
should happen to increase her present trouble and every
day's uneasiness. In that case, she was to throw a
dark mantle, or covering of some sort, over a large
white stone which hung within the entrance to her
retreat--I mean the outer entrance--and which, though
unseen from the valley itself, was (as I had observed)
conspicuous from the height where I stood with Uncle
Reuben.
Now coming home so sad and weary, yet trying to console
myself with the thought that love o'erleapeth rank, and
must still be lord of all, I found a shameful thing
going on, which made me very angry. For it needs must
happen that young Marwood de Whichehalse, only son of
the Baron, riding home that very evening, from chasing
of the Exmoor bustards, with his hounds and serving-
men, should take the short cut through our farmyard,
and being dry from his exercise, should come and ask
for drink. And it needs must happen also that there
should be none to give it to him but my sister Annie.
I more than suspect that he had heard some report of
our Annie's comeliness, and had a mind to satisfy
himself upon the subject. Now, as he took the large
ox-horn of our quarantine-apple cider (which we always
keep apart from the rest, being too good except for the
quality), he let his fingers dwell on Annie's, by some
sort of accident, while he lifted his beaver gallantly,
and gazed on her face in the light from the west. Then
what did Annie do (as she herself told me afterwards)
but make her very best curtsey to him, being pleased
that he was pleased with her, while she thought what a
fine young man he was and so much breeding about him!
And in truth he was a dark, handsome fellow, hasty,
reckless, and changeable, with a look of sad destiny in
his black eyes that would make any woman pity him.
What he was thinking of our Annie is not for me to say,
although I may think that you could not have found
another such maiden on Exmoor, except (of course) my
Lorna.
Though young Squire Marwood was so thirsty, he spent
much time over his cider, or at any rate over the
ox-horn, and he made many bows to Annie, and drank
health to all the family, and spoke of me as if I had
been his very best friend at Blundell's; whereas he
knew well enough all the time that we had nought to say
to one another; he being three years older, and
therefore of course disdaining me. But while he was
casting about perhaps for some excuse to stop longer,
and Annie was beginning to fear lest mother should come
after her, or Eliza be at the window, or Betty up in
pigs' house, suddenly there came up to them, as if from
the very heart of the earth, that long, low, hollow,
mysterious sound which I spoke of in winter.
The young man started in his saddle, let the horn fall
on the horse-steps, and gazed all around in wonder;
while as for Annie, she turned like a ghost, and tried
to slam the door, but failed through the violence of
her trembling; (for never till now had any one heard it
so close at hand as you might say) or in the mere fall
of the twilight. And by this time there was no man, at
least in our parish, but knew--for the Parson himself
had told us so--that it was the devil groaning because
the Doones were too many for him.
Marwood de Whichehalse was not so alarmed but what he
saw a fine opportunity. He leaped from his horse, and
laid hold of dear Annie in a highly comforting manner;
and she never would tell us about it (being so shy and
modest), whether in breathing his comfort to her he
tried to take some from her pure lips. I hope he did
not, because that to me would seem not the deed of a
gentleman, and he was of good old family.
At this very moment, who should come into the end of
the passage upon them but the heavy writer of these
doings I, John Ridd myself, and walking the faster, it
may be, on account of the noise I mentioned. I entered
the house with some wrath upon me at seeing the
gazehounds in the yard; for it seems a cruel thing to
me to harass the birds in the breeding-time. And to my
amazement there I saw Squire Marwood among the
milk-pans with his arm around our Annie's waist, and
Annie all blushing and coaxing him off, for she was not
come to scold yet.
Perhaps I was wrong; God knows, and if I was, no doubt
I shall pay for it; but I gave him the flat of my hand
on his head, and down he went in the thick of the
milk-pans. He would have had my fist, I doubt, but for
having been at school with me; and after that it is
like enough he would never have spoken another word.
As it was, he lay stunned, with the cream running on
him; while I took poor Annie up and carried her in to
mother, who had heard the noise and was frightened.
Concerning this matter I asked no more, but held myself
ready to bear it out in any form convenient, feeling
that I had done my duty, and cared not for the
consequence; only for several days dear Annie seemed
frightened rather than grateful. But the oddest result
of it was that Eliza, who had so despised me, and made
very rude verses about me, now came trying to sit on my
knee, and kiss me, and give me the best of the pan.
However, I would not allow it, because I hate sudden
changes.
Another thing also astonished me--namely, a beautiful
letter from Marwood de Whichehalse himself (sent by a
groom soon afterwards), in which he apologised to me,
as if I had been his equal, for his rudeness to my
sister, which was not intended in the least, but came
of their common alarm at the moment, and his desire to
comfort her. Also he begged permission to come and see
me, as an old schoolfellow, and set everything straight
between us, as should be among honest Blundellites.
All this was so different to my idea of fighting out a
quarrel, when once it is upon a man, that I knew not
what to make of it, but bowed to higher breeding. Only
one thing I resolved upon, that come when he would he
should not see Annie. And to do my sister justice, she
had no desire to see him.
However, I am too easy, there is no doubt of that,
being very quick to forgive a man, and very slow to
suspect, unless he hath once lied to me. Moreover, as
to Annie, it had always seemed to me (much against my
wishes) that some shrewd love of a waiting sort was
between her and Tom Faggus: and though Tom had made his
fortune now, and everybody respected him, of course he
was not to be compared, in that point of
respectability, with those people who hanged the
robbers when fortune turned against them.
So young Squire Marwood came again, as though I had
never smitten him, and spoke of it in as light a way as
if we were still at school together. It was not in my
nature, of course, to keep any anger against him; and I
knew what a condescension it was for him to visit us.
And it is a very grievous thing, which touches small
landowners, to see an ancient family day by day
decaying: and when we heard that Ley Barton itself, and
all the Manor of Lynton were under a heavy mortgage
debt to John Lovering of Weare-Gifford, there was not
much, in our little way, that we would not gladly do or
suffer for the benefit of De Whichehalse.
Meanwhile the work of the farm was toward, and every
day gave us more ado to dispose of what itself was
doing. For after the long dry skeltering wind of March
and part of April, there had been a fortnight of soft
wet; and when the sun came forth again, hill and
valley, wood and meadow, could not make enough of him.
Many a spring have I seen since then, but never yet two
springs alike, and never one so beautiful. Or was it
that my love came forth and touched the world with
beauty?
The spring was in our valley now; creeping first for
shelter shyly in the pause of the blustering wind.
There the lambs came bleating to her, and the orchis
lifted up, and the thin dead leaves of clover lay for
the new ones to spring through. There the stiffest
things that sleep, the stubby oak, and the saplin'd
beech, dropped their brown defiance to her, and
prepared for a soft reply.
While her over-eager children (who had started forth to
meet her, through the frost and shower of sleet),
catkin'd hazel, gold-gloved withy, youthful elder, and
old woodbine, with all the tribe of good hedge-climbers
(who must hasten while haste they may)--was there one
of them that did not claim the merit of coming first?
There she stayed and held her revel, as soon as the
fear of frost was gone; all the air was a fount of
freshness, and the earth of gladness, and the laughing
waters prattled of the kindness of the sun.
But all this made it much harder for us, plying the hoe
and rake, to keep the fields with room upon them for
the corn to tiller. The winter wheat was well enough,
being sturdy and strong-sided; but the spring wheat and
the barley and the oats were overrun by ill weeds
growing faster. Therefore, as the old saying is,--
Farmer, that thy wife may thrive,
Let not burr and burdock wive;
And if thou wouldst keep thy son,
See that bine and gith have none.
So we were compelled to go down the field and up it,
striking in and out with care where the green blades
hung together, so that each had space to move in and to
spread its roots abroad. And I do assure you now,
though you may not believe me, it was harder work to
keep John Fry, Bill Dadds, and Jem Slocomb all in a
line and all moving nimbly to the tune of my own tool,
than it was to set out in the morning alone, and hoe
half an acre by dinner-time. For, instead of keeping
the good ash moving, they would for ever be finding
something to look at or to speak of, or at any rate, to
stop with; blaming the shape of their tools perhaps, or
talking about other people's affairs; or, what was most
irksome of all to me, taking advantage as married men,
and whispering jokes of no excellence about my having,
or having not, or being ashamed of a sweetheart. And
this went so far at last that I was forced to take two
of them and knock their heads together; after which
they worked with a better will.
When we met together in the evening round the kitchen
chimney-place, after the men had had their supper and
their heavy boots were gone, my mother and Eliza would
do their very utmost to learn what I was thinking of.
Not that we kept any fire now, after the crock was
emptied; but that we loved to see the ashes cooling,
and to be together. At these times Annie would never
ask me any crafty questions (as Eliza did), but would
sit with her hair untwined, and one hand underneath her
chin, sometimes looking softly at me, as much as to say
that she knew it all and I was no worse off than she.
But strange to say my mother dreamed not, even for an
instant, that it was possible for Annie to be thinking
of such a thing. She was so very good and quiet, and
careful of the linen, and clever about the cookery and
fowls and bacon-curing, that people used to laugh, and
say she would never look at a bachelor until her mother
ordered her. But I (perhaps from my own condition and
the sense of what it was) felt no certainty about this,
and even had another opinion, as was said before.
Often I was much inclined to speak to her about it, and
put her on her guard against the approaches of Tom
Faggus; but I could not find how to begin, and feared
to make a breach between us; knowing that if her mind
was set, no words of mine would alter it; although they
needs must grieve her deeply. Moreover, I felt that,
in this case, a certain homely Devonshire proverb would
come home to me; that one, I mean, which records that
the crock was calling the kettle smutty. Not, of
course, that I compared my innocent maid to a
highwayman; but that Annie might think her worse, and
would be too apt to do so, if indeed she loved Tom
Faggus. And our Cousin Tom, by this time, was living a
quiet and godly life; having retired almost from the
trade (except when he needed excitement, or came across
public officers), and having won the esteem of all
whose purses were in his power.
Perhaps it is needless for me to say that all this time
while my month was running--or rather crawling, for
never month went so slow as that with me--neither weed,
nor seed, nor cattle, nor my own mother's anxiety, nor
any care for my sister, kept me from looking once every
day, and even twice on a Sunday, for any sign of Lorna.
For my heart was ever weary; in the budding valleys,
and by the crystal waters, looking at the lambs in
fold, or the heifers on the mill, labouring in trickled
furrows, or among the beaded blades; halting fresh to
see the sun lift over the golden-vapoured ridge; or
doffing hat, from sweat of brow, to watch him sink in
the low gray sea; be it as it would of day, of work, or
night, or slumber, it was a weary heart I bore, and
fear was on the brink of it.
All the beauty of the spring went for happy men to
think of; all the increase of the year was for other
eyes to mark. Not a sign of any sunrise for me from my
fount of life, not a breath to stir the dead leaves
fallen on my heart's Spring.
