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CORNELL 
 
 UNIVERSITY 
 
 LIBRARY 
 
 BEQUEST 
 
 WILLIAM P. CHAPMAN, Jr. 
 
 Class of 1895 
 
 1947 
 
Date Due 
 
 AUG 1 3 If 
 
 -Aue^ 
 
 49 J '■ 
 
 9 53 B V 
 
 DCT^- liS S Kg 
 
 ^0V- 
 
 10F7 K iO 
 
 
 Cornell University Library 
 PR4132.L87 1890 
 
 Lorna Doone; a romance of E'""°°''' ''V jj,;"- 
 
 3 1924 013 435 767 ...... .v 
 
Cornell University 
 Library 
 
 The original of this book is in 
 the Cornell University Library. 
 
 There are no known copyright restrictions in 
 the United States on the use of the text. 
 
 http://www.archive.org/details/cu31924013435767 
 
LORNA DOONE 
 
 A ROMANCE OF EXMOOR 
 
 BY 
 
 R. D. BLACKMORE 
 
 WITH MANY DRAWINGS 
 
 CLEVELAND : Zbc Butrows asrotbers 
 Company, publishers— ai dccc xc 
 

 i.-nl'VKIGlIT, 1S89, RV 
 
 THE HURRO\\'S BROTHERS CO.MPAXV 
 
 ALL RIGHTS lx-ESKR\"E]) 
 
 I'RKSS OF Fl-RMINC, I :R KWSTER .^ ALI.K^', XKW YUKK 
 
With ^ . 
 
 TTianyteuing^ 
 

 li Jt T S T <> i 
 
 V The ForoLind 
 
 
 
 
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 foulock ''.■■- - 
 
 -■' Brendan- Uu^tlvrJ\L ujij^'l'-'i^^'"^^^; '''/ .^^\' I''tI.4 , SeiwmUy, 
 
 
 
 =111 
 
 '^■N.ff'" ,^' S ti O"' M fE ilti' S -^ E 
 
PREFACE 
 
 This work is called a "romance," because the incidents, 
 characters, time, and scenery are alike romantic. And in 
 shaping this old tale, the ^^■riter neither dares, nor desires, 
 to claim for it the dignity, or cumber it with the difficulty 
 of an historic novel. 
 
 And yet he thinks that the outlines are filled in more 
 carefully, and the situations (however simple) more warmly 
 coloured and quickened than a reader would e.xpect to find 
 in what is called a "legend." 
 
 .^nd he knows that anv son of E.xmoor, chancing on this 
 volume, cannot fail to bring to mind the nurse-talcs of his 
 childhood — the savage deeils of the r)utlaw l)oones in the 
 depth of Bagworthy Forest, the beauty of the ha|3kss maid 
 brought up in the midst of them, the plain John Ridd's 
 Herculean power, and (memorv's too congenial footl) the 
 e.-cploits of Tom Faggus. 
 
 ^t-\RCH, i86q. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 TO THE SIXTH EDITION 
 
 Few things have surprised me more, and nothing has 
 more pleased me, than the great success of this simple tale. 
 
 For truly it is a grand success to win the attention and 
 kind regard, not of the general public only, but also of 
 those who are at home with the scenery, people, life, and lan- 
 guage, wherein a native cannot always satisf)^ the natives. 
 
 Therefore any son of Devon mav imagine, and will not 
 grudge, the \\'riter's delight at hearing from a recent visitor 
 to the west that " ' Lorna Doone,' to a Devonshire man, is 
 as good as clotted cream, almost ! " 
 
 Although not half so good as that, it has entered many a 
 tranquil, happy, pure, and hospitable home, and the author, 
 while deeply grateful for this genial reception, ascribes it 
 partly to the fact that his story contains no word or thought 
 disl<jyal to its birthright in the fairest county of England. 
 
 
 Janu.\rv, 1873. 
 
PUBLISHERS' PREFACE 
 
 Ix putting this new and somewliat elaborate edition of 
 '■ Lorna iJoone" upon a marlcet already supplied with 
 various others, some of them excellent in quality, we ask 
 the literary men and women of the country to give us 
 their kind support for the reasons set forth herewith. 
 
 In the first place, it seems to us that of the countless 
 thousands of books that have been written in all the vari- 
 ous languages, and during the many ages since first man 
 took to scribbling, no one has ever yet appeared which is 
 the equal of this in its delicate and beautiful touches of 
 both nature and human nature. We have had, in various 
 wavs, abundant proof that our feeling in this respect is 
 not individual to ourselves, and we desire to thank heart- 
 ily the many friends who have sent us their words and 
 letters of encouragement, svmpathy, and interest during 
 the past year as they have by chance become aware of 
 our plans. 
 
 \\'hile there were creditable editions already published, 
 the fact that none existed just such as we ourselves wished 
 for our own library was our primary incentive in undertak- 
 ing this task. The labor upon which we entered was, in 
 short, one of love, and great as has been the expenditure 
 of time, trouble, and money, in the preparation of this 
 book, we have faith to believe that there are a sufficient 
 number of lovers of the peerless maiden, Lorna, to greet 
 her appearance in this new dress with an enthusiasm that 
 will in time repay us. 
 
 A\'e earnestly hope that our judgment in the selection of 
 artists, means, and materials has been, in the main, at 
 least, wise, and that such will be the verdict of book-lov- 
 ers. Also, we hope that our lack of experience as pub- 
 lishers will disarm the critic, and that he will examine the 
 book regarding only the excellencies which he may find, 
 and passing over its defects. 
 
 One special feature we wish particularly to call to the 
 attention of all, and that is the beautiful map of the coun- 
 try we have introduced. This may be regarded by some 
 
Xll PUBLISHERS PREFACE. 
 
 as an innovation in a romance, but we hope that it will be 
 found such a manifest convenience as to be its own suf- 
 ficient excuse. 
 
 In this place it seems to be a duty, also, to call atten- 
 tion to the sympathizing and intelligent interest that has 
 been so freely shown by the noble band of workers, artists, 
 printers, engravers, etc., who have assisted us upon this 
 work. To Mr. Henr)^ Sandham, Mr. George Wharton Ed- 
 wards, Mr. Harry Fenn, Mr. William Hamilton Gibson, 
 Mr. W. H. Drake, Mr. Irving R. Wiles, Mr. George E. 
 Graves, Mr. Charles Copeland, Mr. Harper Pennington, 
 Mrs. Margaret MacDonald Pullman, Miss Harriet Thayer 
 Durgin, Mr. A. V. S. Anthony, Mr. George T. Andrew, 
 Croupil & Co. of Paris, Mr. Kurtz, The ^\■right Gravure 
 Co., Mr. Fillebrown, Mr. William J. Dana, and our very 
 able printers, Messrs. Fleming, Brewster & Alley — to them 
 all we, therefore, extend our cordial acknowledgment of 
 our indebtedness for their services. The fine map is the 
 work of Messrs. Matthews, Northrup & Co. 
 
 Very respectfully. 
 
 The Burrows Brothers Co. 
 
PREFACE 
 
 BY MISS KATHARINE HILLARD 
 
 ALTHOR OF "THE DOONES OF EXMiiOR," I\ " HARTER's MA'iAZlNE," 
 VnL. LXV. PAGE 835 
 
 A N'OVF.L that has stood the test of time so well as Mr. 
 Blackmore's charming- story of " Lorna Doone " scarcely 
 needs a preface. Certainly no word of introduction is 
 necessary to testify to its exquisite humor, its dramatic 
 force, its under-current of poetic feeling, its fine touches 
 of landscape-painting, and the noveltv and interest of its 
 subject. Since it first appeared in 18C9 all these have be- 
 come as household words, only, perhaps, all the admirers of 
 " Lorna Uoone " have not had the good fortune to wander 
 through the romantic and pictures(|ue region where the 
 scene of the story is laid. To travel in North Devon, and 
 over its border into Somerset ("the Summerland," as the 
 old Northmen call it), is to be confronted with the scenes 
 of the novel at every turn ; for Mr. Blackmore has so suc- 
 cessfully woven the legends of the whole countryside into 
 his story that one grows to believe it a veritable history, 
 and is as disappointed to find traces <_)f the romancer's 
 own hand here and there as to find the hills and valleys 
 laid bare of the forests which adorned them in the time 
 of the Doones. 
 
 It is a singular country, this Devonshire ci.iast, made up 
 as it is of a series of rocky headlands jutting far out into 
 the sea, and holding between their stretching arms deep 
 fertile wooded valleys called combes (pronounced coomes), 
 watered by trout and salmon streams, and filled with an 
 Italian profusion of vegetation, myrtles and fuchsias, 
 growing in the open air, and the walls hidden with a luxu- 
 riant tapestry of ferns and ivies and blossoming vines. 
 Even the roofs are covered with flowers ; every cranny 
 bears a blossom or a tuft of green. Then above, long 
 stretches of barren heath (with a few twisted and wind- 
 tortured trees), where the sheep pasture and the sky-lark 
 
XIV 
 
 PREFACE. 
 
 sings, and in and out of the red-fronted cliffs the queru- 
 lous sea-gulls flash in the sunshine, and make their plaint- 
 ive moan. Near Lynton there is the famous Valley of 
 Rocks, where the wise woman, Mother Melldriim, had her 
 winter quarters under the Devil's Cheese-wring. The ir- 
 regular pile of rocks that goes by this name is wrongly 
 
 called Cheese -/zV/^' (or 
 scoop) in some editions of 
 " Lorna Doone," instead 
 of L'.heese-wruig(or /ress) , 
 which it somewhat re- 
 sembles in shape. Southey 
 began the fortune of Lyn- 
 ton as a watering-place, 
 and wrote a glowing de- 
 scription of the village 
 and the \'alley of Rocks. 
 Of the latter he says : " A 
 palace of the pre- Adamite 
 kings, a city of the Ana- 
 kim must have appeared 
 so shapeless and yet so 
 like the ruins of what had been shaped after the waters of 
 the flood subsided." Great bowlders, half hidden by the 
 bracken, lie about in wildest confusion ; the remains of 
 what seem to be Druidic circles can be traced here and 
 there, and it is hard to persuade one's self that the ragged 
 towers and picturesque piles of rock are not the work of 
 Cyclopean architects. 
 
 " Our home-folk always call it the ' Danes,' or the 
 ' Denes,' which is no more, thev tell me, than a hollow 
 place, even as the word ' den ' is," says yo/in Ridd. " It is 
 a pretty place," he adds, "though nothing to frighten any 
 body, unless he hath lived in a gallipot." The valley is 
 well protected from the wind, and " there is shelter and 
 dry fern-bedding and folk to be seen in the distance from 
 a bank whereon the sun shines," Here John Ridd came 
 to consult the wise woman toward the end of March, while 
 the weather was still cold and piercing. In the warm 
 days of summer she lived " in a pleasant cave facing the 
 cool side of the hill, far inland, near Hawkridge, and close 
 over Tarr-steps — a wonderful crossing of Barle River, 
 made (as every body knows) by Satan for a wager." But 
 the antiquarians of to-day assert that the curious steps 
 were made by the early British. 
 
PRKFAri-: 
 
 X\' 
 
 Not far beyond the A'alley of Rocks are the ;,rrounds of 
 Lev Abbey, ;i modern mansion, but oceupying the site of 
 Lev ^h^n(lr, to wliose owner. Baron de ]\'hiiliclialsi\ John 
 Ridd accompanies Master Huckaback in search of a war- 
 rant against the Dooncs. In fad, all the way from Barn- 
 staple, over the parapet of whnse bridge Tom I<'i!xx'"s 
 leaped his wonderful mare, every nook and corner of the 
 countryside teems with legentls of the Dooncs. From 
 Lvnton \ve drive over the border into Porlock, in Somer- 
 set, that quaint little village where Coleridge wrote his 
 " Kubla Khan," and where Lord Lovelace brought Ada 
 Bvron to his seat of Ashley Combe. 
 
 It was while riding home from Porlock market that 
 John Ridd's father was murdered by the Dooncs, and from 
 Porlock we drove in a pony-trap over the high moors to 
 Malmsmead, in 
 search of the 
 ruined huts of the 
 Dooncs. Over the 
 heights of Yarner 
 Moor, and past 
 Oare Ford (now 
 bridged over), 
 the road lay past 
 the old church 
 of Oare, where 
 Lorjia Doone and 
 John Ridd were 
 married, and then 
 into the deep 
 flowery lanes that 
 are the glury of 
 Devon and Som- 
 erset. Malms- 
 mead proved to 
 
 be a little cluster of heavily thatched cottages, nestled 
 under overhanging trees, where stood an ancient sign- 
 board with " Ba^/gworthy " on one of its arms, pointing 
 the way we should go. This d on the old sign-board 
 accounted for the local pronunciation of Badgcry, as the 
 river is always called. 
 
 At Malmsmead the road ends, and thence one must pro- 
 ceed on foot. Several deep and flowery lanes lead one at 
 length to the river wdrere a lonely stone cottage stands on 
 its further brink. This is Clowd Farm, and here all paths 
 
 M.4LMSMEAD. 
 
A- VI PREFACE. 
 
 cease. Two hundred years ago, in the time of the Doones, 
 the narrow valley through which the Bagworthy now 
 dances in the open sunshine was filled with trees; but 
 now, with the exception of a withered and stunted old 
 orchard and grove near the farm, there is not a tree to 
 be seen, and the Bagworthy, a lonely, but cheerful trout 
 stream, rattles along in the broad sunshine through a deep 
 valley, whose sides slope steeply upward. 
 
 After walking about three miles into the heart of the 
 wilderness, another deep glen, shut in by the same sloping 
 heather-covered hills, suddenly opens to the right. There 
 are no cliffs, no overhanging trees, not even a bush, but 
 all along the stream, "with its soft, dark babble," lie 
 heaps and half-circles of stone nearly buried in the turf, 
 and almost hidden by the tall ferns and foxgloves. And 
 this is what we went out for to see ! These are the ruins 
 of the Doones' huts. There could not be anything more 
 disappointing. Two hundred years have effectually de- 
 stroyed all distinctive traits, and they might have been 
 sheep-folds or pig-sties, or any other innocent agricultural 
 erection for aught that we could tell. " Not a single 
 house stood there but was the home of murder," says their 
 historian. The suns and rains of two hundred and odd 
 years have effectually washed out their blood-stains, and 
 there is nothing left there but peace. 
 
 Some way beyond the ruins stands a small stone cottage 
 of the most modern order. \\& found it to be the abode 
 of a shepherd, away with his flock on the hills, but his 
 wife, no shepherdess of the Dresden china order, but a 
 hearty and substantial dame, gave us a cordial welcome. 
 She was in a state of intense delight at our disappoint- 
 ment about the ruins, and discussed the situation in that 
 soft Somersetshire accent that gives such breadth and 
 jollity to the language. " E'll not vind it a beet loike ta 
 bulk," she said, with her cheery laugh. " Bulk's weel 
 mad' up ; it houlds 'ee loike, and ee can't put it by, but 
 there's nobbut three pairts o't truth. Hunnerds cooms up 
 here to se't," she added, with a chuckle. 
 
 The fact is that the traditional and the ideal are as in- 
 extricably mixed in this charming story of " Lorna Doone '" 
 as the thousand varieties of seeds in the fairy tale which 
 the princess was expected to sort out, and it would be al- 
 most as difficult to separate them. Perhaps the best way, 
 after all, is — not to try. 
 
 KaTH.\R1NE HlLLARD. 
 
CONTENTS 
 
 CHAPTER 
 
 I ELEMENTS OF EDUCATION 
 
 II AN IMPDRTANT ITEM 
 
 III THE WAR-PATH OF THE DHOXES 
 
 IX A RASH VISIT 
 
 V AN ILLEGAL SETTLEMENT 
 
 VI NECESSARY PRACTICE 
 
 VII HARI> IT IS TO CLIMB 
 
 VIII A BOY AND A GIRL 
 
 IX THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME . 
 
 X A BRAVE RESCUE AND A ROUGH RIDE 
 
 XI TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER . 
 
 XII A MAN JUSTLV POPULAR . 
 
 XIII MASTER HUCKABACK COMICS IN 
 
 XIV A .MOTION WHICH ENDS IN A MULL 
 
 XV QUO WARRANTO ? 
 
 XVI LORNA GROWING FORMIDABLE 
 
 XVII JOHN IS BEWITCHED 
 
 XVIII WITCHERY LEADS TO WITCHCRAFL 
 
 XIX ANOTHER DANGEROUS INTERVIEW 
 
 XX LORNA BEGINS HER STORY . 
 
 XXI LORNA ENDS HER STORY 
 
 XXII A LONG. SPRING MON TH 
 
 XXIII A ROYAL INVITATION 
 
 XXIV A SAFE PASS FOR KING'S MESSENGER 
 XXV A GREAT MAN ATTENDS T(") BUSINESS 
 
 XX\T JOHN IS DRAINED AND CAST ASIDE 
 
 XXVII HOME AGAIN AT LAST 
 
 XXVIII JOHN HAS HOPE OF LORNA 
 
 XXIX REAPING LEADS TO REVELLING 
 
 XXX ANNIE GETS THE BEST OF IT 
 
 XXXI JOHN fry's ERRAND 
 
 XXXII FEEDING OF THE PIGS 
 
 XXXIII AN EARLY MORNING CALL 
 
 XXXIV TWO NEGATIVES MAKE AN AFFIRMATIVE 
 
 PAGE 
 I 
 
 5 
 
 14 
 28 
 
 37 
 43 
 5' 
 62 
 70 
 
 77 
 86 
 
 93 
 103 
 
 i'3 
 118 
 
 128 
 
 137 
 146 
 
 15^ 
 160 
 169 
 178 
 185 
 
 IV5 
 204 
 
 213 
 221 
 226 
 236 
 246 
 256 
 268 
 280 
 286 
 
XVIU CONTENTS. 
 
 CHAPTER PAGE 
 
 XXXV RUTH IS NOT LIKE LORNA 292 
 
 XXXVI JOHN RETURNS TO BUSINESS 299 
 
 XXXVII A VERY DESPERATE VENTURE 306 
 
 XXXVIII A GOOD TURN FOR JEREMY . 318 
 
 XXXIX A TROUBLED STATE AND A FOOLISH JOKE . 328 
 
 XL TWO FOOLS TOGETHER . 342 
 
 XLI COLD COMFORT . 351 
 
 XLII THE GREAT WINTER . . 35? 
 
 XLIII NOT TOO SOON . 369 
 
 XLIV BROUGHT HOME AT LAST 379 
 
 XLV A CHANGE LONG NEEDED . 389 
 
 XLVI SQUIRE FAGGUS MAKES SOME LUCKY HITS . 397 
 
 XLVII JEREMY IN DANGER .... 4IO 
 
 XLVIII EVERY MAN MUST DEFEND HIMSELF 422 
 
 XLIX MAIDEN SENTINELS ARE BEST 432 
 
 L A MERRY MEETING A SAD ONE 442 
 
 LI A VISIT FROM THE COUNSELLOR 455 
 
 LII THE WAY TO MAKE THE CREAM RISE 464 
 
 LIII JEREMY FINDS OUT SOMETHING 472 
 
 LIV MUTUAL DISCOMFITURE . 483 
 
 LV GETTING INTO CHANCERY . 495 
 
 LVI JOHN BECOMES TOO POPULAR 505 
 
 LVII LORNA KNOWS HER NURSE . . 518 
 
 LVIII M.-VSTER HUCKABACK'S SECRET 535 
 
 LIX LORNA GONE AWAY . . 547 
 
 LX ANNIE LUCKIER THAN JOHN 559 
 
 LXI THEREFORE HE SEEKS COMFORT . 567 
 
 LXII THE KING MUST NOT BE PRAYED FOR 575 
 
 LXIII JOHN IS WORSTED BY THE WOMEN . 587 
 
 LXIV SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES . . 596 
 
 LXV FALLING AMONG LAMBS 604 
 
 LXVI SUITABLE DEVOTION 613 
 
 LXVII LORNA STILL IS LORNA 623 
 
 LXVIII JOHN IS JOHN NO LONGER 632 
 
 LXIX NOT TO BE PUT UP WITH . 644 
 
 LXX COMPELLED TO VOLUNTEER 654 
 
 LXXI A LONG ACCOUNT SETTLED 665 
 
 LXXII THE COUNSELLOR AND THE CARVER . 67I 
 
 LXXIII HOW TO GET OUT OF CHANCERY 680 
 
 LXXIV BLOOD UPON THE ALTAR . 686 
 
 LXXV GIVE AWAY THE GRANDEUR 694 
 
\V. H. Gibson 
 
 
 Henry Sandha.m 
 
 19 
 
 Henry Sandham 
 
 21 
 
 Henry Sanhham 
 
 26 
 
 G. E, Graves 
 
 29 
 
 G. E. Graves 
 
 30 
 
 G. E. Graves 
 
 34 
 
 Harry Fenn 
 
 45 
 
 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS 
 
 Glen Doone (Fro}i/ispii'ci') 
 
 \\'e Happened upon a great Coach and 
 
 Six Horses Labouring Very Heavily 
 "Where Be Us Now? " said John Frv. 
 But the Other said it was but a Pixie 
 He Set His Staff Above His Head and 
 
 Rode at the Doone Robber 
 And Father was found in the Morning 
 
 Dead on the Moor 
 " Here is a Lady, Counsellor, of Great 
 
 Repute in this part of the Country ' 
 Gradually I Won Such Skill . 
 For, Lo ! 1 Stood at the Foot of a Long 
 
 Pale Slide of \\'ater Harper Pennini/i'on 58 
 
 Thereupon I Sate Upright, with my little 
 
 Trident still in one Hand . Harper Pennington 63 
 
 John Ridd at Supper Harper I^enn inc. roN 72 
 
 A Brave Rescue . Harper Pennington 79 
 
 Tom Faggus . . Harper Pennington 81 
 
 Bill Dadds . Harper Pennington 83 
 
 A Rough Ride . . . HARPER Pennington 84 
 
 To Be Upon the Beach Yourself, and 
 
 See the I-ong Waves Coming In . W. H. Drake 100 
 
 LTncle Ben in our warm Chimney-corner Harry Fenn 105 
 
 Farmer Snowe Sat up in the Corner Harper Pennington 114 
 Hugh de Whichehalse . . . Harper Penningti )N 120 
 But Let Annie Scold me well, with a 
 
 Smile to Follow . . . G.W.Edwards 129 
 
 And on Either Bank the Meadow Ruf- 
 fled, as the Breeze Came By Margaret McD. Pullman 131 
 The Willow Bushes Hung as if they 
 
 were Angling, with Tasseled Floats 
 
 of Gold and Silver . Margaret McD. Pullman 132 
 
 "Mother Melldrum" . G. W. Edwards 142 
 
 "Tarr-Steps" . CHARLES Copeland 143 
 
 The Devil's Cheese-ring . W. H. Drake 145 
 
XX 
 
 INDEX TO ILLUSTRATIONS. 
 
 Henry Sandham 150 
 
 " Lie Down, Lie Down ! " I Sliouted to 
 
 Him . 
 For Now the Fields were Spread witti 
 
 Growth, and the Waters Clad with 
 
 Sunshine . Margaret McD. Pullman 
 
 Henry Sandhaji 
 G. E. Graves 
 
 to 
 
 G. 
 G. 
 G. 
 
 Graves 
 Graves 
 Graves 
 
 Harper Pennington 
 Harper Pennington 
 Harper Pennington 
 
 " Here be Some, Mistress Lorna " 
 I Went to Wipe her Eyes for Her . 
 Offering Jewels Lately Belonging 
 
 Other People .... 
 Gwenny Carfax 
 
 He Led Me in a. Courtly Manner 
 Marwood De Whichehalse 
 Mistress Ridd 
 "Read, Read, Read" 
 Jeremy Did His Best to Keep Me Up with 
 
 Jokes, and Tales, and Light Discourse I. R. Wiles 
 
 Annie and Lizzie . . Harper Pennington 
 
 Exmoor Harvest Song MARGARET McD. Pullman 
 
 Thatching of the Ricks . . HARRY Fenn 
 
 " Ha, Ha ! Charlie Boy ! " . . Henry Sandham 
 
 The Pigs . . . \\'. H. Drake 
 
 Autumn's Mellow Hand was on Them 
 
 Margaret McD, Pullman 
 " At Last, Then, you are Come, John " Henry Sandham 
 And Now Both Annie Knew, and I, that 
 
 wc had Gotten the Best of Mother 
 She Turned and by her Side was Stand- 
 ing Poor Ruth Huckaback Herself 
 She had Tears in her Eyes when she 
 
 Bade me Farewell .... 
 " Hand Forth your Money and all your 
 
 Warrants " . . Charles Copelaxd 
 
 None can tell what the Labour was who 
 
 have not felt that Snow and Wind Henry Sandham 
 I was come to the Open Country Charles Copeland 
 
 Set all my Power at once Against the 
 
 Door .... 
 
 For in the Settle was my Lorna 
 I was half-inclined to Jump in and Swim 
 
 through such Glorious Scenery . 
 He Clad her over the Loins 
 •' Master Faggus," began my Mother 
 
 G. E. Graves 
 
 E. Gra\es 
 
 G. E. Graves 
 
 G. 
 G. 
 
 W. Edwards 
 W. Edwards 
 
 Henry Sandham 
 Henry Sandham 
 Henry Sandham 
 
 153 
 157 
 162 
 
 163 
 165 
 172 
 179 
 186 
 190 
 
 197 
 
 242 
 
 ^43 
 
 271 
 274 
 277 
 
 281 
 ^83 
 
 290 
 
 -94 
 296 
 
 339 
 
 361 
 370 
 
 383 
 387 
 
 399 
 
 401 
 407 
 
INDEX TO ILLUSTKAIIOXS. XXl 
 
 I'Ar.K 
 
 But suddenly something fell on my Head ('.. E. Gra\es 41 i 
 
 Tom Faggus took it eagerly, and bore 
 
 it to the Window . G. K. ("iRaves 413 
 
 He Acknowledged it with a wave of His 
 
 Hat . ... . G. E. Gra\es 419 
 
 The ?\loon was high and clearly Light- 
 ing all the Watered X'alleys Charle.s Copelank 433 
 
 I took Him by the Beard . . Harper Bexnixgtox 437 
 
 Annie Bound the Broken Arm Harper PENNlxcrON 440 
 
 -As Snug a little House Blinked on me as 
 ever I saw or wished to see Charles CnpF.r.AND 474 
 
 She, in a Shower of Damask Roses, 
 
 Raised her Eyes and looked at Ale Harry Fenn 503 
 
 I was in the Churchyard at Sunrise G. W. Eli wards 519 
 
 But I Kept my Eyes from Hers Henry .Saxdham 525 
 
 Poor Little Ruth was at the Bridle and 
 Rusting all the Knops of our Town- 
 going Harness with Tears . 
 
 Master Huckaback Cast Back His Coat. 
 
 I Never had Seen the Like Before . 
 
 I Swung me on High to the Swing of 
 the Sledge 
 
 " Dear Cousin, tell me, once for all, what 
 is your Advice to Me ? " 
 
 Waved a Blue Flag ^'ehemently 
 
 Two Bad Men Trying \'ainly to Break 
 Open the Pewter-bo.x 
 
 John Ridd Admiring his Coat-of-Arms. 
 
 Two of the Strongest and Fiercest Men 
 
 at Once Seized Poor A'oung Margery Henry S.ANnHAii 652 
 
 f was Grieved to see a Disdainful Smile 
 
 Spread on his Sallow Countenance . G. E. Gra\es 657 
 
 And the \'olley Sang with a Roar Be- 
 hind it, down the Avenue of Crags G. E. Graves 660 
 
 Having Pipes, and Schnapps-and-Water, 
 
 in the Chimney-corner . G. E. Grave.S 663 
 
 Where the Rising Moonlight Flowed 
 
 Through the Weir-work of the W'ood Charles Cdpeland 677 
 
 Initial Letters, W. H. Drake. Tail-pieces and Marginal Illus- 
 trations by W. H. Drake, G. W. Edwards, Margaret 
 McD. Pullman, Harriet T. Durgin, I. R. Wiles, 
 Harper Pennington. 
 
 Henry Sandhaii 
 
 531 
 
 G. E. Graves 
 
 534 
 
 G. E. Graves 
 
 541 
 
 G. E. Grave.S 
 
 544 
 
 I. R. Wiles 
 
 57- 
 
 I. K. Wills 
 
 582 
 
 G. \\'. Edwards 
 
 639 
 
 Henry Saxdham 
 
 645 
 
CHAPTER I. 
 
 ELEMENTS liF EDUCATION. 
 
 F anybody cares to read a simple 
 tale told simply, I, John Ridd, of 
 the parish of Oare, in the county 
 of Somerset, yeoman and church- 
 warden, have seen and had a 
 share in some doings of this 
 neighbourhood, -which I will try 
 to set down in order, God spar- 
 ing my life and memory. And 
 they who light upon this book 
 should bear in mind, not only 
 that I write for the clearing of 
 our parish from ill-fame and cal- 
 umny, but also a thing which 
 will, I trow, appear too often in 
 it, to wit — that I am nothing 
 more than a plain unlettered 
 man, not read in foreign lan- 
 guages, as a gentleman might 
 be, nor gifted with long words (even in mine own tongue), 
 save what I may have won from the Bible, or Master Will- 
 iam Shakespeare, whom, in the face of common opinion, 
 I do value highly. In short, I am an ignoramus, but pretty 
 well for a yeoman. 
 
 My father being of good substance, at least as we reckon 
 in Exmoor, and seized in his own right, from many gene- 
 rations, of one, and that the best and largest, of the three 
 farms into which our parish is divided (or rather the cul- 
 tured part thereof), he, John Ridd, the elder, churchwarden 
 and overseer, being a great admirer of learning, and well 
 
LORNA DOONE. 
 
 able to write his name, sent me his only son to be schooled 
 at Tiverton, in the county of Devon. For the chief boast 
 of that ancient town (next to its woollen-staple) is a worthy 
 grammar-school, the largest in the west of England, 
 founded and handsomely endowed in the year 1604, by 
 Master Peter Blundell, of that same place, clothier. 
 
 Here, by the time I was twelve years old, I had risen 
 into the upper school, and could make bold with Eutropius 
 and Cfesar — by aid of an English version — and as much 
 as six lines of Ovid. Some even said that I might, before 
 manhood, rise almost to the third form, being of a per- 
 severing nature ; albeit, by full consent of all (except my 
 mother), thick-headed. But that would have been, as I 
 now perceive, an ambition beyond a farmer's son ; for 
 there is but one form above it, and that made of masterful 
 scholars, entitled rightly "monitors." So it came to pass, 
 by the grace of God, that I was called away from learning 
 whilst sitting at the desk of the junior first in the upper 
 school, and beginning the Greek verb rvitroo. 
 
 My eldest grandson makes bold to say that I never could 
 have learned (piXioo, ten pages further on, 
 being all he himself could manage, with 
 plenty of stripes, to help him. I know that 
 he hath more head than I — though never 
 will he have such body ; and am thank- 
 ful to have stopped betimes, with a 
 meek and wholesome head-piece. 
 
 But if you doubt of my having 
 been there, because now I know 
 so little, go and see my name, 
 " John Ridd," graven on that very 
 form. Forsooth, from the time 
 I was strong enough to open a 
 knife and to spell my name, I be- 
 gan to grave it in the oak, first 
 the block whereon I sate, and 
 then of the desk in front of it, ac- 
 cording as I was promoted from one to other of 
 them : and there my grandson reads it now, at this pres- 
 ent time of writing, and hath fought a boy for scoffing at 
 it — "John Ridd his name" — and done again in "winkeys," 
 a mischievous but cheerful device, in which we took great 
 pleasure. 
 
 This is the manner of a " winkey," which I here set down, 
 lest child of mine, or grandchild, dare to make one on my 
 
ELEMENTS UF EDUCATION. 3 
 
 premises ; if he iloes, I shall know the mark at once, and 
 score it well upon him. The scholar obtains, by pra\cr or 
 price, a handful of salt-peter, and then with the knife, 
 wherewith he should rather be tryinj.; to mend his pens, 
 what does he do but scoop a hole where the desk is some 
 three inches thick. This hole should be left with the mid- 
 dle exalted, and the circumfere dug more deeply. Then 
 let him fill it with salt-peter, all save a little space in the 
 midst, where the boss of the wood is. I'pon that boss (and 
 it will be the better if a splinter of timber rise upward) he 
 sticks the end of his candle of tallow, or " rat's tail," as we 
 called it, kindled and burning smoothly. Anon, as he 
 reads by that light his lesson, lifting his eyes now and 
 then it may be, the fire of the candle lays hold of the peter 
 with a spluttering noise and a leaping. Then should the 
 pupil seize his pen, and, regardless of the nib, stir bravely, 
 and he will see a glow as of burning mountains, and a rich 
 smoke, and sparks going merrily ; nor will it cease, if he 
 stir wisely, and there be good store of peter, until the 
 wood is devoured through, like the sinking of a well-shaft. 
 Now well may it go with the head of a boy intent upon his 
 primer, who betides to sit thereunder ! But, above all 
 things, have good care to exercise this art before the mas- 
 ter strides up to his desk, in the early grey of the morning. 
 
 Other customs, no less worthy, abide in the school of 
 Blundell, such as the singeing of nightcaps ; but though 
 they have a pleasant savour, and refreshing to think of, 
 I may not stop to note them, unless it be that goodly one 
 at the incoming of a flood. The school-house stands be- 
 side a stream, not very large, called " Lowman," which 
 flows into the broad river of Exe, about a mile below. 
 This Lowman stream, although it be not fond of brawl and 
 violence (in the manner of our Lynn), yet is wont to flood 
 into a mighty head of waters when the storms of rain 
 provoke it, and most of all when its little co-mate, called 
 the " Taunton brook " — where I have plucked the very best 
 cresses that ever man put salt on — comes foaming down 
 like a great roan horse, and rears at the leap of the hedge- 
 rows. Then are the grey stone walls of Blundell on every 
 side encompassed, the vale is spread over with looping 
 waters, and it is a hard thing for the day-boys to get home 
 to their suppers. 
 
 And in that time, the porter, old Cop (so called because 
 he hath copper boots to keep the wet from his stomach, 
 and a nose of copper also, in right of other waters), his 
 
4 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 place it is to stand at the gate, attending to the flood- 
 boards grooved into one another, and so to watch the tor- 
 rent's rise, and not be washed away, if it please God he 
 may help it. But long ere the flood hath attained this 
 height, and while it is only waxing, certain boys of deputy 
 will watch at the stoop of the drain-holes, and be apt to 
 look outside the walls when Cop is taking a cordial. And 
 in the very front of the gate, just without the archway, 
 where the ground is paved most handsomely, you may see 
 in copy-letters done a great P. B. of white pebbles. Now, 
 it is the custom and the law that when the invading waters, 
 either fluxing along the wall from below the road-bridge, 
 or pouring sharply across the meadows from a cut called 
 "Owen's ditch" — and I myself have seen it come both 
 ways — upon the very instant when the waxing element lips 
 though it be but a single pebble of the founder's letters, it 
 is in the licence of any boy, soever small and undoctrined, 
 to rush into the great school-rooms, where a score of mas- 
 ters sit heavily, and scream at the top of his voice, " P. B." 
 
 Then, with a yell, the boys leap up, or break away from 
 their standing ; they toss their caps to the black-beamed 
 roof, and haply the very books after them ; and the great 
 boys vex no more the small ones, and the small boys stick 
 up to the great ones. One with another, hard they go, to 
 see the gain of the waters, and the tribulation of Cop, and 
 are prone to kick the day-boys out, with words of scanty 
 compliment. Then the masters look at one another, having 
 no class to look to, and (boys being no more left to watch) 
 in a manner they put their mouths up. With a spirited 
 bang they close their books, and make invitation the one 
 to the other for pipes and foreign cordials, recommending 
 the chance of the time, and the comfort away from cold 
 water. 
 
 But, lo ! I am dwelling on little things and the pigeons' 
 eggs of infancy, forgetting the bitter and heavy life gone 
 over me since then. If I am neither a hard man nor a 
 very close one, God knows I have had no lack of rubbing 
 and pounding, to make stone of me. Yet can I not some- 
 how believe that we ought to hate one another, to live far 
 asunder, and block the mouth each of his little den, as do 
 the wild beasts of the wood, and the hairy outangs now 
 brought over, each with a chain upon him. Let that mat- 
 ter be as it will. It is beyond me to unfold, and mayhap 
 of my grandson's grandson. All I know is that wheat is 
 better than when I began to sow it. 
 
CHAPTER 11. 
 
 AN IMPORTANT ITEM. 
 
 -^y-x.. 
 
 |C)W the cause of my leaving Tiver- 
 
 Nton school, and the way of it, 
 were as follows. On the 29th 
 day of November, in the year 
 of our Lord 1673, the very day 
 when I was twelve years old, and 
 had spent all my substance in 
 sweetmeats, with which I made 
 treat to the little boys, till the large 
 boys ran in and took them, we 
 came out of school at five o'clock, 
 as the rule is upon Tuesdays. 
 According to custom, we drove 
 the day-boys in brave rout ilown 
 the causeway, from the school- 
 porch even to the gate where Cop 
 has his dwelling and duty. Little 
 it recked us and helped them less, 
 that they were our founder's citi- 
 zens, and haplv his own grand- 
 nephews (for he left no direct descendants), neither did we 
 much inquire what their lineage was. For it had long been 
 fixed among us, who were of the house and chambers, that 
 these same day-boys were all "caddes," as we had discov- 
 ered to call it, because they paid no groat for their school- 
 ing, and brought their own commons with them. In con- 
 sumption of these we would help them, for our fare in hall 
 fed appetite ; and while we ate their victuals we allowed 
 them freely to talk to us. Nevertheless, we could not 
 feel, when all the victuals were gone, but that these boys 
 required kicking from the premises of Blundell. And 
 some of them were shop-keepers' sons, young grocers, 
 fellmongers, and poulterers, and these, to their credit, 
 seemed to know how righteous it was to kick them. But 
 others were of high family, as any need be, in Devon — 
 
b LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Carews, and Bouchiers, and Bastards, and some of these 
 would turn sometimes, and strike the boy that kicked 
 them. But to do them justice, even these knew that they 
 must be kicked for not paying. 
 
 After these "charity-boys" were gone, as in contumely 
 we called them — "If you break my bag on my head," said 
 one, "whence will you dine, to-morrow?" — and after old 
 C'op with clang of iron had jammed the double gates in 
 under the scruff-stone archway, whereupon are Latin 
 verses, done in brass of small quality, some of us who 
 were not hungry, and cared not for the supper-bell, having 
 sucked much parliament and dumps at my only charges — 
 not that I ever bore much wealth, but because I had been 
 thrifting it for this time of my birth — we were leaning 
 quite at dusk against the iron bars of the gate, some six, 
 or it may be seven of us, small boys all, and not conspicu- 
 ous in the closing of the daylight and the fog that came 
 at eventide, else Cop would have rated us up the green, 
 for he was churly to little boys when his wife had taken 
 their money. There was plenty of room for all of us, for 
 the gate will hold nine boys close-packed, unless they be 
 fed rankly, whereof is little danger ; and now we were 
 looking out on the road and wishing we could get there, 
 hoping, moreover, to see a good string of pack-horses 
 come by, with troopers to protect them. For the day-boys 
 had brought us word that some intending their way to the 
 town had lain that morning at Sampford Peveril, and must 
 be in ere nightfall, because INIr. Faggus was after them. 
 Now Mr. Faggus was my first cousin, and an honour to 
 the family, being a Northmolton man, of great renown on 
 the highway, from Barum town even to London. There- 
 fore, of course, I hoped that he would catch the packmen, 
 and the boys were asking my opinion, as of an oracle, 
 about it. 
 
 A certain boy leaning up against me would not allow my 
 elbow room, and struck me very sadly in the stomach part, 
 though his own was full of my parliament. And this I felt 
 so unkindly, that I smote him straightway in the face 
 without tarrying to consider it, or weighing the question 
 duly. Upon this he put his head down, and presented it 
 so vehemently at the middle of my waistcoat, that for a 
 minute or more my breath seemed dropped, as it were, 
 from my pockets, and my life seemed to stop from great 
 want of ease. Before I came to myself again, it had been 
 settled for us that we should move to the " Ironing-box," 
 
AX IMPORTANT ITKM. 7 
 
 as the triangle of turf is called, where the two causeways 
 coming from the school-porch and the hall-porch meet, 
 and our fights are mainly celebrated ; only we must wait 
 until the convoy of horses had passed, and then make a 
 ring by candlelight, and the other boys would like it. 
 But suddenly there came round the post where the letters 
 of our founder are, not from the way of Taunton, but 
 from the side of Lowman bridge, a very small string of 
 horses, only twt) indeed (counting for one the pony), and 
 a red-faced man on the bigger nag. 
 
 " Plaise ye, worshipful masters," he said, being feared 
 of the gateway, "earn 'e full whur our Jan Ridd be?" 
 
 " Hyur a be, ees fai, Jan Ridd," answered a sharp little 
 chap, making game of John Fry's language. 
 
 ," Zhow un up, then," says John Fry, poking his whip 
 through the bars at us ; "zhow un up, and putt un aowt." 
 
 The other little chaps pointed at me, and some began to 
 holla ; but I knew what I was about. 
 
 " Oh, John, John," I cried, " what's the use of your com- 
 ing now, and Peggy over the moors, too, and it sd cruel 
 cold for her? The holidays don't begin till Wcdnesilay 
 fortnight, John. To think of your not knowing that ! " 
 
 John Fry leaned forward in the saddle, and turned his 
 eyes away from me ; and then there was a noise in his 
 throat, like a snail crawling on a window-pane. 
 
 "Oh, us knaws that wuU enough, Maister Jan ; reckon 
 every Oare-man knaw that, without go to skoo-ull, like 
 you doth. Your moother have kept arl the apples up, and 
 old Betty toorned the black puddens, and none dare set 
 trap for a blagbird. Arl for thee, lad ; every bit of it 
 now for thee ! " 
 
 He checked himself suddenlv, and frightened me. I 
 knew that John Fry's wav so well. 
 
 "And father, and father — oh, how is father?" I pushed 
 the boys right and left as I said it. " John, is father up 
 in town ? He always used to come for me, and leave 
 nobody else to do it." 
 
 " Vayther '11 be at the crooked post, t'other zide o' tell- 
 ing-house.' Her coodn't lave 'ouze by raison of the 
 Christmas bakkon comin' on, and zome o' the cider 
 welted." 
 
 He looked at the nag's ears as he said it, and, being up 
 
 ' The " telling-houses " on the moor are rude cots where the shepherds 
 meet to " tell " their sheep at the end of the pasturing season. 
 
d LORNA DOONE. 
 
 to John Fry's ways, I knew that it was a He, And my 
 heart fell, like a lump of lead, and I leaned back on the 
 stay of the gate, and longed no more to fight anybody. 
 A sort of dull power hung over me, like the cloud of a 
 brooding tempest, and I feared to be told anything. I 
 did not even care to stroke the nose of my pony Peggy, 
 although she pushed it in through the rails, where a 
 square of broader lattice is, and sniffed at me, and began 
 to crop gently after my fingers. But whatever lives or 
 dies, business must be attended to, and the principal busi- 
 ness of good Christians is, beyond all controversy, to fight 
 with one another. 
 
 "Come up. Jack," said one of the boys, lifting me under 
 the chin ; "he hit you, and you hit him, you know." 
 
 " Pay your debts before you go," said a monitor, strid- 
 ing up to me, after hearing how the honour lay ; " Ridd, 
 you must go through with it." 
 
 "Fight, for the sake of the junior first," cried the little 
 fellow in my ear, the clever one, the head of our class, 
 who had mocked John Fry, and knew all about the ao- 
 rists, and tried to make me know it ; but I never went 
 more than three places up, and then it was an accident, 
 and I came down after dinner. The boys were urgent 
 round me to fight, though my stomach was not up for it ; 
 and being very slow of wit (which is not chargeable on 
 me), 1 looked from one to other of them, seeking any cure 
 for it. Not that I was afraid of fighting, for now I had 
 been three years at Blundell's, and foughten, all that time, 
 a fight at least once every week, till the boys began to 
 know me ; only that the load on my heart was not 
 sprightly as of the hay-field. It is a very sad thing to 
 dwell on ; but even now, in my time of wisdom, I doubt 
 it is a fond thing to imagine, and a motherly to insist 
 upon, that boys can do without fighting. Unless they be 
 very good boys, and afraid of one another. 
 
 " Nay," I said, with my back against the wrought-iron 
 stay of the gate, which was socketed into Cop's house- 
 front ; " I will not fight thee now, Robin Snell, but wait 
 till I come back again." 
 
 " Take coward's blow. Jack Ridd, then," cried half-a- 
 dozen little boys, shoving Bob Snell forward to do it, 
 because they all knew well enough, having striven with 
 me ere now, and proved me to be their master — they 
 knew, I say, that without great change I would never 
 accept that contumely. But I took little heed of them. 
 
AN IMPORTANT IlTiM. g 
 
 looking in dull wonderment at John I''ry, and Sniiler, and 
 the blunderbuss, and Petigy, John try was scratcliing 
 his head, I could see, and getting blue in the face, by the 
 light from Cop's parlour-window, and going to and fro 
 upon Smiler, as if he were hard set with it. And all the 
 time lie was looking briskly from my eyes to the fist I 
 was clenching, and methought he tried to wink at me in a 
 covert manner ; and then Peggy whisked her tail. 
 
 "Shall I fight, John?" 1 said at last; "I would an 
 you had not come, John." 
 
 " Chraist's will be done ; I zim thee had better faight, 
 Jan," he answered, in a whisper, through the gridiron of 
 the gate; "there be a dale of faighting avore thee. Best 
 wai to begin guide taime laike. Wull the geatman latt 
 me in, to zee as thee hast vair plai, lad?" 
 
 He looked doubtfully down at the colour of his cowskin 
 boots, and the mire upon the horses, for the sloughs were 
 exceeding mucky. Peggy, indeed, my sorrel pony, being 
 lighter of weight, was not crusted much over the shoul- 
 ders ; but Smiler (our youngest sledder) had been well in 
 over his withers, and none would have deemed him a 
 piebald, save of red mire and black mire. The great 
 blunderbuss, moreover, was choked ^^■ith a dollop of 
 slough-cake ; and John Fry's sad-coloured Sunday hat 
 was indued with a plume of marish-wecd. All this 1 saw 
 while he was dismounting, heavily and wearilv, lifting his 
 leg from the saddle-cloth, as if with a sore crick in his 
 back. 
 
 By this time the question of fighting was gone quite out 
 of our own discretion ; for sundry of the elder bcjys, grave 
 and reverend signors, who had taken no small pleasure in 
 teaching our hands to fight, to ward, to parry, to feign 
 and counter, to lunge in the manner of sword-play, and 
 the weaker child to drop on one knee, when no cunning of 
 fence might baffle the onset — these great masters of the 
 art, who would far liefer see us little ones practice it than 
 themselves engage, six or seven of them came running 
 down the rounded causeway, having heard that there had 
 arisen "a snug little mill" at the gate. Now whether that 
 word hath origin in a Greek term meaning a conflict, as 
 the best-read boys asseverated, or whether it is nothing 
 more than a figure of similitude, from the beating arms of 
 a mill, such as I have seen in counties where are no water- 
 brooks, but folk make bread with wind — it is not for a 
 man devoid of scholarship to determine. Enough that 
 
lO LORNA DOONE. 
 
 they who made the ring intituled the scene a "mill," while 
 we who must be thumped inside it tried to rejoice in their 
 pleasantry, till it turned upon the stomach. 
 
 Moreover, I felt upon me now a certain responsibility, a 
 dutiful need to maintain, in the presence of John Fry, the 
 manliness of the Ridd family, and the honour of Exmoor. 
 Hitherto none had worsted me, although in the three 
 years of my schooling I had fought more than threescore 
 battles, and bedewed with blood every plant of grass 
 towards the middle of the Ironing-box. And this suc- 
 cess I owed at first to no skill of my own, until I came 
 to know better ; for up to twenty or thirty fights, I struck 
 as nature guided me, no wiser than a father-long-legs 
 in the heat of a lanthorn ; but I had conquered, partly 
 through my native strength and the Exmoor toughness in 
 me, and still more that I could not see when I had gotten 
 my bellyful. But now I was like to have that and more, 
 for my heart was down to begin with ; and then Robert 
 Snell was a bigger boy than I had ever encountered, and 
 as thick in the skull, and hard in the brain, as even I 
 could claim to be. 
 
 I had never told my mother a word about these fre- 
 quent strivings, because she was soft-hearted ; neither 
 had I told my father, because he might have beaten me. 
 Therefore, holding me still an innocent-looking child, with 
 fair curls on my forehead, and no store of bad language, 
 John Fry thought this was the very first fight that ever 
 had befallen me ; and so, when they let him in at the gate 
 " with a message to the head-master," as one of the moni- 
 tors told Cop, and Peggy and Smiler were tied to the rail- 
 ings, till I should be through my business, John comes up 
 to me with the tears in his eyes, and says, " Doon't thee 
 goo for to do it, Jan ; doon't thee doo it, for gude now." 
 But I told him that now it was much too late to cry off ; 
 so he said, "The Lord be with thee, Jan, and turn thy 
 thumb-knuckle inwards." 
 
 It is not a very large piece of ground in the angle of 
 the causeways, but quite big enough to fight upon, es- 
 pecially for Christians, who love to be cheek by jowl at 
 it. The great boys stood in a circle around, being gifted 
 with strong privilege, and the little boys had leave to lie 
 flat, and look through the legs of the great boys. But 
 while we were yet preparing, and the candles hissed in the 
 fog-cloud, old Phoebe, of more than fourscore years, whose 
 room was over the hall-porch, came hobbling out, as she 
 
AN liMPOKTANT ITEM. II 
 
 always did, to mar the joy of the conflict. No one ever 
 heeded her, neither did .she expect it ; but the evil wa.s 
 that two senior boys must always lose the first round of 
 the fight, by having to lead her home again. 
 
 I marvel how Robin Snell felt. \'ery likely he thought 
 nothing of it, always having been a boy of an hectoring 
 and unruly sort. lUit I felt my heart go up and down, as 
 the boys came round to strip me ; and greatly fearing to 
 be beaten, I blew hot upon my knuckles. Then pulled I 
 off my little cut jerkin, and laid it down on my head cap, 
 and over that my waistcoat ; and a boy was proud to take 
 care of them, Thomas Hooper was his name, and I re- 
 member how he looked at me. My mother had made that 
 little cut jerkin, in the quiet winter evenings, and taken 
 pride to loop it up in a fashionable way, and I was loth to 
 soil it with blood, and good filberds were in the pocket. 
 Then up to me came Robin Snell (mayor of E.xeter thrice 
 since that), and he stood very square, and looked at me, 
 and I lacked not long to look at him. Round his waist he 
 had a kerchief, busking up his small-clothes, and on his 
 feet light pumpkin shoes, and all his upper raiment off. 
 And he danced about, in a way that made my head swim 
 on my shoulders, and he stood some inches over me. But 
 I, being muddled with much doubt about John Frv and 
 his errand, was only stripped of my jerkin and waistcoat, 
 and not comfortable to begin. 
 
