Lorna Doone, A Romance of Exmoor
by R.D. Blackmore
Hypertext Meanings and Commentaries
from the Encyclopedia of the Self
by Mark Zimmerman
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But behold, there was no flock at all! None, I mean, to
be seen anywhere; only at one corner of the field, by
the eastern end, where the snow drove in, a great white
billow, as high as a barn, and as broad as a house.
This great drift was rolling and curling beneath the
violent blast, tufting and combing with rustling
swirls, and carved (as in patterns of cornice) where
the grooving chisel of the wind swept round. Ever and
again the tempest snatched little whiffs from the
channelled edges, twirled them round and made them
dance over the chime of the monster pile, then let them
lie like herring-bones, or the seams of sand where the
tide has been. And all the while from the smothering
sky, more and more fiercely at every blast, came the
pelting, pitiless arrows, winged with murky white, and
pointed with the barbs of frost.

But although for people who had no sheep, the sight was
a very fine one (so far at least as the weather
permitted any sight at all); yet for us, with our flock
beneath it, this great mount had but little charm.
Watch began to scratch at once, and to howl along the
sides of it; he knew that his charge was buried there,
and his business taken from him. But we four men set
to in earnest, digging with all our might and main,
shovelling away at the great white pile, and fetching
it into the meadow. Each man made for himself a cave,
scooping at the soft, cold flux, which slid upon him at
every stroke, and throwing it out behind him, in piles
of castled fancy. At last we drove our tunnels in (for
we worked indeed for the lives of us), and all
converging towards the middle, held our tools and
listened.

The other men heard nothing at all; or declared that
they heard nothing, being anxious now to abandon the
matter, because of the chill in their feet and knees.
But I said, 'Go, if you choose all of you. I will work
it out by myself, you pie-crusts,' and upon that they
gripped their shovels, being more or less of
Englishmen; and the least drop of English blood is
worth the best of any other when it comes to lasting
out.

But before we began again, I laid my head well into the
chamber; and there I hears a faint 'ma-a-ah,' coming
through some ells of snow, like a plaintive, buried
hope, or a last appeal. I shouted aloud to cheer him
up, for I knew what sheep it was, to wit, the most
valiant of all the wethers, who had met me when I came
home from London, and been so glad to see me. And then
we all fell to again; and very soon we hauled him out.
Watch took charge of him at once, with an air of the
noblest patronage, lying on his frozen fleece, and
licking all his face and feet, to restore his warmth to
him. Then fighting Tom jumped up at once, and made a
little butt at Watch, as if nothing had ever ailed him,
and then set off to a shallow place, and looked for
something to nibble at.

Further in, and close under the bank, where they had
huddled themselves for warmth, we found all the rest of
the poor sheep packed, as closely as if they were in a
great pie. It was strange to observe how their vapour
and breath, and the moisture exuding from their wool
had scooped, as it were, a coved room for them, lined
with a ribbing of deep yellow snow. Also the churned
snow beneath their feet was as yellow as gamboge. Two
or three of the weaklier hoggets were dead, from want
of air, and from pressure; but more than three-score
were as lively as ever; though cramped and stiff for a
little while.

'However shall us get 'em home?' John Fry asked in
great dismay, when we had cleared about a dozen of
them; which we were forced to do very carefully, so as
not to fetch the roof down. 'No manner of maning to
draive 'un, drough all they girt driftnesses.'

'You see to this place, John,' I replied, as we leaned
on our shovels a moment, and the sheep came rubbing
round us; 'let no more of them out for the present;
they are better where they be. Watch, here boy, keep
them!'

Watch came, with his little scut of a tail cocked as
sharp as duty, and I set him at the narrow mouth of the
great snow antre. All the sheep sidled away, and got
closer, that the other sheep might be bitten first, as
the foolish things imagine; whereas no good sheep-dog
even so much as lips a sheep to turn it.

Then of the outer sheep (all now snowed and frizzled
like a lawyer's wig) I took the two finest and
heaviest, and with one beneath my right arm, and the
other beneath my left, I went straight home to the
upper sheppey, and set them inside and fastened them.
Sixty and six I took home in that way, two at a time on
each joumey; and the work grew harder and harder each
time, as the drifts of the snow were deepening. No
other man should meddle with them; I was resolved to
try my strength against the strength of the elements;
and try it I did, ay, and proved it. A certain fierce
delight burned in me, as the struggle grew harder; but
rather would I die than yield; and at last I finished
it. People talk of it to this day; but none can tell
what the labour was, who have not felt that snow and
wind.

Of the sheep upon the mountain, and the sheep upon the
western farm, and the cattle on the upper barrows,
scarcely one in ten was saved; do what we would for
them, and this was not through any neglect (now that
our wits were sharpened), but from the pure
impossibility of finding them at all. That great snow
never ceased a moment for three days and nights; and
then when all the earth was filled, and the topmost
hedges were unseen, and the trees broke down with
weight (wherever the wind had not lightened them), a
brilliant sun broke forth and showed the loss of all
our customs.

All our house was quite snowed up, except where we had
purged a way, by dint of constant shovellings. The
kitchen was as dark and darker than the cider-cellar,
and long lines of furrowed scollops ran even up to the
chimney-stacks. Several windows fell right inwards,
through the weight of the snow against them; and the
few that stood, bulged in, and bent like an old bruised
lanthorn. We were obliged to cook by candle-light; we
were forced to read by candle-light; as for baking, we
could not do it, because the oven was too chill; and a
load of faggots only brought a little wet down the
sides of it.

For when the sun burst forth at last upon that world of
white, what he brought was neither warmth, nor cheer,
nor hope of softening; only a clearer shaft of cold,
from the violet depths of sky. Long-drawn alleys of
white haze seemed to lead towards him, yet such as he
could not come down, with any warmth remaining. Broad
white curtains of the frost-fog looped around the lower
sky, on the verge of hill and valley, and above the
laden trees. Only round the sun himself, and the spot
of heaven he claimed, clustered a bright purple-blue,
clear, and calm, and deep.

That night such a frost ensued as we had never dreamed
of, neither read in ancient books, or histories of
Frobisher. The kettle by the fire froze, and the crock
upon the hearth-cheeks; many men were killed, and
cattle rigid in their head-ropes. Then I heard that
fearful sound, which never I had heard before, neither
since have heard (except during that same winter), the
sharp yet solemn sound of trees burst open by the
frost-blow. Our great walnut lost three branches, and
has been dying ever since; though growing meanwhile, as
the soul does. And the ancient oak at the cross was
rent, and many score of ash trees. But why should I
tell all this? the people who have not seen it (as I
have) will only make faces, and disbelieve; till such
another frost comes; which perhaps may never be.

This terrible weather kept Tom Faggus from coming near
our house for weeks; at which indeed I was not vexed a
quarter so much as Annie was; for I had never half
approved of him, as a husband for my sister; in spite
of his purchase from Squire Bassett, and the grant of
the Royal pardon. It may be, however, that Annie took
the same view of my love for Lorna, and could not augur
well of it; but if so, she held her peace, though I was
not so sparing. For many things contributed to make
me less good-humoured now than my real nature was; and
the very least of all these things would have been
enough to make some people cross, and rude, and
fractious. I mean the red and painful chapping of my
face and hands, from working in the snow all day, and
lying in the frost all night. For being of a fair
complexion, and a ruddy nature, and pretty plump
withal, and fed on plenty of hot victuals, and always
forced by my mother to sit nearer the fire than I
wished, it was wonderful to see how the cold ran revel
on my cheeks and knuckles. And I feared that Lorna (if
it should ever please God to stop the snowing) might
take this for a proof of low and rustic blood and
breeding.

And this I say was the smallest thing; for it was far
more serious that we were losing half our stock, do all
we would to shelter them. Even the horses in the
stables (mustered all together for the sake of breath
and steaming) had long icicles from their muzzles,
almost every morning. But of all things the very
gravest, to my apprehension, was the impossibility of
hearing, or having any token of or from my loved one.
Not that those three days alone of snow (tremendous as
it was) could have blocked the country so; but that the
sky had never ceased, for more than two days at a time,
for full three weeks thereafter, to pour fresh piles of
fleecy mantle; neither had the wind relaxed a single
day from shaking them. As a rule, it snowed all day,
cleared up at night, and froze intensely, with the
stars as bright as jewels, earth spread out in lustrous
twilight, and the sounds in the air as sharp and
crackling as artillery; then in the morning, snow
again; before the sun could come to help.

It mattered not what way the wind was. Often and often
the vanes went round, and we hoped for change of
weather; the only change was that it seemed (if
possible) to grow colder. Indeed, after a week or so,
the wind would regularly box the compass (as the
sailors call it) in the course of every day, following
where the sun should be, as if to make a mock of him.
And this of course immensely added to the peril of the
drifts; because they shifted every day; and no skill or
care might learn them.

I believe it was on Epiphany morning, or somewhere
about that period, when Lizzie ran into the kitchen to
me, where I was thawing my goose-grease, with the dogs
among the ashes--the live dogs, I mean, not the iron
ones, for them we had given up long ago,--and having
caught me, by way of wonder (for generally I was out
shoveling long before my 'young lady' had her nightcap
off), she positively kissed me, for the sake of warming
her lips perhaps, or because she had something proud to
say.

'You great fool, John,' said my lady, as Annie and I
used to call her, on account of her airs and graces;
'what a pity you never read, John!'

'Much use, I should think, in reading!' I answered,
though pleased with her condescension; 'read, I
suppose, with roof coming in, and only this chimney
left sticking out of the snow!'

'The very time to read, John,' said Lizzie, looking
grander; 'our worst troubles are the need, whence
knowledge can deliver us.'

'Amen,' I cried out; 'are you parson or clerk?
Whichever you are, good-morning.'

Thereupon I was bent on my usual round (a very small
one nowadays), but Eliza took me with both hands, and I
stopped of course; for I could not bear to shake the
child, even in play, for a moment, because her back was
tender. Then she looked up at me with her beautiful
eyes, so large, unhealthy and delicate, and strangely
shadowing outward, as if to spread their meaning; and
she said,--

'Now, John, this is no time to joke. I was almost
frozen in bed last night; and Annie like an icicle.
Feel how cold my hands are. Now, will you listen to
what I have read about climates ten times worse than
this; and where none but clever men can live?'

'Impossible for me to listen now, I have hundreds of
things to see to; but I will listen after breakfast to
your foreign climates, child. Now attend to mother's
hot coffee.'

She looked a little disappointed, but she knew what I
had to do; and after all she was not so utterly
unreasonable; although she did read books. And when I
had done my morning's work, I listened to her
patiently; and it was out of my power to think that all
she said was foolish.

For I knew common sense pretty well, by this time,
whether it happened to be my own, or any other
person's, if clearly laid before me. And Lizzie had a
particular way of setting forth very clearly whatever
she wished to express and enforce. But the queerest
part of it all was this, that if she could but have
dreamed for a moment what would be the first
application made me by of her lesson, she would rather
have bitten her tongue off than help me to my purpose.

She told me that in the Arctic Regions, as they call
some places, a long way north, where the Great Bear
lies all across the heavens, and no sun is up, for
whole months at a time, and yet where people will go
exploring, out of pure contradiction, and for the sake
of novelty, and love of being frozen--that here they
always had such winters as we were having now. It
never ceased to freeze, she said; and it never ceased
to snow; except when it was too cold; and then all the
air was choked with glittering spikes; and a man's skin
might come off of him, before he could ask the reason.
Nevertheless the people there (although the snow was
fifty feet deep, and all their breath fell behind them
frozen, like a log of wood dropped from their
shoulders), yet they managed to get along, and make the
time of the year to each other, by a little cleverness.
For seeing how the snow was spread, lightly over
everything, covering up the hills and valleys, and the
foreskin of the sea, they contrived a way to crown it,
and to glide like a flake along. Through the sparkle
of the whiteness, and the wreaths of windy tossings,
and the ups and downs of cold, any man might get along
with a boat on either foot, to prevent his sinking.

She told me how these boats were made; very strong and
very light, of ribs with skin across them; five feet
long, and one foot wide; and turned up at each end,
even as a canoe is. But she did not tell me, nor did I
give it a moment's thought myself, how hard it was to
walk upon them without early practice. Then she told
me another thing equally useful to me; although I would
not let her see how much I thought about it. And this
concerned the use of sledges, and their power of
gliding, and the lightness of their following; all of
which I could see at once, through knowledge of our own
farm-sleds; which we employ in lieu of wheels, used in
flatter districts. When I had heard all this from her,
a mere chit of a girl as she was, unfit to make a
snowball even, or to fry snow pancakes, I looked down
on her with amazement, and began to wish a little that
I had given more time to books.

But God shapes all our fitness, and gives each man his
meaning, even as he guides the wavering lines of snow
descending. Our Eliza was meant for books; our dear
Annie for loving and cooking; I, John Ridd, for sheep,
and wrestling, and the thought of Lorna; and mother to
love all three of us, and to make the best of her
children. And now, if I must tell the truth, as at
every page I try to do (though God knows it is hard
enough), I had felt through all this weather, though my
life was Lorna's, something of a satisfaction in so
doing duty to my kindest and best of mothers, and to
none but her. For (if you come to think of it) a man's
young love is very pleasant, very sweet, and tickling;
and takes him through the core of heart; without his
knowing how or why. Then he dwells upon it sideways,
without people looking, and builds up all sorts of
fancies, growing hot with working so at his own
imaginings. So his love is a crystal Goddess, set upon
an obelisk; and whoever will not bow the knee (yet
without glancing at her), the lover makes it a sacred
rite either to kick or to stick him. I am not speaking
of me and Lorna, but of common people.

Then (if you come to think again) lo!--or I will not
say lo! for no one can behold it--only feel, or but
remember, what a real mother is. Ever loving, ever
soft, ever turning sin to goodness, vices into virtues;
blind to all nine-tenths of wrong; through a telescope
beholding (though herself so nigh to them) faintest
decimal of promise, even in her vilest child. Ready to
thank God again, as when her babe was born to her;
leaping (as at kingdom-come) at a wandering syllable
of Gospel for her lost one.

All this our mother was to us, and even more than all
of this; and hence I felt a pride and joy in doing my
sacred duty towards her, now that the weather compelled
me. And she was as grateful and delighted as if she
had no more claim upon me than a stranger's sheep might
have. Yet from time to time I groaned within myself
and by myself, at thinking of my sad debarment from the
sight of Lorna, and of all that might have happened to
her, now she had no protection.

Therefore, I fell to at once, upon that hint from
Lizzie, and being used to thatching-work, and the
making of traps, and so on, before very long I built
myself a pair of strong and light snow-shoes, framed
with ash and ribbed of withy, with half-tanned calf-
skin stretched across, and an inner sole to support my
feet. At first I could not walk at all, but floundered
about most piteously, catching one shoe in the other,
and both of them in the snow-drifts, to the great
amusement of the girls, who were come to look at me.
But after a while I grew more expert, discovering what
my errors were, and altering the inclination of the
shoes themselves, according to a print which Lizzie
found in a book of adventures. And this made such a
difference, that I crossed the farmyard and came back
again (though turning was the worst thing of all)
without so much as falling once, or getting my staff
entangled.

But oh, the aching of my ankles, when I went to bed
that night; I was forced to help myself upstairs with a
couple of mopsticks! and I rubbed the joints with
neatsfoot oil, which comforted them greatly. And
likely enough I would have abandoned any further trial,
but for Lizzie's ridicule, and pretended sympathy;
asking if the strong John Ridd would have old Betty to
lean upon. Therefore I set to again, with a fixed
resolve not to notice pain or stiffness, but to warm
them out of me. And sure enough, before dark that day,
I could get along pretty freely; especially improving
every time, after leaving off and resting. The
astonishment of poor John Fry, Bill Dadds, and Jem
Slocombe, when they saw me coming down the hill upon
them, in the twilight, where they were clearing the
furze rick and trussing it for cattle, was more than I
can tell you; because they did not let me see it, but
ran away with one accord, and floundered into a
snowdrift. They believed, and so did every one else
(especially when I grew able to glide along pretty
rapidly), that I had stolen Mother Melldrum's sieves,
on which she was said to fly over the foreland at
midnight every Saturday.

Upon the following day, I held some council with my
mother; not liking to go without her permission, yet
scarcely daring to ask for it. But here she
disappointed me, on the right side of disappointment;
saying that she had seen my pining (which she never
could have done; because I had been too hard at work),
and rather than watch me grieving so, for somebody or
other, who now was all in all to me, I might go upon my
course, and God's protection go with me! At this I was
amazed, because it was not at all like mother; and
knowing how well I had behaved, ever since the time of
our snowing up, I was a little moved to tell her that
she could not understand me. However my sense of duty
kept me, and my knowledge of the catechism, from saying
such a thing as that, or even thinking twice of it.
And so I took her at her word, which she was not
prepared for; and telling her how proud I was of her
trust in Providence, and how I could run in my new
snow-shoes, I took a short pipe in my mouth, and
started forth accordingly.

CHAPTER XLIII

NOT TOO SOON

When I started on my road across the hills and valleys
(which now were pretty much alike), the utmost I could
hope to do was to gain the crest of hills, and look
into the Doone Glen. Hence I might at least descry
whether Lorna still was safe, by the six nests still
remaining, and the view of the Captain's house. When I
was come to the open country, far beyond the sheltered
homestead, and in the full brunt of the wind, the keen
blast of the cold broke on me, and the mighty breadth
of snow. Moor and highland, field and common, cliff
and vale, and watercourse, over all the rolling folds
of misty white were flung. There was nothing square or
jagged left, there was nothing perpendicular; all the
rugged lines were eased, and all the breaches smoothly
filled. Curves, and mounds, and rounded heavings, took
the place of rock and stump; and all the country looked
as if a woman's hand had been on it.

Through the sparkling breadth of white, which seemed to
glance my eyes away, and outside the humps of laden
trees, bowing their backs like a woodman, I contrived
to get along, half-sliding and half-walking, in places
where a plain-shodden man must have sunk, and waited
freezing till the thaw should come to him. For
although there had been such violent frost, every
night, upon the snow, the snow itself, having never
thawed, even for an hour, had never coated over. Hence
it was as soft and light as if all had fallen
yesterday. In places where no drift had been, but
rather off than on to them, three feet was the least of
depth; but where the wind had chased it round, or any
draught led like a funnel, or anything opposed it;
there you might very safely say that it ran up to
twenty feet, or thirty, or even fifty, and I believe
some times a hundred.

At last I got to my spy-hill (as I had begun to call
it), although I never should have known it but for what
it looked on. And even to know this last again
required all the eyes of love, soever sharp and
vigilant. For all the beautiful Glen Doone (shaped
from out the mountains, as if on purpose for the
Doones, and looking in the summer-time like a sharp cut
vase of green) now was besnowed half up the sides, and
at either end so, that it was more like the white
basins wherein we boil plum-puddings. Not a patch of
grass was there, not a black branch of a tree; all was
white; and the little river flowed beneath an arch of
snow; if it managed to flow at all.

Now this was a great surprise to me; not only because I
believed Glen Doone to be a place outside all frost,
but also because I thought perhaps that it was quite
impossible to be cold near Lorna. And now it struck me
all at once that perhaps her ewer was frozen (as mine
had been for the last three weeks, requiring embers
around it), and perhaps her window would not shut, any
more than mine would; and perhaps she wanted blankets.
This idea worked me up to such a chill of sympathy,
that seeing no Doones now about, and doubting if any
guns would go off, in this state of the weather, and
knowing that no man could catch me up (except with
shoes like mine), I even resolved to slide the cliffs,
and bravely go to Lorna.

It helped me much in this resolve, that the snow came
on again, thick enough to blind a man who had not spent
his time among it, as I had done now for days and days.
Therefore I took my neatsfoot oil, which now was
clogged like honey, and rubbed it hard into my
leg-joints, so far as I could reach them. And then I
set my back and elbows well against a snowdrift,
hanging far adown the cliff, and saying some of the
Lord's Prayer, threw myself on Providence. Before
there was time to think or dream, I landed very
beautifully upon a ridge of run-up snow in a quiet
corner. My good shoes, or boots, preserved me from
going far beneath it; though one of them was sadly
strained, where a grub had gnawed the ash, in the early
summer-time. Having set myself aright, and being in
good spirits, I made boldly across the valley (where
the snow was furrowed hard), being now afraid of
nobody.

If Lorna had looked out of the window she would not
have known me, with those boots upon my feet, and a
well-cleaned sheepskin over me, bearing my own (J.R.)
in red, just between my shoulders, but covered now in
snow-flakes. The house was partly drifted up, though
not so much as ours was; and I crossed the little
stream almost without knowing that it was under me. At
first, being pretty safe from interference from the
other huts, by virtue of the blinding snow and the
difficulty of walking, I examined all the windows; but
these were coated so with ice, like ferns and flowers
and dazzling stars, that no one could so much as guess
what might be inside of them. Moreover I was afraid of
prying narrowly into them, as it was not a proper thing
where a maiden might be; only I wanted to know just
this, whether she were there or not.

Taking nothing by this movement, I was forced, much
against my will, to venture to the door and knock, in a
hesitating manner, not being sure but what my answer
might be the mouth of a carbine. However it was not
so, for I heard a pattering of feet and a whispering
going on, and then a shrill voice through the keyhole,
asking, 'Who's there?'

'Only me, John Ridd,' I answered; upon which I heard a
little laughter, and a little sobbing, or something
that was like it; and then the door was opened about a
couple of inches, with a bar behind it still; and then
the little voice went on,--

'Put thy finger in, young man, with the old ring on it.
But mind thee, if it be the wrong one, thou shalt never
draw it back again.'

Laughing at Gwenny's mighty threat, I showed my finger
in the opening; upon which she let me in, and barred
the door again like lightning.

'What is the meaning of all this, Gwenny?' I asked, as
I slipped about on the floor, for I could not stand
there firmly with my great snow-shoes on.

'Maning enough, and bad maning too,' the Cornish girl
made answer. Us be shut in here, and starving, and
durstn't let anybody in upon us. I wish thou wer't
good to ate, young man: I could manage most of thee.'

I was so frightened by her eyes, full of wolfish
hunger, that I could only say 'Good God!' having never
seen the like before. Then drew I forth a large piece
of bread, which I had brought in case of accidents, and
placed it in her hands. She leaped at it, as a
starving dog leaps at sight of his supper, and she set
her teeth in it, and then withheld it from her lips,
with something very like an oath at her own vile
greediness; and then away round the corner with it, no
doubt for her young mistress. I meanwhile was
occupied, to the best of my ability, in taking my
snow-shoes off, yet wondering much within myself why
Lorna did not come to me.

But presently I knew the cause, for Gwenny called me,
and I ran, and found my darling quite unable to say so
much as, 'John, how are you?'  Between the hunger and
the cold, and the excitement of my coming, she had
fainted away, and lay back on a chair, as white as the
snow around us. In betwixt her delicate lips, Gwenny
was thrusting with all her strength the hard brown
crust of the rye-bread, which she had snatched from me
so.

'Get water, or get snow,' I said; 'don't you know what
fainting is, you very stupid child?'

'Never heerd on it, in Cornwall,' she answered,
trusting still to the bread; 'be un the same as
bleeding?'

'It will be directly, if you go on squeezing away with
that crust so. Eat a piece: I have got some more.
Leave my darling now to me.'

Hearing that I had some more, the starving girl could
resist no longer, but tore it in two, and had swallowed
half before I had coaxed my Lorna back to sense, and
hope, and joy, and love.

'I never expected to see you again. I had made up my
mind to die, John; and to die without your knowing it.'

As I repelled this fearful thought in a manner highly
fortifying, the tender hue flowed back again into her
famished cheeks and lips, and a softer brilliance
glistened from the depth of her dark eyes. She gave me
one little shrunken hand, and I could not help a tear
for it.

'After all, Mistress Lorna,' I said, pretending to be
gay, for a smile might do her good; 'you do not love me
as Gwenny does; for she even wanted to eat me.'

'And shall, afore I have done, young man,' Gwenny
answered laughing; 'you come in here with they red
chakes, and make us think o' sirloin.'

'Eat up your bit of brown bread, Gwenny. It is not
good enough for your mistress. Bless her heart, I have
something here such as she never tasted the like of,
being in such appetite. Look here, Lorna; smell it
first. I have had it ever since Twelfth Day, and kept
it all the time for you. Annie made it. That is
enough to warrant it good cooking.'

And then I showed my great mince-pie in a bag of tissue
paper, and I told them how the mince-meat was made of
golden pippins finely shred, with the undercut of the
sirloin, and spice and fruit accordingly and far beyond
my knowledge. But Lorna would not touch a morsel until
she had thanked God for it, and given me the kindest
kiss, and put a piece in Gwenny's mouth.

I have eaten many things myself, with very great
enjoyment, and keen perception of their merits, and
some thanks to God for them. But I never did enjoy a
thing, that had found its way between my own lips,
half, or even a quarter as much as I now enjoyed
beholding Lorna, sitting proudly upwards (to show that
she was faint no more) entering into that mince-pie,
and moving all her pearls of teeth (inside her little
mouth-place) exactly as I told her. For I was afraid
lest she should be too fast in going through it, and
cause herself more damage so, than she got of
nourishment. But I had no need to fear at all, and
Lorna could not help laughing at me for thinking that
she had no self-control.

Some creatures require a deal of food (I myself among
the number), and some can do with a very little;
making, no doubt, the best of it. And I have often
noticed that the plumpest and most perfect women never
eat so hard and fast as the skinny and three-cornered
ones. These last be often ashamed of it, and eat most
when the men be absent. Hence it came to pass that
Lorna, being the loveliest of all maidens, had as much
as she could do to finish her own half of pie; whereas
Gwenny Carfax (though generous more than greedy), ate
up hers without winking, after finishing the brown
loaf; and then I begged to know the meaning of this
state of things.

'The meaning is sad enough,' said Lorna; 'and I see no
way out of it. We are both to be starved until I let
them do what they like with me.

'That is to say until you choose to marry Carver Doone,
and be slowly killed by him?'

'Slowly! No, John, quickly. I hate him so intensely,
that less than a week would kill me.'

'Not a doubt of that,' said Gwenny; 'oh, she hates him
nicely then; but not half so much as I do.'

I told them that this state of things could be endured
no longer, on which point they agreed with me, but saw
no means to help it. For even if Lorna could make up
her mind to come away with me and live at Plover's
Barrows farm, under my good mother's care, as I had
urged so often, behold the snow was all around us,
heaped as high as mountains, and how could any delicate
maiden ever get across it?

Then I spoke with a strange tingle upon both sides of
my heart, knowing that this undertaking was a serious
one for all, and might burn our farm down,--

'If I warrant to take you safe, and without much fright
or hardship, Lorna, will you come with me?'

'To be sure I will, dear,' said my beauty, with a smile
and a glance to follow it; 'I have small alternative,
to starve, or go with you, John.'

'Gwenny, have you courage for it? Will you come with
your young mistress?'

'Will I stay behind?' cried Gwenny, in a voice that
settled it. And so we began to arrange about it; and
I was much excited. It was useless now to leave it
longer; if it could be done at all, it could not be too
quickly done. It was the Counsellor who had ordered,
after all other schemes had failed, that his niece
should have no food until she would obey him. He had
strictly watched the house, taking turns with Carver,
to ensure that none came nigh it bearing food or
comfort. But this evening, they had thought it
needless to remain on guard; and it would have been
impossible, because themselves were busy offering high
festival to all the valley, in right of their own
commandership. And Gwenny said that nothing made her
so nearly mad with appetite as the account she received
from a woman of all the dishes preparing. Nevertheless
she had answered bravely,--

'Go and tell the Counsellor, and go and tell the
Carver, who sent you to spy upon us, that we shall have
a finer dish than any set before them.'  And so in truth
they did, although so little dreaming it; for no Doone
that was ever born, however much of a Carver, might vie
with our Annie for mince-meat.

Now while we sat reflecting much, and talking a good
deal more, in spite of all the cold--for I never was in
a hurry to go, when I had Lorna with me--she said, in
her silvery voice, which always led me so along, as if
I were a slave to a beautiful bell,--

'Now, John, we are wasting time, dear. You have
praised my hair, till it curls with pride, and my eyes
till you cannot see them, even if they are brown
diamonds which I have heard for the fiftieth time at
least; though I never saw such a jewel. Don't you
think it is high time to put on your snow-shoes, John?'

'Certainly not,' I answered, 'till we have settled
something more. I was so cold when I came in; and now
I am as warm as a cricket. And so are you, you lively
soul; though you are not upon my hearth yet.'

'Remember, John,' said Lorna, nestling for a moment to
me; 'the severity of the weather makes a great
difference between us. And you must never take
advantage.'

'I quite understand all that, dear. And the harder it
freezes the better, while that understanding continues.
Now do try to be serious.'

'I try to be serious! And I have been trying fifty
times, and could not bring you to it, John! Although I
am sure the situation, as the Counsellor says at the
beginning of a speech, the situation, to say the least,
is serious enough for anything. Come, Gwenny, imitate
him.'

Gwenny was famed for her imitation of the Counsellor
making a speech; and she began to shake her hair, and
mount upon a footstool; but I really could not have
this, though even Lorna ordered it. The truth was that
my darling maiden was in such wild spirits, at seeing
me so unexpected, and at the prospect of release, and
of what she had never known, quiet life and happiness,
that like all warm and loving natures, she could scarce
control herself.

'Come to this frozen window, John, and see them light
the stack-fire. They will little know who looks at
them. Now be very good, John. You stay in that
corner, dear, and I will stand on this side; and try to
breathe yourself a peep-hole through the lovely spears
and banners. Oh, you don't know how to do it. I must
do it for you. Breathe three times, like that, and
that; and then you rub it with your fingers, before it
has time to freeze again.'

All this she did so beautifully, with her lips put up
like cherries, and her fingers bent half back, as only
girls can bend them, and her little waist thrown out
against the white of the snowed-up window, that I made
her do it three times over; and I stopped her every
time and let it freeze again, that so she might be the
longer. Now I knew that all her love was mine, every
bit as much as mine was hers; yet I must have her to
show it, dwelling upon every proof, lengthening out all
certainty. Perhaps the jealous heart is loath to own a
life worth twice its own. Be that as it may, I know
that we thawed the window nicely.

And then I saw, far down the stream (or rather down the
bed of it, for there was no stream visible), a little
form of fire arising, red, and dark, and flickering.
Presently it caught on something, and went upward
boldly; and then it struck into many forks, and then it
fell, and rose again.

'Do you know what all that is, John?' asked Lorna,
smiling cleverly at the manner of my staring.

'How on earth should I know? Papists burn Protestants
in the flesh; and Protestants burn Papists in effigy,
as we mock them. Lorna, are they going to burn any
one to-night?'

'No, you dear. I must rid you of these things. I see
that you are bigoted. The Doones are firing Dunkery
beacon, to celebrate their new captain.'

'But how could they bring it here through the snow? If
they have sledges, I can do nothing.'

'They brought it before the snow began. The moment
poor grandfather was gone, even before his funeral, the
young men, having none to check them, began at once
upon it. They had always borne a grudge against it;
not that it ever did them harm; but because it seemed
so insolent. "Can't a gentleman go home, without a
smoke behind him?"  I have often heard them saying. And
though they have done it no serious harm, since they
threw the firemen on the fire, many, many years ago,
they have often promised to bring it here for their
candle; and now they have done it. Ah, now look! The
tar is kindled.'

Though Lorna took it so in joke, I looked upon it very
gravely, knowing that this heavy outrage to the
feelings of the neighbourhood would cause more stir
than a hundred sheep stolen, or a score of houses
sacked. Not of course that the beacon was of the
smallest use to any one, neither stopped anybody from
stealing, nay, rather it was like the parish knell,
which begins when all is over, and depresses all the
survivors; yet I knew that we valued it, and were
proud, and spoke of it as a mighty institution; and
even more than that, our vestry had voted, within the
last two years, seven shillings and six-pence to pay
for it, in proportion with other parishes. And one of
the men who attended to it, or at least who was paid
for doing so, was our Jem Slocombe's grandfather.