CHAPTER XXIII
A ROYAL INVITATION
Although I had, for the most part, so very stout an
appetite, that none but mother saw any need of
encouraging me to eat, I could only manage one true
good meal in a day, at the time I speak of. Mother
was in despair at this, and tempted me with the whole
of the rack, and even talked of sending to Porlock for
a druggist who came there twice in a week; and Annie
spent all her time in cooking, and even Lizzie sang
songs to me; for she could sing very sweetly. But my
conscience told me that Betty Muxworthy had some reason
upon her side.
'Latt the young ozebird aloun, zay I. Makk zuch ado
about un, wi' hogs'-puddens, and hock-bits, and
lambs'-mate, and whaten bradd indade, and brewers' ale
avore dinner-time, and her not to zit wi' no winder
aupen--draive me mad 'e doo, the ov'ee, zuch a passel
of voouls. Do 'un good to starve a bit; and takk zome
on's wackedness out ov un.'
But mother did not see it so; and she even sent for
Nicholas Snowe to bring his three daughters with him,
and have ale and cake in the parlour, and advise about
what the bees were doing, and when a swarm might be
looked for. Being vexed about this and having to stop
at home nearly half the evening, I lost good manners so
much as to ask him (even in our own house!) what he
meant by not mending the swing-hurdle where the Lynn
stream flows from our land into his, and which he is
bound to maintain. But he looked at me in a superior
manner, and said, 'Business, young man, in business
time.'
I had other reason for being vexed with Farmer Nicholas
just now, viz. that I had heard a rumour, after church
one Sunday--when most of all we sorrow over the sins of
one another--that Master Nicholas Snowe had been seen
to gaze tenderly at my mother, during a passage of the
sermon, wherein the parson spoke well and warmly about
the duty of Christian love. Now, putting one thing
with another, about the bees, and about some ducks, and
a bullock with a broken knee-cap, I more than suspected
that Farmer Nicholas was casting sheep's eyes at my
mother; not only to save all further trouble in the
matter of the hurdle, but to override me altogether
upon the difficult question of damming. And I knew
quite well that John Fry's wife never came to help at
the washing without declaring that it was a sin for a
well-looking woman like mother, with plenty to live on,
and only three children, to keep all the farmers for
miles around so unsettled in their minds about her.
Mother used to answer 'Oh fie, Mistress Fry! be good
enough to mind your own business.' But we always saw
that she smoothed her apron, and did her hair up
afterwards, and that Mistress Fry went home at night
with a cold pig's foot or a bowl of dripping.
Therefore, on that very night, as I could not well
speak to mother about it, without seeming undutiful,
after lighting the three young ladies--for so in sooth
they called themselves--all the way home with our
stable-lanthorn, I begged good leave of Farmer Nicholas
(who had hung some way behind us) to say a word in
private to him, before he entered his own house.
'Wi' all the plaisure in laife, my zon,' he answered
very graciously, thinking perhaps that I was prepared
to speak concerning Sally.
'Now, Farmer Nicholas Snowe,' I said, scarce knowing
how to begin it, 'you must promise not to be vexed with
me, for what I am going to say to you.'
'Vaxed wi' thee! Noo, noo, my lad. I 'ave a knowed
thee too long for that. And thy veyther were my best
friend, afore thee. Never wronged his neighbours,
never spak an unkind word, never had no maneness in
him. Tuk a vancy to a nice young 'ooman, and never kep
her in doubt about it, though there wadn't mooch to
zettle on her. Spak his maind laike a man, he did, and
right happy he were wi' her. Ah, well a day! Ah, God
knoweth best. I never shall zee his laike again. And
he were the best judge of a dung-heap anywhere in this
county.'
'Well, Master Snowe,' I answered him, 'it is very
handsome of you to say so. And now I am going to be
like my father, I am going to speak my mind.'
'Raight there, lad; raight enough, I reckon. Us has
had enough of pralimbinary.'
'Then what I want to say is this--I won't have any one
courting my mother.'
'Coortin' of thy mother, lad?' cried Farmer Snowe, with
as much amazement as if the thing were impossible;
'why, who ever hath been dooin' of it?'
'Yes, courting of my mother, sir. And you know best
who comes doing it.'
'Wull, wull! What will boys be up to next? Zhud a'
thought herzelf wor the proper judge. No thank 'ee,
lad, no need of thy light. Know the wai to my own
door, at laste; and have a raight to goo there.' And he
shut me out without so much as offering me a drink of
cider.
The next afternoon, when work was over, I had seen to
the horses, for now it was foolish to trust John Fry,
because he had so many children, and his wife had taken
to scolding; and just as I was saying to myself that in
five days more my month would be done, and myself free
to seek Lorna, a man came riding up from the ford where
the road goes through the Lynn stream. As soon as I
saw that it was not Tom Faggus, I went no farther to
meet him, counting that it must be some traveller bound
for Brendon or Cheriton, and likely enough he would
come and beg for a draught of milk or cider; and then
on again, after asking the way.
But instead of that, he stopped at our gate, and stood
up from his saddle, and halloed as if he were somebody;
and all the time he was flourishing a white thing in
the air, like the bands our parson weareth. So I
crossed the court-yard to speak with him.
'Service of the King!' he saith; 'service of our lord
the King! Come hither, thou great yokel, at risk of
fine and imprisonment.'
Although not pleased with this, I went to him, as
became a loyal man; quite at my leisure, however, for
there is no man born who can hurry me, though I hasten
for any woman.
'Plover Barrows farm!' said he; 'God only knows how
tired I be. Is there any where in this cursed county
a cursed place called Plover Barrows farm? For last
twenty mile at least they told me 'twere only half a
mile farther, or only just round corner. Now tell me
that, and I fain would thwack thee if thou wert not
thrice my size.'
'Sir,' I replied, 'you shall not have the trouble.
This is Plover's Barrows farm, and you are kindly
welcome. Sheep's kidneys is for supper, and the ale
got bright from the tapping. But why do you think ill
of us? We like not to be cursed so.'
'Nay, I think no ill,' he said; 'sheep's kidneys is
good, uncommon good, if they do them without burning.
But I be so galled in the saddle ten days, and never a
comely meal of it. And when they hear "King's service"
cried, they give me the worst of everything. All the
way down from London, I had a rogue of a fellow in
front of me, eating the fat of the land before me, and
every one bowing down to him. He could go three miles
to my one though he never changed his horse. He might
have robbed me at any minute, if I had been worth the
trouble. A red mare he rideth, strong in the loins,
and pointed quite small in the head. I shall live to
see him hanged yet.'
All this time he was riding across the straw of our
courtyard, getting his weary legs out of the leathers,
and almost afraid to stand yet. A coarse-grained,
hard-faced man he was, some forty years of age or so,
and of middle height and stature. He was dressed in a
dark brown riding suit, none the better for Exmoor mud,
but fitting him very differently from the fashion of
our tailors. Across the holsters lay his cloak, made
of some red skin, and shining from the sweating of the
horse. As I looked down on his stiff bright
head-piece, small quick eyes and black needly beard, he
seemed to despise me (too much, as I thought) for a
mere ignoramus and country bumpkin.
'Annie, have down the cut ham,' I shouted, for my
sister was come to the door by chance, or because of
the sound of a horse in the road, 'and cut a few
rashers of hung deer's meat. There is a gentleman come
to sup, Annie. And fetch the hops out of the tap with
a skewer that it may run more sparkling.'
'I wish I may go to a place never meant for me,' said
my new friend, now wiping his mouth with the sleeve of
his brown riding coat, 'if ever I fell among such good
folk. You are the right sort, and no error therein.
All this shall go in your favour greatly, when I make
deposition. At least, I mean, if it be as good in the
eating as in the hearing. 'Tis a supper quite fit for
Tom Faggus himself, the man who hath stolen my victuals
so. And that hung deer's meat, now is it of the red
deer running wild in these parts?'
'To be sure it is, sir,' I answered; 'where should we
get any other?'
'Right, right, you are right, my son. I have heard
that the flavour is marvellous. Some of them came and
scared me so, in the fog of the morning, that I
hungered for them ever since. Ha, ha, I saw their
haunches. But the young lady will not forget--art sure
she will not forget it?'
'You may trust her to forget nothing, sir, that may
tempt a guest to his comfort.'
'In faith, then, I will leave my horse in your hands,
and be off for it. Half the pleasure of the mouth is
in the nose beforehand. But stay, almost I forgot my
business, in the hurry which thy tongue hath spread
through my lately despairing belly. Hungry I am, and
sore of body, from my heels right upward, and sorest in
front of my doublet, yet may I not rest nor bite
barley-bread, until I have seen and touched John Ridd.
God grant that he be not far away; I must eat my
saddle, if it be so.'
'Have no fear, good sir,' I answered; 'you have seen
and touched John Ridd. I am he, and not one likely to
go beneath a bushel.'
'It would take a large bushel to hold thee, John Ridd.
In the name of the King, His Majesty, Charles the
Second, these presents!'
He touched me with the white thing which I had first
seen him waving, and which I now beheld to be
sheepskin, such as they call parchment. It was tied
across with cord, and fastened down in every corner
with unsightly dabs of wax. By order of the messenger
(for I was over-frightened now to think of doing
anything), I broke enough of seals to keep an Easter
ghost from rising; and there I saw my name in large;
God grant such another shock may never befall me in my
old age.
'Read, my son; read, thou great fool, if indeed thou
canst read,' said the officer to encourage me; 'there
is nothing to kill thee, boy, and my supper will be
spoiling. Stare not at me so, thou fool; thou art big
enough to eat me; read, read, read.'
'If you please, sir, what is your name?' I asked;
though why I asked him I know not, except from fear of
witchcraft.
'Jeremy Stickles is my name, lad, nothing more than a
poor apparitor of the worshipful Court of King's Bench.
And at this moment a starving one, and no supper for me
unless thou wilt read.'
Being compelled in this way, I read pretty nigh as
follows; not that I give the whole of it, but only the
gist and the emphasis,--
'To our good subject, John Ridd, etc.'--describing me
ever so much better than I knew myself--'by these
presents, greeting. These are to require thee, in the
name of our lord the King, to appear in person before
the Right Worshipful, the Justices of His Majesty's
Bench at Westminster, laying aside all thine own
business, and there to deliver such evidence as is
within thy cognisance, touching certain matters whereby
the peace of our said lord the King, and the well-being
of this realm, is, are, or otherwise may be impeached,
impugned, imperilled, or otherwise detrimented. As
witness these presents.' And then there were four
seals, and then a signature I could not make out, only
that it began with a J, and ended with some other
writing, done almost in a circle. Underneath was added
in a different handwriting 'Charges will be borne. The
matter is full urgent.'