 "Come now, shake hands," cried a big bo\-, jumping in 
 joy of the spectacle, a thircl-former nearly six feet high ; 
 " shake hands, you little devils. Keep your pluck up, and 
 show good sport, and Lord love the better man of you." 
 
 Robin took me by the hand, and gazed at me disdain- 
 fully, and then smote me painfully in the face, ere I could 
 get my fence up. 
 
 "Whutt be 'bout, lad?" cried John Fry; " hutt un 
 again, Jan, wuU 'e ? Well done then, our Jan boy." 
 
 For i had replied to Robin now with all the weight and 
 cadence of penthemimeral caesura (a thing, the name of 
 which I know, but could never make head nor tail of it), 
 and the strife began in a serious style, and the boys look- 
 ing on were not cheated. Although I could not collect 
 their shouts when the blows were ringing upon me, it was 
 no great loss, for John Fry told me afterwards that their 
 oaths went up like a furnace fire. But to these we paid 
 no heed or hap, being in the thick of swinging, and devoid 
 of judgment. All I know is, I came to my corner, when 
 
12 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the round was over, with very hard pumps in my chest, 
 and a great desire to fall away. 
 
 " Time is up," cried head-monitor, ere ever I got my 
 breath again ; and when I fain would have lingered awhile 
 on the knee of the boy that held me. John Fry had come 
 up, and the boys were laughing because he wanted a stable 
 lanthorn, and threatened to tell my mother. 
 
 "Time is up," cried another boy, more headlong than 
 head-monitor. " If we count three before the come of 
 thee, thwacked thou art, and must go to the women ! " I 
 felt it hard upon me. He began to count one, two, three 
 — but before the "three" was out of his mouth, I was fac- 
 ing my foe, with both hands up, and my breath going 
 rough and hot, and resolved to wait the turn of it. For 
 I had found seat on the knee of a boy, sage and skilled to 
 tutor me, who knew how much the end very often differs 
 from the beginning. A rare ripe scholar he was ; and now 
 he hath routed up the Germans in the matter of criticism. 
 Sure the clever boys and men have most love towards 
 the stupid ones. 
 
 "Finish him off, Bob," cried a big boy, and that I 
 noticed especiall}^, because I thought it unkind of him, 
 after eating of my toffee as he had that afternoon ; " finish 
 him off, neck and crop ; he deserves it for sticking up to a 
 man like you." 
 
 But I was not so to be finished off, though feeling in my 
 knuckles now as if it were a blueness and a sense of chil- 
 blain. Nothing held except my legs, and they were good 
 to help me. So this bout, or round, if you please, was 
 foughten warily by me, with gentle recollection of what 
 my tutor, the clever boy, had told me, and some resolve to 
 earn his praise before I came back to his knee again. 
 And never, I think, in all my life, sounded sweeter words 
 in my ears (except when my love loved me) than when my 
 second and backer, who had made himself part of my 
 doings now, and would have wept to see me beaten, 
 said — 
 
 " Famously done. Jack, famously ! Only keep your 
 wind up. Jack, and you'll go right through him ! " 
 
 Meanwhile John Fry was prowling about, asking the 
 boys what they thought of it, and whether I was like to be 
 killed, because of my mother's trouble. But finding now 
 that I had foughten threescore fights already, he came up 
 to me woefully, in the quickness of my breathing, while I 
 sat on the knee of my second, with a piece of spongious 
 
AN IMPORTANT ITEM. 13. 
 
 coralline to ease me of my bloodshed, and he says in my 
 ears, as if he was clappini; spurs into a horse — 
 
 "Never thee knack under, Jan, or never coom naigh 
 Hexmoor no more." 
 
 With that it was all up with me. .V simmering buzzed 
 in my heavy brain, and a light came through my eye- 
 places. At once I set both fists again, and my heart 
 stuck to me like cobbler's wax. Either Robin Snell should 
 kill me, or I would conquer Robin Snell. So I went in 
 again, with my courage up; and Dob came smiling for 
 victory, and I hated him for smiling. He let at me with 
 his left hand, and I gave him my right between his eyes, 
 and he blinked, and was not pleased with it. I feared him 
 not, and spared him not. neither spared myself. My 
 breath came again, and my heart stood cool, and my eyes 
 struck fire no longer. ( )nly I knew that I would die, 
 sooner than shame my birthplace. How the rest of it was 
 I know not, only that I had the end of it, and helped to 
 put Robin in bed. 
 
CHAPTER in. 
 
 THE WAR-PATH OF THE DOONES. 
 
 ROM Tiverton town to the town 
 of Oare is a very long and pain- 
 ful road, and in good truth the 
 traveller must make his way, as 
 the saying is ; for the way is still 
 unmade, at least, on this side of 
 Dulverton, although there is less 
 danger now than in the time of 
 my schooling, for now a good 
 horse may go there without much 
 cost of leaping ; but when I was 
 a boy, the spurs would fail, when 
 __ needed most, by reason of the 
 1 "— -^ , "" ■>^'-' slough-cake. It is to the credit 
 
 iW'teWum.. _ - of this age, and our advance upon 
 
 fatherly wa3's, that now we have 
 laid down rods and fagots, and 
 even stump-oaks here and there, 
 so that a man in good daylight 
 '^ need not sink, if he be quite so- 
 ber. There is nothing I have striven at more than doing 
 my duty, way-warden over Exmoor. 
 
 But in those days, when I came from school (and good 
 times they were, too, full of a warmth and fine hearth- 
 comfort, which now are dying out), it was a sad and sorry 
 business to find where lay the highway. We are taking 
 now to mark it off with a fence on either side, at least, 
 when a town is handy ; but to me this seems of a high pre- 
 tence, and a sort of landmark and channel for robbers, 
 though well enough near London, where they have earned 
 a race-course. 
 
 We left the town of the two fords, which they say is the 
 meaning of it, very early in the morning, after lying one 
 day to rest, as was demanded by the nags, sore of foot and 
 foundered. For my part, too, I was glad to rest, having 
 
THE WAR-PATH (M' THE DOoKKS. I 5 
 
 aches all over me, and very liea\y bruises ; and we lodged 
 at the sii^n ui the A\'hite Horse Inn, in the street called 
 C)old Street, opposite where the souls are of John and Joan 
 Greenwav, set up in gold letters, because we must take the 
 homeward way at cockcrtnv of the morning. Though still 
 John Fry was dry with me of the reason of his coming, and 
 onlv told lies about father, and could not keep them agree- 
 able, I hoped for the best, as all boys will, especially after 
 a victory. And I thought, perhaps father had sent for me, 
 because he had a good harvest, and the rats were bad in 
 the ct)rn-chamber. 
 
 It was high noon before we were got to Dulverton that 
 dav, near to which town the river Exe and its big brother 
 Barle have union. My mother had an uncle living there, but 
 we were not to visit his house at this time, at which I was 
 somewhat astonished, since we needs must stop for at least 
 two hours, to bait our horses thorough well, before commg 
 to the black bogway. The bogs are very good in frost, 
 except where the hot-springs rise ; but as yet there had 
 been no frost this year, save just enough to make the 
 blackbirds look big in the morning. In a hearty black-frost 
 they look small, until the snow falls over them. 
 
 'f he road from Bampton to Dulverton had not been very 
 delicate, yet nothing to complain of much — no deeper, in- 
 deed, than the hocks of a horse, except in the rotten places. 
 The day was inclined to be mild and fog.gy, and both nags 
 sweated freely; but Peggy carrying little weight (for ni)- 
 wardrobe was upon Smiler, and John Fry grumbling al- 
 ways), we could easily keep in front, as far as you may 
 hear a laugh. 
 
 John had been rather bitter with me, which methought 
 was a mark of ill-taste at coming home for the holidays, 
 and yet I made allowance for John, because he had never 
 been at school, and never would have chance to eat fry 
 upon condition of spelling it, therefore I rode on, thinking 
 that he was hard-set, like a saw, for his dinner, and would 
 soften after tooth-work. And yet at his most hungry 
 times, when his mind was far gone upon bacon, ceries he 
 seemed to check himself and look at me as if he were sorry 
 for little things coming over great. 
 
 But now, at Dulverton, we dined upon the rarest and 
 choicest victuals that ever I did taste. Even now, at my 
 time of life, to think of it gives me appetite, as once and 
 awhile to think of my first love makes me love all good- 
 ness. Hot mutton pasty was a thing I had often heard of 
 
I 6 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 from very wealthy boys and men, who made a dessert of 
 dinner ; and to hear them talk of it made my lips smack, 
 and my ribs come inwards. 
 
 And now John Fry strode into the hostel, with the air 
 and grace of a short-legged man, and shouted as loud as if 
 he was calling sheep upon Exmoor — 
 
 " Hot mootton pasty for twoo trarv'lers, at number vaive, 
 in vaive minnits ! Dish un up in the tin with the grahvy,, 
 zame as I hardered last Tuesday." 
 
 Of course it did not come in five minutes, nor yet in ten 
 or twentv, but that made it all the better when it came 
 to the real presence, and the smell of it was enough to 
 make an empty man thank (iod for the room there was 
 inside him. Fifty years have passed me quicker than the 
 taste of that gravy. 
 
 It is the manner of all good boys to be careless of ap- 
 parel, and take no pride in adornment. Good lack, if I see 
 a boy make todo about the fit of his crumpler, and the 
 creasing of his breeches, and desire to be shod for come- 
 liness rather than for use, I cannot 'scape the mark that 
 God took thought to make a girl of him. Not so when 
 they grow older, and court the regard of the maidens ; then 
 may the bravery pass from the inside to the outside of them, 
 and no bigger fools are they, even then, than their fathers 
 were before them. But God forbid any man to be a fool 
 to love, and be loved, as I have been. Else would he have 
 prevented it. 
 
 When the mutton pasty was done, and Peggy and Smiler 
 had dined well also, out I went to wash at the pump, being 
 a lover of soap and water, at all risk, e.\cept of my dinner. 
 And John Fry, who cared verj- little to wash, save Sabbath 
 days in his own soap, and who had kept me from the pump^ 
 by threatening loss of the dish, out he came in a satisfied 
 manner, with a piece of quill in his hand, to lean against 
 a door-post, and listen to the horses feeding, and have his 
 teeth ready for supper. 
 
 Then a lady's-maid came out, and the sun was on her 
 face, and she turned round to go back again, but put a 
 better face upon it, and gave a trip and hitched her dress, 
 and looked at the sun full body, lest the hostlers should, 
 laugh that she was losing her complexion. With a long 
 Italian glass in her fingers very daintily, she came up to 
 the pump in the middle of the yard, where I was running 
 the water off all my head and shoulders, and arms, and 
 some of my breast even, and though I had glimpsed her 
 
THE WAR-]'ATH Ol' THK I)(_>UNES. I 7 
 
 through the sprinkle, it jiave me quite a turn to see her, 
 child as I was, in my open aspect. But she lookeil at me, 
 no whit abashed, making a baliy of me, no doubt, as a wo- 
 man of thirty will do, even with a very big boy when they 
 catch him on a hayrick, and she said to me, in a brazen 
 manner, as if I had been nt)bodv, while 1 was shrinking be- 
 hind the pump, and craving to get my shirt on, "(.lood 
 leetle bov, come hither to me. Fine heaven ! how blue 
 your eves are, and your skin like snow ; but some naughty 
 man has beaten it black. Oh, leetle boy, let me feel it. 
 Ah, how then it must have hurt you ! There now, and you 
 shall love me." 
 
 All this time she was touching my breast, here and there, 
 very lightly, with her delicate brown fingers, and I under- 
 stood from her voice and manner that she was not of this 
 country, but a foreigner by extraction. And then I was 
 not so shy of her, because I could talk better English than 
 she ; and yet I longed for my jerkin, but liked not to be 
 rude to her. 
 
 " If you please, madam, I must go. John Fry is waiting 
 by the tapster's door, and Peggy neighing to me. If you 
 please, we must get home to-night ; and father will be wait- 
 ing for me this side of the telling-house." 
 
 " There, there, you shall go, leetle dear, and perhaps I 
 will go after you. I have taken much love of you. But 
 the Baroness is hard to me. How far you call it now to the 
 bank of the sea at Wash — Wash — " 
 
 " At Watchett, likely you mean, madam. Oh, a very 
 long way, and the roads as soft as the road to Oare." 
 
 ■' Oh-ah, oh-ah — I shall remember; that is the place 
 where my leetle boy live, and some day I will come seek 
 for him. Now make the pump to flow, my dear, and give 
 me the good water. The Baroness will not touch, unless a 
 nebule be formed outside the glass." 
 
 I did not know what she meant by that, yet I pumped 
 for her very heartily, and marvelled to see her for fifty times 
 throw the water away in the trough, as if it was not good 
 enough. A last the water suited her, with a likeness of fog 
 outside the glass, and the gleam of a crystal under it, and 
 then she made a courtesy to me, in a sort of mocking man- 
 ner, holding the long glass by the foot, not to take the 
 cloud off ; and then she wanted to kiss me ; but I was out 
 of breath, and have always been shy of that work, e.\cept 
 when I come to offer it ; and so I ducked under the pump- 
 handle, and she knocked her chin on the knob of it ; and 
 
15 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the hostlers came out, and asked whether they would do 
 as well. 
 
 Upon this, she retreated up the yard, with a certain dark 
 dignity, and a foreign way of walking, which stopped them 
 at once from going further, because it was so different from 
 the fashion of their sweethearts. One with another they 
 hung back, where half a cart-load of hay was, and they 
 looked to be sure that she would not turn round ; and then 
 each one laughed at the rest of them. 
 
 Now, up to the end of Dulverton town, on the northward 
 side of it, where the two new pig-sties be, the Oare folk and 
 the AVatchett folk must trudge on together, until we come 
 to a broken cross, where a murdered man lies buried. 
 Peggy and Smiler went up the hill, as if nothing could be 
 too much for them, after the beans they had eaten, and 
 suddenly turning a corner of trees, we happened upon a 
 great coach and six horses labouring very heavily. John 
 Fry rode on with his hat in his hand, as became him to- 
 wards the quality ; but I was amazed to that degree that, I 
 left my cap on my head, and drew bridle without know- 
 ing it. 
 
 For in the front seat of the coach, which was half-way 
 open, being of new city-make, and the day in want of air, 
 sate the foreign lady, who had met me at the pump and 
 offered to salute me. By her side was a little girl, dark- 
 haired and very wonderful, with a wealthy softness on her, 
 as if she must have her own way. I could not look at her 
 for two glances, and she did not look at me for one, being 
 such a little child, and busy with the hedges. But in the hon- 
 ourable place sate a handsome lady, very warmly dressed, 
 and sweetly delicate of colour. And close to her was a 
 lively child, two or it may be three years old, bearing a 
 white cockade in his hat, and staring at all and every body. 
 Now, he saw Peggy, and took such a liking to her, that the 
 lady his mother — if so she were — was forced to look at my 
 pony and me. And, to tell the truth, although I am not of 
 those who adore the high folk, she looked at us very kindly, 
 and with a sweetness rarely found in the women who milk 
 the cows for us. 
 
 Then I took off my cap to the beautiful lady, without 
 asking wherefore ; and she put up her hand and kissed it to 
 me, thinking perhaps, that I looked like a gentle and good 
 little boy ; for folk always called me innocent, though God 
 knows I never was that. But now the foreign lady, or 
 lady's-maid, as it might be, who had been busy with little 
 
20 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 dark-eyes, turned upon all this going on, and looked me 
 straight in the face. I was about to salute her, at a dis- 
 tance, indeed, and not with the nicety she had offered to 
 me, but, strange to say, she stared at my eyes as if she had 
 never seen me before, neither wished to see me again. At 
 this I was so startled, such things being out of my knowl- 
 edge, that I startled Peggy also with the muscle of my legs, 
 and she being fresh from stable, and the mire scraped off 
 with cask-hoop, broke away so suddenly that I could do no 
 more than turn round and lower my cap, now five months 
 old, to the beautiful lady. Soon I overtook John Fry, and 
 asked him all about them, and how it was that we had 
 missed their starting from the hostel. But John would 
 never talk much till after a gallon of cider ; and all that I 
 could win out of him was that they were " murdering Pa- 
 pishers," and little he cared to do with them, or the devil 
 as they came from. And a good thing for me, and a provi- 
 dence, that I was gone down Dulverton town to buy sweet- 
 stuff for Annie, else my stupid head would have gone astray 
 with their great out-coming. 
 
 ^\'e saw no more of them after that, but turned into the 
 sideway, and soon had the fill of our hands and eyes to 
 look to our own going. For the road got worse and worse, 
 until there was none at all, and perhaps the purest thing it 
 could do was to be ashamed to show itself. But we pushed 
 on as best we might, with doubt of reaching home any 
 time, except by special grace of (lod. 
 
 The fog came down upon the moors as thick as ever I 
 saw it ; and there was no sound of any sort, nor a breath 
 of wind to guide us. The little stubby trees that stand 
 here and there, like bushes with a wooden leg to them, 
 were drizzled with a mass of wet, and hung their points 
 with dropping. Wherever the butt-end of a hedgerow came 
 up from the hollow ground, like the withers of a horse, 
 holes of splash were pocked and pimpled in the yellow sand 
 of coneys, or under the dwarf tree's ovens. But soon it 
 was too dark to see that, or anything else, I may say, ex- 
 cept the creases in the dusk, where prisoned light crept up 
 the valleys. 
 
 After awhile even that was gone, and no other comfort 
 left to us, except to see our horses' heads jogging to their 
 footsteps, and the dark ground pass below us, lighter where 
 the wet was ; and then the splash, foot after foot, more 
 clever than we can do it, and the orderly jerk of the tail, 
 and the smell of what a horse is. 
 
THE WAR-PATH OF THE DOONliS. 2 1 
 
 John Fry was bowing forward with sleep upon his saddle, 
 and now 1 could no longer see the frizzle of wet upon his 
 beard — for he had a very brave one, of a bright-red colour, 
 and trimmed into a whale-oil knot, because he was newly- 
 married — although that comb of hair had been a subject of 
 some wonder to me, whether I, in God's good time, should 
 have the like of that, handsomely set with shining beads, 
 
 
 -^^hS'^^-'* 
 
 "where be us now?" said JOHN FRY. 
 
 small above and large below, from the weeping of the 
 heaven. But still I could see the jog of his hat — a Sunday 
 hat with a top to it — and some of his shoulder bowed out 
 in the mist, so that one could say, " Hold up, John," when 
 Smiler put his foot in. 
 
 "Mercy of God! Where be us now?" said John Fry, 
 waking suddenly ; " us ought to have passed hold hash, 
 Jan ; Zeen it on the road, hav 'ee?" 
 
2 2 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " No indeed, John ; no old ash. Nor nothing else to 
 my knowing ; nor heard nothing, save thee snoring." 
 
 " Watt a vLile thee must be then, Jan ; and me myzell no 
 better. Harken, lad, harken ! " 
 
 We drew our horses up and listened, through the thick- 
 ness of the air, and with our hands laid to our ears. At 
 first there was nothing to hear, except the panting of the 
 horses, and the trickle of the eaving drops from our head- 
 covers and clothing, and the soft sounds of the lonely night, 
 that make us feel, and try not to think. Then there came 
 a mellow noise, very low and mournsome, not a sound to 
 be afraid of, but to long to know the meaning, with a soft 
 rise of the hair. Three times it came and went again, as 
 the shaking of a thread might pass away into the distance ; 
 and then I touched John Fry to know that there was some- 
 thing near me. 
 
 " Doon't 'e be a vule, Jan ! Vaine moozick as iver I 'eer. 
 God bless the man as made un doo it." 
 
 " Have they hanged one of the Doones then, John ? " 
 
 " Hush, lad ; never talk laike o' thiccy. Hang a Doone 1 
 God knoweth, the King would hang pretty quick, if her 
 did. 
 
 " Then who is it in the chains, John?" 
 
 I felt my spirit rise as I asked ; for now I had crossed 
 Exmoor so often as to hope that the people sometimes d-e- 
 served it, and think that it might be a lesson to the rogues 
 who unjustly loved the mutton they were never born to. 
 But, of course, they were born to hanging, when they set 
 themselves so high. 
 
 " It be nawbody," said John, " vor us to make a fush 
 about. Belong to t'other zide o' the moor, and come staling 
 shape to our zide. Red Jem Hannaford his name. Thank 
 God for him to be hanged, lad ; and good cess to his soul, 
 for craikin' zo." 
 
 So the sound of the quiet swinging led us very modestly, 
 as it came and went on the wind, loud and low pretty reg- 
 ularly, even as far as the foot of the gibbet where the four 
 cross-ways are. 
 
 " A'amous job this here," cried John, looking up to be 
 sure of it, because there were so many; " here be my own 
 nick on the post. Red Jem, too, and no doubt of him ; he 
 do hang so handsome like, and his ribs up laike a horse 
 a'most. ( rod bless them as discoovered the way to make a 
 rogue so useful. Good naight to thee, Jem, my lad, and 
 not break thy drames with the craikin'." 
 
THE WAR-l'ATH OF THE DOONES. 23 
 
 John Fry shook his bridle-arm, and smote upon Smiler 
 merrily, as he jo>;ged into the homeward track from the 
 guiding of the body. But 1 was sorry for Red Jem, and 
 wanted to know more about him, and whether he might 
 not have avoided this miserable end, and what his wife 
 and children thought of it, if, indeed, he had any. But 
 John would talk no more about it ; and perhaps he was 
 moved with a lonesome feehng, as the creaking sound 
 came after us. 
 
 " Hould thee tongue, lad," he said sharplv ; " us be naigh 
 the Doone-track now, two maile from Dunkery Beacon hill, 
 the haighest place of Hexmoor. So happen they be abroad 
 to-naight, us must crawl on our belly-places, boy." 
 
 I knew at once what he meant — those bloody Doones of 
 Bagworthy, the awe of all Devon and Somerset, outlaws, 
 traitors, murderers. ]\Iy little legs began to tremble to and 
 fro upon Peggy's sides, as I heard the dead robber in chains 
 behind us, and thought of the live ones still in front. 
 
 " But, John," I whispered, warily, sidling close to his sad- 
 dle-bow ; " dear John, you don't think they will see us in 
 such a fog as this?" 
 
 " Never God made vog as could stop their eyesen," he 
 whispered in answer, fearfully ; " here us be by the hollow 
 ground. Zober, lad, goo zober now, if thee wish to see 
 thy moother." 
 
 For I was inclined, in the manner of boys, to make a run 
 of the danger, and cross the Doone-track at full speed ; to 
 rush for it, and be done with it. But even then I wondered 
 why he talked of my mother so, and said not a word of 
 father. 
 
 ^\'e were come to a long deep "goyal," as they call it on 
 Exmoor, a word whose fountain and origin I have nothing 
 to do with. Only I know that when little boys laughed at 
 me at Tiverton, for talking about a "goyal," a big boy 
 clouted them on the head, and said that it was in Homer, 
 and meant the hollow of the hand. And another time a 
 Welshman told me that it must be something like the thing 
 they call a " pant " in those parts. Still I know what it 
 means well enough — to wit, a long trough among wild 
 hills, falling towards the plain country, rounded at the bot- 
 tom, perhaps, and stiff, more than steep, at the sides of it. 
 Whether it be straight or crooked, makes no difference to it. 
 
 We rode very carefully down our side, and through the 
 soft grass at the bottom, and all the while we listened as if 
 the air was a speaking-trumpet. Then gladly we breasted 
 
24 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 our nags to the rise, and were coming to the comb of it, 
 when I heard something, and caught John's arm, and he 
 bent his hand to the shape of his ear. It was the sound of 
 horses' feet, knocking up through splashy ground, as if the 
 bottom sucked them. Then a grunting of weary men, and 
 the Ufting noise of stirrups, and sometimes the clank of 
 iron mi.xed with the wheezy croning of leather, and the 
 blowing of hairy nostrils. 
 
 "God's sake. Jack, slip round her belly, and let her go 
 where she wull." 
 
 As John Fry whispered, so I did, for he was off Smiler 
 by this time ; but our two pads were too fagged to go far, 
 and began to nose about and crop, sniffing more than they 
 need have done. I crept to John's side very softly, with 
 the bridle on ray arm. 
 
 " Let goo braidle ; let goo, lad. Plaise God they take 
 them for forest-ponies, or they'll zend a bullet through us." 
 
 I saw what he meant, and let go the bridle ; for now the 
 mist was rolling off, and we were against the sky-line to the 
 dark cavalcade below us. John lay on the ground by a 
 barrow of heather, where a little gullet was, and I crept to 
 him, afraid of the noise I made in dragging my legs along, 
 and the creak of my cord breeches. John bleated like a 
 sheep to cover it — a sheep very cold and trembling. 
 
 Then just as the foremost horseman passed, scarce twenty 
 yards below us, a puff of wind came up the glen, and the 
 fog rolled off before it. And suddenly a strong red light, 
 cast by the cloud-weight downwards, spread like fingers 
 over the moorland, opened the alleys of darkness, and hung 
 on the steel of the riders. 
 
 " Dunkery Beacon," whispered John, so close into my ear 
 that I felt his lips and teeth ashake ; " dursn't fire it now, 
 no more than to show the Doones way home again, since 
 the naight as they went up, and throwed the watchman 
 atop of it. Why, wutt be 'bout, lad ? God's sake" 
 
 For I could keep still no longer, but wriggled away from 
 his arm, and along the little gullet, still going flat on my 
 breast and thighs, until I was under a grey patch of stone, 
 with a fringe of dry fern round it ; there I lay, scarce twenty 
 feet above the heads of the riders, and I feared to draw my 
 breath, though prone to do it with wonder. 
 
 For now the beacon was rushing up, in a fiery storm to 
 heaven, and the form of its flame came and went in the 
 f(jlds, and the heavy sky was hovering. All around it was 
 hung with red, deep in twisted columns, and then a giant 
 
THE WAR-PATH OF THE DUONES. 25 
 
 beard of fire streamed throughout the darkness. The sul- 
 len hills were flanked with light, and the valle\'s chined 
 with shadow, and all the sombrous moors between awoke 
 in furrowed anger. 
 
 But most of all, the flinging- fire leaped into the rocky 
 mouth of the glen bek)w me, where the horsemen passed in 
 silence, scarcely deigning to look round. Heavy men, and 
 large of stature, reckless how thev bore their guns, or how 
 they sate their horses, with leathern jerkins, and long boots, 
 and iron plates on breast and head, plunder heaped behind 
 their saddles, and flagons slung in front of them ; more 
 than thirty went along, like clouds upon red sunset. Some 
 had carcases of sheep swinging with their skins on, others 
 had deer, and one had a child flung across his saddle-bow. 
 ^\"hether the child were dead, or alive, was beyond my 
 vision, only it hung head downwards there, and must take 
 the chance of it. They had got the child, a very young 
 one, for the sake of the dress, no doubt, which they could 
 not stop to pull off from it ; for the dress shone bright, 
 where the fire struck it, as if with gold and jewels. I 
 longed in my heart to know most sadlv, what thev would 
 do with the little thing, and whether they would eat it. 
 
 It touched me so to see that child, a prey among those 
 vultures, that in my foolish rage and burning I stood up, 
 and shouted to them, leaping on a rock, and raving <iut uf 
 all possession. Two of them turned round, and one set his 
 carbine at me, but the other said it was but a pixie, and 
 bade him keep his powder. Little they knew, and less 
 thought I, that the pixie then before them would dance 
 their castle down one day. 
 
 John Fry, who in the spring of fright had brought him- 
 self down from Smiler's side, as if he were dipped in oil, 
 now came up to me, danger being over, cross, and stiff, and 
 aching sorely from his wet couch of heather. 
 
 " Small thanks to thee, Jan, as my new waife bain't a 
 widder. And who be you to zupport of her, and her son, 
 if she have one ? Zarve thee right, if I was to chuck thee 
 down into the Doone-track. Zim thee'll come to un, zooner 
 or later, if this be the zample of thee." 
 
 And that was all he had to say, instead of thanking God ! 
 For if ever born man was in a fright, and ready to thank 
 God for anything, the name of that man was "John Fry," 
 not more than five minutes agone. 
 
 However, 1 answered nothing at all, except to be ashamed 
 of myself ; and soon we found Peggy and Smiler in com- 
 
BUT THE OTHER SAID IT WAS BUT A PIXIE. 
 
THE WAR-PATH OF THK DOONES. 27 
 
 pany, well embarked on the homeward road, and victual- 
 ling where the grass was good. Right glad they were to 
 see us again — not for the pleasure of carrying, but be- 
 cause a horse (like a woman) lacks, and is better without, 
 self-reliance. 
 
 iMy father never came to meet us at either side of the 
 telling-house, neither at the crooked post, nor even at 
 home-linhay, although the dogs kept such a noise that he 
 must have heard us. Home-side of the linhay, and under 
 the ashen hedge-row, where father taught me to catch 
 blackbirds, all at once my heart went down, and all my 
 breast was hollow. There was not even the lanthorn light 
 on the peg against the cow's house, and nobody said " Hold 
 your noise ! " to the clogs, or shouted " Here our Jack is ! " 
 
 I looked at the posts of the gate, in the dark, because 
 they were tall, like father, and then at the door of the 
 harness-room, where he used to smoke his pipe and sing. 
 Then I thought he had guests perhaps — people lost upon 
 the moors — whom he could not leave unkindly, even for 
 his son's sake. And yet about that I was jealous, and 
 ready to be vexed with him, when he should begin to 
 make much of me. And I felt in my pocket for the new 
 pipe which I had brought him from Tiverton, and said to 
 myself, "He shall not have it until to-morrow morning." 
 
 AVoe is me ! I cannot tell. How I knew I know not 
 now — only that I slunk away, without a tear, or thought 
 of weeping, and hid me in a saw-pit. There the timber, 
 over-head, came like streaks across me ; and all I wanted 
 was to hide, and none to tell me anything. 
 
 By and by, a noise came down, as of woman's weeping ; 
 and there my mother and sister were, choking and holding 
 together. Although they were my dearest loves, I could 
 not bear to look at them, until they seemed to want my 
 help, and turned away, that I might come. 
 
CHAPTER IV. 
 
 A RASH VISIT. 
 
 Y dear father had been killed by 
 •■■ ■■ the I )oones of Bagworthy, while 
 
 ■^^1 riding home from Porlock mar- 
 
 ■ ^m 1 ket, on the Saturday evening, 
 
 f I With him were six brother-farm- 
 
 § \ ers, all of them very sober; for 
 
 ' * father would have no company 
 
 with any man who went beyond 
 half-a-gallon of beer, or a single 
 gallon of cider. The robbers had 
 no grudge against him, for he 
 had never flouted them, neither 
 made overmuch of outcry, be- 
 cause they robbed other people. 
 For he was a man of such strict 
 honesty, and due parish feeling, 
 that he knew it to be every 
 man's own business to defend 
 himself and his goods, unless 
 he belonged to our parish, and 
 then we must look after him. 
 
 These seven farmers were jogging along, helping one 
 another in the troubles of the road, and singing goodly 
 hymns and songs, to keep their courage moving, when 
 suddenly a horseman stopped in the starlight full across 
 them. 
 
 By dress and arms they knew him well, and by his size 
 and stature, shown against the glimmer of the evening 
 star ; and though he seemed one man to seven, it was in 
 truth one man to one. Of the six who had been singing 
 songs and psalms, about the power of God, and their own 
 regeneration — such psalms as went the round, in those 
 days, of the public-houses — there was not one but pulled 
 out his money, and sang small beer to a Doone. 
 
 But father had been used to think that any man who 
 
A RASH VISIT. 29 
 
 was comfortable inside his own coat and waistcoat, de- 
 served to have no other set, unless he wmdd strike a blow 
 for them. And so, while his go.ssips dolled their hats, and 
 shook with what was left of them, he set his staff above 
 his head, and rode at the Doone robber. With a trick of 
 his horse, the wild man escaped the sudden onset, although 
 it must have amazed him sadly that any durst resist him. 
 Then when Sniiler was carried away with the dash and the 
 
 HE SET HIS STAFF ABOVE HIS HEAD AND RODE AT THE DUONE KOBBER. 
 
 weight of my father (not being brought up to battle, nor 
 used to turn, save in plough harness), the outlaw whistled 
 upon his thumb, and plundered the rest of the yeomen. 
 But father, drawing at Smiler's head, to try to come back 
 and help them, was in the midst of a dozen men, who 
 seemed to come out of a turf-rick, some on horse, and 
 some a-foot. Nevertheless, he smote lustily, so far as he 
 could see ; and being of great size and strength, and his 
 blood well up, they had no easy job with him. \Vith the 
 play of his wrist, he cracked three or four crowns, being 
 always famous at single-stick, until the rest drew their 
 horses away, and he thought that he was master, and 
 would tell his wife about it. 
 
 But a man beyond the range of staff was crouching by 
 the peat-stack, with a long gun set to his shoulder, and he 
 got poor father against the sky, and I cannot tell the rest 
 of it. Only they knew that Smiler came home, with blood 
 upon his withers, and father was found in the morning 
 dead on the moor, with his ivy-twisted cudgel lying broken 
 under him. Now, whether this were an honest fight, God 
 judge betwixt the Doones and me. 
 
30 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 It was more of woe than wonder, being such days 
 of violence that mother knew herself a widow, and her 
 children fatherless. Of children there were only three, 
 none of us fit to be useful yet, only to comfort mother, 
 by making her to work for us. I, John Ridd, was the 
 eldest, and felt it a heavy thing on me ; next came sister 
 Annie, with about two years between us ; and then the 
 little Eliza. 
 
 Now, before I got home and found my sad loss — and 
 no boy ever loved his father better than I loved mine — 
 mother had done a most wondrous thing, which made all 
 the neighbours say that she must be mad, at least. Upon 
 the Monday morning, while her husband lay unburied, she 
 cast a white hood over her hair, and gathered a black 
 cloak round her, and, taking counsel of no one, set off on 
 foot for the Doune-gate. 
 
 In the early afternoon she came to the hollow and barren 
 entrance, where in truth there was no gate, only darkness 
 to go through. If I get on with this story, I shall have to 
 tell of it by and by, as I saw it afterwards, and will not 
 dwell there now. Enough that no gun was fired at her, 
 
 AND FATHKR WAS FOUNIi IX IIIE MilRNlNG 
 UK \U UN Till'; MMUK, 
 
 only her eyes were covered over, and somebody led her by 
 the hand, without any wish to hurt her. 
 
 A very rough and headstrong road was all that she re- 
 membered, for she could not think as she wished to do, 
 with the cold iron pushed against her. At the end of this 
 road they delivered her eyes, and she could scarce believe 
 them. 
 
 For she stood at the head of a deep green valley, carved 
 from out the mountains in a perfect oval, with a fence of 
 
A RASH VISIT. 31 
 
 sheer rock standing round it, ei.ulit}' feet or d hundred 
 high, from whose brink black wooded hills swept up to 
 the sky-line. l!y her side a little river glitled out from 
 underground with a soft dark babble, unawares of day- 
 light, then growing brighter, lapsed away, and fell into 
 the valley. There, as it ran down the meadow, alders 
 stood on either marge, and grass was blading out upon it, 
 and yellow tufts of rushes gathered, looking at the hurry. 
 But further down, on either bank, were covered houses, 
 built of stone, square and roughly cornered, set as if the 
 brook were meant to be the street between them. Only 
 one room high they were, and not placed opposite each 
 other, but in and out as skittles are, only that the first of 
 all, which proved to be the captain's, was a sort of double 
 house, or rather two houses joined together by a plank- 
 bridge over the river. 
 
 Fourteen cots my mother counted, all very much of a 
 pattern, and nothing to choose between them, unless it 
 were the captain's. Deep in the quiet valley there, away 
 from noise, and violence, and brawl, save that of the rivu- 
 let, anv man would have deemed them homes of simple 
 mind and innocence. Yet not a single house stood there 
 but was the home of murder. 
 
 Two men led niv mother down a steep and gliddery 
 stair-wav, like the ladder of a hay-mow, and thence, from 
 the break of the falling water, as far as the house of the 
 captain. And there at the door, they left her trembling, 
 strung as she was, to speak her mind. 
 
 Now, after all, what right had she, a common farmer's 
 widow, to take it amiss that men of birth thought fit to kill 
 her husband ? And the Doones were of very high birth, as 
 all we clods of E.xmoor knew ; and we had enough of good 
 teaching now — let any man say the contrary — to feel 
 that all we had belonged of right to those above us. 
 Therefore my mother was half-ashamed, that she could 
 not help complaining. 
 
 But, after a little while, as she said, remembrance of 
 her husband came, and the way he used to stand by her 
 side and put his strong arm round her, and how he liked 
 his bacon fried, and praised her kindly for it — and so 
 the tears were in her eyes, and nothing should gainsay 
 them. 
 
 A tall old man. Sir Ensor Doone, came out with a bill- 
 hook in his hand, and hedger's gloves going up his arms, 
 as if he were no better than a labourer at ditch-work. 
 
32 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 Only in his mouth and eyes, his gait, and most of all his 
 voice, even a child could know and feel that here was no 
 ditch-labourer. Cood cause he has found since then, per- 
 haps, to wish that he had been one. 
 
 With his white locks moving upon his coat, he stopped 
 and looked down at my mother, and she could not help 
 herself but courtesy under the fixed black gazing. 
 
 " Good woman, you are none of us. Who has brought 
 you hither? Young men must be young — but I have had 
 too much of this work." 
 
 And he scowled at my mother, for her comeliness ; and 
 yet looked under his eyelids, as if he liked her for it. But 
 as for her, in the depth of love-grief, it struck scorn upon 
 her womanhood ; and in the flash she spoke. 
 
 " What you mean, I know not. Traitors ! cut-throats ! 
 cowards ! I am here to ask for my husband." She could 
 not say any more, because her heart was now too much 
 for her, coming hard in her throat and mouth ; but she 
 opened up her eyes at him. 
 
 " Madam," said Sir Ensor Doone — being born a gentle- 
 man, although a very bad one — "I crave pardon of you. 
 iMy eyes are old, or I might have known. Now, if we 
 have your husband prisoner, he shall go free without ran- 
 som, because I have insulted you." 
 
 " Sir," said my mother, being suddenly taken away with 
 sorrow, because of his gracious manner, " please to let me 
 cry a bit." 
 
 He stood away, and seemed to know that women want 
 no help for that. And by the way she cried, he knew that 
 they had killed her husband. Then, having felt of grief 
 himself, he was not angry with her, but left her to begin 
 again. 
 
 " Loth would I be," said mother, sobbing with her new 
 red handkerchief, and looking at the pattern of it, " loth, 
 indeed. Sir Ensor Doone, to accuse any one unfairly. But 
 I have lost the very best husband God ever gave to a 
 woman ; and I knew him when he was to your belt, and I 
 not up to your knee, sir ; and never an unkind word he 
 spoke, nor stopped me short in speaking. All the herbs 
 he left to me, and all the bacon-curing, and when it was 
 best to kill a pig, and how to treat the maidens. Not that 
 I would ever wish — oh, John, it seems so strange to me, 
 and last week you were everything." 
 
 Here mother burst out crying again, not loudly, but 
 turning quietly, because she knew that no one now would 
 
A RASH VISIT. T,- 
 
 ever care to wipe the tears. And fifty or a hundred thini^s, 
 of weekly and daily happening;-, came across my mother, so 
 that her spirit fell, like slackening lime. 
 
 " This matter must be seen to ; it shall be seen to at 
 once," the old man answered, mo\ed a little in spite of all 
 his knowledge. "' Madam, if any wrong has been done, 
 trust the honour of a Doone ; I will redress it to my ut- 
 most. Come inside and rest yourself, while I ask about it. 
 ^^"hat was your good husband's name, and when and where 
 fell this mishap ? " 
 
 " Deary me," said mother, as he set a chair for her very 
 polite, but she would not sit upon it ; " Saturday morning 
 I was a wife, sir ; and Saturday night I was a widow, and 
 my children fatherless. My husband's name was ' John 
 Ridd,' sir, as everybody knows ; and there was not a finer 
 or better man, in Somerset or Devon. He was coming 
 home from Porlock market, and a new gown for me on the 
 crupper, and a shell to put my hair up — oh, John, how 
 good you were to me ! " 
 
 Of that she began to think again, and not to believe her 
 sorrow, except as a dream from the evil one, because it 
 was too bad upon her, and perhaps she would awake in a 
 minute, and her husband would have the laugh of her. 
 And so she wiped her eyes and smiled, and looked for 
 something. 
 
 " Madam, this is a serious thing," Sir Ensor Doone said 
 graciously, and showing grave concern ; " my Ixiys are a 
 little wild, I know. And yet I cannt)t think they would 
 willingly harm any one. And yet — and yet, vou do look 
 sad. Send Counsellor to me," he shouted, from the door 
 of his house ; and down the valley went the call, " send 
 Counsellor to Captain." 
 
 Counsellor Doone came in, ere yet my mother was her- 
 self again ; and if any sight could astonish her, when all 
 her sense of right and wrong was gone astray with the 
 force of things, it was the sight of the Counsellor. A 
 square-built man of enormous strength, but a foot below 
 the Doone stature (which I shall describe hereafter), he 
 carried a long grey beard descending to the leather of his 
 belt. Great eyebrows overhung his face, like ivy on a 
 pollard oak, and under them two large brown eyes, as of 
 an owl when muting. And he had a power of hiding his 
 eyes, or showing them bright, like a blazing fire. He 
 stood there with his beaver off, and mother tried to look 
 at him ; but he seemed not to descry her. 
 
34 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "Counsellor," said Sir Ensor Doone, standing back in 
 his height from him, " here is a lady of good repute " 
 
 " Oh, no, sir ; only a woman." 
 
 "Allow me, madam, by your good leave. Here is a 
 lady. Counsellor, of great repute in this part of the coun- 
 try, who charges the Doones with having unjustly slain 
 her husband" 
 
 
 ' HERE IS A LADY, COUNSELLOR, OF GREAT 
 OF THE COUNTRY " 
 
 REPUTE IN THIS PART 
 
 " Murdered him ! murdered him ! " cried my mother ; " if 
 ever there was a murder. Oh, sir ! oh, sir ! you know it." 
 
 " The perfect right and truth of the case is all I wish to 
 know," said the old man, very loftily ; " and justice shall 
 be done, madam." 
 
 "Oh, I pray you — pray you, sirs, make no matter of 
 business of it. God from heaven, look on me ! " 
 
A KASIL VISIT. 35 
 
 "Put the case," said the Counsellor. 
 
 "The case is this," replied Sir Ensor, holdinj.;' one hand 
 up to mother : " This lady's worthy husband was slain, it 
 seems, upon his return from the market at Porlock, no 
 longer ago than last Saturday night. Madam, amend me 
 if I am wrong." 
 
 " Xo longer, indeed, indeed, sir. Sometimes it seems a 
 twelvemonth, and sometimes it seems an hour.' 
 
 "Cite his name," said the Counsellor, with his eves still 
 rolling inwards. 
 
 "'Master John Ridd,' as I understand. Counsellor, we 
 have heard of him often ; a worthy man and a peaceful 
 one, who meddled not with our duties. Now, if any of 
 our boys have been rough, they shall answer it dearlv. 
 -Vnd yet I can scarcely believe it. For the folk about these 
 parts are apt to misconceive of our sufferings, and to have 
 no feeling for us. Counsellor, you are our record, and 
 very stern against us ; tell us how this matter was." 
 
 " Oh, Counsellor ! " my mother cried ; " Sir Counselleir, 
 vou will be fair; I see it in your countenance. Onlv tell 
 me who it was, and set me face to face with him, and 1 
 will bless you, sir, and God shall bless you, and my chil- 
 dren." 
 
 The square man with the long grey beard, quite un- 
 moved by any thing, drew back to the door and spoke, 
 and his voice was like a fall of stones in the bottom of a 
 mine. 
 
 " Few words will be enow for this. Four or five of our 
 best-behaved and most peaceful gentlemen went to the 
 little market at Porlock with a lump of money. They 
 bought some household stores and comforts at a very high 
 price, and pricked upon the homeward road, away from 
 vulgar revellers. When they drew bridle to rest their 
 horses in the shelter of a peat-rick, the night being dark 
 and sudden, a robber of great size and strength rode into 
 the midst of them, thinking to kill or terrify. His arro- 
 gance and hardihood at the first amazed them, but they 
 would not give up without a blow goods which were on 
 trust with them. He had smitten three of them senseless, 
 for the power of his arm was terrible, whereupon the last 
 man tried to ward his blow with a pistol. Carver, sir, it 
 was, our brave and noble Carver, who saved the lives of 
 his brethren and his own; and glad enow they were to 
 escape. Notwithstanding, we hoped it might be only a 
 flesh-wound, and not to speed him in his sins." 
 
36 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 As this atrocious tale of lies turned up joint by joint 
 before her, like a " devil's coach-horse," ' mother was too 
 much amazed to do any more than look at him, as if the 
 earth must open. But the only thing that opened was the 
 great brown eyes of the Counsellor, which rested on my 
 mother's face, with a dew of sorrow, as he spoke of sins. 
 
 She, unable to bear them, turned suddenly on Sir Ensor, 
 and caught (as she fancied) a smile on his lips, and a sense 
 of quiet enjoyment. 
 
 "All the Doones are gentlemen," answered the old man, 
 gravely, and looking as if he had never smiled since he 
 was a baby. " \^'e are always glad to explain, madam, 
 any mistake which the rustic people may fall upon about 
 us ; and we wish you clearly to conceive, that we do not 
 charge your poor husband with any set purpose of rob- 
 bery ; neither will we bring suit for any attainder of his 
 property. Is it not so. Counsellor?" 
 
 " Without doubt his land is attainted, unless in mercy 
 you forbear, sir." 
 
 " Counsellor, we will forbear. Madam, we will forgive 
 him. Like enough he knew not right from wrong, at that 
 time of night. The waters are strong at Porlock, and 
 even an honest man may use his staff unjustly, in this un- 
 chartered age of violence and rapine." 
 
 The Doones to talk of rapine ! Mother's head went 
 round so, that she courtesied to them both, scarcely know- 
 ing where she was, but calling to mind her manners. All 
 the time she felt a warmth, as if the right was with her, 
 and yet she could not see the way to spread it out before 
 them. With that, she dried her tears in haste, and went 
 into the cold air, for fear of speaking mischief. 
 
 But when she was on the homeward road, and the senti- 
 nels had charge of her, blinding her eyes, as if she were 
 not blind enough with weeping, some one came in haste 
 behind her, and thrust a heavy leathern bag into the limp 
 weight of her hand. 
 
 " Captain sends you this," he whispered ; " take it to the 
 little ones." 
 
 But mother let it fall in a heap, as if it had been a blind 
 worm, and then for the first time crouched before Gnd, 
 that even the Doones should pity her. 
 
 ' The cock-tailed beetle has earned this name in the West of England. 
 
CHAPTER V, 
 
 AX ILLEGAL SKTTI.l'.MEXT. 
 
 »Sf 
 
 ...■h-. 
 
 lOOD folk who dwell in a lawful 
 
 Gland, if an\- such there be, may, 
 for want of exploration, judye 
 our neighbourhood harshly, un- 
 less the whole truth is set before 
 them. In bar of such prejudice, 
 many of us ask leave to explain 
 
 I how, and wliy, the robbers came 
 
 to that head in the midst of us. 
 We would rather not have had 
 it so, and were wise enough to 
 lament it ; but it grew upon us 
 gently, in the following manner. 
 Only let all who read observe 
 that here I enter many things 
 which came to mv knowledge in 
 later years. 
 
 In or about the year of our 
 Lord 1640, when all the troubles of England were swell- 
 ing to an outburst, great estates in the north country were 
 suddenly confiscated, through some feud of families, and 
 strong influence at Court, and the owners were turned 
 upon the world, and might think themselves lucky to 
 save their necks. These estates were in co-heirship, joint 
 tenancy I think they called it, although I know not 
 the meaning, only so that if either tenant died, the other 
 living, all would come to the live one, in spite of any 
 testament. 
 
 One of the joint owners was Sir Ensor Doone, a gentle- 
 man of brisk intellect ; and the other owner was his 
 cousin, the Earl of Lome and Dykemont. 
 
 Lord Lome was some years the elder of his cousin 
 Ensor Doone, and was making suit to gain severance of 
 the cumbersome joint-tenancy, by any fair apportion- 
 ment, when suddenly this blow fell on them, by wiles and 
 
38 LORN A DOOiXE. 
 
 woman's meddling ; and instead of dividing the land, they 
 were divided from it. 
 
 The nobleman was still well-to-do, though crippled in his 
 expenditure ; but as for the cousin, he was left a beggar, 
 with man)' to beg from him. He thought that the other 
 had wronged him, and that all the trouble of law befell 
 through his unjust petition. Many friends advised him to 
 make interest at Court ; for, having done no harm what- 
 ever, and being a good Catholic, which Lord Lome was 
 not, he would be sure to find hearing there, and probably 
 some favour. But he, like a very hot-brained man, al- 
 though he had long been married to the daughter of his 
 cousin (whom he liked none the more for that), would 
 have nothing to say to any attempt at making a patch of 
 it, but drove away with his wife and sons, and the relics 
 of his money, swearing hard at every body. In this he 
 may have been quite wrong ; probably, perhaps he was 
 so ; but I am not convinced at all, but what most of us 
 would have done the same. 
 
 Some say that, in the bitterness of that wrong and out- 
 rage, he slew a gentleman of the Court, whom he supposed 
 to have borne a hand in the plundering of his fortunes. 
 Others say that he bearded King Charles the First himself, 
 in a manner beyond forgiveness. One thing, at any rate, is 
 sure — Sir Ensor was attainted, and made a felon outlaw, 
 through some violent deed ensuing upon his dispossession. 
 
 He had searched in many quarters for somebody to 
 help him, and with good warrant for hoping it, inasmuch 
 as he, in his lucky days, had been open-handed and cous- 
 inly to all who begged advice of him. But now all these 
 provided him with plenty of good advice indeed, and 
 great assurance of feeling, but not a movement of leg, or 
 lip, or purse-string in his favour. All good people of either 
 persuasion, royalty or commonalty, knowing his kitchen- 
 range to be cold, no longer would play turnspit. And 
 this, it may be, seared his heart more than the loss of 
 land and fame. 
 