However, in spite of all my regrets, the fire went up
very merrily, blazing red and white and yellow, as it
leaped on different things. And the light danced on
the snow-drifts with a misty lilac hue. I was
astonished at its burning in such mighty depths of
snow; but Gwenny said that the wicked men had been
three days hard at work, clearing, as it were, a
cock-pit, for their fire to have its way. And now they
had a mighty pile, which must have covered five
land-yards square, heaped up to a goodly height, and
eager to take fire.

In this I saw great obstacle to what I wished to
manage. For when this pyramid should be kindled
thoroughly, and pouring light and blazes round, would
not all the valley be like a white room full of
candles? Thinking thus, I was half inclined to abide
my time for another night: and then my second thoughts
convinced me that I would be a fool in this. For lo,
what an opportunity! All the Doones would be drunk, of
course, in about three hours' time, and getting more
and more in drink as the night went on. As for the
fire, it must sink in about three hours or more, and
only cast uncertain shadows friendly to my purpose.
And then the outlaws must cower round it, as the cold
increased on them, helping the weight of the liquor;
and in their jollity any noise would be cheered as a
false alarm. Most of all, and which decided once for
all my action,--when these wild and reckless villains
should be hot with ardent spirits, what was door, or
wall, to stand betwixt them and my Lorna?

This thought quickened me so much that I touched my
darling reverently, and told her in a few short words
how I hoped to manage it.

'Sweetest, in two hours' time, I shall be again with
you. Keep the bar up, and have Gwenny ready to answer
any one. You are safe while they are dining, dear, and
drinking healths, and all that stuff; and before they
have done with that, I shall be again with you. Have
everything you care to take in a very little compass,
and Gwenny must have no baggage. I shall knock loud,
and then wait a little; and then knock twice, very
softly.'

With this I folded her in my arms; and she looked
frightened at me; not having perceived her danger; and
then I told Gwenny over again what I had told her
mistress: but she only nodded her head and said, 'Young
man, go and teach thy grandmother.'

CHAPTER XLIV

BROUGHT HOME AT LAST

To my great delight I found that the weather, not
often friendly to lovers, and lately seeming so
hostile, had in the most important matter done me a
signal service. For when I had promised to take my
love from the power of those wretches, the only way of
escape apparent lay through the main Doone-gate. For
though I might climb the cliffs myself, especially with
the snow to aid me, I durst not try to fetch Lorna up
them, even if she were not half-starved, as well as
partly frozen; and as for Gwenny's door, as we called
it (that is to say, the little entrance from the wooded
hollow), it was snowed up long ago to the level of the
hills around. Therefore I was at my wit's end how to
get them out; the passage by the Doone-gate being long,
and dark, and difficult, and leading to such a weary
circuit among the snowy moors and hills.

But now, being homeward-bound by the shortest possible
track, I slipped along between the bonfire and the
boundary cliffs, where I found a caved way of snow
behind a sort of avalanche: so that if the Doones had
been keeping watch (which they were not doing, but
revelling), they could scarcely have discovered me.
And when I came to my old ascent, where I had often
scaled the cliff and made across the mountains, it
struck me that I would just have a look at my first and
painful entrance, to wit, the water-slide. I never for
a moment imagined that this could help me now; for I
never had dared to descend it, even in the finest
weather; still I had a curiosity to know what my old
friend was like, with so much snow upon him. But, to
my very great surprise, there was scarcely any snow
there at all, though plenty curling high overhead from
the cliff, like bolsters over it. Probably the
sweeping of the north-east wind up the narrow chasm had
kept the showers from blocking it, although the water
had no power under the bitter grip of frost. All my
water-slide was now less a slide than path of ice;
furrowed where the waters ran over fluted ridges;
seamed where wind had tossed and combed them, even
while congealing; and crossed with little steps
wherever the freezing torrent lingered. And here and
there the ice was fibred with the trail of sludge-
weed, slanting from the side, and matted, so as to make
resting-place.

Lo it was easy track and channel, as if for the very
purpose made, down which I could guide my sledge with
Lorna sitting in it. There were only two things to be
feared; one lest the rolls of snow above should fall in
and bury us; the other lest we should rush too fast,
and so be carried headlong into the black whirlpool at
the bottom, the middle of which was still unfrozen, and
looking more horrible by the contrast. Against this
danger I made provision, by fixing a stout bar across;
but of the other we must take our chance, and trust
ourselves to Providence.

I hastened home at my utmost speed, and told my mother
for God's sake to keep the house up till my return, and
to have plenty of fire blazing, and plenty of water
boiling, and food enough hot for a dozen people, and
the best bed aired with the warming-pan. Dear mother
smiled softly at my excitement, though her own was not
much less, I am sure, and enhanced by sore anxiety.
Then I gave very strict directions to Annie, and
praised her a little, and kissed her; and I even
endeavoured to flatter Eliza, lest she should be
disagreeable.

After this I took some brandy, both within and about
me; the former, because I had sharp work to do; and the
latter in fear of whatever might happen, in such great
cold, to my comrades. Also I carried some other
provisions, grieving much at their coldness: and then I
went to the upper linhay, and took our new light pony-
sledd, which had been made almost as much for pleasure
as for business; though God only knows how our girls
could have found any pleasure in bumping along so. On
the snow, however, it ran as sweetly as if it had been
made for it; yet I durst not take the pony with it; in
the first place, because his hoofs would break through
the ever-shifting surface of the light and piling snow;
and secondly, because these ponies, coming from the
forest, have a dreadful trick of neighing, and most of
all in frosty weather.

Therefore I girded my own body with a dozen turns of
hay-rope, twisting both the ends in under at the bottom
of my breast, and winding the hay on the skew a little,
that the hempen thong might not slip between, and so
cut me in the drawing. I put a good piece of spare
rope in the sledd, and the cross-seat with the back to
it, which was stuffed with our own wool, as well as two
or three fur coats; and then, just as I was starting,
out came Annie, in spite of the cold, panting for fear
of missing me, and with nothing on her head, but a
lanthorn in one hand.

'Oh, John, here is the most wonderful thing! Mother has
never shown it before; and I can't think how she could
make up her mind. She had gotten it in a great well
of a cupboard, with camphor, and spirits, and lavender.
Lizzie says it is a most magnificent sealskin cloak,
worth fifty pounds, or a farthing.'

'At any rate it is soft and warm,' said I, very calmly
flinging it into the bottom of the sledd. 'Tell mother
I will put it over Lorna's feet.'

'Lorna's feet! Oh, you great fool,' cried Annie, for
the first time reviling me; 'over her shoulders; and be
proud, you very stupid John.'

'It is not good enough for her feet,' I answered, with
strong emphasis; 'but don't tell mother I said so,
Annie. Only thank her very kindly.'

With that I drew my traces hard, and set my ashen staff
into the snow, and struck out with my best foot
foremost (the best one at snow-shoes, I mean), and the
sledd came after me as lightly as a dog might follow;
and Annie, with the lanthorn, seemed to be left behind
and waiting like a pretty lamp-post.

The full moon rose as bright behind me as a paten of
pure silver, casting on the snow long shadows of the
few things left above, burdened rock, and shaggy
foreland, and the labouring trees. In the great white
desolation, distance was a mocking vision; hills looked
nigh, and valleys far; when hills were far and valleys
nigh. And the misty breath of frost, piercing through
the ribs of rock, striking to the pith of trees,
creeping to the heart of man, lay along the hollow
places, like a serpent sloughing. Even as my own gaunt
shadow (travestied as if I were the moonlight's daddy-
longlegs), went before me down the slope; even I, the
shadow's master, who had tried in vain to cough, when
coughing brought good liquorice, felt a pressure on my
bosom, and a husking in my throat.

However, I went on quietly, and at a very tidy speed;
being only too thankful that the snow had ceased, and
no wind as yet arisen. And from the ring of low white
vapour girding all the verge of sky, and from the rosy
blue above, and the shafts of starlight set upon a
quivering bow, as well as from the moon itself and the
light behind it, having learned the signs of frost from
its bitter twinges, I knew that we should have a night
as keen as ever England felt. Nevertheless, I had work
enough to keep me warm if I managed it. The question
was, could I contrive to save my darling from it?

Daring not to risk my sledd by any fall from the
valley-cliffs, I dragged it very carefully up the steep
incline of ice, through the narrow chasm, and so to the
very brink and verge where first I had seen my Lorna,
in the fishing days of boyhood. As I then had a
trident fork, for sticking of the loaches, so I now had
a strong ash stake, to lay across from rock to rock,
and break the speed of descending. With this I moored
the sledd quite safe, at the very lip of the chasm,
where all was now substantial ice, green and black in
the moonlight; and then I set off up the valley,
skirting along one side of it.

The stack-fire still was burning strongly, but with
more of heat than blaze; and many of the younger Doones
were playing on the verge of it, the children making
rings of fire, and their mothers watching them. All
the grave and reverend warriors having heard of
rheumatism, were inside of log and stone, in the two
lowest houses, with enough of candles burning to make
our list of sheep come short.

All these I passed, without the smallest risk or
difficulty, walking up the channel of drift which I
spoke of once before. And then I crossed, with more of
care, and to the door of Lorna's house, and made the
sign, and listened, after taking my snow-shoes off.

But no one came, as I expected, neither could I espy a
light. And I seemed to hear a faint low sound, like
the moaning of the snow-wind. Then I knocked again
more loudly, with a knocking at my heart: and receiving
no answer, set all my power at once against the door.
In a moment it flew inwards, and I glided along the
passage with my feet still slippery. There in Lorna's
room I saw, by the moonlight flowing in, a sight which
drove me beyond sense.

Lorna was behind a chair, crouching in the corner, with
her hands up, and a crucifix, or something that looked
like it. In the middle of the room lay Gwenny Carfax,
stupid, yet with one hand clutching the ankle of a
struggling man. Another man stood above my Lorna,
trying to draw the chair away. In a moment I had him
round the waist, and he went out of the window with a
mighty crash of glass; luckily for him that window had
no bars like some of them. Then I took the other man
by the neck; and he could not plead for mercy. I bore
him out of the house as lightly as I would bear a baby,
yet squeezing his throat a little more than I fain
would do to an infant. By the bright moonlight I saw
that I carried Marwood de Whichehalse. For his
father's sake I spared him, and because he had been my
schoolfellow; but with every muscle of my body strung
with indignation, I cast him, like a skittle, from me
into a snowdrift, which closed over him. Then I looked
for the other fellow, tossed through Lorna's window,
and found him lying stunned and bleeding, neither able
to groan yet. Charleworth Doone, if his gushing blood
did not much mislead me.

It was no time to linger now; I fastened my shoes in a
moment, and caught up my own darling with her head upon
my shoulder, where she whispered faintly; and telling
Gwenny to follow me, or else I would come back for her,
if she could not walk the snow, I ran the whole
distance to my sledd, caring not who might follow me.
Then by the time I had set up Lorna, beautiful and
smiling, with the seal-skin cloak all over her, sturdy
Gwenny came along, having trudged in the track of my
snow-shoes, although with two bags on her back. I set
her in beside her mistress, to support her, and keep
warm; and then with one look back at the glen, which
had been so long my home of heart, I hung behind the
sledd, and launched it down the steep and dangerous
way.

Though the cliffs were black above us, and the road
unseen in front, and a great white grave of snow might
at a single word come down, Lorna was as calm and happy
as an infant in its bed. She knew that I was with her;
and when I told her not to speak, she touched my hand
in silence. Gwenny was in a much greater fright,
having never seen such a thing before, neither knowing
what it is to yield to pure love's confidence. I could
hardly keep her quiet, without making a noise myself.
With my staff from rock to rock, and my weight thrown
backward, I broke the sledd's too rapid way, and
brought my grown love safely out, by the selfsame road
which first had led me to her girlish fancy, and my
boyish slavery.

Unpursued, yet looking back as if some one must be
after us, we skirted round the black whirling pool, and
gained the meadows beyond it. Here there was hard
collar work, the track being all uphill and rough; and
Gwenny wanted to jump out, to lighten the sledd and to
push behind. But I would not hear of it; because it
was now so deadly cold, and I feared that Lorna might
get frozen, without having Gwenny to keep her warm.
And after all, it was the sweetest labour I had ever
known in all my life, to be sure that I was pulling
Lorna, and pulling her to our own farmhouse.

Gwenny's nose was touched with frost, before we had
gone much farther, because she would not keep it quiet
and snug beneath the sealskin. And here I had to stop
in the moonlight (which was very dangerous) and rub it
with a clove of snow, as Eliza had taught me; and
Gwenny scolding all the time, as if myself had frozen
it. Lorna was now so far oppressed with all the
troubles of the evening, and the joy that followed
them, as well as by the piercing cold and difficulty of
breathing, that she lay quite motionless, like fairest
wax in the moonlight--when we stole a glance at her,
beneath the dark folds of the cloak; and I thought that
she was falling into the heavy snow-sleep, whence there
is no awaking.

Therefore, I drew my traces tight, and set my whole
strength to the business; and we slipped along at a
merry pace, although with many joltings, which must
have sent my darling out into the cold snowdrifts but
for the short strong arm of Gwenny. And so in about an
hour's time, in spite of many hindrances, we came home
to the old courtyard, and all the dogs saluted us. My
heart was quivering, and my cheeks as hot as the
Doones' bonfire, with wondering both what Lorna would
think of our farm-yard, and what my mother would think
of her. Upon the former subject my anxiety was wasted,
for Lorna neither saw a thing, nor even opened her
heavy eyes. And as to what mother would think of her,
she was certain not to think at all, until she had
cried over her.

And so indeed it came to pass. Even at this length of
time, I can hardly tell it, although so bright before
my mind, because it moves my heart so. The sledd was
at the open door, with only Lorna in it; for Gwenny
Carfax had jumped out, and hung back in the clearing,
giving any reason rather than the only true one--that
she would not be intruding. At the door were all our
people; first, of course, Betty Muxworthy, teaching me
how to draw the sledd, as if she had been born in it,
and flourishing with a great broom, wherever a speck of
snow lay. Then dear Annie, and old Molly (who was very
quiet, and counted almost for nobody), and behind them,
mother, looking as if she wanted to come first, but
doubted how the manners lay. In the distance Lizzie
stood, fearful of encouraging, but unable to keep out
of it.

Betty was going to poke her broom right in under the
sealskin cloak, where Lorna lay unconscious, and where
her precious breath hung frozen, like a silver cobweb;
but I caught up Betty's broom, and flung it clean away
over the corn chamber; and then I put the others by,
and fetched my mother forward.

'You shall see her first,' I said: 'is she not your
daughter? Hold the light there, Annie.'

Dear mother's hands were quick and trembling, as she
opened the shining folds; and there she saw my Lorna
sleeping, with her black hair all dishevelled, and she
bent and kissed her forehead, and only said, 'God bless
her, John!'  And then she was taken with violent
weeping, and I was forced to hold her.

'Us may tich of her now, I rackon,' said Betty in her
most jealous way; 'Annie, tak her by the head, and I'll
tak her by the toesen. No taime to stand here like
girt gawks. Don'ee tak on zo, missus. Ther be vainer
vish in the zea--Lor, but, her be a booty!'

With this, they carried her into the house, Betty
chattering all the while, and going on now about
Lorna's hands, and the others crowding round her, so
that I thought I was not wanted among so many women,
and should only get the worst of it, and perhaps do
harm to my darling. Therefore I went and brought
Gwenny in, and gave her a potful of bacon and peas, and
an iron spoon to eat it with, which she did right
heartily.

Then I asked her how she could have been such a fool as
to let those two vile fellows enter the house where
Lorna was; and she accounted for it so naturally, that
I could only blame myself. For my agreement had been
to give one loud knock (if you happen to remember) and
after that two little knocks. Well these two drunken
rogues had come; and one, being very drunk indeed, had
given a great thump; and then nothing more to do with
it; and the other, being three-quarters drunk, had
followed his leader (as one might say) but feebly, and
making two of it. Whereupon up jumped Lorna, and
declared that her John was there.

All this Gwenny told me shortly, between the whiles of
eating, and even while she licked the spoon; and then
there came a message for me that my love was sensible,
and was seeking all around for me. Then I told Gwenny
to hold her tongue (whatever she did among us), and not
to trust to women's words; and she told me they all
were liars, as she had found out long ago; and the only
thing to believe in was an honest man, when found.
Thereupon I could have kissed her as a sort of tribute,
liking to be appreciated; yet the peas upon her lips
made me think about it; and thought is fatal to action.
So I went to see my dear.

That sight I shall not forget; till my dying head falls
back, and my breast can lift no more. I know not
whether I were then more blessed, or harrowed by it.
For in the settle was my Lorna, propped with pillows
round her, and her clear hands spread sometimes to the
blazing fireplace. In her eyes no knowledge was of
anything around her, neither in her neck the sense of
leaning towards anything. Only both her lovely hands
were entreating something, to spare her, or to love
her; and the lines of supplication quivered in her sad
white face.

'All go away, except my mother,' I said very quietly,
but so that I would be obeyed; and everybody knew it.
Then mother came to me alone; and she said, 'The frost
is in her brain; I have heard of this before, John.'
'Mother, I will have it out,' was all that I could
answer her; 'leave her to me altogether; only you sit
there and watch.'  For I felt that Lorna knew me, and no
other soul but me; and that if not interfered with, she
would soon come home to me. Therefore I sat gently by
her, leaving nature, as it were, to her own good time
and will. And presently the glance that watched me, as
at distance and in doubt, began to flutter and to
brighten, and to deepen into kindness, then to beam
with trust and love, and then with gathering tears to
falter, and in shame to turn away. But the small
entreating hands found their way, as if by instinct, to
my great projecting palms; and trembled there, and
rested there.

For a little while we lingered thus, neither wishing to
move away, neither caring to look beyond the presence
of the other; both alike so full of hope, and comfort,
and true happiness; if only the world would let us be.
And then a little sob disturbed us, and mother tried to
make believe that she was only coughing. But Lorna,
guessing who she was, jumped up so very rashly that she
almost set her frock on fire from the great ash log;
and away she ran to the old oak chair, where mother was
by the clock-case pretending to be knitting, and she
took the work from mother's hands, and laid them both
upon her head, kneeling humbly, and looking up.

'God bless you, my fair mistress!' said mother, bending
nearer, and then as Lorna's gaze prevailed, 'God bless
you, my sweet child!'

And so she went to mother's heart by the very nearest
road, even as she had come to mine; I mean the road of
pity, smoothed by grace, and youth, and gentleness.

CHAPTER XLV

A CHANGE LONG NEEDED

Jeremy Stickles was gone south, ere ever the frost set
in, for the purpose of mustering forces to attack the
Doone Glen. But, of course, this weather had put a
stop to every kind of movement; for even if men could
have borne the cold, they could scarcely be brought to
face the perils of the snow-drifts. And to tell the
truth I cared not how long this weather lasted, so long
as we had enough to eat, and could keep ourselves from
freezing. Not only that I did not want Master Stickles
back again, to make more disturbances; but also that
the Doones could not come prowling after Lorna while
the snow lay piled between us, with the surface soft
and dry. Of course they would very soon discover where
their lawful queen was, although the track of sledd and
snow-shoes had been quite obliterated by another
shower, before the revellers could have grown half as
drunk as they intended. But Marwood de Whichehalse,
who had been snowed up among them (as Gwenny said),
after helping to strip the beacon, that young Squire
was almost certain to have recognised me, and to have
told the vile Carver. And it gave me no little
pleasure to think how mad that Carver must be with me,
for robbing him of the lovely bride whom he was
starving into matrimony. However, I was not pleased at
all with the prospect of the consequences; but set all
hands on to thresh the corn, ere the Doones could come
and burn the ricks. For I knew that they could not
come yet, inasmuch as even a forest pony could not
traverse the country, much less the heavy horses needed
to carry such men as they were. And hundreds of the
forest ponies died in this hard weather, some being
buried in the snow, and more of them starved for want
of grass.

Going through this state of things, and laying down the
law about it (subject to correction), I very soon
persuaded Lorna that for the present she was safe, and
(which made her still more happy) that she was not only
welcome, but as gladdening to our eyes as the flowers
of May. Of course, so far as regarded myself, this was
not a hundredth part of the real truth; and even as
regarded others, I might have said it ten times over.
For Lorna had so won them all, by her kind and gentle
ways, and her mode of hearkening to everybody's
trouble, and replying without words, as well as by her
beauty, and simple grace of all things, that I could
almost wish sometimes the rest would leave her more to
me. But mother could not do enough; and Annie almost
worshipped her; and even Lizzie could not keep her
bitterness towards her; especially when she found that
Lorna knew as much of books as need be.

As for John Fry, and Betty, and Molly, they were a
perfect plague when Lorna came into the kitchen. For
betwixt their curiosity to see a live Doone in the
flesh (when certain not to eat them), and their high
respect for birth (with or without honesty), and their
intense desire to know all about Master John's
sweetheart (dropped, as they said, from the
snow-clouds), and most of all their admiration of a
beauty such as never even their angels could have
seen--betwixt and between all this, I say, there was no
getting the dinner cooked, with Lorna in the kitchen.

And the worst of it was that Lorna took the strangest
of all strange fancies for this very kitchen; and it
was hard to keep her out of it. Not that she had any
special bent for cooking, as our Annie had; rather
indeed the contrary, for she liked to have her food
ready cooked; but that she loved the look of the place,
and the cheerful fire burning, and the racks of bacon
to be seen, and the richness, and the homeliness, and
the pleasant smell of everything. And who knows but
what she may have liked (as the very best of maidens
do) to be admired, now and then, between the times of
business?

Therefore if you wanted Lorna (as I was always sure to
do, God knows how many times a day), the very surest
place to find her was our own old kitchen. Not
gossiping, I mean, nor loitering, neither seeking into
things, but seeming to be quite at home, as if she had
known it from a child, and seeming (to my eyes at
least) to light it up, and make life and colour out of
all the dullness; as I have seen the breaking sun do
among brown shocks of wheat.

But any one who wished to learn whether girls can
change or not, as the things around them change (while
yet their hearts are steadfast, and for ever anchored),
he should just have seen my Lorna, after a fortnight of
our life, and freedom from anxiety. It is possible
that my company--although I am accounted stupid by folk
who do not know my way--may have had something to do
with it; but upon this I will not say much, lest I lose
my character. And indeed, as regards company, I had
all the threshing to see to, and more than half to do
myself (though any one would have thought that even
John Fry must work hard this weather), else I could not
hope at all to get our corn into such compass that a
good gun might protect it.

But to come back to Lorna again (which I always longed
to do, and must long for ever), all the change between
night and day, all the shifts of cloud and sun, all the
difference between black death and brightsome
liveliness, scarcely may suggest or equal Lorna's
transformation. Quick she had always been and 'peart'
(as we say on Exmoor) and gifted with a leap of thought
too swift for me to follow; and hence you may find
fault with much, when I report her sayings. But
through the whole had always run, as a black string
goes through pearls, something dark and touched with
shadow, coloured as with an early end.

But, now, behold! there was none of this! There was no
getting her, for a moment, even to be serious. All her
bright young wit was flashing, like a newly-awakened
flame, and all her high young spirits leaped, as if
dancing to its fire. And yet she never spoke a word
which gave more pain than pleasure.

And even in her outward look there was much of
difference. Whether it was our warmth, and freedom,
and our harmless love of God, and trust in one another;
or whether it were our air, and water, and the pea-fed
bacon; anyhow my Lorna grew richer and more lovely,
more perfect and more firm of figure, and more light
and buoyant, with every passing day that laid its
tribute on her cheeks and lips. I was allowed one kiss
a day; only one for manners' sake, because she was our
visitor; and I might have it before breakfast, or else
when I came to say 'good-night!' according as I
decided. And I decided every night, not to take it in
the morning, but put it off till the evening time, and
have the pleasure to think about, through all the day
of working. But when my darling came up to me in the
early daylight, fresher than the daystar, and with no
one looking; only her bright eyes smiling, and sweet
lips quite ready, was it likely I could wait, and think
all day about it? For she wore a frock of Annie's,
nicely made to fit her, taken in at the waist and
curved--I never could explain it, not being a
mantua-maker; but I know how her figure looked in it,
and how it came towards me.

But this is neither here nor there; and I must on with
my story. Those days are very sacred to me, and if I
speak lightly of them, trust me, 'tis with lip alone;
while from heart reproach peeps sadly at the flippant
tricks of mind.

Although it was the longest winter ever known in our
parts (never having ceased to freeze for a single
night, and scarcely for a single day, from the middle
of December till the second week in March), to me it
was the very shortest and the most delicious; and
verily I do believe it was the same to Lorna. But when
the Ides of March were come (of which I do remember
something dim from school, and something clear from my
favourite writer) lo, there were increasing signals of
a change of weather.

One leading feature of that long cold, and a thing
remarked by every one (however unobservant) had been
the hollow moaning sound ever present in the air,
morning, noon, and night-time, and especially at night,
whether any wind were stirring, or whether it were a
perfect calm. Our people said that it was a witch
cursing all the country from the caverns by the sea,
and that frost and snow would last until we could catch
and drown her. But the land, being thoroughly blocked
with snow, and the inshore parts of the sea with ice
(floating in great fields along), Mother Melldrum (if
she it were) had the caverns all to herself, for there
was no getting at her. And speaking of the sea reminds
me of a thing reported to us, and on good authority;
though people might be found hereafter who would not
believe it, unless I told them that from what I myself
beheld of the channel I place perfect faith in it: and
this is, that a dozen sailors at the beginning of March
crossed the ice, with the aid of poles from Clevedon to
Penarth, or where the Holm rocks barred the flotage.

But now, about the tenth of March, that miserable
moaning noise, which had both foregone and accompanied
the rigour, died away from out the air; and we, being
now so used to it, thought at first that we must be
deaf. And then the fog, which had hung about (even in
full sunshine) vanished, and the shrouded hills shone
forth with brightness manifold. And now the sky at
length began to come to its true manner, which we had
not seen for months, a mixture (if I so may speak) of
various expressions. Whereas till now from
Allhallows-tide, six weeks ere the great frost set in,
the heavens had worn one heavy mask of ashen gray when
clouded, or else one amethystine tinge with a hazy rim,
when cloudless. So it was pleasant to behold, after
that monotony, the fickle sky which suits our England,
though abused by foreign folk.

And soon the dappled softening sky gave some earnest of
its mood; for a brisk south wind arose, and the blessed
rain came driving, cold indeed, yet most refreshing to
the skin, all parched with snow, and the eyeballs so
long dazzled. Neither was the heart more sluggish in
its thankfulness to God. People had begun to think,
and somebody had prophesied, that we should have no
spring this year, no seed-time, and no harvest; for
that the Lord had sent a judgment on this country of
England, and the nation dwelling in it, because of the
wickedness of the Court, and the encouragement shown to
Papists. And this was proved, they said, by what had
happened in the town of London; where, for more than a
fortnight, such a chill of darkness lay that no man
might behold his neighbour, even across the narrowest
street; and where the ice upon the Thames was more than
four feet thick, and crushing London Bridge in twain.
Now to these prophets I paid no heed, believing not
that Providence would freeze us for other people's
sins; neither seeing how England could for many
generations have enjoyed good sunshine, if Popery meant
frost and fogs. Besides, why could not Providence
settle the business once for all by freezing the Pope
himself; even though (according to our view) he were
destined to extremes of heat, together with all who
followed him?

Not to meddle with that subject, being beyond my
judgment, let me tell the things I saw, and then you
must believe me. The wind, of course, I could not see,
not having the powers of a pig; but I could see the
laden branches of the great oaks moving, hoping to
shake off the load packed and saddled on them. And
hereby I may note a thing which some one may explain
perhaps in the after ages, when people come to look at
things. This is that in desperate cold all the trees
were pulled awry, even though the wind had scattered
the snow burden from them. Of some sorts the branches
bended downwards, like an archway; of other sorts the
boughs curved upwards, like a red deer's frontlet.
This I know no reason* for; but am ready to swear that
I saw it.

* The reason is very simple, as all nature's reasons
are; though the subject has not yet been investigated
thoroughly. In some trees the vascular tissue is more
open on the upper side, in others on the under side, of
the spreading branches; according to the form of
growth, and habit of the sap. Hence in very severe
cold, when the vessels (comparatively empty) are
constricted, some have more power of contraction on the
upper side, and some upon the under.

Now when the first of the rain began, and the old
familiar softness spread upon the window glass, and ran
a little way in channels (though from the coldness of
the glass it froze before reaching the bottom), knowing
at once the difference from the short sharp thud of
snow, we all ran out, and filled our eyes and filled
our hearts with gazing. True, the snow was piled up
now all in mountains round us; true, the air was still
so cold that our breath froze on the doorway, and the
rain was turned to ice wherever it struck anything;
nevertheless that it was rain there was no denying, as
we watched it across black doorways, and could see no
sign of white. Mother, who had made up her mind that
the farm was not worth having after all those
prophesies, and that all of us must starve, and holes
be scratched in the snow for us, and no use to put up a
tombstone (for our church had been shut up long ago)
mother fell upon my breast, and sobbed that I was the
cleverest fellow ever born of woman. And this because
I had condemned the prophets for a pack of fools; not
seeing how business could go on, if people stopped to
hearken to them.

Then Lorna came and glorified me, for I had predicted a
change of weather, more to keep their spirits up, than
with real hope of it; and then came Annie blushing
shyly, as I looked at her, and said that Winnie would
soon have four legs now. This referred to some stupid
joke made by John Fry or somebody, that in this weather
a man had no legs, and a horse had only two.

But as the rain came down upon us from the southwest
wind, and we could not have enough of it, even putting
our tongues to catch it, as little children might do,
and beginning to talk of primroses; the very noblest
thing of all was to hear and see the gratitude of the
poor beasts yet remaining and the few surviving birds.
From the cowhouse lowing came, more than of fifty
milking times; moo and moo, and a turn-up noise at the
end of every bellow, as if from the very heart of kine.
Then the horses in the stables, packed as closely as
they could stick, at the risk of kicking, to keep the
warmth in one another, and their spirits up by
discoursing; these began with one accord to lift up
their voices, snorting, snaffling, whinnying, and
neighing, and trotting to the door to know when they
should have work again. To whom, as if in answer, came
the feeble bleating of the sheep, what few, by dint of
greatest care, had kept their fleeces on their backs,
and their four legs under them.

Neither was it a trifling thing, let whoso will say the
contrary, to behold the ducks and geese marching forth
in handsome order from their beds of fern and straw.
What a goodly noise they kept, what a flapping of their
wings, and a jerking of their tails, as they stood
right up and tried with a whistling in their throats to
imitate a cockscrow! And then how daintily they took
the wet upon their dusty plumes, and ducked their
shoulders to it, and began to dress themselves, and
laid their grooved bills on the snow, and dabbled for
more ooziness!

Lorna had never seen, I dare say, anything like this
before, and it was all that we could do to keep her
from rushing forth with only little lambswool shoes on,
and kissing every one of them. 'Oh, the dear things,
oh, the dear things!' she kept saying continually, 'how
wonderfully clever they are! Only look at that one with
his foot up, giving orders to the others, John!'

'And I must give orders to you, my darling,' I
answered, gazing on her face, so brilliant with
excitement; 'and that is, that you come in at once,
with that worrisome cough of yours; and sit by the
fire, and warm yourself.'

'Oh, no, John! Not for a minute, if you please, good
John. I want to see the snow go away, and the green
meadows coming forth. And here comes our favourite
robin, who has lived in the oven so long, and sang us a
song every morning. I must see what he thinks of it!'