The messenger watched me, while I read so much as I
could read of it; and he seemed well pleased with my
surprise, because he had expected it. Then, not
knowing what else to do, I looked again at the cover,
and on the top of it I saw, 'Ride, Ride, Ride! On His
Gracious Majesty's business; spur and spare not.'
It may be supposed by all who know me, that I was taken
hereupon with such a giddiness in my head and noisiness
in my ears, that I was forced to hold by the crook
driven in below the thatch for holding of the
hay-rakes. There was scarcely any sense left in me,
only that the thing was come by power of Mother
Melldrum, because I despised her warning, and had again
sought Lorna. But the officer was grieved for me, and
the danger to his supper.
'My son, be not afraid,' he said; 'we are not going to
skin thee. Only thou tell all the truth, and it shall
be--but never mind, I will tell thee all about it, and
how to come out harmless, if I find thy victuals good,
and no delay in serving them.'
'We do our best, sir, without bargain,' said I, 'to
please our visitors.'
But when my mother saw that parchment (for we could not
keep it from her) she fell away into her favourite bed
of stock gilly-flowers, which she had been tending;
and when we brought her round again, did nothing but
exclaim against the wickedness of the age and people.
'It was useless to tell her; she knew what it was, and
so should all the parish know. The King had heard what
her son was, how sober, and quiet, and diligent, and
the strongest young man in England; and being himself
such a reprobate--God forgive her for saying so--he
could never rest till he got poor Johnny, and made him
as dissolute as himself. And if he did that'--here
mother went off into a fit of crying; and Annie minded
her face, while Lizzie saw that her gown was in comely
order.
But the character of the King improved, when Master
Jeremy Stickles (being really moved by the look of it,
and no bad man after all) laid it clearly before my
mother that the King on his throne was unhappy, until
he had seen John Ridd. That the fame of John had gone
so far, and his size, and all his virtues--that verily
by the God who made him, the King was overcome with it.
Then mother lay back in her garden chair, and smiled
upon the whole of us, and most of all on Jeremy;
looking only shyly on me, and speaking through some
break of tears. 'His Majesty shall have my John; His
Majesty is very good: but only for a fortnight. I want
no titles for him. Johnny is enough for me; and Master
John for the working men.'
Now though my mother was so willing that I should go to
London, expecting great promotion and high glory for
me, I myself was deeply gone into the pit of sorrow.
For what would Lorna think of me? Here was the long
month just expired, after worlds of waiting; there
would be her lovely self, peeping softly down the glen,
and fearing to encourage me; yet there would be nobody
else, and what an insult to her! Dwelling upon this,
and seeing no chance of escape from it, I could not
find one wink of sleep; though Jeremy Stickles (who
slept close by) snored loud enough to spare me some.
For I felt myself to be, as it were, in a place of some
importance; in a situation of trust, I may say; and
bound not to depart from it. For who could tell what
the King might have to say to me about the Doones--and
I felt that they were at the bottom of this strange
appearance--or what His Majesty might think, if after
receiving a message from him (trusty under so many
seals) I were to violate his faith in me as a
churchwarden's son, and falsely spread his words
abroad?
Perhaps I was not wise in building such a wall of
scruples. Nevertheless, all that was there, and
weighed upon me heavily. And at last I made up my
mind to this, that even Lorna must not know the reason
of my going, neither anything about it; but that she
might know I was gone a long way from home, and perhaps
be sorry for it. Now how was I to let her know even
that much of the matter, without breaking compact?
Puzzling on this, I fell asleep, after the proper time
to get up; nor was I to be seen at breakfast time; and
mother (being quite strange to that) was very uneasy
about it. But Master Stickles assured her that the
King's writ often had that effect, and the symptom was
a good one.
'Now, Master Stickles, when must we start?' I asked
him, as he lounged in the yard gazing at our turkey
poults picking and running in the sun to the tune of
their father's gobble. 'Your horse was greatly
foundered, sir, and is hardly fit for the road to-day;
and Smiler was sledding yesterday all up the higher
Cleve; and none of the rest can carry me.'
'In a few more years,' replied the King's officer,
contemplating me with much satisfaction; ''twill be a
cruelty to any horse to put thee on his back, John.'
Master Stickles, by this time, was quite familiar with
us, calling me 'Jack,' and Eliza 'Lizzie,' and what I
liked the least of all, our pretty Annie 'Nancy.'
'That will be as God pleases, sir,' I answered him,
rather sharply; 'and the horse that suffers will not be
thine. But I wish to know when we must start upon our
long travel to London town. I perceive that the matter
is of great despatch and urgency.'
'To be sure, so it is, my son. But I see a yearling
turkey there, him I mean with the hop in his walk, who
(if I know aught of fowls) would roast well to-morrow.
Thy mother must have preparation: it is no more than
reasonable. Now, have that turkey killed to-night (for
his fatness makes me long for him), and we will have
him for dinner to-morrow, with, perhaps, one of his
brethren; and a few more collops of red deer's flesh
for supper, and then on the Friday morning, with the
grace of God, we will set our faces to the road, upon
His Majesty's business.'
'Nay, but good sir,' I asked with some trembling, so
eager was I to see Lorna; 'if His Majesty's business
will keep till Friday, may it not keep until Monday?
We have a litter of sucking-pigs, excellently choice
and white, six weeks old, come Friday. There be too
many for the sow, and one of them needeth roasting.
Think you not it would be a pity to leave the women to
carve it?'
'My son Jack,' replied Master Stickles, 'never was I in
such quarters yet: and God forbid that I should be so
unthankful to Him as to hurry away. And now I think on
it, Friday is not a day upon which pious people love to
commence an enterprise. I will choose the young pig
to-morrow at noon, at which time they are wont to
gambol; and we will celebrate his birthday by carving
him on Friday. After that we will gird our loins, and
set forth early on Saturday.'
Now this was little better to me than if we had set
forth at once. Sunday being the very first day upon
which it would be honourable for me to enter Glen
Doone. But though I tried every possible means with
Master Jeremy Stickles, offering him the choice for
dinner of every beast that was on the farm, he durst
not put off our departure later than the Saturday. And
nothing else but love of us and of our hospitality
would have so persuaded him to remain with us till
then. Therefore now my only chance of seeing Lorna,
before I went, lay in watching from the cliff and
espying her, or a signal from her.
This, however, I did in vain, until my eyes were weary
and often would delude themselves with hope of what
they ached for. But though I lay hidden behind the
trees upon the crest of the stony fall, and waited so
quiet that the rabbits and squirrels played around me,
and even the keen-eyed weasel took me for a trunk of
wood--it was all as one; no cast of colour changed the
white stone, whose whiteness now was hateful to me; nor
did wreath or skirt of maiden break the loneliness of
the vale.
CHAPTER XXIV
A SAFE PASS FOR KING'S MESSENGER
A journey to London seemed to us in those bygone days
as hazardous and dark an adventure as could be forced
on any man. I mean, of course, a poor man; for to a
great nobleman, with ever so many outriders,
attendants, and retainers, the risk was not so great,
unless the highwaymen knew of their coming beforehand,
and so combined against them. To a poor man, however,
the risk was not so much from those gentlemen of the
road as from the more ignoble footpads, and the
landlords of the lesser hostels, and the loose
unguarded soldiers, over and above the pitfalls and the
quagmires of the way; so that it was hard to settle, at
the first outgoing whether a man were wise to pray more
for his neck or for his head.
But nowadays it is very different. Not that
highway-men are scarce, in this the reign of our good
Queen Anne; for in truth they thrive as well as ever,
albeit they deserve it not, being less upright and
courteous--but that the roads are much improved, and
the growing use of stage-waggons (some of which will
travel as much as forty miles in a summer day) has
turned our ancient ideas of distance almost upside
down; and I doubt whether God be pleased with our
flying so fast away from Him. However, that is not my
business; nor does it lie in my mouth to speak very
strongly upon the subject, seeing how much I myself
have done towards making of roads upon Exmoor.
To return to my story (and, in truth, I lose that road
too often), it would have taken ten King's messengers
to get me away from Plover's Barrows without one
goodbye to Lorna, but for my sense of the trust and
reliance which His Majesty had reposed in me. And now
I felt most bitterly how the very arrangements which
seemed so wise, and indeed ingenious, may by the force
of events become our most fatal obstacles. For lo! I
was blocked entirely from going to see Lorna; whereas
we should have fixed it so that I as well might have
the power of signalling my necessity.
It was too late now to think of that; and so I made up
my mind at last to keep my honour on both sides, both
to the King and to the maiden, although I might lose
everything except a heavy heart for it. And indeed,
more hearts than mine were heavy; for when it came to
the tug of parting, my mother was like, and so was
Annie, to break down altogether. But I bade them be of
good cheer, and smiled in the briskest manner upon
them, and said that I should be back next week as one
of His Majesty's greatest captains, and told them not
to fear me then. Upon which they smiled at the idea of
ever being afraid of me, whatever dress I might have
on; and so I kissed my hand once more, and rode away
very bravely. But bless your heart, I could no more
have done so than flown all the way to London if Jeremy
Stickles had not been there.
And not to take too much credit to myself in this
matter, I must confess that when we were come to the
turn in the road where the moor begins, and whence you
see the last of the yard, and the ricks and the poultry
round them and can (by knowing the place) obtain a
glance of the kitchen window under the walnut-tree, it
went so hard with me just here that I even made
pretence of a stone in ancient Smiler's shoe, to
dismount, and to bend my head awhile. Then, knowing
that those I had left behind would be watching to see
the last of me, and might have false hopes of my coming
back, I mounted again with all possible courage, and
rode after Jeremy Stickles.
Jeremy, seeing how much I was down, did his best to
keep me up with jokes, and tales, and light discourse,
until, before we had ridden a league, I began to long
to see the things he was describing. The air, the
weather, and the thoughts of going to a wondrous place,
added to the fine company--at least so Jeremy said it
was--of a man who knew all London, made me feel that I
should be ungracious not to laugh a little. And being
very simple then I laughed no more a little, but
something quite considerable (though free from
consideration) at the strange things Master Stickles
told me, and his strange way of telling them. And so
we became very excellent friends, for he was much
pleased with my laughing.
Not wishing to thrust myself more forward than need be
in this narrative, I have scarcely thought it becoming
or right to speak of my own adornments. But now, what
with the brave clothes I had on, and the better ones
still that were packed up in the bag behind the saddle,
it is almost beyond me to forbear saying that I must
have looked very pleasing. And many a time I wished,
going along, that Lorna could only be here and there,
watching behind a furze-bush, looking at me, and
wondering how much my clothes had cost. For mother
would have no stint in the matter, but had assembled at
our house, immediately upon knowledge of what was to be
about London, every man known to be a good stitcher
upon our side of Exmoor. And for three days they had
worked their best, without stint of beer or cider,
according to the constitution of each. The result, so
they all declared, was such as to create admiration,
and defy competition in London. And to me it seemed
that they were quite right; though Jeremy Stickles
turned up his nose, and feigned to be deaf in the
business.