 In great despair at last, he resolved to settle in some 
 outlandish part, where none could be found to know him ; 
 and so, in an evil day for us, he came to the A\'est of 
 England. Not that our part of the world is at all out- 
 landish, according to my view of it (for I never found a 
 better one), but that it was known to be rugged, and 
 large, and desolate. And here, when he had discov- 
 ered a place which seemed almost to be made for him, so 
 
AX ILLE(.AL SETTI.KMKN r. 39 
 
 withdrawn, so self -ilcf ended, and uneasy <>l access, some 
 of the country-folk around brought him little offerings — a 
 side of bacon, a keg of cider, hung mutton, or a brisket of 
 venison ; so that for a little while he was very honest. 
 But when the newness of his coming began to wear away, 
 and our good folk were apt to think that even a gentle- 
 man ought to work, or pay other men for doing it, and 
 manv farmers were grown weary of manners without dis- 
 course to them, and all cried out to one another, how 
 unfair it was that, owning such a fertile valley, young 
 men wt)uld not spade or plough by reason of noble line- 
 age — then the young l)(.)ones, growing up, took things 
 thev w-ould not ask for. 
 
 And here let me, as a solid man, owner of five hundred 
 acres (whether fenced or otherwise, and that is my own 
 business), churchwarden also of this parish (until I go to 
 the churchyard), and proud to be called the parson's 
 friend — for a better man I never knew with tobacco and 
 strong waters, nor one who could read the lessons so well, 
 and he has been at Blundell's too — once for all let me de- 
 clare that I am a thorough-going Church-and-State man, 
 and Royalist, without any mistake about it. And this I 
 lay down, because some people, judging a sausage by the 
 skin, may take in evil part my little glosses of style and 
 glibness, and the mottled nature of my remarks, and 
 cracks now and then on the frying-pan. I assure them I 
 am good inside, and not a bit of rue in me ; only tjueer 
 knots, as of marjoram, and a stupid manner of bursting. 
 
 There was not more than a dozen of them, counting a 
 few retainers, who still held by Sir Ensor, but soon they 
 grew and multiplied in a manner surprising to think of. 
 Whether it was the venison, which we call a strengthening 
 victual, or whether it was the Exmoor mutton, or the keen 
 soft air of the moorlands, anyhow the Doones increased 
 much faster than their honesty. At first they had brouglit 
 some ladies with them, of good repute with charity, and 
 then, as time went on, they added to their stock by carry- 
 ing. They carried off many good farmers' daughters, who 
 were sadly displeased at first, but took to them kindly 
 after awhile, and made a new home in their babies. For 
 women, as it seems to me, like strong men more than 
 weak ones, feeling that they need some staunchness, 
 something to hold fast by. 
 
 And of all the men in our country, although we are of a 
 thick-set breed, you scarce could find one in threescore fit 
 
40 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 to be placed among the Doones, without looking no more 
 than a tailor. Like enough we could meet them, man for 
 man (if we chose all around the crown and the skirts of 
 Exmoor), and show them what a cross-buttock means, be- 
 cause we are so stuggy, but in regard of stature, come- 
 liness, and bearing, no woman would look twice at us. 
 Not but what I myself, John Ridd, and one or two I know 
 of — but it becomes me best not to talk of that, although 
 my hair is grey. 
 
 Perhaps their den might well have been stormed, and 
 themselves driven out of the forest, if honest people had 
 only agreed to begin with them at once, when first they took 
 to plundering. But having respect for their good birth, and 
 pity for their misfortunes, and perhaps a little admiration 
 at the justice of God, that robbed men now were robbers, 
 the squires, and farmers, and shepherds, at first did noth- 
 ing more than grumble gently, or even make a laugh of 
 it, each in the case of others. After awhile they found 
 the matter gone too far for laughter, as violence and 
 deadly outrage stained the hand of robbery, until every 
 woman clutched her child, and every man turned pale at 
 the very name of " Doone." For the sons and grandsons 
 of Sir Ensor grew up in foul liberty, and haughtiness, and 
 hatred, to utter scorn of God and man, and brutality 
 towards dumb animals. There was only one good thing 
 about them, if indeed it were good, to wit, their faith to 
 one another, and truth to their wild eyry. But this only 
 made them feared the more, so certain was the revenge 
 they wreaked upon any who dared to strike a Doone. 
 One night, soon after I was born, when they were sacking 
 a rich man's house, not very far from Mmehead, a shot 
 was fired at them in the dark, of which they took little 
 notice, and only one of them knew that any harm was 
 done. But when they were well on the homeward road, 
 not having slain either man or woman, or even burned a 
 house down, one of their number fell from his saddle, and 
 died without so much as a groan. The youth had been 
 struck, but would not complain, and perhaps took little 
 heed of the wound, while he was bleeding inwardly. His 
 brothers and cousins laid him softly on a bank of whortle- 
 berries, and just rode back to the lonely hamlet, where he 
 had taken his death-wound. No man, nor woman, was 
 left in the morning, nor house for any to dwell in, only a 
 child with its reason gone.' 
 
 ' This vile deed was done, beyond all doubt. 
 
AN illi-x;al sett 1,1 '.m en t. 41 
 
 This affair made prudent people find more reasons to 
 let them alone than to meddle with them, and now they 
 had so entrenehed themselves, and waxed so strong in 
 number, that nothing less than a troop of soldiers could 
 wisely enter their premises; and even so it might turn out 
 ill, as perchance we shall see by and by. 
 
 For not to mention the strength of the place, which I 
 shall describe in its proper order, when I come to visit it, 
 there was not one among them but was a mighty man, 
 straight and tall, and wide, and fit to lift four hundred- 
 weight. If son or grandson of old Doone, or one of the 
 northern retainers, failed at the age of twenty, while 
 standing on his naked feet, to touch with his forehead the 
 lintel of Sir Ensor's door, and to fill the door-frame with 
 his shoulders from sidepost even to sidepost, he was led 
 away to the narrow pass, which made their valley so des- 
 perate, and thrust from the crown with ignominy, to get 
 his own living honestly. Now, the measure of that door- 
 way is, or rather was, I ought to say, si.x feet and one 
 inch lengthwise, and two feet all but two inches taken 
 crossways in the clear. Yet I not only have heard, but 
 know, being so closely mixed with them, that no descend- 
 ant of old Sir Ensor, neither relative of his (except, indeed 
 the Counsellor, who was kept by them for his wisdom), 
 and no more than two of their following ever failed of that 
 test, and relapsed to the difficult wavs of honesty. 
 
 Not that I think anything great of a standard the like 
 of that, for if they had set me in that door-frame at the 
 age of twenty, it is like enough that I should have walked 
 away with it on my shoulders, though I was not come 
 to my full strength then ; only I am speaking now of the 
 average size of our neighbourhood, and the Doones were 
 far beyond that. [Moreover, they were taught to shoot 
 with a heavy carbine, so delicately and wisely, that even 
 a boy could pass a ball through a rabbit's head at a dis- 
 tance of fourscore yards. Some people may think nought 
 of this, being in practice with longer shots from the 
 tongue than from the shoulder ; nevertheless, to do as 
 above is, to my ignorance, very good work, if you can be 
 sure to do it. Not one word do I believe of Robin Hood 
 splitting peeled wands at sevenscore yards, and such like. 
 Whoever wrote such stories knew not how slippery a 
 peeled wand is, even if one could hit it, and how it gives 
 to the onset. Now, let him stick one in the ground, and 
 take his bow and arrow at it, ten yards away, or even five. 
 
42 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Now, after all this which I have written, and all the rest 
 which a reader will see, being quicker of mind than I am 
 (who leave more than half behind me, like a man sowing 
 wheat, with his dinner laid in the ditch too near his dog), 
 it is much but what you will understand the Doones far 
 better than I did, or do even to this moment ; and there- 
 fore none will doubt, when I tell them that our good jus- 
 titiaries feared to make an ado, or hold any public enquiry 
 about my dear father's death. They would all have had 
 to ride home at night, and who could say what might 
 betide them ? Least said soonest mended, because less 
 chance of breaking. 
 
 So we buried him quietly — all except my mother, in- 
 deed, for she could not keep silence — in the sloping little 
 churchyard of Oare, as meek a place as need be, with the 
 Lynn brook down below it. There is not much of company 
 there for anybody's tombstone, because the parish spreads 
 so far in woods, and moors, without dwelling-house. If 
 we bur}' one man in three years, or even a woman or child, 
 we talk about it for three months, and say it must be our 
 turn next, and scarcely grow accustomed to it, until we 
 hear of another gone. 
 
 Annie was not allowed to come, because she cried so 
 terribly ; but she ran to the window, and saw it all, moo- 
 ing there like a little calf, so frightened and so left alone. 
 As for Eliza, she came with me, one on each side of 
 mother, and not a tear was in her eyes, but sudden starts 
 of wonder, and a new thing to be looked at unwillingly, 
 yet curiously. Poor little thing ! she was very clever, the 
 only one of our family — thank God for the same — but 
 none the more for that guessed she what it is to lose a 
 father. ^ 
 
CHAPTER YI. 
 
 NECKSSARY PRACTICE. 
 
 vS^ 
 
 .^_- 
 
 BOUT the rest of all that winter I 
 remember very little, bein;;- only 
 a young boy then, and missing 
 my father most out of doors, as 
 when it came to the bird-catching, 
 or the tracking of hares in the 
 snow, or the training of a sheep- 
 dog. Oftentimes I looked at his 
 gun, an ancient piece found in 
 the sea, a little below CHenthorne, 
 and of which he was mightv proud, 
 although it was only a match- 
 lock ; and I thought of the times 
 I had held the fuze, while he got 
 his aim at a rabbit, and once even 
 at a red deer rubbing among the 
 hazels. But n(_)thing came of mv 
 looking at it, so far as I remem- 
 ber, save foolish tears of mv own 
 perhaps, till John Fry took it down one day from the 
 hooks where father's hand had laid it ; and it hurt me to 
 see how John handled it, as if he had no memory. 
 
 "Bad job for he, as her had not gut thiccy, the naight 
 as her coom acrass them Doones. Reckon A'armer Jan 
 'ood a-zhown them the wai to kingdom come, 'stead of 
 going herzell zo aisy. And a maight have been gooin' to 
 market now, 'stead of laying banked up, over yanner. 
 Maister Jan, thee can zee the grave if thee look alang this 
 here goon-barryel. Buy now, whutt be blubberin' at? 
 Wish I had never told thee." 
 
 " John Fry, I am not blubbering ; you make a great mis- 
 take, John. You are thinking of little Annie. I cough 
 sometimes in the winter-weather, and father gives me lick- 
 erish — I mean — I mean — he used to. Now let me have 
 the gun, John." 
 
44 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "Thee have the goon, Jan ! Thee isn't fit to putt un to 
 thy zhoulder. What a weight her be, for sure ! " 
 
 "Me not hold it, John! That shows how much you 
 know about it. Get out of the way, John ; you are oppo- 
 site the mouth of it, and lil^ely it is loaded." 
 
 John Fry jumped, in a livelier manner than when he 
 was doing day-work ; and I rested the mouth on a cross 
 rack-piece, and felt a warm sort of surety that I could hit 
 the door over opposite, or at least the cobwall alongside 
 of it, and do no harm in the orchard. But John would not 
 give me link or fuze, and, on the whole, I was glad of it, 
 though carrying on as boys do, because I had heard my 
 father say that the Spanish gun kicked like a horse, and 
 because the load in it came from his hand, and I did not 
 like to undo it. But I never found it kick very hard, 
 when firmly set to the shoulder, unless it was badly loaded. 
 In truth the thickness of the metal was enough almost to 
 astonish one ; and what our people said about it may have 
 been true enough, although most of them are such liars — 
 at least, I mean they make mistakes, as all mankind must 
 do. Perchance it was no mistake at all, to say that this 
 ancient gun had belonged to some noble Spaniard, the 
 captain of a fine large ship in the "Invincible Armada," 
 which we of England managed to conquer, with God and 
 the weather helping us, a hundred years ago or more — I 
 can't say to a month or so. 
 
 After a little while, when John had fired away at a rat 
 the charge I held so sacred, it came to me as a natural 
 thing to practice shooting with that great gun, instead of 
 John Fry's blunderbuss, which looked like a bell with 
 a stalk to it. Perhaps for a boy there is nothing better 
 than a good windmill to shoot at, as I have seen them in 
 flat countries ; but we have no windmills upon the great 
 moorland, yet here and there a few barn-doors, where 
 shelter is, and a way up the hollows. And up those hol- 
 lows you can shoot, with the help of the sides to lead your 
 aim, and there is a fair chance of hitting the door, if you 
 lay your cheek to the barrel, and try not to be afraid of it. 
 
 Gradually I won such skill, that I sent nearly all the 
 lead gutter from the north porch of our little church 
 through our best barn-door, a thing which has often re- 
 pented me since, especially as churchwarden, and made me 
 pardon many bad boys ; but father was not buried on that 
 side of the church. 
 
 But all this time, while I was roving over the hills, or 
 
GRADUALLY 1 WON SUCH SKILL. 
 
46 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 about the farm, and even listening to John Fry, my mother, 
 being so much older and feeling trouble longer, went about 
 inside the house, or among the maids and fowls, not caring 
 to talk to the best of them, except when she broke out 
 sometimes about the good master they had lost, all and 
 every one of us. But the fowls would take no notice of it, 
 except to cluck for barley ; and the maidens, though they 
 had liked him well, were thinking of their sweethearts, as 
 the spring came on. Mother thought it wrong of them, 
 selfish, and ungrateful ; and yet sometimes she was proud 
 that none had such call as herself to grieve for him. Only 
 Annie seemed to go softly in and out, and cry, with no- 
 body along of her, chiefly in the corner where the bees 
 are, and the grindstone. But somehow she would never 
 let anybody behold her, being set, as you may say, to 
 think it over by herself, and season it with weeping. 
 INfany times I caught her, and many times she turned upon 
 me ; and then I could not look at her, but asked how long 
 to dinner-time. 
 
 Now in the depth of the winter month, such as we call 
 December, father being dead and quiet in his grave a fort- 
 night, it happened me to be out of powder, for practice 
 against his enemies. I had never fired a shot without 
 thinking, "This for father's murderer ; " and John Fry said 
 that I made such faces, it was a wonder the gun went off. 
 But though I could hardly hold the gun, unless with my 
 back against a bar, it did me good to hear it go off, and 
 hope to have hitten his enemies. 
 
 "Oh, mother, mother," I said that day, directly after 
 dinner, while she was sitting looking at me, and getting 
 ready to say (as ncjw she did seven times in a week), 
 " How like your father you are growing ! Jack, come 
 here and kiss me," — "oh, mother, if you only knew, how 
 much I want a shilling ! " 
 
 "Jack, you shall never want a shilling, while I am alive 
 to give thee one. But what is it for, dear heart, dear 
 heart ?" 
 
 "To buy something over at Porlock, mother. Perhaps 
 I will tell you afterwards. If I tell not, it will be for your 
 good, and for the sake of the children." 
 
 " Bless the boy, one would think he was threescore 
 years of age at least. Give me a little kiss, you Jack, and 
 you shall have the shilling." 
 
 For I hated to kiss, or be kissed, in those days ; and so 
 all honest boys must do, when God puts any strength in 
 
NKCESSARV I'RACTICK. 47 
 
 them. lUit now 1 wanted the pciwder so much, that I went 
 and kissed mother, \evy shyly, lookingj around the corner 
 first, for Betty not to see me. 
 
 But mother gave me half-a-dozen, and only one shilling 
 for all of them ; and I could not find it in my heart to ask 
 her for another, although I would have taken it. In ver\- 
 quick time I ran away with the shilling in my pocket, and 
 got Peggy out on the Porlock road, without my mother 
 knowing it. For mother was frightened of that road now, 
 as if all the trees were murderers, and would never let me 
 go alone so much as a hundred yards on it. And to tell 
 the truth, I was touched with fear for many years about 
 it ; and even now, when I ride at dark there, a man by a 
 peat-rick makes me shiver, until I go and collar him. 
 But this time I was very bold, having John's Fry's blun- 
 derbuss, and keeping a sharp look-out wherever any lurk- 
 ing-place was. However, I saw only sheep, and small red 
 cattle, and the common deer of the forest, until I was nigh 
 to Porlock town, and then rode straight to Mr. Pooke's, at 
 the sign of the Spit and Gridiron. 
 
 Mr. Pooke was asleep, as it happened, not having much 
 to do that day, and so I fastened Peggy by the handle of 
 a warming-pan, at which she had no better manners than 
 to snort and blow her breath, and in I walked with a 
 manful style, bearing John Fry's blunderbuss. Now Tim- 
 othy Pooke was a peaceful man, glad to live without any 
 enjoyment of mind at danger, and I was tall and large 
 already, as most lads of a riper age. Mr. Pooke, as soon 
 as he opened his eyes, dropped suddenly under the counter- 
 board, and drew a great frying-pan over his head, as if the 
 Doones were come to rob him, as their custom was, mostly 
 after the fair-time. It made me feel rather hot and queer 
 to be taken for a robber, and yet, methinks, I was proud 
 of it. 
 
 "(iadzooks. Master Pooke," said I, having learned fine 
 words at Tiverton, "do you suppose that I know not, then, 
 the way to carry firearms? An it were the old Spanish 
 match-lock, in the lieu of this good flint-engine, which 
 may be borne ten miles or more, and never once go off, 
 scarcely couldst thou seem more scared. I might point at 
 thee, muzzle on — just so as I do now — even for an hour or 
 more, and like enough it would never shoot thee, unless I 
 pulled the trigger hard, with a crook upon my finger, so, 
 you see ; just so. Master Pooke, only a trifle harder." 
 
 "God sake, John Ridd, God sake, dear boy," cried 
 
48 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Pooke, knowing me by this time; "don't 'e, for good love 
 now, don't 'e show it to me, boy, as if I was to suck it. 
 Put 'un down, for good, now, and thee shall have the very 
 best of all is in the shop." 
 
 " Ho ! " I replied with much contempt, and swinging 
 round the gun so that it fetched his hoop of candles down, 
 all unkindled as they were ; "Ho ! as if I had not attained 
 to the handling of a gun yet! My hands are cold, coming 
 over the moors, else would I go bail to point the mouth at 
 you for an hour, sir, and no cause for uneasiness." 
 
 But in spite of all assurances, he showed himself desir- 
 ous only to see the last of my gun and me. I dare say 
 "villanous salt peter," as the great playright calls it, was 
 never so cheap before nor since. For my shilling Master 
 Pooke afforded me two great packages, over-large to go 
 into my pockets, as well as a mighty chunk of lead, which 
 I bound upon Peggy's withers. And as if all this had not 
 been enough, he presented me with a roll of comfits for 
 my sister Annie, whose gentle face and pretty manners 
 won the love of everybody. 
 
 There was still some daylight here and there, as I rose 
 the hill above Porlock, wondering whether my mother 
 would be in a fright, or would not know it. The two great 
 packages of powder, slung behind my back, knocked so 
 hard against one another that I feared they must either 
 spill or blow up, and hurry me over Peggy's ears from the 
 woollen cloth I rode upon. For father always liked a 
 horse to have some wool upon his loins, whenever he went 
 far from home, and had to stand about, where one pleased, 
 hot, and wet, and panting. And father always said that 
 saddles were meant for men full-grown, and heavy, and 
 losing their activity ; and no boy or young man on our 
 farm durst ever get into a saddle, because they all knew 
 that the master would chuck them out pretty quicklv. 
 As for me, I had tried it once, from a kind of curiosity, 
 and I could not walk for two or three days, the leather 
 galled my knees so. But now, as Peggy bore me bravely, 
 snorting every now and then into a cloud of air, for the 
 night was growing frost)', presently the moon arose over 
 the shoulder of a hill, and the pony and I were half glad 
 to see her, and half afraid of the shadow she threw, and 
 the images all around us. I was ready at any moment to 
 shoot at anybody, having great faith in my blunderbuss, 
 but hoping not to prove it. And as I passed the narrow 
 place where the Doones had killed my father, such a fear 
 
NECliSSARV PRACI'ICK. 49 
 
 broke upon me that I leaned upon the neck of Pef4'j;y, 
 and shut my eyes, and was cold all over. Ho\ve\cr, there 
 was not a soul to be seen, until we came home to the 
 old farmyard, and there was my mother crying sadly, and 
 Bettv Muxworthy scolding. 
 
 " Come along, now," 1 whispered to Annie, the moment 
 supper was over ; " and if you can hold your tongue, 
 Annie, I will show you something." 
 
 She lifted herself on the bench so quickly, and flushed 
 so rich with pleasure, that I was obliged to stare hard 
 away, and make Betty look beyond us. Betty thought 
 1 had something hid in the closet bevond the clock-case, 
 and she was the more convinced of it, by reason of my 
 denial. Not that Betty Muxworthy, or any one else, for 
 that matter, ever found me in a falsehood, because I never 
 told one, not even to my mother — or, which is still a 
 stronger thing, not even to my sweetheart (when I grew 
 up to have one) — but that Betty being wronged in the 
 matter of marriage, a generation or two agone, by a man 
 who came hedging and ditching, had now no mercy, except 
 to believe that men, from cradle to grave, are liars, and 
 women fools to look at them. 
 
 When Betty could find no crime of mine, she knocked 
 me out of the way in a minute, as if I had been nobody ; 
 and then she began to coax " .Mistress Annie," as she 
 always called her, and draw the soft hair down her hands, 
 and whisper into the little ears. Meanwhile, dear mother 
 was falling asleep, having been troubled so much about 
 me ; and "Watch," my father's pet dog, was nodding closer 
 and closer up into her lap. 
 
 "Now, Annie, will you come?" I said, for I wanted her 
 to hold the ladle for melting of the lead; "will you come 
 at once, Annie? Or must 1 go for Lizzie, and let her see 
 the whole of it ? " 
 
 " Indeed, then, you won't do that," said Annie ; " Lizzie 
 to come before me, John; and she can't stir a pot of 
 brewis, and scarce knows a tongue from a ham, John, and 
 says it makes no difference, because both are good to eat ! 
 f )h, Betty, what do you think of that, to come of all her 
 book-learning ? " 
 
 "Thank God he can't say that of me," Betty answered 
 shortly, for she never cared about argument, except on her 
 own side. "Thank He, I says, every marnin' a'most, never 
 to lead me astray so. Men is desaving, and so is galanies ; 
 but the most desaving of all is books, with their heads and 
 
50 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 tails, and speckots in 'em, lik a peg as have taken the 
 maisles. Some folks purtends to laugh and cry over them. 
 God forgive them for liars ! " 
 
 It was part of Betty's obstinacy, that she never would 
 believe in reading, or the possibility of it, but stoutly 
 maintained to the very last, that people first learned things 
 by heart, and then pretended to make them out from pat- 
 terns done upon paper, for the sake of astonishing honest 
 folk, just as do the conjurors. And even to see the par- 
 son and clerk was not enough to convince her ; all she 
 said was, " it made no odds, they were all the same as the 
 rest of us." And now that she had been on the farm nigh 
 upon forty years, and had nursed my father, and made his 
 clothes, and all that he had to eat, and then dressed him in 
 his coffin, she was come to such authority, that it was not 
 worth the wages of the best man on the place to say a 
 word in answer to Betty, even if he would face the risk to 
 have ten for one, or twenty. 
 
 Annie was her love and joy. For .\nnie she would do 
 anvthing, even so far as to try to smile, when the little 
 maid laughed and danced to her. And in truth I know 
 not how it was, but every one was taken with Annie, at 
 the very first tnne of seeing her. She had such pretty 
 ways and manners, and such a look of kindness, and a 
 sweet soft light in her long blue eyes, full of trustful glad- 
 ness. Everybody who looked at her seemed to grow the 
 better for it, because she knew no evil. And then the 
 turn she had for cooking, you never would have expected 
 it ; and how it was her richest mirth to see that she had 
 pleased you. I have been out on the world a vast deal, as 
 you will own hereafter, and yet have I never seen .Annie's 
 equal for making a weary man comfortable. 
 
('HAPTER VII. 
 
 HARD IT IS TO CLIMB. 
 
 O many a winter-night went by, in 
 a hopeful and pleasant manner, 
 with the hissing of the bright 
 round bullets, cast into the water, 
 and the spluttering of the great 
 red apples, which Annie was 
 roasting for me. We always 
 managed our evening's work in 
 the chimney of the back-kitchen, 
 where there was room to set 
 chairs and table, in spite of the 
 fire burning. On the right-hand 
 side was a mighty oven, where 
 Betty threatened to bake us ; and 
 on the left, long sides of bacon, 
 made of favoured pi.u's, and .^crow- 
 ing very brown and comely. An- 
 nie knew the names of all, and 
 ran up through the wood-smoke, 
 every now and then, when a gen- 
 tle memory moved her, and asked 
 them how they were getting on, and when they would like 
 to be eaten. Then she came back with foolish tears, for 
 thinking of that necessity ; and I, being soft in a different 
 way, would make up my mind against bacon. 
 
 But, Lord bless you ! it was no good. Whenever it 
 came to breakfast-time, after three hours upon the moors, 
 I regularly forgot the pigs, but paid good heed to the 
 rashers. For ours is a hungry country, if such there be 
 in England ; a place, I mean, where men must eat, and 
 are quick to discharge the duty. The air of the moors 
 is so shrewd and wholesome, stirring a man's recol- 
 lection of the good things which have betided him,- 
 and whetting his hope of something still better in the 
 
52 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 future, that by the time he sits down to a cloth, his 
 heart and stomach are tuned too well to say " nay " to 
 one another. 
 
 Almost every body knows, in our part of the world at 
 least, how pleasant and soft the fall of the land is round 
 about Plover's Barrows farm. All above it is strong, dark 
 mountain, spread with heath, and desolate, but near our 
 house the valleys cove, and open warmth and shelter. 
 Here are trees, and bright green grass, and orchards full 
 of contentment, and a man may scarce espy the brook, 
 although he hears it everywhere. And indeed a stout 
 good piece of it comes through our farm-yard, and swells 
 sometimes to a rush of waves, when the clouds are on the 
 hill-tops. But all below, where the valley bends, and the 
 Lynn stream goes along with it, pretty meadows slope 
 their breast, and the sun spreads on the water. And 
 nearly all of this is ours, till you come to Nicholas 
 Snowe's land. 
 
 But about two miles below our farm, the Bagworthy 
 water runs into the Lynn, and makes a real river of it. 
 Thence it hurries away, with strength and a force of wilful 
 waters, under the foot of a barefaced hill, and so to rocks 
 and woods again, where the stream is covered over, and 
 dark, heavy pools delay it. There are plenty of fish all 
 down this way, and the further you go the bigger they be, 
 having deeper grounds to feed in ; and sometimes in the 
 summer months, when mother could spare me off the 
 farm, I came down here, with Annie to help (because it 
 was so lonely), and caught well-nigh a basketful of little 
 trout and minnows, with a hook and a bit of worm on it, 
 or a fern-web, or a blow-fly, hung from a hazel pulse-stick. 
 For of all the things I learned at Blundell's, only two 
 abode with me, and one of these was the knack of fishing, 
 and the other the art of swimming. And indeed they 
 have a very rude manner of teaching children to swim 
 there ; for the big boys take the little boys, and put them 
 through a certain process, which they grimly call "sheep- 
 washing." In the third meadow from the gate of the 
 school, going up the river, there is a fine pool in the Low- 
 man, where the Taunton brook comes in, and they call it 
 the "Taunton pool." The water runs down with a strong, 
 sharp stickle, and then has a sudden elbow in it, where 
 the small brook trickles in ; and on that side the bank is 
 steep, four, or it may be five feet high, overhanging loam- 
 ily ; but on the other side it is flat, pebbly, and fit to land 
 
IIARJ) ri' IS TO CLIMB. 53 
 
 upon. Now the large boys take the small boys, crying 
 sadly for mercy, and thinking, mayhap, of their mothers ; 
 with hands laid well at the back of their necks, they bring 
 them up to the crest of the bank upon the eastern side, 
 and make them strip their clothes off. Then the little boys, 
 falling on their naked knees blubber upwards pitcously ; 
 but the large boys know what is good for them, and will 
 not be entreated. So they cast them down, one after 
 other, into the splash of the water, and watch them go to 
 the bottom first, and then come up and fight for it, with a 
 blowing and a bubbling. It is a very fair sight to watch, 
 when you know there is little danger ; because, although 
 the pool is deep, the current is sure to wash a boy up on 
 the stones, where the end of the depth is. As for me, 
 they had no need to throw me more than once, because I 
 jumped in of my own accord, thinking small things of the 
 Lowman, after the violent Lynn. Nevertheless, I learnt 
 to swim there, as all the other boys did ; for the greatest 
 point in learning that, is to find that you must do it. I 
 loved the water naturally, and could not long be out of 
 it ; but even the boys who hated it most, came to swim 
 in some fashion or other, after they had been flung, for a 
 year or two, into the Taunton pool. 
 
 But now, although my sister .\nnie came to keep me 
 company, and was not to be parted from me by the tricks 
 of the Lynn stream, because I put her on my back and 
 carried her across, whenever she could not leap it, or tuck 
 up her things and take the stones ; yet so it happened 
 that neither of us had been up the Bagworthy water. W'e 
 knew that it brought a good stream down, as full df fish 
 as of pebbles, and we thought that it must be verv pretty 
 to make a way where no way was, nor even a bullock 
 came down to drink. But whether we were afraid or not, 
 I am sure I cannot tell, because it is so long ago ; but I 
 think that had something to do with it. For Bagworthy 
 water ran out of Doone valley, a mile or so from the 
 mouth of it. 
 
 But when I was turned fourteen years old, and put into 
 good small-clothes, buckled at the knee, and strong blue 
 worsted hosen, knitted by my mother, it happened to me 
 without choice, I may say, to e.xplore the Bagworthy 
 water. And it came about in this wise : 
 
 My mother had long been ailing, and not well able to 
 eat much ; and there is nothing that frightens us so much 
 as for people to have no love for their victuals. Now I 
 
54 LORNA DO(JXE. 
 
 chanced to remember that once, at the time of the holi- 
 days, I had brought dear mother from Tiverton a jar of 
 pickled loaches, caught by myself in the Lowman river, 
 and baked in the kitchen oven, with vinegar, a few leaves 
 of bay, and about a dozen pepper-corns. And mother had 
 said that, in all her life, she had never tasted anything fit 
 to be compared with them. Whether she said so good a 
 thing out of compliment to my skill in catching the fish 
 and cooking them, or whether she really meant it, is more 
 than I can tell, though I quite believe the latter, and so 
 would most people who tasted them ; at any rate, I now 
 resolved to get some loaches for her, and do them in the 
 self-same manner, just to make her eat a bit. 
 
 There are many people, even now, who have not come 
 to the right knowledge what a loach is, and where he 
 lives, and how to catch and pickle him. And I will not 
 tell them all about it, because if I did, very likely there 
 would be no loaches left, ten or twenty years after the 
 appearance of this book. A pickled minnow is very good, 
 if you catch him in a stickle, with the scarlet fingers upon 
 him ; but I count him no more than the ropes in beer, 
 compared with a loach done properly. 
 
 Being resolved to catch some loaches, whatever trouble 
 it cost me, I set forth without a word to any one, in the 
 forenoon of St. Valentine's day, 1675-6, I think it must 
 have been. Annie should not come with me, because the 
 water was too cold ; for the winter had been long, and 
 snow lay here and there, in patches in the hollow of the 
 banks, like a lady's gloves forgotten. And yet the spring 
 was breaking forth, as it always does in Devonshire, when 
 the turn of the days is over ; and though there was little 
 to see of it, the air was full of feeling. 
 
 It puzzles me now, that I remember all those young im- 
 pressions so, because I took no heed of them at the time 
 whatever ; and yet they come upon me bright, when noth- 
 ing else is evident in the grey fog of experience. I am 
 like an old man gazing at the outside of his spectacles, 
 and seeing, as he rubs the dust, the image of his grandson 
 playing at bo-peep with him. 
 
 But let me be of any age, I never could forget that day, 
 and how bitter cold the water was. For I doffed my shoes 
 and hose, and put them into a bag about my neck, and left 
 my little coat at home, and tied my shirt-sleeves back to 
 my shoulders. Then I took a three-pronged fork firmly 
 bound to a rod with cord, and a piece of canvas kerchief, 
 
HARD IT IS ■[■(> CLlMl:. 5^ 
 
 with a lump of brcail inside it, and m) went into the 
 pebbly water, trying to think how warm it was. For more 
 than a mile all down the l.ynn stream, scarcely a stone I 
 left unturned, being thoroughly skilled in the tricks of the 
 loach, and knowing how he hides himself. For being 
 grey-s|iottetl, and clear to see througli, and something like 
 a cuttle fish, only more substantial, he will stay quite still, 
 «here a streak of wcctl is in the rapid water, hoping to be 
 overlooked, nor caring even to wag his tail. Then being 
 disturbed he flips away, like whalebone from the finger, 
 and hies to a shelf of stone, and lies with his sharp head 
 poked in under it ; or sometimes he bellies him into the 
 mud and only shows his back-ridge. And that is the time 
 to spear him nicely, holding the fork very gingerly, and 
 allowing for the bent of it, which comes to pass, I know 
 not how, at the tickle of air and water. 
 
 Or if your loach should not be abroad, when first vou 
 come to look for him, but keeping snug in his little home, 
 then you may see him come forth amazed at the quivering 
 of the shingles, and oar himself and look at you, and then 
 dart up-stream, like a little grey streak ; and then )ou 
 must try to mark him in, and follow very daintilv. Si^ 
 after that, in a sandy place, you steal up behind his tail to 
 him, so that he cannot set eyes on you, for his head is up- 
 stream always, and there you see him abiding still, clear, 
 and mild, and affable. Then, as he looks so innocent, you 
 make full sure to prog him well, in spite of the wrv of the 
 water, and the sun making elbows to every thing, and the 
 trembling of your fingers. But when you gird at him lov- 
 ingly, and have as good as gotten him, In ! in the go-hv 
 of the river he is gone as a shadow goes, and onlv a little 
 cloud of mud curls away from the prong he should have 
 been on. 
 
 A long way down that limpid water, chill and bright as 
 an iceberg went my little self that day, on man's choice 
 errand — destruction. All the young fish seemed to know 
 that I was one who had taken out God's certificate, and 
 meant to have the value of it ; every one of them was 
 aware that we desolate more than we replenish the earth. 
 For a cow might come and look into the water, and put 
 her yellow lips down ; a kingfisher, like a blue arrow, 
 might shoot through the dark alleys over the channel, or 
 sit on a dipping withy-bough, with his beak sunk into his 
 breast-feathers ; even an otter might float down-stream, 
 likening himself to a log of wood, with his flat head flush 
 
56 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 with the water top, and his oil}' eyes peering quietly, and 
 yet no panic would seize other life, as it does when a 
 sample of man comes. 
 
 Now let not any one suppose that I thought of these 
 things when I was young, for I knew not the way to do it. 
 And proud enough in truth I was, at the universal fear I 
 spread in all those lonely places, where I myself must 
 have been afraid, if any thing had come up to me. It is 
 all very pretty to see the trees, big with their hopes of 
 another year, though dumb as yet on the subject, and the 
 waters murmuring gaiety, and the banks spread out with 
 comfort ; but a boy takes none of this to heart, unless he 
 be meant for a poet (which no man ever can charge on 
 me), and he would liefer have a good apple, or even a bad 
 one, if he stole it. 
 
 \\'hen I had travelled two miles or so, conquered now 
 and then with cold, and coming out to rub my legs into 
 a lively friction, and only fishing here and there because 
 of the tumbling water, suddenly, in an open space, where 
 meadows spread about it, I found a good stream flow- 
 ing softly into the body of our brook. And it brought, so 
 far as I could guess by the sweep of it under my knee- 
 caps, a larger power of clear water than the Lynn itself 
 had ; only it came more quietly down, not being troubled 
 with stairs and steps, as the fortune of the Lynn is, 
 but gliding smoothly and forcibly, as if upon some set 
 purpose. 
 
 Hereupon I drew up, and thought, and reason was much 
 inside me, because the water was bitter cold, and my little 
 toes were aching. So on the bank I rubbed them well 
 with a sprout of young sting-nettle, and having skipped 
 about awhile, was kindly inclined to eat a bit. 
 
 Now all the turn of all my life hung upon that moment. 
 But as I sat there munching a crust of Betty Muxworthy's 
 sweet brown bread, and a bit of cold bacon along with it, 
 and kicking my little red heels against the dry loam to 
 keep them warm, I knew no more than fish under the fork, 
 what was going on over me. It seemed a sad business to 
 go back now, and tell Annie there were no loaches ; and 
 yet it was a frightful thing, knowing what I did of it, to 
 venture, where no grown man durst, up the Bagworthy 
 water. And please to recollect that I was only a boy in 
 those days, fond enough of anything new, but not like a 
 man to meet it. 
 
 However, as I ate more and more, my spirit arose within 
 
HARD IT IS TO CT.lMll. 57 
 
 me, and I thought of what my father had been, and how- 
 he had told me a hundieil times, never to be a coward. 
 And then 1 grew warm, and my little heart was ashamed 
 of its pit-a-patting, and I said to myself, '' Now if fatlier 
 looks, he shall see that I obey him." So I put the bag 
 round my neck again, and buckled my breeches far up from 
 the knee, expecting deeper water, and crossing the Lynn, 
 went stoutly up under the branches which hang so dark 
 on the Bagworthy river. 
 
 I found it strongly over-woven, turned, and torn with 
 thicket-wood, but not so rocky as the Lynn, and more in- 
 clined to go evenly. There were bars of chafed stakes 
 stretched from the sides half-way across the current, and 
 light outriders of pithy weed, and blades of last year's 
 water-grass trembling in the quiet places, like a spider's 
 threads, on the transparent stillness, with a tint of olive 
 moving it ; and here and there the sun came in, as if his 
 light were sifted, making dance upon the waves, and shad- 
 owing the pebbles. 
 
 Here, although affrighted often by the deep, dark 
 places, and feeling that every step I took might never be 
 taken backward, on the whole I had very comely sport of 
 loaches, trout, and minnows, forking some, and tickling 
 some, and driving others to shallow nooks, whence I 
 could bail them ashore. Now, if you have ever been fish- 
 ing, you will not wonder that I was led on, forgetting all 
 about danger, and taking no heed of the time, but shout- 
 ing in a childish wav, whenever I caught a " whacker " (as 
 we called a big fish at Tiverton) ; and in sooth there were 
 very fine loaches here, having more lie and harbourage 
 than in the rough Lynn stream, though not quite so large 
 as in the Lowman, where I have even taken them to the 
 weight of a quarter of a pound. 
 
 But in answer to all my shouts, there never was any 
 sound at all, e.xcept of a rocky echo, or a scared bird 
 hustling awav, or the sudden dive of a water-vole ; and 
 the place grew thicker and thicker, and the covert grew 
 darker above me, until I thought' that the fishes might 
 have good chance of eating me, instead of my eating the 
 fishes. 
 
 For now the day was falling fast behind the brown of 
 the hill-tops ; and the trees, being void of leaf and hard, 
 seemed giants ready to beat me. And every moment, as 
 the sky was clearing up for a white frost, the cold of the 
 water got worse and worse, until I was fit to cry with it. 
 
58 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 And so, in a sorry plight, I came to an opening in the 
 bushes, where a great black pool lay in front of me, whit- 
 ened with snow (as I thought) at the sides, till I saw it 
 was only foam-froth. 
 
 Now, though I could swim with great ease and comfort, 
 and feared no depth of water, when I could fairly come to 
 it, yet I had no desire to go over head and ears into this 
 great pool, being so cramped and weary, and cold enough 
 in all conscience, though wet only up to the middle, not 
 counting my arms and shoulders. And the look of this 
 black pit was enough to stop one from diving into it, even 
 
 on a hot summer's 
 day with sunshine 
 on the water ; I 
 mean, if the sun 
 ever shone there. 
 As it was, I shud- 
 dered and drew 
 back, not alone 
 at the pool itself, 
 and the black air 
 there was about 
 it, but also at 
 the whirling man- 
 ner, and wisping 
 of white threads 
 upon it, in stripy 
 circles round and 
 round ; and the 
 centre still as jet. 
 But soon I saw 
 the reason of the stir and depth of that great pit, as well 
 as of the roaring sound which long had made me wonder. 
 For skirting round one side, with very little comfort, be- 
 cause the rocks were high and steep, and the ledge at the 
 foot so narrow, I came to a sudden sight and marvel, such 
 as I never dreamed of. For, lo ! I stood at the foot of a 
 long pale slide of watsr, coming smoothly to me, without 
 any break or hindrance, for a hundred yards or more, and 
 fenced on either side with cliff, sheer, and straight, and 
 shining. The water neither ran nor fell, nor leaped with 
 any spouting, but made one even slope of it, as if it had 
 been combed or planed, and looking like a plank of deal 
 laid down a deep black staircase. However there was no 
 side-rail, nor any place to walk upon, only the channel a 
 
 FOR, LO I STOOD AT THE FOOT OF A LONG 
 PALE SLmE OF WATER. 
 
HARD IT IS TO CLIMI!. 59 
 
 fathom widf, and the perpendicular walls of crag shutting 
 out the evening. 
 
 The look of this place had a sad effect, scaring me very 
 greatly, and making me feel that 1 would give something, 
 only to be at home again, with Annie cookmg my supper, 
 and our dog, " \\'atch," sniffing upward. But nothing 
 would come of wishing ; that I had long found out ; and 
 it only made one the less inclined to work without white 
 feather. So I laid the case before me in a little council ; 
 not for loss of time, but only that I wanted rest, and to 
 see things truly. 
 
 Then says I to myself, "John Ridd, these trees, and 
 pools, and lonesome rocks, and setting of the sunlight, are 
 making a gruesome coward of thee. Shall I go back to 
 my mother so, and be called her fearless boy ? " 
 
 Nevertheless, I am free to own that it was not any fine 
 sense of shame which settled my decision ; for indeed there 
 was nearly as much of danger in going back as in going 
 on, and perhaps even more of labour, the journey being so 
 roundabout. But that which saved me from turning back 
 was a strange inquisitive desire, very unbecoming in a bov 
 of little years ; in a word, I would risk a great deal to 
 know, what made the water come down like that, and what 
 there was at the top of it. 
 
 Therefore, seeing hard strife before me, I girt up mv 
 breeches anew, with each buckle one hole tighter, for the 
 sodden straps were stretching and giving, and mayhap my 
 legs were grown smaller from the coldness of it. Then I 
 bestowed my fish around my neck more tightly, and not 
 stopping to look much, for fear of fear, crawled along over 
 the fork of rocks, where the water had scooped the stone 
 out ; and shunning thus the ledge from whence it rose, like 
 the mane of a white horse, into the broad black pool, softly 
 I let my feet into the dip and rush of the torrent. 
 
 And here I had reckoned without my host, although (as 
 I thought) so clever ; and it was much but that 1 went 
 down into the great black pool, and had never been heard 
 of more ; and this must have been the end of me, except 
 for my trusty loach-fork. For the green wave came down, 
 like great bottles upon me, and my legs were gone off in a 
 moment, and I had not time to cry out with wonder, only 
 to think of my mother and Annie, and knock my head very 
 sadly, which made it go round so that brains were no good, 
 even if I had any. But all in a moment, before I knew 
 aught, except that I must die out of the way, with a roar 
 
6o 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 of water upon me, my fork, praise God, stuck fast in the 
 rock, and I was borne up upon it. I felt nothing, except 
 that here was another matter to begin upon ; and it might 
 be worth while, or again it might not, to have another fight 
 for it. But presently the dash of the water upon my face 
 revived me, and my mind grew used to the roar of it ; and 
 meseemed I had been worse off than this, when first flung 
 into the Lowman. 
 
 Therefore I gathered my legs back slowly, as if they 
 were fish to be landed, stopping whenever the water flew 
 too strongly off my shin-bones, and coming along, without 
 sticking out to let the wave get hold of me. And in this 
 manner I won a footing, leaning well forward like a 
 draught-horse, and balancing on my strength as it were, 
 with the ashen stake set behind me. Then I said to my- 
 self, "John Ridd, the sooner you get yourself out by the 
 way you came, the better it will be for you." But to my 
 great dismay and affright, I saw that no choice was left 
 me now, except that I must climb somehow up that hill of 
 water, or else be washed down into the pool, and whirl 
 around till it drowned me. For there was no chance of 
 fetching back, b)^ the way I had gone down into it ; and 
 further up was a hedge of rock on either side of the water- 
 way, rising a hundred yards in height, and for all I could 
 tell five hundred, and no place to set a foot in. 
 
 Having said the Lord's Prayer (which was all I knew), 
 and made a very bad job of it, I grasped the good loach- 
 stick under a knot, and steaded me with my left hand, and 
 so with a sigh of despair began my course up the fearful 
 torrent-way. To me it seemed half-a-mile at least of slid- 
 ing water above me, but in truth it was little more than a 
 furlong, as I came to know afterwards. It would have 
 been a hard ascent, even without the slippery slime, and 
 the force of the river over it, and I had scanty hope indeed 
 of ever winning the summit. Nevertheless my terror left 
 me, now I was face to face with it, and had to meet the 
 worst ; and I set myself to do my best, with a vigour and 
 sort of hardness, which did not then surprise me, but have 
 done so ever since. 
 
 The water was only six inches deep, or from that to 
 nine at the utmost, and all the way up I could see my feet 
 looking white in the gloom of the hollow, and here and 
 there I found resting-place, to hold on by the cliff and pant 
 awhile. .And gradually as I went on, a warmth of courage 
 breathed in me, to think that perhaps no other had dared 
 
TIAKII IT IS TO CLIMB. 6 1 
 
 to try that pass before me, and to wonder what mother 
 would say to it. And then came thought of my father 
 also, and the pain of my feet abated. 
 
 How I went carefully, step by step, keeping my arms in 
 front of me, and never daring to straighten my knees, 
 is more than I can tell clearly, or even like now to think of 
 because it makes me dream c)f it. Only 1 must acknowl- 
 edge that the greatest danger of all was just where I saw 
 no jeopardy, but ran up a patch of black ooze-weed in a 
 very boastful manner, being now not far from the summit. 
 
 Here 1 fell very piteously, and was like to have broken 
 my knee-cap, and the torrent got hold of my other leg, 
 while I was indulging the bruised one. And then a vile 
 knotting of cramp disabled me, and for a while I could 
 only roar, till my mouth was full of water, and all of my 
 body was sliding. But the fright of that brought me to 
 again, and my elbow caught in a rock-hole ; and so I man- 
 aged to start again, with the help of more humility. 
 
 Now being in the most dreadful fright, because I was so 
 near the top, and hope was beating within me, I laboured 
 hard with both legs and arms, going like a mill, and grunt- 
 ing. At last the rush of forked water, where first it came 
 over the lips of the fall, drove me into the middle, and I 
 stuck awhile with my toe-balls on the slippery links of the 
 pop-weed, and the world was green and gliddery, and I 
 durst not look behind me. Then I made up niv mind to 
 die at last ; for so my legs would ache no more, and my 
 breath not pain my heart so ; only it did seem such a pity, 
 after fighting so long to give in, and the light was coming 
 upon me, and again I fought towards it ; then suddenly I 
 felt fresh air, and fell into it headlong. 
 
CHAPTER VIII. 
 
 A BOY AND A GIRL. 
 
 HEN I came to myself again, my 
 hands were full of young grass 
 and mould ; and a little girl 
 kneeling at my side was rub- 
 bing my forehead tenderly, with 
 a dock-leaf and a handkerchief. 
 "Oh, I am so glad," she whis- 
 pered softly, as I opened my 
 eyes and looked at her ; " now 
 you will try to be better, won't 
 
 )'OU ? " 
 
 I had never heard so sweet a 
 sound as came from between her 
 bright red lips, while there she 
 knelt and gazed at me ; neither 
 had I ever seen anything so 
 beautiful as the large dark eyes 
 intent upon me, full of pity and 
 wonder. And then, my nature 
 being slow, and perhaps, for that 
 matter, heavy, I wandered with my hazy eyes down the 
 black shower of her hair, as to my jaded gaze it seemed; 
 and where it fell on the turf, among it (like an early 
 star) was the first primrose of the season. And since 
 that day, I think of her, through all the rough storms 
 of my life, when I see an early primrose. Perhaps she 
 liked my countenance ; and indeed I know she did, be- 
 cause she said so afterwards ; although at the time she 
 was too young to know what made her take to me. 
 Not that I had any beauty, or ever pretended to have 
 any, only a solid, healthy face, which many girls have 
 laughed at. 
 
 Thereupon I sate upright, with my little trident still in 
 one hand, and was much afraid to speak to her, being con- 
 
A B(1V AN'D A GIRL. 
 
 63 
 
 scious of my country brogue, lest she should cease to like 
 me. But she clapped her hands, and made a trifling; dance 
 around mv back, and came to me on the other side, as if I 
 were a great phwthing." 
 
 "What is your name?" she said, as if she had every 
 right to ask me ; " and how did you come here, and what 
 are these wet things in this great bag?" 
 
 " Vou had better let them alone," I said ; " they are 
 loaches for mv mother. 
 But I will give you some, 
 if you like." 
 
 " Oear me, how much 
 you think of them ! Why 
 they are only fish. But 
 how vour feet are bleed- 
 ing ! oh, I must tie them 
 up for you. And no shoes 
 nor stockings ! Is your 
 mother very poor, poor 
 boy ? " 
 
 " Xo," I said, being 
 vexed at this ; " we are 
 rich enough to buy all 
 this great meadow, if 
 
 we chose ; and here my 
 
 shoes and stockings be." 
 
 " Why thev are quite as wet as your feet ; and I cannot 
 
 bear to see your feet. Oh, please to let me manage them ; 
 
 I will do it very softly." 
 
 "Oh, I don't think much of that," I replied; "I shall 
 
 put some goose-grease to them. But how you are IcKjking 
 
 at me ! I never saw any one like you before. My name 
 
 is John Ridd. AMiat is your name?" 
 
 " Lorna Doone," she answered, in a low voice, as if 
 
 afraid of it, and hanging her head, so that I could see 
 
 only her forehead and eyelashes ; " if you please, my 
 
 name is Lorna Doone ; and I thought you must have 
 
 known it." 
 
 Then I stood up, and touched her hand, and tried to 
 
 make her look at me ; but she only turned away the more. 
 
 Young and harmless as she was, her name alone made 
 
 guilt of her. Nevertheless I could not help looking at her 
 
 tenderly, and the more when her blushes turned into tears, 
 
 and her tears to long, low sobs. 
 
 " Don't cry," I said, " whatever you do. I am sure you 
 
 THERKUl'iJN I hATE Cl'RIiaiT, WITH MY 
 LITTLE TKIDEN 1 STILL IN ONE II.Wl). 
 
64 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 have never done any harm. I will give you all my fish, 
 Lorna, and catch some more for mother ; only don't be 
 angry with me." 
 
 She flung her little soft arms up, in the passion of her 
 tears, and looked at me so piteously, that what did I do 
 but kiss her. It seemed to be a very odd thing, when I 
 came to think of it, because I hated kissing so, as all 
 honest boys must do. But she touched my heart with 
 a sudden delight, like a cowslip-blossom (although there 
 were none to be seen yet) and the sweetest flowers of 
 spring. 
 