'You will do nothing of the sort,' I answered very
shortly, being only too glad of a cause for having her
in my arms again. So I caught her up, and carried her
in; and she looked and smiled so sweetly at me instead
of pouting (as I had feared) that I found myself unable
to go very fast along the passage. And I set her there
in her favourite place, by the sweet-scented wood-fire;
and she paid me porterage without my even asking her;
and for all the beauty of the rain, I was fain to stay
with her; until our Annie came to say that my advice
was wanted.

Now my advice was never much, as everybody knew quite
well; but that was the way they always put it, when
they wanted me to work for them. And in truth it was
time for me to work; not for others, but myself, and
(as I always thought) for Lorna. For the rain was now
coming down in earnest; and the top of the snow being
frozen at last, and glazed as hard as a china cup, by
means of the sun and frost afterwards, all the rain ran
right away from the steep inclines, and all the outlets
being blocked with ice set up like tables, it
threatened to flood everything. Already it was ponding
up, like a tide advancing at the threshold of the door
from which we had watched the duck-birds; both because
great piles of snow trended in that direction, in spite
of all our scraping, and also that the gulley hole,
where the water of the shoot went out (I mean when it
was water) now was choked with lumps of ice, as big as
a man's body. For the 'shoot,' as we called our little
runnel of everlasting water, never known to freeze
before, and always ready for any man either to wash his
hands, or drink, where it spouted from a trough of
bark, set among white flint-stones; this at last had
given in, and its music ceased to lull us, as we lay in
bed.

It was not long before I managed to drain off this
threatening flood, by opening the old sluice-hole; but
I had much harder work to keep the stables, and the
cow-house, and the other sheds, from flooding. For we
have a sapient practice (and I never saw the contrary
round about our parts, I mean), of keeping all rooms
underground, so that you step down to them. We say
that thus we keep them warmer, both for cattle and for
men, in the time of winter, and cooler in the
summer-time. This I will not contradict, though having
my own opinion; but it seems to me to be a relic of the
time when people in the western countries lived in
caves beneath the ground, and blocked the mouths with
neat-skins.

Let that question still abide, for men who study
ancient times to inform me, if they will; all I know
is, that now we had no blessings for the system. If
after all their cold and starving, our weak cattle now
should have to stand up to their knees in water, it
would be certain death to them; and we had lost enough
already to make us poor for a long time; not to speak
of our kind love for them. And I do assure you, I
loved some horses, and even some cows for that matter,
as if they had been my blood-relations; knowing as I did
their virtues. And some of these were lost to us; and
I could not bear to think of them. Therefore I worked
hard all night to try and save the rest of them.

CHAPTER XLVI

SQUIRE FAGGUS MAKES SOME LUCKY HITS

Through that season of bitter frost the red deer of
the forest, having nothing to feed upon, and no shelter
to rest in, had grown accustomed to our ricks of corn,
and hay, and clover. There we might see a hundred of
them almost any morning, come for warmth, and food, and
comfort, and scarce willing to move away. And many of
them were so tame, that they quietly presented
themselves at our back door, and stood there with their
coats quite stiff, and their flanks drawn in and
panting, and icicles sometimes on their chins, and
their great eyes fastened wistfully upon any merciful
person; craving for a bit of food, and a drink of
water; I suppose that they had not sense enough to chew
the snow and melt it; at any rate, all the springs
being frozen, and rivers hidden out of sight, these
poor things suffered even more from thirst than they
did from hunger.

But now there was no fear of thirst, and more chance
indeed of drowning; for a heavy gale of wind arose,
with violent rain from the south-west, which lasted
almost without a pause for three nights and two days.
At first the rain made no impression on the bulk of
snow, but ran from every sloping surface and froze on
every flat one, through the coldness of the earth; and
so it became impossible for any man to keep his legs
without the help of a shodden staff. After a good
while, however, the air growing very much warmer, this
state of things began to change, and a worse one to
succeed it; for now the snow came thundering down from
roof, and rock, and ivied tree, and floods began to
roar and foam in every trough and gulley. The drifts
that had been so white and fair, looked yellow, and
smirched, and muddy, and lost their graceful curves,
and moulded lines, and airiness. But the strangest
sight of all to me was in the bed of streams, and
brooks, and especially of the Lynn river. It was worth
going miles to behold such a thing, for a man might
never have the chance again.

Vast drifts of snow had filled the valley, and piled
above the river-course, fifty feet high in many places,
and in some as much as a hundred. These had frozen
over the top, and glanced the rain away from them, and
being sustained by rock and tree, spanned the water
mightily. But meanwhile the waxing flood, swollen from
every moorland hollow and from every spouting crag, had
dashed away all icy fetters, and was rolling
gloriously. Under white fantastic arches, and long
tunnels freaked and fretted, and between pellucid
pillars jagged with nodding architraves, the red
impetuous torrent rushed, and the brown foam whirled
and flashed. I was half inclined to jump in and swim
through such glorious scenery; for nothing used to
please me more than swimming in a flooded river. But I
thought of the rocks, and I thought of the cramp, and
more than all, of Lorna; and so, between one thing and
another, I let it roll on without me.

It was now high time to work very hard; both to make up
for the farm-work lost during the months of frost and
snow, and also to be ready for a great and vicious
attack from the Doones, who would burn us in our beds
at the earliest opportunity. Of farm-work there was
little yet for even the most zealous man to begin to
lay his hand to; because when the ground appeared
through the crust of bubbled snow (as at last it did,
though not as my Lorna had expected, at the first few
drops of rain) it was all so soaked and sodden, and as
we call it, 'mucksy,' that to meddle with it in any way
was to do more harm than good. Nevertheless, there was
yard work, and house work, and tendence of stock,
enough to save any man from idleness.

As for Lorna, she would come out. There was no keeping
her in the house. She had taken up some peculiar
notion that we were doing more for her than she had any
right to, and that she must earn her living by the hard
work of her hands. It was quite in vain to tell her
that she was expected to do nothing, and far worse than
vain (for it made her cry sadly) if any one assured her
that she could do no good at all. She even began upon
mother's garden before the snow was clean gone from it,
and sowed a beautiful row of peas, every one of which
the mice ate.

But though it was very pretty to watch her working for
her very life, as if the maintenance of the household
hung upon her labours, yet I was grieved for many
reasons, and so was mother also. In the first place,
she was too fair and dainty for this rough, rude work;
and though it made her cheeks so bright, it surely must
be bad for her to get her little feet so wet.
Moreover, we could not bear the idea that she should
labour for her keep; and again (which was the worst of
all things) mother's garden lay exposed to a dark
deceitful coppice, where a man might lurk and watch all
the fair gardener's doings. It was true that none
could get at her thence, while the brook which ran
between poured so great a torrent. Still the distance
was but little for a gun to carry, if any one could be
brutal enough to point a gun at Lorna. I thought that
none could be found to do it; but mother, having more
experience, was not so certain of mankind.

Now in spite of the floods, and the sloughs being out,
and the state of the roads most perilous, Squire Faggus
came at last, riding his famous strawberry mare. There
was a great ado between him and Annie, as you may well
suppose, after some four months of parting. And so we
left them alone awhile, to coddle over their raptures.
But when they were tired of that, or at least had time
enough to do so, mother and I went in to know what news
Tom had brought with him. Though he did not seem to
want us yet, he made himself agreeable; and so we sent
Annie to cook the dinner while her sweetheart should
tell us everything.

Tom Faggus had very good news to tell, and he told it
with such force of expression as made us laugh very
heartily. He had taken up his purchase from old Sir
Roger Bassett of a nice bit of land, to the south of
the moors, and in the parish of Molland. When the
lawyers knew thoroughly who he was, and how he had made
his money, they behaved uncommonly well to him, and
showed great sympathy with his pursuits. He put them
up to a thing or two; and they poked him in the ribs,
and laughed, and said that he was quite a boy; but of
the right sort, none the less. And so they made old
Squire Bassett pay the bill for both sides; and all he
got for three hundred acres was a hundred and twenty
pounds; though Tom had paid five hundred. But lawyers
know that this must be so, in spite of all their
endeavours; and the old gentleman, who now expected to
find a bill for him to pay, almost thought himself a
rogue, for getting anything out of them.

It is true that the land was poor and wild, and the
soil exceeding shallow; lying on the slope of rock, and
burned up in hot summers. But with us, hot summers
are things known by tradition only (as this great
winter may be); we generally have more moisture,
especially in July, than we well know what to do with.
I have known a fog for a fortnight at the summer
solstice, and farmers talking in church about it when
they ought to be praying. But it always contrives to
come right in the end, as other visitations do, if we
take them as true visits, and receive them kindly.

Now this farm of Squire Faggus (as he truly now had a
right to be called) was of the very finest pasture,
when it got good store of rain. And Tom, who had
ridden the Devonshire roads with many a reeking jacket,
knew right well that he might trust the climate for
that matter. The herbage was of the very sweetest, and
the shortest, and the closest, having perhaps from ten
to eighteen inches of wholesome soil between it and the
solid rock. Tom saw at once what it was fit for--the
breeding of fine cattle.

Being such a hand as he was at making the most of
everything, both his own and other people's (although
so free in scattering, when the humour lay upon him) he
had actually turned to his own advantage that
extraordinary weather which had so impoverished every
one around him. For he taught his Winnie (who knew his
meaning as well as any child could, and obeyed not only
his word of mouth, but every glance be gave her) to go
forth in the snowy evenings when horses are seeking
everywhere (be they wild or tame) for fodder and for
shelter; and to whinny to the forest ponies, miles away
from home perhaps, and lead them all with rare
appetites and promise of abundance, to her master's
homestead. He shod good Winnie in such a manner that
she could not sink in the snow; and he clad her over
the loins with a sheep-skin dyed to her own colour,
which the wild horses were never tired of coming up and
sniffing at; taking it for an especial gift, and proof
of inspiration. And Winnie never came home at night
without at least a score of ponies trotting shyly after
her, tossing their heads and their tails in turn, and
making believe to be very wild, although hard pinched
by famine. Of course Tom would get them all into his
pound in about five minutes, for he himself could neigh
in a manner which went to the heart of the wildest
horse. And then he fed them well, and turned them into
his great cattle pen, to abide their time for breaking,
when the snow and frost should be over.

He had gotten more than three hundred now, in this
sagacious manner; and he said it was the finest sight
to see their mode of carrying on, how they would snort,
and stamp, and fume, and prick their ears, and rush
backwards, and lash themselves with their long rough
tails, and shake their jagged manes, and scream, and
fall upon one another, if a strange man came anigh
them. But as for feeding time, Tom said it was better
than fifty plays to watch them, and the tricks they
were up to, to cheat their feeders, and one another. I
asked him how on earth he had managed to get fodder, in
such impassable weather, for such a herd of horses; but
he said that they lived upon straw and sawdust; and he
knew that I did not believe him, any more than about
his star-shavings. And this was just the thing he
loved--to mystify honest people, and be a great deal
too knowing. However, I may judge him harshly, because
I myself tell everything.

I asked him what he meant to do with all that enormous
lot of horses, and why he had not exerted his wits to
catch the red deer as well. He said that the latter
would have been against the laws of venery, and might
have brought him into trouble, but as for disposing of
his stud, it would give him little difficulty. He
would break them, when the spring weather came on, and
deal with them as they required, and keep the
handsomest for breeding. The rest he would despatch to
London, where he knew plenty of horse-dealers; and he
doubted not that they would fetch him as much as ten
pounds apiece all round, being now in great demand. I
told him I wished that he might get it; but as it
proved afterwards, he did.

Then he pressed us both on another point, the time for
his marriage to Annie; and mother looked at me to say
when, and I looked back at mother. However, knowing
something of the world, and unable to make any further
objection, by reason of his prosperity, I said that we
must even do as the fashionable people did, and allow
the maid herself to settle, when she would leave home
and all. And this I spoke with a very bad grace, being
perhaps of an ancient cast, and over fond of honesty--I
mean, of course, among lower people.

But Tom paid little heed to this, knowing the world a
great deal better than ever I could pretend to do; and
being ready to take a thing, upon which he had set his
mind, whether it came with a good grace, or whether it
came with a bad one. And seeing that it would be
awkward to provoke my anger, he left the room, before
more words, to submit himself to Annie.

Upon this I went in search of Lorna, to tell her of our
cousin's arrival, and to ask whether she would think
fit to see him, or to dine by herself that day; for she
should do exactly as it pleased her in everything,
while remaining still our guest. But I rather wished
that she might choose not to sit in Tom's company,
though she might be introduced to him. Not but what he
could behave quite as well as could, and much better,
as regarded elegance and assurance, only that his
honesty had not been as one might desire. But Lorna
had some curiosity to know what this famous man was
like, and declared that she would by all means have the
pleasure of dining with him, if he did not object to
her company on the ground of the Doones' dishonesty;
moreover, she said that it would seem a most foolish
air on her part, and one which would cause the greatest
pain to Annie, who had been so good to her, if she
should refuse to sit at table with a man who held the
King's pardon, and was now a pattern of honesty.

Against this I had not a word to say; and could not
help acknowledging in my heart that she was right, as
well as wise, in her decision. And afterwards I
discovered that mother would have been much displeased,
if she had decided otherwise.

Accordingly she turned away, with one of her very
sweetest smiles (whose beauty none can describe) saying
that she must not meet a man of such fashion and
renown, in her common gardening frock; but must try to
look as nice as she could, if only in honour of dear
Annie. And truth to tell, when she came to dinner,
everything about her was the neatest and prettiest that
can possibly be imagined. She contrived to match the
colours so, to suit one another and her own, and yet
with a certain delicate harmony of contrast, and the
shape of everything was so nice, so that when she came
into the room, with a crown of winning modesty upon the
consciousness of beauty, I was quite as proud as if the
Queen of England entered.

My mother could not help remarking, though she knew
that it was not mannerly, how like a princess Lorna
looked, now she had her best things on; but two things
caught Squire Faggus's eyes, after he had made a most
gallant bow, and received a most graceful courtesy; and
he kept his bright bold gaze upon them, first on one,
and then on the other, until my darling was hot with
blushes, and I was ready to knock him down if he had
not been our visitor. But here again I should have
been wrong, as I was apt to be in those days; for Tom
intended no harm whatever, and his gaze was of pure
curiosity; though Annie herself was vexed with it. The
two objects of his close regard, were first, and most
worthily, Lorna's face, and secondly, the ancient
necklace restored to her by Sir Ensor Doone.

Now wishing to save my darling's comfort, and to keep
things quiet, I shouted out that dinner was ready, so
that half the parish could hear me; upon which my
mother laughed, and chid me, and despatched her guests
before her. And a very good dinner we made, I
remember, and a very happy one; attending to the women
first, as now is the manner of eating; except among the
workmen. With them, of course, it is needful that the
man (who has his hours fixed) should be served first,
and make the utmost of his time for feeding, while the
women may go on, as much as ever they please,
afterwards. But with us, who are not bound to time,
there is no such reason to be quoted; and the women
being the weaker vessels, should be the first to begin
to fill. And so we always arranged it.

Now, though our Annie was a graceful maid, and Lizzie a
very learned one, you should have seen how differently
Lorna managed her dining; she never took more than
about a quarter of a mouthful at a time, and she never
appeared to be chewing that, although she must have
done so. Indeed, she appeared to dine as if it were a
matter of no consequence, and as if she could think of
other things more than of her business. All this, and
her own manner of eating, I described to Eliza once,
when I wanted to vex her for something very spiteful
that she had said; and I never succeeded so well
before, for the girl was quite outrageous, having her
own perception of it, which made my observation ten
times as bitter to her. And I am not sure but what she
ceased to like poor Lorna from that day; and if so, I
was quite paid out, as I well deserved, for my bit of
satire.

For it strikes me that of all human dealings, satire is
the very lowest, and most mean and common. It is the
equivalent in words of what bullying is in deeds; and
no more bespeaks a clever man, than the other does a
brave one. These two wretched tricks exalt a fool in
his own low esteem, but never in his neighbour's; for
the deep common sense of our nature tells that no man
of a genial heart, or of any spread of mind, can take
pride in either. And though a good man may commit the
one fault or the other, now and then, by way of outlet,
he is sure to have compunctions soon, and to scorn
himself more than the sufferer.

Now when the young maidens were gone--for we had quite
a high dinner of fashion that day, with Betty Muxworthy
waiting, and Gwenny Carfax at the gravy--and only
mother, and Tom, and I remained at the white deal
table, with brandy, and schnapps, and hot water jugs;
Squire Faggus said quite suddenly, and perhaps on
purpose to take us aback, in case of our hiding
anything,--'What do you know of the history of that
beautiful maiden, good mother?'

'Not half so much as my son does,' mother answered,
with a soft smile at me; 'and when John does not choose
to tell a thing, wild horses will not pull it out of
him.'

'That is not at all like me, mother,' I replied rather
sadly; 'you know almost every word about Lorna, quite
as well as I do.'

'Almost every word, I believe, John; for you never tell
a falsehood. But the few unknown may be of all the
most important to me.'

To this I made no answer, for fear of going beyond the
truth, or else of making mischief. Not that I had, or
wished to have, any mystery with mother; neither was
there in purest truth, any mystery in the matter; to
the utmost of my knowledge. And the only things that I
had kept back, solely for mother's comfort, were the
death of poor Lord Alan Brandir (if indeed he were
dead) and the connection of Marwood de Whichehalse with
the dealings of the Doones, and the threats of Carver
Doone against my own prosperity; and, may be, one or
two little things harrowing more than edifying.

'Come, come,' said Master Faggus, smiling very
pleasantly, 'you two understand each other, if any two
on earth do. Ah, if I had only had a mother, how
different I might have been!'  And with that he sighed,
in the tone which always overcame mother upon that
subject, and had something to do with his getting
Annie; and then he produced his pretty box, full of
rolled tobacco, and offered me one, as I now had joined
the goodly company of smokers. So I took it, and
watched what he did with his own, lest I might go wrong
about mine.

But when our cylinders were both lighted, and I
enjoying mine wonderfully, and astonishing mother by my
skill, Tom Faggus told us that he was sure he had seen
my Lorna's face before, many and many years ago, when
she was quite a little child, but he could not remember
where it was, or anything more about it at present;
though he would try to do so afterwards. He could not
be mistaken, he said, for he had noticed her eyes
especially; and had never seen such eyes before,
neither again, until this day. I asked him if he had
ever ventured into the Doone-valley; but he shook his
head, and replied that he valued his life a deal too
much for that. Then we put it to him, whether anything
might assist his memory; but he said that he knew not
of aught to do so, unless it were another glass of
schnapps.

This being provided, he grew very wise, and told us
clearly and candidly that we were both very foolish.
For he said that we were keeping Lorna, at the risk not
only of our stock, and the house above our heads, but
also of our precious lives; and after all was she worth
it, although so very beautiful? Upon which I told him,
with indignation, that her beauty was the least part of
her goodness, and that I would thank him for his
opinion when I had requested it.

'Bravo, our John Ridd!' he answered; 'fools will be
fools till the end of the chapter; and I might be as
big a one, if I were in thy shoes, John. Nevertheless,
in the name of God, don't let that helpless child go
about with a thing worth half the county on her.'

'She is worth all the county herself,' said I, 'and all
England put together; but she has nothing worth half a
rick of hay upon her; for the ring I gave her cost
only,'--and here I stopped, for mother was looking, and
I never would tell her how much it had cost me; though
she had tried fifty times to find out.

'Tush, the ring!' Tom Faggus cried, with a contempt
that moved me: 'I would never have stopped a man for
that. But the necklace, you great oaf, the necklace is
worth all your farm put together, and your Uncle Ben's
fortune to the back of it; ay, and all the town of
Dulverton.'

'What,' said I, 'that common glass thing, which she has
had from her childhood!'

'Glass indeed! They are the finest brilliants ever I
set eyes on; and I have handled a good many.'

'Surely,' cried mother, now flushing as red as Tom's
own cheeks with excitement, 'you must be wrong, or the
young mistress would herself have known it.'

I was greatly pleased with my mother, for calling Lorna
'the young mistress'; it was not done for the sake of
her diamonds, whether they were glass or not; but
because she felt as I had done, that Tom Faggus, a man
of no birth whatever, was speaking beyond his mark, in
calling a lady like Lorna a helpless child; as well as
in his general tone, which displayed no deference. He
might have been used to the quality, in the way of
stopping their coaches, or roystering at hotels with
them; but he never had met a high lady before, in
equality, and upon virtue; and we both felt that he
ought to have known it, and to have thanked us for the
opportunity, in a word, to have behaved a great deal
more humbly than he had even tried to do.

'Trust me,' answered Tom, in his loftiest manner, which
Annie said was 'so noble,' but which seemed to me
rather flashy, 'trust me, good mother, and simple John,
for knowing brilliants, when I see them. I would have
stopped an eight-horse coach, with four carabined
out-riders, for such a booty as that. But alas, those
days are over; those were days worth living in. Ah, I
never shall know the like again. How fine it was by
moonlight!'

'Master Faggus,' began my mother, with a manner of some
dignity, such as she could sometimes use, by right of
her integrity, and thorough kindness to every one,
'this is not the tone in which you have hitherto spoken
to me about your former pursuits and life, I fear that
the spirits'--but here she stopped, because the spirits
were her own, and Tom was our visitor,--'what I mean,
Master Faggus, is this: you have won my daughter's
heart somehow; and you won my consent to the matter
through your honest sorrow, and manly undertaking to
lead a different life, and touch no property but your
own. Annie is my eldest daughter, and the child of a
most upright man. I love her best of all on earth,
next to my boy John here'--here mother gave me a mighty
squeeze, to be sure that she would have me at
least--'and I will not risk my Annie's life with a man
who yearns for the highway.'

Having made this very long speech (for her), mother
came home upon my shoulder, and wept so that (but for
heeding her) I would have taken Tom by the nose, and
thrown him, and Winnie after him, over our farm-yard
gate. For I am violent when roused; and freely hereby
acknowledge it; though even my enemies will own that it
takes a great deal to rouse me. But I do consider the
grief and tears (when justly caused) of my dearest
friends, to be a great deal to rouse me.

CHAPTER XLVII

JEREMY IN DANGER

Nothing very long abides, as the greatest of all
writers (in whose extent I am for ever lost in raptured
wonder, and yet for ever quite at home, as if his heart
were mine, although his brains so different), in a word
as Mr. William Shakespeare, in every one of his works
insists, with a humoured melancholy. And if my journey
to London led to nothing else of advancement, it took
me a hundred years in front of what I might else have
been, by the most simple accident.

Two women were scolding one another across the road,
very violently, both from upstair windows; and I in my
hurry for quiet life, and not knowing what might come
down upon me, quickened my step for the nearest corner.
But suddenly something fell on my head; and at first I
was afraid to look, especially as it weighed heavily.
But hearing no breakage of ware, and only the other
scold laughing heartily, I turned me about and espied a
book, which one had cast at the other, hoping to break
her window. So I took the book, and tendered it at the
door of the house from which it had fallen; but the
watchman came along just then, and the man at the door
declared that it never came from their house, and
begged me to say no more. This I promised readily,
never wishing to make mischief; and I said, 'Good sir,
now take the book; I will go on to my business.'  But he
answered that he would do no such thing; for the book
alone, being hurled so hard, would convict his people
of a lewd assault; and he begged me, if I would do a
good turn, to put the book under my coat and go. And
so I did: in part at least. For I did not put the book
under my coat, but went along with it openly, looking
for any to challenge it. Now this book, so acquired,
has been not only the joy of my younger days, and main
delight of my manhood, but also the comfort, and even
the hope, of my now declining years. In a word, it is
next to my Bible to me, and written in equal English;
and if you espy any goodness whatever in my own loose
style of writing, you must not thank me, John Ridd, for
it, but the writer who holds the champion's belt in
wit, as I once did in wrestling.

Now, as nothing very long abides, it cannot be expected
that a woman's anger should last very long, if she be
at all of the proper sort. And my mother, being one of
the very best, could not long retain her wrath against
the Squire Faggus especially when she came to reflect,
upon Annie's suggestion, how natural, and one might
say, how inevitable it was that a young man fond of
adventure and change and winning good profits by
jeopardy, should not settle down without some regrets
to a fixed abode and a life of sameness, however safe
and respectable. And even as Annie put the case, Tom
deserved the greater credit for vanquishing so nobly
these yearnings of his nature; and it seemed very hard
to upbraid him, considering how good his motives were;
neither could Annie understand how mother could
reconcile it with her knowledge of the Bible, and the
one sheep that was lost, and the hundredth piece of
silver, and the man that went down to Jericho.

Whether Annie's logic was good and sound, I am sure I
cannot tell; but it seemed to me that she ought to have
let the Jericho traveller alone, inasmuch as he rather
fell among Tom Fagusses, than resembled them. However,
her reasoning was too much for mother to hold out
against; and Tom was replaced, and more than that,
being regarded now as an injured man. But how my
mother contrived to know, that because she had been too
hard upon Tom, he must be right about the necklace, is
a point which I never could clearly perceive, though no
doubt she could explain it.

To prove herself right in the conclusion, she went
herself to fetch Lorna, that the trinket might be
examined, before the day grew dark. My darling came
in, with a very quick glance and smile at my cigarro
(for I was having the third by this time, to keep
things in amity); and I waved it towards her, as much
as to say, 'you see that I can do it.'  And then mother
led her up to the light, for Tom to examine her
necklace.

On the shapely curve of her neck it hung, like dewdrops
upon a white hyacinth; and I was vexed that Tom should
have the chance to see it there. But even if she had
read my thoughts, or outrun them with her own, Lorna
turned away, and softly took the jewels from the place
which so much adorned them. And as she turned away,
they sparkled through the rich dark waves of hair.
Then she laid the glittering circlet in my mother's
hands; and Tom Faggus took it eagerly, and bore it to
the window.

'Don't you go out of sight,' I said; 'you cannot resist
such things as those, if they be what you think them.'

'Jack, I shall have to trounce thee yet. I am now a
man of honour, and entitled to the duello. What will
you take for it, Mistress Lorna? At a hazard, say
now.'

'I am not accustomed to sell things, sir,' replied
Lorna, who did not like him much, else she would have
answered sportively, 'What is it worth, in your
opinion?'

'Do you think it is worth five pounds, now?'

'Oh, no! I never had so much money as that in all my
life. It is very bright, and very pretty; but it
cannot be worth five pounds, I am sure.'

'What a chance for a bargain! Oh, if it were not for
Annie, I could make my fortune.'

'But, sir, I would not sell it to you, not for twenty
times five pounds. My grandfather was so kind about
it; and I think it belonged to my mother.'

'There are twenty-five rose diamonds in it, and
twenty-five large brilliants that cannot be matched in
London. How say you, Mistress Lorna, to a hundred
thousand pounds?'

My darling's eyes so flashed at this, brighter than any
diamonds, that I said to myself, 'Well, all have
faults; and now I have found out Lorna's--she is fond
of money!'  And then I sighed rather heavily; for of all
faults this seems to me one of the worst in a woman.
But even before my sigh was finished, I had cause to
condemn myself. For Lorna took the necklace very
quietly from the hands of Squire Faggus, who had not
half done with admiring it, and she went up to my
mother with the sweetest smile I ever saw.

'Dear kind mother, I am so glad,' she said in a
whisper, coaxing mother out of sight of all but me;
'now you will have it, won't you, dear? And I shall be
so happy; for a thousandth part of your kindness to me
no jewels in the world can match.'

I cannot lay before you the grace with which she did
it, all the air of seeking favour, rather than
conferring it, and the high-bred fear of giving
offence, which is of all fears the noblest. Mother
knew not what to say. Of course she would never dream
of taking such a gift as that; and yet she saw how
sadly Lorna would be disappointed. Therefore, mother
did, from habit, what she almost always did, she called
me to help her. But knowing that my eyes were
full--for anything noble moves me so, quite as rashly
as things pitiful--I pretended not to hear my mother,
but to see a wild cat in the dairy.

Therefore I cannot tell what mother said in reply to
Lorna; for when I came back, quite eager to let my love
know how I worshipped her, and how deeply I was ashamed
of myself, for meanly wronging her in my heart, behold
Tom Faggus had gotten again the necklace which had such
charms for him, and was delivering all around (but
especially to Annie, who was wondering at his learning)
a dissertation on precious stones, and his sentiments
about those in his hand. He said that the work was
very ancient, but undoubtedly very good; the cutting of
every line was true, and every angle was in its place.
And this he said, made all the difference in the lustre
of the stone, and therefore in its value. For if the
facets were ill-matched, and the points of light so
ever little out of perfect harmony, all the lustre of
the jewel would be loose and wavering, and the central
fire dulled; instead of answering, as it should, to all
possibilities of gaze, and overpowering any eye intent
on its deeper mysteries. We laughed at the Squire's
dissertation; for how should he know all these things,
being nothing better, and indeed much worse than a mere
Northmolton blacksmith? He took our laughter with much
good nature; having Annie to squeeze his hand and
convey her grief at our ignorance: but he said that of
one thing he was quite certain, and therein I believed
him. To wit, that a trinket of this kind never could
have belonged to any ignoble family, but to one of the
very highest and most wealthy in England. And looking
at Lorna, I felt that she must have come from a higher
source than the very best of diamonds.

Tom Faggus said that the necklace was made, he would
answer for it, in Amsterdam, two or three hundred years
ago, long before London jewellers had begun to meddle
with diamonds; and on the gold clasp he found some
letters, done in some inverted way, the meaning of
which was beyond him; also a bearing of some kind,
which he believed was a mountain-cat. And thereupon he
declared that now he had earned another glass of
schnapps, and would Mistress Lorna mix it for him?

I was amazed at his impudence; and Annie, who thought
this her business, did not look best pleased; and I
hoped that Lorna would tell him at once to go and do it
for himself. But instead of that she rose to do it
with a soft humility, which went direct to the heart of
Tom; and he leaped up with a curse at himself, and took
the hot water from her, and would not allow her to do
anything except to put the sugar in; and then he bowed
to her grandly. I knew what Lorna was thinking of; she
was thinking all the time that her necklace had been
taken by the Doones with violence upon some great
robbery; and that Squire Faggus knew it, though he
would not show his knowledge; and that this was perhaps
the reason why mother had refused it so.

We said no more about the necklace for a long time
afterwards; neither did my darling wear it, now that
she knew its value, but did not know its history. She
came to me the very next day, trying to look cheerful,
and begged me if I loved her (never mind how little) to
take charge of it again, as I once had done before, and
not even to let her know in what place I stored it. I
told her that this last request I could not comply
with; for having been round her neck so often, it was
now a sacred thing, more than a million pounds could
be. Therefore it should dwell for the present in the
neighbourhood of my heart; and so could not be far from
her. At this she smiled her own sweet smile, and
touched my forehead with her lips. and wished that she
could only learn how to deserve such love as mine.

Tom Faggus took his good departure, which was a kind
farewell to me, on the very day I am speaking of, the
day after his arrival. Tom was a thoroughly upright
man, according to his own standard; and you might rely
upon him always, up to a certain point I mean, to be
there or thereabouts. But sometimes things were too
many for Tom, especially with ardent spirits, and then
he judged, perhaps too much, with only himself for the
jury. At any rate, I would trust him fully, for
candour and for honesty, in almost every case in which
he himself could have no interest. And so we got on
very well together; and he thought me a fool; and I
tried my best not to think anything worse of him.

Scarcely was Tom clean out of sight, and Annie's tears
not dry yet (for she always made a point of crying upon
his departure), when in came Master Jeremy Stickles,
splashed with mud from head to foot, and not in the
very best of humours, though happy to get back again.

'Curse those fellows!' he cried, with a stamp which
sent the water hissing from his boot upon the embers;
'a pretty plight you may call this, for His Majesty's
Commissioner to return to his headquarters in! Annie,
my dear,' for he was always very affable with Annie,
'will you help me off with my overalls, and then turn
your pretty hand to the gridiron? Not a blessed morsel
have I touched for more than twenty-four hours.'