Now be that matter as you please--for the point is not
worth arguing--certain it is that my appearance was
better than it had been before. For being in the best
clothes, one tries to look and to act (so far as may
be) up to the quality of them. Not only for the fear
of soiling them, but that they enlarge a man's
perception of his value. And it strikes me that our
sins arise, partly from disdain of others, but mainly
from contempt of self, both working the despite of God.
But men of mind may not be measured by such paltry rule
as this.
By dinner-time we arrived at Porlock, and dined with my
old friend, Master Pooke, now growing rich and portly.
For though we had plenty of victuals with us we were
not to begin upon them, until all chance of victualling
among our friends was left behind. And during that
first day we had no need to meddle with our store at
all; for as had been settled before we left home, we
lay that night at Dunster in the house of a worthy
tanner, first cousin to my mother, who received us very
cordially, and undertook to return old Smiler to his
stable at Plover's Barrows, after one day's rest.
Thence we hired to Bridgwater; and from Bridgwater on
to Bristowe, breaking the journey between the two. But
although the whole way was so new to me, and such a
perpetual source of conflict, that the remembrance
still abides with me, as if it were but yesterday, I
must not be so long in telling as it was in travelling,
or you will wish me farther; both because Lorna was
nothing there, and also because a man in our
neighbourhood had done the whole of it since my time,
and feigns to think nothing of it. However, one thing,
in common justice to a person who has been traduced, I
am bound to mention. And this is, that being two of
us, and myself of such magnitude, we never could have
made our journey without either fight or running, but
for the free pass which dear Annie, by some means (I
know not what), had procured from Master Faggus. And
when I let it be known, by some hap, that I was the own
cousin of Tom Faggus, and honoured with his society,
there was not a house upon the road but was proud to
entertain me, in spite of my fellow-traveller, bearing
the red badge of the King.
'I will keep this close, my son Jack,' he said, having
stripped it off with a carving-knife; 'your flag is the
best to fly. The man who starved me on the way down,
the same shall feed me fat going home.'
Therefore we pursued our way, in excellent condition,
having thriven upon the credit of that very popular
highwayman, and being surrounded with regrets that he
had left the profession, and sometimes begged to
intercede that he might help the road again. For all
the landlords on the road declared that now small ale
was drunk, nor much of spirits called for, because the
farmers need not prime to meet only common riders,
neither were these worth the while to get drunk with
afterwards. Master Stickles himself undertook, as an
officer of the King's Justices to plead this case with
Squire Faggus (as everybody called him now), and to
induce him, for the general good, to return to his
proper ministry.
It was a long and weary journey, although the roads are
wondrous good on the farther side of Bristowe, and
scarcely any man need be bogged, if he keeps his eyes
well open, save, perhaps, in Berkshire. In consequence
of the pass we had, and the vintner's knowledge of it,
we only met two public riders, one of whom made off
straightway when he saw my companion's pistols and the
stout carbine I bore; and the other came to a parley
with us, and proved most kind and affable, when he knew
himself in the presence of the cousin of Squire Faggus.
'God save you, gentlemen,' he cried, lifting his hat
politely; 'many and many a happy day I have worked this
road with him. Such times will never be again. But
commend me to his love and prayers. King my name is,
and King my nature. Say that, and none will harm
you.' And so he made off down the hill, being a perfect
gentleman, and a very good horse he was riding.
The night was falling very thick by the time we were
come to Tyburn, and here the King's officer decided
that it would be wise to halt, because the way was
unsafe by night across the fields to Charing village.
I for my part was nothing loth, and preferred to see
London by daylight.
And after all, it was not worth seeing, but a very
hideous and dirty place, not at all like Exmoor. Some
of the shops were very fine, and the signs above them
finer still, so that I was never weary of standing
still to look at them. But in doing this there was no
ease; for before one could begin almost to make out the
meaning of them, either some of the wayfarers would
bustle and scowl, and draw their swords, or the owner,
or his apprentice boys, would rush out and catch hold
of me, crying, 'Buy, buy, buy! What d'ye lack, what
d'ye lack? Buy, buy, buy!' At first I mistook the
meaning of this--for so we pronounce the word 'boy'
upon Exmoor--and I answered with some indignation,
'Sirrah, I am no boy now, but a man of one-and-twenty
years; and as for lacking, I lack naught from thee,
except what thou hast not--good manners.'
The only things that pleased me much, were the river
Thames, and the hall and church of Westminster, where
there are brave things to be seen, and braver still to
think about. But whenever I wandered in the streets,
what with the noise the people made, the number of the
coaches, the running of the footmen, the swaggering of
great courtiers, and the thrusting aside of everybody,
many and many a time I longed to be back among the
sheep again, for fear of losing temper. They were
welcome to the wall for me, as I took care to tell
them, for I could stand without the wall, which perhaps
was more than they could do. Though I said this with
the best intention, meaning no discourtesy, some of
them were vexed at it; and one young lord, being
flushed with drink, drew his sword and made at me. But
I struck it up with my holly stick, so that it flew on
the roof of a house, then I took him by the belt with
one hand, and laid him in the kennel. This caused some
little disturbance; but none of the rest saw fit to try
how the matter might be with them.
Now this being the year of our Lord 1683, more than
nine years and a half since the death of my father, and
the beginning of this history, all London was in a
great ferment about the dispute between the Court of
the King and the City. The King, or rather perhaps his
party (for they said that His Majesty cared for little
except to have plenty of money and spend it), was quite
resolved to be supreme in the appointment of the chief
officers of the corporation. But the citizens
maintained that (under their charter) this right lay
entirely with themselves; upon which a writ was issued
against them for forfeiture of their charter; and the
question was now being tried in the court of His
Majesty's bench.
This seemed to occupy all the attention of the judges,
and my case (which had appeared so urgent) was put off
from time to time, while the Court and the City
contended. And so hot was the conflict and hate
between them, that a sheriff had been fined by the King
in 100,000 pounds, and a former lord mayor had even
been sentenced to the pillory, because he would not
swear falsely. Hence the courtiers and the citizens
scarce could meet in the streets with patience, or
without railing and frequent blows.
Now although I heard so much of this matter, for
nothing else was talked of, and it seeming to me more
important even than the churchwardenship of Oare, I
could not for the life of me tell which side I should
take to. For all my sense of position, and of
confidence reposed in me, and of my father's opinions,
lay heavily in one scale, while all my reason and my
heart went down plump against injustice, and seemed to
win the other scale. Even so my father had been, at
the breaking out of the civil war, when he was less
than my age now, and even less skilled in politics; and
my mother told me after this, when she saw how I myself
was doubting, and vexed with myself for doing so, that
my father used to thank God often that he had not been
called upon to take one side or other, but might remain
obscure and quiet. And yet he always considered
himself to be a good, sound Royalist.
But now as I stayed there, only desirous to be heard
and to get away, and scarcely even guessing yet what
was wanted of me (for even Jeremy Stickles knew not, or
pretended not to know), things came to a dreadful pass
between the King and all the people who dared to have
an opinion. For about the middle of June, the judges
gave their sentence, that the City of London had
forfeited its charter, and that its franchise should be
taken into the hands of the King. Scarcely was this
judgment forth, and all men hotly talking of it, when a
far worse thing befell. News of some great conspiracy
was spread at every corner, and that a man in the
malting business had tried to take up the brewer's
work, and lop the King and the Duke of York. Everybody
was shocked at this, for the King himself was not
disliked so much as his advisers; but everybody was
more than shocked, grieved indeed to the heart with
pain, at hearing that Lord William Russell and Mr.
Algernon Sidney had been seized and sent to the Tower
of London, upon a charge of high treason.
Having no knowledge of these great men, nor of the
matter how far it was true, I had not very much to say
about either of them or it; but this silence was not
shared (although the ignorance may have been) by the
hundreds of people around me. Such a commotion was
astir, such universal sense of wrong, and stern resolve
to right it, that each man grasped his fellow's hand,
and led him into the vintner's. Even I, although at
that time given to excess in temperance, and afraid of
the name of cordials, was hard set (I do assure you)
not to be drunk at intervals without coarse
discourtesy.
However, that (as Betty Muxworthy used to say, when
argued down, and ready to take the mop for it) is
neither here nor there. I have naught to do with great
history and am sorry for those who have to write it;
because they are sure to have both friends and enemies
in it, and cannot act as they would towards them,
without damage to their own consciences.
But as great events draw little ones, and the rattle of
the churn decides the uncertainty of the flies, so this
movement of the town, and eloquence, and passion had
more than I guessed at the time, to do with my own
little fortunes. For in the first place it was fixed
(perhaps from down right contumely, because the
citizens loved him so) that Lord Russell should be
tried neither at Westminster nor at Lincoln's Inn, but
at the Court of Old Bailey, within the precincts of the
city. This kept me hanging on much longer; because
although the good nobleman was to be tried by the Court
of Common Pleas, yet the officers of King's Bench, to
whom I daily applied myself, were in counsel with their
fellows, and put me off from day to day.
Now I had heard of the law's delays, which the greatest
of all great poets (knowing much of the law himself, as
indeed of everything) has specially mentioned, when not
expected, among the many ills of life. But I never
thought at my years to have such bitter experience of
the evil; and it seemed to me that if the lawyers
failed to do their duty, they ought to pay people for
waiting upon them, instead of making them pay for it.
But here I was, now in the second month living at my
own charges in the house of a worthy fellmonger at the
sign of the Seal and Squirrel, abutting upon the Strand
road which leads from Temple Bar to Charing. Here I
did very well indeed, having a mattress of good
skin-dressings, and plenty to eat every day of my life,
but the butter was something to cry 'but' thrice at
(according to a conceit of our school days), and the
milk must have come from cows driven to water.
However, these evils were light compared with the heavy
bill sent up to me every Saturday afternoon; and
knowing how my mother had pinched to send me nobly to
London, and had told me to spare for nothing, but live
bravely with the best of them, the tears very nearly
came into my eyes, as I thought, while I ate, of so
robbing her.
At length, being quite at the end of my money, and
seeing no other help for it, I determined to listen to
clerks no more, but force my way up to the Justices,
and insist upon being heard by them, or discharged from
my recognisance. For so they had termed the bond or
deed which I had been forced to execute, in the
presence of a chief clerk or notary, the very day after
I came to London. And the purport of it was, that on
pain of a heavy fine or escheatment, I would hold
myself ready and present, to give evidence when called
upon. Having delivered me up to sign this, Jeremy
Stickles was quit of me, and went upon other business,
not but what he was kind and good to me, when his time
and pursuits allowed of it.