 She gave me no encouragement, as my mother in her 
 place would have done ; nay, she even wiped her lips 
 (which methought was rather rude of her), and drew away, 
 and smoothed her dress, as if I had used a freedom. Then 
 I felt my cheeks grow burning red, and I gazed at my legs 
 and was sorry. For although she was not at all a proud 
 child (at any rate in her countenance), yet I knew that she 
 was by birth a thousand years in front of me. They might 
 have taken and trained me, or (which would be more to 
 the purpose) my sisters, until it was time for us to die, and 
 then have trained our children after us, for many genera- 
 tions, yet never could we have gotten that look upon our 
 faces which Lorna Doone had naturally, as if she had 
 been born to it. 
 
 Here was I, a yeoman's boy, a yeoman every inch of 
 me, even where I was naked ; and there was she, a lady 
 born, and thoroughly aware of it, and dressed by people of 
 rank and taste, who took pride in her beauty, and set it to 
 advantage. For though her hair was fallen down, by rea- 
 son of her wildness, and some of her frock was touched 
 with wet, where she had tended me so, behold her dress 
 was pretty enough for the queen of all the angels ! The 
 colours were bright and rich indeed, and the substance 
 very sumptuous, yet simple and free from tinsel stuff, and 
 matching most harmoniously. All from her waist to her 
 neck was white, plaited in close, like a curtain, and the 
 dark soft weeping of her hair, and the shadowy light of 
 her eyes (like a wood rayed through with sunset), made it 
 seem yet whiter, as if it were done on purpose. As for the 
 rest, she knew what it was a great deal better than I did ; 
 for I never could look far away from her eyes, when they 
 were opened upon me. 
 
 Now, seeing how I heeded her, and feeling that I had 
 kissed her, although she was such a little girl, eight years 
 
A I'.OV AND A CJRL. 65 
 
 old or thereabouts, she turned to the stream in a bashful 
 manner, and began to watch the water, and rubbed one leg 
 against the other. 
 
 I for my part, being vexed at her behaviour to me, took 
 up all my things to go, and made a fuss about it, to let 
 her know I was going. But she did not call me back at 
 all, as I had made sure she would do ; moreover, I knew 
 that to try the descent was almost certain death to me, 
 and it looked as dark as pitch ; and so at the mouth I 
 turned round again, and came back to her, and said, 
 " Lorna." 
 
 '' C>h, I thought you were gone," she answered ; " why 
 did vou ever come here? Do you know what'they would 
 do to us, if they found you here with me?" 
 
 " Beat us, I dare say, very hard, or me at least. They 
 could never beat you." 
 
 " No. They would kill us both outright, and bury us 
 here by the water ; and the water often tells me that I 
 must come to that." 
 
 " But what should they kill me for ? " 
 " Because you have found the way up here, and they 
 never could believe it. Now, please to go ; oh please to 
 go. They will kill us both in a moment. Yes, I like you 
 very much" — for I was teasing her to say it — "very 
 much indeed, and I will call you John Ridtl, if you like; 
 only please to go, John. And when your feet are well, 
 you know, you can come and tell me how they are." 
 
 "But I tell you, Lorna, I like you \-ery much indeed, 
 nearly as much as Annie, and a great deal more than Liz- 
 zie. And I never saw any one like you ; and I must come 
 back again to-morrow, and so must you, to see me ; and I 
 will bring you such a maun of things — there are apples 
 still, and a thrush I caught with only one leg broken, and 
 
 our dog has just had puppies " 
 
 " Oh dear, they won't let me have a dog. There is 
 not a dog in the valley. They say they are such noisy 
 
 things " 
 
 "Only put your hand in mine, — what little things they 
 are, Lorna! — and I will bring you the loveliest dog; I 
 will show you just how long he is." 
 
 "Hush !" A shout came down the valley; and all my 
 heart was trembling, like water after sunset, and Lorna's 
 face was altered from pleasant play to terror. She shrank 
 to me, and looked up at me, with such a power of weak- 
 ness, that I at once made up my mind to save her or to 
 
66 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 die with her. A tingle went through all my bones, and I 
 only longed for my carbine. The little girl took courage 
 from me, and put her cheek quite close to mine. 
 
 " Come with me down the waterfall. I can carry you 
 easily ; and mother will take care of you." 
 
 " No, no," she cried, as I took her up : " I will tell you 
 what to do. They are only looking for me. You see that 
 hole, that hole there ? " 
 
 She pointed to a little niche in the rock, which verged 
 the meadow, about fifty yards away from us. In the fading 
 of the twilight I could just descry it. 
 
 "Yes, I see it ; but they will see me crossing the grass 
 to get there." 
 
 " Look ! look ! " She could hardly speak. " There is a 
 way out from the top of it ; they Wduld kill me if 1 told it. 
 Oh, here they come ; I can see them." 
 
 The little maid turned as white as the snow which hung 
 on the rocks above her, and she looked at the water, and 
 then at me, and she cried, "Oh, dear! oh, dear!" And 
 then she began to sob aloud, being so young and unready. 
 But I drew her behind the withy-bushes, and close down 
 to the water, where it was quiet, and shelving deep, ere it 
 came to the lip of the chasm. Here they could not see 
 either of us from the upper valley, and might have sought a 
 long time for us, even whep they came quite near, if the trees 
 had been clad with their summer clothes. Luckily I had 
 picked up my fish, and taken my three-pronged fork away. 
 
 Crouching in that hollow nest, as children get together 
 in ever so little compass, I saw a dozen fierce men come 
 down, on the other side of the water, not bearing any fire- 
 arms, but looking lax and jovial, as if they were come from 
 riding and a dinner taken hungrily. " Queen, queen ! " they 
 were shouting, here and there, and now and then : " where 
 the pest is our little queen gone ? " 
 
 "They always call me 'queen,' and I am to be queen by 
 and by," Lorna whispered to me, with her soft cheek on 
 my rough one, and her little heart beating against me : 
 " oh, they are crossing by the timber there, and then they 
 are sure to see us." 
 
 " Stop," said I ; " now I see what to do. I must get into 
 the water, and you must go to sleep." 
 
 " To be sure, yes, away in the meadow there. But how 
 bitter cold it will be for you I " 
 
 She saw in a moment the way to do it, sooner than I 
 could tell her ; and there was no time to lose. 
 
A lidY AND A GIRL. 67 
 
 "Now mind you never come a.^ain," she whispered over 
 her shoulder, as she crept away with a childish twist, hid- 
 ing her white front from me ; " only I shall come some- 
 times — oh, here they are, Madonna I " 
 
 Darino- scarce to peep, I crept into the water, and lay 
 down bodily in it, with my head between two blocks of 
 stone, and some flood-drift combing over me. The dusk 
 was deepening between the hills, and a white mist lav on 
 the river ; but I, beiny; in the channel of it, could see every 
 ripple, and twig, and rush, and glazing i>f twilight above it, 
 as bright as in a picture ; so that to my ignorance there 
 seemed to be no chance at all but that the men must find 
 me. For all this time tliev were shouting, and swearing, 
 and keeping such a hallabaloo, that the rocks all round the 
 valley rang ; and my heart quaked, so (what with this and 
 the cold) that the water began to gurgle round me, and 
 lap upon the pebbles. 
 
 Neither in truth did I try to stop it, being now so des- 
 perate, between the fear and the wretchedness, till I caught 
 a glimpse of the little maid, whose beauty and whose kind- 
 liness had made me yearn to be with her. .\nd then I knew 
 that for her sake I was bound to be brave, and hide mvself. 
 She was lying beneath a rock, thirt)- or forty vards from 
 me, feigning to be fast asleep, with her dress spread beau- 
 tifully, and her hair drawn over her. 
 
 Presently one of the great rough men came round a cor- 
 ner upon her ; and there he stopped, and gazed awhile at 
 her fairness and her innocence. Then he caught her up in 
 his arms, and kissed her so that I heard him ; and if I had 
 only brought my gun, I would have tried to shoot him. 
 
 " Here our queen is ! Here's the queen, here's the cap- 
 tain's daughter ! " he shouted to his comrades ; " fast 
 asleep, by God, and hearty ! Now I have first claim to 
 her ; and no one else shall touch the child. Back to the 
 bottle, all of you ! " 
 
 He set her dainty little form upon his great square 
 shoulder, and her narrow feet in one broad hand ; and so 
 in triumph marched away, with the purple velvet of her 
 skirt ruffling in his long black beard, and the silken length 
 of her hair fetched out, like a cloud by the wind, behind 
 her. This way of her going ve.\ed me so, that I leaped 
 upright in the water, and must have been spied by some of 
 them, but for their haste to the wine-bottle. C)i their little 
 queen they took small notice, being in this urgencv, al- 
 though they had thought to find her drowned ; but trooped 
 
68 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 away, one after another, with kindly challenge to gambling, 
 so far as I could make them out ; and I kept sharp watch, 
 I assure you. 
 
 Going up that darkened glen, little Lorna, riding still the 
 largest and most fierce of them, turned and put up a hand 
 to me ; and I put up a hand to her, in the thick of the mist 
 and the willows. 
 
 She was gone, my little dear (though tall of her age and 
 healthy) ; and when I got over my thriftless fright, I longed 
 to have more to say to her. Her voice to me was so dif- 
 ferent from all I had ever heard before, as might be a 
 sweet silver bell, intoned to the small chords of a harp. 
 But I had no time to think about this, if I hoped to have 
 any supper. 
 
 I crept into a bush for warmth, and rubbed my shivering 
 legs on bark, and longed for mother's fagot. Then, as 
 daylight sank below the forget-me-not of stars, with a sor- 
 row to be quit, I knew that now must be my time to get 
 awav, if there were any. 
 
 'I'lierefore, wringing mv sodden breeches, I managed to 
 crawl from the bank to the niche in the cliff, which Lorna 
 had shown me. 
 
 Through the dusk, I had trouble to see the mouth, at 
 even five landyards of distance ; nevertheless I entered 
 well, and held on by some dead fern-stems, and did hope 
 that no one would shoot me. 
 
 Bat while I was hugging myself like this, with a boyish 
 manner of reasoning, my joy was like to have ended in sad 
 grief, both to myself and my mother, and haply to all 
 honest folk who shall love to read this history. For hear- 
 ing a noise in front of me, and like a coward not knowing 
 where, but afraid to turn round or think of it, I felt myself 
 going down some deep passage, into a pit of darkness. It 
 was no good to catch the sides, for the whole thing seemed 
 to go with me. Then, without knowing how, I was leaning 
 over a night of water. 
 
 This water was of black radiance, as are certain dia- 
 monds, spanned across with vaults of rock, and carrying 
 no image, neither showing marge nor end, but centred (as 
 it might be) with a bottomless indrawal. 
 
 'With that chill and dread upon me, and the sheer rock 
 all around, and the faint light heaving wavily on the 
 silence of this gulf, I must have lust my wits, and gone to 
 the bottom, if there were any. 
 
 But suddenly a robin sang (as they will do after dark. 
 
A r.OY AND A GIRL. 
 
 69 
 
 towards spring) in the brown fern and ivy behind me. I 
 took it for our little Annie's voice (for she could call any 
 robin), and gathering quiclc warm comfort, sprang up the 
 steep wav towards the starlight. Climbing bacl<, as the 
 stones gild down, I heard the cold greedy wave go lapping, 
 like a blind black dog, into the distance of arches, and hol- 
 low depths of darkness. 
 
 ?-. .»<'■'' 
 
CHAPTER IX. 
 
 THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME. 
 
 CAN assure you, and tell no lie 
 (as John Fry always used to say, 
 when telling his very largest), that 
 I scrambled back to the mouth of 
 that pit, as if the evil one had been 
 after me. And sorely I repented 
 now of all my boyish folly, or mad- 
 ness it might well be termed, in 
 venturing, with none to help, and 
 nothing to compel me, into that ac- 
 cursed valley. Once let me get out, 
 thinks I, and if ever I get in again, 
 without being cast in by neck and 
 by crop, I will give our new-born 
 donkey leave to set up for my 
 schoolmaster. 
 
 How I kept that resolution, we 
 shall see hereafter. It is enough 
 for me now to tell how I escaped 
 from the den that night. First, I 
 sat down in the little opening which Lorna had pointed out 
 to me, and wondered whether she had meant (as bitterly 
 occurred to me) that I should run down into the pit, and be 
 drowned, and give no more trouble. But in less than half 
 a minute I was ashamed of that idea, and remembered how 
 she was vexed to think that even a loach should lose his 
 life. And then I said to myself, " Now surely, she would 
 value me more than a thousand loaches ; and what she 
 said must be quite true, about the way out of this horrible 
 place." 
 
 Therefore I began to search with the utmost care and 
 diligence, although my teeth were chattering, and all my 
 bones beginning to ache, with the chilliness and the wetness. 
 Before very long the moon appeared over the edge of the 
 mountain, and among the trees at the top of it ; and then I 
 
THKKE IS M) PLACK LIRE HO.ME. 7 1 
 
 espied rough steps, and rocky, made as if with a sled^^e- 
 hammer, narrow, steep, and far asunder, scooped here and 
 there in the side of the entrance, and then round a bulge 
 of the cliff, like the marks upon a great brown loaf, where 
 a hunL;ry child has picked at it. And higher up, where the 
 light of the moon shone broader upon the precipice, there 
 seemed to be a rude broken track, like the shadow of a 
 crooked stick thrown upon a house-wall. 
 
 Herein was small encouragement, and at first I was 
 minded to lie down and die, but it seemed to come amiss 
 to me. God has His time for all of us ; but He seems to 
 advertise us, when He does not mean to do it. Moreover, 
 I saw a movement of lights at the head of the valley, as if 
 lanthorns were coming after me ; and the nimbleness given 
 thereon to my heels was in front of all meditation. 
 
 Straightway, I set foot in the lowest stirrup (as I might 
 almost call it), and clung to the rock with my nails, and 
 worked to make a jump into the second stirrup. ,\nd I 
 compassed that too, with the aid of my stick, although, to 
 tell you the truth, I was not at that time of life so ai^ile as 
 boys of smaller frame are ; for my size was growing beyond 
 my years, and the muscles not keeping time with it, and the 
 joints of my bones not closelv hinged, with staring at one 
 another. But the third step-hole was the hardest of all, and 
 the rock swelled out on me over my breast, and there seemed 
 to be no attempting it, until I espied a .Ljoud stout rope hang- 
 ing in a groove of shadow, and just managed to reach the 
 end of it. 
 
 How I clomb up, and across the clearing, and found mv 
 wav home through the Bagworthy forest, is more than 1 
 can remember now, for I took all the rest of it then as a 
 dream, by reason of perfect weariness. And indeed it was 
 quite beyond my hopes to tell so much as I have told, for 
 at first beginning to set it down, it was all like a mist before 
 me. Nevertheless some parts grew clearer, as one by one I 
 remembered them, having taken a little soft cordial, because 
 the memory frightens me. 
 
 For the toil of the water, and danger of labouring up the 
 long cascade, or rapids, and then the surprise of the fair 
 voung maid, and terror of the murderers, and desperation 
 of getting away — all these are much to me even now, when 
 I am a stout churchwarden, and sit by the side of my fire, 
 after going through many far worse adventures, which f will 
 tell, God willing. Only the labour of writing is such (espe- 
 cially so as to construe, and challenge a reader on parts of 
 
/4 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 speech, and hope to be even with him), that by this pipe 
 which I hold in my hand, I ever expect to be beaten, as in 
 the days when old Doctor Twiggs, if I made a bad stroke in 
 my exercise, shouted aloud with a sour joy, " John Ridd, 
 sirrah, down with your small-clothes ! " 
 
 Let that be as it may, I deserved a good beating that 
 night, after making such a fool of myself, and grinding good 
 fustian to pieces. But when I got home, all the supper was 
 in, and the men sitting at the white table, and mother, and 
 Annie, and Lizzie near by, all eager, and offering to begin 
 (except, indeed, my mother, who was looking out of the 
 doorway), and by the fire was Betty Muxworthy, scolding 
 and cooking, and tasting her work, all in a breath, as a man 
 would say. I looked through the door from the dark by 
 the wood-stack, and was half of a mind to stay out, like a 
 dog, for fear of the rating and reckoning ; but the way my 
 dear mother was looking about, and the browning of the 
 sausages, got the better of me. 
 
 / / ) 
 
 JOHN RIDD AT SUPPER. 
 
 But nobody could get out of me where I had spent all the 
 day and evening, although they worried me never so much, 
 and longed to shake me to pieces, especially Betty Mux- 
 worthy, who never could learn to let well alone. Not that 
 they made me tell any lies, although it would have served 
 tliem right almost for intruding on other people's business, 
 but that I just held my tongue, and ate my supper rarely, 
 
TllKRK IS NO l'l,A( 1£ LIKE IKiMl-:. J T, 
 
 and let them try their taunts and jibes, and drove them 
 ahiidst wild after supper, by smiling exceeding knowingly. 
 And indeed I could have told them things, as I hinted mice 
 or twice ; and then poor Betty, and our little Lizzie, were s(j 
 mad with eagerness, that between them 1 went into the fire, 
 being thoroughly overcome with laughter, and my own im- 
 portance. 
 
 Now what the working of my mind was (if indeed it 
 worked at all, and did not rather follow suit of body) it is 
 not in my power to say ; only that the result of my adven- 
 ture in the Doone Glen was to make me dream a good deal 
 of nights, which I had never done much before, and to drive 
 me, with tenfold zeal and purpose, to the practice of bullet- 
 shooting. Not that I ever expected to shoot all the Doone 
 family, one by one, or even desired to do so, for my nature 
 is not revengeful ; but that it seemed to be somehow my 
 business to understand the gun, as a thing I must be at 
 home with. 
 
 I could hit the barn-door now capitally well, with the 
 Spanish match-lock, and even with John Fry's blunderbuss, 
 at ten good landyards distance, without any rest for my 
 fusil. And what was very wrong of me, though I did not 
 see it then, I kept John Fry there, to praise my shots, from 
 dinner-time often until the grey dusk, while he all the time 
 should have been at work, spring ploughing upon the farm. 
 And for that matter, so should I have been, or at any rate 
 driving the horses ; but John was by no means loth to be 
 there, instead of holding the plough-tail. And indeed one 
 of our old sayings is — 
 
 " For pleasure's sake I would liefer wet 
 
 Than ha' ten lumps of gold for each one of my sweat." 
 
 And again, which is not a bad proverb, though unthrifty, 
 and unlike a Scotchman's — 
 
 " God makes the wheat grow greener, 
 While farmer be at his dinner." 
 
 And no Devonshire man, or Somerset either (and I belong 
 to both of them), ever thinks of working harder than his 
 Maker meant for him. 
 
 Nevertheless I worked hard at the gun, and by the time 
 that I had sent all the church-roof gutters, so far as I hon- 
 estly could cut them, through the red-pine door, I began to 
 long for a better tool, that would make less noise and throw 
 
74 LORXA DOOXE. 
 
 straighter. But the sheep-shearing came, and the hay season 
 next, and then the harvest of small corn, and the digging 
 of the root called "batata" (a new but good thing in our 
 neighbourhood, which our folk have turned into " taties "), 
 and then the sweating of the apples, and the turning of the 
 cider-press, and the stacking of the fire-wood, and netting 
 of the woodcocks, and the springles to be minded, in the 
 garden and by the hedgerows, where blackbirds hop to the 
 molehills in the white October mornings, and grey birds 
 come to look for snails, at the time when the sun is rising. 
 
 It is wonderful how time runs away, when all these things 
 and a great many others, come in to load him down the hill, 
 and prevent him from stopping to look about. And I for 
 my part can never conceive how people who live in towns 
 and cities, where neither lambs nor birds are (except in some 
 shop windows), nor growing corn, nor meadow-grass, nor 
 even so much as a stick to cut, or a stile to climb and sit 
 down upon — how these poor folk get through their lives, 
 without being utterly weary of them, and dying from pure 
 indolence, is a thing God only knows, if His mercy allows 
 Him to think of it. 
 
 How the year vi^ent by, I know not ; only that I was 
 abroad all day, shooting, or fishing, or minding the farm, or 
 riding after some stray beast, or away by the sea-side below 
 Glenthorne, wondering at the great waters, and resolving 
 to go for a sailor. For in those days, I had a firm belief, as 
 many other strong boys have, of being born for a seaman. 
 And indeed I had been in a boat nearly twice ; but the 
 second time mother found it out, and came and drew me 
 back again ; and after that she cried so badly, that I was 
 forced to give my word to her, to go no more without tell- 
 ing her. 
 
 But Betty Muxworthy spoke her mind quite in a different 
 way about it, the while she was wringing my hosen, and clat- 
 tering to the drying-horse. 
 
 " Zailor, ees fai ! ay, and zarve un raight. Her can't kape 
 out o' the watter here, whur a' must goo vor to vaind un, 
 zame as a gurt to-ad squalloping, and mux up, till I be wore 
 out, I be, wi' the very saight of 's braiches. How wil un 
 ever baide aboard zhip, wi' the watter zinging out under un, 
 and comin' up splash when the wind blow. Latt un goo, 
 missus, latt un goo, zay I for wan, and old Davy wash his 
 clouts for un." 
 
 Now this discourse of Betty's tended more than my 
 mother's prayers, I fear, to keep me from going. For I 
 
THERE IS N(_) PLACE LIKi: IKiME. 
 
 /? 
 
 hated Betty in those davs, as children always hate a cross 
 servant, and often i^ct fond of a false one. But Hetty, like 
 many active women, was false by her cnjssness only, think- 
 ing it just for the moment, perhaps, and rushing away with 
 a bucket, ready to stick to it, like a clenched nail, if beaten 
 the wrong way with argument, but melting over it, if you 
 left her, as stmging soap, left alone in a basin, spreads all 
 abroad without bubbling. 
 
 But all this is beyond the children, and beyond me, too, for 
 that matter, even now in ripe experience ; for I never did 
 know what women mean, and never shall, unless they tell 
 me, whenever it is in their power. Better to let that ques- 
 tion pass. For although I am now in a place of some au- 
 thority, I have observed that no one ever listens to me, 
 when I attempt to lay down the law ; but all are waiting 
 with open ears until I do enforce it. And so, methinks, he 
 who reads a history cares not much for the wisdom or folly 
 of the writer (knowing well that the former is far less than 
 his own, and the latter vastly greater), but hurries to know 
 what the people did, and how they got on about it. And 
 this I can tell, if any one can, having been myself in the 
 thick of it. 
 
 The fright I had taken that night in ("ilen Doone, satisfied 
 me for a long time thereafter, and I took good care not to 
 venture even in the fields and woods of the outer farm 
 without John Fry for company. John was greatly surprised 
 and pleased at the value I now set upon him until, what 
 betwixt the desire to vaunt, and the longing to talk things 
 over, I gradually laid bare to him nearly all that had befal- 
 len me, except, indeed, about Lorna, whom a sort of shame 
 kept me from mentioning. Not that I did not think of her, 
 and wish very often to see her again, but of course 1 was 
 only a bov as yet, and therefore inclined to despise young 
 girls, as being unable to do anything, and only meant to 
 listen to orders. And when I got along with the other boys, 
 that was how we always spoke of them, if we deigned to 
 speak at all, as creatures of a lower order, only good enough 
 to run errands for us, and to nurse boy-babies. 
 
 And yet my sister Annie was, in truth, a great deal more 
 to me than all the boys of the parish, and of Brendon, and 
 Countisbury, put together ; although at the time I never 
 dreamed it, and would have laughed if told so. Annie was 
 of a pleasing face, and very gentle manner, almost like a 
 lady, some people said, but without any airs whatever, only 
 trying to give satisfaction. And if she failed, she would go 
 
76 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 and weep, without letting any one know it, believing the 
 fault to be all her own, when mostly it was of others. But 
 if she succeeded in pleasing you, it was beautiful to see her 
 smile, and stroke her soft chin in a way of her own, which 
 she always used, when taking note how to do the right thing 
 again for you. And then her cheeks had a bright clear 
 pink, and her eyes were as blue as the sky in spring, and 
 she stood as upright as a young apple-tree, and no one 
 could help but smile at her, and pat her brown curls approv- 
 ingly ; whereupon she always courteseyed. For she never 
 tried to look away, when honest people gazed at her, and 
 even in the court-yard, she would come and help to take 
 your saddle, and tell (without your asking her) what there 
 was for dinner. 
 
 And afterwards she grew up to be a very comely maiden, 
 tall, and with a well-built neck, and very fair white shoul- 
 ders, under a bright cloud of curling hair. Alas ! poor 
 Annie, like most of the gentle maidens — but tush, I am not 
 come to that yet ; and for the present she seemed to me 
 little to look at, after the beauty of Lorna Doone. 
 
CHAPTER X. 
 
 A BRAVE RKSCUE AND A ROUGH RIDE. 
 
 r happened upon a November 
 evening; (when I was about fif- 
 teen years old, and out-growing 
 my strength very rapidly, my sis- 
 ter Annie being turned thirteen, 
 and a deal of rain having fallen, 
 and all the troughs in the yard 
 being flooded, and the bark from 
 the wood-ricks washed down the 
 gutters, and even our water-shoot 
 going brown) that the ducks in 
 the court made a terrible quack- 
 ing, instead of marching off to 
 their pen, one behind another. 
 Thereupon Annie and I ran out, 
 to see what might be the sense of 
 it. There were thirteen ducks, 
 and ten lily-white (as the fashion 
 then of ducks was), not I mean 
 twenty-three in all, but ten white 
 and three brown-striped ones ; and without being nice about 
 their colour, they all quacked very movingly. They pushed 
 their gold-coloured bills here and there (yet dirty, as gold is 
 apt to be), and they jumped on the triangles of their feet, 
 and sounded out of their nostrils ; and some of the over- 
 excited ones ran along low on the ground, quacking griev- 
 ously, with their bills snapping and bending, and the roof of 
 their mouths exhibited. 
 
 Annie began to cry " dilly, dilly, einy, einy, ducksey,'' ac- 
 cording to the burden of a tune they seem to have accepted 
 as the national duck's anthem ; but instead of being soothed 
 by it, they only quacked three times as hard, and ran round, 
 till we were giddy. And then they shook their tails all to- 
 gether, and looked grave, and went round and round again. 
 Now I am uncommonly fond of ducks, whether roystering, 
 
yS LORNA DOONE. 
 
 roosting, or roasted ; and it is a fine sight to behold them 
 walk, poddling one after other, with their toes out, like sol- 
 diers drilling, and their little eyes cocked all ways at once, 
 and the way that they dib with their bills, and dabble, and 
 throw up their heads and enjoy something, and then tell the 
 others about it. Therefore I knew at once, by the way they 
 were carrying on, that there must be something or other 
 gone wholly amiss in the duck-world. Sister Annie per- 
 ceived it too, but with a greater quickness, for she counted 
 them like a good duck-wife, and could only tell thirteen of 
 them, when she knew there ought to be fourteen. 
 
 And so we began to search about, and the ducks ran to 
 lead us aright, having come that far to fetch us ; and when 
 we got down to the foot of the court-3'ard where the two 
 great ash-trees stand by the side of the little water, we found 
 good reason for the urgence and melancholy of the duck- 
 birds. Lo ! the old white drake, the father of all, a bird of 
 high manners and chivalry, always the last to help himself 
 from the pan of barley-meal, and the first to show fight to 
 a dog or cock intruding upon his family, this fine fellow, 
 and pillar of the state, was now in a sad predicament, yet 
 quacking very stoutly. For the brook wherewith he had 
 been familiar from his callow childhood, and wherein he was 
 wont to quest for water-newts, and tadpoles, and caddis- 
 worms, and other game, this brook, which afl'orded him very 
 often scanty space to dabble in, and sometimes starved the 
 cresses, was now coming down in a great brown flood, as if 
 the banks never belonged to it. The foaming of it, and the 
 noise, and the cresting of the corners, and the up and down, 
 like a wave of the sea, were enough to frighten any duck, 
 though bred upon stormy waters, which our ducks never 
 had been. 
 
 There is always a hurdle, nine feet long, and four and a 
 half in depth, swung by a chain at either end from an oak 
 laid across the channel. And the use of this hurdle is to 
 keep our kine at milking time from straying away there 
 drinking (for in truth they are very dainty), and to fence 
 strange cattle, or Farmer Snowe's horses, from coming along 
 the bed of the brook unknown, to steal our substance. But 
 now this hurdle, which hung in the summer a foot above 
 the trickle, would have been dipped more than two feet 
 deep, but for the power against it. For the torrent came 
 clown so vehemently that the chains at full stretch were 
 creaking, and the hurdle, buffeted almost flat, and thatched 
 (so to say) with the drift-stuff, was going see-saw with a 
 
A BRAVE RKSCUE AND A ROUGH RIDK 
 
 79 
 
 sulky splash on the dirty red comb of the waters. Hut sad- 
 dest to see was between two bars, where a foy was of ru>hes, 
 and fluodwDud, and wild celery-haulni, and dead cruwsfoot, 
 who but our venerable mallard, jammed in by the joint of 
 his shoulder, speaking aloud as he rose and fell, with his 
 top-knot full of water, unable to comprehend it, with his tail 
 -washed far away from him, but often compelled to be silent, 
 
 A BRAVE RESCUE. 
 
 being ducked very harshly against his will by the choking 
 fall-to of the hurdle. 
 
 For a moment I could scarce help laughing;, because, be- 
 ing borne up high and dry by a tumult of tlie torrent, he 
 gave me a look from his one little eye (having lost one in 
 fight with the turkey-cock), a gaze of appealing sorrow, and 
 then a loud quack to second it. But the quack came out 
 of time, I suppose, for his throat got filled with water, as 
 the hurdle carried him back again. And then there was 
 scarcely the screw of his tail to be seen until he swung up 
 again, and left small doubt by the way he spluttered, and 
 failed to quack, and hung down his poor crest, but that 
 drown he must in another minute, and frogs triumph over 
 his body. 
 
 Annie was crying and wringing her hands, and I was 
 about to rush into the water, although I liked not the look 
 of it, but hoped to hold on by the hurdle, when a man on 
 horseback came suddenly round the corner of the great ash- 
 hedge on the other side of the stream, and his horse's feet 
 were in the water. 
 
8o LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " Ho, there," he cried ; " get thee back boy. The flood 
 will carry thee down like a straw. I will do it for thee, and 
 no trouble." 
 
 With that he leaned forward, and spoke to his mare — she 
 was just of the tint of a strawberry, a young thing, very 
 beautiful — and she arched up her neck, as misliking the job, 
 yet, trusting him, would attempt it. She entered the flood, 
 with her dainty fore-legs sloped further and further in front 
 of her, and her delicate ears pricked forward, and the size 
 of her great e)res increasing ; but he kept her straight in the 
 turbid rush, by the pressure of his knee on her. Then she 
 looked back, and wondered at him, as the force of the tor- 
 rent grew stronger, but he bade her go on ; and on she 
 went, and it foamed up over her shoulders ; and she tossed 
 up her lip and scorned it, for now her courage was waking. 
 Then as the rush of it swept her away, and she struck with 
 her fore-feet down the stream, he leaned from his saddle, in 
 a manner which I never could have thought possible, and 
 caught up old Tom with his left hand, and set him between 
 his holsters, and smiled at his faint quack of gratitude. In 
 a moment all three were carried down-stream, and the rider 
 lay flat on his horse, and tossed the hurdle clear from him, 
 and made for the bend of smooth water. 
 
 They landed, some thirty or forty yards lower, in the 
 midst of our kitchen-garden, where the winter-cabbage was ; 
 but though Annie and I crept in through the hedge, and 
 were full of our thanks, and admiring him, he would answer 
 us never a word, until he had spoken in full to the mare, as 
 if explaining the whole to her. 
 
 "Sweetheart, I know thou could'st have leaped it," he 
 said, as he patted her cheek, being on the ground by this 
 time, and she was nudging up to him, with the water pat- 
 tering off from her ; "but I had good reason, \\'innie dear, 
 for making thee go through it." 
 
 She answered him kindly with her soft eyes, and sniffed 
 at him very lovingly, and they understood one another. 
 Then he took from his waistcoat two pepper-corns, and 
 made the old drake swallow them, and tried him softly upon 
 his legs, where the leading gap in the hedge was. ( )ld Tom 
 stood up quite bravely, and clapped his wings, and shook 
 off the wet from his tail-feathers, and then away into the 
 court-yard, and his family gathered around him, and they 
 all made a noise in their throats, and stood up, and put their 
 bills together, to thank (jod for this great deliverance. 
 
 Having taken all this trouble, and watched the end of 
 
A liRAVE RESCUE AND A ROUCH RIHE. 
 
 8l 
 
 that adventure, the gentleman turned round to us, with a 
 pleasant smile on his face, as if he were lightly amused with 
 himself ; and we came up and looked at him. He was 
 rather short, about John Fry's height, or may be a little 
 taller, but very strongly built and springy, as his gait at 
 every steji showed plainly, although his legs were bowed 
 with much riding, and he looked as if he lived on horse- 
 back. To a buy like me he seemed very old, being over 
 twenty, and well-found in beard ; but he was not more 
 than four-and-twenty, fresh and 
 ruddy-looking, with a short nose 
 and keen blue eyes, and a merry 
 waggish jerk about him, as if the 
 world were not in earnest. Yet 
 he had a sharp, stern way, like the 
 crack of a pistol, if anything mis- 
 liked him ; and we knew (for chil- 
 dren see such things) that it was 
 safer to tickle than tackle him. 
 
 " Well, young uns, what be gap- 
 ing at?" He gave pretty Annie 
 a chuck on the chin, and took me 
 all in without winking. 
 
 "Your mare," said I, standing 
 stoutly up, being a tall boy now 
 beauty, sir. \\'ill you let me have a ride of her ? " 
 " Think thou couldst ride her, lad ? She will 
 burden but mine. Thou couldst never ride her. 
 would be loth to kill thee." 
 
 " Ride her ! " I cried with the bravest scorn 
 looked so kind and gentle ; " there never was horse upon 
 Exmoor foaled, but I could tackle in half-an-hour. Only 
 I never ride upon saddle. Take them leathers off of her." 
 He looked at me, with a dry little whistle, and thrust his 
 hands into his breeches-pockets, and so grinned that I could 
 not stand it. And Annie laid hold of me in such a way 
 that I was almost mad with her. And he laughed, and ap- 
 proved her for doing so. And the worst of all was — he said 
 nothing. 
 
 " Get away, Annie, will 5'ou ? Do you think I am a fool, 
 good sir ? Only trust me with her, and I will not over- 
 ride her." 
 
 " For that I will go bail, my son. She is liker to over- 
 ride thee. But the ground is soft to fall upon after all this 
 rain. Now come out into the yard, young man, for the sake 
 
 T' IM FAGGUS. 
 
 I never saw such a 
 
 lave no 
 Tut ! I 
 
 for she 
 
2 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 of your mother's cabbages. And the mellow straw-bed will 
 be softer for thee, since pride must have its fall. I am thy 
 mother's cousin, boy, and am going up to house. Tom 
 Faggus is my name, as every body knows ; and this is my 
 young mare, Winnie." 
 
 What a fool I must have been not to know it at once ! 
 Tom Faggus, the great highwayman, and his young blood- 
 mare, the strawberry ! Already her fame was noised abroad 
 nearly as much as her master's ; and my longing to ride her 
 grew tenfold, but fear came at the back of it. Not that I 
 had the smallest fear of what the mare could do to me, by 
 fair play and horse-trickery, but that the glory of sitting 
 upon her seemed to be too great for me, especially as there 
 were rumours abroad that she was not a mare after all, but 
 a witch. However, she looked like a filly all over, and 
 wonderfully beautiful, with her supple stride, and soft slope 
 of shoulder, and glossy coat beaded with water, and promi- 
 nent eyes, full of love or of fire, ^\'hether this came from 
 her Eastern blood of the Arabs newly imported, and whether 
 the cream-colour, mixed with our bay, led to that bright 
 strawberry tint, is certainly more than I can decide, being 
 chiefly acquainted with farm-horses. And these come of 
 any colour and form ; you never can count what they will 
 be, and are lucky to get four legs to them. 
 
 Mr. Faggus gave his mare a wink, and she walked de- 
 murely after him, a bright young thing, flowing over with 
 life, yet dropping her soul to a higher one, and led by 
 love to anything, as the manner is of females, when they 
 know what is the best for them. Then ^^'innie trod lightly 
 upon the straw, because it had soft muck under it, and her 
 delicate feet came back again. 
 
 " Up for it still, boy, be ye ? " Tom Faggus stopped, and 
 the mare stopped there ; and they looked at me provokingly. 
 
 " Is she able to leap, sir ? There is good take-off on this 
 side of the brook." 
 
 Mr. Faggus laughed very quietly, turning round to Win- 
 nie, so that she might enter into it. And she, for her part, 
 seemed to know exactly where the joke was. 
 
 " Good tumble-off, you mean, my boy. Well there can 
 be small harm to thee. I am akin to thy family, and know 
 the substance of their skulls." 
 
 " Let me get up," said I, waxing wroth, for reasons I can- 
 not tell you, because they are too manifold ; "take off your 
 saddle-bag things. I will try not to squeeze her ribs in, 
 unless she plays nonsense with me." 
 
A. BRAVE RESCUF. ANli A RCU'CII RIDE. 
 
 83 
 
 Tom Faggus gave one 
 
 Then Mr. Faggus was up on his mettle, at this proud 
 
 speech of mine ; and John Fry was running up all the while, 
 
 and Bill Dadds, and a half a ilozen. 
 
 glance around, and then dropped all 
 
 regard for me. The high repute of 
 
 his mare was at stake, and what was 
 
 m}' life compared to it ? Through 
 
 my defiance, and stupid ways, here 
 
 was I in a duello, and my legs not 
 
 come to their strength yet, and my 
 
 arms as limp as a herring. 
 
 Something of this occurred to 
 
 him, even in his wrath with me, for 
 
 he spoke very softly to the filly, who 
 
 now could scarce subdue herself ; 
 
 but she drew in her nostrils, and 
 breathed to his breath, and did all 
 
 she could to answer him. 
 
 " Not too hard, my dear," he said ; 
 " let him gently down on the mixen. 
 That will be quite enough." Then 
 he turned the saddle off, and I was 
 up in a moment. She began at first 
 so easily, and pricked her ears so 
 lovingly, and minced about as if 
 pleased to find so light a weight on 
 her, that I thought she knew I could 
 ride a little, and feared to show any 
 capers. " Gee wugg, Polly ! " cried 
 I, for all the men were now look- 
 ing on, being then at the leaving- 
 off time; "Gee wugg, Polly, and 
 
 show what thou be'est made of." With that I plugged my 
 heels into her, and Billy Dadds flung his hat up. 
 
 Nevertheless, she outraged not, though her eyes were 
 frightening Annie, and John Fry took a pick to keep him 
 safe ; but she curbed to and fro, with her strong fore-arms 
 rising, like springs ingathered, waiting and quivering griev- 
 ously, and beginning to sweat about it. Then her master 
 gave a shrill clear whistle, when her ears were bent towards 
 him, and I felt her form beneath me gathering up like whale- 
 bone, and her hind-legs coming under her, and I knew that 
 I was in for it. 
 
 First she reared upright in the air, and struck me full on 
 the nose with her comb, till I bled worse than Robin Snell 
 
 HILL DADDS. 
 
84 
 
 LORNA- DOONE. 
 
 made me ; and then down with her fore-feet deep in the 
 straw, and her hind-feet going to heaven. Finding me stick 
 to her still like wax (for my mettle was up as hers was), away 
 she flew with me, swifter than ever I went before, or since, I 
 trow. She drove full head at the cob-wall — " Oh, Jack, slip 
 off," screamed Annie — then she turned like light, when I 
 thought to crush her, and ground my left knee against it. 
 " Mux me," I cried — for my breeches were broken, and short 
 
 A ROUGH ROE. 
 
 words went the furthest — " if you kill me you shall die with 
 me." Then she took the court-yard gate at a leap, knocking 
 tny words between my teeth, and then right over a quickset 
 hedge, as if the sky were a breath to her, and away for the 
 water-meadows, while I lay on her neck like a child at the 
 breast, and wished I had never been born. Straight away, 
 all in the front of the wind, and scattering clouds around 
 her, all I knew of the speed we made was the frightful flash 
 of her shoulders, and her mane like trees in a tempest. I 
 felt the earth under us rushing away, and the air left far 
 behind us, and my breath came and went, and I prayed to 
 God, and was sorry to be so late of it. 
 
 All the long swift while, without power of thought, I 
 clung to her crest and shoulders, and dug my nails into her 
 creases, and my toes into her flank-part, and was proud of 
 holding on so long, though sure of being beaten. Then in 
 her fury at feeling me still, she rushed at another device for 
 it, and leaped the wide water-trough sideways across, to and 
 
A BRA\E RESCUE AND A ROUCH RIDE. 
 
 8^ 
 
 fro, till no breath was left in me. The hazel-boughs took 
 me too hard in the face, and the tall dog-briars got hold of 
 me, and the ache of my back was like crimping a fish, till I 
 longed to give up, and lay thoroughly beaten, and lie there 
 and die in the cresses. But there came a shrill whistle from 
 up the home-hill, where the people had hurried to watch us ; 
 and the mare stopped as if with a bullet ; then set off for 
 home with the speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly 
 and silently. I never had dreamed of such delicate motion, 
 fluent, and graceful, and ambient, soft as the breeze flitting 
 over the flowers, but swift as the summer lightning. I sat 
 up again, but my strength was all spent, and no time left to 
 recover it ; and at last, as she rose at our gate like a bird, I 
 tumbled off into the mixen. 
 
CHAPTER XI 
 
 TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER. 
 
 ELL done, lad," jMr. Faggus said, 
 
 Wgoodnaturedly ; for all were now 
 gathered round me, as I rose from 
 the ground somewhat tottering, 
 and miry, and crestfallen, but 
 otherwise none the worse (having 
 fallen upon my head, which is of 
 uncommon substance) ; neverthe- 
 less John Fry was laughing, so 
 that I longed to clout his ears for 
 him ; " not at all bad work, my 
 boy ; we may teach you to ride 
 by and by, I see ; I thought not 
 to see you stick on so long" — 
 
 " I should have stuck on much 
 longer, sir, if her sides had not 
 been wet. She was so slippery" — 
 '■ Bvy, thou art right. She hath 
 given many the slip. Ha, ha ! 
 "" Vex not. Jack, that I laugh at 
 
 thee. She is like a sweetheart to me, and better than 
 any of them be. It would have gone to my heart, if thou 
 hadst conquered. None but I can ride my Winnie 
 mare." 
 
 " Foul shame to thee, then, Tom Faggus," cried mother, 
 coming up suddenly, and speaking so that all were amazed, 
 having never seen her wrathful, "to put my boy, my boy, 
 across her, as if his life were no more than thine ! The only 
 son of his father, an honest man, and a quiet man, not a 
 roystering drunken robber ! A man would have taken thy 
 mad horse and thee, and flung them both into horse-pond 
 — ay, and what's more I'll have it done now, if a hair of 
 his head is injured. Oh, my boy, my boy ! What could I 
 do without thee? Put up the other arm, Johnny." All 
 the time mother was scolding so, she was feeling me, and 
 
TOM DESERVES HIS SUPTER. 87 
 
 wiping me, while Faggus tried to UhiIc greatly ashamed, 
 having sense of the ways of women. 
 
 "Only look at his jacket, mother!" cried Annie; "and 
 a shillingsworth gone from his small-clothes ! " 
 
 "What care I for his clothes, thou goose? Take that, 
 and heed thine own a bit." And mother gave Annie a slap 
 which sent her swinging up against Mr. Faggiis, and he 
 caught her, and kissed, and protected her ; and she looked at 
 him verv nicely, with great tears in her stift blue eyes. " ( )h, 
 fie upon thee, tie upon thee ! " cried mother (being yet more 
 vexed with him, because she had beaten Annie); " after all 
 we have done for thee, and saved thy worthless neck — and 
 to try to kill my son for me ! Xever more shall horse of 
 thine enter stable here, since these be thy returns to me. 
 Small thanks to you, John Fry, I say, and you, Bill Dadds, 
 and you, Jem Slocomb, and all the rest of your coward lot ; 
 much you care for your master's son ! Afraid of that ugly 
 beast yourselves, and you put a boy just breeched upon 
 him ! " 
 
 " WuU, missus, what could us do ? " began John ; " Jan 
 wudd goo, now wudd't her, Jem ? And how was us" 
 
 " Jan indeed ! Master John, if you please, to a lad of 
 his years and stature. And now, Tom Faggus, be off, if you 
 please, and think yourself lucky to go so ; and if ever that 
 horse comes into our yard, I'll hamstring him myself, if none 
 of my cowards dare do it. 
 
 Every body looked at mother to hear her talk like that, 
 knowing how quiet she was, day by day, and how pleasant 
 to be cheated. And the men began to shoulder their shovels, 
 both so as to be away from her, and to go and tell their 
 wives of it. Winnie, too, was looking at her, being pointed 
 at so much, and wondering if she had done amiss. And 
 then she came to me, and trembled, and stooped her head, 
 and asked my pardon, if she had been too proud with me. 
 
 " Winnie shall stop here to-night," said I, for Tom Fag- 
 gus still said never a word all the while, but began to 
 buckle his things on, for he knew that women are to be met 
 with wool, as the cannon-balls were at the siege of Tiverton 
 Castle ; " mother, I tell you, A\'innie shall stop, else I will 
 go away with her. I never knew what it was, till now, to 
 ride a horse worth riding." 
 
 " Young man," said Tom Faggus, still preparing sternly to 
 depart, " you know more about a horse than any man on E.\- 
 moor. Your mother may well be proud of you, but she need 
 have had no fear. As if I, Tom Faggus, your father's cousin 
 
88 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 — and the only thing I am proud of — would ever have let 
 you mount my mare, which dukes and princes have vainly 
 sought, except for the courage in your eyes, and the look of 
 your father about you. I knew you could ride when I saw 
 you, and rarely you have conquered. But women care not 
 to understand us. Good-bye, John ; I am proud of you, 
 and I hoped to have done you pleasure. And indeed, I 
 came full of some courtly tales, that would have made your 
 hair stand up. But though not a crust I have tasted since 
 this time yesterday, having given my meat to a widow, I will 
 go and starve on the moor, far sooner than eat the best sup- 
 per that ever was cooked, in a place that has forgotten me." 
 With that he fetched a heavy sigh, as if it had been for my 
 father ; and feebly got upon Winnie's back, and she came 
 to say farewell to me. He lifted his hat to my mother, with 
 a glance of sorrow, but never a word ; and to me he said, 
 " Open the gate, Cousin John, if you please. You have 
 beaten her so, that she cannot leap it, poor thing." 
 
 But before he was truly gone out of our yard, my mother 
 came softly after him, with her afternoon apron across her 
 eyes, and one hand ready to offer him. Nevertheless he 
 made as if he had not seen her, though he let his horse go 
 slowly. 
 
 " Stop, Cousin Tom," my mother said, " a word with you, 
 before you go." 
 
 " \\'hy, bless my heart ! " Tom Faggus cried, with the 
 form of his countenance so changed that I verily thought 
 another man must have leaped into his clothes — "do I see 
 my Cousin Sarah ? I thought every one was ashamed of 
 me, and afraid to offer me shelter, since I lost my best 
 cousin, John Ridd. ' Come here,' he used to say, ' Tom, 
 come here, when you are worried, and my wife shall take 
 good care of you.' 'Yes, dear John,' I used to answer, 'I 
 know she promised my mother so ; iDut people have taken 
 to think against me, and so might Cousin Sarah.' Ah, he 
 was a man, a man ! If you only heard how he answered 
 me. But let that go, I am nothing now, since the day 1 lost 
 Cousin Ridd." And with that he began to push on again ; 
 but mother would not have it so. 
 
 " Oh, Tom, that was a loss indeed. And I am nothing 
 either. And you should try to allow for me, though I never 
 found anyone that did." And mother began to cry, though 
 father had been dead so long ; and I looked on with a stupid 
 surprise, having stopped from crying long ago. 
 
 " I can tell you one that will," cried Tom, jumping off 
 
TOM DESERVES HIS SUPI'ER. Sg 
 
 ^^'innie, in a trice, and lookini; kintlly at mother ; " I can 
 allow for you, Cousin Sarah, in every thing but one. I am 
 in some ways a bad man myself, but I know the value of a 
 
 good one ; and if you gave me orders, by God " And 
 
 he shook his fists towards Bagworthy ^V(HJd, just heaving up 
 black in the sundown. 
 
 " Hush, Tom, hush, for God's sake ! " And mother meant 
 me, without pointing at me ; or at least I thought she did. 
 For she ever had weaned me from thoughts of revenge, and 
 even from longings for judgment. " God knows best, boy," 
 she used to say, "let us wait His time, without wishing it." 
 And so, to tell the truth, I did, partly through her teaching, 
 and partly through my own mild temper, and my knowledge 
 that father, after all, was killed because he had thrashed 
 them. 
 
 " Good night, Cousin Sarah ; good night, Cousin Jack ; " 
 cried Tom, taking to the mare again ; " many a mile I have 
 to ride, and not a bit inside of me. Xo food or shelter this 
 side of Exeford, and the night will be black as pitch, I trow. 
 But it serves me right for indulging the lad, being taken 
 with his looks so." 
 
 "Cousin Tom," said mother, and trying to get so that 
 Annie and I could not hear her ; " it would be a sad and 
 unkinlike thing, for you to despise our dwelling-house. We 
 cannot entertain you as the lordly inns on the road do, and 
 we have small change of victuals. But the men will go 
 home, being Saturday ; and so you will have the fireside all 
 to yourself and the children. There are some few collops 
 of red deer's flesh, and a ham just down from the chimney, 
 and some dried salmon from Lynmouth weir, and cold roast- 
 pig, and some oysters. And if none of those be to your 
 liking, we could roast two wood-cocks in half an hour, and 
 Annie would make the toast for them. And the good folk 
 made some mistake last week, going up the country, and left 
 a keg of old Holland cordial in the coving of the wood-rick, 
 having borrowed our Smiler, without asking leave, I fear 
 there is something unrighteous about it. But what can a 
 poor widow do ? John Fry would have taken it but for our 
 Jack. Our Jack was a little too sharp for him." 
 
 " Ay, that I was ; John Fry had got it like a billet under 
 his apron, going away in the grey of the morning, as if to 
 kindle his fireplace. ' \\'hy, John,' I said, ' what a heavy 
 log ! Let me have one end of it.' ' Thank'e, Jan, no need 
 of thiccy,' he answered, turning his back to me ; ' waife 
 wanteth a log as will last all day, to kape the crock a zim- 
 
90 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 merin.' And he banged his gate upon m}' heels, to make 
 me stop and rub them. 'Why, John,' said I, 'you'm got a 
 log with round holes in the end of it. ^\'ho has been cut- 
 ting gun-wads? Just lift your apron, or I will.' " 
 
 But to return to Tom Faggus — he stopped to sup that 
 night with us, and took a little of every thing ; a few oysters 
 first, and then dried salmon, and then ham and eggs, done 
 in small curled rashers, and then a few collops of venison 
 toasted, and ne.xt to that a little cold roast-pig, and a wood- 
 cock on toast to finish with, before the Schiedam and hot 
 water. And having changed his wet things first, he seemed 
 to be in fair appetite, and praised Annie's cooking mightily, 
 with a relishing noise like a smack of his lips, and a rubbing 
 of his hands together, whenever he could spare them. 
 