'Surely then you must be quite starving, sir,' my
sister replied with the greatest zeal; for she did love
a man with an appetite; 'how glad I am that the fire is
clear!'  But Lizzie, who happened to be there, said with
her peculiar smile,--

'Master Stickles must be used to it; for he never comes
back without telling us that.'

'Hush!' cried Annie, quite shocked with her; 'how would
you like to be used to it? Now, Betty, be quick with
the things for me. Pork, or mutton, or deer's meat,
sir? We have some cured since the autumn.'

'Oh, deer's meat, by all means,' Jeremy Stickles
answered; 'I have tasted none since I left you, though
dreaming of it often. Well, this is better than being
chased over the moors for one's life, John. All the
way from Landacre Bridge, I have ridden a race for my
precious life, at the peril of my limbs and neck.
Three great Doones galloping after me, and a good job
for me that they were so big, or they must have
overtaken me. Just go and see to my horse, John,
that's an excellent lad. He deserves a good turn this
day, from me; and I will render it to him.'

However he left me to do it, while he made himself
comfortable: and in truth the horse required care; he
was blown so that he could hardly stand, and plastered
with mud, and steaming so that the stable was quite
full with it. By the time I had put the poor fellow to
rights, his master had finished dinner, and was in a
more pleasant humour, having even offered to kiss
Annie, out of pure gratitude, as he said; but Annie
answered with spirit that gratitude must not be shown
by increasing the obligation. Jeremy made reply to
this that his only way to be grateful then was to tell
us his story: and so he did, at greater length than I
can here repeat it; for it does not bear particularly
upon Lorna's fortunes.

It appears that as he was riding towards us from the
town of Southmolton in Devonshire, he found the roads
very soft and heavy, and the floods out in all
directions; but met with no other difficulty until he
came to Landacre Bridge. He had only a single trooper
with him, a man not of the militia but of the King's
army, whom Jeremy had brought from Exeter. As these
two descended towards the bridge they observed that
both the Kensford water and the River Barle were
pouring down in mighty floods from the melting of the
snow. So great indeed was the torrent, after they
united, that only the parapets of the bridge could be
seen above the water, the road across either bank being
covered and very deep on the hither side. The trooper
did not like the look of it, and proposed to ride back
again, and round by way of Simonsbath, where the stream
is smaller. But Stickles would not have it so, and
dashing into the river, swam his horse for the bridge,
and gained it with some little trouble; and there he
found the water not more than up to his horse's knees
perhaps. On the crown of the bridge he turned his
horse to watch the trooper's passage, and to help him
with directions; when suddenly he saw him fall headlong
into the torrent, and heard the report of a gun from
behind, and felt a shock to his own body, such as
lifted him out of the saddle. Turning round he beheld
three men, risen up from behind the hedge on one side
of his onward road, two of them ready to load again,
and one with his gun unfired, waiting to get good aim
at him. Then Jeremy did a gallant thing, for which I
doubt whether I should have had the presence of mind in
danger. He saw that to swim his horse back again would
be almost certain death; as affording such a target,
where even a wound must be fatal. Therefore he struck
the spurs into the nag, and rode through the water
straight at the man who was pointing the long gun at
him. If the horse had been carried off his legs,
there must have been an end of Jeremy; for the other
men were getting ready to have another shot at him.
But luckily the horse galloped right on without any
need for swimming, being himself excited, no doubt, by
all he had seen and heard of it. And Jeremy lay almost
flat on his neck, so as to give little space for good
aim, with the mane tossing wildly in front of him. Now
if that young fellow with the gun had his brains as
ready as his flint was, he would have shot the horse at
once, and then had Stickles at his mercy; but instead
of that he let fly at the man, and missed him
altogether, being scared perhaps by the pistol which
Jeremy showed him the mouth of. And galloping by at
full speed, Master Stickles tried to leave his mark
behind him, for he changed the aim of his pistol to the
biggest man, who was loading his gun and cursing like
ten cannons. But the pistol missed fire, no doubt
from the flood which had gurgled in over the holsters;
and Jeremy seeing three horses tethered at a gate just
up the hill, knew that he had not yet escaped, but had
more of danger behind him. He tried his other great
pistol at one of the horses tethered there, so as to
lessen (if possible) the number of his pursuers. But
the powder again failed him; and he durst not stop to
cut the bridles, bearing the men coming up the hill.
So he even made the most of his start, thanking God
that his weight was light, compared at least to what
theirs was.

And another thing he had noticed which gave him some
hope of escaping, to wit that the horses of the Doones,
although very handsome animals, were suffering still
from the bitter effects of the late long frost, and the
scarcity of fodder. 'If they do not catch me up, or
shoot me, in the course of the first two miles, I may
see my home again'; this was what he said to himself as
he turned to mark what they were about, from the brow
of the steep hill. He saw the flooded valley shining
with the breadth of water, and the trooper's horse on
the other side, shaking his drenched flanks and
neighing; and half-way down the hill he saw the three
Doones mounting hastily. And then he knew that his
only chance lay in the stoutness of his steed.

The horse was in pretty good condition; and the rider
knew him thoroughly, and how to make the most of him;
and though they had travelled some miles that day
through very heavy ground, the bath in the river had
washed the mud off, and been some refreshment.
Therefore Stickles encouraged his nag, and put him into
a good hard gallop, heading away towards Withycombe.
At first he had thought of turning to the right, and
making off for Withypool, a mile or so down the valley;
but his good sense told him that no one there would
dare to protect him against the Doones, so he resolved
to go on his way; yet faster than he had intended.

The three villains came after him, with all the speed
they could muster, making sure from the badness of the
road that he must stick fast ere long, and so be at
their mercy. And this was Jeremy's chiefest fear, for
the ground being soft and thoroughly rotten, after so
much frost and snow, the poor horse had terrible work
of it, with no time to pick the way; and even more good
luck than skill was needed to keep him from foundering.
How Jeremy prayed for an Exmoor fog (such as he had
often sworn at), that he might turn aside and lurk,
while his pursuers went past him! But no fog came, nor
even a storm to damp the priming of their guns; neither
was wood or coppice nigh, nor any place to hide in;
only hills, and moor, and valleys; with flying shadows
over them, and great banks of snow in the corners. At
one time poor Stickles was quite in despair; for after
leaping a little brook which crosses the track at
Newland, be stuck fast in a 'dancing bog,' as we call
them upon Exmoor. The horse had broken through the
crust of moss and sedge and marishweed, and could do
nothing but wallow and sink, with the black water
spirting over him. And Jeremy, struggling with all his
might, saw the three villains now topping the crest,
less than a furlong behind him; and heard them shout in
their savage delight. With the calmness of despair, he
yet resolved to have one more try for it; and
scrambling over the horse's head, gained firm land, and
tugged at the bridle. The poor nag replied with all
his power to the call upon his courage, and reared his
forefeet out of the slough, and with straining eyeballs
gazed at him. 'Now,' said Jeremy, 'now, my fine
fellow!' lifting him with the bridle, and the brave
beast gathered the roll of his loins, and sprang from
his quagmired haunches. One more spring, and he was on
earth again, instead of being under it; and Jeremy
leaped on his back, and stooped, for he knew that they
would fire. Two bullets whistled over him, as the
horse, mad with fright, dashed forward; and in five
minutes more he had come to the Exe, and the pursuers
had fallen behind him. The Exe, though a much smaller
stream than the Barle, now ran in a foaming torrent,
unbridged, and too wide for leaping. But Jeremy's
horse took the water well; and both he and his rider
were lightened, as well as comforted by it. And as
they passed towards Lucott hill, and struck upon the
founts of Lynn, the horses of the three pursuers began
to tire under them. Then Jeremy Stickles knew that if
he could only escape the sloughs, he was safe for the
present; and so he stood up in his stirrups, and gave
them a loud halloo, as if they had been so many foxes.

Their only answer was to fire the remaining charge at
him; but the distance was too great for any aim from
horseback; and the dropping bullet idly ploughed the
sod upon one side of him. He acknowledged it with a
wave of his hat, and laid one thumb to his nose, in the
manner fashionable in London for expression of
contempt. However, they followed him yet farther;
hoping to make him pay out dearly, if he should only
miss the track, or fall upon morasses. But the
neighbourhood of our Lynn stream is not so very boggy;
and the King's messenger now knew his way as well as
any of his pursuers did; and so he arrived at Plover's
Barrows, thankful, and in rare appetite.

'But was the poor soldier drowned?' asked Annie; 'and
you never went to look for him! Oh, how very dreadful!'

'Shot, or drowned; I know not which. Thank God it was
only a trooper. But they shall pay for it, as dearly
as if it had been a captain.'

'And how was it you were struck by a bullet, and only
shaken in your saddle? Had you a coat of mail on, or
of Milanese chain-armour? Now, Master Stickles, had
you?'

'No, Mistress Lizzie; we do not wear things of that
kind nowadays. You are apt, I perceive, at romances.
But I happened to have a little flat bottle of the best
stoneware slung beneath my saddle-cloak, and filled
with the very best eau de vie, from the George Hotel,
at Southmolton. The brand of it now is upon my back.
Oh, the murderous scoundrels, what a brave spirit they
have spilled!'

'You had better set to and thank God,' said I, 'that
they have not spilled a braver one.'

CHAPTER XLVIII

EVERY MAN MUST DEFEND HIMSELF

It was only right in Jeremy Stickles, and of the
simplest common sense, that he would not tell, before
our girls, what the result of his journey was. But he
led me aside in the course of the evening, and told me
all about it; saying that I knew, as well as he did,
that it was not woman's business. This I took, as it
was meant, for a gentle caution that Lorna (whom he had
not seen as yet) must not he informed of any of his
doings. Herein I quite agreed with him; not only for
his furtherance, but because I always think that women,
of whatever mind, are best when least they meddle with
the things that appertain to men.

Master Stickles complained that the weather had been
against him bitterly, closing all the roads around him;
even as it had done with us. It had taken him eight
days, he said, to get from Exeter to Plymouth; whither
he found that most of the troops had been drafted off
from Exeter. When all were told, there was but a
battalion of one of the King's horse regiments, and two
companies of foot soldiers; and their commanders had
orders, later than the date of Jeremy's commission, on
no account to quit the southern coast, and march
inland. Therefore, although they would gladly have
come for a brush with the celebrated Doones, it was
more than they durst attempt, in the face of their
instructions. However, they spared him a single
trooper, as a companion of the road, and to prove to
the justices of the county, and the lord lieutenant,
that he had their approval.

To these authorities Master Stickles now was forced to
address himself, although he would rather have had one
trooper than a score from the very best trained bands.
For these trained bands had afforded very good
soldiers, in the time of the civil wars, and for some
years afterwards; but now their discipline was gone;
and the younger generation had seen no real fighting.
Each would have his own opinion, and would want to
argue it; and if he were not allowed, he went about his
duty in such a temper as to prove that his own way was
the best.

Neither was this the worst of it; for Jeremy made no
doubt but what (if he could only get the militia to
turn out in force) he might manage, with the help of
his own men, to force the stronghold of the enemy; but
the truth was that the officers, knowing how hard it
would be to collect their men at that time of the year,
and in that state of the weather, began with one accord
to make every possible excuse. And especially they
pressed this point, that Bagworthy was not in their
county; the Devonshire people affirming vehemently that
it lay in the shire of Somerset, and the Somersetshire
folk averring, even with imprecations, that it lay in
Devonshire. Now I believe the truth to be that the
boundary of the two counties, as well as of Oare and
Brendon parishes, is defined by the Bagworthy river; so
that the disputants on both sides were both right and
wrong.

Upon this, Master Stickles suggested, and as I thought
very sensibly, that the two counties should unite, and
equally contribute to the extirpation of this pest,
which shamed and injured them both alike. But hence
arose another difficulty; for the men of Devon said
they would march when Somerset had taken the field; and
the sons of Somerset replied that indeed they were
quite ready, but what were their cousins of Devonshire
doing? And so it came to pass that the King's
Commissioner returned without any army whatever; but
with promise of two hundred men when the roads should
be more passable. And meanwhile, what were we to do,
abandoned as we were to the mercies of the Doones, with
only our own hands to help us? And herein I grieved at
my own folly, in having let Tom Faggus go, whose wit
and courage would have been worth at least half a dozen
men to us. Upon this matter I held long council with
my good friend Stickles; telling him all about Lorna's
presence, and what I knew of her history. He agreed
with me that we could not hope to escape an attack from
the outlaws, and the more especially now that they knew
himself to be returned to us. Also he praised me for
my forethought in having threshed out all our corn, and
hidden the produce in such a manner that they were not
likely to find it. Furthermore, he recommended that
all the entrances to the house should at once be
strengthened, and a watch must be maintained at night;
and he thought it wiser that I should go (late as it
was) to Lynmouth, if a horse could pass the valley, and
fetch every one of his mounted troopers, who might now
be quartered there. Also if any men of courage, though
capable only of handling a pitchfork, could be found in
the neighbourhood, I was to try to summon them. But
our district is so thinly peopled, that I had little
faith in this; however my errand was given me, and I
set forth upon it; for John Fry was afraid of the
waters.

Knowing how fiercely the floods were out, I resolved to
travel the higher road, by Cosgate and through
Countisbury; therefore I swam my horse through the
Lynn, at the ford below our house (where sometimes you
may step across), and thence galloped up and along the
hills. I could see all the inland valleys ribbon'd
with broad waters; and in every winding crook, the
banks of snow that fed them; while on my right the
turbid sea was flaked with April showers. But when I
descended the hill towards Lynmouth, I feared that my
journey was all in vain.

For the East Lynn (which is our river) was ramping and
roaring frightfully, lashing whole trunks of trees on
the rocks, and rending them, and grinding them. And
into it rushed, from the opposite side, a torrent even
madder; upsetting what it came to aid; shattering wave
with boiling billow, and scattering wrath with fury.
It was certain death to attempt the passage: and the
little wooden footbridge had been carried away long
ago. And the men I was seeking must be, of course, on
the other side of this deluge, for on my side there was
not a single house.

I followed the bank of the flood to the beach, some two
or three hundred yards below; and there had the luck to
see Will Watcombe on the opposite side, caulking an old
boat. Though I could not make him hear a word, from
the deafening roar of the torrent, I got him to
understand at last that I wanted to cross over. Upon
this he fetched another man, and the two of them
launched a boat; and paddling well out to sea, fetched
round the mouth of the frantic river. The other man
proved to be Stickles's chief mate; and so he went back
and fetched his comrades, bringing their weapons, but
leaving their horses behind. As it happened there were
but four of them; however, to have even these was a
help; and I started again at full speed for my home;
for the men must follow afoot, and cross our river high
up on the moorland.

This took them a long way round, and the track was
rather bad to find, and the sky already darkening; so
that I arrived at Plover's Barrows more than two hours
before them. But they had done a sagacious thing,
which was well worth the delay; for by hoisting their
flag upon the hill, they fetched the two watchmen from
the Foreland, and added them to their number.

It was lucky that I came home so soon; for I found the
house in a great commotion, and all the women
trembling. When I asked what the matter was, Lorna,
who seemed the most self-possessed, answered that it
was all her fault, for she alone had frightened them.
And this in the following manner. She had stolen out
to the garden towards dusk, to watch some favourite
hyacinths just pushing up, like a baby's teeth, and
just attracting the fatal notice of a great house-snail
at night-time. Lorna at last had discovered the
glutton, and was bearing him off in triumph to the
tribunal of the ducks, when she descried two glittering
eyes glaring at her steadfastly, from the elder-bush
beyond the stream. The elder was smoothing its
wrinkled leaves, being at least two months behind time;
and among them this calm cruel face appeared; and she
knew it was the face of Carver Doone.

The maiden, although so used to terror (as she told me
once before), lost all presence of mind hereat, and
could neither shriek nor fly, but only gaze, as if
bewitched. Then Carver Doone, with his deadly smile,
gloating upon her horror, lifted his long gun, and
pointed full at Lorna's heart. In vain she strove to
turn away; fright had stricken her stiff as stone.
With the inborn love of life, she tried to cover the
vital part wherein the winged death must lodge--for she
knew Carver's certain aim--but her hands hung numbed,
and heavy; in nothing but her eyes was life.

With no sign of pity in his face, no quiver of
relenting, but a well-pleased grin at all the charming
palsy of his victim, Carver Doone lowered, inch by
inch, the muzzle of his gun. When it pointed to the
ground, between her delicate arched insteps, he pulled
the trigger, and the bullet flung the mould all over
her. It was a refinement of bullying, for which I
swore to God that night, upon my knees, in secret, that
I would smite down Carver Doone or else he should smite
me down. Base beast! what largest humanity, or what
dreams of divinity, could make a man put up with this?

My darling (the loveliest, and most harmless, in the
world of maidens), fell away on a bank of grass, and
wept at her own cowardice; and trembled, and wondered
where I was; and what I would think of this. Good God!
What could I think of it? She over-rated my slow
nature, to admit the question.

While she leaned there, quite unable yet to save
herself, Carver came to the brink of the flood, which
alone was between them; and then he stroked his
jet-black beard, and waited for Lorna to begin. Very
likely, be thought that she would thank him for his
kindness to her. But she was now recovering the power
of her nimble limbs; and ready to be off like hope, and
wonder at her own cowardice.

'I have spared you this time,' he said, in his deep
calm voice, 'only because it suits my plans; and I
never yield to temper. But unless you come back
to-morrow, pure, and with all you took away, and teach
me to destroy that fool, who has destroyed himself for
you, your death is here, your death is here, where it
has long been waiting.'

Although his gun was empty, he struck the breech of it
with his finger; and then he turned away, not deigning
even once to look back again; and Lorna saw his giant
figure striding across the meadow-land, as if the Ridds
were nobodies, and he the proper owner. Both mother
and I were greatly hurt at hearing of this insolence:
for we had owned that meadow, from the time of the
great Alfred; and even when that good king lay in the
Isle of Athelney, he had a Ridd along with him.

Now I spoke to Lorna gently, seeing how much she had
been tried; and I praised her for her courage, in not
having run away, when she was so unable; and my darling
was pleased with this, and smiled upon me for saying
it; though she knew right well that, in this matter, my
judgment was not impartial. But you may take this as a
general rule, that a woman likes praise from the man
whom she loves, and cannot stop always to balance it.

Now expecting a sharp attack that night--when Jeremy
Stickles the more expected, after the words of Carver,
which seemed to be meant to mislead us--we prepared a
great quantity of knuckles of pork, and a ham in full
cut, and a fillet of hung mutton. For we would almost
surrender rather than keep our garrison hungry. And
all our men were exceedingly brave; and counted their
rounds of the house in half-pints.

Before the maidens went to bed, Lorna made a remark
which seemed to me a very clever one, and then I
wondered how on earth it had never occurred to me
before. But first she had done a thing which I could
not in the least approve of: for she had gone up to my
mother, and thrown herself into her arms, and begged to
be allowed to return to Glen Doone.

'My child, are you unhappy here?' mother asked her,
very gently, for she had begun to regard her now as a
daughter of her own.

'Oh, no! Too happy, by far too happy, Mrs. Ridd. I
never knew rest or peace before, or met with real
kindness. But I cannot be so ungrateful, I cannot be
so wicked, as to bring you all into deadly peril, for
my sake alone. Let me go: you must not pay this great
price for my happiness.'

'Dear child, we are paying no price at all,' replied my
mother, embracing her; 'we are not threatened for your
sake only. Ask John, he will tell you. He knows every
bit about politics, and this is a political matter.'

Dear mother was rather proud in her heart, as well as
terribly frightened, at the importance now accruing to
Plover's Barrows farm; and she often declared that it
would be as famous in history as the Rye House, or the
Meal-tub, or even the great black box, in which she was
a firm believer: and even my knowledge of politics
could not move her upon that matter. 'Such things had
happened before,' she would say, shaking her head with
its wisdom, 'and why might they not happen again?
Women would be women, and men would be men, to the end
of the chapter; and if she had been in Lucy Water's
place, she would keep it quiet, as she had done'; and
then she would look round, for fear, lest either of her
daughters had heard her; 'but now, can you give me any
reason, why it may not have been so? You are so
fearfully positive, John: just as men always are.'
'No,' I used to say; 'I can give you no reason, why it
may not have been so, mother. But the question is, if
it was so, or not; rather than what it might have been.
And, I think, it is pretty good proof against it, that
what nine men of every ten in England would only too
gladly believe, if true, is nevertheless kept dark from
them.'  'There you are again, John,' mother would reply,
'all about men, and not a single word about women. If
you had any argument at all, you would own that
marriage is a question upon which women are the best
judges.'  'Oh!' I would groan in my spirit, and go;
leaving my dearest mother quite sure, that now at last
she must have convinced me. But if mother had known
that Jeremy Stickles was working against the black box,
and its issue, I doubt whether he would have fared so
well, even though he was a visitor. However, she knew
that something was doing and something of importance;
and she trusted in God for the rest of it. Only she
used te tell me, very seriously, of an evening, 'The
very least they can give you, dear John, is a coat of
arms. Be sure you take nothing less, dear; and the
farm can well support it.'

But lo! I have left Lorna ever so long, anxious to
consult me upon political matters. She came to me, and
her eyes alone asked a hundred questions, which I
rather had answered upon her lips than troubled her
pretty ears with them. Therefore I told her nothing at
all, save that the attack (if any should be) would not
be made on her account; and that if she should hear, by
any chance, a trifle of a noise in the night, she was
to wrap the clothes around her, and shut her beautiful
eyes again. On no account, whatever she did, was she
to go to the window. She liked my expression about her
eyes, and promised to do the very best she could and
then she crept so very close, that I needs must have
her closer; and with her head on my breast she asked,--

'Can't you keep out of this fight, John?'

'My own one,' I answered, gazing through the long black
lashes, at the depths of radiant love; 'I believe there
will be nothing: but what there is I must see out.'

'Shall I tell you what I think, John? It is only a
fancy of mine, and perhaps it is not worth telling.'

'Let us have it, dear, by all means. You know so much
about their ways.'

'What I believe is this, John. You know how high the
rivers are, higher than ever they were before, and
twice as high, you have told me. I believe that Glen
Doone is flooded, and all the houses under water.'

'You little witch,' I answered; 'what a fool I must be
not to think of it! Of course it is: it must be. The
torrent from all the Bagworthy forest, and all the
valleys above it, and the great drifts in the glen
itself, never could have outlet down my famous
waterslide. The valley must be under water twenty feet
at least. Well, if ever there was a fool, I am he,
for not having thought of it.'

'I remember once before,' said Lorna, reckoning on her
fingers, 'when there was heavy rain, all through the
autumn and winter, five or it may be six years ago, the
river came down with such a rush that the water was two
feet deep in our rooms, and we all had to camp by the
cliff-edge. But you think that the floods are higher
now, I believe I heard you say, John.'

'I don't think about it, my treasure,' I answered; 'you
may trust me for understanding floods, after our work
at Tiverton. And I know that the deluge in all our
valleys is such that no living man can remember,
neither will ever behold again. Consider three months
of snow, snow, snow, and a fortnight of rain on the top
of it, and all to be drained in a few days away! And
great barricades of ice still in the rivers blocking
them up, and ponding them. You may take my word for
it, Mistress Lorna, that your pretty bower is six feet
deep.'

'Well, my bower has served its time', said Lorna,
blushing as she remembered all that had happened there;
'and my bower now is here, John. But I am so sorry to
think of all the poor women flooded out of their houses
and sheltering in the snowdrifts. However, there is
one good of it: they cannot send many men against us,
with all this trouble upon them.'

'You are right,' I replied; 'how clever you are! and
that is why there were only three to cut off Master
Stickles. And now we shall beat them, I make no doubt,
even if they come at all. And I defy them to fire the
house: the thatch is too wet for burning.'

We sent all the women to bed quite early, except Gwenny
Carfax and our old Betty. These two we allowed to stay
up, because they might be useful to us, if they could
keep from quarreling. For my part, I had little fear,
after what Lorna had told me, as to the result of the
combat. It was not likely that the Doones could bring
more than eight or ten men against us, while their
homes were in such danger: and to meet these we had
eight good men, including Jeremy, and myself, all well
armed and resolute, besides our three farm-servants,
and the parish-clerk, and the shoemaker. These five
could not be trusted much for any valiant conduct,
although they spoke very confidently over their cans of
cider. Neither were their weapons fitted for much
execution, unless it were at close quarters, which they
would be likely to avoid. Bill Dadds had a sickle, Jem
Slocombe a flail, the cobbler had borrowed the
constable's staff (for the constable would not attend,
because there was no warrant), and the parish clerk had
brought his pitch-pipe, which was enough to break any
man's head. But John Fry, of course, had his
blunderbuss, loaded with tin-tacks and marbles, and
more likely to kill the man who discharged it than any
other person: but we knew that John had it only for
show, and to describe its qualities.

Now it was my great desire, and my chiefest hope, to
come across Carver Doone that night, and settle the
score between us; not by any shot in the dark, but by a
conflict man to man. As yet, since I came to
full-grown power, I had never met any one whom I could
not play teetotum with: but now at last I had found a
man whose strength was not to be laughed at. I could
guess it in his face, I could tell it in his arms, I
could see it in his stride and gait, which more than
all the rest betray the substance of a man. And being
so well used to wrestling, and to judge antagonists, I
felt that here (if anywhere) I had found my match.

Therefore I was not content to abide within the house,
or go the rounds with the troopers; but betook myself
to the rick yard, knowing that the Doones were likely
to begin their onset there. For they had a pleasant
custom, when they visited farm-houses, of lighting
themselves towards picking up anything they wanted, or
stabbing the inhabitants, by first creating a blaze in
the rick yard. And though our ricks were all now of
mere straw (except indeed two of prime clover-hay), and
although on the top they were so wet that no firebrands
might hurt them; I was both unwilling to have them
burned, and fearful that they might kindle, if well
roused up with fire upon the windward side.

By the bye, these Doones had got the worst of this
pleasant trick one time. For happening to fire the
ricks of a lonely farm called Yeanworthy, not far above
Glenthorne, they approached the house to get people's
goods, and to enjoy their terror. The master of the
farm was lately dead, and had left, inside the
clock-case, loaded, the great long gun, wherewith he
had used to sport at the ducks and the geese on the
shore. Now Widow Fisher took out this gun, and not
caring much what became of her (for she had loved her
husband dearly), she laid it upon the window-sill,
which looked upon the rick-yard; and she backed up the
butt with a chest of oak drawers, and she opened the
window a little back, and let the muzzle out on the
slope. Presently five or six fine young Doones came
dancing a reel (as their manner was) betwixt her and
the flaming rick. Upon which she pulled the trigger
with all the force of her thumb, and a quarter of a
pound of duck-shot went out with a blaze on the
dancers. You may suppose what their dancing was, and
their reeling how changed to staggering, and their
music none of the sweetest. One of them fell into the
rick, and was burned, and buried in a ditch next day;
but the others were set upon their horses, and carried
home on a path of blood. And strange to say, they
never avenged this very dreadful injury; but having
heard that a woman had fired this desperate shot among
them, they said that she ought to be a Doone, and
inquired how old she was.

Now I had not been so very long waiting in our
mow-yard, with my best gun ready, and a big club by me,
before a heaviness of sleep began to creep upon me.
The flow of water was in my ears, and in my eyes a hazy
spreading, and upon my brain a closure, as a cobbler
sews a vamp up. So I leaned back in the clover-rick,
and the dust of the seed and the smell came round me,
without any trouble; and I dozed about Lorna, just once
or twice, and what she had said about new-mown hay; and
then back went my head, and my chin went up; and if
ever a man was blest with slumber, down it came upon
me, and away went I into it.

Now this was very vile of me, and against all good
resolutions, even such as I would have sworn to an hour
ago or less. But if you had been in the water as I
had, ay, and had long fight with it, after a good day's
work, and then great anxiety afterwards, and brain-work
(which is not fair for me), and upon that a stout
supper, mayhap you would not be so hard on my sleep;
though you felt it your duty to wake me.

CHAPTER XLIX

MAIDEN SENTINELS ARE BEST

It was not likely that the outlaws would attack out
premises until some time after the moon was risen;
because it would be too dangerous to cross the flooded
valleys in the darkness of the night. And but for this
consideration, I must have striven harder against the
stealthy approach of slumber. But even so, it was very
foolish to abandon watch, especially in such as I, who
sleep like any dormouse. Moreover, I had chosen the
very worst place in the world for such employment, with
a goodly chance of awakening in a bed of solid fire.

And so it might have been, nay, it must have been, but
for Lorna's vigilance. Her light hand upon my arm
awoke me, not too readily; and leaping up, I seized my
club, and prepared to knock down somebody.

'Who's that?' I cried; 'stand back, I say, and let me
have fair chance at you.'

'Are you going to knock me down, dear John?' replied
the voice I loved so well; 'I am sure I should never
get up again, after one blow from you, John.'

'My darling, is it you?' I cried; 'and breaking all
your orders? Come back into the house at once: and
nothing on your head, dear!'

'How could I sleep, while at any moment you might he
killed beneath my window? And now is the time of real
danger; for men can see to travel.'

I saw at once the truth of this. The moon was high and
clearly lighting all the watered valleys. To sleep any
longer might be death, not only to myself, but all.

'The man on guard at the back of the house is fast
asleep,' she continued; 'Gwenny, who let me out, and
came with me, has heard him snoring for two hours. I
think the women ought to be the watch, because they
have had no travelling. Where do you suppose little
Gwenny is?'

'Surely not gone to Glen Doone?'  I was not sure,
however: for I could believe almost anything of the
Cornish maiden's hardihood.

'No,' replied Lorna, 'although she wanted even to do
that. But of course I would not hear of it, on account
of the swollen waters. But she is perched on yonder
tree, which commands the Barrow valley. She says that
they are almost sure to cross the streamlet there; and
now it is so wide and large, that she can trace it in
the moonlight, half a mile beyond her. If they cross,
she is sure to see them, and in good time to let us
know.'

'What a shame,' I cried, 'that the men should sleep,
and the maidens be the soldiers! I will sit in that
tree myself, and send little Gwenny back to you. Go to
bed, my best and dearest; I will take good care not to
sleep again.'

'Please not to send me away, dear John,' she answered
very mournfully; 'you and I have been together through
perils worse than this. I shall only be more timid,
and more miserable, indoors.'

'I cannot let you stay here,' I said; 'it is altogether
impossible. Do you suppose that I can fight, with you
among the bullets, Lorna? If this is the way you mean
to take it, we had better go both to the apple-room,
and lock ourselves in, and hide under the tiles, and
let them burn all the rest of the premises.'

At this idea Lorna laughed, as I could see by the
moonlight; and then she said,--

'You are right, John. I should only do more harm than
good: and of all things I hate fighting most, and
disobedience next to it. Therefore I will go indoors,
although I cannot go to bed. But promise me one thing,
dearest John. You will keep yourself out of the way,
now won't you, as much as you can, for my sake?'

'Of that you may be quite certain, Lorna. I will shoot
them all through the hay-ricks.'

'That is right, dear,' she answered, never doubting but
what I could do it; 'and then they cannot see you, you
know. But don't think of climbing that tree, John; it
is a great deal too dangerous. It is all very well for
Gwenny; she has no bones to break.'

'None worth breaking, you mean, I suppose. Very well;
I will not climb the tree, for I should defeat my own
purpose, I fear; being such a conspicuous object. Now
go indoors, darling, without more words. The more you
linger, the more I shall keep you.'

She laughed her own bright laugh at this, and only
said, 'God keep you, love!' and then away she tripped
across the yard, with the step I loved to watch so.
And thereupon I shouldered arms, and resolved to tramp
till morning. For I was vexed at my own neglect, and
that Lorna should have to right it.

But before I had been long on duty, making the round of
the ricks and stables, and hailing Gwenny now and then
from the bottom of her tree, a short wide figure stole
towards me, in and out the shadows, and I saw that it
was no other than the little maid herself, and that she
bore some tidings.