CHAPTER XXV
A GREAT MAN ATTENDS TO BUSINESS
Having seen Lord Russell murdered in the fields of
Lincoln's Inn, or rather having gone to see it, but
turned away with a sickness and a bitter flood of
tears--for a whiter and a nobler neck never fell before
low beast--I strode away towards Westminster, cured of
half my indignation at the death of Charles the First.
Many people hurried past me, chiefly of the more tender
sort, revolting at the butchery. In their ghastly
faces, as they turned them back, lest the sight should
be coming after them, great sorrow was to be seen, and
horror, and pity, and some anger.
In Westminster Hall I found nobody; not even the crowd
of crawling varlets, who used to be craving evermore
for employment or for payment. I knocked at three
doors, one after other, of lobbies going out of it,
where I had formerly seen some officers and people
pressing in and out, but for my trouble I took nothing,
except some thumps from echo. And at last an old man
told me that all the lawyers were gone to see the
result of their own works, in the fields of Lincoln's
Inn.
However, in a few days' time, I had better fortune; for
the court was sitting and full of business, to clear
off the arrears of work, before the lawyers' holiday.
As I was waiting in the hall for a good occasion, a man
with horsehair on his head, and a long blue bag in his
left hand, touched me gently on the arm, and led me
into a quiet place. I followed him very gladly, being
confident that he came to me with a message from the
Justiciaries. But after taking pains to be sure that
none could overhear us, he turned on me suddenly, and
asked,--
'Now, John, how is your dear mother?'
'Worshipful sir' I answered him, after recovering from
my surprise at his knowledge of our affairs, and kindly
interest in them, 'it is two months now since I have
seen her. Would to God that I only knew how she is
faring now, and how the business of the farm goes!'
'Sir, I respect and admire you,' the old gentleman
replied, with a bow very low and genteel; 'few young
court-gallants of our time are so reverent and dutiful.
Oh, how I did love my mother!' Here he turned up his
eyes to heaven, in a manner that made me feel for him
and yet with a kind of wonder.
'I am very sorry for you, sir,' I answered most
respectfully, not meaning to trespass on his grief, yet
wondering at his mother's age; for he seemed to be at
least threescore; 'but I am no court-gallant, sir; I
am only a farmer's son, and learning how to farm a
little.'
'Enough, John; quite enough,' he cried, 'I can read it
in thy countenance. Honesty is written there, and
courage and simplicity. But I fear that, in this town
of London, thou art apt to be taken in by people of no
principle. Ah me! Ah me! The world is bad, and I am
too old to improve it.'
Then finding him so good and kind, and anxious to
improve the age, I told him almost everything; how much
I paid the fellmonger, and all the things I had been to
see; and how I longed to get away, before the corn was
ripening; yet how (despite of these desires) I felt
myself bound to walk up and down, being under a thing
called 'recognisance.' In short, I told him everything;
except the nature of my summons (which I had no right
to tell), and that I was out of money.
My tale was told in a little archway, apart from other
lawyers; and the other lawyers seemed to me to shift
themselves, and to look askew, like sheep through a
hurdle, when the rest are feeding.
'What! Good God!' my lawyer cried, smiting his breast
indignantly with a roll of something learned; 'in what
country do we live? Under what laws are we governed?
No case before the court whatever; no primary
deposition, so far as we are furnished; not even a
King's writ issued--and here we have a fine young man
dragged from his home and adoring mother, during the
height of agriculture, at his own cost and charges! I
have heard of many grievances; but this the very worst
of all. Nothing short of a Royal Commission could be
warranty for it. This is not only illegal, sir, but
most gravely unconstitutional.'
'I had not told you, worthy sir,' I answered him, in a
lower tone, 'if I could have thought that your sense of
right would be moved so painfully. But now I must beg
to leave you, sir--for I see that the door again is
open. I beg you, worshipful sir, to accept--'
Upon this he put forth his hand and said, 'Nay, nay, my
son, not two, not two:' yet looking away, that he might
not scare me.
'To accept, kind sir, my very best thanks, and most
respectful remembrances.' And with that, I laid my hand
in his. 'And if, sir, any circumstances of business or
of pleasure should bring you to our part of the world,
I trust you will not forget that my mother and myself
(if ever I get home again) will do our best to make you
comfortable with our poor hospitality.'
With this I was hasting away from him, but he held my
hand and looked round at me. And he spoke without
cordiality.
'Young man, a general invitation is no entry for my fee
book. I have spent a good hour of business-time in
mastering thy case, and stating my opinion of it. And
being a member of the bar, called six-and-thirty years
agone by the honourable society of the Inner Temple, my
fee is at my own discretion; albeit an honorarium. For
the honour of the profession, and my position in it, I
ought to charge thee at least five guineas, although I
would have accepted one, offered with good will and
delicacy. Now I will enter it two, my son, and half a
crown for my clerk's fee.'
Saying this, he drew forth from his deep, blue bag, a
red book having clasps to it, and endorsed in gold
letters 'Fee-book'; and before I could speak (being
frightened so) he had entered on a page of it, 'To
consideration of ease as stated by John Ridd, and
advising thereupon, two guineas.'
'But sir, good sir,' I stammered forth, not having two
guineas left in the world, yet grieving to confess it,
'I knew not that I was to pay, learned sir. I never
thought of it in that way.'
'Wounds of God! In what way thought you that a lawyer
listened to your rigmarole?'
'I thought that you listened from kindness, sir, and
compassion of my grievous case, and a sort of liking
for me.'
'A lawyer like thee, young curmudgeon! A lawyer afford
to feel compassion gratis! Either thou art a very deep
knave, or the greenest of all greenhorns. Well, I
suppose, I must let thee off for one guinea, and the
clerk's fee. A bad business, a shocking business!'
Now, if this man had continued kind and soft, as when
he heard my story, I would have pawned my clothes to
pay him, rather than leave a debt behind, although
contracted unwittingly. But when he used harsh
language so, knowing that I did not deserve it, I began
to doubt within myself whether he deserved my money.
Therefore I answered him with some readiness, such as
comes sometimes to me, although I am so slow.
'Sir, I am no curmudgeon: if a young man had called me
so, it would not have been well with him. This money
shall be paid, if due, albeit I had no desire to incur
the debt. You have advised me that the Court is liable
for my expenses, so far as they be reasonable. If this
be a reasonable expense, come with me now to Lord
Justice Jeffreys, and receive from him the two guineas,
or (it may be) five, for the counsel you have given me
to deny his jurisdiction.' With these words, I took his
arm to lead him, for the door was open still.
'In the name of God, boy, let me go. Worthy sir, pray
let me go. My wife is sick, and my daughter dying--in
the name of God, sir, let me go.'
'Nay, nay,' I said, having fast hold of him, 'I cannot
let thee go unpaid, sir. Right is right; and thou
shalt have it.'
'Ruin is what I shall have, boy, if you drag me before
that devil. He will strike me from the bar at once,
and starve me, and all my family. Here, lad, good lad,
take these two guineas. Thou hast despoiled the
spoiler. Never again will I trust mine eyes for
knowledge of a greenhorn.'
He slipped two guineas into the hand which I had hooked
through his elbow, and spoke in an urgent whisper
again, for the people came crowding around us--'For
God's sake let me go, boy; another moment will be too
late.'
'Learned sir,' I answered him, 'twice you spoke, unless
I err, of the necessity of a clerk's fee, as a thing to
be lamented.'
'To be sure, to be sure, my son. You have a clerk as
much as I have. There it is. Now I pray thee, take to
the study of the law. Possession is nine points of it,
which thou hast of me. Self-possession is the tenth,
and that thou hast more than the other nine.'
Being flattered by this, and by the feeling of the two
guineas and half-crown, I dropped my hold upon
Counsellor Kitch (for he was no less a man than that),
and he was out of sight in a second of time, wig, blue
bag, and family. And before I had time to make up my
mind what I should do with his money (for of course I
meant not to keep it) the crier of the Court (as they
told me) came out, and wanted to know who I was. I
told him, as shortly as I could, that my business lay
with His Majesty's bench, and was very confidential;
upon which he took me inside with warning, and showed
me to an under-clerk, who showed me to a higher one,
and the higher clerk to the head one.
When this gentleman understood all about my business
(which I told him without complaint) he frowned at me
very heavily, as if I had done him an injury.
'John Ridd,' he asked me with a stern glance, 'is it
your deliberate desire to be brought into the presence
of the Lord Chief Justice?'
'Surely, sir, it has been my desire for the last two
months and more.'
'Then, John, thou shalt be. But mind one thing, not a
word of thy long detention, or thou mayst get into
trouble.'
'How, sir? For being detained against my own wish?' I
asked him; but he turned away, as if that matter were
not worth his arguing, as, indeed, I suppose it was
not, and led me through a little passage to a door with
a curtain across it.
'Now, if my Lord cross-question you,' the gentleman
whispered to me, 'answer him straight out truth at
once, for he will have it out of thee. And mind, he
loves not to be contradicted, neither can he bear a
hang-dog look. Take little heed of the other two; but
note every word of the middle one; and never make him
speak twice.'
I thanked him for his good advice, as he moved the
curtain and thrust me in, but instead of entering
withdrew, and left me to bear the brunt of it.
The chamber was not very large, though lofty to my
eyes, and dark, with wooden panels round it. At the
further end were some raised seats, such as I have seen
in churches, lined with velvet, and having broad
elbows, and a canopy over the middle seat. There were
only three men sitting here, one in the centre, and one
on each side; and all three were done up wonderfully
with fur, and robes of state, and curls of thick gray
horsehair, crimped and gathered, and plaited down to
their shoulders. Each man had an oak desk before him,
set at a little distance, and spread with pens and
papers. Instead of writing, however, they seemed to be
laughing and talking, or rather the one in the middle
seemed to be telling some good story, which the others
received with approval. By reason of their great
perukes it was hard to tell how old they were; but the
one who was speaking seemed the youngest, although he
was the chief of them. A thick-set, burly, and bulky
man, with a blotchy broad face, and great square jaws,
and fierce eyes full of blazes; he was one to be
dreaded by gentle souls, and to be abhorred by the
noble.
Between me and the three lord judges, some few lawyers
were gathering up bags and papers and pens and so
forth, from a narrow table in the middle of the room,
as if a case had been disposed of, and no other were
called on. But before I had time to look round twice,
the stout fierce man espied me, and shouted out with a
flashing stare'--
'How now, countryman, who art thou?'
'May it please your worship,' I answered him loudly, 'I
am John Ridd, of Oare parish, in the shire of Somerset,
brought to this London, some two months back by a
special messenger, whose name is Jeremy Stickles; and
then bound over to be at hand and ready, when called
upon to give evidence, in a matter unknown to me, but
touching the peace of our lord the King, and the
well-being of his subjects. Three times I have met our
lord the King, but he hath said nothing about his
peace, and only held it towards me, and every day, save
Sunday, I have walked up and down the great hall of
Westminster, all the business part of the day,
expecting to be called upon, yet no one hath called
upon me. And now I desire to ask your worship, whether
I may go home again?'