 He had gotten John Fry's best small-clothes on, for he 
 said he was not good enough to go into my father's (which 
 mother kept to look at), nor man enough to fill them. And 
 in truth, my mother was very glad that he refused, when I 
 offered them. But John was over-proud to have it in his 
 power to say that such a famous man had ever dwelt in any 
 clothes of his ; and afterwards he made show of them. For 
 INIr. Faggus' glory, then, though not so great as now it is, 
 was spreading very fast indeed all about our neighbourhood, 
 and even as far as Bridgewater. 
 
 Tom Faggus was a jovial soul, if ever there has been one, 
 not making bones of little things, nor caring to seek evil. 
 There was about him such a love of genuine human nature, 
 that if a traveller said a good thing, he would give him back 
 his purse again. It is true that he took people's money 
 more by force than fraud ; and the law (being used to the 
 other course) was bitterly moved against him, although he 
 could quote precedent. These things I do not understand, 
 having seen so much of robbery (some legal, some illegal), 
 that I scarcely know, as here we say, one crow's foot from 
 the other. It is beyond me, and above me, to discuss these 
 subjects ; and in truth I luve the law right well, when it 
 doth support me, and when 1 can lay it down to my liking, 
 with power to support it. Loyal, too, to the King am I, as 
 behoves Churchwarden, and ready to make the best of him, 
 as he generally requires. But after all, I could not see 
 (until I grew much older, and came to have some property) 
 why Tom Faggus, working hard, was called a robber, and 
 felon of great, while the King, doing nothing at all (as be- 
 came his dignity), was liege-lord, and paramount owner, 
 with every body to thank him kindly for accepting tribute. 
 
■|\IM DESERVES HIS SUPPER. qi 
 
 For the present, however, I learned nothing m<ire as to 
 what our cousni's profession was, only that mother seemed 
 frightened, and whisperetl to him now and then, not to talk 
 of this or that, because of the children being there, where-, 
 upon he always nodded with a sage expression, and applied 
 himself to hollands. 
 
 " Now let us go and see Winnie, Jack," he said to me after 
 supper; "for the most part I feed her before myself, but 
 she was so hot from the way you drove her. Now she must 
 be grieving for me, and I never let her grieve long." 
 
 I was too glad to go with him, and Annie came slvly after 
 us. The filly was walking to and fro, on the naked floor of 
 the stable (for he would not let her have any straw, until he 
 should make a bed for her), and without so much as a head- 
 stall on her, for he would not have her fastened. " Do you 
 take my mare for a dog ? " he had said, when John Fry 
 brought him a halter. And now she ran to him like a child, 
 and her great eyes shone at the lanthorn. 
 
 " Hit me, Jack, and see what she will do. I will not let 
 her hurt thee. He was rubbing her ears, all the time he 
 spoke, and she was leaning against him. Then I made be- 
 lieve to strike him, and in a moment she caught me bv the 
 waistband, and lifted me clean from the ground, and was 
 casting me down to trample upon me, when he stopped her 
 suddenly. 
 
 "What think you of that, boy ? Have you horse, or dog, 
 that would do that for you ? Ay, and more than that she 
 will do. If I were to whistle, by and by, in the tone that 
 tells my danger, she would break this stable-door down, and 
 rush into the room to me. Nothing will keep her from me 
 then, stone-wall, or church-tower. Ah, Winnie, \\'innie, you 
 little witch, we shall die together." 
 
 Then he turned away with a joke, and began to feed her 
 nicely, for she was very dainty. Not a husk of oat would 
 she touch, that had been under the breath of another horse, 
 however hungry she might be. And with her oats he mixed 
 some powder, fetching it from his saddle-bags, ^\'hat this 
 was I could not guess, neither would he tell me ; but 
 laughed, and called it "star-shavings." He watched her 
 eat every morsel of it, with two or three drinks of pure 
 water ministered between whiles ; and then he made her 
 bed, in a form I had never seen before, and so we said 
 "good night" to her. 
 
 Afterwards by the fireside, he kept us very merry, sitting 
 in the great chimney-corner, and making us play games with 
 
92 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 him. And all the while he was smoking tobacco, in a man- 
 ner I never had seen before, not using any pipe for it, but 
 having it rolled in little sticks, about as long as my finger, 
 blunt at one end, and sharp at the other. The sharp end he 
 would put in his mouth, and lay a brand of wood to the 
 other, and then draw a white cloud of curling smoke ; and 
 we never tired of watching him. I wanted him to let me do 
 it, but he said, " No, my son ; it is not meant for boys." 
 Then Annie put up her lips, and asked with both hands on 
 his knees (for she had taken to him wonderfully), "Is it 
 meant for girls then, cousin Tom?" But she had better 
 not have asked, for he gave it her to try, and she shut 
 both eyes, and sucked at it. One breath however was quite 
 enough, for it made her cough so violently, that Lizzie and 
 I must thump her back, until she was almost crying. To 
 atone for that, cousin Tom set to, and told us whole pages 
 of stories, not about his own doings at all ; but strangely 
 enough they seemed to concern almost every one else we 
 had ever heard of. Without halting once for a word or a 
 deed, his tales flowed onward as freely and brightly as the 
 flames of the wood up the chimney, and with no smaller 
 variety. For he spoke with the voices of twenty people, 
 giving each person the proper manner, and the proper place 
 to speak from, so that Annie and Lizzie ran all about, and 
 searched the clock and the linen-press. And he changed 
 his face every moment so, and with such power of mimicry, 
 that without so much as a smile of his own, he made even 
 mother laugh so that she broke her new tenpenny waist- 
 band ; and as for us children, we rolled on the floor, and 
 Betty Muxworthy roared in the wash-up. 
 
CHAPTER XII. 
 
 A MAN JUSTLY POPULAR. 
 
 jOW although Mr. Faggus was so 
 
 N clever, and generous, and cele- 
 
 brated, I know not whether, 
 upon the whole, we were rather 
 proud of him as a member of 
 our family, or inclined to be 
 ashamed of him. And indeed 
 I think that the sway of the 
 balance hunt; upon the com- 
 pany we were in. For instance, 
 with the boys at Brendon — 
 for there is no village at ( )are 
 — I was exceeding proud to 
 talk of him, and would freely 
 brag of my Cousin Tom. Eut 
 with the rich parsons of the 
 neighbourhood, or the justices 
 (who came round now and then, 
 and were glad to ride up to a 
 warm farm-house), or even the 
 well-to-do tradesmen of Porlock — in a word, any settled 
 power, which was afraid of losing things — with all of these 
 we were very shy of claiming our kinship to that great 
 outlaw. 
 
 Our place was to comfort rather than condemn him, 
 though our ways in the world were so different, knowing as 
 we did his story, which knowledge, methinks, would often 
 lead us to let alone God's prerogative — judgment, and hold 
 by man's privilege — pity. Not that I would find excuse for 
 Tom's downright dishonesty, which was beyond doubt a 
 disgrace to him, and no credit to his kinsfolk, only that it 
 came about without his meaning any harm, or seeing how 
 he took to wrong, yet gradually increasing it. And now, 
 to save any further trouble, and to meet those who disparage 
 him (without allowance for the time, or the crosses laid upon 
 
94 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 him), I will tell the history of him, just as if he were not my 
 cousin, and hoping to be heeded. And I defy any man to 
 say that a word of this is either false, or in any way coloured 
 by family. 
 
 Much cause he had to be harsh with the world ; and yet 
 all acknowledged him very pleasant, when a man i^ave up 
 his money. And often and often he paid the toll for the 
 carriage coming after him, because he had emptied their 
 pockets, and would not add inconvenience. By trade he 
 had been a blacksmith, in the town of Northmolton, in De- 
 vonshire, a rough, rude place at the end of Exmoor, so that 
 many people marvelled that such a man was bred there. 
 Not only could he read and write, but he had solid sub- 
 stance : a piece of land worth a hundred pounds, and right 
 of common for two hundred sheep, and a score-and-a-half 
 of beasts, lifting up or lying down. And being left an or- 
 phan (with all these cares upon him) he began to work 
 right early, and made such a fame at the shoeing of horses, 
 that the farriers of Barum were like to lose their custom. 
 And indeed he won a golden Jacobus, for the best-shod nag 
 in the north of Devon, and some say that he never was 
 forgiven. 
 
 As to that I know no more, e.xcept that men are jealous. 
 But whether it were that, or not, he fell into bitter trouble 
 within a month of his victory, when his trade was growing 
 upon him, and his sweetheart ready to marry him. For he 
 loved a maid of Southmolton (a currier's daughter I think 
 she was, and her name was Betsy Paramore), and her father 
 had given consent ; and Tom Faggus, wishing to look his 
 best, and be clean of course, had a tailor at work upstairs 
 for him, who had come all the way from E.xeter. And 
 Betsy's things were ready too — for which thev accused him 
 afterwards, as if he could help that — when suddenly, like a 
 thunderbolt, a lawyer's writ fell upon him. 
 
 This was the beginning of a law-suit with Sir Robert 
 Bampfylde, a gentleman of the neighbourhood, who tried to 
 oust him from his common, and drove his cattle, and har- 
 assed them. And by that suit of law poor Tom was ruined 
 altogether, for Sir Robert could pay for much swearing ; 
 and then all his goods and his farm were sold up, and even 
 his smithery taken. But he saddled his horse, before they 
 could catch him, and rode away to Southmolton, looking 
 more like a madman than a good farrier, as the people said 
 who saw him. But when he arrived there, instead of com- 
 fort, they showed him the face of the door alone ; for the 
 
A MAN JUSTLY l'(:)PULAR. 95 
 
 news of his loss was before him, and Master Paramore was 
 a sound, prudent man, and a high member of the town-coun- 
 cil. It is said that tliey even gave him notice to pay for 
 Betsy's wedding-clothes, now that he was too poor to marry 
 her. This may be false, and indeed I doubt it ; in the 
 first place, because Southmolton is a busy place for talk- 
 ing, and in the next, that I do not think the action would 
 have lain at law, especially as the maid lost nothing, but 
 used it all for her wedding next month with Dick ^'ellacott, 
 of Mockham. 
 
 All this was very sore upon Tom, and he took it to heart 
 so grievously that he said, as a better man might have said, 
 being loose of mind and property, " The world hath preyed 
 on me, like a wolf. (_iod help me now to prey on the 
 world." 
 
 And in sooth it did seem, for a while, as if Providence 
 were with him, for he took rare toll on the highway, and 
 his name was soon as good as gold anywhere this side of 
 Bristowe. He studied his business by night and by day, 
 with three horses all in hard work, until he had made a fine 
 reputation, and then it was competent to him to rest, and 
 he had plenty left for charity. And I ought to say for so- 
 ciety too, for he trul}' loved high societv, treating squires 
 and noblemen (who much affected his company) to the very 
 best fare of the hostel. And they say that once the King's 
 justitiaries, being upon circuit, accepted his in\itation, de- 
 claring merrily that if never true bill had been found against 
 him, mine host should now be qualified to draw one. And 
 so the landlords did ; and he always paid them handsomely, 
 so that all of them were kind to hmi, and contended for his 
 visits. Let it be known in any township that Mr. Faggus 
 was taking his leisure at the inn, and straightway all the 
 men flocked thither to drink his health without outlay, and 
 all the women to admire him, while the children were set 
 at the cross-roads to give warning of any officers. 
 
 One of his earliest meetings was with Sir Robert Bamp- 
 fylde himself, who was riding along the Barum road, with 
 only one serving-man after him. Tom Faggus put a pistol 
 to his head, being then obliged to be violent, through want 
 of reputation, while the serving-man pretended to be a long 
 way round the corner. Then the baronet pulled out his 
 purse, quite trembling in the hurry of his politeness. Tom 
 took the purse, and his ring, and time-piece, and then 
 handed them back with a very low bow, saying that it was 
 against all usage for him to rob a robber. Then he turned 
 
g6 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 to the unfaithful knave, and trounced him right well for his 
 cowardice, and stripped him of all his property. 
 
 But now Mr. Faggus kept only one horse, lest the Govern- 
 ment should steal them, and that one was the young mare, 
 Winnie. How he came by her he never would tell, but I think 
 that she was presented to him by a certain Colonel, a lover 
 of sport, and very clever in horseflesh, whose life Tom had 
 saved from some gamblers. When I have added that Fag- 
 gus as yet had never been guilty of bloodshed (for his eyes 
 and the click of his pistol at first, and now his high reputa- 
 tion made all his wishes respected), and that he never robbed 
 a poor man, neither insulted a woman, but was very good 
 to the Church, and of hot patriotic opinions, and full of jest 
 and jollity, I have said as much as is fair of him, and shown 
 why he was so popular. Every body cursed the Doones, 
 who lived apart disdainfully. But all good people liked 
 Afr. Faggus — when he had not robbed them — and many a 
 poor sick man or woman blessed him for other people's 
 money ; and all the hostlers, stable-boys, and tapsters en- 
 tirely worshipped him. 
 
 I have been rather long, and perhaps tedious, in my ac- 
 count of him, lest at any time hereafter his character should 
 be misunderstood, and his good name disparaged ; whereas, 
 
 he was my second cousin, and the lover of my but let 
 
 that bide. 'Tis a thing that will show itself, by and by. 
 
 He came again, about three months afterwards, in the 
 beginning of the spring-time, and brought me a beautiful 
 new carbine, having learned my love of such things, and my 
 great desire to shoot straight. But mother would not let 
 me ha\'e the gun, until he averred upon his honour that he 
 had bought it honestly. And so he had, no doubt, so far as 
 it is honest to buy with money acquired rampantly. Scarce 
 could I stop to make my bullets in the mould which came 
 along with it, but must be off to the Quarry hill, and new 
 target I had made there. And he taught me then how to ride 
 bright ^\'innie, who was grown since I had seen her, but re- 
 membered me most kindly. After making much of Annie, 
 who had a wondrous liking for him — and he said he was her 
 godfather, but God knows how he could have been, unless 
 they confirmed him precociously — away he went, and young 
 Winnie's sides shone like a cherry by candle-light. 
 
 Now I feel that of those boyish days I have little more to 
 tell, because every thing went quietly, as the world for the 
 most part does with us. I began to work at the farm in 
 earnest, and tried to help my mother ; and when I remem- 
 
A MAN JUSTLY rorUl.AR. 97 
 
 bered Lorna Doone, it seemed no more than the thought of 
 a dream, which 1 could hardly call to mind. Now who cares 
 to know how many bushels of wheat we grew to the acre, 
 or how the cattle milched till we ate them, or what the turn 
 of the seasons was? But my stupid self seemed like to be 
 the biggest of all the cattle, for having much to look after 
 the sheep, and being always in kind appetite, I grew four 
 inches longer in every year of my farming, and a matter of 
 two inches wider, until there was no man of my size to be 
 seen elsewhere upon Exnioor. Let that pass ; what odds 
 to any, how tall or wide I be ? There is no Doone's door at 
 Plover's Barrows, and if there were I could never go through 
 it. They ve.\ed me so much about my size, long before I 
 had completed it, girdmg at me with paltry jokes, whose 
 wit was good only to stay at home, that I grew shame- 
 faced about the matter, and feared to encounter a looking- 
 glass. But mother was very proud, and said she never 
 could have too much of me. 
 
 The worst of all to make me ashamed of bearing my head 
 so high — a thing I saw no way to help, for I never could 
 hang my chin down, and my back was like a gate-post 
 whenever I tried to bend it — the worst of all was our little 
 Eliza, who never could come to a size herself, though she 
 had the wine from the Sacrament, at Easter and All-hallow- 
 mas, only to be small and skinnjr, sharp, and clever crook- 
 edly. Not that her body was out of the straight (being too 
 small for that, perhaps), but that her wit was full of corners, 
 jagged, and strange and uncomfortable. You never could tell 
 what she might say next — and I like not that kind of wo- 
 man. Now (lod forgive me for talking so of my own father's 
 daughter, and so much the more by reason that my father 
 could not help it. The right way is to face the matter, and 
 then be sorry for every one. My mother fell grievousl\- on 
 a slide, which John Fry had made nigh the apple-room 
 door, and hidden with straw from the stable to cover his 
 own great idleness. My father laid John's nose on the ice 
 and kept him warm in spite of it ; but it was too late for 
 Eliza. She was born next day, with more mind than body 
 — the worst thing that can befall a man. 
 
 But Annie, my other sister, was now a fine fair girl, beau- 
 tiful to behold. I could look at her by the fireside, for an 
 hour together, when I was not too sleepy, and think of my 
 dear father. And she would do the same thing by me, only 
 wait the between of the blazes. Her hair was done up in a 
 knot behind, but some would fall over her shoulders ; and 
 
98 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the dancing of the light was sweet to see through a man's 
 eyelashes. There never was a face that showed the light or 
 the shadow of feeling, as if the heart were sun to it, more 
 than our dear Annie's did. To look at her carefully, you 
 might think that she was not dwelling on any thing ; and 
 then she would know you were looking at her, and those 
 eyes would tell all about it. God knows that I try to be 
 simple enough to keep to His meaning in me, and not make 
 the worst of his children. Yet often have I been put to 
 shame, and ready to bite my tongue off after speaking amiss 
 of any body, and letting out my littleness, when suddenly 
 mine eyes have met the pure soft gaze of Annie. 
 
 As for the Doones, they were thriving still, and no one to 
 come against them, except, indeed, by word of mouth, to 
 which they lent no heed whatever. Complaints were made 
 from time to time, both in high and low quarters (as the 
 rank might be of the people robbed), and once or twice in 
 the highest of all, to wit, the King himself. But His Majesty 
 made a good joke about it (not meaning any harm, I doubt), 
 and was so much pleased with himself thereupon that he 
 quite forgave the mischief. Moreover, the main authorities 
 were a long way off ; and the Chancellor had no cattle on 
 Exmoor ; and as for my lord the Chief Justice, some rogue 
 had taken his silver spoons, whereupon his lordship swore 
 that never another man would he hang, until he had that 
 one by the neck. Therefore the Doones went on as they 
 listed, and none saw fit to meddle with them. For the only 
 man who would have dared to come to close quarters with 
 them, that is to say, Tom Faggus, himself was a quarry 
 for the law, if ever it should be unhooded. Moreover, he 
 had transferred his business to the neighbourhood of Want- 
 age, in the county of Berks, where he found the climate 
 dryer, also good downs, and commons excellent for gallop- 
 ing, and richer yeoman than ours be, and better roads to 
 rob them on. 
 
 Some folk, who had wiser attended to their own affairs, 
 said that I (being sizeable now, and able to shoot not badly) 
 ought to do something against those Doones, and show what 
 I was made of. But for a time I was very bashful, shaking 
 when called upon suddenly, and blushing as deep as a 
 maiden, for my strength was not come upon me, and may- 
 hap I had grown in front of it. And again, though I loved 
 my father still, and would fire at a word about him, I saw 
 not how it would do him good for me to harm his injurers. 
 Some races are of revengeful kind, and will for years pursue 
 
A MAN JUSTLY -POPULAR. 99 
 
 their wrong, and sacrifice tliis world and the next, for a mo- 
 ment's foul satisfaction ; but methinks this conies of some 
 black blood, perverted and never purified. And I doubt 
 but men of true English birth are stouter than so to he 
 twisted, though some of the women may take tliat turn, if 
 their own life runs unkindlv. 
 
 Let that pass — I am never good at talking of things be- 
 yond me. .VU I know is, that if I had met the Doone who 
 had killed my father, I would gladly have thrashed him black 
 and blue, supposing I were able, but would never have 
 fired a gun at him, unless he began that game with me, or 
 fell upon more of my family, or were violent among women. 
 And to do them justice, my mother and Annie were equally 
 kmd and gentle ; but Eliza would flame, and grow white 
 with contempt, and not trust herself to speak to us. 
 
 Now a strange thing came to pass that winter, when I was 
 twenty-one years old, a very strange thing, which affrighted 
 the rest, and made me feel uncomfortable. Not that there 
 was anything in it, to do harm to any one, only that none 
 could e.Kplain it, except by attributing it to the devil. The 
 weather was very mild and open, and scarcely any snow 
 fell ; at any rate none lay on the ground, even for an hour, 
 in the highest part of E.xmoor, a thing which I knew not 
 before nor since, as long as I can remember. But the 
 nights were wonderfully dark, as though with no stars in 
 the heaven, and all day long the mists were rolling upon 
 the hills and down them, as if the whole land were a wash- 
 house. The moorland was full of snipes and teal, and cur- 
 lews flying and crying, and lapwings flapping heavily, and 
 ravens hovering round dead sheep ; yet no redshanks nor 
 dottrell, and scarce any golden plovers (of which we have 
 great store generally), but vast lonely birds, that cried at 
 night, and moved the whole air with their pinions ; yet no 
 man ever saw them. It was dismal, as well as dangerous 
 now, for any man to go fowling (which of late I loved much 
 in the winter), because the fog would come down so thick 
 that the pan of the gun was reeking, and the fowl out of 
 sight ere the powder kindled, and then the sound of the 
 piece was so dead that the shooter feared harm, and glanced 
 over his shoulder. But the danger was far less in this, than 
 in losing of the track, and falling into the mire, or over the 
 brim of a precipice. 
 
 Nevertheless I must needs go out, being young and very 
 stupid, and feared of being afraid, a fear which a wise man 
 has long cast by, having learned of the manifold dangers 
 
lOO 
 
 LORN A HUONE. 
 
 which ever and ever encompass us. And beside this folly 
 and wildness of youth, perchance there was something, I 
 know not what, of the joy we have in uncertainty. Mother, 
 in fear of my missing home — though for that matter I could 
 smell supper, when hungry, through a hundred landyards of 
 fog — my dear mother, who thought of me ten times for one 
 thought about herself, gave orders to ring the great sheep- 
 bell, which hung above the pigeon-cote, every ten minutes 
 of the day ; and the sound came through the plaits of fog, 
 and I was vexed about it, like the letters of a copy-book. 
 It reminded me, too, of Blundell's bell, and the grief to go 
 into school again. 
 
 But during those two months of fog (for we had it all 
 the winter), the saddest and the heaviest thing was to stand 
 beside the sea. To be upon the beach yourself, and see the 
 long waves coming in ; to know that they are long waves. 
 
 TO BE UPON THE BEACH YOURSELF, AM) bEE THE LONG WAVES 
 CO.\nMj I.N'. 
 
 but only see a piece of them ; and to hear them lifting 
 roundly, swelling over smooth green rocks, plashing down 
 in the hollow corners, but bearing on all the same as ever, 
 soft and sleek and sorrowful, till their little noise is over. 
 
 One old man who lived at Lynmouth, seeking to be buried 
 there, having been more than half nver the world, though 
 shy to speak about it, and fain to come home to his birth- 
 place, this old Will Watcombe (who dwelt by the water) said 
 that our strange winter arose from a thing he called the 
 " Gulf-stream " rushing up channel suddenly. He said it 
 
A MAX Jl'SlLV I'Ol'ULAR. lOI 
 
 was hot water, almost fit for a man to shavr with, and it 
 threw all our cold water out, and ruined the fish and the 
 spawning-time, and a cold spring would come after it. I 
 was fond (if going to J-ynmouth on Sunilay, to hear this old 
 man talk, for sometimes he would discourse with me, when 
 nobody else could move him. He told me that this power- 
 ful flood set in upon our coast so hard, sometimes once in 
 ten years, and sometimes not for fifty, and the Lord only 
 knew the sense of it ; but that when it came, therewith came 
 warmth, and clouds, and fog, and moisture, and nuts, and 
 fruit, and even shells, and all the tides \vere thrown abroad. 
 As for nuts he winked awhile, and chewed a piece of 
 tobacco ; yet did I not comprehend him. Only afterwards 
 I heard that nuts with liquid kernels came, travelling on the 
 Gulf-stream ; for never before was known so much foreign 
 cordial landed upon our coast, floating ashore bv mistake in 
 the fog, and (what with the tossing and the mist) too much 
 astray to learn its duty. 
 
 Folk, w ho are ever too prone to talk, said that Will AVat- 
 combe himself knew better than any body else, about this 
 drift of the Gulf-stream, and the places where it would come 
 ashore, and the caves that took the indraught. But De 
 Whichehalse, our great magistrate, certified that there \\'as 
 no proof of unlawful importation, neither good cause to 
 suspect it, at a time of Christian charity. And we knew that 
 it was a foul thing for some quarrymen to say, that night 
 after night thev had been digging a new cellar at I,ey Manor 
 to hold the little marks of respect found in the caverns at 
 high-water weed. Let that be ; it is none of my business to 
 speak evil of dignities ; only we common people joked of 
 the " Gulp-stream," as we called it. 
 
 But the thing which astonished and frightened us so, was 
 not, I do assure you, the landing of foreign spirits, nor the 
 loom of a lugger at twilight in the gloom of the winter 
 moonrise. That which made us crouch in by the fire, or draw 
 the bed-clothes over us, and try to think of something else, 
 was a strange mysterious sound. 
 
 At grey of night, when the sun was gone, and no red in 
 the west remained, neither was stars forthcoming, suddenly 
 a wailing voice rose along the valleys, and a sound in the 
 air, as of people running. It mattered not whether you 
 stood on the moor, or crouched behind rocks away from it, 
 or down among reedy places ; all as one the sound would 
 come, now from the heart of the earth beneath, now over- 
 head bearing down on you. And then there was a rushing 
 
lo; 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 of something by, and melancholy laughter, and the hair of 
 a man would stand on end, before he could reason properly. 
 
 God, in His mercy, knows' that I am stupid enough for 
 any man, and very slow of impression, nor ever could bring 
 myself to believe that our Father would let the evil one get 
 the upper hand of us. But when I had heard that sound 
 three times, in the lonely gloom of the evening fog, and the 
 hush that followed the lines of air, I was loth to go abroad 
 by night, even so far as the stables, and loved the light of a 
 candle more, and the glow of a fire with company. 
 
 There were divers stories about it, told all over the breadth 
 of the moorland. But those who had heard it most often 
 declared that it must be the wail of a woman's voice, and 
 the rustle of robes fleeing horribly, and fiends in the fog 
 going after her. To that, however, I paid no heed, when 
 any body was with me ; only we drew more close together, 
 and barred the doors at sunset. 
 
CHAPTER XIII. 
 
 MASTER HUCKABACK COMES IN. 
 
 R. REUBEN HUCKABACK, 
 whom mail)' good folk in Dulver- 
 ton will remember long after my 
 time, was my mother's uncle, be- 
 ing indeed her mother's brother. 
 He owned the very best shop in 
 the town, and did a fine trade 
 in soft ware, especially when the 
 pack-horses came safely in at 
 Christmas-tide. ,\nd we being 
 now his only kindred (except in- 
 deed his grand-daughter, little 
 Ruth Huckaback, of whom no 
 one took any heed), mother be- 
 held it a Christian duty to keep 
 as well as could be with him, 
 both for love of a nice old man, 
 and for the sake of her children. 
 And truly, the Dulverton people 
 said that he was the richest man in their town, and could 
 buy up half the county armigers ; ay, and if it came to that, 
 they would like to see any man, at Bampton, or at Wivels- 
 combe, and you might say almost Taunton, who could put 
 down golden Jacobus and Carolus against him. 
 
 Now this old gentleman — so they called him, according 
 to his money ; and I have seen many worse ones, more vio- 
 lent and less wealthy — he must needs come away that time 
 to spend the New Year-tide with us ; not that he wanted to 
 do it (for he hated country life), but because my mother 
 pressing, as mothers will do to a good bag of gold, had 
 wrung a promise from him ; and the only boast of his life 
 was, that never yet had he 'broken his word, at least since 
 he opened business. 
 
 Now it pleased God, that Christmas-tide (in spite of all 
 the fogs) to send safe home to Dulverton, and what was 
 
I04 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 more, with their loads quite safe, a goodly string of pack- 
 horses. Nearly half of their charge was for Uncle Reuben, 
 and he knew how to make the most of it. Then, having 
 balanced his debits and credits, and set the writs running 
 against defaulters, as behoves a good Christian at Christmas- 
 tide, he saddled his horse, and rode off towards ( )are, with 
 a warm stout coat upon him, leaving Ruth and his headman 
 plenty to do, and little to eat, until they should see him 
 again. 
 
 It had been settled between us, that we should expect 
 him soon after noon, on the last day of December. For the 
 Doones being lazy and fond of bed, as the manner is of dis- 
 honest folk, the surest way to escape them was to travel be- 
 fore they were up and about, to wit, in the forenoon of the 
 day. But herein we reckoned without our host, for being 
 in high festivity, as became good Papists, the robbers were 
 too lazy, it seems, to take the trouble of going to bed, and 
 forth they rode on the Old Year-morning, not with any view 
 to business, but purely in search of mischief. 
 
 We had put off our dinner till one o'clock (which to me 
 was a sad foregoing), and there was to be a brave supper at 
 six of the clock, upon New Year's-eve ; and the singers to 
 come with their lanthorns, and do it outside the parlour- 
 window, and then have hot cup till their heads should go 
 round, after making away with the victuals. For although 
 there was nobody now in our family to be churchwarden of 
 Oare, it was well admitted that we were the people entitled 
 alone to that dignity ; and though Nicholas Snowe was in 
 office by name, he managed it only by mother's advice ; and 
 a pretty mess he made of it, so that every one longed for a 
 Ridd again, soon as ever I should be old enough. This 
 Nicholas Snowe was to come in the evening, with his three 
 tall comely daughters, strapping girls, and well skilled in the 
 dairv ; and the story was all over the parish, on a stupid 
 conceit of John Fry's, that I should have been in love with 
 all three, if there had been but one of them. These Snowes 
 were to come, and come they did, partly because Mr. Huck- 
 aback liked to see fine young maidens, and partly because 
 none but Nicholas Snowe could smoke a pipe yet all around 
 our parts, except of the very high people, whom we durst 
 never invite. And Uncle Ben, as we all knew well, was a 
 great hand at his pipe, and wcmld sit for hours over it, in 
 our warm chimney-corner, and never want to say a word, 
 unless it were inside him ; only he liked to have somebody 
 there over against him smoking. 
 
UNCLE BEN IX OUR WARM CHIMNEY-CORNER. 
 
I06 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 Now when I came in, before one o'clock, after seeing to 
 the cattle — for the day was thicker than ever, and we must 
 keep the cattle close at home, if we wished to see any more 
 of them — I fully expected to find Uncle Ben sitting in the 
 fireplace, lifting one cover and then another, as his favorite 
 manner was, and making sweet mouths over them ; for he 
 loved our bacon rarely, and they had no good leeks at Dul- 
 verton ; and he was a man who always would see his busi- 
 ness done himself. But there instead of my finding him 
 with his quaint dry face pulled out at me, and then shut up 
 sharp not to be cheated, who should run out but Betty 
 Muxworthy, and poke me with a saucepan-lid. 
 
 " Get out of that now, Betty," I said in my politest man- 
 ner ; for really Betty was now become a great domestic evil. 
 She would have her own way so, and of all things the most 
 distressful was for a man to try to reason with her. 
 
 " Zider-press," cried Betty again, for she thought it a fine 
 joke to call me that, because of my size, and my hatred of 
 it, " here be a rare get up, anyhow." 
 
 " A rare good dinner, you mean, Betty. Well, and I have 
 a rare good appetite." With that I wanted to go and smell 
 it, and not to stop for Betty. 
 
 " Troost thee for thiccy, Jan Ridd. But thee must keep 
 it bit langer, I rackon. Her baint coom, Maister Zider-press. 
 Whatt'e mak of that now ? " 
 
 " Do you mean to say that Uncle Ben has not arrived yet, 
 Betty?" 
 
 '■ Raived ! I knaws nout about that, whuther a hath or 
 noo. Only I tell 'e, her baint coom. Rackon them Dooneses 
 hath gat 'un." 
 
 And Betty, who hated Uncle Ben, because he never gave 
 her a groat, and she was not allowed to dine with him, I am 
 sorry to say that Betty Muxworthy grinned all across, and 
 poked me again with the greasy saucepan-cover. But I mis- 
 liking so to be treated, strode through the kitchen indig- 
 nantly, for Betty behaved to me, even now, as if I were only 
 Eliza. 
 
 " Oh Johnny, Johnny," my mother cried, running out of 
 the grand show-parlour, where the case of stuffed birds was, 
 and peacock-feathers, and the white hare killed by grand- 
 father, " I am so glad you are come at last. There is some- 
 thing sadly amiss, Johnny," 
 
 ^lother had upon her wrists something very wonderful, 
 of the nature of fal-lal as we say, and for which she had an 
 inborn turn, being of good draper family, and polished above 
 
MASTER HUCKAI'.ACK COMES IN. loy 
 
 the yeomanry. Nevertheless I could never bear it, partly 
 because I felt it to be out nf place in t)ur yood farm-house, 
 partly because I hate frippery, partly because it seemed to 
 me to have nothing to do with father, and partly because 1 
 never could tell the reason of my hating it. And yet the 
 poor soul had put them on, not to show her hands off (which 
 were above her station), but simply for her children's sake, 
 because Uncle Ben had given them. But another thing, I 
 never could bear for man or woman to call me, ' Johnny." 
 " Jack," or " John," I cared not which ; and that was honest 
 enough, and no smallness of me there, I say. 
 "Well, mother, what is the matter, then?" 
 "I am sure you need not be angry, Johnny. I only hope 
 it is nothing to grieve about, instead of being angry. Ynu 
 are very sweet-tempered, I know, John Ridd, and perhaps a 
 little too sweet at times," — here she meant the Snowe girls, 
 and I hanged my head — " but what would you say if the 
 people there" — she never would call them "Doones" — 
 "had gotten your poor Uncle Reuben, horse, and Sunday 
 coat, and all ? " 
 
 "Why, mother, I should be sorry for them. He would 
 set up a shop by the river-side, and come away with all their 
 money." 
 
 "That all you have to say, John ! .And my dinner done 
 to a very turn, and the supper all fit to go down, and no 
 worry, only to eat and be done with it ! And all the new 
 plates come from Watchett, with the Watchett blue upon 
 them, at the risk of the lives of every body, and the capias 
 from good Aunt Jane for stuffing a curlew with onion before 
 he begins to get cold, and make a wood-cock of him, and 
 the way to turn the flap over in the inside of a roasting 
 
 pig" 
 
 " A\'ell, mother dear, I am very sorry. But let us have 
 our dinner. You know we promised not to wait for him 
 after one o'clock ; and you only make us hungry. Every 
 thing will be spoiled, mother, and what a pity to think of ! 
 After that I will go to seek for him in the thick of the fog, 
 like a needle in a hay-band. That is to say, unless you 
 think" — for she looked very grave about it — "unless you 
 really think, mother, that I ought to go without dinner." 
 
 " Oh no, John, I never thought that, thank God ! Bless 
 Him for my children's appetites ; and what is Uncle Ben to 
 them ? " 
 
 So we made a very good dinner indeed, though wishing 
 that he could have some of it, and wondering how much to 
 
I08 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 leave for him ; and then, as no sound of his horse had been 
 heard, I set out with my gun to look for him. 
 
 I followed the track on the side of the hill, from the farm- 
 yard, where the sledd-marks are — for we have no wheels 
 upon Exmoor yet, nor ever shall, I suppose ; though a dun- 
 der-headed man tried it last winter, and broke his axle 
 piteously, and was nigh to break his neck — and after that I 
 went all along on the ridge of the rabbit-cleve, with the brook 
 running thin in the bottom ; and then down to the Lynn- 
 stream, and leaped it, and so up the hill and the moor be- 
 yond. The fog hung close all around me there, when I 
 turned the crest of the highland, and the gorse, both before 
 and behind me, looked like a man crouching down in am- 
 bush. But still there was a good cloud of daylight, being 
 scarce three of the clock yet, and when a lead of red deer 
 came across, I could tell them from sheep even now. I was 
 half inclined to shoot at them, for the children did love 
 venison ; but they drooped their heads so, and looked so 
 faithful, that it seemed hard measure to do it. If one of 
 them had bolted away, no doubt I had let go at him. 
 
 After that I kept on the track, trudging very stoutly, for 
 nigh upon three miles, and my beard (now beginning to 
 grow at some length) was full of great drops and prickly, 
 whereat I was very proud. I had not so much as a dog 
 with me, and the place was unkid and lonesome, and the 
 rolling clouds very desolate ; and now if a wild sheep ran 
 across, he was scared at me as an enemy ; and I for my 
 part could not tell the meaning of the marks on him. We 
 called all this part " Gibbet-moor," not being in our parish ; 
 but though there were gibbets enough upon it, most part of 
 the bodies was gone, for the value of the chains, they said, 
 and the teaching of young chirurgeons. 
 
 But of all this I had little fear, being no more a school- 
 boy now, but a youth well acquaint with Exmoor, and the 
 wise art of the sign-posts, whereby a man, who barred the 
 road, now leads us along it with his finger-bones, so far as 
 rogues allow him. My carbine was loaded and freshly 
 primed, and I knew myself to be even now a match in 
 strength for any two men of the size around our neighbour- 
 hood, except in the Glen Doone. " Girt Jan Ridd," I was 
 called already, and folk grew feared to wrestle with me ; 
 though I was tired of hearing about it, and often longed 
 to be smaller. And most of all upon Sundays, when I had 
 to make way up our little church, and the maidens tittered 
 at me. 
 
MASTER HUClvAllACK COMES IN. lOQ 
 
 The suft white mist came thicker around me, as the even- 
 ing fell ; and the peat-ricks here and there, and the furze- 
 hucks of the suramer-tinie, were all out of shape in the twist 
 of it. Ily-and-by, 1 began to doubt where I was, or how 
 come there, not having seen a gibbet lately ; and then I 
 heard the draught of the wind up a hollow place with rocks 
 to it ; and for the first time fear broke out (like cold sweat) 
 upon me. And yet I knew what a fool I was, to fear nothing 
 but a sound ! But when I stopped to listen, there was no 
 sound more than a beating noise, and that was all inside me. 
 Therefore I went on again, making company of my whistle, 
 and keeping my gun quite ready. 
 
 Xow when I came to an unknown place, where a stone 
 was set up endwise, with a faint red cross upon it, and a 
 polish from some conflict, I gathered my courage to stop 
 and think, having sped on the way too hotly. Against that 
 stone I set my gun, trying my spirit to leave it so, but keep- 
 ing with half a hand for it ; and then what to do ne.xt was 
 the wonder. .\.s for finding Uncle Ben — that was his own 
 business, or at any rate his e.vecutor's ; first I had to find 
 myself, and plentifully would thank God to find that self at 
 home again, for the sake of all our family. 
 
 The volumes of the mist came rolling at me (like great 
 packs of wool, pillowed up with sleepiness), and between 
 them there was nothing more than waiting for the next one. 
 Then everything went out of sight, and glad was I of the 
 stone behind me, and view of mine own shoes. -\non a dis- 
 tant noise went by me, as of many horses galloping, and m 
 my fright I set my gun, and said, "(lod send something 
 to shoot at." Yet nothing came, and my gun fell back, 
 without my will to lower it. 
 
 But presently, while I was thinking "What a fool I am ! " 
 arose as if from below my feet, so that the great stone 
 trembled, that long lamenting lonesome sound, as of an evil 
 spirit not knowing what to do with it. For the moment I 
 stood like a root, without either hand or foot to help me ; 
 and the hair of my head began to crawl, lifting my hat, as 
 a snail lifts his house ; and my heart, like a shuttle, went to 
 and fro. But finding no harm to come of it, neither visible 
 form approaching, I wiped my forehead, and hoped for the 
 best, and resolved to run every step of the way, till I drew 
 our big bolt behind me. 
 
 Yet here again I was disappointed, for no sooner was I 
 come to the cross-ways by the black pool in the hole, but I 
 heard through the patter of my own feet a rough low sound. 
 
I lO LORNA DOONE. 
 
 very close in the fog, as of a hobbled sheep a-coughing. I 
 listened, and feared, and yet listened again, though I wanted 
 not to hear it. For being in haste of the homeward road, 
 and all my heart having heels to it, loth I was to stop in the 
 dusk, for the sake of an aged wether. Yet partly my love 
 of all animals, and partly my fear of the farmer's disgrace, 
 compelled me to go to the succour, for the noise was coming 
 nearer. A dry short wheezing sound it was, barred with 
 coughs, and want of breath ; but thus I made the meaning 
 of it. 
 
 " Lord have mercy upon me ! O Lord, upon my soul have 
 mercy ! An' if I cheated Sam Hicks last week, Lord knowest 
 how well he deserved it, and lied in every stocking's mouth 
 — oh Lord, where be I a-going.?" 
 
 These words with many jogs between them, came to me 
 through the darkness, and then a long groan, and a choking. 
 I made towards the sound, as nigh as ever I could guess, 
 and presently was met, point-blank, by the head of a moun- 
 tain-pony. Upon its back lay a man, bound down, with his 
 feet on the neck and his head to the tail, and his arms fall- 
 ing down like stirrups. The wild little nag was scared of 
 its life by the unaccustomed burden, and had been tossing 
 and rolling hard, in desire to get ease of it. 
 
 Before the little horse could turn, I caught him, jaded as 
 he was, by his wet and grizzled forelock, and he saw that it 
 was vain to struggle, but strove to bite me none the less, 
 until I smote him upon the nose. 
 
 "Good and worthy sir," I said to the man who was riding 
 so roughly ; " fear nothing ; no harm shall come to thee." 
 
 " Help, good friend, whoever thou art," he gasped, but 
 could not look at me, because his neck was jerked so ; " God 
 hath sent thee ; and not to rob me, because it is done 
 already." 
 
 " What, Uncle Ben ! " I cried, letting go the horse in 
 amazement that the richest man in Dulverton — " Uncle Ben 
 here in this plight ! What, Mr. Reuben Huckaback ! " 
 
 "An honest hosier and draper, serge and long-cloth ware- 
 houseman" — he groaned from rib to rib — "at the sign of 
 the Gartered Kitten, in the loyal town of Dulverton. For 
 God's sake, let me down, good fellow, from this accursed 
 hurdle-chine ; and a groat of good money will I pay thee, 
 safe in my house to Dulverton ; but take notice that the 
 horse is mine, no less than the nag they robbed from me." 
 
 " What, Uncle Ben, dost thou not know me, thy dutiful 
 nephew, John Ridd ? " 
 
MASTER HUCKAIJACK COMES IN. Ill 
 
 Not to naake a long story of it, I cut the thongs that bound 
 him, and set him astride on the Httle horse ; but he was too 
 weak to stay so. Therefore I mounted him on my back, 
 turning the horse into horse-steps ; and leading the pony 
 by the cords, which I fastened around his nose, set out for 
 Plover's Barrows. 
 
 Uncle Ben went fast asleep on my back, being jaded and 
 shaken beyond his strength, for a man of threescore and 
 five ; and as soon as he felt assured of safety, he would talk 
 no more. yVnd to tell the truth, he snored so loudly, that I 
 could almost believe that fearful noise in the fog every night 
 came all the way from Dulverton. 
 
 Now as soon as ever I brought him in, we set him up in 
 the chimnev-corner, comfortable and handsome ; and it was 
 no little delight to me to get him off my back ; for, like his 
 own fortune, Uncle Ben was of a good round figure. He 
 gave his long coat a shake or two, and he stamped about in 
 the kitchen, until he was sure of his whereabouts, and then 
 he fell asleep again, until supper should be ready. 
 
 " He shall marry Ruth," he said by-and-by, to himself and 
 not to me; "he shall marry Ruth for this, and have my 
 little savings, soon as they be worth the having. Very little 
 as yet, very little indeed ; and ever so much gone to-day, 
 along of them rascal robbers." 
 
 My mother made a dreadful stir, to see Uncle Ben in such 
 a sorry plight as this ; so I left him to her care and .Vnnie's ; 
 and soon they fed him rarely, while I went out to look to 
 the comfort of the captured pony. And in truth he was 
 worth the catching, and served us very well afterwards ; 
 though Uncle Ben was inclined to claim him for his business 
 at Dulverton, where they have carts, and that like. " But," 
 I said, "you shall have him, sir, and welcome, if you will 
 only ride him home, as first I found you riding him." .\nd 
 with that he dropped it. 
 
 A very strange old man he was, short in his manner, 
 though long of body, glad to do the contrary thing to what 
 any one expected of him, and always looking sharply at 
 people, as if he feared to be cheated. This surprised me 
 much at first, because it showed his ignorance of what we 
 farmers are — an upright race, as you may find, scarcely ever 
 cheating indeed, except upon market-day, and even then no 
 more than may be helped, by reason of buyers expecting it. 
 Now our simple ways were a puzzle to him, as I told him 
 very often ; but he only laughed and rubbed his mouth with 
 the back of his dry shining hand ; and I think he shortly 
 
112 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 began to languish for want of some one to higgle with. I 
 had a great mind to give him the pony, because he thought 
 himself cheated in that case ; only he would conclude that I 
 did it with some view to a legacy. 
 
 Of course the Doones, and nobody else, had robbed good 
 Uncle Reuben ; and then they grew sportive, and took his 
 horse, an especially sober nag, and bound the master upon 
 the wild one, for a little change as they told him. For two 
 or three hours they had fine enjoyment, chasing him through 
 the fog, and making much sport of his groanings ; and then 
 waxing hungry they went their way, and left hun to oppor- 
 tunity. Now Mr. Huckaback, growing able to walk in a 
 few days' time, became thereupon impatient, and could not 
 be brought to understand why he should have been robbed 
 at all. 
 
 " I have never deserved it," he said to himself, not know- 
 ing much of Providence, e.\cept with a small p to it ; "I 
 have never deserved it, and will not stand it ; in the name 
 of our lord the King, not I!" At other times he would 
 burst forth thus : — " Threescore years and five have I lived 
 an honest and laborious life, yet never was I robbed before. 
 And now to be robbed in my old age ; to be robbed for the 
 first time now ! " 
 
 Thereupon we would kindly tell him how truly thankful 
 he ought to be for never having been robbed before, in 
 spite of living so long in this world ; and how he was taking 
 a very ungrateful, not to say ungracious, view, in thus re- 
 pining and feeling aggrieved, when any one else would 
 have knelt and thanketl (iod, for enjoying so long an im- 
 munity. But say what we would, it was all as one. Uncle 
 Ben stuck fast to it, that he had nothing to thank God for. 
 
CHAPTER XIV. 
 
 A MCiriON WHICH ENDS IN A MULL. 
 
 NSTE.VD of minding his New-\'eai' 
 pudding, Master Huckaback car- 
 ried on so, about his mighty griev- 
 ance, that at last we began to think 
 there must be something in it, after 
 all ; especiall}' as he assured us that 
 choice and costly presents for the 
 young people of our household 
 were among the goods divested. 
 But mother told him, her children 
 had plenty, and wanted no gold 
 and silver; and little Eliza spoke 
 up and said, ' \'ou can give us the 
 pretty things. Uncle Ben, when we 
 come in the summer to sec you." 
 Our mother reproved Eliza for 
 this, although it was the heel uf 
 her own foot ; and then to satisfy 
 our uncle, she promised to call Farmer Nicholas Snowe, to 
 be of our council that evening ; "and if the young maidens 
 would kindly come without taking thought to smoothe them- 
 selves, why it would be all the merrier ; and who knew but 
 what Uncle Huckaback might bless the day of his robbery, 
 etc., etc. — and thorough good honest girls they were, fit 
 helpmates either for shop or farm." All of which was 
 meant for me ; but I stuck to my platter, and answered not. 
 In the evening Farmer Snowe came up, leading his daugh- 
 ters after him, like fillies trimmed for a fair ; and Uncle Ben, 
 who had not seen them on the night of his mishap (because 
 word had been sent to stop them), was mightily pleased, and 
 very pleasant, according to his town-bred ways. The dam- 
 sels had seen good company, and soon got over their fear 
 of his wealth, and played him a number of merry pranks, 
 which made our mother quite jealous for .Annie, who was 
 always shy and diffident. However, when the hot cup was 
 
114 
 
 LURXA DOONE. 
 
 done, and before the mulled wine was read)', we packed all 
 the maidens in the parlour, and turned the key upon them ; 
 and then we drew near to the kitchen fire, to hear Uncle 
 Ben's proposal. Farmer Snowe sat up in the corner, caring 
 little to hear about any thing, but smoking slowly, and nod- 
 ding backward, like a sheep-dog dreaming. Mother was in 
 the settle, to attend him, knitting hard, as usual ; and Uncle 
 Ben took to a three-legged stool, as if all but that had been 
 thieved from him. However, he kept his breath 
 from speech, giving privilege, as was due, to 
 mother. 
 
 " Master Snowe, you are well assured," 
 said mother, colouring like the furze, as 
 it took the flame and fell over, 
 "that our kinsman here hath 
 received rough harm, on his 
 peaceful journey from Dulverton. 
 The times are bad, as we all 
 know well, and there is no sign 
 of bettering them ; and if I could 
 see our Lord the King, I might 
 say things to move him ; never- 
 theless, I have had so much of 
 
 my own account to vex for " 
 
 " You are flying out of the 
 
 subject, Sarah," said Uncle Ben, 
 
 seeing tears in her eyes, and 
 
 tired of that matter. 
 
 " Zettle the pralimbinaries," spoke Farmer Snowe, on 
 
 appeal from us ; " virst zettle the pralimbinaries ; and then 
 
 us knows what be drivin' at." 
 
 " Preliminaries be damned, sir," cried Uncle Ben, losing 
 his temper. " AVhat preliminaries were there when I was 
 robbed, I should like to know ? Robbed in this parish, as I 
 can prove to the eternal disgrace of Oare, and the scandal 
 of all England. And I hold this parish to answer for it, sir ; 
 this parish shall make it good, being a nest of foul thieves 
 as it is ; ay, farmers, and yeoman, and all of you. I will 
 beggar every man in this parish, if they be not beggars 
 already ; ay, and sell your old church up before your eyes, 
 but what I will have back my tarlatan, time-piece, saddle, 
 and dove-tailed nag." 
 
 Mother looked at me, and I looked at Farmer Snowe ; 
 and we all were sorry for Master Huckaback, putting our 
 hands up, one to another, that nobody should browbeat him ; 
 
 i-AKlIER b.NcjWE SAT Ul' 
 CORNER. 
 
A MOTION WHICH ENDS IN A MULL. II5 
 
 because we all knew what our parisli was, and none the 
 worse for stroni; language, however rich the man might be. 
 But Uncle lien took it a different way. He thought that we 
 all were afraid of him, and that Oare parish was but as 
 Moab, or Edom, for him to cast his shoe over. 
 
 "Nephew Jack," he cried, looking at me, when I was 
 thinking what to say, and finding only emptiness ; " you are 
 a heavy lout, sir ; a bumpkin, a clud-hopper ; and 1 shall 
 leave you nothing, unless it be my boots to grease." 
 