'Ten on 'em crossed the watter down yonner,' said
Gwenny, putting her hand to her mouth, and seeming to
regard it as good news rather than otherwise: 'be arl
craping up by hedgerow now. I could shutt dree on 'em
from the bar of the gate, if so be I had your goon,
young man.'

'There is no time to lose, Gwenny. Run to the house
and fetch Master Stickles, and all the men; while I
stay here, and watch the rick-yard.'

Perhaps I was wrong in heeding the ricks at such a time
as that; especially as only the clover was of much
importance. But it seemed to me like a sort of triumph
that they should be even able to boast of having fired
our mow-yard. Therefore I stood in a nick of the
clover, whence we had cut some trusses, with my club in
hand, and gun close by.

The robbers rode into our yard as coolly as if they had
been invited, having lifted the gate from the hinges
first on account of its being fastened. Then they
actually opened our stable-doors, and turned our
honest horses out, and put their own rogues in the
place of them. At this my breath was quite taken away;
for we think so much of our horses. By this time I
could see our troopers, waiting in the shadow of the
house, round the corner from where the Doones were, and
expecting the order to fire. But Jeremy Stickles very
wisely kept them in readiness, until the enemy should
advance upon them.

'Two of you lazy fellows go,' it was the deep voice of
Carver Doone, 'and make us a light, to cut their
throats by. Only one thing, once again. If any man
touches Lorna, I will stab him where he stands. She
belongs to me. There are two other young damsels here,
whom you may take away if you please. And the mother,
I hear, is still comely. Now for our rights. We have
borne too long the insolence of these yokels. Kill
every man, and every child, and burn the cursed place
down.'

As he spoke thus blasphemously, I set my gun against
his breast; and by the light buckled from his belt, I
saw the little 'sight' of brass gleaming alike upon
either side, and the sleek round barrel glimmering.
The aim was sure as death itself. If I only drew the
trigger (which went very lighily) Carver Doone would
breathe no more. And yet--will you believe me?--I
could not pull the trigger. Would to God that I had
done so!

For I never had taken human life, neither done bodily
harm to man; beyond the little bruises, and the
trifling aches and pains, which follow a good and
honest bout in the wrestling ring. Therefore I dropped
my carbine, and grasped again my club, which seemed a
more straight-forward implement.

Presently two young men came towards me, bearing brands
of resined hemp, kindled from Carver's lamp. The
foremost of them set his torch to the rick within a
yard of me, and smoke concealing me from him. I struck
him with a back-handed blow on the elbow, as he bent
it; and I heard the bone of his arm break, as clearly
as ever I heard a twig snap. With a roar of pain he
fell on the ground, and his torch dropped there, and
singed him. The other man stood amazed at this, not
having yet gained sight of me; till I caught his
firebrand from his hand, and struck it into his
countenance. With that he leaped at me; but I caught
him, in a manner learned from early wrestling, and
snapped his collar-bone, as I laid him upon the top of
his comrade.

This little success so encouraged me, that I was half
inclined to advance, and challenge Carver Doone to meet
me; but I bore in mind that he would be apt to shoot me
without ceremony; and what is the utmost of human
strength against the power of powder? Moreover, I
remembered my promise to sweet Lorna; and who would be
left to defend her, if the rogues got rid of me?

While I was hesitating thus (for I always continue to
hesitate, except in actual conflict), a blaze of fire
lit up the house, and brown smoke hung around it. Six
of our men had let go at the Doones, by Jeremy
Stickles' order, as the villains came swaggering down
in the moonlight ready for rape or murder. Two of them
fell, and the rest hung back, to think at their leisure
what this was. They were not used to this sort of
thing: it was neither just nor courteous.

Being unable any longer to contain myself, as I thought
of Lorna's excitement at all this noise of firing, I
came across the yard, expecting whether they would
shoot at me. However, no one shot at me; and I went up
to Carver Doone, whom I knew by his size in the
moonlight, and I took him by the beard, and said, 'Do
you call yourself a man?'

For a moment he was so astonished that he could not
answer. None had ever dared, I suppose, to look at him
in that way; and he saw that he had met his equal, or
perhaps his master. And then he tried a pistol at me,
but I was too quick for him.

'Now, Carver Doone, take warning,' I said to him, very
soberly; 'you have shown yourself a fool by your
contempt of me. I may not be your match in craft; but
I am in manhood. You are a despicable villain. Lie
low in your native muck.'

And with that word, I laid him flat upon his back in
our straw-yard, by a trick of the inner heel, which he
could not have resisted (though his strength had been
twice as great as mine), unless he were a wrestler.
Seeing him down the others ran, though one of them made
a shot at me, and some of them got their horses, before
our men came up; and some went away without them. And
among these last was Captain Carver who arose, while I
was feeling myself (for I had a little wound), and
strode away with a train of curses enough to poison the
light of the moon.

We gained six very good horses, by this attempted
rapine, as well as two young prisoners, whom I had
smitten by the clover-rick. And two dead Doones were
left behind, whom (as we buried them in the churchyard,
without any service over them), I for my part was most
thankful that I had not killed. For to have the life
of a fellow-man laid upon one's conscience--deserved he
his death, or deserved it not--is to my sense of right
and wrong the heaviest of all burdens; and the one that
wears most deeply inwards, with the dwelling of the
mind on this view and on that of it.

I was inclined to pursue the enemy and try to capture
more of them; but Jeremy Stickles would not allow it,
for he said that all the advantage would be upon their
side, if we went hurrying after them, with only the
moon to guide us. And who could tell but what there
might be another band of them, ready to fall upon the
house, and burn it, and seize the women, if we left
them unprotected? When he put the case thus, I was
glad enough to abide by his decision. And one thing
was quite certain, that the Doones had never before
received so rude a shock, and so violent a blow to
their supremacy, since first they had built up their
power, and become the Lords of Exmoor. I knew that
Carver Doone would gnash those mighty teeth of his, and
curse the men around him, for the blunder (which was in
truth his own) of over-confidence and carelessness.
And at the same time, all the rest would feel that such
a thing had never happened, while old Sir Ensor was
alive; and that it was caused by nothing short of gross
mismanagement.

I scarcely know who made the greatest fuss about my
little wound, mother, or Annie, or Lorna. I was
heartily ashamed to be so treated like a milksop; but
most unluckily it had been impossible to hide it. For
the ball had cut along my temple, just above the
eyebrow; and being fired so near at hand, the powder
too had scarred me. Therefore it seemed a great deal
worse than it really was; and the sponging, and the
plastering, and the sobbing, and the moaning, made me
quite ashamed to look Master Stickles in the face.

However, at last I persuaded them that I had no
intention of giving up the ghost that night; and then
they all fell to, and thanked God with an emphasis
quite unknown in church. And hereupon Master Stickles
said, in his free and easy manner (for no one courted
his observation), that I was the luckiest of all
mortals in having a mother, and a sister, and a
sweetheart, to make much of me. For his part, he said,
he was just as well off in not having any to care for
him. For now he might go and get shot, or stabbed, or
knocked on the head, at his pleasure, without any one
being offended. I made bold, upon this, to ask him
what was become of his wife; for I had heard him speak
of having one. He said that he neither knew nor
cared; and perhaps I should be like him some day. That
Lorna should hear such sentiments was very grievous to
me. But she looked at me with a smile, which proved
her contempt for all such ideas; and lest anything
still more unfit might be said, I dismissed the
question.

But Master Stickles told me afterwards, when there was
no one with us, to have no faith in any woman, whatever
she might seem to be. For he assured me that now he
possessed very large experience, for so small a matter;
being thoroughly acquainted with women of every class,
from ladies of the highest blood, to Bonarobas, and
peasants' wives: and that they all might be divided
into three heads and no more; that is to say as
follows. First, the very hot and passionate, who were
only contemptible; second, the cold and indifferent,
who were simply odious; and third, the mixture of the
other two, who had the bad qualities of both. As for
reason, none of them had it; it was like a sealed book
to them, which if they ever tried to open, they began
at the back of the cover.

Now I did not like to hear such things; and to me they
appeared to be insolent, as well as narrow-minded. For
if you came to that, why might not men, as well as
women, be divided into the same three classes, and be
pronounced upon by women, as beings even more devoid
than their gentle judges of reason? Moreover, I knew,
both from my own sense, and from the greatest of all
great poets, that there are, and always have been,
plenty of women, good, and gentle, warm-hearted,
loving, and lovable; very keen, moreover, at seeing the
right, be it by reason, or otherwise. And upon the
whole, I prefer them much to the people of my own sex,
as goodness of heart is more important than to show
good reason for having it. And so I said to Jeremy,--

'You have been ill-treated, perhaps, Master Stickles,
by some woman or other?'

'Ah, that have I,' he replied with an oath; 'and the
last on earth who should serve me so, the woman who was
my wife. A woman whom I never struck, never wronged in
any way, never even let her know that I like another
better. And yet when I was at Berwick last, with the
regiment on guard there against those vile
moss-troopers, what does that woman do but fly in the
face of all authority, and of my especial business, by
running away herself with the biggest of all
moss-troopers? Not that I cared a groat about her; and
I wish the fool well rid of her: but the insolence of
the thing was such that everybody laughed at me; and
back I went to London, losing a far better and safer
job than this; and all through her. Come, let's have
another onion.'

Master Stickles's view of the matter was so entirely
unromantic, that I scarcely wondered at Mistress
Stickles for having run away from him to an adventurous
moss-trooper. For nine women out of ten must have some
kind of romance or other, to make their lives
endurable; and when their love has lost this attractive
element, this soft dew-fog (if such it be), the love
itself is apt to languish; unless its bloom be well
replaced by the budding hopes of children. Now Master
Stickles neither had, nor wished to have, any children.

Without waiting for any warrant, only saying something
about 'captus in flagrante delicto,'--if that be the
way to spell it--Stickles sent our prisoners off,
bound and looking miserable, to the jail at Taunton. I
was desirous to let them go free, if they would promise
amendment; but although I had taken them, and surely
therefore had every right to let them go again, Master
Stickles said, 'Not so.'  He assured me that it was a
matter of public polity; and of course, not knowing
what he meant, I could not contradict him; but thought
that surely my private rights ought to be respected.
For if I throw a man in wrestling, I expect to get his
stakes; and if I take a man prisoner--why, he ought, in
common justice, to belong to me, and I have a good
right to let him go, if I think proper to do so.
However, Master Stickles said that I was quite
benighted, and knew nothing of the Constitution; which
was the very thing I knew, beyond any man in our
parish!

Nevertheless, it was not for me to contradict a
commissioner; and therefore I let my prisoners go, and
wished them a happy deliverance. Stickles replied,
with a merry grin, that if ever they got it, it would
be a jail deliverance, and the bliss of dancing; and he
laid his hand to his throat in a manner which seemed to
me most uncourteous. However, his foresight proved too
correct; for both those poor fellows were executed,
soon after the next assizes. Lorna had done her very
best to earn another chance for them; even going down
on her knees to that common Jeremy, and pleading with
great tears for them. However, although much moved by
her, he vowed that he durst do nothing else. To set
them free was more than his own life was worth; for all
the country knew, by this time, that two captive Doones
were roped to the cider-press at Plover's Barrows.
Annie bound the broken arm of the one whom I had
knocked down with the club, and I myself supported it;
and then she washed and rubbed with lard the face of
the other poor fellow, which the torch had injured; and
I fetched back his collar-bone to the best of my
ability. For before any surgeon could arrive, they
were off with a well-armed escort. That day we were
reinforced so strongly from the stations along the
coast, even as far as Minehead, that we not only feared
no further attack, but even talked of assaulting Glen
Doone, without waiting for the train-bands. However, I
thought that it would be mean to take advantage of the
enemy in the thick of the floods and confusion; and
several of the others thought so too, and did not like
fighting in water. Therefore it was resolved to wait
and keep a watch upon the valley, and let the floods go
down again.

CHAPTER L

A MERRY MEETING A SAD ONE

Now the business I had most at heart (as every one
knows by this time) was to marry Lorna as soon as might
be, if she had no objection, and then to work the farm
so well, as to nourish all our family. And herein I
saw no difficulty; for Annie would soon be off our
hands, and somebody might come and take a fancy to
little Lizzie (who was growing up very nicely now,
though not so fine as Annie); moreover, we were almost
sure to have great store of hay and corn after so much
snow, if there be any truth in the old saying,--

"A foot deep of rain
Will kill hay and grain;  
But three feet of snow
Will make them come mo'."

And although it was too true that we had lost a many
cattle, yet even so we had not lost money; for the few
remaining fetched such prices as were never known
before. And though we grumbled with all our hearts,
and really believed, at one time, that starvation was
upon us, I doubt whether, on the whole, we were not the
fatter, and the richer, and the wiser for that winter.
And I might have said the happier, except for the
sorrow which we felt at the failures among our
neighbours. The Snowes lost every sheep they had, and
nine out of ten horned cattle; and poor Jasper Kebby
would have been forced to throw up the lease of his
farm, and perhaps to go to prison, but for the help we
gave him.

However, my dear mother would have it that Lorna was
too young, as yet, to think of being married: and
indeed I myself was compelled to admit that her form
was becoming more perfect and lovely; though I had not
thought it possible. And another difficulty was, that
as we had all been Protestants from the time of Queen
Elizabeth, the maiden must be converted first, and
taught to hate all Papists. Now Lorna had not the
smallest idea of ever being converted. She said that
she loved me truly, but wanted not to convert me; and
if I loved her equally, why should I wish to convert
her? With this I was tolerably content, not seeing so
very much difference between a creed and a credo, and
believing God to be our Father, in Latin as well as
English. Moreover, my darling knew but little of the
Popish ways--whether excellent or otherwise--inasmuch
as the Doones, though they stole their houses, or at
least the joiner's work, had never been tempted enough
by the devil to steal either church or chapel.

Lorna came to our little church, when Parson Bowden
reappeared after the snow was over; and she said that
all was very nice, and very like what she had seen in
the time of her Aunt Sabina, when they went far away to
the little chapel, with a shilling in their gloves. It
made the tears come into her eyes, by the force of
memory, when Parson Bowden did the things, not so
gracefully nor so well, yet with pleasant imitation of
her old Priest's sacred rites.

'He is a worthy man,' she said, being used to talk in
the service time, and my mother was obliged to cough:
'I like him very much indeed: but I wish he would let
me put his things the right way on his shoulders.'

Everybody in our parish, who could walk at all, or hire
a boy and a wheelbarrow, ay, and half the folk from
Countisbury, Brendon, and even Lynmouth, was and were
to be found that Sunday, in our little church of Oare.
People who would not come anigh us, when the Doones
were threatening with carbine and with fire-brand,
flocked in their very best clothes, to see a lady Doone
go to church. Now all this came of that vile John Fry;
I knew it as well as possible; his tongue was worse
than the clacker of a charity-school bell, or the ladle
in the frying-pan, when the bees are swarming.

However, Lorna was not troubled; partly because of her
natural dignity and gentleness; partly because she
never dreamed that the people were come to look at her.
But when we came to the Psalms of the day, with some
vague sense of being stared at more than ought to be,
she dropped the heavy black lace fringing of the velvet
hat she wore, and concealed from the congregation all
except her bright red lips, and the oval snowdrift of
her chin. I touched her hand, and she pressed mine;
and we felt that we were close together, and God saw no
harm in it.

As for Parson Bowden (as worthy a man as ever lived,
and one who could shoot flying), he scarcely knew what
he was doing, without the clerk to help him. He had
borne it very well indeed, when I returned from London;
but to see a live Doone in his church, and a lady
Doone, and a lovely Doone, moreover one engaged to me,
upon whom he almost looked as the Squire of his parish
(although not rightly an Armiger), and to feel that
this lovely Doone was a Papist, and therefore of higher
religion--as all our parsons think--and that she knew
exactly how he ought to do all the service, of which he
himself knew little; I wish to express my firm belief
that all these things together turned Parson Bowden's
head a little, and made him look to me for orders.

My mother, the very best of women, was (as I could well
perceive) a little annoyed and vexed with things. For
this particular occasion, she had procured from
Dulverton, by special message to Ruth Huckaback
(whereof more anon), a head-dress with a feather never
seen before upon Exmoor, to the best of every one's
knowledge. It came from a bird called a flaming
something--a flaming oh, or a flaming ah, I will not be
positive--but I can assure you that it did flame; and
dear mother had no other thought, but that all the
congregation would neither see nor think of any other
mortal thing, or immortal even, to the very end of the
sermon.

Herein she was so disappointed, that no sooner did she
get home, but upstairs she went at speed, not even
stopping at the mirror in our little parlour, and flung
the whole thing into a cupboard, as I knew by the bang
of the door, having eased the lock for her lately.
Lorna saw there was something wrong; and she looked at
Annie and Lizzie (as more likely to understand it) with
her former timid glance; which I knew so well, and
which had first enslaved me.

'I know not what ails mother,' said Annie, who looked
very beautiful, with lilac lute-string ribbons, which I
saw the Snowe girls envying; 'but she has not attended
to one of the prayers, nor said "Amen," all the
morning. Never fear, darling Lorna, it is nothing
about you. It is something about our John, I am sure;
for she never worries herself very much about anybody
but him.'  And here Annie made a look at me, such as I
had had five hundred of.

'You keep your opinions to yourself,' I replied;
because I knew the dear, and her little bits of
jealousy; 'it happens that you are quite wrong, this
time. Lorna, come with me, my darling.'

'Oh yes, Lorna; go with him,' cried Lizzie, dropping
her lip, in a way which you must see to know its
meaning; 'John wants nobody now but you; and none can
find fault with his taste, dear.'

'You little fool, I should think not,' I answered, very
rudely; for, betwixt the lot of them, my Lorna's
eyelashes were quivering; 'now, dearest angel, come
with me; and snap your hands at the whole of them.'

My angel did come, with a sigh, and then with a smile,
when we were alone; but without any unangelic attempt
at snapping her sweet white fingers.

These little things are enough to show that while every
one so admired Lorna, and so kindly took to her, still
there would, just now and then, be petty and paltry
flashes of jealousy concerning her; and perhaps it
could not be otherwise among so many women. However,
we were always doubly kind to her afterwards; and
although her mind was so sensitive and quick that she
must have suffered, she never allowed us to perceive
it, nor lowered herself by resenting it.

Possibly I may have mentioned that little Ruth
Huckaback had been asked, and had even promised to
spend her Christmas with us; and this was the more
desirable, because she had left us through some
offence, or sorrow, about things said of her. Now my
dear mother, being the kindest and best-hearted of all
women, could not bear that poor dear Ruth (who would
some day have such a fortune), should be entirely lost
to us. 'It is our duty, my dear children,' she said
more than once about it, 'to forgive and forget, as
freely as we hope to have it done to us. If dear
little Ruth has not behaved quite as we might have
expected, great allowance should be made for a girl
with so much money. Designing people get hold of her,
and flatter her, and coax her, to obtain a base
influence over her; so that when she falls among simple
folk, who speak the honest truth of her, no wonder the
poor child is vexed, and gives herself airs, and so on.
Ruth can be very useful to us in a number of little
ways; and I consider it quite a duty to pardon her
freak of petulance.'

Now one of the little ways in which Ruth had been very
useful, was the purchase of the scarlet feathers of the
flaming bird; and now that the house was quite safe
from attack, and the mark on my forehead was healing, I
was begged, over and over again, to go and see Ruth,
and make all things straight, and pay for the gorgeous
plumage. This last I was very desirous to do, that I
might know the price of it, having made a small bet on
the subject with Annie; and having held counsel with
myself, whether or not it were possible to get
something of the kind for Lorna, of still more
distinguished appearance. Of course she could not wear
scarlet as yet, even if I had wished it; but I believed
that people of fashion often wore purple for mourning;
purple too was the royal colour, and Lorna was by right
a queen; therefore I was quite resolved to ransack
Uncle Reuben's stores, in search of some bright purple
bird, if nature had kindly provided one.

All this, however, I kept to myself, intending to trust
Ruth Huckaback, and no one else in the matter. And so,
one beautiful spring morning, when all the earth was
kissed with scent, and all the air caressed with song,
up the lane I stoutly rode, well armed, and well
provided.

Now though it is part of my life to heed, it is no part
of my tale to tell, how the wheat was coming on. I
reckon that you, who read this story, after I am dead
and gone (and before that none shall read it), will
say, 'Tush! What is his wheat to us? We are not wheat:
we are human beings: and all we care for is human
doings.'  This may be very good argument, and in the
main, I believe that it is so. Nevertheless, if a man
is to tell only what he thought and did, and not what
came around him, he must not mention his own clothes,
which his father and mother bought for him. And more
than my own clothes to me, ay, and as much as my own
skin, are the works of nature round about, whereof a
man is the smallest.

And now I will tell you, although most likely only to
be laughed at, because I cannot put it in the style of
Mr. Dryden--whom to compare to Shakespeare! but if once
I begin upon that, you will never hear the last of
me--nevertheless, I will tell you this; not wishing to
be rude, but only just because I know it; the more a
man can fling his arms (so to say) round Nature's neck,
the more he can upon her bosom, like an infant, lie and
suck,--the more that man shall earn the trust and love
of all his fellow men.

In this matter is no jealousy (when the man is dead);
because thereafter all others know how much of the milk
be had; and he can suck no longer; and they value him
accordingly, for the nourishment he is to them. Even
as when we keep a roaster of the sucking-pigs, we
choose, and praise at table most, the favourite of its
mother. Fifty times have I seen this, and smiled, and
praised our people's taste, and offered them more of
the vitals.

Now here am I upon Shakespeare (who died, of his own
fruition, at the age of fifty-two, yet lived more than
fifty thousand men, within his little span of life),
when all the while I ought to be riding as hard as I
can to Dulverton. But, to tell the truth, I could not
ride hard, being held at every turn, and often without
any turn at all, by the beauty of things around me.
These things grow upon a man if once he stops to notice
them.

It wanted yet two hours to noon, when I came to Master
Huckaback's door, and struck the panels smartly.
Knowing nothing of their manners, only that people in a
town could not be expected to entertain (as we do in
farm-houses), having, moreover, keen expectation of
Master Huckaback's avarice, I had brought some stuff to
eat, made by Annie, and packed by Lorna, and requiring
no thinking about it.

Ruth herself came and let me in, blushing very
heartily; for which colour I praised her health, and my
praises heightened it. That little thing had lovely
eyes, and could be trusted thoroughly. I do like an
obstinate little woman, when she is sure that she is
right. And indeed if love had never sped me straight
to the heart of Lorna (compared to whom, Ruth was no
more than the thief is to the candle), who knows but
what I might have yielded to the law of nature, that
thorough trimmer of balances, and verified the proverb
that the giant loves the dwarf?

'I take the privilege, Mistress Ruth, of saluting you
according to kinship, and the ordering of the Canons.'
And therewith I bussed her well, and put my arm around
her waist, being so terribly restricted in the matter
of Lorna, and knowing the use of practice. Not that I
had any warmth--all that was darling Lorna's--only out
of pure gallantry, and my knowledge of London fashions.
Ruth blushed to such a pitch at this, and looked up at
me with such a gleam; as if I must have my own way;
that all my love of kissing sunk, and I felt that I was
wronging her. Only my mother had told me, when the
girls were out of the way, to do all I could to please
darling Ruth, and I had gone about it accordingly.

Now Ruth as yet had never heard a word about dear
Lorna; and when she led me into the kitchen (where
everything looked beautiful), and told me not to mind,
for a moment, about the scrubbing of my boots, because
she would only be too glad to clean it all up after me,
and told me how glad she was to see me, blushing more
at every word, and recalling some of them, and stooping
down for pots and pans, when I looked at her too
ruddily--all these things came upon me so, without any
legal notice, that I could only look at Ruth, and think
how very good she was, and how bright her handles were;
and wonder if I had wronged her. Once or twice, I
began--this I say upon my honour--to endeavour to
explain exactly, how we were at Plover's Barrows; how
we all had been bound to fight, and had defeated the
enemy, keeping their queen amongst us. But Ruth would
make some great mistake between Lorna and Gwenny
Carfax, and gave me no chance to set her aright, and
cared about nothing much, except some news of Sally
Snowe.

What could I do with this little thing? All my sense
of modesty, and value for my dinner, were against my
over-pressing all the graceful hints I had given about
Lorna. Ruth was just a girl of that sort, who will not
believe one word, except from her own seeing; not so
much from any doubt, as from the practice of using eyes
which have been in business.

I asked Cousin Ruth (as we used to call her, though the
cousinship was distant) what was become of Uncle Ben,
and how it was that we never heard anything of or from
him now. She replied that she hardly knew what to make
of her grandfather's manner of carrying on, for the
last half-year or more. He was apt to leave his home,
she said, at any hour of the day or night; going none
knew whither, and returning no one might say when. And
his dress, in her opinion, was enough to frighten a
hodman, of a scavenger of the roads, instead of the
decent suit of kersey, or of Sabbath doeskins, such as
had won the respect and reverence of his fellow-
townsmen. But the worst of all things was, as she
confessed with tears in her eyes, that the poor old
gentleman had something weighing heavily on his mind.

'It will shorten his days, Cousin Ridd,' she said, for
she never would call me Cousin John; 'he has no
enjoyment of anything that he eats or drinks, nor even
in counting his money, as he used to do all Sunday;
indeed no pleasure in anything, unless it be smoking
his pipe, and thinking and staring at bits of brown
stone, which he pulls, every now and then, out of his
pockets. And the business he used to take such pride
in is now left almost entirely to the foreman, and to
me.'

'And what will become of you, dear Ruth, if anything
happens to the old man?'

'I am sure I know not,' she answered simply; 'and I
cannot bear to think of it. It must depend, I suppose,
upon dear grandfather's pleasure about me.'

'It must rather depend,' said I, though having no
business to say it, 'upon your own good pleasure, Ruth;
for all the world will pay court to you.'

'That is the very thing which I never could endure. I
have begged dear grandfather to leave no chance of
that. When he has threatened me with poverty, as he
does sometimes, I have always met him truly, with the
answer that I feared one thing a great deal worse than
poverty; namely, to be an heiress. But I cannot make
him believe it. Only think how strange, Cousin Ridd, I
cannot make him believe it.'

'It is not strange at all,' I answered; 'considering
how he values money. Neither would any one else
believe you, except by looking into your true, and very
pretty eyes, dear.'

Now I beg that no one will suspect for a single moment,
either that I did not mean exactly what I said, or
meant a single atom more, or would not have said the
same, if Lorna had been standing by. What I had always
liked in Ruth, was the calm, straightforward gaze, and
beauty of her large brown eyes. Indeed I had spoken of
them to Lorna, as the only ones to be compared (though
not for more than a moment) to her own, for truth and
light, but never for depth and softness. But now the
little maiden dropped them, and turned away, without
reply.

'I will go and see to my horse,' I said; 'the boy that
has taken him seemed surprised at his having no horns
on his forehead. Perhaps he will lead him into the
shop, and feed him upon broadcloth.'

'Oh, he is such a stupid boy,' Ruth answered with great
sympathy: 'how quick of you to observe that now: and
you call yourself "Slow John Ridd!"  I never did see
such a stupid boy: sometimes he spoils my temper. But
you must be back in half an hour, at the latest, Cousin
Ridd. You see I remember what you are; when once you
get among horses, or cows, or things of that sort.'

'Things of that sort! Well done, Ruth! One would think
you were quite a Cockney.'

Uncle Reuben did not come home to his dinner; and his
granddaughter said she had strictest orders never to
expect him. Therefore we had none to dine with us,
except the foreman of the shop, a worthy man, named
Thomas Cockram, fifty years of age or so. He seemed to
me to have strong intentions of his own about little
Ruth, and on that account to regard me with a wholly
undue malevolence. And perhaps, in order to justify
him, I may have been more attentive to her than
otherwise need have been; at any rate, Ruth and I were
pleasant; and he the very opposite.

'My dear Cousin Ruth,' I said, on purpose to vex Master
Cockram, because he eyed us so heavily, and squinted to
unluckily, 'we have long been looking for you at our
Plover's Barrows farm. You remember how you used to
love hunting for eggs in the morning, and hiding up in
the tallat with Lizzie, for me to seek you among the
hay, when the sun was down. Ah, Master Cockram, those
are the things young people find their pleasure in, not
in selling a yard of serge, and giving
twopence-halfpenny change, and writing "settled" at the
bottom, with a pencil that has blacked their teeth.
Now, Master Cockram, you ought to come as far as our
good farm, at once, and eat two new-laid eggs for
breakfast, and be made to look quite young again. Our
good Annie would cook for you; and you should have the
hot new milk and the pope's eye from the mutton; and
every foot of you would become a yard in about a
fortnight.'  And hereupon, I spread my chest, to show
him an example. Ruth could not keep her countenance:
but I saw that she thought it wrong of me; and would
scold me, if ever I gave her the chance of taking those
little liberties. However, he deserved it all,
according to my young ideas, for his great impertinence
in aiming at my cousin.

But what I said was far less grievous to a man of
honest mind than little Ruth's own behaviour. I could
hardly have believed that so thoroughly true a girl,
and one so proud and upright, could have got rid of any
man so cleverly as she got rid of Master Thomas
Cockram. She gave him not even a glass of wine, but
commended to his notice, with a sweet and thoughtful
gravity, some invoice which must be corrected, before
her dear grandfather should return; and to amend which
three great ledgers must be searched from first to
last. Thomas Cockram winked at me, with the worst of
his two wrong eyes; as much as to say, 'I understand
it; but I cannot help myself. Only you look out, if
ever'--and before he had finished winking, the door was
shut behind him. Then Ruth said to me in the simplest
manner, 'You have ridden far today, Cousin Ridd; and
have far to ride to get home again. What will dear
Aunt Ridd say, if we send you away without nourishment?
All the keys are in my keeping, and dear grandfather
has the finest wine, not to be matched in the west of
England, as I have heard good judges say; though I know
not wine from cider. Do you like the wine of Oporto,
or the wine of Xeres?'

'I know not one from the other, fair cousin, except by
the colour,' I answered: 'but the sound of Oporto is
nobler, and richer. Suppose we try wine of Oporto.'

The good little creature went and fetched a black
bottle of an ancient cast, covered with dust and
cobwebs. These I was anxious to shake aside; and
indeed I thought that the wine would be better for
being roused up a little. Ruth, however, would not
hear a single word to that purport; and seeing that she
knew more about it, I left her to manage it. And the
result was very fine indeed, to wit, a sparkling rosy
liquor, dancing with little flakes of light, and
scented like new violets. With this I was so pleased
and gay, and Ruth so glad to see me gay, that we quite
forgot how the time went on; and though my fair cousin
would not be persuaded to take a second glass herself,
she kept on filling mine so fast that it was never
empty, though I did my best to keep it so.

'What is a little drop like this to a man of your size
and strength, Cousin Ridd?' she said, with her cheeks
just brushed with rose, which made her look very
beautiful; 'I have heard you say that your head is so
thick--or rather so clear, you ought to say--that no
liquor ever moves it.'

'That is right enough,' I answered; 'what a witch you
must be, dear Ruth, to have remembered that now!'

'Oh, I remember every word I have ever heard you say,
Cousin Ridd; because your voice is so deep, you know,
and you talk so little. Now it is useless to say
"no". These bottles hold almost nothing. Dear
grandfather will not come home, I fear, until long
after you are gone. What will Aunt Ridd think of me, I
am sure? You are all so dreadfully hospitable. Now
not another "no," Cousin Ridd. We must have another
bottle.'

'Well, must is must,' I answered, with a certain
resignation. 'I cannot bear bad manners, dear; and how
old are you next birthday?'

'Eighteen, dear John;' said Ruth, coming over with the
empty bottle; and I was pleased at her calling me
'John,' and had a great mind to kiss her. However, I
thought of my Lorna suddenly, and of the anger I should
feel if a man went on with her so; therefore I lay back
in my chair, to wait for the other bottle.

'Do you remember how we danced that night?' I asked,
while she was opening it; 'and how you were afraid of
me first, because I looked so tall, dear?'