'Well, done, John,' replied his lordship, while I was
panting with all this speech; 'I will go bail for thee,
John, thou hast never made such a long speech before;
and thou art a spunky Briton, or thou couldst not have
made it now. I remember the matter well, and I myself
will attend to it, although it arose before my time'
--he was but newly Chief Justice--'but I cannot take it
now, John. There is no fear of losing thee, John, any
more than the Tower of London. I grieve for His
Majesty's exchequer, after keeping thee two months or
more.'
'Nay, my lord, I crave your pardon. My mother hath
been keeping me. Not a groat have I received.'
'Spank, is it so?' his lordship cried, in a voice that
shook the cobwebs, and the frown on his brow shook the
hearts of men, and mine as much as the rest of them,--
'Spank, is His Majesty come to this, that he starves
his own approvers?'
'My lord, my lord,' whispered Mr. Spank, the
chief-officer of evidence, 'the thing hath been
overlooked, my lord, among such grave matters of
treason.'
'I will overlook thy head, foul Spank, on a spike from
Temple Bar, if ever I hear of the like again. Vile
varlet, what art thou paid for? Thou hast swindled the
money thyself, foul Spank; I know thee, though thou art
new to me. Bitter is the day for thee that ever I came
across thee. Answer me not--one word more and I will
have thee on a hurdle.' And he swung himself to and fro
on his bench, with both hands on his knees; and every
man waited to let it pass, knowing better than to speak
to him.
'John Ridd,' said the Lord Chief Justice, at last
recovering a sort of dignity, yet daring Spank from the
corners of his eyes to do so much as look at him, 'thou
hast been shamefully used, John Ridd. Answer me not
boy; not a word; but go to Master Spank, and let me
know how he behaves to thee;' here he made a glance at
Spank, which was worth at least ten pounds to me; 'be
thou here again to-morrow, and before any other case is
taken, I will see justice done to thee. Now be off
boy; thy name is Ridd, and we are well rid of thee.'
I was only too glad to go, after all this tempest; as
you may well suppose. For if ever I saw a man's eyes
become two holes for the devil to glare from, I saw it
that day; and the eyes were those of the Lord Chief
Justice Jeffreys.
Mr. Spank was in the lobby before me, and before I had
recovered myself--for I was vexed with my own
terror--he came up sidling and fawning to me, with a
heavy bag of yellow leather.
'Good Master Ridd, take it all, take it all, and say a
good word for me to his lordship. He hath taken a
strange fancy to thee; and thou must make the most of
it. We never saw man meet him eye to eye so, and yet
not contradict him, and that is just what he loveth.
Abide in London, Master Ridd, and he will make thy
fortune. His joke upon thy name proves that. And I
pray you remember, Master Ridd, that the Spanks are
sixteen in family.'
But I would not take the bag from him, regarding it as
a sort of bribe to pay me such a lump of money, without
so much as asking how great had been my expenses.
Therefore I only told him that if he would kindly keep
the cash for me until the morrow, I would spend the
rest of the day in counting (which always is sore work
with me) how much it had stood me in board and lodging,
since Master Stickles had rendered me up; for until
that time he had borne my expenses. In the morning I
would give Mr. Spank a memorandum, duly signed, and
attested by my landlord, including the breakfast of
that day, and in exchange for this I would take the
exact amount from the yellow bag, and be very thankful
for it.
'If that is thy way of using opportunity,' said Spank,
looking at me with some contempt, 'thou wilt never
thrive in these times, my lad. Even the Lord Chief
Justice can be little help to thee; unless thou knowest
better than that how to help thyself '
It mattered not to me. The word 'approver' stuck in my
gorge, as used by the Lord Chief Justice; for we looked
upon an approver as a very low thing indeed. I would
rather pay for every breakfast, and even every dinner,
eaten by me since here I came, than take money as an
approver. And indeed I was much disappointed at being
taken in that light, having understood that I was sent
for as a trusty subject, and humble friend of His
Majesty.
In the morning I met Mr. Spank waiting for me at the
entrance, and very desirous to see me. I showed him my
bill, made out in fair copy, and he laughed at it, and
said, 'Take it twice over, Master Ridd; once for thine
own sake, and once for His Majesty's; as all his loyal
tradesmen do, when they can get any. His Majesty knows
and is proud of it, for it shows their love of his
countenance; and he says, "bis dat qui cito dat," then
how can I grumble at giving twice, when I give so
slowly?'
'Nay, I will take it but once,' I said; 'if His Majesty
loves to be robbed, he need not lack of his desire,
while the Spanks are sixteen in family.'
The clerk smiled cheerfully at this, being proud of his
children's ability; and then having paid my account, he
whispered,--
'He is all alone this morning, John, and in rare good
humour. He hath been promised the handling of poor
Master Algernon Sidney, and he says he will soon make
republic of him; for his state shall shortly be
headless. He is chuckling over his joke, like a pig
with a nut; and that always makes him pleasant. John
Ridd, my lord!' With that he swung up the curtain
bravely, and according to special orders, I stood, face
to face, and alone with Judge Jeffreys.
CHAPTER XXVI
JOHN IS DRAINED AND CAST ASIDE
His lordship was busy with some letters, and did not
look up for a minute or two, although he knew that I
was there. Meanwhile I stood waiting to make my bow;
afraid to begin upon him, and wondering at his great
bull-head. Then he closed his letters, well-pleased
with their import, and fixed his bold broad stare on
me, as if I were an oyster opened, and he would know
how fresh I was.
'May it please your worship,' I said, 'here I am
according to order, awaiting your good pleasure.'
'Thou art made to weight, John, more than order. How
much dost thou tip the scales to?'
'Only twelvescore pounds, my lord, when I be in
wrestling trim. And sure I must have lost weight
here, fretting so long in London.'
'Ha, ha! Much fret is there in thee! Hath His Majesty
seen thee?'
'Yes, my lord, twice or even thrice; and he made some
jest concerning me.'
'A very bad one, I doubt not. His humour is not so
dainty as mine, but apt to be coarse and unmannerly.
Now John, or Jack, by the look of thee, thou art more
used to be called.'
'Yes, your worship, when I am with old Molly and Betty
Muxworthy.'
'Peace, thou forward varlet! There is a deal too much
of thee. We shall have to try short commons with
thee, and thou art a very long common. Ha, ha! Where
is that rogue Spank? Spank must hear that by-and-by.
It is beyond thy great thick head, Jack.'
'Not so, my lord; I have been at school, and had very
bad jokes made upon me.'
'Ha, ha! It hath hit thee hard. And faith, it would be
hard to miss thee, even with harpoon. And thou lookest
like to blubber, now. Capital, in faith! I have thee
on every side, Jack, and thy sides are manifold;
many-folded at any rate. Thou shalt have double
expenses, Jack, for the wit thou hast provoked in me.'
'Heavy goods lack heavy payment, is a proverb down our
way, my lord.'
'Ah, I hurt thee, I hurt thee, Jack. The harpoon hath
no tickle for thee. Now, Jack Whale, having hauled
thee hard, we will proceed to examine thee.' Here all
his manner was changed, and he looked with his heavy
brows bent upon me, as if he had never laughed in his
life, and would allow none else to do so.
'I am ready to answer, my lord,' I replied, 'if he asks
me nought beyond my knowledge, or beyond my honour.'
'Hadst better answer me everything, lump. What hast
thou to do with honour? Now is there in thy
neighbourhood a certain nest of robbers, miscreants,
and outlaws, whom all men fear to handle?'
'Yes, my lord. At least, I believe some of them be
robbers, and all of them are outlaws.'
'And what is your high sheriff about, that he doth not
hang them all? Or send them up for me to hang, without
more to do about them?'
'I reckon that he is afraid, my lord; it is not safe to
meddle with them. They are of good birth, and
reckless; and their place is very strong.'
'Good birth! What was Lord Russell of, Lord Essex, and
this Sidney? 'Tis the surest heirship to the block to
be the chip of a good one. What is the name of this
pestilent race, and how many of them are there?'
'They are the Doones of Bagworthy forest, may it please
your worship. And we reckon there be about forty of
them, beside the women and children.'
'Forty Doones, all forty thieves! and women and
children! Thunder of God! How long have they been there
then?'
'They may have been there thirty years, my lord; and
indeed they may have been forty. Before the great war
broke out they came, longer back than I can remember.'
'Ay, long before thou wast born, John. Good, thou
speakest plainly. Woe betide a liar, whenso I get hold
of him. Ye want me on the Western Circuit; by God, and
ye shall have me, when London traitors are spun and
swung. There is a family called De Whichehalse living
very nigh thee, John?'
This he said in a sudden manner, as if to take me off
my guard, and fixed his great thick eyes on me. And in
truth I was much astonished.
'Yes, my lord, there is. At least, not so very far
from us. Baron de Whichehalse, of Ley Manor.'
'Baron, ha! of the Exchequer--eh, lad? And taketh dues
instead of His Majesty. Somewhat which halts there
ought to come a little further, I trow. It shall be
seen to, as well as the witch which makes it so to
halt. Riotous knaves in West England, drunken outlaws,
you shall dance, if ever I play pipe for you. John
Ridd, I will come to Oare parish, and rout out the Oare
of Babylon.'
'Although your worship is so learned,' I answered
seeing that now he was beginning to make things uneasy;
'your worship, though being Chief Justice, does little
justice to us. We are downright good and loyal folk;
and I have not seen, since here I came to this great
town of London, any who may better us, or even come
anigh us, in honesty, and goodness, and duty to our
neighbours. For we are very quiet folk, not prating
our own virtues--'
'Enough, good John, enough! Knowest thou not that
modesty is the maidenhood of virtue, lost even by her
own approval? Now hast thou ever heard or thought that
De Whichehalse is in league with the Doones of
Bagworthy?'
Saying these words rather slowly, he skewered his great
eyes into mine, so that I could not think at all,
neither look at him, nor yet away. The idea was so new
to me that it set my wits all wandering; and looking
into me, he saw that I was groping for the truth.
'John Ridd, thine eyes are enough for me. I see thou
hast never dreamed of it. Now hast thou ever seen a
man whose name is Thomas Faggus?'
'Yes, sir, many and many a time. He is my own worthy
cousin; and I fear he that hath intentions'--here I
stopped, having no right there to speak about our
Annie.
'Tom Faggus is a good man,' he said; and his great
square face had a smile which showed me he had met my
cousin; 'Master Faggus hath made mistakes as to the
title to property, as lawyers oftentimes may do; but
take him all for all, he is a thoroughly
straightforward man; presents his bill, and has it
paid, and makes no charge for drawing it.
Nevertheless, we must tax his costs, as of any other
solicitor.'
'To be sure, to be sure, my lord!' was all that I could
say, not understanding what all this meant.