 " Well, uncle," 1 made answer, "I will grease your boots, 
 all the same for that, so long as you be our guest, sir." 
 
 Xow, that answer, made without a thought, stood me for 
 two thousand pounds, as you shall see, by-and-by, perhaps. 
 
 " As to the parish," my mother cried out, being too hard 
 set to contain herself, " the parish can defend itself, and we 
 may leave it to do so. But our Jack is not like that, sir; 
 and I will not have him so spoken of. Leave him indeed ! 
 Who wants you to do more than to leave him alone, sir, as 
 he might have done you the other night, and as no one else 
 would have dared to do. And after that, to think so meanly 
 of me, and of my children ! " 
 
 " Hoity, toity, Sarah ! Your children, I suppose, are the 
 same as other people's." 
 
 "That they are not, and never will be, and you ought 
 to know it. Uncle Reuben, if any one in the world ought. 
 Other people's children ! " 
 
 "Well, well!" Uncle Reuben answered; "I know very 
 little of children, except my little Ruth, and she is nothing 
 wonderful." 
 
 " I never said that my children were wonderful, Uncle 
 Ben, nor did I ever think it. But as for being good" 
 
 Here mother fetched out her handkerchief, being over- 
 come by our goodness ; and I told her, with my hand to my 
 mouth, not to notice him, though he might be worth ten 
 thousand times ten thousand pounds. 
 
 But Farmer Snowe came forward now, for he had some 
 sense sometimes ; and he thought it was high time for him 
 to say a word for the parish. 
 
 " Maister Huckaback," he began, pointing with his pipe 
 at him, the end that was done in sealing-wax, "tooching of 
 what you was plaized to zay 'bout this here parish, and no 
 oother, mind me no oother parish but thees, I use the vree- 
 dom, zur, for to tell 'e, that thee be a laiar." 
 
 Then Farmer Nicholas Snowe folded his arms across, with 
 the bowl of his pipe on the upper one, and gave me a nod. 
 
I I 6 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 and then one to mother, to testify how he had done his duty, 
 and recked not what might come of it. However, he got 
 Httle thanlcs from us, for the parish was nothing at all to 
 my mother, compared with her children's interests ; and I 
 thought it hard that an uncle of mine, and an old man, too, 
 should be called a liar, by a visitor at our fire-place. For 
 we, in our rude part of the world, counted it one of the 
 worst disgraces that could befall a man, to receive the lie 
 from any one. But Uncle Ben, as it seems, was used to it, 
 in the way of trade — just as people of fashion are, in the 
 way of courtesy. 
 
 Therefore the old man only looked with pity at Farmer 
 Nicholas, and with a sort of sorrow, too, reflecting how 
 much he might have made in a bargain with such a cus- 
 tomer, so ignorant and hot-headed. 
 
 " Now let us bandy words no more," said mother, very 
 sweetly ; " nothing is easier than sharp words, except to 
 wish them unspoken ; as I do many and many's the time, 
 when I think of my good husband. But now let us hear 
 from Uncle Reuben, what he would have us do, to remove 
 this disgrace from amongst us, and to satisfy him of his 
 goods." 
 
 " I care not for my goods, woman," ^Master Huckaback 
 answered grandly ; " although they were of large value, 
 about them I say nothing. But what I demand is this, the 
 punishment of those scoundrels." 
 
 " Zober, man, zober ! " cried Farmer Nicholas ; " we be 
 too naigh Badgery 'ood, to spake like that of they Dooneses." 
 
 " Pack of cowards ! " said Uncle Reuben, looking first at 
 the door, however ; " much chance I see of getting redress, 
 from the valour of this Exmoor ! And you. Master Snowe, 
 the very man whom I looked to to raise the country, and 
 take the lead as churchwarden — why my youngest shopman 
 would match his ell against you. Pack of cowards," cried 
 Uncle Ben, rising and shaking his lappets at us ; " don't 
 pretend to answer me. Shake you all off, that I do — nothing 
 more to do with you ! " 
 
 We knew it useless to answer him, and conveyed our 
 knowledge to one another, without any thing to vex him. 
 However, when the mulled wine was come, and a good deal 
 of it gone (the season being Epiphany), Uncle Reuben be- 
 gan to think that he might have been too hard with us. 
 Moreover, he was beginning now to respect Farmer Nich- 
 olas bravely, because of the way he had smoked his pipes, 
 and the little noise made over them. And Lizzie and 
 
A MOTION WHICH ENDS IX A MULL. Ii; 
 
 Annie were doiiii; their best — for now \vc had let the girls 
 out — to walce more Hghtsome uproar; also young Faith 
 Snowe was toward, to keep the old men's cups aftow, and 
 hansel them to their liking. 
 
 So at the close of our entertainment, when the girls were 
 gone away to fetch and light their lanthorns (over which 
 they made rare noise, blowing each the other's out, for 
 counting of the sparks to come), Master Huckaback stood 
 up, without much aid from the crock-saw, and looked at 
 mother and all of us. 
 
 " Let no one leave this place," said he, " until I have said 
 what I want to say, for saving of ill-will among us, and 
 growth of cheer and comfort. jMay be I have carried 
 things too far, even to the bounds of churlishness, and be- 
 yond the bounds of good manners. I will not unsay one 
 word I have said, having never yet done so in my life, but 
 I would alter the manner of it, and set it forth in this light. 
 If you folk upon Exmoor here are loth and wary at fighting, 
 yet you are brave at better stuff ; the best and kindest I 
 ever knew, in the matter of feeding. " 
 
 Here he sat down, with a glisten in his eves, and called 
 for a little mulled bastard. All the maids, who were now 
 come back, raced to get it for him, but Annie of course was 
 foremost. And herein ended the expedition, a perilous and 
 a great one, against the Doones of liagworthy ; an enter- 
 prise over which we had all talked plainly more than was 
 good for us. For my part, I slept well that night, feeling 
 myself at home again, now that the fighting was put aside, 
 and the fear of it turned to the comfort of telling each other 
 — what we would have done. 
 
CHAPTER XV. 
 
 QUO WARRANTO ? 
 
 N the following day Master Huck- 
 aback, with some show of mys- 
 tery, demanded from my mother 
 an escort into a dangerous part 
 of the world, to which his busi- 
 ness compelled him. My mother 
 made answer to this that he was 
 kindly welcome to take our John 
 Fry with him ; at which the good 
 clothier laughed, and said that 
 John was nothing like big enough, 
 but another John must serve his 
 turn, not only for his size, but 
 because, if he were carried away, 
 no stone would be left unturned 
 upon Exmoor until he should be 
 brought back again. 
 
 Hereupon my mother grew 
 very pale, and found fifty reasons 
 against my going, each of them weightier than the true one, 
 as Eliza (who was jealous of me) managed to whisper to 
 Annie. On the other hand, I was quite resolved (directly 
 the thing was mentioned) to see Uncle Reuben through 
 with it ; and it added much to my self-esteem to be the 
 guard of so rich a man. Therefore I soon persuaded 
 mother, with her head upon my breast, to let me go, and 
 trust in God ; and after that I was greatly vexed to find 
 that this dangerous enterprise was nothing more than a 
 visit to the Baron de Whichehalse, to lay an information, 
 and sue a warrant against the Doones, and a posse to 
 execute it. 
 
 Stupid as I always have been, and perhaps must ever 
 be, I could well have told Uncle Reuben that his jour- 
 ney was no wiser one than that of the men of Gotham ; 
 that he never would get from Hugh de Whichehalse a 
 
OUO WARRANTO? II9 
 
 warrant aj^ainst the Duunes ; moreover, that if lie did i;et 
 one, his own wig would be singed with it. But, for divers 
 reasons, I held my peace, partly from youth and modesty, 
 partly from desire to see whatever please dod I should 
 see, and partly from other causes. 
 
 We rode by way of Brendon town, Illford Bridt^e, and 
 Babbrook, to avoid the great hill above Lynmouth ; and, the 
 day being fine and clear again, I laughed in my sleeve at 
 Uncle Reuben for all his fine precautions. When we ar- 
 rived at Ley Manor we were shown very civilly into the 
 hall, and refreshed with good ale and collared head, and 
 the back of a Christmas pudding. I had never been under 
 so fine a roof (unless of a church, or school) before ; and it 
 pleased me greatly to be so kindly entreated by high-born 
 folk. But Uncle Reuben was vexed no little at being set 
 down cheek by jowl with a man in a very small way of 
 trade, who was come upon some business there, and who 
 made bold to drink his health, after finishing their first 
 horns of ale. 
 
 "Sir," said Uncle Ben, looking at him, "my health 
 would fare much better if you would pay me three pounds 
 and twelve shillings, which you have owed me these five 
 years back ; and, now we are met at the Justice's, the 
 opportunity is good, sir." 
 
 After that, we were called to the Justice-room, where 
 the Baron himself was sitting, with Colonel Harding, 
 another Justitiary of the King's peace, to help him. I had 
 seen the Baron de Whichehalse before, and was not at all 
 afraid of him, having been at school with his son, as he 
 knew, and it made him very kind to me. And, indeed, 
 he was kind to every body, and all our people spoke well of 
 him ; and so much the more, because we knew that the 
 house was in decadence. For the first De \Vhichehalse had 
 come from Holland, where he had been a great nobleman, 
 some hundred and fifty years agone. Being persecuted for 
 his religion, when the Spanish power was everything, he 
 fled to England with all he could save, and bought large 
 estates in Devonshire. Since then his descendants had 
 intermarried with ancient county families — Cotwells, and 
 Marwoods, and Walronds, and Welshes of Pylton, and Chi- 
 chesters of Hall — and several of the ladies brought them 
 large increase of property. And so, about fifty years be- 
 fore the time of which I am writing, there were few names 
 in the west of England thought more of than De Whiche- 
 halse. But now they had lost a great deal of land, and 
 
I 20 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 therefore of that which goes with land, as surely as fame 
 belongs to earth — I mean big reputation. How they had 
 lost it, none could tell, except that, as the first descendants 
 had a manner of amassing, so the later ones were gifted 
 with a power of scattering. Whether this came of good 
 Devonshire blood opening the sluice of Low Country veins 
 is beyond both my province and my power to inquire. Any- 
 how, all people loved this last strain of De \\'hichehalse far 
 more than the name had been liked a hundred years agone. 
 Hugh de Whichehalse, a white-haired man, of very noble 
 presence, with friendly blue eyes and a sweet, 
 /^g^^ smooth forehead, and aquiline nose quite beau- 
 tiful (as you might expect in a lady of 
 birth), and thin lips curving delicately, this 
 gentleman rose as we entered the room ; 
 '•"*) while Colonel Harding turned on his chair, 
 and struck one spur against the other. I am 
 sure that, without knowing aught of either, 
 we must have reverenced rather of the two 
 the one who showed respect to us. And yet 
 nine gentlemen out of ten make this dull 
 mistake, when dealing with the class below 
 •' '■•'■' " them ! 
 
 HUGH DE WHICHEHALSE. Unclc Rcubcn made his very best scrape, 
 
 and then walked up to the table, trying to 
 look as if he did not know himself to be wealthier than both 
 the gentlemen put together. Certainly, he was no stranger 
 to them, any more than I was ; and, as it proved afterwards. 
 Colonel Harding owed him a lump of money, upon very 
 good security. Of him Uncle Reuben took no notice, but 
 addressed himself to De Whichehalse. 
 
 The Baron smiled very gently so soon as he learned the 
 cause of this visit, and then he replied, quite reasonably : 
 
 " A warrant against the Doones, JNIaster Huckaback ! 
 Which of the Doones, so please you ; and the Christian 
 names, what be they?" 
 
 " My lord, I am not their godfather ; and most like they 
 never had any. But we all know old Sir Ensor's name, so 
 that may be no obstacle." 
 
 "Sir Ensor Doone, and his sons — so be it. How many 
 sons, Master Huckaback, and what is the name of each 
 one?" 
 
 " How can I tell you, my lord, even if I had known 
 them all, as well as my own shop-boys ? Nevertheless, 
 there were seven of them ; and that should be no obstacle." 
 
QUO WARRANTO? 12 1 
 
 " A warrant against Sir luisor Doonc and seven sons of 
 Sir Ensor Doone, Christian names unknown, and doubted 
 if the_v have any. So far so good, Master Huckaback. I 
 have It all down in writing. Sir Ensor himself was there, 
 of course, as you have given in evidence" 
 
 " No, no, my lord, I never said that ; I never said" 
 
 "If he can prove that he was not there, you may be in- 
 dicted for perjury. But as for those seven sons of his, of 
 course you can swear that they were his sons, and not his 
 nephews or grandchildren, or even no Doones at all?" 
 
 " My lord, I can swear that they were Doones. More- 
 over, 1 can pay for any mistake I make. Therein need be 
 no obstacle." 
 
 " Oh, yes, he can pay ; he can pay well enough," said 
 Colonel Harding, shortly. 
 
 " I am heartily glad to hear it," replied the Baron, 
 pleasantly ; " for it proves, after all, that this robbery (if 
 robbery there has been) was not so very ruinous. Some- 
 times people think they are robbed ; and then it is very 
 sweet, afterwards to find that they have not been so ; for 
 it adds to their joy in their property. Now, are you quite 
 convinced, good sir, that these people (if there were anv) 
 stole, or took, or even borrowed anything at all from you ? " 
 
 " My lord, do you think that I was drunk ?" 
 
 " Not for a moment, Master Huckaback. Although ex- 
 cuse might be made for y(ju at this time of the year. But 
 how did you know that your visitors were of this particular 
 family ? " 
 
 "Because it could be nobody else. Because, in spite of 
 the fog " 
 
 " Fog ! " cried Colonel Harding, sharply. 
 
 " Fog ! " said the Baron, with emphasis. " Ah, that ex- 
 plains the whole affair. To be sure, now I remember, the 
 weather has been too thick for a man to see the head of his 
 own horse. The Doones (if still there be any Doones) 
 could never have come abroad ; that is as sure as simony. 
 Master Huckaback, for your good sake, I am heartily glad 
 that this charge has miscarried. I thoroughly understand 
 it now. The fog explains the whole of it." 
 
 " Go back, my good fellow," said Colonel Harding ; 
 "and if the day is clear enough, you will find all your 
 things where you left them. I know, from my own experi- 
 ence, what it is to be caught in an Exmoor fog." 
 
 Uncle Reuben, by this time, was so put out that he 
 hardly knew what he was saying. 
 
122 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 " My lord, Sir Colonel, is this your justice ? If I go to 
 London myself for it, the King shall know how his com- 
 mission — how a man may be robbed, and the justices prove 
 that he ought to be hanged at the Isack of it ; that in his 
 good county of Somerset" 
 
 " Your pardon a moment, good sir," De Whichehalse in- 
 terrupted him ; "but I was about (having heard your case) 
 to mention what need be an obstacle, and, I fear, would 
 prove a fatal one, even if satisfactory proof were afforded 
 of a felony. The mal-feasance (if any) was laid in Somer- 
 set ; but we, two humble servants of His Majesty, are in 
 commission of his peace for the county of Devon only, and 
 therefore could never deal with it." 
 
 " And why, in the name of God," cried Uncle Reuben, 
 now carried at last fairly out of himself, " why could you 
 not say as much at first, and save me all this waste of time, 
 and worry of my temper? Crentlemen, you are all in 
 league ; all of you stick together. You think it fair sport, 
 for an honest trader, who makes no shams as you do, to be 
 robbed and well-nigh murdered, so long as they who did 
 it own the high birth-right of felony. If a poor sheep- 
 stealer, to save his children from dying of starvation, had 
 dared to look at a two-month lamb, he would swing on the 
 Manor gallows, and all of you cry 'good riddance ! ' But 
 
 now, because good birth, and bad manners ' Here poor 
 
 Uncle Ben, not being so strong as before the Doones had 
 played with him, began to foam at the mouth a little, and 
 his tongue went into the hollow, where his short grey 
 whiskers were. 
 
 I forget how we came out of it ; only I was greatly 
 shocked at bearding of the gentry so ; and mother scarce 
 could see her way when I told her all about it. " Depend 
 upon it you were wrong, John," was all I could get out of 
 her ; though what had I done but listen, and touch my 
 forelock, when called upon ? " John, you may take my 
 word for it, you have not done as you should have done. 
 Your father would have been shocked to think of going to 
 Baron de Whichehalse, and in his own house insulting him ! 
 And yet it was very brave of you, John. Just like you, all 
 over. And (as none of the men are here, dear John) I am 
 proud of you for doing it." 
 
 All throughout the homevcard road Uncle Ben had been 
 very silent, feeling much displeased with himself, and still 
 more so with other people. But before he went to bed that 
 night, he just said to me, " Nephew Jack, you have not be- 
 
(^UO WARRANTO? I 23 
 
 haved so badly as the rest to me. And because you have 
 no gift of talking, I think that I may trust you. Now, 
 mark my words, this villain job shall not have ending here. 
 I have another card to play." 
 
 " Vou mean, sir, I suppose, that you will go to the jus- 
 tices of this county ; Squire Maunder, or Sir Richard 
 Blewitt, or " 
 
 " Oaf, I mean nothing of the sort ; they would only make 
 a laughing-stock, as those Devonshire people did, of me. 
 No, I will go to the King himself, or a man who is bigger 
 than the King, and to whom I have ready access. I will 
 not tell thee his name at present ; only if thou art brought 
 before him, never wilt thou forget it." That was true 
 enough, by-the-by, as I discovered afterwards ; for the man 
 he meant was Judge Jeffreys. 
 
 " And when are you likely to see him, sir ? " 
 
 " May be in the spring, may be not until summer ; for I 
 cannot go to London on purpose, but when my business 
 takes me there. Only remember my words. Jack, and 
 when you see the man I mean, look straight at him, and 
 tell no lie. He will make some of your zany squires shake 
 in their shoes, I reckon. Now, I have been in this lonely- 
 hole far longer than I intended, by reason of this rage ; 
 )'et I will stay here one day more, upon a certain con- 
 dition." 
 
 " Upon what condition. Uncle Ben? I grieve that you 
 find it so lonely, ^\'e will have Farmer Nicholas up again, 
 and the singers, and" 
 
 "The fashionable milkmaids. I thank you, let me be. 
 The wenches are too loud for me. Your Nanny is enough. 
 Nanny is a good child, and she shall come and visit me." 
 Uncle Reuben would always call her "Nanny; "he said 
 that " Annie " was too fine and Frenchified for us. " But 
 my condition is this. Jack — that you shall guide me to- 
 morrow, without a word to any one, to a place where I 
 may well descry the dwelling of these scoundrel Doones, 
 and learn the best way to get at them, when the time shall 
 come. Can you do this for me? I will pay you well, boy." 
 
 I promised very readily to do my best to serve him ; but 
 vowed I would take no money for it, not being so poor as 
 that came to. Accordingly, on the day following, I man- 
 aged to set the men at work on the other side of the farm, 
 especially that inquisitive and busy-body John Fry, who 
 would pry out almost anything, for the pleasure of telling 
 his wife ; and then, with Uncle Reuben mounted on my 
 
124 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 ancient Peggy, I made foot for the westward, directly after 
 breakfast. Uncle Ben refused to go, unless I would take 
 a loaded gun ; and indeed it was always wise to do so in 
 those days of turbulence ; and none the less because of late 
 more than usual of our sheep had left their skins behind 
 them. This, as I need hardly say, was not to be charged 
 to the appetite of the Doones, for they always said that 
 they were not butchers (although upon that subject might 
 well be two opinions) ; and their practice was to make the 
 shepherds kill, and skin, and quarter for them, and some- 
 times carry to the Doone-gate the prime among the fathngs, 
 for fear of any bruising, which spoils the look at table. 
 But the worst of it was that ignorant folk, unaware of their 
 fastidiousness, scored to them the sheep they lost by lower- 
 born marauders, and so were afraid to speak of it ; and 
 the issue of this error was that a farmer, with five or six 
 hundred sheep could never command, on his wedding-day, 
 a prime saddle of mutton for dinner. 
 
 To return now to my Uncle Ben — and indeed he would 
 not let me go more than three landyards from him — there 
 was very little said between us, along the lane and across 
 the hill, although the day was pleasant. I could see that 
 he was half amiss with his mind about the business, and 
 not so full of security as an elderly man should keep him- 
 self. Therefore, out I spake and said — 
 
 " Uncle Reuben, have no fear. I know every inch of 
 the ground, sir ; and there is no danger nigh us." 
 
 " Fear, boy ! Who ever thought of fear? 'Tis the last 
 thing would come across me. Pretty things they prim- 
 roses." 
 
 At once I thought of Lorna Doone, the little maid of so 
 many years back, and how my fancy went with her. Could 
 Lorna ever think of me ? Was I not a lout gone by, only 
 fit for loach-sticking ? Had I ever seen a face fit to think 
 of near her ? The sudden flash, the quickness, the bright 
 desire to know one's heart, and not withhold her own from 
 it, the soft withdrawal of rich eyes, the longing to love 
 some body, any body, any thing, not imbrued with wicked- 
 ness 
 
 My uncle interrupted me, misliking so much silence now, 
 with the naked woods falling over us. For we were come 
 to Bagworthy forest, the blackest and the loneliest place of 
 all that keep the sun out. Even now in winter-time, with 
 most of the wood unriddled, and the rest of it pinched 
 brown, it hung around us like a cloak containing little 
 
QUO WARRANTO? I 25 
 
 comfort. I kept quite close to Pey-ny's heatl, and Peggy 
 kept quite close to iiie, and pricked her ears at every thing. 
 However, we saw nothing there, except .1 few old owls and 
 hawks, and a magpie sitting all alone, until we came to the 
 bank of the hill, where the pony could not climb it. Uncle 
 Ben was very loth to get off, because the pony seemed com- 
 pany, and he thought he could gallop away on her, if the 
 worst came to the worst ; but I persuaded him that now he 
 must go to the end of it. Therefore we made Peggy fast, in 
 a place where we could find her ; and speaking cheerfully, 
 as if there was nothing to be afraid of, he took his staff, 
 and I my gun, to climb the thick ascent. 
 
 There was now no path of any kind, which added to our 
 courage all it lessened of our comfort, because it proved 
 that the robbers were not in the habit of passing there. 
 And we knew that we could not go astray, so long as we 
 breasted the hill before us, inasmuch as it formed the ram- 
 part, or side-fence of (Hen Doone. But in truth I used 
 the right word there for the manner of our ascent, for the 
 ground came forth so steep against us, and withal so 
 woolly, that to make any way we must throw ourselves 
 forward, and labour as at a breast-plough. Rough and 
 loamy rungs of oak-root bulged, here and there, above our 
 heads ; briars needs must speak with us, usmg more of 
 tooth than tongue ; and sometimes bulks of rugged stone, 
 like great sheep, stood across us. At last, though very loth 
 to do it, I was forced to leave my gun behind, because I 
 required one hand to drag myself up the difficulty, and one 
 to help Uncle Reuben. And so at last we gained the top, 
 and looked forth the edge of the forest, where the ground 
 was very stony, and like the crest of a quarry ; and no 
 more trees between us and the brink of cliff below, three 
 hundred yards below it might be, all strong slope and glid- 
 dery. And now for the first time I was amazed at the 
 appearance of the Doones' stronghold, and understood its 
 nature. For when I had been even in the valley, and 
 climbed the cliffs to escape from it, about seven years 
 agone, I was no more than a stripling boy, noting little, as 
 boys do, except for their present purpose, and even that 
 soon done with. But now, what with the fame of the 
 Doones, and my own recollections, and Uncle Ben's in- 
 sistence, all my attention was called forth, and the end was 
 simple astonishment. 
 
 The chine of highland, whereon we stood, curved to the 
 right and left of us, keeping about the same elevation, and 
 
126 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 crowned with trees and brushwood. At about half a mile in 
 front of us, but looking as if we could throw a stone to strike 
 any man upon it, another crest, just like our own, bowed 
 around to meet it, but failed by reason of two narrow clefts, 
 of which we could only see the brink. One of these clefts 
 was the Doone-gate, with a portcullis of rock above it, and 
 the other was the chasm by which I had once made en- 
 trance. Betwixt them, where the hills fell back, as in a per- 
 fect oval, traversed by the winding water, lay a bright green 
 valley, rimmed with sheer black rock, and seeming to have 
 sunken bodily from the bleak rough heights above. It 
 looked as if no frost could enter, neither winds go ruffling — 
 only spring, and hope, and comfort, breathe to one another. 
 Even now the rays of sunshine dwelt, and fell back on them- 
 selves, whenever the clouds lifted ; and the pale blue glimpse 
 of the growing day seemed to find young encouragement. 
 
 But for all that Uncle Reuben was none the worse nor 
 better. He looked down into Glen Doone first, and sniffed 
 as if he were smelling it, like a sample of goods from a 
 wholesale house ; and then he looked at the hills over yon- 
 der, and then he stared at me. 
 
 " See what a pack of fools they be ? " 
 
 " Of course I do. Uncle Ben. ' All rogues are fools,' was 
 my first copy, beginning of the alphabet." 
 
 " Pack of stuff, lad. Though true enough, and very good 
 for young people. But see you not how this great Doone 
 valley may be taken in half-an-hour ?" 
 
 " Yes, to be sure I do, uncle ; if they like to give it up, I 
 mean." 
 
 " Three culverins on yonder hill, and three on the top of 
 this one — and we have them under a pestle. Ah, I have 
 seen the wars, my lad, from Keinton up to Naseby ; and I 
 might have been a General now, if they had taken my ad- 
 vice" 
 
 But I was not attending to him, being drawn away on a 
 sudden by a sight which never struck the sharp eyes of our 
 General. For I had long ago descried that little opening in 
 the cliff, through which I made my exit, as before related, 
 on the other side of the valley. No bigger than a rabbit- 
 hole it seemed from where we stood ; and yet of all the 
 scene before me, that (from my remembrance, perhaps,) had 
 the most attraction. Now gazing at it, with full thought of 
 all that it had cost me, I saw a little figure come, and pause, 
 and pass into it. Something very light and white, nimble, 
 smooth, and elegant, gone almost before I knew that any 
 
QUO WARRANTO? I 27 
 
 one had been there. And yet my heart came to my ribs, 
 and all mv blood was ui niv face, and pride within me 
 fought with shame, and vanity with self-contempt ; for 
 though seven years were gone, and 1 from boyhood come to 
 manhood, and she must have forgotten me, and I had half- 
 forgotten ; at that moment, once for all, I felt that I was 
 face to face with fate (however poor it might be), weal or 
 woe, in Lorna Doone. 
 
 t-~j' ii'^"'.ij^{''''''y.'!^& 
 
CHAPTER XVI. 
 
 LORNA GROWING FORMIDABLE. 
 
 AVING reconnoitred thus the 
 position of the enemy, Master 
 Huckaback, on the homeward 
 road, cross-examined me, in a 
 manner not at all desirable. For 
 he had noted my confusion, and 
 eager gaze at something unseen 
 by him in the valley, and there- 
 upon he made up his mind to 
 know every thing about it. In 
 this, however, he partly failed, for 
 although I was no hand at fence, 
 and would not tell him a false- 
 hood, I managed so to hold my 
 peace, that he put himself upon 
 the wrong track, and continued 
 thereon, with many vaunts of 
 his shrewdness and experience, 
 and some chuckles at my sim- 
 plicity. Thus much, however, he learned aright, that I 
 had been in the Doone valley several years before, and 
 might be brought, upon strong inducement, to venture there 
 again. But as to the mode of my getting in, the things I 
 saw, and my thoughts upon them, he not only failed to 
 learn the truth, but certified himself into an obstinacy of 
 error, from which no after-knowledge was able to deliver 
 him. And this he did, not only because I happened to say 
 very little, but forasmuch as he disbelieved half of the 
 truth I told him, through his own too great sagacity. 
 
 Upon one point, however, he succeeded more easily than 
 he expected, viz., in making me promise to visit the place 
 again, as soon as occasion offered, and to hold my own 
 counsel about it. IJut I could not help smiling at one 
 thing that, according to his point of view, my own counsel 
 meant my own and Master Reuben Huckaback's. 
 
LUT LET ANNIE SCOLD ME WELL, WITH A SMILE TO FOLLOW. 
 
130 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Now he being gone, as he went next day, to his favourite 
 town of Dulverton, and leaving behind him shadowy prom- 
 ise of the mountains he would do for me, my spirit began 
 to burn and pant for something to go on with, and noth- 
 ing showed a braver hope of movement and adventure 
 than a lonely visit to Glen Doone, by way of the perilous 
 passage discovered in my boyhood. Therefore I waited 
 for nothing more than the slow arrival of new small-clothes, 
 made by a good tailor at Porlock, for it seemed a pure 
 duty to look my best ; and when they were come and 
 approved, I started, regardless of the expense, and for- 
 getting (like a fool) how badly they would take the water. 
 
 What with urging of the tailor, and my own misgivings, 
 the time was now come round again to the high-day of St. 
 Valentine, when all our maids were full of lovers, and all 
 the lads looked foolish. And none of them more sheepish, 
 or more innocent, than I myself, albeit twenty-one years 
 old, and not afraid of men much, but terrified of women, at 
 least if they were comely. And what of all things scared 
 me most was the thought of my own size, and knowledge 
 of my strength, which came, like knots, upon me daily. In 
 honest truth I tell this thing (which often since hath puz- 
 zled me, when I came to mix with men more), I was to 
 that degree ashamed of my thickness, and my stature, in 
 the presence of a woman, that I would not put a trunk of 
 wood on the fire in the kitchen, but let Annie scold me 
 well, with a smile to follow, and with her own plump hands 
 lift up a little log, and fuel it. Many a time I longed to 
 be no bigger than John Fry was, whom now (when in- 
 solent) I took with my left hand by the waist-stuff, and set 
 him on my hat, and gave him little chance to tread it, 
 until he spoke of his family, and requested to come down 
 again. 
 
 Now taking for good omen this, that I was a seven-year 
 Valentine, though much too big for a Cupidon, I chose a 
 seven-foot staff of ash, and fixed a loach-fork in it, to look 
 as I had looked before ; and leaving word upon matters of 
 business, out of the back door I went, and so through the 
 little orchard, and down the brawling Lynn-brook. Not 
 being now so much afraid, I struck across the thicket land 
 between the meeting waters, and came upon the Bagworthy 
 stream near the great black whirlpool. Nothing amazed 
 me so much as to find how shallow the stream now looked 
 to me, although the pool was still as black and greedy as 
 it used to be. And still the great rocky slide was dark. 
 
IT, 2 LORXA DCK.iNE. 
 
 and difficult to climb, though the water, which once had 
 taken my knees, was satisfied now with my ankles. After 
 some labour, I reached the top, and halted to look about 
 me well, before trusting to broad daylight. 
 
 The winter (as I said before) had been a very mild one ; 
 and now the spring was toward, so that bank and bush were 
 touched with it. The valley into which I gazed was fair 
 with early promise, having shelter from the wind, and tak- 
 ing all the sunshine. The willow bushes over the stream 
 
 THE WILL'IW BUSHES HUNG .\S IF THEY WERE ANCl.INO, WITH 
 TASSELED FLOATS ijF GOLD ANII SILVER. 
 
 hung as if they were angling, with tasseled floats of gold 
 and silver, bursting like a bean-pod. Between them came 
 the water laughing, like a maid at her own dancing, and 
 spread with that young blue which never lives beyond the 
 April. And on either bank, the meadow ruffled, as the 
 breeze came by, opening (through new tufts of green) 
 daisy-bud or celandine, or a shy glimpse now and then of 
 the love-lorn primrose. 
 
 Though I am so blank of wit, or perhaps for that same 
 reason, these little things come and dwell with me ; and I 
 am happy about them, and long for nothing better. I feel 
 with every blade of grass, as if it had a history ; and make 
 a child of every bud, as though it knew and loved me. 
 And being so, they seem to tell me of my own oblivions, 
 how I am no more than they, except in self-importance. 
 
 \Vhile I was forgetting much of many things that harm 
 
LURXA GROWIXC 1< iRMII)Al;[,K. 1 :;3 
 
 one, and letting of m\- thoughts go wild to sounds and 
 sights of nature, a sweeter note than thrush or ouzel ever 
 wooed a mate in, floated on the valley breeze, at the quiet 
 turn of sundown. The words were of an ancient song, fit 
 to cry or laugh at ; 
 
 " Love, an if there be one. 
 Come my love to be, 
 M\ lo\'e is for the one 
 Loving unto me. 
 
 Not for me the show, love. 
 
 Of a gilded bliss ; 
 Onlv thou must know, loxe, 
 
 What m\- value is. 
 
 If in all the earth, love. 
 
 Thou hast none but me. 
 This shall be m_\- worth, love. 
 
 To be cheap to thee. 
 
 But, if so thou ever 
 
 Strivest to be free, 
 'Twill be my endeavour 
 
 To be dear t" thee. 
 
 Hence may I ensue, love, 
 
 All a woman's due ; 
 Comforting my true lo\c. 
 
 \Yith a love as true." 
 
 All this I took in with great eagerness, not f(jr the sake 
 of the meaning (which is no doubt an allegory), but for the 
 power, and richness, and softness of tlie sinning, which 
 seemed to me better than we ever had even in ( )are church. 
 But all the time I kept myself in a black niche of the rock, 
 where the fall of the water began, lest the sweet singer 
 (espying me) should be alarmed, and flee away. But pres- 
 entlv I ventured to look forth, where a bush was, and 
 then I beheld the loveliest sight — one glimpse of which 
 was enough to make me kneel in the coldest water. 
 
 By the side of the stream, she was coming to me, even 
 among the primroses, as if she loved them all ; and everv 
 flriwer looked the brighter, as her eyes were on them. I 
 could not see what her face was, my heart so awoke and 
 trembled ; only that her hair was flowing from a wreath of 
 white violets, and the grace of her coming was like the 
 appearance of the first wind-flower. The pale gleam over 
 
134 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the western cliffs threw a shadow of light behind her, as if 
 the sun were lingering. Never do I see that light from the 
 closing of the west, even in these my aged days, without 
 thinking of her. Ah me, if it comes to that, what do I see 
 of earth or heaven, without thinking of her? 
 
 The tremulous thrill of her song was hanging on her 
 open lips ; and she glanced around, as if the birds were 
 accustomed to make answer. To me it was a thing of 
 terror to behold such beauty, and feel myself the while to 
 be so very low and common. But scarcely knowing what I 
 did, as if a rope were drawing me, I came from the dark 
 mouth of the chasm, and stood, afraid to look at her. 
 
 She was turning to fly, not knowing me, and frightened, 
 perhaps, at my stature, when I fell on the grass (as I fell 
 before her seven years agone that day), and I just said, 
 " Lorna Doone ! " 
 
 She knew me at once, from my manner and ways, and a 
 smile broke through her trembling, as sunshine comes 
 through willow leaves ; and being so clever she saw, of 
 course, that she needed not to fear me. 
 
 " Oh, indeed," she cried, with a feint of anger (because 
 she had shown her cowardice, and yet in her heart she was 
 laughing) ; " oh, if you please, who are you, sir, and how 
 do you know my name?" 
 
 " I am John Ridd," I answered ; " the boy who gave you 
 those beautiful fish, when you were only a little thing, 
 seven years ago to-day." 
 
 " Yes, the poor boy who was frightened so, and obliged 
 to hide here in the water." 
 
 " And do you remember how kind you were, and saved 
 my life by your quickness, and went away riding upon a 
 great man's shoulder, as if you had never seen me, and yet 
 looked back through the willow trees?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, I remember every thing, because it was so 
 rare to see any, except — I mean, because I happen to re- 
 member. But you seem not to remember, sir, how peril- 
 ous this place is." 
 
 For she had kept her eyes upon me ; large eyes, of a 
 softness, a brightness, and a dignity which made me feel 
 as if I must for ever love, and yet for ever know myself un- 
 worthy. Unless themselves should fill with love, which is 
 the spring of all things. And so I could not answer her, 
 but was overcome with thinking, and feeling, and confu- 
 sion. Neither could I look again ; only waited for the 
 melody which made every word like a poem to me — the 
 
LORNA GROWrNG FORMIDABLE. I 35 
 
 melody of her voice. But she had not the least idea of 
 what was going on with me, any more than I myself had. 
 " I think, Master Ridd, you cannot know," she said, with 
 her eyes taken from me, " what the dangers of this place 
 are, and the nature of the people." 
 
 " Yes, I know enough of that ; and I am frightened 
 greatly all the time when I do not look at you." 
 
 She was too young to answer me, in the style some 
 maidens would have used ; the manner, I mean, which 
 now we call from a foreign word " coquettish." And more 
 than that, she was trembling, from real fear of violence, lest 
 strong hands might be laid on me, and a miserable end of 
 it. And to tell the truth, I grew afraid ; perhaps from a 
 kind of sympathy, and because I knew that evil comes 
 more readily than good to us. 
 
 Therefore, without more ado, or taking any advantage — 
 although I would have been glad at heart, if needs had 
 been, to kiss her (without any thought of rudeness) — it 
 struck me that I had better go, and have no more to say to 
 her until next time of coming. So would she look the 
 more for me, and think the more about me, and not grow 
 weary of my words, and the want of change there is in me. 
 For, of course, I knew what a churl I was, compared to her 
 birth and appearance ; but meanwhile I might improve 
 myself, and learn a musical instrument. " The wind hath 
 a draw after flying straw" is a saying we have in Devon- 
 shire, made, peradventure, by somebody who had seen the 
 ways of women. 
 
 "Mistress Lorna, I will depart" — mark you, I thought 
 that a powerful word — "in fear of causing disquiet. If any 
 rogue shot me, it would grieve you ; I make bold to say it ; 
 and it would be the death of mother. Few mothers have 
 such a son as me. Try to think of me, now and then ; and 
 I will bring you some new-laid eggs, for our young blue 
 hen is beginning." 
 
 " I thank you heartily," said Lorna ; " but you need not 
 come to see me. You can put them in my little bower, 
 where I am almost always — I mean whither daily I repair; 
 to think, and to be away from them." 
 
 "Only show me where it is. Thrice a day I will come 
 
 and stop" 
 
 "Nay, Master Ridd, I would never show thee — never, 
 because of peril — only that so happens it, thou hast found 
 the way already." 
 
 And she smiled, with a light that made me care to cry out 
 
1 ^6 
 
 LoRXA DOOXE. 
 
 for no other way, onlv the way to her dear heart. But only 
 to myself I cried for anything at all, having enough of man 
 in me to be bashful with young maidens. So I touched her 
 white hand softly, when she gave it to me, and (fancying 
 that she had sighed) was touched at heart about it, and re- 
 solved to yield her all my goods, although my mother was 
 living ; and then grew angry with myself (for a mile or 
 more of walking) to think she would conilescend so; and 
 then, for the rest of the homeward road, was mad with every 
 man in the world who would dare to think of looking at her. 
 
('H-\PTER XVII. 
 
 loHX 1> r.KWITCHKI). 
 
 ( ) forget one's luck of life, to forget 
 
 Tthe cark of care, and withering 
 of young fingers; not to feel, or 
 nut be moved by, all the change 
 of thought and heart, from large 
 young heat to the sinewy lines 
 and dry bones of old age — this 
 is «hat I have to do, ere ever I 
 can make you know (even as a 
 dream is known) how I loved my 
 Lorna. I myself can never knuw ; 
 never can conceive or treat it as a 
 thing of reason ; never can behold 
 m3'self dwelling in the midst of it, 
 and think that this was I ; neitlier 
 can I wander far from perpetual 
 thought of it. Perhaps I have two 
 farrows of pigs ready for the chap- 
 man ; perhaps I have ten stones uf 
 vroiil waiting fur the factor. It is 
 all the same; I look at both, and 
 what I sav to myself is this: "Which would Lorna chc^ose 
 of them?" Of course, I am a fool for this; any man may 
 call me so, and I will not quarrel with him, unless he guess 
 my secret. By and by, I fetch my wit, so far as it be worth 
 the fetching, back again to business. But there my heart 
 is, and must be ; and all who like to try can cheat me, ex- 
 cept upon parish matters. 
 
 That week I could do little more than dream and dream, 
 and rove about, seeking by perpetual change to find the 
 way back to myself. I cared not for the people round me, 
 neither took delight in victuals, but made believe to eat 
 and drink, and blushed at any questions. And being called 
 the master now, head-farmer, and chief yeoman, it irked me 
 much that any one should take advantage of me ; yet every 
 
138 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 body did so, as soon as ever it was known tliat my wits were 
 gone moon-raking. For that was the way they looked at it, 
 not being able to comprehend the greatness and the lofti- 
 ness. Neither do I blame them much ; for the wisest thing 
 is to laugh at people when we cannot understand them. I, 
 for my part, took no notice ; but in my heart despised them 
 as bemgs of a lesser nature, who never had seen Lorna. 
 Yet was I vexed, and drank a pail of water, when John Fry 
 spread all over the farm, and even at the shoeing forge, that 
 a mad dog had come and bitten me, from the other side of 
 Molland. 
 
 This seems little to me now, and so it might to any one, 
 but, at the time, it worked me up to a fever of indignity. 
 To make a mad dog of Lorna, to compare all my imagin- 
 ings (which were strange, I do assure you — the faculty not 
 being apt to work), to count the raising of my soul no more 
 than hydrophobia ! All this acted on me so, that I gave 
 John Fry the soundest threshing that ever a sheaf of good 
 corn deserved, or a bundle of tares was blessed with. After- 
 wards he went home, too tired to tell his wife the meaning 
 of it ; but it proved of service to both of them, and an ex- 
 ample for their children. 
 
 Now the climate of this country is — so far as I can make 
 of it — to throw no man into extremes; and if he throw 
 himself so far, to pluck him back, by change of weather and 
 the need of looking after things. Lest we should be like 
 the Southerns, for whom the sky does every thing, and men 
 sit under a wall and watch both food and fruit come beck- 
 oning. Their sky is a mother to them ; but ours a good 
 stepmother to us — fearing to hurt by indulgence, and know- 
 ing that force and change of mood are wholesome. 
 
 The spring being now too forward, a check to it was 
 needful ; and in the early part of March there came a 
 change of weather. All the young growth was arrested by 
 a dry wind from the east, which made both face and fingers 
 burn when a man was doing ditching. The lilacs and the 
 chestnut trees, just crowding forth in little tufts, close ker- 
 nelling their blossom, were ruffled back, like a sleeve turned 
 up, and nicked with brown at the corners. In the hedges 
 any man, unless his eyes were very dull, could see the mis- 
 chief doing. The russet of the young elm-bloom was fain 
 to be in its scale again ; but having pushed forth, there 
 must be, and turn to a tawny colour. The hangers of the 
 hazel, too, having shed their dust to make the nuts, did not 
 spread their little combs and dry them, as they ought to do ; 
 
JOHN IS r.EwiTCiiEi). 139 
 
 but shrivelled at the base, and fell, as if a knife had cut 
 them. And more than all to notice was (at least about the 
 hedges) the shuddering of every thing, and the shivering 
 sound among them towards the feeble sun ; such as we 
 make to a poor fire-place, when windows and doors are open. 
 Sometimes I put my face to warm against the soft, rough 
 maple-stem, which feels like the foot of a red deer ; but the 
 pitiless east wind came through all, and took and shook the 
 caved hedge aback, till its knees were knocking together, 
 and nothing could be shelter. Then would any one having 
 blood, and trying to keep at home with it, run to a sturdy 
 tree, and hope to eat his food behind it, and look for a little 
 sun to come and warm his feet in the shelter. And if it 
 did, he might strike his breast, and try to think he was 
 warmer. 
 
 But when a man came home at night, after a long day's 
 labour, knowing that the days increased, and so his care 
 should multiply, still he found enough of light to show 
 him what the day had done against him in his garden. 
 Every ridge of new-turned earth looked like a broken cob- 
 wall, honeycombed, and harsh and crusty, void of spring, 
 and cankery. Every plant that had rejoiced in passing 
 such a winter, now was cowering, turned away, unfit to 
 meet the consequence. Flowing sap had stopped its course ; 
 fluted lines showed want of food ; and if you pinched the 
 topmost spray, there was no rebound or firmness. 
 
 We think a good deal, in a quiet way, when people ask 
 us about them — of some fine, upstanding pear-trees, grafted 
 by my grandfather, who had been very greatly respected. 
 And he got those grafts by sheltering a poor Italian soldier, 
 in the time of James the First, a man who never could do 
 enough to show his grateful memories. How he came to 
 our place is a very difficult story, which I never understood 
 rightly, having heard it from my mother. At any rate, 
 there the pear-trees were, and there they are to this very 
 day ; and I wish every one could taste their fruit, old as 
 they are, and rugged. 
 
 Now these fine trees had taken advantage of the west 
 winds, and the moisture, and the promise of fine spring- 
 time, so as to fill the tips of their spray-wood and rowels all 
 up the branches, with a crowd of eager blossom. Not that 
 they were yet in bloom, nor even showing whiteness ; only 
 that some of the cones were opening, at the side of the cap 
 which pinched them ; and there you might count, perhaps, 
 a dozen nobs, like very little buttons, but grooved, and 
 
140 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 lined, and huddling close, to make room for one another. 
 And among these buds were grey-green blades, scarce 
 bigger than a hair almost, yet curving so as if their purpose 
 was to shield the blossom. 
 
 Other of the spur-points, standing on the older wood, 
 where the sap was not so eager, had not burst their tunic 
 yet, but were frayed and flaked with light, casting off the 
 husk of brown in three-cornered patches, as I have seen a 
 Scotchman's plaid, or as his leg shows through it. These 
 buds, at a distance, looked as if the sky had been raining 
 cream upon them. 
 
 Now all this fair delight to the eyes, and good promise to 
 the palate, was marred and baffled by the wind, and cutting 
 of the night-frosts. The opening cones were struck with 
 brown, in between the button buds, and on the scapes that 
 shielded them, while the foot part of the cover hung like 
 rags, peeled back, and quivering. And there the little stalk 
 of each, which might have been a pear, God willing, had a 
 ring around its base, and sought a chance to drop and die. 
 The others, which had not opened shell, but only prepared 
 to do it, were a little better off, but still very brown and 
 unkid, and shrivelling in doubt of health, and neither peart 
 nor lusty. 
 
 Now this I have not told because I know the way to do 
 it, fcir that I do not, neither yet have seen a man who did 
 know. It is wonderful how we look at things, and never 
 think to notice them ; and I am as bad as any body, unless 
 the thing to be observed is a dog, or a horse, or a maiden. 
 And the last of those three I look at, somehow, without 
 knciwing that I take notice, and greatly afraid to do it, only 
 I knew afterwards (wlien the time of life was in me), n.jt, 
 indeed, what the maiden was like, but how she dift'ered 
 from others. 
 
 Yet I have spoken about the spring, and the failure of 
 fair promise, because I took it to my heart, as token of what 
 would come tu me, in the budding of my years and hope. 
 And even then, being much pcjssessed, and full of a foolish 
 melancholy, I felt a sad delight at being doomed to blight 
 and loneliness ; not but that I managed still (when mother 
 was urgent upon me) to eat my share of victuals, and cuff a 
 man for laziness, and see that a ploughshare made no leaps, 
 and sleep of a night without dreaming. And my mother, 
 half-believing, in her fondness and affection, that what the 
 parish said was true about a mad dog having bitten me, 
 and yet arguing that it must be false (because God would 
 
JOHN IS r.i: WITCH ED. 141 
 
 have prevented him), my mother yavc me Httle rest when 
 I was in the room with her. Not that she worried me with 
 questions, nor openly regarded me with any uniLSual mean- 
 ing, but that I knew she was watching slyly whenever I 
 took a spoon up, and every hour or so she managed to 
 place a pan of water bv me, quite as if by accident, and 
 sometimes even to spill a little upon my shoe or coat-sleeve. 
 But lietty Muxworthy was worst, for, having no fear about 
 my health, she made a villainous joke of it, and used to 
 rush into the kitchen barking like a dog, and panting, 
 exclaiming that I had bitten her, and justice she would 
 have on me if it cost her a twelvemonths' wages. And she 
 always ttiok care to do this thing just when I had crossed 
 my legs in the corner after supper, and leaned my head 
 against the oven t(j begin to think of Lorna. 
 
 However, in all things there is comf(jrt, if we do not look 
 too hard for it ; and now I had much satisfaction, in my 
 uncouth state, from labouring, by the hour together, at the 
 hedging and the ditching, meeting the bitter wind face to 
 face, feeling my strength increase, and hoping that some 
 one would be proud of it. In the rustling rush of every 
 gust, in the graceful bend of every tree, even in the " Lords 
 and Ladies," clumped in the scoops of the hedgerow, and 
 most of all in the soft primrose, wrung liy the wind, but 
 stealing back and smiling when the wrath was past — in all 
 of these, and many others, there was aching ecstasy, de- 
 licious pang of Lorna. 
 
 But however cold the weather was, and however hard the 
 wind blew, one thing (more than all the rest) worried and 
 perplexed me. This was that I could not settle, turn and 
 twist it as I might, how soon 1 ought to go again upon a visit 
 to CAen Doone. For I liked not at all the falseness of it 
 (albeit against murderers), the creeping out of sight, and 
 hiding, and feeling, as a spy might. And even more than 
 this, I feared how Lorna might regard it — whether I might 
 seem to her a prone and blunt intruder, a country youth not 
 skilled in manners, as among the quality, even when they 
 rob us. For I was not sure myself but that it might be very 
 bad manners to go again too early without an invitation; 
 and my hands and face were chapped so badly by the bitter 
 wind that Lorna might count them unsightly things, and 
 wish to see no more of them. 
 
 However, I could not bring myself to consult any one 
 upon this point, at least in our owm neighbourhood, nor 
 even to speak of it near home. But the east wind holding 
 
142 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 through the month, my hands and face growing worse and 
 worse, and it having occurred to me by this time that pos- 
 sibly Lorna might have chaps, if she came abroad at all, 
 and so might like to talk about them, and show her little 
 
 hanas to me, I resolved to take 
 another opinion, so far as might 
 be upon this matter, without dis- 
 closing the circumstances. 
 
 Now, the wisest person in 
 all our parts was reckoned to 
 be a certain wise woman, well 
 known all over Exmoor by the 
 name of "Mother Melldrum." 
 Her real name was " Maple Dur- 
 ham," as I learned long after- 
 wards, and she came of an ancient 
 family, but neither of Devon nor 
 Somerset. Nevertheless, she was 
 quite at home with our proper 
 modes of divination, and know- 
 ing that we liked them best — as 
 each man does his own religion 
 — she would always practise them 
 for the people of the country. 
 And all the while she would let 
 us know that she kept a higher 
 and nobler mode for those who 
 looked down upon this one, not 
 having been bred and born to it. 
 Mother Melldrum had two 
 houses, or rather, she had none 
 at all, but two homes wherein to 
 find her, according to the time of year. In summer she 
 lived in a pleasant cave, facing the cool side of the hill, far 
 inland near Hawkridge, and close above " Tarr-steps," a 
 wonderful crossing of Barle river, made (as every body 
 knows) by Satan for a wager. But throughout the winter 
 she found sea-air agreeable, and a place where things could 
 be had on credit, and more occasion of talking. Not but 
 what she could have credit (for every one was afraid of 
 her) in the neighbourhood of Tarr-steps, only there was 
 no one handy owning things worth taking. 
 