'Yes, and so very broad, Cousin Ridd. I thought that
you would eat me. But I have come to know, since then,
how very kind and good you are.'

'And will you come and dance again, at my wedding,
Cousin Ruth?'

She nearly let the bottle fall, the last of which she
was sloping carefully into a vessel of bright glass;
and then she raised her hand again, and finished it
judiciously. And after that, she took the window, to
see that all her work was clear; and then she poured me
out a glass and said, with very pale cheeks, but else
no sign of meaning about her, 'What did you ask me,
Cousin Ridd?'

'Nothing of any importance, Ruth; only we are so fond
of you. I mean to be married as soon as I can. Will
you come and help us?'

'To be sure I will, Cousin Ridd--unless, unless, dear
grandfather cannot spare me from the business.'  She
went away; and her breast was heaving, like a rick of
under-carried hay. And she stood at the window long,
trying to make yawns of sighs.

For my part, I knew not what to do. And yet I could
think about it, as I never could with Lorna; with whom
I was always in a whirl, from the power of my love. So
I thought some time about it; and perceived that it was
the manliest way, just to tell her everything; except
that I feared she liked me. But it seemed to me
unaccountable that she did not even ask the name of my
intended wife. Perhaps she thought that it must be
Sally; or perhaps she feared to trust her voice.

'Come and sit by me, dear Ruth; and listen to a long,
long story, how things have come about with me.'

'No, thank you, Cousin Ridd,' she answered; 'at least I
mean that I shall be happy--that I shall be ready to
hear you--to listen to you, I mean of course. But I
would rather stay where I am, and have the air--or
rather be able to watch for dear grandfather coming
home. He is so kind and good to me. What should I do
without him?'

Then I told her how, for years and years, I had been
attached to Lorna, and all the dangers and difficulties
which had so long beset us, and how I hoped that these
were passing, and no other might come between us,
except on the score of religion; upon which point I
trusted soon to overcome my mother's objections. And
then I told her how poor, and helpless, and alone in
the world, my Lorna was; and how sad all her youth had
been, until I brought her away at last. And many other
little things I mentioned, which there is no need for
me again to dwell upon. Ruth heard it all without a
word, and without once looking at me; and only by her
attitude could I guess that she was weeping. Then when
all my tale was told, she asked in a low and gentle
voice, but still without showing her face to me,--

'And does she love you, Cousin Ridd? Does she say that
she loves you with--with all her heart?'

'Certainly, she does,' I answered. 'Do you think it
impossible for one like her to do so?'

She said no more; but crossed the room before I had
time to look at her, and came behind my chair, and
kissed me gently on the forehead.

'I hope you may be very happy, with--I mean in your new
life,' she whispered very softly; 'as happy as you
deserve to be, and as happy as you can make others be.
Now how I have been neglecting you! I am quite ashamed
of myself for thinking only of grandfather: and it
makes me so low-spirited. You have told me a very nice
romance, and I have never even helped you to a glass of
wine. Here, pour it for yourself, dear cousin; I shall
be back again directly.'

With that she was out of the door in a moment; and when
she came back, you would not have thought that a tear
had dimmed those large bright eyes, or wandered down
those pale clear cheeks. Only her hands were cold and
trembling: and she made me help myself.

Uncle Reuben did not appear at all; and Ruth, who had
promised to come and see us, and stay for a fortnight
at our house (if her grandfather could spare her), now
discovered, before I left, that she must not think of
doing so. Perhaps she was right in deciding thus; at
any rate it had now become improper for me to press
her. And yet I now desired tenfold that she should
consent to come, thinking that Lorna herself would work
the speediest cure of her passing whim.

For such, I tried to persuade myself, was the nature of
Ruth's regard for me: and upon looking back I could not
charge myself with any misconduct towards the little
maiden. I had never sought her company, I had never
trifled with her (at least until that very day), and
being so engrossed with my own love, I had scarcely
ever thought of her. And the maiden would never have
thought of me, except as a clumsy yokel, but for my
mother's and sister's meddling, and their wily
suggestions. I believe they had told the little soul
that I was deeply in love with her; although they both
stoutly denied it. But who can place trust in a
woman's word, when it comes to a question of
match-making?

CHAPTER LI

A VISIT FROM THE COUNSELLOR

Now while I was riding home that evening, with a
tender conscience about Ruth, although not a wounded
one, I guessed but little that all my thoughts were
needed much for my own affairs. So however it proved
to be; for as I came in, soon after dark, my sister
Eliza met me at the corner of the cheese-room, and she
said, 'Don't go in there, John,' pointing to mother's
room; 'until I have had a talk with you.'

'In the name of Moses,' I inquired, having picked up
that phrase at Dulverton; 'what are you at about me
now? There is no peace for a quiet fellow.'

'It is nothing we are at,' she answered; 'neither may
you make light of it. It is something very important
about Mistress Lorna Doone.'

'Let us have it at once,' I cried; 'I can bear anything
about Lorna, except that she does not care for me.'

'It has nothing to do with that, John. And I am quite
sure that you never need fear anything of that sort.
She perfectly wearies me sometimes, although her voice
is so soft and sweet, about your endless perfections.'

'Bless her little heart!' I said; 'the subject is
inexhaustible.'

'No doubt ' replied Lizzie, in the driest manner;
'especially to your sisters. However this is no time to
joke. I fear you will get the worst of it, John. Do
you know a man of about Gwenny's shape, nearly as broad
as he is long, but about six times the size of Gwenny,
and with a length of snow-white hair, and a thickness
also; as the copses were last winter. He never can
comb it, that is quite certain, with any comb yet
invented.'

'Then you go and offer your services. There are few
things you cannot scarify. I know the man from your
description, although I have never seen him. Now where
is my Lorna? '

'Your Lorna is with Annie, having a good cry, I
believe; and Annie too glad to second her. She knows
that this great man is here, and knows that he wants to
see her. But she begged to defer the interview, until
dear John's return.'

'What a nasty way you have of telling the very
commonest piece of news!' I said, on purpose to pay her
out. 'What man will ever fancy you, you unlucky little
snapper? Now, no more nursery talk for me. I will go
and settle this business. You had better go and dress
your dolls; if you can give them clothes unpoisoned.'
Hereupon Lizzie burst into a perfect roar of tears;
feeling that she had the worst of it. And I took her
up, and begged her pardon; although she scarcely
deserved it; for she knew that I was out of luck, and
she might have spared her satire.

I was almost sure that the man who was come must be the
Counsellor himself; of whom I felt much keener fear
than of his son Carver. And knowing that his visit
boded ill to me and Lorna, I went and sought my dear;
and led her with a heavy heart, from the maiden's room
to mother's, to meet our dreadful visitor.

Mother was standing by the door, making curtseys now
and then, and listening to a long harangue upon the
rights of state and land, which the Counsellor (having
found that she was the owner of her property, and knew
nothing of her title to it) was encouraged to deliver
it. My dear mother stood gazing at him, spell-bound by
his eloquence, and only hoping that he would stop. He
was shaking his hair upon his shoulders, in the power
of his words, and his wrath at some little thing, which
he declared to be quite illegal.

Then I ventured to show myself, in the flesh, before
him; although he feigned not to see me; but he advanced
with zeal to Lorna; holding out both hands at once.

'My darling child, my dearest niece; how wonderfully
well you look! Mistress Ridd, I give you credit. This
is the country of good things. I never would have
believed our Queen could have looked so royal. Surely
of all virtues, hospitality is the finest, and the most
romantic. Dearest Lorna, kiss your uncle; it is quite
a privilege.'

'Perhaps it is to you, sir,' said Lorna, who could
never quite check her sense of oddity; 'but I fear that
you have smoked tobacco, which spoils reciprocity.'

'You are right, my child. How keen your scent is! It
is always so with us. Your grandfather was noted for
his olfactory powers. Ah, a great loss, dear Mrs.
Ridd, a terrible loss to this neighbourhood! As one of
our great writers says--I think it must be Milton--"We
ne'er shall look upon his like again." '

'With your good leave sir,' I broke in, 'Master Milton
could never have written so sweet and simple a line as
that. It is one of the great Shakespeare.'

'Woe is me for my neglect!' said the Counsellor, bowing
airily; 'this must be your son, Mistress Ridd, the
great John, the wrestler. And one who meddles with the
Muses! Ah, since I was young, how everything is
changed, madam! Except indeed the beauty of women,
which seems to me to increase every year.'  Here the old
villain bowed to my mother; and she blushed, and made
another curtsey, and really did look very nice.

'Now though I have quoted the poets amiss, as your son
informs me (for which I tender my best thanks, and must
amend my reading), I can hardly be wrong in assuming
that this young armiger must be the too attractive
cynosure to our poor little maiden. And for my part,
she is welcome to him. I have never been one of those
who dwell upon distinctions of rank, and birth, and
such like; as if they were in the heart of nature, and
must be eternal. In early youth, I may have thought
so, and been full of that little pride. But now I
have long accounted it one of the first axioms of
political economy--you are following me, Mistress
Ridd?'

'Well, sir, I am doing my best; but I cannot quite keep
up with you.'

'Never mind, madam; I will be slower. But your son's
intelligence is so quick--'

'I see, sir; you thought that mine must be. But no; it
all comes from his father, sir. His father was that
quick and clever--'

'Ah, I can well suppose it, madam. And a credit he is
to both of you. Now, to return to our muttons--a
figure which you will appreciate--I may now be
regarded, I think, as this young lady's legal guardian;
although I have not had the honour of being formally
appointed such. Her father was the eldest son of Sir
Ensor Doone; and I happened to be the second son; and
as young maidens cannot be baronets, I suppose I am
"Sir Counsellor."  Is it so, Mistress Ridd, according to
your theory of genealogy?'

'I am sure I don't know, sir,' my mother answered
carefully; 'I know not anything of that name, sir,
except in the Gospel of Matthew: but I see not why it
should be otherwise.'

'Good, madam! I may look upon that as your sanction and
approval: and the College of Heralds shall hear of it.
And in return, as Lorna's guardian, I give my full and
ready consent to her marriage with your son, madam.'

'Oh, how good of you, sir, how kind! Well, I always did
say, that the learnedest people were, almost always,
the best and kindest, and the most simple-hearted.'

'Madam, that is a great sentiment. What a goodly
couple they will be! and if we can add him to our
strength--'

'Oh no, sir, oh no!' cried mother: 'you really must not
think of it. He has always been brought up so
honest--'

'Hem! that makes a difference. A decided
disqualification for domestic life among the Doones.
But, surely, he might get over those prejudices,
madam?'

'Oh no, sir! he never can: he never can indeed. When
he was only that high, sir, he could not steal even an
apple, when some wicked boys tried to mislead him.'

'Ah,' replied the Counsellor, shaking his white head
gravely; 'then I greatly fear that his case is quite
incurable. I have known such cases; violent prejudice,
bred entirely of education, and anti-economical to the
last degree. And when it is so, it is desperate: no
man, after imbibing ideas of that sort, can in any way
be useful.'

'Oh yes, sir, John is very useful. He can do as much
work as three other men; and you should see him load a
sledd, sir.'

'I was speaking, madam, of higher usefulness,--power of
the brain and heart. The main thing for us upon earth
is to take a large view of things. But while we talk
of the heart, what is my niece Lorna doing, that she
does not come and thank me, for my perhaps too prompt
concession to her youthful fancies? Ah, if I had
wanted thanks, I should have been more stubborn.'

Lorna, being challenged thus, came up and looked at her
uncle, with her noble eyes fixed full upon his, which
beneath his white eyebrows glistened, like dormer
windows piled with snow.

'For what am I to thank you, uncle?'

'My dear niece, I have told you. For removing the
heaviest obstacle, which to a mind so well regulated
could possibly have existed, between your dutiful self
and the object of your affections.'

'Well, uncle, I should be very grateful, if I thought
that you did so from love of me; or if I did not know
that you have something yet concealed from me.'

'And my consent,' said the Counsellor, 'is the more
meritorious, the more liberal, frank, and candid, in
the face of an existing fact, and a very clearly
established one; which might have appeared to weaker
minds in the light of an impediment; but to my loftier
view of matrimony seems quite a recommendation.'

'What fact do you mean, sir? Is it one that I ought to
know?'

'In my opinion it is, good niece. It forms, to my
mind, so fine a basis for the invariable harmony of the
matrimonial state. To be brief--as I always endeavour
to be, without becoming obscure--you two young people
(ah, what a gift is youth! one can never be too
thankful for it) you will have the rare advantage of
commencing married life, with a subject of common
interest to discuss, whenever you weary of--well, say
of one another; if you can now, by any means, conceive
such a possibility. And perfect justice meted out:
mutual goodwill resulting, from the sense of
reciprocity.'

'I do not understand you, sir. Why can you not say
what you mean, at once?'

'My dear child, I prolong your suspense. Curiosity is
the most powerful of all feminine instincts; and
therefore the most delightful, when not prematurely
satisfied. However, if you must have my strong
realities, here they are. Your father slew dear John's
father, and dear John's father slew yours.'

Having said thus much, the Counsellor leaned back upon
his chair, and shaded his calm white-bearded eyes from
the rays of our tallow candles. He was a man who liked
to look, rather than to be looked at. But Lorna came
to me for aid; and I went up to Lorna and mother looked
at both of us.

Then feeling that I must speak first (as no one would
begin it), I took my darling round the waist, and led
her up to the Counsellor; while she tried to bear it
bravely; yet must lean on me, or did.

'Now, Sir Counsellor Doone,' I said, with Lorna
squeezing both my hands, I never yet knew how
(considering that she was walking all the time, or
something like it); 'you know right well, Sir
Counsellor, that Sir Ensor Doone gave approval.'  I
cannot tell what made me think of this: but so it came
upon me.

'Approval to what, good rustic John? To the slaughter
so reciprocal?'

'No, sir, not to that; even if it ever happened; which
I do not believe. But to the love betwixt me and
Lorna; which your story shall not break, without more
evidence than your word. And even so, shall never
break; if Lorna thinks as I do.'

The maiden gave me a little touch, as much as to say,
'You are right, darling: give it to him, again, like
that.'  However, I held my peace, well knowing that too
many words do mischief.

Then mother looked at me with wonder, being herself too
amazed to speak; and the Counsellor looked, with great
wrath in his eyes, which he tried to keep from burning.

'How say you then, John Ridd, ' he cried, stretching
out one hand, like Elijah; 'is this a thing of the sort
you love? Is this what you are used to?'

'So please your worship, ' I answered; 'no kind of
violence can surprise us, since first came Doones upon
Exmoor. Up to that time none heard of harm; except of
taking a purse, maybe, or cutting a strange sheep's
throat. And the poor folk who did this were hanged,
with some benefit of clergy. But ever since the Doones
came first, we are used to anything.'

'Thou varlet,' cried the Counsellor, with the colour of
his eyes quite changed with the sparkles of his fury;
'is this the way we are to deal with such a low-bred
clod as thou? To question the doings of our people,
and to talk of clergy! What, dream you not that we
could have clergy, and of the right sort, too, if only
we cared to have them? Tush! Am I to spend my time
arguing with a plough-tail Bob?'

'If your worship will hearken to me,' I answered very
modestly, not wishing to speak harshly, with Lorna
looking up at me; 'there are many things that might be
said without any kind of argument, which I would never
wish to try with one of your worship's learning. And
in the first place it seems to me that if our fathers
hated one another bitterly, yet neither won the
victory, only mutual discomfiture; surely that is but a
reason why we should be wiser than they, and make it up
in this generation by goodwill and loving'--

'Oh, John, you wiser than your father!' mother broke
upon me here; 'not but what you might be as wise, when
you come to be old enough.'

'Young people of the present age,' said the Counsellor
severely, 'have no right feeling of any sort, upon the
simplest matter. Lorna Doone, stand forth from
contact with that heir of parricide; and state in your
own mellifluous voice, whether you regard this
slaughter as a pleasant trifle.'

'You know, without any words of mine,' she answered
very softly, yet not withdrawing from my hand, 'that
although I have been seasoned well to every kind of
outrage, among my gentle relatives, I have not yet so
purely lost all sense of right and wrong as to receive
what you have said, as lightly as you declared it. You
think it a happy basis for our future concord. I do
not quite think that, my uncle; neither do I quite
believe that a word of it is true. In our happy
valley, nine-tenths of what is said is false; and you
were always wont to argue that true and false are but a
blind turned upon a pivot. Without any failure of
respect for your character, good uncle, I decline
politely to believe a word of what you have told me.
And even if it were proved to me, all I can say is
this, if my John will have me, I am his for ever.'

This long speech was too much for her; she had
overrated her strength about it, and the sustenance of
irony. So at last she fell into my arms, which had
long been waiting for her; and there she lay with no
other sound, except a gurgling in her throat.

'You old villain,' cried my mother, shaking her fist at
the Counsellor, while I could do nothing else but hold,
and bend across, my darling, and whisper to deaf ears;
'What is the good of the quality; if this is all that
comes of it? Out of the way! You know the words that
make the deadly mischief; but not the ways that heal
them. Give me that bottle, if hands you have; what is
the use of Counsellors?'

I saw that dear mother was carried away; and indeed I
myself was something like it; with the pale face upon
my bosom, and the heaving of the heart, and the heat
and cold all through me, as my darling breathed or lay.
Meanwhile the Counsellor stood back, and seemed a
little sorry; although of course it was not in his
power to be at all ashamed of himself.

'My sweet love, my darling child,' our mother went on
to Lorna, in a way that I shall never forget, though I
live to be a hundred; 'pretty pet, not a word of it is
true, upon that old liar's oath; and if every word were
true, poor chick, you should have our John all the more
for it. You and John were made by God and meant for
one another, whatever falls between you. Little lamb,
look up and speak: here is your own John and I; and the
devil take the Counsellor.'

I was amazed at mother's words, being so unlike her;
while I loved her all the more because she forgot
herself so. In another moment in ran Annie, ay and
Lizzie also, knowing by some mystic sense (which I have
often noticed, but never could explain) that something
was astir, belonging to the world of women, yet foreign
to the eyes of men. And now the Counsellor, being
well-born, although such a heartless miscreant,
beckoned to me to come away; which I, being smothered
with women, was only too glad to do, as soon as my own
love would let go of me.

'That is the worst of them,' said the old man; when I
had led him into our kitchen, with an apology at every
step, and given him hot schnapps and water, and a
cigarro of brave Tom Faggus: 'you never can say much,
sir, in the way of reasoning (however gently meant and
put) but what these women will fly out. It is wiser to
put a wild bird in a cage, and expect him to sit and
look at you, and chirp without a feather rumpled, than
it is to expect a woman to answer reason reasonably.'
Saying this, he looked at his puff of smoke as if it
contained more reason.

'I am sure I do not know, sir,' I answered according to
a phrase which has always been my favourite, on account
of its general truth: moreover, he was now our guest,
and had right to be treated accordingly: 'I am, as you
see, not acquainted with the ways of women, except my
mother and sisters.'

'Except not even them, my son, said the Counsellor, now
having finished his glass, without much consultation
about it; 'if you once understand your mother and
sisters--why you understand the lot of them.'

He made a twist in his cloud of smoke, and dashed his
finger through it, so that I could not follow his
meaning, and in manners liked not to press him.

'Now of this business, John,' he said, after getting to
the bottom of the second glass, and having a trifle or
so to eat, and praising our chimney-corner; 'taking you
on the whole, you know, you are wonderfully good
people; and instead of giving me up to the soldiers, as
you might have done, you are doing your best to make me
drunk.'

'Not at all, sir,' I answered; 'not at all, your
worship. Let me mix you another glass. We rarely have
a great gentleman by the side of our embers and oven.
I only beg your pardon, sir, that my sister Annie (who
knows where to find all the good pans and the lard)
could not wait upon you this evening; and I fear they
have done it with dripping instead, and in a pan with
the bottom burned. But old Betty quite loses her head
sometimes, by dint of over-scolding.'

'My son,' replied the Counsellor, standing across the
front of the fire, to prove his strict sobriety: 'I
meant to come down upon you to-night; but you have
turned the tables upon me. Not through any skill on
your part, nor through any paltry weakness as to love
(and all that stuff, which boys and girls spin tops at,
or knock dolls' noses together), but through your
simple way of taking me, as a man to be believed;
combined with the comfort of this place, and the choice
tobacco and cordials. I have not enjoyed an evening so
much, God bless me if I know when!'

'Your worship,' said I, 'makes me more proud than I
well know what to do with. Of all the things that
please and lead us into happy sleep at night, the first
and chiefest is to think that we have pleased a
visitor.'

'Then, John, thou hast deserved good sleep; for I am
not pleased easily. But although our family is not so
high now as it hath been, I have enough of the
gentleman left to be pleased when good people try me.
My father, Sir Ensor, was better than I in this great
element of birth, and my son Carver is far worse.
Aetas parentum, what is it, my boy? I hear that you
have been at a grammar-school.'

'So I have, your worship, and at a very good one; but I
only got far enough to make more tail than head of
Latin.'

'Let that pass,' said the Counsellor; 'John, thou art
all the wiser.' And the old man shook his hoary locks,
as if Latin had been his ruin. I looked at him sadly,
and wondered whether it might have so ruined me, but
for God's mercy in stopping it.

CHAPTER LII

THE WAY TO MAKE THE CREAM RISE

That night the reverend Counsellor, not being in such
state of mind as ought to go alone, kindly took our
best old bedstead, carved in panels, well enough, with
the woman of Samaria. I set him up, both straight and
heavy, so that he need but close both eyes, and keep
his mouth just open; and in the morning he was thankful
for all that he could remember.

I, for my part, scarcely knew whether he really had
begun to feel goodwill towards us, and to see that
nothing else could be of any use to him; or whether he
was merely acting, so as to deceive us. And it had
struck me, several times, that he had made a great deal
more of the spirit he had taken than the quantity would
warrant, with a man so wise and solid. Neither did I
quite understand a little story which Lorna told me,
how that in the night awaking, she had heard, or seemed
to hear, a sound of feeling in her room; as if there
had been some one groping carefully among the things
within her drawers or wardrobe-closet. But the noise
had ceased at once, she said, when she sat up in bed
and listened; and knowing how many mice we had, she
took courage and fell asleep again.

After breakfast, the Counsellor (who looked no whit the
worse for schnapps, but even more grave and venerable)
followed our Annie into the dairy, to see how we
managed the clotted cream, of which he had eaten a
basinful. And thereupon they talked a little; and
Annie thought him a fine old gentleman, and a very just
one; for he had nobly condemned the people who spoke
against Tom Faggus.

'Your honour must plainly understand,' said Annie,
being now alone with him, and spreading out her light
quick hands over the pans, like butterflies, 'that they
are brought in here to cool, after being set in the
basin-holes, with the wood-ash under them, which I
showed you in the back-kitchen. And they must have
very little heat, not enough to simmer even; only just
to make the bubbles rise, and the scum upon the top set
thick; and after that, it clots as firm--oh, as firm as
my two hands be.'

'Have you ever heard,' asked the Counsellor, who
enjoyed this talk with Annie, 'that if you pass across
the top, without breaking the surface, a string of
beads, or polished glass, or anything of that kind, the
cream will set three times as solid, and in thrice the
quantity?'

'No, sir; I have never heard that,' said Annie, staring
with all her simple eyes; 'what a thing it is to read
books, and grow learned! But it is very easy to try it:
I will get my coral necklace; it will not be
witchcraft, will it, sir?'

'Certainly not,' the old man replied; 'I will make the
experiment myself; and you may trust me not to be hurt,
my dear. But coral will not do, my child, neither will
anything coloured. The beads must be of plain common
glass; but the brighter they are the better.'

'Then I know the very thing,' cried Annie; 'as bright
as bright can be, and without any colour in it, except
in the sun or candle light. Dearest Lorna has the very
thing, a necklace of some old glass-beads, or I think
they called them jewels: she will be too glad to lend
it to us. I will go for it, in a moment.'

'My dear, it cannot be half so bright as your own
pretty eyes. But remember one thing, Annie, you must
not say what it is for; or even that I am going to use
it, or anything at all about it; else the charm will be
broken. Bring it here, without a word; if you know
where she keeps it.'

'To be sure I do,' she answered; 'John used to keep it
for her. But she took it away from him last week, and
she wore it when--I mean when somebody was here; and he
said it was very valuable, and spoke with great
learning about it, and called it by some particular
name, which I forget at this moment. But valuable or
not, we cannot hurt it, can we, sir, by passing it over
the cream-pan?'

'Hurt it!' cried the Counsellor: 'nay, we shall do it
good, my dear. It will help to raise the cream: and
you may take my word for it, young maiden, none can do
good in this world, without in turn receiving it.'
Pronouncing this great sentiment, he looked so grand
and benevolent, that Annie (as she said afterwards)
could scarce forbear from kissing him, yet feared to
take the liberty. Therefore, she only ran away to
fetch my Lorna's necklace.

Now as luck would have it--whether good luck or
otherwise, you must not judge too hastily,--my darling
had taken it into her head, only a day or two before,
that I was far too valuable to be trusted with her
necklace. Now that she had some idea of its price and
quality, she had begun to fear that some one, perhaps
even Squire Faggus (in whom her faith was illiberal),
might form designs against my health, to win the bauble
from me. So, with many pretty coaxings, she had led me
to give it up; which, except for her own sake, I was
glad enough to do, misliking a charge of such
importance.

Therefore Annie found it sparkling in the little secret
hole, near the head of Lorna's bed, which she herself
had recommended for its safer custody; and without a
word to any one she brought it down, and danced it in
the air before the Counsellor, for him to admire its
lustre.

'Oh, that old thing!' said the gentleman, in a tone of
some contempt; 'I remember that old thing well enough.
However, for want of a better, no doubt it will answer
our purpose. Three times three, I pass it over.
Crinkleum, crankum, grass and clover! What are you
feared of, you silly child?'

'Good sir, it is perfect witchcraft! I am sure of that,
because it rhymes. Oh, what would mother say to me?
Shall I ever go to heaven again? Oh, I see the cream
already!'

'To be sure you do; but you must not look, or the whole
charm will be broken, and the devil will fly away with
the pan, and drown every cow you have got in it.'

'Oh, sir, it is too horrible. How could you lead me to
such a sin? Away with thee, witch of Endor!'

For the door began to creak, and a broom appeared
suddenly in the opening, with our Betty, no doubt,
behind it. But Annie, in the greatest terror, slammed
the door, and bolted it, and then turned again to the
Counsellor; yet looking at his face, had not the
courage to reproach him. For his eyes rolled like two
blazing barrels, and his white shagged brows were knit
across them, and his forehead scowled in black furrows,
so that Annie said that if she ever saw the devil, she
saw him then, and no mistake. Whether the old man
wished to scare her, or whether he was trying not to
laugh, is more than I can tell you.

'Now,' he said, in a deep stern whisper; 'not a word of
this to a living soul; neither must you, nor any other
enter this place for three hours at least. By that
time the charm will have done its work: the pan will be
cream to the bottom; and you will bless me for a secret
which will make your fortune. Put the bauble under
this pannikin; which none must lift for a day and a
night. Have no fear, my simple wench; not a breath of
harm shall come to you, if you obey my orders'

'Oh, that I will, sir, that I will: if you will only
tell me what to do.'

'Go to your room, without so much as a single word to
any one. Bolt yourself in, and for three hours now,
read the Lord's Prayer backwards.'

Poor Annie was only too glad to escape, upon these
conditions; and the Counsellor kissed her upon the
forehead and told her not to make her eyes red, because
they were much too sweet and pretty. She dropped them
at this, with a sob and a curtsey, and ran away to her
bedroom; but as for reading the Lord's Prayer
backwards, that was much beyond her; and she had not
done three words quite right, before the three hours
expired.

Meanwhile the Counsellor was gone. He bade our mother
adieu, with so much dignity of bearing, and such warmth
of gratitude, and the high-bred courtesy of the old
school (now fast disappearing), that when he was gone,
dear mother fell back on the chair which he had used
last night, as if it would teach her the graces. And
for more than an hour she made believe not to know what
there was for dinner.

'Oh, the wickedness of the world! Oh, the lies that are
told of people--or rather I mean the
falsehoods--because a man is better born, and has
better manners! Why, Lorna, how is it that you never
speak about your charming uncle? Did you notice,
Lizzie, how his silver hair was waving upon his velvet
collar, and how white his hands were, and every nail
like an acorn; only pink like shell-fish, or at least
like shells? And the way he bowed, and dropped his
eyes, from his pure respect for me! And then, that he
would not even speak, on account of his emotion; but
pressed my hand in silence! Oh, Lizzie, you have read
me beautiful things about Sir Gallyhead, and the rest;
but nothing to equal Sir Counsellor.'

'You had better marry him, madam,' said I, coming in
very sternly; though I knew I ought not to say it: 'he
can repay your adoration. He has stolen a hundred
thousand pounds.'

'John,' cried my mother, 'you are mad!'  And yet she
turned as pale as death; for women are so quick at
turning; and she inkled what it was.

'Of course I am, mother; mad about the marvels of Sir
Galahad. He has gone off with my Lorna's necklace.
Fifty farms like ours can never make it good to Lorna.'

Hereupon ensued grim silence. Mother looked at
Lizzie's face, for she could not look at me; and Lizzie
looked at me, to know: and as for me, I could have
stamped almost on the heart of any one. It was not the
value of the necklace--I am not so low a hound as
that--nor was it even the damned folly shown by every
one of us--it was the thought of Lorna's sorrow for
her ancient plaything; and even more, my fury at the
breach of hospitality.

But Lorna came up to me softly, as a woman should
always come; and she laid one hand upon my shoulder;
and she only looked at me. She even seemed to fear to
look, and dropped her eyes, and sighed at me. Without
a word, I knew by that, how I must have looked like
Satan; and the evil spirit left my heart; when she had
made me think of it.

'Darling John, did you want me to think that you cared
for my money, more than for me?'

I led her away from the rest of them, being desirous of
explaining things, when I saw the depth of her nature
opened, like an everlasting well, to me. But she would
not let me say a word, or do anything by ourselves, as
it were: she said, 'Your duty is to your mother: this
blow is on her, and not on me.'

I saw that she was right; though how she knew it is
beyond me; and I asked her just to go in front, and
bring my mother round a little. For I must let my
passion pass: it may drop its weapons quickly; but it
cannot come and go, before a man has time to think.

Then Lorna went up to my mother, who was still in the
chair of elegance; and she took her by both hands, and
said,--

'Dearest mother, I shall fret so, if I see you
fretting. And to fret will kill me, mother. They have
always told me so.'

Poor mother bent on Lorna's shoulder, without thought
of attitude, and laid her cheek on Lorna's breast, and
sobbed till Lizzie was jealous, and came with two
pocket-handkerchiefs. As for me, my heart was lighter
(if they would only dry their eyes, and come round by
dinnertime) than it had been since the day on which Tom
Faggus discovered the value of that blessed and cursed
necklace. None could say that I wanted Lorna for her
money now. And perhaps the Doones would let me have
her; now that her property was gone.

But who shall tell of Annie's grief? The poor little
thing would have staked her life upon finding the
trinket, in all its beauty, lying under the pannikin.
She proudly challenged me to lift it--which I had
done, long ere that, of course--if only I would take
the risk of the spell for my incredulity. I told her
not to talk of spells, until she could spell a word
backwards; and then to look into the pan where the
charmed cream should be. She would not acknowledge
that the cream was the same as all the rest was: and
indeed it was not quite the same, for the points of
poor Lorna's diamonds had made a few star-rays across
the rich firm crust of yellow.

But when we raised the pannikin, and there was nothing
under it, poor Annie fell against the wall, which had
been whitened lately; and her face put all the white to
scorn. My love, who was as fond of her, as if she had
known her for fifty years, hereupon ran up and caught
her, and abused all diamonds. I will dwell no more
upon Annie's grief, because we felt it all so much.
But I could not help telling her, if she wanted a
witch, to seek good Mother Melldrum, a legitimate
performer.