'I fear he will come to the gallows,' said the Lord
Chief Justice, sinking his voice below the echoes;
'tell him this from me, Jack. He shall never be
condemned before me; but I cannot be everywhere, and
some of our Justices may keep short memory of his
dinners. Tell him to change his name, turn parson, or
do something else, to make it wrong to hang him.
Parson is the best thing, he hath such command of
features, and he might take his tithes on horseback.
Now a few more things, John Ridd; and for the present I
have done with thee.'
All my heart leaped up at this, to get away from London
so: and yet I could hardly trust to it.
'Is there any sound round your way of disaffection to
His Majesty, His most gracious Majesty?'
'No, my lord: no sign whatever. We pray for him in
church perhaps, and we talk about him afterwards,
hoping it may do him good, as it is intended. But
after that we have naught to say, not knowing much
about him--at least till I get home again.'
'That is as it should be, John. And the less you say
the better. But I have heard of things in Taunton,
and even nearer to you in Dulverton, and even nigher
still upon Exmoor; things which are of the pillory
kind, and even more of the gallows. I see that you
know naught of them. Nevertheless, it will not be long
before all England hears of them. Now, John, I have
taken a liking to thee, for never man told me the
truth, without fear or favour, more thoroughly and
truly than thou hast done. Keep thou clear of this, my
son. It will come to nothing; yet many shall swing
high for it. Even I could not save thee, John Ridd, if
thou wert mixed in this affair. Keep from the Doones,
keep from De Whichehalse, keep from everything which
leads beyond the sight of thy knowledge. I meant to
use thee as my tool; but I see thou art too honest and
simple. I will send a sharper down; but never let me
find thee, John, either a tool for the other side, or a
tube for my words to pass through.'
Here the Lord Justice gave me such a glare that I
wished myself well rid of him, though thankful for his
warnings; and seeing how he had made upon me a long
abiding mark of fear, he smiled again in a jocular
manner, and said,--
'Now, get thee gone, Jack. I shall remember thee; and
I trow, thou wilt'st not for many a day forget me.'
'My lord, I was never so glad to go; for the hay must
be in, and the ricks unthatched, and none of them can
make spars like me, and two men to twist every
hay-rope, and mother thinking it all right, and
listening right and left to lies, and cheated at every
pig she kills, and even the skins of the sheep to go--'
'John Ridd, I thought none could come nigh your folk in
honesty, and goodness, and duty to their neighbours!'
'Sure enough, my lord; but by our folk, I mean
ourselves, not the men nor women neither--'
'That will do, John. Go thy way. Not men, nor women
neither, are better than they need be.'
I wished to set this matter right; but his worship
would not hear me, and only drove me out of court,
saying that men were thieves and liars, no more in one
place than another, but all alike all over the world,
and women not far behind them. It was not for me to
dispute this point (though I was not yet persuaded of
it), both because my lord was a Judge, and must know
more about it, and also that being a man myself I might
seem to be defending myself in an unbecoming manner.
Therefore I made a low bow, and went; in doubt as to
which had the right of it.
But though he had so far dismissed me, I was not yet
quite free to go, inasmuch as I had not money enough to
take me all the way to Oare, unless indeed I should go
afoot, and beg my sustenance by the way, which seemed
to be below me. Therefore I got my few clothes packed,
and my few debts paid, all ready to start in half an
hour, if only they would give me enough to set out upon
the road with. For I doubted not, being young and
strong, that I could walk from London to Oare in ten
days or in twelve at most, which was not much longer
than horse-work; only I had been a fool, as you will
say when you hear it. For after receiving from Master
Spank the amount of the bill which I had
delivered--less indeed by fifty shillings than the
money my mother had given me, for I had spent fifty
shillings, and more, in seeing the town and treating
people, which I could not charge to His Majesty--I had
first paid all my debts thereout, which were not very
many, and then supposing myself to be an established
creditor of the Treasury for my coming needs, and
already scenting the country air, and foreseeing the
joy of my mother, what had I done but spent half my
balance, ay and more than three-quarters of it, upon
presents for mother, and Annie, and Lizzie, John Fry,
and his wife, and Betty Muxworthy, Bill Dadds, Jim
Slocombe, and, in a word, half of the rest of the
people at Oare, including all the Snowe family, who
must have things good and handsome? And if I must
while I am about it, hide nothing from those who read
me, I had actually bought for Lorna a thing the price
of which quite frightened me, till the shopkeeper said
it was nothing at all, and that no young man, with a
lady to love him, could dare to offer her rubbish, such
as the Jew sold across the way. Now the mere idea of
beautiful Lorna ever loving me, which he talked about
as patly (though of course I never mentioned her) as if
it were a settled thing, and he knew all about it, that
mere idea so drove me abroad, that if he had asked
three times as much, I could never have counted the
money.
Now in all this I was a fool of course--not for
remembering my friends and neighbours, which a man has
a right to do, and indeed is bound to do, when he comes
from London--but for not being certified first what
cash I had to go on with. And to my great amazement,
when I went with another bill for the victuals of only
three days more, and a week's expense on the homeward
road reckoned very narrowly, Master Spank not only
refused to grant me any interview, but sent me out a
piece of blue paper, looking like a butcher's ticket,
and bearing these words and no more, 'John Ridd, go to
the devil. He who will not when he may, when he will,
he shall have nay.' From this I concluded that I had
lost favour in the sight of Chief Justice Jeffreys.
Perhaps because my evidence had not proved of any
value! perhaps because he meant to let the matter lie,
till cast on him.
Anyhow, it was a reason of much grief, and some anger
to me, and very great anxiety, disappointment, and
suspense. For here was the time of the hay gone past,
and the harvest of small corn coming on, and the trout
now rising at the yellow Sally, and the blackbirds
eating our white-heart cherries (I was sure, though I
could not see them), and who was to do any good for
mother, or stop her from weeping continually? And more
than this, what was become of Lorna? Perhaps she had
cast me away altogether, as a flouter and a changeling;
perhaps she had drowned herself in the black well;
perhaps (and that was worst of all) she was even
married, child as she was, to that vile Carver Doone,
if the Doones ever cared about marrying! That last
thought sent me down at once to watch for Mr. Spank
again, resolved that if I could catch him, spank him I
would to a pretty good tune, although sixteen in
family.
However, there was no such thing as to find him; and
the usher vowed (having orders I doubt) that he was
gone to the sea for the good of his health, having
sadly overworked himself; and that none but a poor
devil like himself, who never had handling of money,
would stay in London this foul, hot weather; which was
likely to bring the plague with it. Here was another
new terror for me, who had heard of the plagues of
London, and the horrible things that happened; and so
going back to my lodgings at once, I opened my clothes
and sought for spots, especially as being so long at a
hairy fellmonger's; but finding none, I fell down and
thanked God for that same, and vowed to start for Oare
to-morrow, with my carbine loaded, come weal come woe,
come sun come shower; though all the parish should
laugh at me, for begging my way home again, after the
brave things said of my going, as if I had been the
King's cousin.
But I was saved in some degree from this lowering of my
pride, and what mattered more, of mother's; for going
to buy with my last crown-piece (after all demands were
paid) a little shot and powder, more needful on the
road almost than even shoes or victuals, at the corner
of the street I met my good friend Jeremy Stickles,
newly come in search of me. I took him back to my
little room--mine at least till to-morrow morning--and
told him all my story, and how much I felt aggrieved by
it. But he surprised me very much, by showing no
surprise at all.
'It is the way of the world, Jack. They have gotten
all they can from thee, and why should they feed thee
further? We feed not a dead pig, I trow, but baste him
well with brine and rue. Nay, we do not victual him
upon the day of killing; which they have done to thee.
Thou art a lucky man, John; thou hast gotten one day's
wages, or at any rate half a day, after thy work was
rendered. God have mercy on me, John! The things I
see are manifold; and so is my regard of them. What
use to insist on this, or make a special point of that,
or hold by something said of old, when a different mood
was on? I tell thee, Jack, all men are liars; and he
is the least one who presses not too hard on them for
lying.'
This was all quite dark to me, for I never looked at
things like that, and never would own myself a liar,
not at least to other people, nor even to myself,
although I might to God sometimes, when trouble was
upon me. And if it comes to that, no man has any right
to be called a 'liar' for smoothing over things
unwitting, through duty to his neighbour.
'Five pounds thou shalt have, Jack,' said Jeremy
Stickles suddenly, while I was all abroad with myself
as to being a liar or not; 'five pounds, and I will
take my chance of wringing it from that great rogue
Spank. Ten I would have made it, John, but for bad
luck lately. Put back your bits of paper, lad; I will
have no acknowledgment. John Ridd, no nonsense with
me!'
For I was ready to kiss his hand, to think that any man
in London (the meanest and most suspicious place, upon
all God's earth) should trust me with five pounds,
without even a receipt for it! It overcame me so that
I sobbed; for, after all, though big in body, I am but
a child at heart. It was not the five pounds that
moved me, but the way of giving it; and after so much
bitter talk, the great trust in my goodness.
CHAPTER XXVII
HOME AGAIN AT LAST
It was the beginning of wheat-harvest, when I came to
Dunster town, having walked all the way from London,
and being somewhat footsore. For though five pounds
was enough to keep me in food and lodging upon the
road, and leave me many a shilling to give to far
poorer travellers, it would have been nothing for
horse-hire, as I knew too well by the prices Jeremy
Stickles had paid upon our way to London. Now I never
saw a prettier town than Dunster looked that evening;
for sooth to say, I had almost lost all hope of
reaching it that night, although the castle was long in
view. But being once there, my troubles were gone, at
least as regarded wayfaring; for mother's cousin, the
worthy tanner (with whom we had slept on the way to
London), was in such indignation at the plight in which
I came back to him, afoot, and weary, and almost
shoeless--not to speak of upper things--that he swore
then, by the mercy of God, that if the schemes abrewing
round him, against those bloody Papists, should come to
any head or shape, and show good chance of succeeding,
he would risk a thousand pounds, as though it were a
penny.
I told him not to do it, because I had heard otherwise,
but was not at liberty to tell one-tenth of what I
knew, and indeed had seen in London town. But of this
he took no heed, because I only nodded at him; and he
could not make it out. For it takes an old man, or at
least a middle-aged one, to nod and wink, with any
power on the brains of other men. However, I think I
made him know that the bad state in which I came to his
town, and the great shame I had wrought for him among
the folk round the card-table at the Luttrell Arms, was
not to be, even there, attributed to King Charles the
Second, nor even to his counsellors, but to my own
speed of travelling, which had beat post-horses. For
being much distraught in mind, and desperate in body, I
had made all the way from London to Dunster in six
days, and no more. It may be one hundred and seventy
miles, I cannot tell to a furlong or two, especially as
I lost my way more than a dozen times; but at any rate
there in six days I was, and most kindly they received
me. The tanner had some excellent daughters, I forget
how many; very pretty damsels, and well set up, and
able to make good pastry. But though they asked me
many questions, and made a sort of lord of me, and
offered to darn my stockings (which in truth required
it), I fell asleep in the midst of them, although I
would not acknowledge it; and they said, 'Poor cousin!
he is weary', and led me to a blessed bed, and kissed
me all round like swan's down.