 Therefore, at the fall of the leaf, when the woods grew 
 damp and irksome, the wise woman always set her face 
 to the warmer cliffs of the Channel, where shelter was, and 
 
 MOTHER MELLDRUM. 
 
JOHN IS DEWITCHED. 
 
 143 
 
 dry fern bedding, and folk to be ^et-n in tine distance, from 
 a bank upon which the sun shone. And there, as I knew 
 from our John Fry (who had been to her about rheumatism 
 and sheep possessed with an evil spirit, and warts on the 
 hand of his son, young John), any one who chose might find 
 her, towards the close of a winter day, gathering sticks and 
 brown fern for fuel, and talking to herself the while, in a 
 hollow stretch behind the cliffs, which foreigners, who come 
 and go without seeing much of Exmoor, have called the 
 " Valley of Rocks." 
 
 This valley, or " goyal," as we term it, being small for a 
 valley, lies to the west of Linton, about a mile from the 
 town, perhaps, and away towards Ley Manor. Our home- 
 folk always call it the " Danes," or the " Denes," which is 
 no more, they tell me, than a hollow place, even as the word 
 
 " den " is. How- 
 
 ever, let that pass, 
 for I know very 
 little about it ; but 
 the place itself 
 is a pretty one, 
 though nothing to 
 
 -^-f^-s: 
 
 TARR-STEPS. 
 
 frighten any body, unless he hath lived in a gallipot. It 
 is a green rough-sided hollow, bending at the middle, 
 touched with stone at either crest, and dotted here and 
 there with slabs in and out the brambles. On the right 
 hand is an upward crag, called by some the " Castle," easy 
 
144 LORXA DOUXE. 
 
 enough to scale, and givin.Lj; great view of the Channel. 
 Facmg this, from the inland side and the elbow of the valley a 
 queer old pile of rock arises bold behind one another, and 
 quite enough to affright a man, if it only were ten times 
 larger. This is called the " Devil's Cheese-ring," or the 
 " Devil's Cheese-knife," which mean the same thing, as our 
 fathers were used to eat their cheese from a scoop, and 
 perhaps in old time the upmost rock (which has fallen away 
 since I knew it) was like to such an implement, if Satan eat 
 cheese untoasted. 
 
 But all the middle of this valley was a place to rest in, to 
 sit and think that troubles were not, if we would not make 
 them. To know the sea outside the hills, but never to be- 
 hold it ; only by the sound of waves to pity sailors labour- 
 ing. Then to watch the sheltered sun coming warmly 
 round the turn, like a guest expected, full of gentle glow 
 and gladness, casting shadow far away as a thing to hug 
 itself, and awakening life from dew and hope from every 
 spreading bud. And then to fall asleep and dream that 
 the fern was all asparagus. 
 
 Alas, I was too young in those days much to care for 
 creature comforts, or to let pure palate have things that 
 would improve it. Any thing went down with me, as it 
 does with most of us. Too late we know the good from 
 bad ; the knowledge is no pleasure then, being memory's 
 medicine rather than the wine of hope. 
 
 Now, Mother .Melldrum kept her winter in this vale of 
 rocks, sheltering from the wind and rain within the Devil's 
 Cheese-ring, which added greatly to her fame, because all 
 else, for miles around, were afraid to go near it after dark, 
 or even on a gloomy day. Under eaves of lichened rock 
 she had a winding passage, which none that ever I knew of 
 durst enter but herself. And to this place I went to seek 
 her, in spite of all misgivings, upon a Sunday in Lenten 
 season, when the sheep were folded. 
 
 Our par.son (as if he had known mv intent) had preached 
 a beautiful sermon about the AVitch of Endor and the perils 
 of them that meddle wantonly with the unseen Powers, and 
 therein he referred especially to the strange noise in our 
 neighbourhood, and upbraided us for want of faith and 
 many other backslidings. We listened to him very ear- 
 nestly, for we like to hear from our betters about things 
 that are beyond us, and to be roused up now and then, like 
 sheep with a good tlog after them, who can pull some wool 
 without biting. Nevertheless, we could not see how our 
 
JOHN IS IIEWITCHEI). 
 
 145 
 
 want of faith could have made that noise, esjiecially at 
 night time, notwithstanding which, we behaved it, and 
 hoped to do a little better. 
 
 And so we all came home from church, and most of the 
 people dined with us, as they always do on Sundays, be- 
 cause of the distance to go home with only words inside 
 them. The parson, who always sat next to mother, was 
 afraid that he might have vexed us, and would not have 
 the best piece of meat, according to his custom. But soon 
 we put him at his ease, and showed him we were proud 
 of him, and then he made no more to do, but accepted the 
 best of the sirloin. 
 
 Ck"!."'-! 
 
CHAPTER XVIII. 
 
 WITCHERY LEADS TO WITCHCRAFT. 
 
 LTHOUGH well nigh the end 
 of March, the wind blew wild 
 and piercing, as I went on foot, 
 that afternoon, to Mother Mell- 
 drum's dwelling. It was safer 
 not to take a horse, lest (if any 
 thing vexed her) she should put 
 a spell upon him as had been 
 done to Farmer Snowe's stable, 
 by the wise woman of Simons- 
 bath, 
 
 The sun was low on the edge 
 of the hills by the time I entered 
 the valley, for I could not leave 
 home till the cattle were tended, 
 and the distance was seven miles 
 or more. The shadows of rocks 
 fell far and deep, and the brown 
 dead fern was fluttering, and 
 brambles with their sere leaves 
 hanging, swayed their tatters to and fro, with a red look 
 on them. In patches underneath the crags, a few wild 
 goats were browsing ; then they tossed their horns, and 
 fled, and leaped on ledges, and stared at me. Moreover, 
 the sound of the sea came up, and went the length of the 
 valley, and there it lapped on a butt of rocks, and mur- 
 mured like a shell. 
 
 Taking things one with another, and feeling all the lone- 
 someness, and having no stick with me, I was much in- 
 clined to go briskly back, and come at a better season. 
 And when I beheld a tall grey shape, of something or 
 another, moving at the lower end of the valley, where the 
 shade was, it gave me such a stroke of fear, after many 
 others, that my thumb which lay in mother's Bible (brought 
 in my big pocket for the sake of safety) shook so much 
 
WITCHERV LEADS TO WITCHCRAFT. 1 47 
 
 that it came out, and I cnuld not t;L't it in a,L;aiii. "This 
 serves me right," I said to myself, " for tampermg with 
 Beelzebub. Oh, that I had listened to parson ! " 
 
 And thereupon I struck aside, not liking to run away 
 quite, as some people might call it, but .seeking to look 
 like a wanderer, who was come to see the valley, and 
 had seen almost enough of it. Herein I should have suc- 
 ceeded, and gone home, and then been angry at my want 
 of courage, but that on the very turn and bending of my 
 footsteps, the woman in the distance lifted up her staff to 
 me, so that I was bound to stop. 
 
 And now, being brought face to face, by the will of God 
 (as one might say) with any thing that might come of it, I 
 kept myself quite straight and stiff, and thrust away all 
 white feather, trusting in my Bible still, hoping that it 
 would protect me, though I had disobeyed it. But upon 
 that remembrance, my conscience took me b)' the leg, so 
 that I could not go forward. 
 
 All this while the fearful woman was coming near and 
 more near to me ; and I was glad to sit down on a rock, 
 because my knees were shaking so. I tried to think of 
 many things, but none of them would come to me ; and I 
 could not take my eves awa}', though I prayed Heaven to 
 be near me. 
 
 But when she was come so nigh to me that I could 
 descrv her features, there was something in her coun- 
 tenance that made me not dislike her. siic looked as if 
 she had been visited by a many troubles, and had felt 
 them one by one, yet held enough of kindlv nature still 
 to grieve for others. Long white hair, on either side, 
 was falling down below her chin ; and through her wrin- 
 kles, clear bright eyes seemed to spread themselves upon 
 me. Though I had plentv of time to think, I was taken 
 by surprise no less, and unable to say anything, yet 
 eager to hear the silence broken, and longing for a noise 
 or two. 
 
 "Thou art not come to me," she said, looking through 
 my simple face, as if it were Bristol pebbles, " to be struck 
 for bone-shave, nor to be blessed for barn-gun. Give me 
 forth thy hand, John Ridd, and tell me why thou art 
 come to me." 
 
 But I was so much amazed at her knowing my name 
 and all about me, that I feared to place my hand in her 
 power, or even my tongue by speaking. 
 
 " Have no fear of me, my son ; I have no gift to harm 
 
148 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 thee ; and if I had, it should be idle. Now, if thou hast 
 any wit, tell me why I love thee." 
 
 " I never had any wit, mother," I answered, in our 
 Devonshire way ; " and never set eyes on thee before, to 
 the furthest of my knowledge." 
 
 " And yet I know thee as well, John, as if thou wert my 
 grandson. Remember you the old Oare oak, and the bog 
 at the head of Exe, and the child who would have died 
 there, but for thy strength and courage, and most of all thy 
 kindness ? That was my grand-daughter, John ; and all I 
 have on earth to love." 
 
 Now that she came to speak of it, with the place and 
 that, so clearly, I remembered all about it (a thing that 
 happened last August), and thought how stupid I must 
 have been not to learn more of the little maid, who had 
 fallen into the black pit, with a basketful of whortleberries, 
 and who might have been gulfed, if her little dog had not 
 spied me in the distance. I carried her on my back to 
 mother ; and then we dressed her all anew, and took her 
 where she ordered us ; but she did not tell us who she was, 
 nor any thing more than her Christian name, and that she 
 was eight years old, and fond of fried batatas. And we 
 did not seek to ask her more, as our manner is with visitors. 
 
 But thinking of this little story, and seeing how she 
 looked at me, I lost my fear of ^tother Alelldrum, and 
 began to like her, partly because I had helped her grand- 
 child, and partly that if she were so wise, no need would 
 have been for me to save the little maid from drowning. 
 Therefore I stood up and said, though scarcely yet estab- 
 lished in my power against hers : 
 
 " Good mother, the shoe she lost was in the mire, and 
 not with us. And we could not match it, although we gave 
 her a pair of sister Lizzie's." 
 
 " My son, what care I for her shoe ? How simple tliou 
 art, and foolish, according to the thoughts of some. Xow 
 tell me, for thou canst not lie, what has brought thee to me ? " 
 
 Being so ashamed and bashful, I was half-inclined to tell 
 her a lie, until she said that I could not do it, and then 1 
 knew that I could not. 
 
 " I am come to kriow," I said, looking at a rock the 
 while, to keep my voice from shaking, " when I may go to 
 see Lorna Doone." 
 
 No more could I say, though my mind was charged to 
 ask fifty other questions. But although I looked away, it 
 was plain that I had asked enough. I felt that the wise 
 
\Vn\HKRV LKADS TO Will I ICRAFT. I49 
 
 woman gazed at me in wrath, as well as sorrow ; and then 
 
 I grew angry that any one should seem tu make light of 
 
 Lorna. 
 
 " John Ridd," said the woman, observing this (for now 1 
 
 faced her bravelv), "of whom art thou speaking? Is it a 
 
 comely daughter of the men w-ho slew your father?" 
 
 "I cannot tell, mother. How should I know? And 
 
 what is that to thee?" 
 
 " It is something to thy mother, John ; and something 
 
 to thyself, I trow ; and nothing worse could befall thee." 
 I waited for her to speak again, because she had spoken 
 
 so sadly that it took my breath away. 
 
 " John Ridd, if thou hast any value for thy body or thy 
 
 soul, thy mother, or thy father's name, have naught to do 
 
 with any Doone." 
 
 She gazed at me in earnest so, and raised her voice in 
 
 saying it, until the whole valley, curving like a great bell, 
 echoed " Doone," that it seemed to me my heart was gone 
 for every one and every thing. If it were God's will for 
 me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come out oi the 
 rocks, and I would try to believe it. But no sign came, 
 and I turned on the woman, and longed that she had been 
 a man. 
 
 " You poor dame, with bones and blades, pails of water, 
 and door-kevs, what know you about the destiny of a 
 maiden such as Lorna ? Chill-blain you may treat, and 
 bone-shave, ringworm, and the scaldings ; even scabby 
 sheep may limp the better for your strikings. John the 
 Baptist and his cousins, with the wool and hyssop, are for 
 mares and ailing dogs, and fowls that have the jaundice. 
 Look at me now. Mother Melldrum; am I like a fool?" 
 
 " That thou art, my son. Alas, that it were any other ! 
 Now behold the end' of that; John Ridd, mark the end 
 of it." 
 
 She pointed to the castle-rock where, upon a narrow 
 shelf, betwixt us and the coming stars, a bitter fight was 
 raging. A fine fat sheep, with an honest face, had clomb 
 up very carefully to browse on a bit of juicy grass, now the 
 dew uf the land was upon it. To him, from an upper 
 crag, a lean black goat came hurrymg with leaps and 
 skirmish of the horns, and an angry noise in his nostrils. 
 The goat had grazed the place before, to the utmost of his 
 liking, cropping in and out with jerks, as their manner is 
 of feeding. Nevertheless, he fell on the sheep with fury 
 and great malice. 
 
I50 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 T-^i^i 
 
 
 LIE DOWN, LIE DOWN 
 
 I SHOUTED TO HIM. 
 
 The simple wether was much inclined to retire from the 
 contest, but looked around in vain for any way to peace 
 and comfort. His enemy stond between him and the last 
 leap he had taken ; there was nothing left him but to fight 
 or be hurled into the sea, five hundred feet below. 
 
WITCHERY LEADS TO \V IR'I l( ■RAl- T. I5I 
 
 " Lie down, lie d(.)\vn ! " I shouted to him, as if he were 
 a dog; for I had seen a battle like this before, and knew 
 that the sheep had no chance uf life, except from his greater 
 weight and the difificulty of moving him. 
 
 "Lie down, lie down, John Ridd ! " cried Mother Mell- 
 drum, mocking me, but without a sign of smiling. 
 
 The poor sheep turned, upon my voice, and looked at 
 me so piteously that I could look no longer, but ran with 
 all my speed to try and save him from the combat. He 
 saw that I could not be in time, for the goat was bucking 
 to leap at him, and so the good wether stooped his fore- 
 head, with the harmless horns curling aside of it, and the 
 goat flung his heels up and rushed at him, with quick, 
 sharp jumps and tricks of movement, and the points of his 
 long horns always foremost, and his little scut cocked like 
 a gun-hammer. 
 
 As I ran up the steep of the rock I could not see what 
 they were doing, but the sheep must have fought very 
 bravely at last, and yielded his ground quite slowly, and I 
 hoped almost to save him. But just as my head topped 
 the platform of rock, I saw him flung from it backward 
 with a sad low moan and a gurgle. His body made a van- 
 ishing noise in the air like a bucket thrown down a well- 
 shaft, and I could not tell when it struck the water, except 
 by the echo among the rocks. So wroth was I with the 
 goat at the moment (being somewhat scant of breath and 
 unable to consider), that I caught him by the right hind leg 
 before he could turn from his victorv, and hurled him after 
 the sheep to learn how he liked his own compulsion. 
 
CHAPTER XIX. 
 
 ANOTHER DANGEROUS INTERVIEW, 
 
 
 LTHOUGH I left the Denes 
 at once, having little heart for 
 further questions of the wise 
 woman, and being afraid to visit 
 her house under the " Devil's 
 Cheese-ring" (to which she 
 kindly invited me), and, al- 
 though I ran most part of the 
 way, it was very late for farm- 
 house time upon a Sunday even- 
 ing, before I was back at Plover's 
 Barrows. INly mother had great 
 desire to knf)\v all about the 
 matter, but I could not reconcile 
 it with my respect so to frighten 
 her. Therefore I tried to sleep 
 it off, keeping my own counsel, 
 and when that proved of no 
 avail, I strove to work it away, 
 if might be, by heavy out-door 
 labour and weariness and good feeding. These, indeed, 
 had some effect, and helped to pass a week or two, with 
 more pain of hand than heart to me. 
 
 But when the weather changed in earnest and the frost 
 was gone, and the southwest wind blew softly, and the 
 lambs were at play with the daisies, it was more than I 
 could do to keep from thought of Lorna. For now the 
 fields were spread with growth, and the waters clad with 
 sunshine ; and light and shadow, step by step, wandered 
 over the furzy cleves. All the sides of the hilly wood were 
 gathered in and out with green, silver-grey, or russet 
 points, according to the several manner of the trees be- 
 ginning. And if one stood beneath an elm, with any heart 
 to look at it, lo ! all the ground was strewn with flakes (too 
 small to know their meaning), and all the sprays above 
 
 ^^■irj 
 
154 LUKXA DUUNE. 
 
 were rasped and trembling- with a redness. And so I 
 stopped beneath the tree and carved L. D. upon it, and 
 wondered at the buds of thought that seemed to swell in- 
 side me. 
 
 The upshot of it all was this, that, as no Lorna came to 
 me, except in dreams or fancy, and as my life was not 
 worth living without constant sign of her, forth I must 
 again to find her, and say more than a man can tell. 
 Therefore, without waiting longer for the moving of the 
 spring, dressed I was in grand attire (so far as I had gotten 
 it), and thinking my appearance good, although with 
 doubts about it (being forced to dress in the hay-tallat), 
 round the corner of the wood-stack, went I very knowingly 
 — for Lizzie's eves were wondrous sharp — and thus I was 
 sure of meeting none who would care or dare to speak of me. 
 
 It lay upon my conscience often that I had not made 
 dear Annie secret to this history, although in all things I 
 could trust her, and she loved me like a lamb. Many and 
 many a time I tried, and more than once began the thing, 
 but there came a dryness in my throat, and a knocking 
 under the roof of my mouth, and a longing to put it off 
 again, as perhaps might be the wisest. And then I would 
 remember, too, that I had no right to speak of Lorna as if 
 she were common property. 
 
 This time I longed to take my gun, and was half re- 
 solved to do SI), because it seemed so hard a thing to be 
 shot at and have nii chance <>f shooting, but when I came 
 to remember the steepness and the slippery nature of the 
 water-slide, there seemed but little likelihood of keeping 
 dry the powder. Therefore I was armed with nothing but 
 a good stout holly staff, seasoned well for many a winter in 
 our back-kitchen chimney. 
 
 Although my heart was leaping high with the prospect of 
 some adventure and the fear of meeting Lorna, I could not 
 but be gladdened by the softness of the weather and the 
 welcome way of every thing. There was that power all 
 around, that power and that goodness which make us 
 come, as it were, outside our bodilv selves to share them. 
 Over and beside us breathes the joy of hope and promise ; 
 under foot are troubles past ; in the distance, bowering- 
 newness tempts us ever forward. We rise into quick sense 
 of life, and spring through clouds of mystery. 
 
 And, in good sooth, I had to spring, and no mystery 
 about it, ere ever I got to the top of the rift leading into 
 Doone-glade, for the stream was rushing down in strength 
 
ANOTHER DANCKROUS INTERVIKW. I 55 
 
 and raving at every corner, a mort of rain having fallen 
 last night, and no wind come to wipe it. However, I 
 reached the head ere dark, with more difficulty than dan- 
 ger, and sat in a place which comforted my back and legs 
 desirably. 
 
 Hereupon I grew so happy at being on dry land again 
 and come to look for Lorna, with pretty trees around me, 
 that what did I do but fall asleep, with the holly stick in 
 front of me, and my best coat sunk in a bed of moss, 
 among wetness and wood-sorrel. Mayhap I had not done 
 so, nor yet enjoyed the spring so much, if so be I had not 
 taken three-parts of a gallon of cider at home at Plover's 
 Barrows, because of the lowness and the sinking ever since 
 I met Mother Melldrum. 
 
 There was a little runnel going softly down beside me, 
 falling from the upper rock by the means of moss and 
 grass, as if it feared to make a noise and had a mother 
 sleeping. Now and then it seemed to stop, in fear of its 
 own dropping, and waiting for some orders ; and the blades 
 of grass that straightened to it turned their points a little 
 way, and offered their allegiance to wind instead of water. 
 Yet, before their carkled edges bent more than a driven 
 saw, down the water came again, with heavy drops and 
 pats of running and bright anger at neglect. 
 
 This was very pleasant to me, now and then to gaze at, 
 blinking as the water blinked, and falling back to sleep 
 again. Suddenly my sleep was broken by a shade cast 
 over me ; between me and the low sunlight Lorna Doone 
 was standing. 
 
 "Master Ridd, are you mad?" she said, and took my 
 hand to move me. 
 
 "Not mad, but half asleep," I answered, feigning not to 
 notice her, that so she might keep hold of me. 
 
 " Come away, come away, if you care for life. The 
 patrol will be here directly. Be quick. Master Ridd, let 
 me hide thee." 
 
 " I will not stir a step," said I, though being in the 
 greatest fright that might be well imagined, " unless you 
 call me ' John.' " 
 
 "Well, John, then — Master John Ridd ; be quick, if you 
 have any one to care for you." 
 
 "I have many that care for me," I said, just to let her 
 know ; "and I will follow you, ^listress Lorna, albeit with- 
 out any hurry, unless there be peril to more than me." 
 
 Without another word she led me, though with many 
 
156 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 timid glances, towards the upper valley, to, and into, her 
 little bower, where the inlet through the rock was. I am 
 almost sure that I spoke before (though I cannot now go 
 seek for it, and my memory is but a worn-out tub) of a 
 certain deep and perilous pit in which I was like to drown 
 myself through hurry and fright of boyhood. And even 
 then I wondered greatly, and was vexed with Lorna for 
 sending me in that heedless manner into such an entrance. 
 But now it was clear that she had been right, and the fault 
 mine own entirely, for the entrance to the pit was only to be 
 found by seeking it. Inside the niche of native stone, the 
 plainest thing of all to see, at any rate by daylight, was the 
 stairway hewn from rock and leading up the mountain, by 
 micans of which I had escaped, as before related. To the 
 right side of this was the mouth of the pit, still looking 
 very formidable, though Lorna laughed at my fear of it, 
 for she drew her water thence. But on the left was a narrow 
 crevice, very difficult to espy, and having a sweep of grey 
 ivy laid like a slouching beaver over it. A man here com- 
 ing from the brightness of the outer air, with eyes dazed 
 by the twilight, would never think of seeing this and fol- 
 lowing it to its meaning. 
 
 Lorna raised the screen for me, but I had much ado to 
 pass, on account of bulk and stature. Instead of being 
 proud of my size (as it seemed to me she ought to be) 
 Lorna laughed so quietly that I was ready to knock my 
 head or elbows against any thing and say no more about 
 it. However, I got through at last, without a word of 
 compliment, and broke into the pleasant room, the lone 
 retreat of Lorna. 
 
 The chamber was of unhewn rock, round, as near as 
 might be, eighteen or twenty feet across, and gay with rich 
 variety of fern and moss and lichen. The fern was in its 
 winter still, or coiling for the spring-tide, but moss was in 
 abundant life, some feathering and some gobleted, and 
 some with fringe of red to it. Overhead there was no ceil- 
 ing but the sky itself, flaked with little clouds of April 
 whitely wandering over it. The floor was made of soft, 
 low grass, mixed with moss and primroses, and in a niche 
 of shelter moved the delicate wood-sorrel. Here and there 
 around the sides were "chairs of living stone," as some 
 Latin writer says, whose name has quite escaped me, and 
 in the midst a tiny spring arose, with crystal beads in it, 
 and a soft voice as of a laughing dream, and dimples like a 
 sleeping babe. Then, after going round a little with sur- 
 
ANOTHER DANCEROUS IN TERVIEW. 
 
 157 
 
 prise of daylinht, the w;iter ovcrwelleil the eilyc, and softly 
 went through hnes of hght to shadows and an untold 
 bourne. 
 
 While I was gazing at all these things with wonder and 
 some sadness, Lorna turned upon me Hghtly (as her man- 
 ner was) and said : 
 
 "Where are the new-laid eggs, Master Ridd ? Or hath 
 blue hen ceased laying?" 
 
 I did not altogether like the way 
 in which she said it, with a sort of 
 a dialect, as if my speech could 
 be laughed at. 
 
 " Here be some," I answered, 
 speaking as if in spite of her. 
 " I would have brought thee 
 twice as many, but that I 
 feared to crush them in 
 the narrow ways, Mistress 
 Lorna." 
 
 And so I laid her out two 
 dozen upon the moss of the 
 rock ledge, unwinding the 
 wisp of hay from each as it 
 came safe out of my pocket. 
 Lorna looked with growing 
 wonder as I added one to 
 one, and when I had placed 
 them side by side, and bidden 
 her now to tell them, to my 
 amazement what did she do but burst 
 into a flood of tears ! 
 
 "What have I done?" I asked, 
 with shame, scarce daring even to 
 
 look at her, because her grief was not like Annie's — a thing 
 that could be coaxed away, and left a joy in going — "oh, 
 what have I done to vex you so?" 
 
 " It is nothing done by you, Master Ridd," she answered, 
 very proudly, as if naught I did could matter ; " it is only 
 something that comes upon me with the scent of the pure 
 true clover-hay. Moreover, you have been too kind, and I 
 am not used to kindness." 
 
 Some sort of awkwardness was on me at her words and 
 weeping, as if I would like to say something, but feared 
 to make things worse, perhaps, than they were already. 
 Therefore I abstained from speech as I would in my own 
 
 HERE BE SOME, MISTRESS LORNA. 
 
158 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 pain. And as it liappened, this was the way to make her 
 tell me more about it. Not that I was curious beyond 
 what pity urged me, and the strange affairs around her ; and 
 now I gazed upon the floor, lest I should seem to watch 
 her, but none the less for that I knew all that she was doing. 
 
 Lorna went a little way, as if she would not think of me, 
 nor care for one so careless, and all my heart gave a sud- 
 den jump to go like a mad thing after her, until she turned 
 of her own accord, and with a little sigh came back to me. 
 Her eyes were soft with trouble's shadow, and the proud 
 lift of her neck was gone, and beauty's vanity borne down 
 by woman's want of sustenance. 
 
 " Master Ridd," she said, in the softest voice that ever 
 flowed between two lips, " have I done aught to offend you ? " 
 
 Hereupon it went hard with me not to catch her up and 
 kiss her in the manner in which she was looking, only it 
 smote me suddenly that this would be a low advantage of 
 her trust and helplessness. She seemed to know what I 
 would be at, and to doubt very greatly about it, whether as 
 a child of old she might permit the usage. All sorts of things 
 went through my head as I made myself look away from her, 
 for fear of being tempted beyond what I could bear. And 
 the upshot of it was that I said within my heart and through 
 it, " John Ridd, be on thy very best manners with this 
 lonely maiden." 
 
 Lorna liked me all the better for my good forbearance, 
 because she did not love me )'et, and had not thought 
 about it — at least, so far as I knew. And though her eyes 
 were so beauteous, so very soft and kindly, there was (to 
 my apprehension) some great power in them, as if she 
 would not have a thing unless her judgment leaped with it. 
 
 But now her judgment leaped with me because I had 
 behaved so well, and being of quick, urgent nature — such 
 as I delight in, for the change from mine own slowness — 
 she, without any let or hindrance, sitting over against me, 
 now raising and now dropping fringe over those sweet eyes 
 that were the road-lights of her tongue, Lorna told me 
 all about every thing I wished to know, every little thing 
 she knew, except, indeed, that point of points, how Master 
 Ridd stood with her. 
 
 Although it wearied me no whit, it might be wearisome 
 for folk who cannot look at Lorna to hear the story all in 
 speech, exactly as she told it, therefore let me put it shortly, 
 to the best of ni)' remembrance. 
 
 Nay, pardon me, whosoever thou art, for seeming fickle 
 
ANOTHER DANCKROUS INTKRVIEW. 
 
 159 
 
 and rude to thee ; I have tried to do as first proposed, 
 to tell the tale in my own wortls, as of another's fortune. 
 But, lo ! I was beset at once with many heavy oljstacles, 
 which grew as I went onward, until I knew not where I 
 was, and mingled past and present. And two of these 
 difficulties only were enough to stop me, the one that 1 
 must coldly speak, without the force of pity, the other 
 that I off and on confused myself with Lorna, as might be 
 well expected. 
 
 Therefore, let her tell the story, with her own sweet voice 
 and manner, and if ye find it wearisome seek in yourselves 
 the weariness. 
 
CHAPTER XX. 
 
 LORNA EF,i;l-\S HER STORY. 
 
 CANN()'r go through all my 
 thoughts so as to make them 
 clear to you, nor have I ever 
 dwelt on things to shape a story 
 of them. I know not where the 
 beginning was, nor where the 
 middle ought to be, nor even how 
 at the present time I feel, or think, 
 or ought to think. If I look for 
 help to those around me who 
 should tell me right and wrong 
 (being older and much wiser), I 
 meet sometimes with laughter 
 and at other times with anger. 
 
 " There are but tw(j in the 
 world who ever listen and try to 
 help me ; one of them is my 
 grandfather, and the other is a 
 man of wisdom, whom we call 
 the Counsellor. My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doone, is very 
 old and harsh of manner (except, indeed, to me) ; he seems 
 to know what is right and wrong, but not to want to think 
 of it. The Counsellor, on the other hand, though full of 
 life and subtleties, treats my questions as of play, and not 
 gravely worth his while to answer, unless he can make wit 
 of them. 
 
 " And among the women there are none with whom I 
 can hold converse since my Aunt Sabina died, who took 
 such pains to teach me. She was a lady of high repute 
 and lofty ways, and learning, but grieved and harassed more 
 and more by the coarseness, and the violence, and the igno- 
 rance around her. In vain she strove, from year to vear, 
 to make the young men hearken, to teach them what be- 
 came their birth, and give them sense of honour. It was her 
 favourite word, poor thing ! and they called her ' Old Aunt 
 
LORXA lillCINS IIKK STORV. l6l 
 
 Honour.' ^'ery often she used to say that I was her only 
 comfort, and I am sure she was my only one, and when she 
 died it was more to me than if I had lost a mother. 
 
 " For I ha\-e no remembrance now of father or of mother, 
 although they say that my father was the eldest son of Sir 
 Ensor Doone, and the bravest and the best of them. And 
 so they call me heiress to this little realm of violence, and 
 in sorry sport, sometimes, I am their princess or their queen. 
 
 " IVIany people living here, as I am forced to do, would, 
 perhaps, be very happy, and perhaps I ought to be so. We 
 have a beauteous valley, sheltered from the cold of winter 
 and power of the summer sun, untroubled, also, by the 
 storms and mists that veil the mountains, although I must 
 acknowledge that it is apt to rain too often. The grass, 
 moreover, is so fresh, and the brook so bright and lively, 
 and flowers of so many hues come after one another that 
 no one need be dull if only left alone with them. 
 
 " And so, in the early day, perhaps, when morning 
 breathes around me and the sun is going upward, and light 
 is playing everywhere, I am not so far beside them all as to 
 live in shadow. But when the evening gathers clown and 
 the sky is spread with sadness, and the day has spent itself, 
 then a cloud of lonely trouble falls, like night, upon me. I 
 cannot see the things I quest for of a world beyf)nd me ; I 
 cannot join the peace and quiet of the depth above me ; 
 neither have I any pleasure in the brightness of the stars. 
 
 "What I want to know is something none of them can 
 tell me — what am I, and why set here, and when shall I be 
 with them? I see that you are surprised a little at this my 
 curiosity. Perhaps such questions never spring in anv 
 wholesome spirit. But they are in the depths of mine, and 
 I cannot be quit of them. 
 
 " Meantime all around me is violence and robbery, 
 coarse delight and savage pain, reckless joke and hopeless 
 death. Is it any wonder that I cannot sink with these, that 
 I cannot so forget my soul as to live the life of brutes, and 
 die the death more horrible, because it dreams of waking? 
 There is none to lead me forward, there is none to teach 
 me right ; young as I am, I live beneath a curse that lasts 
 for ever." 
 
 Here Lorna broke down for awhile, and cried so very 
 piteously that, doubting of my knowledge and my right or 
 power to comfort, I did my best to hold my peace, and 
 tried to look very cheerful. Then, thinking that might be 
 bad manners, I went to wipe her eyes for her. 
 
l62 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 I WENT TO WII'E HER EYES FOR IIER. 
 
 "Master Ridd," she began 
 
 again, " I am both ashamed and 
 
 vexed at my own childish folly. 
 
 But you who have a mother, who 
 
 thinks (you say) so much of you, and sisters and a quiet 
 
 home, you cannot tell (it is not likely) what a lonely nature 
 
 is. How it leaps in mirth sometimes, with only heaven 
 
LORNA BEGINS HKR STORV. 
 
 163 
 
 touching it, and how it falls away desponding when the 
 dreary weight creeps on. 
 
 " It does not happen many times that I give way like 
 this ; more shame now to do so, when I ought to entertain 
 you. Sometimes I am so full of anger that I dare not trust 
 to speech, at things they cannot hide from me, and perhaps 
 you would be much surprised that reckless men would care 
 so much to elude a young maiden's knowledge. They used 
 to boast to Aunt Sabina of pillage and of cruelty on pur- 
 pose to enrage her, but they 
 never boast to me. It even 
 makes me smile, sometimes, 
 
 OFFERING JEWELS LATELY BELONGING TO OTHER PEOPLE. 
 
 to see how awkwardly they come and offer for temptation 
 to me shining packets, half concealed, of ornaments and 
 finery, of rings or chains or jewels lately belonging to other 
 people. 
 
 " But when I try to search the past, to get a sense of 
 what befell me ere my own perception formed, to feel back 
 for the lines of childhood as a trace of gossamer, then I 
 only know that naught lives longer than God wills it. So 
 may later sin go by, for we are children always, as the 
 Counsellor has told me, so may we, beyond the clouds, 
 seek this infancy of life, and never find its memory. 
 
 " But I am talking now of things which never come 
 across me when any work is toward. It might have been a 
 
164 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 good thing for me to have had a father to beat these rov- 
 ings out of me, or a mother to make a home and teach me 
 how to manage it. For, being left with none — I think; 
 and nothing ever comes of it. Nothing, I mean, which I 
 can grasp and have with any surety ; nothing but faint 
 images, and wonderment, and wandering. But often, when 
 I am neither searching back into remembrance nor ask- 
 ing of my parents, but occupied by trifles, something 
 like a sign, or message, or a token of some meaning 
 seems to glance upon me. Whether from the rustling 
 wind or sound of distant music, or the singing of a 
 bird, like the sun on snow, it strikes me with a pain of 
 pleasure. 
 
 "-And often when I wake at night and listen to the 
 silence, or wander far from people in the greyness of the 
 evening, or stand and look at quiet water having shadows 
 over it, some vague image seems to hover on the skirt of 
 vision, ever changing place and outline, ever flitting as I 
 follow. This so moves and hurries me, in the eagerness 
 and longing, that straightway all my chance is lost, and 
 memory, scared like a wild bird, flies. Or am I as a child, 
 perhaps, chasing a flown cageling, who among the branches 
 free, plays and peeps at the offered cage (as a home n(.)t 
 to be urged on him), and means to take his time of com- 
 ing, if he comes at all ? 
 
 " Often, too, I wonder at the odds of fortune which 
 made me (helpless as I am, and fond of peace and read- 
 ing) the heiress of this mad domain, this sanctuary of 
 unholiness. It is not likely that I shall have much power 
 of authority, and yet the Counsellor creeps up to be mv 
 Lord of the Treasury, and his son aspires to my hand as 
 of a royal alliance. \\'ell, ' honour among thieves,' thev 
 say, and mine is the first honour, although among decent 
 folk perhaps honesty is better. 
 
 " ^Ve should not be so quiet here, and safe from mter- 
 ruption, but that I have begged one privilege, rather than 
 commanded it. This was that the lower end, just this 
 narrowing of the valley, where it is most hard to come 
 at, might be looked upon as mine, except for purposes of 
 guard. Therefore none, beside the sentries, ever trespass 
 on me here, unless it be my grandfather, or the Counsellor, 
 or Carver. 
 
 '' By your face. Master Ridd, I see that you have heard 
 of Carver Doone. For strength, and courage, and resource 
 he bears the first repute among us, as might well be 
 
l.OKNA r.KClNS HER STORV. 165 
 
 expected from the son of the C'Dunsellor. But he differs 
 from his father, in being \uv\ hot and savage, and quite 
 free from argument. The Counsellor, who is my uncle, 
 gives his son the best advice, commending all the virtues 
 with eloquence and wisdom, yet himself abstaining from 
 them, accurately and impartially. 
 
 " You must be tired of this story and the time I take to 
 think, and the weakness of my telling, but my life from 
 dav to day shows so little variance. Among the riders 
 there is none whose safe return I watch for — I 
 mean none more than other — and indeed 
 there seems no risk, all are now so feared 
 of us. Neither of the old men is there whom 
 I can revere or love (except, alone, my 
 grandfather, whom I love with trembling) ; 
 neither of the women any whom I like to 
 deal with, unless it be a little maiden 
 whom I saved from starving. 
 
 "A little Cornish girl she is, and 
 shaped in western manner, not so 
 very much less in width than if you 
 take her lengthwise. Her father 
 seems to have been a miner, a Cor- 
 nishman (as she declares) of more 
 than average excellence, and better 
 than any two men to be found in 
 Devonshire, or any four in Somerset. C,-_ 
 
 Very few things can have been beyond 
 his power of performance, and yet he left 
 his daughter to starve upon a peat-rick. 
 She does not know how this was done, 
 and looks upon it as a mystery, the mean- 
 ing of which will some day be clear, and redound to her 
 father's honour. His name was Simon Carfa.x, and he 
 came as the captain of a gang from one of the Cornish 
 stanneries. Gwenny Carfax, my young maid, well remem- 
 bers how her father was brought up from Cornwall. Her 
 mother had been buried just a week or so before, and he 
 was sad about it, and had been off his work, and was ready 
 for another job. Then people came to him by night and 
 said that he must want a change, and every body lost their 
 wives, and work was the way to mend it. So what with 
 grief and over-thought, and the inside of a square bottle, 
 Gwenny says they brought him off to become a mighty 
 captain and choose the country round. The last she saw 
 
 GWENNV C.VKFAX. 
 
1 66 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 of him was this, that he went down a ladder somewhere on 
 the wilds of Exmoor, leaving her with bread and cheese, 
 and his travelling-hat to see to. And from that day to 
 this he never came above the ground again, so far as we 
 can hear of. 
 
 " But Gwenny, holding to his hat, and having eaten the 
 bread and cheese (when he came no more to help her), 
 dwelt three days near the mouth of the hole, and then it 
 was closed over, the while that she was sleeping. With 
 weakness and with want of food she lost herself distress- 
 fully, and went away, for miles or more, and lay upon a 
 peat-rick to die before the ravens. 
 
 " That very day I chanced to return from Aunt Sabina's 
 dying place, for she would not die in Glen Doone, she 
 said, lest the angels feared to come for her, and so she 
 was taken to a cottage in a lonely valley. I was allowed 
 to visit her, for even we durst not refuse the wishes of the 
 dying, and if a priest had been desired, we should have 
 made bold with him. Returning very sorrowful, and 
 caring now for nothing, I found this little stray thing 
 lying with her arms upon her, and not a sign of life, 
 except the way that she was biting. Black root-stuff 
 was in her mouth, and a piece of dirty sheep's wool, 
 and at her feet an old egg-shell of some bird of the moor- 
 land. 
 
 " I tried to raise her, but she was too square and heavy 
 for me, and so I put food in her mouth, and left her to do 
 right with it. And this she did in a little time, for the 
 victuals were very choice and rare, being what I had 
 taken over to tempt poor Aunt Sabina. Gwenny ate them 
 without delay, and then was ready to eat the basket and 
 the ware that had contained them. 
 
 "Gwenny took me for an angel — though I am little 
 like one, as you see. Master Ridd — and she followed me, 
 expecting that I would open wings and fly when we came 
 to any difficulty. I brought her home with me, so far as 
 this can be a home, and she made herself my sole attend- 
 ant, without so much as asking me. She has beaten two 
 or three other girls who used to wait upon me, until they 
 are afraid to come near the house of my grandfather. 
 She seems to have no kind of fear even of our roughest 
 men, and yet she looks with reverence and awe upon the 
 Counsellor. As for the wickedness and theft and revelry 
 around her, she says it is no concern of hers, and they 
 know their own business best. By this way of regarding 
 
LDRNA BEGINS HER STORV. 167 
 
 men she has won upon our riders, so that she is almost 
 free from all control of place and season, and is allowed 
 to pass where none even of the youths may go. Being so 
 wide and short and flat, she has none to pay her compli- 
 ments, and, were there any, she would scorn them as not 
 being Cornishmen. Sometimes she wanders far by moon- 
 light on the moors and up the rivers, to give her father (as 
 she savs) another chance of finding her, and she comes 
 back not a whit defeated or discouraged, but confident 
 that he is only waiting for the proper time. 
 
 " Herein she sets me good example of a patience and 
 contentment hard for me to imitate. ( )ftentimes I am so 
 vexed by things I cannot meddle with, yet cannot keep 
 away from me, that I am at the point of flying from this 
 dreadful valley, and risking all that can betide me in the 
 unknown outer world. If it were not for my grandfather 
 I would have done so long ago, but I cannot bear that he 
 should die with no gentle hand to comfort him, and I fear 
 to think of the conflict that must ensue for the govern- 
 ment if there be a disputed succession. 
 
 Ah me ! W't are to be pitied greath' rather than con- 
 demned by people whose things we have taken from them, 
 for I have read, and seem almost to understand about it, 
 that there are places on the earth where gentle peace, and 
 love of home, and knowledge of one's neighbours prevail, 
 and are with reason looked for as the usual state "f things. 
 There honest folk may go to work in the glory (jf the sun- 
 rise, with hope of coming home again quite safe in the 
 quiet evening, and finding all their children ; and even in 
 the darkness they have no fear of lying down and dropping 
 oft to slumber, and hearken to the wind at night, not as 
 to an enemy trying to find entrance, but a friend who 
 comes to tell the value of their comfort. 
 
 " Of all this golden ease I hear, but never saw the like 
 of it, and, haply, I shall never do so, being born to tur- 
 bulence. Once, indeed, I had the offer of escape and 
 kinsman's aid, and high place in the gay, bright world, 
 and yet I was not tempted much, or, at least, dared not 
 to trust it. And it ended very sadly, so dreadfully that 
 I even shrink from telling you about it, for that one 
 terror changed my life in a moment, at a blow, from 
 childhood and from thoughts of play, and commune with 
 the flowers and trees, to a sense of death and darkness 
 and a heavy weight of earth. Be content now, Master 
 
i68 
 
 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 Ridd ; ask me nothing more about it, so your sleep be 
 sounder." 
 
 But I, John Ridd, being young and rash, and very fond 
 of hearing things to make my blood to tingle, had no 
 more of manners than to urge poor Lorna onward, hoping, 
 perhaps, in depth of heart that she might have to hold by 
 me when the worst came to the worst of it. Therefore 
 she went on again. 
 
 'f J 
 
CHAPTER XXI. 
 
 LORNA ENDS HER STORY. 
 
 T is scarce a twelvemontli yet, al- 
 though it seems ten )'ears agone, 
 since 1 blew the downy globe 
 to learn the time of day, or set 
 beneath my chin the veinings of 
 the varnished buttercup, or fired 
 the foxglove cannonade, or made 
 a captive of myself with dande- 
 lion fetters ; for then I had not 
 very much to trouble me in earn- 
 est, but went about, romancing 
 gravely, playing at bopeep with 
 fear, making for myself strong 
 heroes of grey rock or fir-tree, 
 adding to my own importance, 
 as the children love to do. 
 
 " As yet I had not truly learned 
 the evil of our living, the scorn 
 of law, the outrage and the sor- 
 row caused to others. It even was a point with all to 
 hide the roughness from me, to show me but the gallant 
 side and keep in shade the other. My grandfather. Sir 
 Ensor Doone, had given strictest order, as I discovered 
 afterwards, that in my presence all should be well-man- 
 nered, kind, and vigilant. Nor was it very difficult to 
 keep most part of the mischief from me, for no Doone 
 ever robs at home, neither do they quarrel much, except 
 at times of gambling. And, though Sir Ensor Doone is 
 now so old and growing feeble, his own way he will have 
 still, and no one dare deny him. Even our fiercest and 
 most mighty swordsmen, seared from all sense of right 
 or wrong, yet have plentiful sense of fear when brought 
 before that white-haired man. Not that he is rough with 
 them or querulous or rebukeful, but that he has a strange, 
 soft smile and a gaze they cannot answer, and a knowledge 
 
170 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 deeper far than they have of themselves. Under his pro- 
 tection I am as safe from all those men (some of whom 
 are not akin to me) as if I slept beneath the roof of the 
 King's Lord Justitiary. 
 
 ■' But now, at the time I speak of, one evening of last 
 summer, a horrible thing befell which took all play of 
 childhood from me. The fifteenth day of last July was 
 very hot and sultry long after the time of sundown, and I 
 was paying heed to it because of the old saying that if it 
 rain then, rain will fall on forty days thereafter. I had 
 been long by the waterside, at this lower end of the valley, 
 plaiting a little crown of woodbine, crocketed with sprigs 
 of heath — to please my grandfather, who likes to see me 
 gay at supper-time. Being proud of my tiara, which had 
 cost some trouble, I set it on my head at once, to save the 
 chance of crushing, and carrying my grey hat, ventured 
 by a path not often trod. For I must be home at the sup- 
 per-time, or grandfather would be exceeding wroth ; and 
 the worst of his anger is that he never condescends to 
 show it. 
 
 "Therefore, instead of the open mead, or the windings 
 of the river, I made short cut through the ash-trees covert, 
 which lies in the middle of our vale, with the water skirting 
 or cleaving it. You have never been up so far as that — 
 at least to the best of my knowledge — but you see it, like 
 a long grey spot from the top of the cliffs above us. Here 
 I was not likely to meet any of our people, because the 
 young ones are afraid of some ancient tale about it, and 
 the old ones have no love of trees, where gunshots are 
 uncertain. 
 
 " It was more, almost, than dusk down below the tree- 
 leaves, and I was eager to go through, and be again be- 
 yond it. For the grey dark hung around me, scarcely 
 showing shadow, and the little light that glimmered 
 seemed to come up from the ground. For the earth was 
 strown with the winter-spread and coil of last year's foli- 
 age, the lichened claws of chalky twigs, and the number- 
 less decay which gives a light in its decaying. I, for my 
 part, hastened shyly, ready to draw back and run from 
 hare, or rabbit, or small field-mouse. 
 
 " At a sudden turn of the narrow path, where it stooped 
 again to the river, a man leaped out from behind a tree 
 and stopped me and seized hold of me. I tried to shriek, 
 but my voice was still, and I could only hear my heart. 
 
 " ' Now, cousin Lorna, my good cousin,' he said, with 
 
LOKXA ENDS IIER SIORV, 
 
 171 
 
 ease and calmness, ' vour voice is very sweet, no doubt, 
 from all that I can see of you. ISut 1 pray you keep it 
 still, unless vou would give to dustv death ^our \ery best 
 cousin and trusty guardian, Alan Brandir of Loch Awe.' 
 
 "'You my guardian !' I said, for the idea was too ludi- 
 crous, and ludicrous things always strike me lust, through 
 some fault of nature. 
 
 " ' I have in truth that honour, madam,' he answered, 
 with a sweeping bow, 'unless I err in taking you for Mis- 
 tress Lorna Doone.' 
 
 " ' You have not mistaken me. My name is Lorna 
 Doone.' 
 
 " He looked at me with gravity, and was inclined to 
 make some claim to closer consideration upon the score 
 of kinship, but I shrank back and only said, ' Yes, my 
 name is Lorna Doone.' 
 
 " ' Then I am your faithful guardian, Alan Brandir of 
 Loch Awe, called Lord Alan Brandir, son of a worthy peer 
 of Sct)tland. N(.)w will you confide in me?' 
 
 " ' I confide in you ! ' I cried, looking at him with amaze- 
 ment, ' why, you are not older than I am ! ' 
 
 " ' Yes I am, three years at least. \'ou, my ward, are 
 not sixteen. I, your worshipful guardian, am almost nine- 
 teen years of age ! ' 
 
 " Upon hearing this I looked at him, for that seemed 
 then a venerable age, but the more I looked the more I 
 doubted, although he was dressed quite like a man. He 
 led me in a courtly manner, stepping at his tallest, to an 
 open place beside the water, where the light came as in 
 channel, and was made the most of by glancing waves 
 and fair white stones. 
 
 '''Now am I to your liking, cousin?' he asked, when I 
 had gazed at him until I was almost ashamed, except at 
 such a stripling. ' Does my cousin Lorna judge kindly of 
 her guardian and her nearest kinsman? In a word, is our 
 admiration mutual ? ' 
 
 "'Truly, I know not,' I said, 'but you seem good-nat- 
 ured and to have no harm in you. Do they trust you with 
 a sword ? ' 
 
 " For in my usage among men of stature and strong 
 presence, this pretty youth, so tricked and slender, seemed 
 nothing but a doll to me. Although he scared me in the 
 wood, now that I saw him in good twilight, lo ! he was but 
 little greater than my little self, and so tasselled and so 
 ruffled with a mint of bravery, and a green coat barred 
 
1/2 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 with red, and a slim sword 
 hanging under him, it was 
 the utmost I could do to 
 look at him halt gravely. 
 " ' I fear that my pres- 
 ence hath scarce enough 
 of ferocity about it ; ' he 
 
 
 HE LED ME IN A COURTLY MANNER. 
 
 gave a jerk to his sword as he spoke, 
 and clanked it on the brook-stones, 
 ' yet do I assure you, cousin, that I am 
 not without some prowess, and many a 
 
LOKXA EiXDS HER STdKV. I 73 
 
 master of defence hath this good sword of mine disarmed. 
 Now if the boldest and biggest robber in all this charming 
 valley durst so much as breathe the scent of that flower 
 coronal, which doth not adorn but is adorned' — here he 
 talked some nonsense — 'I would cleave him from head to 
 foot ere ever he could fly or cry.' 
 
 "'Hush!' I said, 'talk not so loudly, or thou mayest 
 have to do both thyself, and do them both in vain.' 
 
 " For he was quite forgetting now, in his bravery before 
 me, where he stood and with whom he spoke, and h(nv 
 the summer lightning shone above the hills and down the 
 hollow. And as I gazed on this slight, fair youth, clearly 
 one of high birth and breeding (albeit over-boastful), a chill 
 of fear crept over me, because he had no strength or sub- 
 stance, and would be no more than a pin-cushion before 
 the great swords of the Doones. 
 