That same night Master Jeremy Stickles (of whose
absence the Counsellor must have known) came back, with
all equipment ready for the grand attack. Now the
Doones knew, quite as well as we did, that this attack
was threatening; and that but for the wonderful weather
it would have been made long ago. Therefore we, or at
least our people (for I was doubtful about going), were
sure to meet with a good resistance, and due
preparation.

It was very strange to hear and see, and quite
impossible to account for, that now some hundreds of
country people (who feared to whisper so much as a word
against the Doones a year ago, and would sooner have
thought of attacking a church, in service time, than
Glen Doone) now sharpened their old cutlasses, and laid
pitch-forks on the grindstone, and bragged at every
village cross, as if each would kill ten Doones
himself, neither care to wipe his hands afterwards.
And this fierce bravery, and tall contempt, had been
growing ever since the news of the attack upon our
premises had taken good people by surprise; at least as
concerned the issue.

Jeremy Stickles laughed heartily about Annie's new
manner of charming the cream; but he looked very grave
at the loss of the jewels, so soon as he knew their
value.

'My son,' he exclaimed, 'this is very heavy. It will
go ill with all of you to make good this loss, as I
fear that you will have to do.'

'What!' cried I, with my blood running cold. 'We make
good the loss, Master Stickles! Every farthing we have
in the world, and the labour of our lives to boot, will
never make good the tenth of it.'

'It would cut me to the heart,' he answered, laying his
hand on mine, 'to hear of such a deadly blow to you and
your good mother. And this farm; how long, John, has
it been in your family?'

'For at least six hundred years,' I said, with a
foolish pride that was only too like to end in groans;
'and some people say, by a Royal grant, in the time of
the great King Alfred. At any rate, a Ridd was with
him throughout all his hiding-time. We have always
held by the King and crown: surely none will turn us
out, unless we are guilty of treason?'

'My son,' replied Jeremy very gently, so that I could
love him for it, 'not a word to your good mother of
this unlucky matter. Keep it to yourself, my boy, and
try to think but little of it. After all, I may be
wrong: at any rate, least said best mended.'

'But Jeremy, dear Jeremy, how can I bear to leave it
so? Do you suppose that I can sleep, and eat my food,
and go about, and look at other people, as if nothing
at all had happened? And all the time have it on my
mind, that not an acre of all the land, nor even our
old sheep-dog, belongs to us, of right at all! It is
more than I can do, Jeremy. Let me talk, and know the
worst of it.'

'Very well,' replied Master Stickles, seeing that both
the doors were closed; 'I thought that nothing could
move you, John; or I never would have told you. Likely
enough I am quite wrong; and God send that I be so.
But what I guessed at some time back seems more than a
guess, now that you have told me about these wondrous
jewels. Now will you keep, as close as death, every
word I tell you?'

'By the honour of a man, I will. Until you yourself
release me.'

'That is quite enough, John. From you I want no oath;
which, according to my experience, tempts a man to lie
the more, by making it more important. I know you now
too well to swear you, though I have the power. Now,
my lad, what I have to say will scare your mind in one
way, and ease it in another. I think that you have
been hard pressed--I can read you like a book, John--by
something which that old villain said, before he stole
the necklace. You have tried not to dwell upon it; you
have even tried to make light of it for the sake of the
women: but on the whole it has grieved you more than
even this dastard robbery.'

'It would have done so, Jeremy Stickles, if I could
once have believed it. And even without much belief,
it is so against our manners, that it makes me
miserable. Only think of loving Lorna, only think of
kissing her; and then remembering that her father had
destroyed the life of mine!'

'Only think,' said Master Stickles, imitating my very
voice, 'of Lorna loving you, John, of Lorna kissing
you, John; and all the while saying to herself, "this
man's father murdered mine."  Now look at it in Lorna's
way as well as in your own way. How one-sided all men
are!'

'I may look at it in fifty ways, and yet no good will
come of it. Jeremy, I confess to you, that I tried to
make the best of it; partly to baffle the Counsellor,
and partly because my darling needed my help, and bore
it so, and behaved to me so nobly. But to you in
secret, I am not ashamed to say that a woman may look
over this easier than a man may.'

'Because her nature is larger, my son, when she truly
loves; although her mind be smaller. Now, if I can
ease you from this secret burden, will you bear, with
strength and courage, the other which I plant on you?'

'I will do my best,' said I.

'No man can do more,' said he and so began his story.

CHAPTER LIII

JEREMY FINDS OUT SOMETHING

'You know, my son,' said Jeremy Stickles, with a good
pull at his pipe, because he was going to talk so much,
and putting his legs well along the settle; 'it has
been my duty, for a wearier time than I care to think
of (and which would have been unbearable, except for
your great kindness), to search this neighbourhood
narrowly, and learn everything about everybody. Now
the neighbourhood itself is queer; and people have
different ways of thinking from what we are used to in
London. For instance now, among your folk, when any
piece of news is told, or any man's conduct spoken of,
the very first question that arises in your mind is
this--"Was this action kind and good?"  Long after that,
you say to yourselves, "does the law enjoin or forbid
this thing?"  Now here is your fundamental error: for
among all truly civilised people the foremost of all
questions is, "how stands the law herein?" And if the
law approve, no need for any further questioning. That
this is so, you may take my word: for I know the law
pretty thoroughly.

'Very well; I need not say any more about that, for I
have shown that you are all quite wrong. I only speak
of this savage tendency, because it explains so many
things which have puzzled me among you, and most of all
your kindness to men whom you never saw before; which
is an utterly illegal thing. It also explains your
toleration of these outlaw Doones so long. If your
views of law had been correct, and law an element of
your lives, these robbers could never have been
indulged for so many years amongst you: but you must
have abated the nuisance.'

'Now, Stickles,' I cried, 'this is too bad!' he was
delivering himself so grandly. 'Why you yourself have
been amongst us, as the balance, and sceptre, and sword
of law, for nigh upon a twelvemonth; and have you
abated the nuisance, or even cared to do it, until they
began to shoot at you?'

'My son,' he replied, 'your argument is quite beside
the purpose, and only tends to prove more clearly that
which I have said of you. However, if you wish to hear
my story, no more interruptions. I may not have a
chance to tell you, perhaps for weeks, or I know not
when, if once those yellows and reds arrive, and be
blessed to them, the lubbers! Well, it may be six
months ago, or it may be seven, at any rate a good
while before that cursed frost began, the mere name of
which sends a shiver down every bone of my body, when I
was riding one afternoon from Dulverton to Watchett'--

'Dulverton to Watchett!' I cried. 'Now what does that
remind me of? I am sure, I remember something--'

'Remember this, John, if anything--that another word
from thee, and thou hast no more of mine. Well, I was
a little weary perhaps, having been plagued at
Dulverton with the grossness of the people. For they
would tell me nothing at all about their
fellow-townsmen, your worthy Uncle Huckaback, except
that he was a God-fearing man, and they only wished I
was like him. I blessed myself for a stupid fool, in
thinking to have pumped them; for by this time I might
have known that, through your Western homeliness, every
man in his own country is something more than a
prophet. And I felt, of course, that I had done more
harm than good by questioning; inasmuch as every soul
in the place would run straightway and inform him that
the King's man from the other side of the forest had
been sifting out his ways and works.'

'Ah,' I cried, for I could not help it; 'you begin to
understand at last, that we are not quite such a set of
oafs, as you at first believed us.'

'I was riding on from Dulverton,' he resumed, with
great severity, yet threatening me no more, which
checked me more than fifty threats: 'and it was late in
the afternoon, and I was growing weary. The road (if
road it could be called) 'turned suddenly down from the
higher land to the very brink of the sea; and rounding
a little jut of cliff, I met the roar of the breakers.
My horse was scared, and leaped aside; for a northerly
wind was piping, and driving hunks of foam across, as
children scatter snow-balls. But he only sank to his
fetlocks in the dry sand, piled with pop-weed: and I
tried to make him face the waves; and then I looked
about me.

'Watchett town was not to be seen, on account of a
little foreland, a mile or more upon my course, and
standing to the right of me. There was room enough
below the cliffs (which are nothing there to yours,
John), for horse and man to get along, although the
tide was running high with a northerly gale to back it.
But close at hand and in the corner, drawn above the
yellow sands and long eye-brows of rackweed, as snug a
little house blinked on me as ever I saw, or wished to
see.

'You know that I am not luxurious, neither in any way
given to the common lusts of the flesh, John. My
father never allowed his hair to grow a fourth part of
an inch in length, and he was a thoroughly godly man;
and I try to follow in his footsteps, whenever I think
about it. Nevertheless, I do assure you that my view
of that little house and the way the lights were
twinkling, so different from the cold and darkness of
the rolling sea, moved the ancient Adam in me, if he
could he found to move. I love not a house with too
many windows: being out of house and doors some
three-quarters of my time, when I get inside a house I
like to feel the difference. Air and light are good
for people who have any lack of them; and if a man once
talks about them, 'tis enough to prove his need of
them. But, as you well know, John Ridd, the horse who
has been at work all day, with the sunshine in his
eyes, sleeps better in dark stables, and needs no moon
to help him.

'Seeing therefore that this same inn had four windows,
and no more, I thought to myself how snug it was, and
how beautiful I could sleep there. And so I made the
old horse draw hand, which he was only too glad to do,
and we clomb above the spring-tide mark, and over a
little piece of turf, and struck the door of the
hostelry. Some one came and peeped at me through the
lattice overhead, which was full of bulls' eyes; and
then the bolt was drawn back, and a woman met me very
courteously. A dark and foreign-looking woman, very
hot of blood, I doubt, but not altogether a bad one.
And she waited for me to speak first, which an
Englishwoman would not have done.

'"Can I rest here for the night?" I asked, with a lift
of my hat to her; for she was no provincial dame, who
would stare at me for the courtesy; "my horse is weary
from the sloughs, and myself but little better: beside
that, we both are famished."

'"Yes, sir, you can rest and welcome. But of food, I
fear, there is but little, unless of the common order.
Our fishers would have drawn the nets, but the waves
were violent. However, we have--what you call it? I
never can remember, it is so hard to say--the flesh of
the hog salted."

'"Bacon!" said I; "what can be better? And half dozen
of eggs with it, and a quart of fresh-drawn ale. You
make me rage with hunger, madam. Is it cruelty, or
hospitality?"

'"Ah, good!" she replied, with a merry smile, full of
southern sunshine: "you are not of the men round here;
you can think, and you can laugh!"

'"And most of all, I can eat, good madam. In that way
I shall astonish you; even more than by my intellect."

'She laughed aloud, and swung her shoulders, as your
natives cannot do; and then she called a little maid to
lead my horse to stable. However, I preferred to see
that matter done myself, and told her to send the
little maid for the frying-pan and the egg-box.

'Whether it were my natural wit and elegance of manner;
or whether it were my London freedom and knowledge of
the world; or (which is perhaps the most probable,
because the least pleasing supposition) my ready and
permanent appetite, and appreciation of garlic--I leave
you to decide, John: but perhaps all three combined to
recommend me to the graces of my charming hostess.
When I say "charming," I mean of course by manners and
by intelligence, and most of all by cooking; for as
regards external charms (most fleeting and fallacious)
hers had ceased to cause distress, for I cannot say how
many years. She said that it was the climate--for even
upon that subject she requested my opinion--and I
answered, "if there be a change, let madam blame the
seasons."

'However, not to dwell too much upon our little
pleasantries (for I always get on with these foreign
women better than with your Molls and Pegs), I became,
not inquisitive, but reasonably desirous to know, by
what strange hap or hazard, a clever and a handsome
woman, as she must have been some day, a woman moreover
with great contempt for the rustic minds around her,
could have settled here in this lonely inn, with only
the waves for company, and a boorish husband who slaved
all day in turning a potter's wheel at Watchett. And
what was the meaning of the emblem set above her
doorway, a very unattractive cat sitting in a ruined
tree?

'However, I had not very long to strain my curiosity;
for when she found out who I was, and how I held the
King's commission, and might be called an officer, her
desire to tell me all was more than equal to mine of
hearing it. Many and many a day, she had longed for
some one both skilful and trustworthy, most of all for
some one bearing warrant from a court of justice. But
the magistrates of the neighbourhood would have nothing
to say to her, declaring that she was a crack-brained
woman, and a wicked, and even a foreign one.

'With many grimaces she assured me that never by her
own free-will would she have lived so many years in
that hateful country, where the sky for half the year
was fog, and rain for nearly the other half. It was so
the very night when first her evil fortune brought her
there; and so no doubt it would be, long after it had
killed her. But if I wished to know the reason of her
being there, she would tell me in few words, which I
will repeat as briefly.

'By birth she was an Italian, from the mountains of
Apulia, who had gone to Rome to seek her fortunes,
after being badly treated in some love-affair. Her
Christian name was Benita; as for her surname, that
could make no difference to any one. Being a quick and
active girl, and resolved to work down her troubles,
she found employment in a large hotel; and rising
gradually, began to send money to her parents. And
here she might have thriven well, and married well
under sunny skies, and been a happy woman, but that
some black day sent thither a rich and noble English
family, eager to behold the Pope. It was not, however,
their fervent longing for the Holy Father which had
brought them to St. Peter's roof; but rather their own
bad luck in making their home too hot to hold them.
For although in the main good Catholics, and pleasant
receivers of anything, one of their number had given
offence, by the folly of trying to think for himself.
Some bitter feud had been among them, Benita knew not
how it was; and the sister of the nobleman who had died
quite lately was married to the rival claimant, whom
they all detested. It was something about dividing
land; Benita knew not what it was.

'But this Benita did know, that they were all great
people, and rich, and very liberal; so that when they
offered to take her, to attend to the children, and to
speak the language for them, and to comfort the lady,
she was only too glad to go, little foreseeing the end
of it. Moreover, she loved the children so, from their
pretty ways and that, and the things they gave her, and
the style of their dresses, that it would have broken
her heart almost never to see the dears again.

'And so, in a very evil hour, she accepted the service
of the noble Englishman, and sent her father an old
shoe filled to the tongue with money, and trusted
herself to fortune. But even before she went, she knew
that it could not turn out well; for the laurel leaf
which she threw on the fire would not crackle even
once, and the horn of the goat came wrong in the twist,
and the heel of her foot was shining. This made her
sigh at the starting-time; and after that what could
you hope for?

'However, at first all things went well. My Lord was
as gay as gay could be: and never would come inside the
carriage, when a decent horse could be got to ride. He
would gallop in front, at a reckless pace, without a
weapon of any kind, delighted with the pure blue air,
and throwing his heart around him. Benita had never
seen any man so admirable, and so childish. As
innocent as an infant; and not only contented, but
noisily happy with anything. Only other people must
share his joy; and the shadow of sorrow scattered it,
though it were but the shade of poverty.

'Here Benita wept a little; and I liked her none the
less, and believed her ten times more; in virtue of a
tear or two.

'And so they travelled through Northern Italy, and
throughout the south of France, making their way
anyhow; sometimes in coaches, sometimes in carts,
sometimes upon mule-back, sometimes even a-foot and
weary; but always as happy as could be. The children
laughed, and grew, and throve (especially the young
lady, the elder of the two), and Benita began to think
that omens must not be relied upon. But suddenly her
faith in omens was confirmed for ever.

'My Lord, who was quite a young man still, and laughed
at English arrogance, rode on in front of his wife and
friends, to catch the first of a famous view, on the
French side of the Pyrenee hills. He kissed his hand
to his wife, and said that he would save her the
trouble of coming. For those two were so one in one,
that they could make each other know whatever he or she
had felt. And so my Lord went round the corner, with a
fine young horse leaping up at the steps.

'They waited for him, long and long; but he never came
again; and within a week, his mangled body lay in a
little chapel-yard; and if the priests only said a
quarter of the prayers they took the money for, God
knows they can have no throats left; only a relaxation.

'My lady dwelled for six months more--it is a
melancholy tale (what true tale is not so?)--scarcely
able to believe that all her fright was not a dream.
She would not wear a piece or shape of any
mourning-clothes; she would not have a person cry, or
any sorrow among us. She simply disbelieved the thing,
and trusted God to right it. The Protestants, who have
no faith, cannot understand this feeling. Enough that
so it was; and so my Lady went to heaven.

'For when the snow came down in autumn on the roots of
the Pyrenees, and the chapel-yard was white with it,
many people told the lady that it was time for her to
go. And the strongest plea of all was this, that now
she bore another hope of repeating her husband's
virtues. So at the end of October, when wolves came
down to the farm-lands, the little English family went
home towards their England.

'They landed somewhere on the Devonshire coast, ten or
eleven years agone, and stayed some days at Exeter; and
set out thence in a hired coach, without any proper
attendance, for Watchett, in the north of Somerset.
For the lady owned a quiet mansion in the neighbourhood
of that town, and her one desire was to find refuge
there, and to meet her lord, who was sure to come (she
said) when he heard of his new infant. Therefore with
only two serving-men and two maids (including Benita),
the party set forth from Exeter, and lay the first
night at Bampton.

'On the following morn they started bravely, with
earnest hope of arriving at their journey's end by
daylight. But the roads were soft and very deep, and
the sloughs were out in places; and the heavy coach
broke down in the axle, and needed mending at
Dulverton; and so they lost three hours or more, and
would have been wiser to sleep there. But her ladyship
would not hear of it; she must be home that night, she
said, and her husband would be waiting. How could she
keep him waiting now, after such a long, long time?

'Therefore, although it was afternoon, and the year now
come to December, the horses were put to again, and the
heavy coach went up the hill, with the lady and her two
children, and Benita, sitting inside of it; the other
maid, and two serving-men (each man with a great
blunderbuss) mounted upon the outside; and upon the
horses three Exeter postilions. Much had been said at
Dulverton, and even back at Bampton, about some great
freebooters, to whom all Exmoor owed suit and service,
and paid them very punctually. Both the serving-men
were scared, even over their ale, by this. But the
lady only said, "Drive on; I know a little of
highwaymen: they never rob a lady."

'Through the fog and through the muck the coach went
on, as best it might; sometimes foundered in a slough,
with half of the horses splashing it, and some-times
knuckled up on a bank, and straining across the middle,
while all the horses kicked at it. However, they went
on till dark as well as might be expected. But when
they came, all thanking God, to the pitch and slope of
the sea-bank, leading on towards Watchett town, and
where my horse had shied so, there the little boy
jumped up, and clapped his hands at the water; and
there (as Benita said) they met their fate, and could
not fly it.

'Although it was past the dusk of day, the silver light
from the sea flowed in, and showed the cliffs, and the
gray sand-line, and the drifts of wreck, and
wrack-weed. It showed them also a troop of horsemen,
waiting under a rock hard by, and ready to dash upon
them. The postilions lashed towards the sea, and the
horses strove in the depth of sand, and the serving-men
cocked their blunder-busses, and cowered away behind
them; but the lady stood up in the carriage bravely,
and neither screamed nor spoke, but hid her son behind
her. Meanwhile the drivers drove into the sea, till
the leading horses were swimming.

'But before the waves came into the coach, a score of
fierce men were round it. They cursed the postilions
for mad cowards, and cut the traces, and seized the
wheel-horses, all-wild with dismay in the wet and the
dark. Then, while the carriage was heeling over, and
well-nigh upset in the water, the lady exclaimed, "I
know that man! He is our ancient enemy;" and Benita
(foreseeing that all their boxes would be turned inside
out, or carried away), snatched the most valuable of
the jewels, a magnificent necklace of diamonds, and
cast it over the little girl's head, and buried it
under her travelling-cloak, hoping to save it. Then a
great wave, crested with foam, rolled in, and the coach
was thrown on its side, and the sea rushed in at the
top and the windows, upon shrieking, and clashing, and
fainting away.

'What followed Benita knew not, as one might well
suppose, herself being stunned by a blow on the head,
beside being palsied with terror. "See, I have the
mark now," she said, "where the jamb of the door came
down on me!"  But when she recovered her senses, she
found herself lying upon the sand, the robbers were out
of sight, and one of the serving-men was bathing her
forehead with sea water. For this she rated him well,
having taken already too much of that article; and then
she arose and ran to her mistress, who was sitting
upright on a little rock, with her dead boy's face to
her bosom, sometimes gazing upon him, and sometimes
questing round for the other one.

'Although there were torches and links around, and she
looked at her child by the light of them, no one dared
to approach the lady, or speak, or try to help her.
Each man whispered his fellow to go, but each hung back
himself, and muttered that it was too awful to meddle
with. And there she would have sat all night, with the
fine little fellow stone dead in her arms, and her
tearless eyes dwelling upon him, and her heart but not
her mind thinking, only that the Italian women stole up
softly to her side, and whispered, "It is the will of
God."

'"So it always seems to be," were all the words the
mother' answered; and then she fell on Benita's neck;
and the men were ashamed to be near her weeping; and a
sailor lay down and bellowed. Surely these men are the
best.

'Before the light of the morning came along the tide to
Watchett my Lady had met her husband. They took her
into the town that night, but not to her own castle;
and so the power of womanhood (which is itself
maternity) came over swiftly upon her. The lady, whom
all people loved (though at certain times particular),
lies in Watchett little churchyard, with son and heir
at her right hand, and a little babe, of sex unknown,
sleeping on her bosom.

'This is a miserable tale,' said Jeremy Stickles
brightly; 'hand me over the schnapps, my boy. What
fools we are to spoil our eyes for other people's
troubles! Enough of our own to keep them clean,
although we all were chimney-sweeps. There is nothing
like good hollands, when a man becomes too sensitive.
Restore the action of the glands; that is my rule,
after weeping. Let me make you another, John. You are
quite low-spirited.'

But although Master Jeremy carried on so (as became his
manhood), and laughed at the sailor's bellowing; bless
his heart, I knew as well that tears were in his brave
keen eyes, as if I had dared to look for them, or to
show mine own.

'And what was the lady's name?' I asked; 'and what
became of the little girl? And why did the woman stay
there?'

'Well!' cried Jeremy Stickles, only too glad to be
cheerful again: 'talk of a woman after that! As we used
to say at school--"Who dragged whom, how many times, in
what manner, round the wall of what?"  But to begin,
last first, my John (as becomes a woman): Benita stayed
in that blessed place, because she could not get away
from it. The Doones--if Doones indeed they were, about
which you of course know best--took every stiver out of
the carriage: wet or dry they took it. And Benita
could never get her wages: for the whole affair is in
Chancery, and they have appointed a receiver.'

'Whew!' said I, knowing something of London, and sorry
for Benita's chance.

'So the poor thing was compelled to drop all thought of
Apulia, and settle down on the brink of Exmoor, where
you get all its evils, without the good to balance
them. She married a man who turned a wheel for making
the blue Watchett ware, partly because he could give
her a house, and partly because he proved himself a
good soul towards my Lady. There they are, and have
three children; and there you may go and visit them.'

'I understand all that, Jeremy, though you do tell
things too quickly, and I would rather have John Fry's
style; for he leaves one time for his words to melt.
Now for my second question. What became of the little
maid?'

'You great oaf!' cried Jeremy Stickles: 'you are rather
more likely to know, I should think, than any one else
in all the kingdoms.'

'If I knew, I should not ask you. Jeremy Stickles, do
try to be neither conceited nor thick-headed.'

'I will when you are neither,' answered Master Jeremy;
'but you occupy all the room, John. No one else can
get in with you there.'

'Very well then, let me out. Take me down in both
ways.'

'If ever you were taken down; you must have your double
joints ready now. And yet in other ways you will be as
proud and set up as Lucifer. As certain sure as I
stand here, that little maid is Lorna Doone.'

CHAPTER LIV

MUTUAL DISCOMFITURE

It must not be supposed that I was altogether so
thick-headed as Jeremy would have made me out. But it
is part of my character that I like other people to
think me slow, and to labour hard to enlighten me,
while all the time I can say to myself, 'This man is
shallower than I am; it is pleasant to see his shoals
come up while he is sounding mine so!'  Not that I would
so behave, God forbid, with anybody (be it man or
woman) who in simple heart approached me, with no gauge
of intellect. But when the upper hand is taken, upon
the faith of one's patience, by a man of even smaller
wits (not that Jeremy was that, neither could he have
lived to be thought so), why, it naturally happens,
that we knuckle under, with an ounce of indignation.

Jeremy's tale would have moved me greatly both with
sorrow and anger, even without my guess at first, and
now my firm belief, that the child of those unlucky
parents was indeed my Lorna. And as I thought of the
lady's troubles, and her faith in Providence, and her
cruel, childless death, and then imagined how my
darling would be overcome to hear it, you may well
believe that my quick replies to Jeremy Stickles's
banter were but as the flourish of a drum to cover the
sounds of pain.

For when he described the heavy coach and the persons
in and upon it, and the breaking down at Dulverton, and
the place of their destination, as well as the time and
the weather, and the season of the year, my heart began
to burn within me, and my mind replaced the pictures,
first of the foreign lady's-maid by the pump caressing
me, and then of the coach struggling up the hill, and
the beautiful dame, and the fine little boy, with the
white cockade in his hat; but most of all the little
girl, dark-haired and very lovely, and having even in
those days the rich soft look of Lorna.

But when he spoke of the necklace thrown over the head
of the little maiden, and of her disappearance, before
my eyes arose at once the flashing of the beacon-fire,
the lonely moors embrowned with the light, the tramp of
the outlaw cavalcade, and the helpless child
head-downward, lying across the robber's saddle-bow.

Then I remembered my own mad shout of boyish
indignation, and marvelled at the strange long way by
which the events of life come round. And while I
thought of my own return, and childish attempt to hide
myself from sorrow in the sawpit, and the agony of my
mother's tears, it did not fail to strike me as a thing
of omen, that the selfsame day should be, both to my
darling and myself, the blackest and most miserable of
all youthful days.

The King's Commissioner thought it wise, for some good
reason of his own, to conceal from me, for the present,
the name of the poor lady supposed to be Lorna's
mother; and knowing that I could easily now discover
it, without him, I let that question abide awhile.
Indeed I was half afraid to hear it, remembering that
the nobler and the wealthier she proved to be, the
smaller was my chance of winning such a wife for plain
John Ridd. Not that she would give me up: that I never
dreamed of. But that others would interfere; or indeed
I myself might find it only honest to relinquish her.
That last thought was a dreadful blow, and took my
breath away from me.

Jeremy Stickles was quite decided--and of course the
discovery being his, he had a right to be so--that not
a word of all these things must be imparted to Lorna
herself, or even to my mother, or any one whatever.
'Keep it tight as wax, my lad,' he cried, with a wink
of great expression; 'this belongs to me, mind; and the
credit, ay, and the premium, and the right of discount,
are altogether mine. It would have taken you fifty
years to put two and two together so, as I did, like a
clap of thunder. Ah, God has given some men brains;
and others have good farms and money, and a certain
skill in the lower beasts. Each must use his special
talent. You work your farm: I work my brains. In the
end, my lad, I shall beat you.'

'Then, Jeremy, what a fool you must be, if you cudgel
your brains to make money of this, to open the
barn-door to me, and show me all your threshing.'

'Not a whit, my son. Quite the opposite. Two men
always thresh better than one. And here I have you
bound to use your flail, one two, with mine, and yet in
strictest honour bound not to bushel up, till I tell
you.'

'But,' said I, being much amused by a Londoner's brave,
yet uncertain, use of simplest rural metaphors, for he
had wholly forgotten the winnowing: 'surely if I bushel
up, even when you tell me, I must take half-measure.'

'So you shall, my boy,' he answered, 'if we can only
cheat those confounded knaves of Equity. You shall
take the beauty, my son, and the elegance, and the
love, and all that--and, my boy, I will take the
money.'

This he said in a way so dry, and yet so richly
unctuous, that being gifted somehow by God, with a kind
of sense of queerness, I fell back in my chair, and
laughed, though the underside of my laugh was tears.

'Now, Jeremy, how if I refuse to keep this half as
tight as wax. You bound me to no such partnership,
before you told the story; and I am not sure, by any
means, of your right to do so afterwards.'

'Tush!' he replied: 'I know you too well, to look for
meanness in you. If from pure goodwill, John Ridd, and
anxiety to relieve you, I made no condition precedent,
you are not the man to take advantage, as a lawyer
might. I do not even want your promise. As sure as I
hold this glass, and drink your health and love in
another drop (forced on me by pathetic words), so
surely will you be bound to me, until I do release you.
Tush! I know men well by this time: a mere look of
trust from one is worth another's ten thousand oaths.'

'Jeremy, you are right,' I answered; 'at least as
regards the issue. Although perhaps you were not right
in leading me into a bargain like this, without my own
consent or knowledge. But supposing that we should
both be shot in this grand attack on the valley (for I
mean to go with you now, heart and soul), is Lorna to
remain untold of that which changes all her life?'

'Both shot!' cried Jeremy Stickles: 'my goodness, boy,
talk not like that! And those Doones are cursed good
shots too. Nay, nay, the yellows shall go in front; we
attack on the Somerset side, I think. I from a hill
will reconnoitre, as behoves a general, you shall stick
behind a tree, if we can only find one big enough to
hide you. You and I to be shot, John Ridd, with all
this inferior food for powder anxious to be devoured?'

I laughed, for I knew his cool hardihood, and
never-flinching courage; and sooth to say no coward
would have dared to talk like that.

'But when one comes to think of it,' he continued,
smiling at himself; 'some provision should be made for
even that unpleasant chance. I will leave the whole in
writing, with orders to be opened, etc., etc.--Now no
more of that, my boy; a cigarro after schnapps, and go
to meet my yellow boys.'

His 'yellow boys,' as he called the Somersetshire
trained bands, were even now coming down the valley
from the London Road, as every one since I went up to
town, grandly entitled the lane to the moors. There
was one good point about these men, that having no
discipline at all, they made pretence to none whatever.
Nay, rather they ridiculed the thing, as below men of
any spirit. On the other hand, Master Stickles's
troopers looked down on these native fellows from a
height which I hope they may never tumble, for it would
break the necks of all of them.

Now these fine natives came along, singing, for their
very lives, a song the like of which set down here
would oust my book from modest people, and make
everybody say, 'this man never can have loved Lorna.'
Therefore, the less of that the better; only I thought,
'what a difference from the goodly psalms of the ale
house!'

Having finished their canticle, which contained more
mirth than melody, they drew themselves up, in a sort
of way supposed by them to be military, each man with
heel and elbow struck into those of his neighbour, and
saluted the King's Commissioner. 'Why, where are your
officers?' asked Master Stickles; 'how is it that you
have no officers?' Upon this there arose a general
grin, and a knowing look passed along their faces, even
up to the man by the gatepost. 'Are you going to tell
me, or not,' said Jeremy, 'what is become of your
officers?'

'Plaise zur,' said one little fellow at last, being
nodded at by the rest to speak, in right of his known
eloquence; 'hus tould Harfizers, as a wor no nade of
un, now King's man hiszell wor coom, a puppose vor to
command us laike.'

'And do you mean to say, you villains,' cried Jeremy,
scarce knowing whether to laugh, or to swear, or what
to do; 'that your officers took their dismissal thus,
and let you come on without them?'

'What could 'em do?' asked the little man, with reason
certainly on his side: 'hus zent 'em about their
business, and they was glad enough to goo.'

'Well!' said poor Jeremy, turning to me; 'a pretty
state of things, John! Threescore cobblers, and farming
men, plasterers, tailors, and kettles-to-mend; and not
a man to keep order among them, except my blessed self,
John! And I trow there is not one among them could hit
all in-door flying. The Doones will make riddles of
all of us.'

However, he had better hopes when the sons of Devon
appeared, as they did in about an hour's time; fine
fellows, and eager to prove themselves. These had not
discarded their officers, but marched in good obedience
to them, and were quite prepared to fight the men of
Somerset (if need be) in addition to the Doones. And
there was scarcely a man among them but could have
trounced three of the yellow men, and would have done
it gladly too, in honour of the red facings.