In the morning all the Exmoor hills, the thought of
which had frightened me at the end of each day's
travel, seemed no more than bushels to me, as I looked
forth the bedroom window, and thanked God for the sight
of them. And even so, I had not to climb them, at
least by my own labour. For my most worthy uncle (as
we oft call a parent's cousin), finding it impossible
to keep me for the day, and owning indeed that I was
right in hastening to my mother, vowed that walk I
should not, even though he lost his Saturday hides from
Minehead and from Watchett. Accordingly he sent me
forth on the very strongest nag he had, and the maidens
came to wish me God-speed, and kissed their hands at
the doorway. It made me proud and glad to think that
after seeing so much of the world, and having held my
own with it, I was come once more among my own people,
and found them kinder, and more warm-hearted, ay and
better looking too, than almost any I had happened upon
in the mighty city of London.
But how shall I tell you the things I felt, and the
swelling of my heart within me, as I drew nearer, and
more near, to the place of all I loved and owned, to
the haunt of every warm remembrance, the nest of all
the fledgling hopes--in a word, to home? The first
sheep I beheld on the moor with a great red J.R. on
his side (for mother would have them marked with my
name, instead of her own as they should have been), I
do assure you my spirit leaped, and all my sight came
to my eyes. I shouted out, 'Jem, boy!'--for that was
his name, and a rare hand he was at fighting--and he
knew me in spite of the stranger horse; and I leaned
over and stroked his head, and swore he should never be
mutton. And when I was passed he set off at full
gallop, to call the rest of the J.R.'s together, and
tell them young master was come home at last.
But bless your heart, and my own as well, it would take
me all the afternoon to lay before you one-tenth of the
things which came home to me in that one half-hour, as
the sun was sinking, in the real way he ought to sink.
I touched my horse with no spur nor whip, feeling that
my slow wits would go, if the sights came too fast over
them. Here was the pool where we washed the sheep, and
there was the hollow that oozed away, where I had shot
three wild ducks. Here was the peat-rick that hid my
dinner, when I could not go home for it, and there was
the bush with the thyme growing round it, where Annie
had found a great swarm of our bees. And now was the
corner of the dry stone wall, where the moor gave over
in earnest, and the partridges whisked from it into the
corn lands, and called that their supper was ready, and
looked at our house and the ricks as they ran, and
would wait for that comfort till winter.
And there I saw--but let me go--Annie was too much for
me. She nearly pulled me off my horse, and kissed the
very mouth of the carbine.
"I knew you would come. Oh John! Oh John! I have
waited here every Saturday night; and I saw you for the
last mile or more, but I would not come round the
corner, for fear that I should cry, John, and then not
cry when I got you. Now I may cry as much as I like,
and you need not try to stop me, John, because I am so
happy. But you mustn't cry yourself, John; what will
mother think of you? She will be so jealous of me.'
What mother thought I cannot tell; and indeed I doubt
if she thought at all for more than half an hour, but
only managed to hold me tight, and cry, and thank God
now and then, but with some fear of His taking me, if
she should be too grateful. Moreover she thought it
was my own doing, and I ought to have the credit of it,
and she even came down very sharply upon John's wife,
Mrs. Fry, for saying that we must not be too proud, for
all of it was the Lord's doing. However, dear mother
was ashamed of that afterwards, and asked Mrs. Fry's
humble pardon; and perhaps I ought not to have
mentioned it.
Old Smiler had told them that I was coming--all the
rest, I mean, except Annie--for having escaped from his
halter-ring, he was come out to graze in the lane a
bit; when what should he see but a strange horse coming
with young master and mistress upon him, for Annie must
needs get up behind me, there being only sheep to look
at her. Then Smiler gave us a stare and a neigh, with
his tail quite stiff with amazement, and then (whether
in joy or through indignation) he flung up his hind
feet and galloped straight home, and set every dog wild
with barking.
Now, methinks, quite enough has been said concerning
this mighty return of the young John Ridd (which was
known up at Cosgate that evening), and feeling that I
cannot describe it, how can I hope that any one else
will labour to imagine it, even of the few who are
able? For very few can have travelled so far, unless
indeed they whose trade it is, or very unsettled
people. And even of those who have done so, not one in
a hundred can have such a home as I had to come home
to.
Mother wept again, with grief and some wrath, and so
did Annie also, and even little Eliza, and all were
unsettled in loyalty, and talked about a republic, when
I told them how I had been left without money for
travelling homeward, and expected to have to beg my
way, which Farmer Snowe would have heard of. And
though I could see they were disappointed at my failure
of any promotion, they all declared how glad they were,
and how much better they liked me to be no more than
what they were accustomed to. At least, my mother and
Annie said so, without waiting to hear any more; but
Lizzie did not answer to it, until I had opened my bag
and shown the beautiful present I had for her. And
then she kissed me, almost like Annie, and vowed that
she thought very little of captains.
For Lizzie's present was the best of all, I mean, of
course, except Lorna's (which I carried in my breast
all the way, hoping that it might make her love me,
from having lain so long, close to my heart). For I
had brought Lizzie something dear, and a precious heavy
book it was, and much beyond my understanding; whereas
I knew well that to both the others my gifts would be
dear, for mine own sake. And happier people could not
be found than the whole of us were that evening.
CHAPTER XXVIII
JOHN HAS HOPE OF LORNA
Much as I longed to know more about Lorna, and though
all my heart was yearning, I could not reconcile it yet
with my duty to mother and Annie, to leave them on the
following day, which happened to be a Sunday. For lo,
before breakfast was out of our mouths, there came all
the men of the farm, and their wives, and even the two
crow-boys, dressed as if going to Barnstaple fair, to
inquire how Master John was, and whether it was true
that the King had made him one of his body-guard; and
if so, what was to be done with the belt for the
championship of the West-Counties wrestling, which I
had held now for a year or more, and none were ready to
challenge it. Strange to say, this last point seemed
the most important of all to them; and none asked who
was to manage the farm, or answer for their wages; but
all asked who was to wear the belt.
To this I replied, after shaking hands twice over all
round with all of them, that I meant to wear the belt
myself, for the honour of Oare parish, so long as ever
God gave me strength and health to meet all-comers; for
I had never been asked to be body-guard, and if asked I
would never have done it. Some of them cried that the
King must be mazed, not to keep me for his protection,
in these violent times of Popery. I could have told
them that the King was not in the least afraid of
Papists, but on the contrary, very fond of them;
however, I held my tongue, remembering what Judge
Jeffreys bade me.
In church, the whole congregation, man, woman, and
child (except, indeed, the Snowe girls, who only looked
when I was not watching), turned on me with one accord,
and stared so steadfastly, to get some reflection of
the King from me, that they forgot the time to kneel
down and the parson was forced to speak to them. If I
coughed, or moved my book, or bowed, or even said
'Amen,' glances were exchanged which meant--'That he
hath learned in London town, and most likely from His
Majesty.'
However, all this went off in time, and people became
even angry with me for not being sharper (as they
said), or smarter, or a whit more fashionable, for all
the great company I had seen, and all the wondrous
things wasted upon me.
But though I may have been none the wiser by reason of
my stay in London, at any rate I was much the better in
virtue of coming home again. For now I had learned the
joy of quiet, and the gratitude for good things round
us, and the love we owe to others (even those who must
be kind), for their indulgence to us. All this, before
my journey, had been too much as a matter of course to
me; but having missed it now I knew that it was a gift,
and might be lost. Moreover, I had pined so much, in
the dust and heat of that great town, for trees, and
fields, and running waters, and the sounds of country
life, and the air of country winds, that never more
could I grow weary of those soft enjoyments; or at
least I thought so then.
To awake as the summer sun came slanting over the
hill-tops, with hope on every beam adance to the
laughter of the morning; to see the leaves across the
window ruffling on the fresh new air, and the tendrils
of the powdery vine turning from their beaded sleep.
Then the lustrous meadows far beyond the thatch of the
garden-wall, yet seen beneath the hanging scollops of
the walnut-tree, all awaking, dressed in pearl, all
amazed at their own glistening, like a maid at her own
ideas. Down them troop the lowing kine, walking each
with a step of character (even as men and women do),
yet all alike with toss of horns, and spread of udders
ready. From them without a word, we turn to the
farm-yard proper, seen on the right, and dryly strawed
from the petty rush of the pitch-paved runnel. Round
it stand the snug out-buildings, barn, corn-chamber,
cider-press, stables, with a blinker'd horse in every
doorway munching, while his driver tightens buckles,
whistles and looks down the lane, dallying to begin his
labour till the milkmaids be gone by. Here the cock
comes forth at last;--where has he been
lingering?--eggs may tell to-morrow--he claps his wings
and shouts 'cock-a-doodle'; and no other cock dare look
at him. Two or three go sidling off, waiting till
their spurs be grown; and then the crowd of partlets
comes, chattering how their lord has dreamed, and
crowed at two in the morning, and praying that the old
brown rat would only dare to face him. But while the
cock is crowing still, and the pullet world admiring
him, who comes up but the old turkey-cock, with all his
family round him. Then the geese at the lower end
begin to thrust their breasts out, and mum their
down-bits, and look at the gander and scream shrill joy
for the conflict; while the ducks in pond show nothing
but tail, in proof of their strict neutrality.
While yet we dread for the coming event, and the fight
which would jar on the morning, behold the grandmother
of sows, gruffly grunting right and left with muzzle
which no ring may tame (not being matrimonial), hulks
across between the two, moving all each side at once,
and then all of the other side as if she were chined
down the middle, and afraid of spilling the salt from
her. As this mighty view of lard hides each combatant
from the other, gladly each retires and boasts how he
would have slain his neighbour, but that old sow drove
the other away, and no wonder he was afraid of her,
after all the chicks she had eaten.
And so it goes on; and so the sun comes, stronger from
his drink of dew; and the cattle in the byres, and the
horses from the stable, and the men from cottage-door,
each has had his rest and food, all smell alike of hay
and straw, and every one must hie to work, be it drag,
or draw, or delve.
So thought I on the Monday morning; while my own work
lay before me, and I was plotting how to quit it, void
of harm to every one, and let my love have work a
little--hardest perhaps of all work, and yet as sure as
sunrise. I knew that my first day's task on the farm
would be strictly watched by every one, even by my
gentle mother, to see what I had learned in London.
But could I let still another day pass, for Lorna to
think me faithless?
I felt much inclined t |