'Do you mean to suppose, Master Jeremy Stickles,' said
I, looking on with amazement, beholding also all our
maidens at the upstair windows wondering; 'that we, my
mother a widow woman, and I a young man of small
estate, can keep and support all these precious
fellows, both yellow ones, and red ones, until they
have taken the Doone Glen?'

'God forbid it, my son!' he replied, laying a finger
upon his lip: 'Nay, nay, I am not of the shabby order,
when I have the strings of government. Kill your sheep
at famine prices, and knead your bread at a figure
expressing the rigours of last winter. Let Annie make
out the bill every day, and I at night will double it.
You may take my word for it, Master John, this
spring-harvest shall bring you in three times as much
as last autumn's did. If they cheated you in town, my
lad, you shall have your change in the country. Take
thy bill, and write down quickly.'

However this did not meet my views of what an honest
man should do; and I went to consult my mother about
it, as all the accounts would be made in her name.

Dear mother thought that if the King paid only half
again as much as other people would have to pay, it
would be perhaps the proper thing; the half being due
for loyalty: and here she quoted an ancient saying,--

  The King and his staff.
  Be a man and a half:

which, according to her judgment, ruled beyond dispute
the law of the present question. To argue with her
after that (which she brought up with such triumph)
would have been worse than useless. Therefore I just
told Annie to make the bills at a third below the
current market prices; so that the upshot would be
fair. She promised me honestly that she would; but
with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes, which she must
have caught from Tom Faggus. It always has appeared to
me that stern and downright honesty upon money matters
is a thing not understood of women; be they as good as
good can be.

The yellows and the reds together numbered a hundred
and twenty men, most of whom slept in our barns and
stacks; and besides these we had fifteen troopers of
the regular army. You may suppose that all the country
was turned upside down about it; and the folk who came
to see them drill--by no means a needless
exercise--were a greater plague than the soldiers. The
officers too of the Devonshire hand were such a torment
to us, that we almost wished their men had dismissed
them, as the Somerset troop had done with theirs. For
we could not keep them out of our house, being all
young men of good family, and therefore not to be met
with bars. And having now three lovely maidens (for
even Lizzie might he called so, when she cared to
please), mother and I were at wit's ends, on account of
those blessed officers. I never got a wink of sleep;
they came whistling under the window so; and directly I
went out to chase them, there was nothing but a cat to
see.

Therefore all of us were right glad (except perhaps
Farmer Snowe, from whom we had bought some victuals at
rare price), when Jeremy Stickles gave orders to march,
and we began to try to do it. A good deal of boasting
went overhead, as our men defiled along the lane; and
the thick broad patins of pennywort jutted out between
the stones, ready to heal their bruises. The parish
choir came part of the way, and the singing-loft from
Countisbury; and they kept our soldiers' spirits up
with some of the most pugnacious Psalms. Parson Bowden
marched ahead, leading all our van and file, as against
the Papists; and promising to go with us, till we came
to bullet distance. Therefore we marched bravely on,
and children came to look at us. And I wondered where
Uncle Reuben was, who ought to have led the culverins
(whereof we had no less than three), if Stickles could
only have found him; and then I thought of little Ruth;
and without any fault on my part, my heart went down
within me.

The culverins were laid on bark; and all our horses
pulling them, and looking round every now and then,
with their ears curved up like a squirrel'd nut, and
their noses tossing anxiously, to know what sort of
plough it was man had been pleased to put behind
them--man, whose endless whims and wildness they could
never understand, any more than they could satisfy.
However, they pulled their very best--as all our horses
always do--and the culverins went up the hill, without
smack of whip, or swearing. It had been arranged,
very justly, no doubt, and quite in keeping with the
spirit of the Constitution, but as it proved not too
wisely, that either body of men should act in its own
county only. So when we reached the top of the hill,
the sons of Devon marched on, and across the track
leading into Doone-gate, so as to fetch round the
western side, and attack with their culverin from the
cliffs, whence the sentry had challenged me on the
night of my passing the entrance. Meanwhile the yellow
lads were to stay upon the eastern highland, whence
Uncle Reuben and myself had reconnoitred so long ago;
and whence I had leaped into the valley at the time of
the great snow-drifts. And here they were not to show
themselves; but keep their culverin in the woods, until
their cousins of Devon appeared on the opposite parapet
of the glen.

The third culverin was entrusted to the fifteen
troopers; who, with ten picked soldiers from either
trained hand, making in all five-and-thirty men, were
to assault the Doone-gate itself, while the outlaws
were placed between two fires from the eastern cliff
and the western. And with this force went Jeremy
Stickles, and with it went myself, as knowing more
about the passage than any other stranger did.
Therefore, if I have put it clearly, as I strive to do,
you will see that the Doones must repulse at once three
simultaneous attacks, from an army numbering in the
whole one hundred and thirty-five men, not including
the Devonshire officers; fifty men on each side, I
mean, and thirty-five at the head of the valley.

The tactics of this grand campaign appeared to me so
clever, and beautifully ordered, that I commended
Colonel Stickles, as everybody now called him, for his
great ability and mastery of the art of war. He
admitted that he deserved high praise; but said that he
was not by any means equally certain of success, so
large a proportion of his forces being only a raw
militia, brave enough no doubt for anything, when they
saw their way to it; but knowing little of gunnery, and
wholly unused to be shot at. Whereas all the Doones
were practised marksmen, being compelled when lads
(like the Balearic slingers) to strike down their meals
before tasting them. And then Colonel Stickles asked
me, whether I myself could stand fire; he knew that I
was not a coward, but this was a different question. I
told him that I had been shot at, once or twice before;
but nevertheless disliked it, as much as almost
anything. Upon that he said that I would do; for that
when a man got over the first blush of diffidence, he
soon began to look upon it as a puff of destiny.

I wish I could only tell what happened, in the battle
of that day, especially as nearly all the people round
these parts, who never saw gun-fire in it, have gotten
the tale so much amiss; and some of them will even
stand in front of my own hearth, and contradict me to
the teeth; although at the time they were not born, nor
their fathers put into breeches. But in truth, I
cannot tell, exactly, even the part in which I helped,
how then can I be expected, time by time, to lay before
you, all the little ins and outs of places, where I
myself was not? Only I can contradict things, which I
know could not have been; and what I plainly saw should
not be controverted in my own house.

Now we five-and-thirty men lay back a little way round
the corner, in the hollow of the track which leads to
the strong Doone-gate. Our culverin was in amongst
us, loaded now to the muzzle, and it was not
comfortable to know that it might go off at any time.
Although the yeomanry were not come (according to
arrangement), some of us had horses there; besides the
horses who dragged the cannon, and now were sniffing at
it. And there were plenty of spectators to mind these
horses for us, as soon as we should charge; inasmuch as
all our friends and neighbours, who had so keenly
prepared for the battle, now resolved to take no part,
but look on, and praise the winners.

At last we heard the loud bang-bang, which proved that
Devon and Somerset were pouring their indignation hot
into the den of malefactors, or at least so we
supposed; therefore at double quick march we advanced
round the bend of the cliff which had hidden us, hoping
to find the gate undefended, and to blow down all
barriers with the fire of our cannon. And indeed it
seemed likely at first to be so, for the wild and
mountainous gorge of rock appeared to be all in pure
loneliness, except where the coloured coats of our
soldiers, and their metal trappings, shone with the sun
behind them. Therefore we shouted a loud hurrah, as
for an easy victory.

But while the sound of our cheer rang back among the
crags above us, a shrill clear whistle cleft the air
for a single moment, and then a dozen carbines
bellowed, and all among us flew murderous lead.
Several of our men rolled over, but the rest rushed on
like Britons, Jeremy and myself in front, while we
heard the horses plunging at the loaded gun behind us.
'Now, my lads,' cried Jeremy, 'one dash, and we are
beyond them!'  For he saw that the foe was overhead in
the gallery of brushwood.

Our men with a brave shout answered him, for his
courage was fine example; and we leaped in under the
feet of the foe, before they could load their guns
again. But here, when the foremost among us were past,
an awful crash rang behind us, with the shrieks of men,
and the din of metal, and the horrible screaming of
horses. The trunk of the tree had been launched
overhead, and crashed into the very midst of us. Our
cannon was under it, so were two men, and a horse with
his poor back broken. Another horse vainly struggled
to rise, with his thigh-bone smashed and protruding.

Now I lost all presence of mind at this, for I loved
both those good horses, and shouting for any to follow
me, dashed headlong into the cavern. Some five or six
men came after me, the foremost of whom was Jeremy,
when a storm of shot whistled and patted around me,
with a blaze of light and a thunderous roar. On I
leaped, like a madman, and pounced on one gunner, and
hurled him across his culverin; but the others had
fled, and a heavy oak door fell to with a bang, behind
them. So utterly were my senses gone, and naught but
strength remaining, that I caught up the cannon with
both hands, and dashed it, breech-first, at the
doorway. The solid oak burst with the blow, and the
gun stuck fast, like a builder's putlog.

But here I looked round in vain for any one to come and
follow up my success. The scanty light showed me no
figure moving through the length of the tunnel behind
me; only a heavy groan or two went to my heart, and
chilled it. So I hurried back to seek Jeremy, fearing
that he must be smitten down.

And so indeed I found him, as well as three other poor
fellows, struck by the charge of the culverin, which
had passed so close beside me. Two of the four were as
dead as stones, and growing cold already, but Jeremy
and the other could manage to groan, just now and then.
So I turned my attention to them, and thought no more
of fighting.

Having so many wounded men, and so many dead among us,
we loitered at the cavern's mouth, and looked at one
another, wishing only for somebody to come and take
command of us. But no one came; and I was griefed so
much about poor Jeremy, besides being wholly unused to
any violence of bloodshed, that I could only keep his
head up, and try to stop him from bleeding. And he
looked up at me pitifully, being perhaps in a haze of
thought, as a calf looks at a butcher.

The shot had taken him in the mouth; about that no
doubt could be, for two of his teeth were in his beard,
and one of his lips was wanting. I laid his shattered
face on my breast, and nursed him, as a woman might.
But he looked at me with a jerk at this; and I saw that
he wanted coolness.

While here we stayed, quite out of danger (for the
fellows from the gallery could by no means shoot us,
even if they remained there, and the oaken door whence
the others fled was blocked up by the culverin), a boy
who had no business there (being in fact our clerk's
apprentice to the art of shoe-making) came round the
corner upon us in the manner which boys, and only boys,
can use with grace and freedom; that is to say, with a
sudden rush, and a sidelong step, and an impudence,--

'Got the worst of it!' cried the boy; 'better be off
all of you. Zoomerzett and Devon a vighting; and the
Doones have drashed 'em both. Maister Ridd, even thee
be drashed.'

We few, who yet remained of the force which was to have
won the Doone-gate, gazed at one another, like so many
fools, and nothing more. For we still had some faint
hopes of winning the day, and recovering our
reputation, by means of what the other men might have
done without us. And we could not understand at all
how Devonshire and Somerset, being embarked in the same
cause, should be fighting with one another.

Finding nothing more to be done in the way of carrying
on the war, we laid poor Master Stickles and two more
of the wounded upon the carriage of bark and hurdles,
whereon our gun had lain; and we rolled the gun into
the river, and harnessed the horses yet alive, and put
the others out of their pain, and sadly wended
homewards, feeling ourselves to be thoroughly beaten,
yet ready to maintain that it was no fault of ours
whatever. And in this opinion the women joined, being
only too glad and thankful to see us home alive again.

Now, this enterprise having failed so, I prefer not to
dwell too long upon it; only just to show the mischief
which lay at the root of the failure. And this
mischief was the vile jealousy betwixt red and yellow
uniform. Now I try to speak impartially, belonging no
more to Somerset than I do to Devonshire, living upon
the borders, and born of either county. The tale was
told me by one side first; and then quite to a
different tune by the other; and then by both together,
with very hot words of reviling. and a desire to fight
it out again. And putting this with that, the truth
appears to be as follows:--

The men of Devon, who bore red facings, had a long way
to go round the hills, before they could get into due
position on the western side of the Doone Glen. And
knowing that their cousins in yellow would claim the
whole of the glory, if allowed to be first with the
firing, these worthy fellows waited not to take good
aim with their cannons, seeing the others about to
shoot; but fettled it anyhow on the slope, pointing in
a general direction; and trusting in God for
aimworthiness, laid the rope to the breech, and fired.
Now as Providence ordained it, the shot, which was a
casual mixture of anything considered hard--for
instance, jug-bottoms and knobs of doors--the whole of
this pernicious dose came scattering and shattering
among the unfortunate yellow men upon the opposite
cliff; killing one and wounding two.

Now what did the men of Somerset do, but instead of
waiting for their friends to send round and beg pardon,
train their gun full mouth upon them, and with a
vicious meaning shoot. Not only this, but they loudly
cheered, when they saw four or five red coats lie low;
for which savage feeling not even the remarks of the
Devonshire men concerning their coats could entirely
excuse them. Now I need not tell the rest of it, for
the tale makes a man discontented. Enough that both
sides waxed hotter and hotter with the fire of
destruction. And but that the gorge of the cliffs lay
between, very few would have lived to tell of it; for
our western blood becomes stiff and firm, when churned
with the sense of wrong in it.

At last the Doones (who must have laughed at the
thunder passing overhead) recalling their men from the
gallery, issued out of Gwenny's gate (which had been
wholly overlooked) and fell on the rear of the Somerset
men, and slew four beside their cannon. Then while the
survivors ran away, the outlaws took the hot culverin,
and rolled it down into their valley. Thus, of the
three guns set forth that morning, only one ever came
home again, and that was the gun of the Devonshire men,
who dragged it home themselves, with the view of making
a boast about it.

This was a melancholy end of our brave setting out, and
everybody blamed every one else; and several of us
wanted to have the whole thing over again, as then we
must have righted it. But upon one point all agreed,
by some reason not clear to me, that the root of the
evil was to be found in the way Parson Bowden went up
the hill, with his hat on, and no cassock.

CHAPTER LV

GETTING INTO CHANCERY

Two of the Devonshire officers (Captains Pyke and
Dallan) now took command of the men who were left, and
ordered all to go home again, commending much the
bravery which had been displayed on all sides, and the
loyalty to the King, and the English constitution.
This last word always seems to me to settle everything
when said, because nobody understands it, and yet all
can puzzle their neighbours. So the Devonshire men,
having beans to sow (which they ought to have done on
Good Friday) went home; and our Somerset friends only
stayed for two days more to backbite them.

To me the whole thing was purely grievous; not from any
sense of defeat (though that was bad enough) but from
the pain and anguish caused by death, and wounds, and
mourning. 'Surely we have woes enough,' I used to
think of an evening, when the poor fellows could not
sleep or rest, or let others rest around them; 'surely
all this smell of wounds is not incense men should pay
to the God who made them. Death, when it comes and is
done with, may be a bliss to any one; but the doubt of
life or death, when a man lies, as it were, like a
trunk upon a sawpit and a grisly head looks up at him,
and the groans of pain are cleaving him, this would be
beyond all bearing--but for Nature's sap--sweet hope.'

Jeremy Stickles lay and tossed, and thrust up his feet
in agony, and bit with his lipless mouth the clothes,
and was proud to see blood upon them. He looked at us
ever so many times, as much as to say, 'Fools, let me
die, then I shall have some comfort'; but we nodded at
him sagely, especially the women, trying to convey to
him, on no account to die yet. And then we talked to
one another (on purpose for him to hear us), how brave
he was, and not the man to knock under in a hurry, and
how he should have the victory yet; and how well he
looked, considering.

These things cheered him a little now, and a little
more next time; and every time we went on so, he took
it with less impatience. Then once when he had been
very quiet, and not even tried to frown at us, Annie
leaned over, and kissed his forehead, and spread the
pillows and sheet, with a curve as delicate as his own
white ears; and then he feebly lifted hands, and prayed
to God to bless her. And after that he came round
gently; though never to the man he had been, and never
to speak loud again.

For a time (as I may have implied before) Master
Stickles's authority, and manner of levying duties, had
not been taken kindly by the people round our
neighbourhood. The manors of East Lynn and West Lynn,
and even that of Woolhanger--although just then all
three were at issue about some rights of wreck, and the
hanging of a sheep-stealer (a man of no great eminence,
yet claimed by each for the sake of his clothes)--these
three, having their rights impugned, or even
superseded, as they declared by the quartering of
soldiers in their neighbourhood, united very kindly to
oppose the King's Commissioner. However, Jeremy had
contrived to conciliate the whole of them, not so much
by anything engaging in his deportment or delicate
address, as by holding out bright hopes that the
plunder of the Doone Glen might become divisible among
the adjoining manors. Now I have never discovered a
thing which the lords of manors (at least in our part
of the world) do not believe to belong to themselves,
if only they could get their rights. And it did seem
natural enough that if the Doones were ousted, and a
nice collection of prey remained, this should be parted
among the people having ancient rights of plunder.
Nevertheless, Master Jeremy knew that the soldiers
would have the first of it, and the King what they
could not carry.

And perhaps he was punished justly for language so
misleading, by the general indignation of the people
all around us, not at his failure, but at himself, for
that which he could in no wise prevent. And the
stewards of the manors rode up to our house on purpose
to reproach him, and were greatly vexed with all of us,
because he was too ill to see them.

To myself (though by rights the last to be thought of,
among so much pain and trouble) Jeremy's wound was a
great misfortune, in more ways than one. In the first
place, it deferred my chance of imparting either to my
mother or to Mistress Lorna my firm belief that the
maid I loved was not sprung from the race which had
slain my father; neither could he in any way have
offended against her family. And this discovery I was
yearning more and more to declare to them; being forced
to see (even in the midst of all our warlike troubles)
that a certain difference was growing betwixt them
both, and betwixt them and me. For although the words
of the Counsellor had seemed to fail among us, being
bravely met and scattered, yet our courage was but as
wind flinging wide the tare-seeds, when the sower
casts them from his bag. The crop may not come evenly,
many places may long lie bare, and the field be all in
patches; yet almost every vetch will spring, and tiller
out, and stretch across the scatterings where the wind
puffed.

And so dear mother and darling Lorna now had been for
many a day thinking, worrying, and wearing, about the
matter between us. Neither liked to look at the
other, as they used to do; with mother admiring Lorna's
eyes, and grace, and form of breeding; and Lorna loving
mother's goodness, softness, and simplicity. And the
saddest and most hurtful thing was that neither could
ask the other of the shadow falling between them. And
so it went on, and deepened.

In the next place Colonel Stickles's illness was a
grievous thing to us, in that we had no one now to
command the troopers. Ten of these were still alive,
and so well approved to us, that they could never fancy
aught, whether for dinner or supper, without its being
forth-coming. If they wanted trout they should have
it; if colloped venison, or broiled ham, or salmon from
Lynmouth and Trentisoe, or truffles from the woodside,
all these were at the warriors' service, until they
lusted for something else. Even the wounded men ate
nobly; all except poor Jeremy, who was forced to have a
young elder shoot, with the pith drawn, for to feed
him. And once, when they wanted pickled loach (from
my description of it), I took up my boyish sport again,
and pronged them a good jarful. Therefore, none of
them could complain; and yet they were not satisfied;
perhaps for want of complaining.

Be that as it might, we knew that if they once resolved
to go (as they might do at any time, with only a
corporal over them) all our house, and all our goods,
ay, and our own precious lives, would and must be at
the mercy of embittered enemies. For now the Doones,
having driven back, as every one said, five hundred
men--though not thirty had ever fought with them--were
in such feather all round the country, that nothing was
too good for them. Offerings poured in at the Doone
gate, faster than Doones could away with them, and the
sympathy both of Devon and Somerset became almost
oppressive. And perhaps this wealth of congratulation,
and mutual good feeling between plundered and victim,
saved us from any piece of spite; kindliness having won
the day, and every one loving every one.

But yet another cause arose, and this the strongest one
of all, to prove the need of Stickles's aid, and
calamity of his illness. And this came to our
knowledge first, without much time to think of it. For
two men appeared at our gate one day, stripped to their
shirts, and void of horses, and looking very sorrowful.
Now having some fear of attack from the Doones, and
scarce knowing what their tricks might be, we received
these strangers cautiously, desiring to know who they
were before we let them see all our premises.

However, it soon became plain to us that although they
might not be honest fellows, at any rate they were not
Doones; and so we took them in, and fed, and left them
to tell their business. And this they were glad enough
to do; as men who have been maltreated almost always
are. And it was not for us to contradict them, lest
our victuals should go amiss.

These two very worthy fellows--nay, more than that by
their own account, being downright martyrs--were come,
for the public benefit, from the Court of Chancery,
sitting for everybody's good, and boldly redressing
evil. This court has a power of scent unknown to the
Common-law practitioners, and slowly yet surely tracks
its game; even as the great lumbering dogs, now
introduced from Spain, and called by some people
'pointers,' differ from the swift gaze-hound, who sees
his prey and runs him down in the manner of the common
lawyers. If a man's ill fate should drive him to make
a choice between these two, let him rather be chased by
the hounds of law, than tracked by the dogs of Equity.

Now, as it fell in a very black day (for all except the
lawyers) His Majesty's Court of Chancery, if that be
what it called itself, gained scent of poor Lorna's
life, and of all that might be made of it. Whether
through that brave young lord who ran into such peril,
or through any of his friends, or whether through that
deep old Counsellor, whose game none might penetrate;
or through any disclosures of the Italian woman, or
even of Jeremy himself; none just now could tell us;
only this truth was too clear--Chancery had heard of
Lorna, and then had seen how rich she was; and never
delaying in one thing, had opened mouth, and swallowed
her.

The Doones, with a share of that dry humour which was
in them hereditary, had welcomed the two apparitors (if
that be the proper name for them) and led them kindly
down the valley, and told them then to serve their
writ. Misliking the look of things, these poor men
began to fumble among their clothes; upon which the
Doones cried, 'off with them! Let us see if your
message he on your skins.' And with no more manners
than that, they stripped, and lashed them out of the
valley; only bidding them come to us, if they wanted
Lorna Doone; and to us they came accordingly. Neither
were they sure at first but that we should treat them
so; for they had no knowledge of the west country, and
thought it quite a godless place, wherein no writ was
holy.

We however comforted and cheered them so considerably,
that, in gratitude, they showed their writs, to which
they had stuck like leeches. And these were twofold;
one addressed to Mistress Lorna Doone, so called, and
bidding her keep in readiness to travel whenever called
upon, and commit herself to nobody, except the
accredited messengers of the right honourable Court;
while the other was addressed to all subjects of His
Majesty, having custody of Lorna Doone, or any power
over her. And this last threatened and exhorted, and
held out hopes of recompense, if she were rendered
truly. My mother and I held consultation, over both
these documents, with a mixture of some wrath and fear,
and a fork of great sorrow to stir them. And now
having Jeremy Stickles's leave, which he gave with a
nod when I told him all, and at last made him
understand it, I laid bare to my mother as well what I
knew, as what I merely surmised, or guessed, concerning
Lorna's parentage. All this she received with great
tears, and wonder, and fervent thanks to God, and still
more fervent praise of her son, who had nothing
whatever to do with it. However, now the question was,
how to act about these writs. And herein it was most
unlucky that we could not have Master Stickles, with
his knowledge of the world, and especially of the
law-courts, to advise us what to do, and to help in
doing it. And firstly of the first I said, 'We have
rogues to deal with; but try we not to rogue them.'

To this, in some measure, dear mother agreed, though
she could not see the justice of it, yet thought that
it might he wiser, because of our want of practice.
And then I said, 'Now we are bound to tell Lorna, and
to serve her citation upon her, which these good
fellows have given us.'

'Then go, and do it thyself, my son,' mother replied
with a mournful smile, misdoubting what the end might
be. So I took the slip of brown parchment, and went to
seek my darling.

Lorna was in her favourite place, the little garden
which she tended with such care and diligence. Seeing
how the maiden loved it, and was happy there, I had
laboured hard to fence it from the dangers of the wood.
And here she had corrected me, with better taste, and
sense of pleasure, and the joys of musing. For I meant
to shut out the brook, and build my fence inside of it;
but Lorna said no; if we must have a fence, which could
not but be injury, at any rate leave the stream inside,
and a pleasant bank beyond it. And soon I perceived
that she was right, though not so much as afterwards;
for the fairest of all things in a garden, and in
summer-time most useful, is a brook of crystal water;
where a man may come and meditate, and the flowers may
lean and see themselves, and the rays of the sun are
purfied. Now partly with her own white hands, and
partly with Gwenny's red ones, Lorna had made of this
sunny spot a haven of beauty to dwell in. It was not
only that colours lay in the harmony we would seek of
them, neither was it the height of plants, sloping to
one another; nor even the delicate tone of foliage
following suit, and neighbouring. Even the breathing
of the wind, soft and gentle in and out, moving things
that need not move, and passing longer-stalked ones,
even this was not enough among the flush of fragrance,
to tell a man the reason of his quiet satisfaction.
But so it shall for ever be. As the river we float
upon (with wine, and flowers, and music,) is nothing at
the well-spring but a bubble without reason.

Feeling many things, but thinking without much to guide
me, over the grass-plats laid between, I went up to
Lorna. She in a shower of damask roses, raised her
eyes and looked at me. And even now, in those sweet
eyes, so deep with loving-kindness, and soft maiden
dreamings, there seemed to be a slight unwilling, half
confessed withdrawal; overcome by love and duty, yet a
painful thing to see.

'Darling,' I said, 'are your spirits good? Are you
strong enough to-day, to bear a tale of cruel sorrow;
but which perhaps, when your tears are shed, will leave
you all the happier?'

'What can you mean?' she answered trembling, not having
been vey strong of late, and now surprised at my
manner; 'are you come to give me up, John?'

'Not very likely,' I replied; 'neither do I hope such a
thing would leave you all the happier. Oh, Lorna, if
you can think that so quickly as you seem to have done,
now you have every prospect and strong temptation to
it. You are far, far above me in the world, and I have
no right to claim you. Perhaps, when you have heard
these tidings you will say, "John Ridd, begone; your
life and mine are parted."'

'Will I?' cried Lorna, with all the brightness of her
playful ways returning: 'you very foolish and jealous
John, how shall I punish you for this? Am I to forsake
every flower I have, and not even know that the world
goes round, while I look up at you, the whole day long
and say, "John, I love, love, love you?"'

During these words she leaned upon me, half in gay
imitation of what I had so often made her do, and half
in depth of earnestness, as the thrice-repeated word
grew stronger, and grew warmer, with and to her heart.
And as she looked up at the finish, saying, 'you,' so
musically, I was much inclined to clasp her round; but
remembering who she was, forbore; at which she seemed
surprised with me.

'Mistress Lorna, I replied, with I know not what
temptation, making little of her caresses, though more
than all my heart to me: 'Mistress Lorna, you must keep
your rank and proper dignity. You must never look at
me with anything but pity now.'

'I shall look at you with pity, John,' said Lorna,
trying to laugh it off, yet not knowing what to make of
me, 'if you talk any more of this nonsense, knowing me
as you ought to do. I shall even begin to think that
you, and your friends, are weary of me, and of so long
supporting me; and are only seeking cause to send me
back to my old misery. If it be so, I will go. My
life matters little to any one.' Here the great bright
tears arose; but the maiden was too proud to sob.

'Sweetest of all sweet loves,' I cried, for the sign of
a tear defeated me; 'what possibility could make me
ever give up Lorna?'

'Dearest of all dears,' she answered; 'if you dearly
love me, what possibility could ever make me give you
up, dear?'

Upon that there was no more forbearing, but I kissed
and clasped her, whether she were Countess, or whether
Queen of England; mine she was, at least in heart; and
mine she should be wholly. And she being of the same
opinion, nothing was said between us.

'Now, Lorna,' said I, as she hung on my arm, willing to
trust me anywhere, 'come to your little plant-house,
and hear my moving story.'

'No story can move me much, dear,' she answered rather
faintly, for any excitement stayed with her; 'since I
know your strength of kindness, scarcely any tale can
move me, unless it be of yourself, love; or of my poor
mother.'

'It is of your poor mother, darling. Can you bear to
hear it?'  And yet I wondered why she did not say as
much of her father.

'Yes, I can bear anything. But although I cannot see
her, and have long forgotten, I could not bear to hear
ill of her.'

'There is no ill to hear, sweet child, except of evil
done to her. Lorna, you are of an ill-starred race.'

'Better that than a wicked race,' she answered with her
usual quickness, leaping at conclusion; 'tell me I am
not a Doone, and I will--but I cannot love you more.'

'You are not a Doone, my Lorna, for that, at least, I
can answer; though I know not what your name is.'

'And my father--your father--what I mean is--'

'Your father and mine never met one another. Your
father was killed by an accident in the Pyrenean
mountains, and your mother by the Doones; or at least
they caused her death, and carried you away from her.'

All this, coming as in one breath upon the sensitive
maiden, was more than she could bear all at once; as
any but a fool like me must of course have known. She
lay back on the garden bench, with her black hair shed
on the oaken bark, while her colour went and came and
only by that, and her quivering breath, could any one
say that she lived and thought. And yet she pressed my
hand with hers, that I might tell her all of it.

CHAPTER LVI

JOHN BECOMES TOO POPULAR

No flower that I have ever seen, either in shifting of
light and shade, or in the pearly morning, may vie with
a fair young woman's face when tender thought and quick
emotion vary, enrich, and beautify it. Thus my Lorna
hearkened softly, almost without word or gesture, yet
with sighs and glances telling, and the pressure of my
hand, how each word was moving her.

When at last my tale was done, she turned away, and
wept bitterly for the sad fate of her parents. But to
my surprise she spoke not even a word of wrath or
rancour. She seemed to take it all as fate.

'Lorna, darling,' I said at length, for men are more
impatient in trials of time than women are, 'do you not
even wish to know what your proper name is?'

'How can it matter to me, John?' she answered, with a
depth of grief which made me seem a trifler. 'It can
never matter now, when there are none to share it.'

'Poor little soul!' was all I said in a tone of purest
pity; and to my surprise she turned upon me, caught me
in her arms, and loved me as she had never done before.

'Dearest, I have you,' she cried; 'you, and only you,
love. Having you I want no other. All my life is one
with yours. Oh, John, how can I treat you so?'

Blushing through the wet of weeping, and the gloom of
pondering, yet she would not hide her eyes, but folded
me, and dwelled on me.

'I cannot believe,' in the pride of my joy, I whispered
into one little ear, 'that you could ever so love me,
beauty, as to give up the world for me.'

'Would you give up your farm for me, John?' cried
Lorna, leaping back and looking, with her wondrous
power of light at me; 'would you give up your mother,
your sisters, your home, and all that you have in the
world and every hope of your life, John?'

'Of course I would. Without two thoughts. You know
it; you know it, Lorna.'

'It is true that I do, 'she answered in a tone of
deepest sadness; 'and it is this power of your love
which has made me love you so. No good can come of
it, no good. God's face is set against selfishness.'

As she spoke in that low tone I gazed at the clear
lines of her face (where every curve was perfect) not
with love and wonder only, but with a strange new sense
of awe.

'Darling,' I said, 'come nearer to me. Give me surety
against that. For God's sake never frighten me with
the thought that He would part us.'

'Does it then so frighten you?' she whispered, coming
close to me; 'I know it, dear; I have known it long;
but it never frightens me. It makes me sad, and very
lonely, till I can remember.'

'Till you can remember what?' I asked, with a long,
deep shudder; for we are so superstitious.

'Until I do remember, love, that you will soon come
back to me, and be my own for ever. This is what I
always think of, this is what I hope for.'

Although her eyes were so glorious, and beaming with
eternity, this distant sort of beatitude was not much
to my liking. I wanted to have my love on earth; and
my dear wife in my own home; and children in good time,
if God should please to send us any. And then I would
be to them, exactly what my father was to me. And
beside all this, I doubted much about being fit for
heaven; where no ploughs are, and no cattle, unless
sacrificed bulls went thither.