 " ' I pray you be not vexed with me,' he answered, in a 
 softer voice, 'for I have travelled far and sorely for the 
 sake of seeing you. I know right well among whom I 
 am, and that their hospitality is more of the knife than 
 the salt-stand. Nevertheless, I am safe enough, for my 
 foot is the fleetest in Scotland, and what are such hills as 
 these to me? Tush! 1 have seen some border forays 
 among wilder spirits and craftier men than these be. 
 Once I mind, some years agone, when I was quite a strip- 
 ling lad ' 
 
 " ' Worshipful guardian,' I said, ' there is no time now 
 for history. If thou art in no haste, I am, and cannot 
 stay here idling. Only tell me how I am akin and under 
 wardship to thee, and what purpose brings thee here.' 
 
 "'In order, cousin — all things in order, even with fair 
 ladies. First, I am thy uncle's son ; my father is thv 
 mother's brother, or, at least, thy grandmother's — unless I 
 am deceived in that which I have guessed, and no other 
 man. For my father, being a leading lord in the councils 
 of King Charles the Second, appointed me to learn the 
 law, not for my livelihood, thank God, but because he felt 
 the lack of it in affairs of state. But first your leave, 
 young Mistress Lorna ; I cannot lay down legal maxims 
 without aid of smoke.' 
 
 " He leaned against a willow-tree, and drawing from a 
 gilded box a little dark thing like a stick, placed it be- 
 tween his lips, and then striking a flint on steel, made fire, 
 and caught it upon touchwood. With this he kindled the 
 tip of the stick until it glowed with a ring of red, and then 
 
I 74 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 he breathed forth curls of smoke, blue, and smelling on the 
 air like spice. I had never seen this done before, though 
 acquainted with tobacco-pipes, and it made me laugh un- 
 til I thought of the peril that must follow it. 
 
 " ' Cousin, have no fear,' he said, ' this makes me all 
 the safer : they will take me for a glow-worm, and thee 
 for the flower it shines upon. But to return — of law I 
 learned, as you may suppose, but little, although I have 
 capacities. But the thing was far too dull for me. All I 
 care for is adventure, moving chance, and hot encounter ; 
 therefore, all of law I learned was how to live without it. 
 Nevertheless, for amusement's sake, as I must needs be 
 at my desk an hour or so in the afternoon, I took to the 
 sporting branch of the law, the pitfalls and the ambuscades, 
 and of all the traps to be laid therein, pedigrees are the 
 rarest. There is scarce a man worth a cross of butter but 
 what you may find a hole in his shield within four genera- 
 tions. And so I struck our own escutcheon and it sounded 
 hollow. There is a point — but heed not that; enough 
 that, being curious now, I followed up the quarry, and I 
 am come to this at last — we, even we, the lords of Loch 
 Awe, have an outlaw for our cousin, and I would we had 
 more if they be like you.' 
 
 " ' Sir,' I answered, being amused by his manner, which 
 was new to me (for the Doones are much in earnest), 
 'surely you count it no disgrace to be of kin to Sir Ensor 
 Doone and all his honest family ! ' 
 
 " ' If it be so, it is in truth the very highest honour, and 
 would heal ten holes in our escutcheon. What noble 
 family but springs from a captain among robbers ? Trade 
 alone can spoil our blood, robbery purifies it. The rob- 
 bery of one age is the chivalry of the next. We mav start 
 anew, and vie with even the nobility of France, if we can 
 once enroll but half the Doones upon our lineage.' 
 
 " ' I like not to hear you speak of the Doones as if they 
 were no more than that,' I exclaimed, being now unrea- 
 sonable, ' but will you tell me, once for all, sir, how you 
 are my guardian ? ' 
 
 " ' That I will do. You are my ward because you were 
 my father's ward, under the Scottish law, and now, my 
 father being so deaf, I have succeeded to that right — at 
 least, in my own opinion — under which claim I am here, 
 to neglect my trust no longer, but to lead you away from 
 scenes and deeds which (though of good repute and 
 comely) are not the best for young gentlewomen. There, 
 
LOKNA ENDS HER STORY. I 75 
 
 spoke I not like a giuirdian? After that, can )-ou mistrust 
 me ? ' 
 
 "'But,' said I, 'good cousin Alan (if I may so call you), 
 it is not meet for young gentlewomen to go away with 
 young gentlemen, though fifty times their guardians. But 
 if you will only come with me, and explain your tale to 
 my grandfather, he will listen to you quietly and take no 
 advantage of you.' 
 
 " ' I thank vou much, kind Mistress Lorna, to lead the 
 goose into the fox's den ! But, setting bv all thought of 
 danger, I have other reasons agauist it. Now, come with 
 your faithful guardian, child. I will pledge my honour 
 against all harm, and to bear you safe to London. By 
 the law of the realm, I am now entitled to the custody of 
 your fair person and of all your chattels.' 
 
 " ' But, sir, all that vou have learned of law is how to 
 live without it.' 
 
 " ' Fairlv met, fair cousin mine ! ^'our wit will do me 
 credit, after a little sharpening. And there is none to do 
 that better than your aunt, mv mother. Although she 
 knows not of my coming, she is longing to receive you. 
 Come, and in a few months' time you shall set the mode 
 at court, instead of pining here, and weaving coronals of 
 daisies.' 
 
 "I turned aside and thought a little. Although he 
 seemed so light of mind, and gay in dress and manner, I 
 could not doubt his honesty, and saw beneath his jauntv 
 air, true mettle and ripe bravery. Scarce had I thought of 
 his project twice, until he spoke of my aunt, his mother ; 
 but then the form of my dearest friend, my sweet Aunt Sa- 
 bina, seemed to come and bid me listen, for this was what 
 she had prayed for. Moreover, I felt (though not as now) 
 that Doone Glen was no place for me or any proud young 
 maiden. But while I thought, the yellow lightning spread 
 behind a bulk of clouds three times ere the flash was done, 
 far off, and void of thunder, and from the pile of cloud 
 before it, cut as from black paper, and lit to depths of 
 blackness by the blaze behind it, a form as of an aged 
 man, sitting in a chair, loose-mantled, seemed to lift a 
 hand, and warn. 
 
 " This minded me of my grandfather, and all the care I 
 owed him. Moreover, now the storm was rising, and I be- 
 gan to grow afraid, for of all things awful to me, thunder 
 is the dreadfulest. It doth so growl, like a lion coming, 
 and then so roll, and roar, and rumble, out of a thickening 
 
I 76 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 darkness, then crack like the last trump overhead, through 
 cloven air and terror, that all my heart lies low and 
 quivers like a weed in water. I listened now for the dis- 
 tant rolling of the great black storm, and heard it, and 
 was hurried by it. But the youth before me waved his 
 rolled tobacco at it, and drawled in his daintiest tone and 
 manner : 
 
 " ' The sky is having a smoke, I see, and dropping 
 sparks and grumbling. I should have thought these Ex- 
 moor hills too small to gather thunder.' 
 
 " ' I cannot go, I will not go with you, Lord Alan Bran- 
 dir,' I answered, being vexed a little by those words of 
 his. ' You are not grave enough for me, you are not old 
 enough for me. My Aunt Sabina would not have wished 
 it, nor would I leave my grandfather without his full per- 
 mission. I thank you much for coming, sir, but be gone 
 at once by the way you came — and, pray, how did you 
 come, sir ? ' 
 
 " ' Fair cousin, you will grieve for this ; you will mourn 
 when you cannot mend it. I would my mother had been 
 here ; soon would she have persuaded you. And yet,' he 
 added, with the smile of his accustomed gaiety, ' it would 
 have been an unco thing, as we say in Scotland, for her 
 ladyship to have waited upon you as her graceless son has 
 done, and hopes to do again ere long. Down the cliffs I 
 came, and up them I must make way back again. Now, 
 adieu, fair cousin Lorna ; I see you are in haste to-night, 
 but I am right proud of my guardianship. Ciive me just 
 one flower for token' — here he kissed his hand to me, and 
 I threw him a truss of woodbine — ' adieu, fair cousin, trust 
 me well, I will soon be here again.' 
 
 "'That thou never shalt, sir,' cried a voice as loud as a 
 culverin, and Carver Doone had Alan Brandir as a spider 
 hath a fly. The boy made a little shriek at first, with the 
 sudden shock and the terror, then he looked, methought, 
 ashamed of himself, and set his face to fight for it. Very 
 bravely he strove and struggled to free one arm and to 
 grasp his sword, but as well might an infant, buried alive, 
 attempt to lift his gravestone. Carver Doone, with his 
 great arms wrapped around the slim, gay body, smiled (as 
 I saw by the flash from heaven) at the poor young face 
 turned up to him, then (as a nurse bears off a child who is 
 loth to go to bed) he lifted the youth from his feet, and 
 bore him away into the darkness. 
 
 "I was young then. I am older now — older by ten 
 
LORNA i-:nds her storv. 177 
 
 years in thought, although it is not a twelvemonth since. 
 If that black deed were done again, I could follow and 
 could combat it, could throw weak arms on the murderer 
 and strive to be murdered also. I am now at home with 
 violence, and no dark death surprises me. 
 
 " But being as I was that night, the horror overcame 
 me. The crash of thunder overhead, the last despairing 
 look, the death-piece framed with blaze of lightning — my 
 young heart was so affrighted that I could not gasp. My 
 breath went from me, and I knew not where I was, or who, 
 or what. Only that I lay and cowered under great trees 
 full of thunder, and could neither count nor moan, nor 
 have my feet to help me. 
 
 " Yet hearkening, as a coward does, through the wailing 
 of the wind and echo of far noises, I heard a sharp sound 
 as of iron, and a fall of heavy wood. No unmanly shriek 
 came with it, neither cry for mercy. Carver Doone knows 
 what it was, and so did Alan Brandir." 
 
 Here Lorna Doone could tell no more, being overcome 
 with weeping. Only through her tears she whispered, as 
 a thing too bad to tell, that she had seen that giant Car- 
 ver, in a few days afterwards, smoking a little round 
 brown stick, like those of her poor cousin. I could not 
 press her any more with questions or for clearness, al- 
 though I longed very much to know whether she had 
 spoken of it to her grandfather or the Counsellor. But 
 she was now in such condition, both of mind and buily, 
 from the force of her own fear, multiplied by telhng it, 
 that I did nothing more than coax her at a distance hum- 
 bly, and so that she could see that some one was at least 
 afraid of her. This (although I knew not women in 
 those days, as now I do, and never shall know much of it), 
 this, I say, so brought her round that all her fear was now 
 for me, and how to get me safely off without mischance to 
 any one. And sooth to say, in spite of longing just to see 
 if Master Carver could have served me such a trick — as 
 it grew towards the dusk I was not best pleased to be 
 there, for it seemed a lawless place, and some of Lorna's 
 fright stayed with me as I talked it away from her. 
 
CHAPTER XXII. 
 
 A LONG SPRING MONTH. 
 
 FTER hearing that tale from Lor- 
 na, I went home in sorry spirits, 
 having added fear for her, and 
 misery about her, to all my other 
 ailments. And was it not quite 
 certain now that she, being owned 
 full cousin to a peer and lord of 
 Scotland (although he was a dead 
 one), must have naught to do with 
 me, a yeoman's son, and bound 
 to be the father of more veo- 
 men ? I had been sorry when first 
 I heard about that poor young 
 popinjay, and would gladly have 
 fought hard for him ; but now it 
 struck me that after all he had 
 no right to be there, prowling 
 (as it were) for Lorna, without 
 j:.,;.;;. ,. ' ■ any invitation ; and we farmers 
 
 ■'^'"■' * love not trespass. Still, if I had 
 
 seen the thing, I must have tried to save him. 
 
 Moreover, I was greatly vexed with my own hesitation, 
 stupidity, or shyness, or whatever else it was, which had 
 held me back from saying, ere she told her story, what was 
 in my heart to say, videlicet, that I must die unless she let 
 me love her. Not that I was fool enough to think that 
 she would answer me according to my liking, or begin to 
 care about me for a long time yet, if, indeed, she ever 
 should, which I hardly dared to hope. But that I had 
 heard from men more skilful in the matter, that it is wise 
 to be in time, that so the maids may begin to think, when 
 they know that they are thought of. And, to tell the truth, 
 I had bitter fears, on account of her wondrous beauty, lest 
 some young fellow of higher birth, and finer parts, and 
 finish, might steal in before poor me, and cut me out alto- 
 
A LONG SPRING MONTH. 1 79 
 
 gether. Thinking of which, I used ti) double my great fist, 
 without knowing it, and keep it in my pocket ready. 
 
 But the worst of all was this, that in my .threat dismay 
 and anguish to see Lorna weeping sn, I had promised not 
 to cause her anv further trouble from anxiety and fear of 
 harm. .\nd this, being brought to practice, meant 
 that I was not to show myself within the precincts 
 of Glen Doone for at least another month. Un- 
 less, indeed (as I contrived to edge into the agree- 
 ment), anything should happen to increase 
 her present trouble and every day's uneasi- 
 ness. In that case she was to throw a dark (*>Vit~i 
 mantle, or covering of some sort, over a 
 large white stone, which hung within the 
 entrance to her retreat — I mean the outer r.- 
 entrance — and which, though unseen from' 
 the valley itself, was (as I had observed) 
 conspicuous from the height where I stood marwood de wiiiche- 
 with Uncle Reuben. halse. 
 
 Now, coming home so sad and weary, yet 
 trying to console mvself with the thought that love o'erleap- 
 eth rank, and must still be lord of all, I found a shameful 
 thing going on, which made me very angry. For it needs 
 must happen that young ^Slarwood de Whichehalse, only son 
 of the Baron, riding home that very evening, from chasing 
 of the Exmoor bustards, with his hounds and serving-men, 
 should take the short cut through our farm-yard, and be- 
 ing dry from his e.xercise, should come and ask for drink. 
 And it needs must happen, also, that there should be none 
 to give it to him but my sister Annie. I more than sus- 
 pect that he had heard some report of our Annie's comeli- 
 ness, and had a mind to satisf}' himself upon the subject. 
 Now, as he took the large ox-horn of our quarantine-apple 
 cider (which we always keep apart from the rest, being 
 too good except for the qualitv), he let his fingers dwell 
 on Annie's, by some sort of accident, while he lifted his 
 beaver gallantly, and gazed on her face in the light from 
 the west. Then what did Annie do (as she herself told 
 me afterwards) but make her very best courtesy to him, 
 being pleased that he was pleased with her, while she 
 thought what a fine young man he was, and so much 
 breeding about him ! And in truth he was a dark, hand- 
 some fellow, hasty, reckless, and changeable, with a look 
 of sad destiny in his black eyes that would make any 
 woman pity him. ^^'hat he was thinking of our Annie is 
 
l8o LORNA DOONE. 
 
 not for me to say ; although I may think that you could 
 not have found another such maiden on Exmoor, except 
 (of course) my Lorna. 
 
 Though young Squire Marwood was so thirsty, he spent 
 much time over his cider, or at any rate over the ox-horn, 
 and he made many bows to Annie, and drank health to all 
 the family, and spoke of me as if I had been his very best 
 friend at Blundell's, whereas he knew well enough all the 
 time that we had naught to say to one another, he being 
 three years older, and therefore loftily disdaining me. But 
 while he was casting about, perhaps for some excuse to 
 stop longer, and Annie was beginning to fear lest mother 
 should come after her, or Eliza be at the window, or Betty 
 up in pigs' house, suddenly there came up to them, as if 
 from the very heart of the earth, that long, low, hollow, 
 mysterious sound, which I spoke of in the winter. 
 
 The young man started in his saddle, let the horn fall 
 on the horse-steps, and gazed all around in wonder ; while 
 as for Annie, she turned like a ghost, and tried to slam the 
 door, but failed through the violence of her trembling ; 
 for never till now had any one heard it so close at hand 
 (as you might say), or in the mere fall of the twilight. 
 And by this time there was no man, at least in our parish, 
 but knew — for the parson himself had told us so — that 
 it was the devil groaning, because the Doones were too 
 many for him. 
 
 Marwood de \Vhichehalse was not so alarmed but what 
 he saw a fine opportunity. He leaped from his horse, and 
 laid hold of dear Annie in a highly comforting manner ; 
 and she never would tell us about it (being so shy and 
 modest), whether, in breathing his comfort to her, he tried 
 to take some from her pure lips. I hope he did not, be- 
 cause that to me would seem not the deed of a gentleman, 
 and he was of good old family. 
 
 At this very moment who should come in to the end of 
 the passage upon them but the heavy writer of these do- 
 ings, I, John Ridd myself, and walking the faster, it may 
 be, on account of the noise I mentioned? I entered the 
 house with some wrath upon me at seeing the gazehounds 
 in the yard ; for it seems a cruel thing to me to harass the 
 birds in the breeding-time. And to my amazement there 
 I saw Squire Marwood among the milk-pans, with his arm 
 around our Annie's waist, and Annie all blushing and coax- 
 ing him off, for she was not come to scold yet. 
 
 Perhaps I was wrong; God knows, and if I was, no doubt 
 
A LOXf. STRIXC MONTH. l8l 
 
 I shall pay for it ; but I gave him the flat of my hand on 
 his head, and down he went in the thick of the milk-pans. 
 He would have had my fist, I doubt, but for having been 
 at school with me ; and after that, it is like enough he 
 would never have spoken another word. As it was, he 
 lay stunned, with the cream running on him ; while I took 
 poor Annie up and carried her in to mother, who had heard 
 the noise and was frightened. 
 
 Concerning this matter I asked no more, but held myself 
 readv to bear it out in any form convenient, feeling that I 
 had done my duty, and cared not for the consequence ; 
 only for several days dear Annie seemed frightened, rather 
 than grateful. But the oddest result of it was that Eliza, 
 who had so despised me, and made very rude verses about 
 me, now came trying to sit on my knee, and kiss me, and 
 give me the best of the pan. However, I would not allow 
 it, because I hate sudden changes. 
 
 Another thing also astonished me, namely, a beautiful 
 letter from Marwood de Whichehalse himself (sent by a 
 groom soon afterwards), in which he apologized to me, as 
 if I had been his equal, for his rudeness to my sister, which 
 was not intended in the least, but came of their common 
 alarm at the moment, and his desire to comfort her. .Mso, 
 he begged permission to come and see me, as an old school- 
 fellow, and set everything straight between us, as should 
 be among honest Blundellites. 
 
 All this was so different to my idea of fighting out a 
 quarrel, when once it is upon a man, that I knew not what 
 to make of it, but bowed to higher breeding. Only one 
 thing I resolved upon, that come when he would, he 
 should not see Annie. And to do my sister justice, she 
 had no desire to see him. 
 
 However, I am too easy, there is no doubt of that, being 
 very quick to forgive a man, and very slow to suspect, un- 
 less he hath once lied to me. Moreover, as to Annie, it 
 had always seemed to me (much against my wishes) that 
 some shrewd love of a waiting sort was between her and 
 Tom Faggus ; and though Tom had made his fortune now, 
 and every body respected him, he was not yet to be com- 
 pared, in that point of respectability with those people who 
 hanged the robbers when fortune turned against them. 
 
 So young Squire Marwood came again, as though I had 
 never smitten him, and spoke of it in as light a way as if 
 we were still at school together. It was not in my nature, 
 at all, to keep any anger against him ; and I knew what a 
 
l82 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 condescension it was for him to visit us. And it is a very 
 grievous thing, which touches small landowners, to see an 
 ancient family day by day decaying ; and when we heard 
 that Ley Barton itself, and all the Manor of Lynton, were 
 under a heavy mortgage debt to John Levering of ^\'eare- 
 Gifford, there was not much, in our little way, that we 
 would not gladly do or suffer for the benefit of De Whiche- 
 halse. 
 
 Meanwhile the work of the farm was toward, 
 and every day gave us more ado to dispose 
 of what itself was doing. For after the long, 
 dry, skeltering wind of March and part of 
 April, there had been a fortnight of soft 
 wet ; and when the sun came forth 
 again, hill and valley, wood and meadow, 
 could not make enough of him. 
 Many a spring have I seen 
 since then, but never yet 
 two springs alike, , ,_ 
 
 and never one so 
 beautiful. Or was 
 it that my love 
 came forth and 
 touched the world 
 with beauty ? 
 
 The spring was 
 in our valley now ; 
 creeping first for 
 shelter shyly in the 
 pause of the blus- 
 tering wind. 
 There the 
 lambs carr 
 
 bleatingto 
 her, and 
 the orchis 
 ifted up, 
 and the 
 thin, dead 
 leaves of 
 clover lay 
 for the new 
 ones to spring 
 through. Then 
 the stiff est things 
 that sleep, the 
 stubby oak and 
 the stunted 
 beech, dropped 
 their brown defi- 
 ance to her, and pre- 
 pared for a soft reply. While 
 her over-eager children (who had 
 started forth to meet her, through 
 the frost and shower of sleet), 
 catkin'd hazel, gold-gloved withy, 
 youthful elder, and old woodbine, 
 with all the tribe of good hedge- 
 climbers (who must hasten, while 
 haste they may) — was there 
 
A U.>.\(_; SPRING MdNTII. 183 
 
 one of them that did not claim the merit of cominy; 
 first ? 
 
 There she stayed, and held her revel, as soon as the fear 
 of frost was gone ; all the air was a fount of freshness, and 
 the earth of gladness, and the laughing waters prattled of 
 the kindness of the sun. 
 
 But all this made it much harder for us, plying the hoe 
 and harrow, to keep the fields with room upon them for 
 the corn to tiller. The winter wheat was well enough, 
 being sturdy and strong-sided ; but the spring wheat and 
 the barley and oats were overrun by ill weeds growing 
 faster. Therefore, as the old saying is : 
 
 " Farmer, that thy wife may thrive, 
 Let not burr and burdock wive ; 
 And if thou wouldst keep thy son, 
 See that bine and gith have none." 
 
 So we were compelled to go down the field and up it, striking 
 in and out with care where the green blades hung together, 
 so that each had space to move in, and to spread its roots 
 abroad. And I do assure you now, though you may not 
 believe me, it was harder work to keep John Fry, Bill 
 Dadds and Jem Slocomb all in a line, and all moving 
 nimbly to the tune of my own tool, than it was to set out 
 in the morning alone and hoe half an acre by dinner time. 
 For, instead of keeping the good ash moving, they would 
 for ever be finding something to look at, or to speak of; 
 or, at any rate, to stop with ; blaming the shape of their 
 tools, perhaps, or talking about other people's affairs ; or, 
 what was most irksome of all to me, taking advantage as 
 married men, and whispering jokes of no e.xcellence about 
 my having, or having not, or being ashamed of a sweet- 
 heart. And this went so far at last that I was forced to 
 take two of them and knock their heads together, after 
 which they worked with a better will. 
 
 When we met together in the evening round the kitchen 
 chimney-place, after the men had had their supper, and 
 their heavy boots were gone, my mother and Eliza would 
 do their very utmost to learn what I was thinking of. Not 
 that we kept any fire now, after the crock was emptied ; 
 but that we loved to see the ashes cooling, and to be to- 
 gether. At these times, Annie would never ask me any 
 crafty questions (as Eliza did), but would sit with her hair 
 untwined, and one hand underneath her chin, sometimes 
 looking softly at me, as much as to say that she knew it 
 
184 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 all, and I was no worse off than she. But, strange to say, 
 my mother dreamed not, even for an instant, that it was 
 possible for Annie to be thinking of such a thing. She 
 was so very good and quiet, and careful of the linen, and 
 clever about the cookery, and fowls, and bacon-curing, 
 that people used to laugh, and say she would never look 
 at a bachelor until her mother ordered her. But I (per- 
 haps from my own condition, and the sense of what it 
 was) felt no certainty about this, and even had another 
 opinion, as was said before. 
 
 Often I was much inclined to speak to her about it, and 
 put her on her guard against the approaches of Tom Fag- 
 gus, but I could not find how to begin, and feared to 
 make a breach between us, knowing that if her mind was 
 set, no words of mine would alter it, although they needs 
 must grieve her deeply. Moreover I felt that in this case 
 a certain homely Devonshire proverb would come home to 
 me ; that one, I mean, which records that the crock was 
 calling the kettle smutty. Not, of course, that I compared 
 my innocent maid to a highwayman ; but that Annie might 
 think her worse, and would be too apt to do so if, indeed, 
 she loved Tom Faggus. And our cousin Tom, by this 
 time, was living a quiet and godly life, having retired 
 almost from the trade (except when he needed excitement 
 or came across public officers), and having won the esteem 
 of all whose purses were in his power. 
 
 Perhaps it is needless for me to say that all this time, 
 while my month was running — or rather crawling — for 
 never month went so slow as that with me — neither weed, 
 nor seed, nor cattle, nor my own mother's anxiety, nor any 
 care for my sister, kept me from looking once every day, 
 and even twice on a Sundav, for any sign of Lorna. For 
 my heart was ever weary ; in the budding valleys, and by 
 the crystal waters, looking at the lambs in fold, or the 
 heifers on the hill, labouring in trickled furrows or among 
 the beaded blades ; halting fresh to see the sun lift over 
 the golden-vapoured ridge ; or doffing hat, from sweat of 
 brow, to watch him smk in the low, grey sea ; be it as it 
 would, of day, of work, or night, or slumber, it was a weary 
 heart I bore, and fear was on the brink of it. 
 
 All the beauty of the spring went for happy men to think 
 of ; all the increase of the year was for other eyes to mark. 
 Not a sign of any sunrise for me, from my fount of life ; 
 not a breath to stir the dead leaves fallen on my heart's 
 Spring. 
 
CHArTER XXIII. 
 
 A ROYAL INVITATION. 
 
 ILTHOUGH I had for the most 
 part so very stout an appetite 
 that none but mother saw any 
 need of encouraging me to eat, I 
 could only manage one true good 
 meal in a day at the time I speak of. 
 Mother was in despair at this, 
 and tempted me with the whole 
 of the rack, and even thought of 
 sending to Porlock for a druggist 
 who came there twice in a week, 
 and Annie spent all her time in 
 cooking, and even Lizzie sang 
 songs to me, for she could sing 
 very sweetly. But my conscience 
 told me that Betty Mu.x worthy 
 had some reason upon her side. 
 
 " Latt the young ozebird aloun, 
 zay I. Makk zuch ado about un, 
 wi' hogs'-puddens and hock-bits 
 and lambs'-mate and whaten bradd, indade, and brewers' 
 ale avore dinner-time, and her not to zit wi' no winder 
 aupen — draive me mad, 'e doo, the lot ov 'ee, zuch a pas- 
 sel of voouls. Do' un good to starve a bit, and takk zome 
 on's wackedness out ov un." 
 
 But mother did not see it so, and she even sent for 
 Nicholas Snowe to bring his three daughters with him and 
 have ale and cake in the parlour, and advise about what the 
 bees were doing, and when a swarm might be looked for. 
 Being vexed about this, and having to stop at home nearly 
 half the evening, I lost good manners so much as to ask hun 
 (even in our own house !) what he meant by not mending 
 the swing-hurdle where the Lynn stream flows from our 
 land into his, and which he is bound to maintain. But he 
 looked at me in a superior manner and said, " Business 
 young man, in business time." 
 
 -WTr».,J<. 
 
1 86 
 
 L(.)RNA DOONE. 
 
 I had other reason for being vexed with Farmer Nicholas 
 just now, viz., that I had heard a rumour after church one 
 Sunday — when most of all we sorrow over the sins of one 
 another — that Master Nicholas Snowe had been seen to 
 gaze tenderly at my mother during a passage of the ser- 
 mon wherein the parson spoke well and warmly about the 
 dut)- of Christian love. Now, putting one thing with 
 another, about the bees, and about some ducks and a 
 bullock with a broken knee-cap, I more than suspected 
 that Farmer Nicholas was casting sheep's 
 eyes at my mother, not only to save all 
 further trouble in the matter of the hurdle, 
 but to override me altogether upon the dif- 
 ficult question of damming. And I knew 
 quite well that John Fry's wife never 
 came to help at the washing without 
 declaring that it was a sin for a well- 
 /^ looking woman like mother, with plenty 
 t^ to live on and only three children, to 
 ] keep all the farmers for miles around 
 so unsettled in their minds about her. 
 Mother used to answer, " Oh, fie. Mis- 
 tress Fry ! be good enough to mind 
 your own business." But we always 
 saw that she smoothed her apron and 
 did her hair up afterwards, and that 
 Mistress Fry went home at night with 
 a cold pig's foot or a bowl of dripping. 
 
 Therefore, on that very night, as I could not well speak 
 to mother about it without seeming undutiful, after light- 
 ing the three young ladies — for so in sooth they called 
 themselves — all the way home with our stable-lanthorn, 
 I begged good leave of Farmer Nicholas (who had hung 
 some way behind us) to say a word in private to him be- 
 fore he entered his own house. 
 
 "^^'i' all the plaisure in laife, my zon," he answered, 
 very graciously, thinking, perhaps, that I was prepared to 
 speak concerning Sally. 
 
 "Now, Farmer Nicholas Snowe," I said, scarce knowing 
 how to begin it, " you must promise not to be vexed with 
 me for what I am going to say to you." 
 
 " A'axed wi' thee ! Noo, noo, my lad. I 'ave a knowed 
 thee too long for that. And thy veyther were my best 
 friend avore thee. Never wronged his neighbours, never 
 spak an unkind word, never had no maneness in him. 
 
 MISTRESS RIDD. 
 
A ROYAL INVITATKiN. 1 87 
 
 Tuk a vancy to a nice young 'oiiman, and never kep' her 
 in doubt about it, though there wadn't mooch to zettle on 
 her. Spak his maind laike a man, he did, and right happy 
 he were \vi' her. Ah, well a ilay 1 Ah, God knoweth best. 
 I never shall zee his laike again. And he were the best 
 judge of a dung-heap anywhere in this county." 
 
 "Well, Master Snowe," I answered him, "it is very 
 handsome of you to say so. And now I am going to be 
 like mv father — I am going to speak my mind." 
 
 " Raight there, lad, raight enough, 1 reckon. Us has 
 had enough of pralimbinary." 
 
 " Then what I want to say is this : I won't have any 
 one courting my mother." 
 
 " Coortin' of thy mother, lad?" cried Farmer Snowe, 
 with as much amazement as if the thing were impossible. 
 " Why, who ever hath been dooin' of it?" 
 
 " Yes, courting of my mother, sir. And you know best 
 who comes doing it." 
 
 " Wull, wull ! What will boys be up to next? Zhud a' 
 thought herzelf wor the proper judge. No, thank 'ee, lad, 
 no need of thy light. Know the wai to my own door, at 
 laste, and have a raight to goo there." And he shut me 
 out without so much as offering me a drink of cider. 
 
 The next afternoon, when work was over, I had seen to 
 the horses, for now it was foolish to trust John Fry, be- 
 cause he had so many children, and his wife had taken to 
 scolding, and just as I was saying to mvself that in five 
 days more my month would be done, and myself free to 
 seek Lorna, a man came riding up from the ford where 
 the road goes through the Lynn stream. As soon as I 
 saw that it was not Tom Faggus, I went no further to 
 meet him, counting that it must be some traveller bound 
 for Brendon or Cheriton, and likely enough he would 
 come and beg for a draught of milk or cider, and then on 
 again, after asking the way. 
 
 But, instead of that, he stopped at our gate, and stood 
 up from his saddle and holloed as if he were somebody, 
 and all the time he was flourishing a white thing in the air 
 like the bands our parson wareth. So I crossed the court- 
 yard to speak with him. 
 
 " Service of the King ! " he saith. " Service of our lord 
 the King ! Come hither, thou great yokel, at risk of fine 
 and imprisonment." 
 
 Although not pleased with this, I went to him, as be- 
 came a loyal man, quite at my leisure, however, for there 
 
186 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 is no man born who can hurry me, though I hasten for any 
 woman. 
 
 " Plover Barrows farm ! " said he. " God only knows 
 how tired I be. Is there anywhere in this cursed county a 
 cursed place called ' Plover Barrows farm ? ' For last 
 twenty mile at least they told me 'twere only half-a-mile 
 further, or only just round corner. Now tell me that, and 
 I fain would thwack thee if thou wert not thrice my size." 
 
 "Sir," I replied, "you shall not have the trouble. This 
 is Plover's Barrows farm, and you are kindly welcome. 
 Sheep's kidneys is for supper, and the ale got bright from 
 the tapping. But why do you think ill of us? We like 
 not to be cursed so." 
 
 " Nay, I think no ill," he said. " Sheep's kidneys is 
 good — uncommon good, if they do them without burning. 
 But I be so galled in the saddle ten days, and never a 
 comely meal of it. And when they hear ' King's service ' 
 cried, they give me the worst of everything. All the way 
 down from London I had a rogue of a fellow in front of 
 me eating the fat of the land before me, and every one 
 bowing down to him. He could go three miles to my one, 
 though he never changed his horse. He might have 
 robbed me at any minute if I had been worth the trouble. 
 A red mare he rideth, strong in the loins, and pointed 
 quite small in the head. I shall live to see him hanged 
 yet." 
 
 All this time he was riding across the straw of our court- 
 yard, getting his weary legs out of the leathers, and al- 
 most afraid to stand yet. A coarse-grained, hard-faced 
 man he was, some forty years of age or so, and of middle 
 height and stature. He was dressed in a dark brown rid- 
 ing suit, none the better for Exmoor mud, but fitting him 
 very differently from the fashion of our tailors. Across 
 the holsters lay his cloak, made of some red skin, and 
 shining from the sweating of the horse. As I looked down 
 on his stiff, bright head-piece, small, quick eyes, and black, 
 needly beard, he seemed to despise me (too much, as I 
 thought) for a mere ignoramus and country bumpkin. 
 
 "Annie, have down the cut ham," I shouted, for my 
 sister was come to the door by chance, or because of the 
 sound of a horse in the road, " and cut a few rashers of 
 hung deer's meat. There is a gentleman come to sup, 
 Annie. And fetch the hops out of the tap with a skewer 
 that it may run more sparkling." 
 
 " I wish I may go to a place never meant for me," said 
 
A ROVAI. INVITAl'ION. 189 
 
 my new friend, now wiping his mouth with the sleeve of 
 his brown riding ciiat, " if ever I fell among such good folk. 
 Vou are the right sort, and no error therein. All this shall 
 go in your favour greatly when I make deposition. At 
 least, I mean, if it be as good in the eating as in the hear- 
 ing. 'Tis a supper quite fit for Tom Faggus himself, the 
 man who hath stolen my victuals so. And that hung 
 deer's meat — now, is it of the red deer running wild in 
 these parts ? " 
 
 " To be sure it is, sir," I answered ; " where should we 
 get any other? " 
 
 " Right, right, you are right, my son. I have heard 
 that the flavour is marvellous. Some of them came and 
 scared me so in the fog of the morning that I hungered 
 for them ever since. Ha, ha, I saw their haunches. But 
 the young lady will not forget — art sure she will not for- 
 get it?" 
 
 " You may trust her to forget nothing, sir, that may 
 tempt a guest to his comfort." 
 
 " In faith, then, I will leave my horse in your hands 
 and be off for it. Half the pleasure of the mouth is in the 
 nose beforehand. But stay, almost I forgot mv business 
 in the hurry which thy tongue hath spread through my 
 lately despairing bell v. Hungry I am, and sure of bodv, 
 from my heels right upward, and sorest in front of my 
 doublet, yet may I not rest nor bite barley-bread until I 
 have seen and touched John Ridd. Ciocl grant that he be 
 not far away ; I must eat my saddle if it be so." 
 
 "Have no fear, good sir," I answered, "you have seen 
 and touched John Ridd. I am he, and not one likely to 
 go beneath a bushel." 
 
 " It would take a large bushel to hold thee, John Ridd. 
 In the name of the King, His Majesty, Charles the Sec- 
 ond, these presents ! " 
 
 He touched me with the white thing which I had first 
 seen him waving, and which I now beheld to be sheepskin, 
 such as they call parchment. It was tied across with cord 
 and fastened down in every corner with unsightly dabs of 
 wax. By order of the messenger (for I was over-fright- 
 ened now to think of doing anything) I broke enough of 
 seals to keep an Easter ghost from rising, and there I saw 
 my name in large. God grant such another shock may 
 never befall me in my old age. 
 
 " Read, my son ; read, thou great fool, if indeed thou 
 canst read," said the oificer, to encourage me, " there is 
 
I go LORNA DOONE. 
 
 nothing to kill thee, boy, and my supper will be spoiling. 
 Stare not at me so, thou fool ! Thou art big enough to 
 eat me. Read, read, read ! " 
 
 "If you please, sir, what is your name?" I asked, though 
 why I asked him I know not, except from fear of witch- 
 craft. 
 
 " Jeremy Stickles is my name, lad ; nothing more than 
 
 a poor apparitor of the wor- 
 ^^- shipful Court of King's 
 Bench. And at this moment 
 a starving one, and no sup- 
 per for me unless thou wilt 
 read." 
 Being compelled in this 
 way, I read pretty nigh as 
 follows ; not that I give the 
 whole of it, but only the gist 
 and the emphasis : 
 
 " To our good subject, 
 John Ridd, etc." — describ- 
 ing me ever so much better 
 than I knew myself — "by 
 these presents, greeting. These 
 are to require thee, in the name 
 ' our lord the King, to appear 
 m person before the Right Wor- 
 shipful the Justices of His Ma- 
 jesty's Bench at ^\'estminster, 
 laying aside all thine own business, and there to deliver 
 such evidence as is within thy cognizance touching certain 
 matters whereby the peace of our said lord the King, 
 and the well-being of this realm is, are, or otherwise 
 may be impeached, impugned, imperilled, or otherwise 
 detrimented. As witness these presents." And then there 
 were four seals, and then a signature I could not make 
 out, only that it began with a J and ended with some 
 other writing, done almost in a circle. Underneath was 
 added in a different handwriting, " Charges will be borne. 
 The matter is full urgent." 
 
 The messenger watched me while I read so much as I 
 could read of it, and he seemed well pleased with my sur- 
 prise, because he had expected it. Then, not knowing what 
 else to do, I looked again at the cover, and on the top of 
 it I saw, " Ride, Ride, Ride ! On His Gracious Majesty's 
 business. Spur and spare not." 
 
 READ, READ, READ ! 
 
A K(JVAL IN\ITATION. I9I 
 
 It may be supposed by all who know me that I was 
 taken hereupon with such a giddiness in my head and 
 noisiness in my ears, that I was forced to hold by the 
 crook driven in below the thatch for holding of the hay- 
 rakes. There was scarcely any sense left in me, only that 
 the thing was come by the power of Mother Melldrum be- 
 cause I despised her warning and had again sought Lorna. 
 But the officer was grieved for me and the danger to his 
 supper. 
 
 " My son, be not afraid," he said ; " we are not .going to 
 skin thee. Only thou tell all the truth and it shall be — 
 but never mind, I will tell thee all about it and how to come 
 out harmless, if I find thy victuals good and no delay in 
 serving them." 
 
 "AVe do our best, sir, without bargain," said I, "to 
 please our visitors." 
 
 But when my mother saw that parchment (for we could 
 not keep it from her) she fell away into her favourite bed 
 of stock gilly-flowers, which she had been tending, and 
 when we brought her round again did nothing but exclaim 
 against the wickedness of the age and people. " It was 
 useless to tell her ; she knew what it was, and so should 
 all the parish know. The King had heard what her son 
 was, how sober, and quiet, and diligent, and the strongest 
 young man in England, and being himself such a repro- 
 bate — God forgive her for saying so — he could never 
 rest till he got poor Johnny, and made him as dissolute as 
 himself. And if he did that " — here mother went off into 
 a fit of crying, and Annie minded her face, while Lizzie 
 saw that her gown was in comely order. 
 
 But the character of the King improved when Master 
 Jeremy Stickles (being really moved by the look of it, and 
 no bad man after all) laid it clearly before my mother 
 that the King on his throne was unhappy until he had 
 seen John Ridd. That the fame of John had gone so far, 
 and his size, and all his virtues, that, verily, by the God 
 who made him, the King was overcome with it. 
 
 Then mother lay back in her garden chair and smiled 
 upon the whole of us, and most of all on Jeremy, looking 
 only shyly on me, and speaking through some break of 
 tears. "His Majesty shall have my John — His Majesty 
 is very good — but only for a fortnight. I want no titles 
 for him. Johnny is enough for me, and Master John for 
 the workingmen." 
 
 Now, though my mother was so willing that I should go 
 
192 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 to London, expecting great promotion and high glory for 
 me, I myself was deeply gone into the pit of sorrow. For 
 what would Lorna think of me? Here was the long 
 month just expired, after worlds of waiting ; there would 
 be her lovely self peeping softly down the glen, and fear- 
 ing to encourage me ; yet there would be nobody else, 
 and what an insult to her ! Dwelling upon this, and see- 
 ing no chance of escape from it, I could not find one 
 wink of sleep, though Jeremy Stickles (who slept close 
 by) snored loud enough to spare me some. For I felt 
 myself to be, as it were, in a place of some importance, in 
 a situation of trust, I may say, and bound not to depart 
 from it. For who could tell what the King might have to 
 say to me about the Doones — and I felt that they were at 
 the bottom of this strange appearance — or what His Ma- 
 jesty might think if, after receiving a message from him 
 (trusty under so many seals), I were to violate his faith in 
 me as a churchwarden's son, and falsely spread his words 
 abroad ? 
 
 Perhaps I was not wise in building such a wall of scru- 
 ples. Nevertheless, all that was there, and weighed upon 
 me heavily. And at last I made up my mind to this, that 
 even Lorna must not know the reason of my going, neither 
 anything about it ; but that she might know I was gone a 
 long way from home, and perhaps be sorry for it. Now, 
 how was I to let her know even that much of the matter 
 without breaking compact ? 
 
 Puzzling on this, I fell asleep after the proper time to 
 get up ; nor was I to be seen at breakfast time, and mother 
 (being quite strange to that) was very uneasy about it. 
 I5ut Master Stickles assured her that the King's writ often 
 had that effect, and the symptom was a good one. 
 
 "Now, Master Stickles, when must we start?" I asked 
 him, as he lounged in the yard, gazing at our turkey 
 poults picking and running in the sun to the tune of their 
 father's gobble. " Your horse was greatly foundered, sir, 
 and is hardly fit for the road to-day, and Smiler was sled- 
 ding yesterday all up the higher Cleve, and none of the 
 rest can carry me." 
 
 " In a few more years," replied the King's officer, con- 
 templating me with much satisfaction, " 'twill be a cruelty 
 to any horse to put thee on his back, John." 
 
 Master Stickles by this time was quite familiar with us, 
 calling me "Jack," and Eliza "Lizzie," and what I liked 
 the least of all, our pretty Annie " Nancy." 
 
A ROYAL IXVITAIION. I93 
 
 "That will be as Ciod pleases, sir," I answered him, 
 rather sharply, "and the horse that suffers will not be 
 thine. But I wish to know when we must start upon our 
 long travel to London town. I perceive that the matter 
 is of great despatch and urgency." 
 
 "To be sure, so it is, my son. ISut I see a yearling- 
 turkev there, him, I mean, with the hop in his walk, who 
 (if I know aught of fowls) would roast well to-morrow. 
 Thy mother must have preparation ; it is no more than 
 reasonable. Now, have that turkey killed to-night (for 
 his fatness makes me long for him), and we will have him 
 for dinner to-morrow, with, perhaps, one of his brethren, 
 and a few more collops of red deer's flesh for supper, and 
 then on the Friday morning, with the grace of God, we 
 will set our faces to the road, upon His Majesty's busi- 
 ness." 
 
 " Nay, but good sir, " I asked, with some trembling, so 
 eager was I to see Lorna, "if His ^[ajesty's business will 
 keep till Friday may it not keep until ^londay? We have 
 a litter of sucking-pigs, excellently choice and white, six 
 weeks old come Friday. There be too many for the sow, 
 and one of them needeth roasting. Think you not it 
 would be a pity to leave the women to carve it?" 
 
 " JMy son Jack," replied ^Master Stickles, "never was I 
 in such quarters yet, and (lod forbid that I should be so 
 unthankful to Him as to hurry away. And now I think 
 on it, Friday is not a day upon which pious people love to 
 commence an enterprise. I will choose the young pig to- 
 morrow at noon, at which time they are wcjnt to gambol, 
 and we will celebrate his birthday l)y carving him on 
 Friday. After that we will gird our loins and set forth 
 early on Saturday." 
 
 Now this was little better to me than if we had set forth 
 at once, Sunday being the very first day upon which it 
 would be honourable for me to enter (Hen Doone. But, 
 though I tried every possible means with Master Jeremy 
 Stickles, offering him the choice for dinner of every beast 
 that was on the farm, he durst not put off our departure 
 later than the Saturday. And nothing else but hjve of us 
 and of our hospitality would have so persuaded him to 
 remain with us till then. Therefore, now my only chance 
 of seeing Lorna before I went lay in watching from the 
 cliff and espying her, or a signal from her. 
 
 This, however, I did in vain, until my eyes were weary, 
 and often would delude themselves with hope of what 
 
194 
 
 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 they ached for. But, though I lay hidden behind the 
 trees upon the crest of the stony fall, and waited so quiet 
 that the rabbits and squirrels played around me, and even 
 the keen-eyed weasel took me for a trunk of wood — it 
 was all as one ; no cast of colour changed the white stone 
 whose whiteness now was hateful to me, nor did wreath or 
 skirt of m^aiden break the loneliness of the vale. 
 
CHAPTER XXIA- 
 
 A SAFE PASS FOR KING S MESSKXGER. 
 
 wWi^- 
 
 JOURNEV to London seemed to 
 us, in those bygone days, as haz- 
 ardous and dark an adventure as 
 could be forced on anv man. I 
 mean, of course, a poor man, for 
 to a great nobleman, with ever 
 so many outriders, attendants, 
 and retainers, the risk was not 
 so great, unless the highwaymen 
 knew of their coming before- 
 hand, and so combined against 
 them. To a poor man, however, 
 the risk was not so much from 
 those gentlemen of the road as 
 from the more ignoble footpads, 
 and the landlords of the k■^^er 
 hostels, and the loose, unguarded 
 soldiers, over and above the pit- 
 falls and the quagmires of the 
 way, so that it was hard to settle, 
 at the first outgoing, whether a man were wise to prav 
 more for his neck or for his head. 
 
 But now-a-days it is very different. Not that highway- 
 men are scarce in this the reign of our good Queen Anne, 
 for in truth they thrive as well as ever, albeit they deserve 
 it not, being less upright and courteous ; but that the 
 roads are much improved, and the growing use of stage- 
 waggons (some of which will travel as much as forty 
 miles in a summer day) has turned our ancient ideas of 
 distance almost upside down, and I doubt whether God be 
 pleased with our flying so fast away from Him. However, 
 that is not my business, nor does it lie in my mouth to 
 speak very strongly upon the subject, seeing how much I 
 myself have done towards making of roads upon Exmoor. 
 To return to my story (and, in truth, I lose that road 
 too often), it would have taken ten King's messengers to 
 
196 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 get me away from Plover's Barrows without one good-bye 
 to Lorna but for my sense of the trust and reliance which 
 His Majesty had reposed in me. And now I felt most bit- 
 terly how the very arrangements which seemed so wise and, 
 indeed, ingenious, may, by the force of events, become our 
 most fatal obstacles. For, lo ! I was blocked entirely from 
 going to see Lorna, whereas we should have fixed it so that 
 I as well might have the power of signalling m}' necessity. 
 
 It was too late now to think of that, and so I made up 
 my mind at last to keep my honour on both sides, both to 
 the King and to the maiden, although I might lose every- 
 thing except a heavy heart for it. And, indeed, more 
 hearts than mine were heavy, for when it came to the tug of 
 parting, my mother was like, and so was Annie, to break 
 down altogether. But I bade them be of good cheer, and 
 smiled in the briskest manner upon them, and said that I 
 should be back next week as one of His Majesty's great- 
 est captains, and told them not to fear me then. Upon 
 which they smiled at the idea of ever being afraid of me, 
 whatever dress I might have on, and so I kissed my hand 
 once more and rode awav very bravelv. But, bless 5'our 
 heart, I could no more have done so than flown all the 
 way to London if Jeremy Stickles had not been there. 
 
 And not to take too much credit to myself in this mat- 
 ter, I must confess that when we were come to the turn of 
 the road where the moor begins, and whence you see the 
 last of the yard, and the ricks and the poultry round them, 
 and can (by knowing the place) obtain a glance of the 
 kitchen window under the walnut-tree, it went so hard 
 with me just here that I even made pretence of a stone 
 in ancient Smiler's shoe to dismount and to bend my head 
 awhile. Then, knowing that those I had left behind 
 would be watching to see the last of me, and might have 
 false hopes of my coming back, I mounted again with all 
 possible courage and rode after Jeremy Stickles. 
 
 Jeremy, seeing how much I was down, did his best to 
 keep me up with jokes, and tales, and light discourse, 
 until, before we had ridden a league, I began to long to 
 see the things he was describing. The air, the weather, 
 and the thoughts of going to a wondrous place, as well as 
 the fine company — at least so Jeremy said it was — of a 
 man who knew all London, made me feel that I should be 
 ungracious not to laugh a little. And being very simple, 
 then, I laughed no more a little, but something quite con- 
 siderable (though free from consideration) at the strange 
 
A SAFE PASS K(.)R KINC, S M KSSEXCKK. 
 
 197 
 
 thin;;s Master Stickles told me, and his strange way of 
 telling- them. And S'_) we became very excellent friends, 
 for he was much pleased with my laughing. 
 
 Not wishing to thrust myself more forward than need 
 be in this narrative, I have scarcely thought it becoming 
 or right to speak of my own adornments. But now, what 
 with the brave clothes I had on, and the better ones still 
 that were packed up in the bag behind the saddle, it is 
 
 JEREMY DID HIS BEST TO KEEP ME UP WITH JOKES, AND TALES, 
 AND LIGHT DISCOURSE. 
 
igo I.ORXA DOONE. 
 
 almost beyond me to forbear saying that I must have 
 looked very pleasing. And many a time I wished, going, 
 along, that Lorna could only be here and there, watching 
 behind a furze-bush, looking at me, and wondering how 
 much my clothes had cost. For mother would have no 
 stint in the matter, but had assembled at our house, im- 
 mediately upon knowledge of what was to be about Lon- 
 don, every man known to be a good stitcher upon our side 
 of Exmoor. And for three days they had worked their 
 best, without thrift of beer or cider, according to the con- 
 stitution of each. The result, so they all declared, was 
 such as to create admiration and defy competition in Lon- 
 don. And to me it seemed that they were quite right, 
 though Jeremy Stickles turned up his nose and feigned 
 to be deaf in the business. 
 
 Now, be that matter as you please — for the point is not 
 worth arguing — certain it is that my appearance was 
 better than it had been before. For, being in the best 
 clothes, one tries to look and to act (so far as may be) up 
 to the quality of them. Not only for the fear of soiling 
 them, but that they enlarge a man's perception of his 
 value. And it strikes me that our sins arise partly from 
 disdain of others, but mainly from contempt of self, both 
 working the despite of Crod. But men of mind may not 
 be measured by such paltry rule as this. 
 
 By dinner-time we arrived at Porlock, and dined with 
 my old friend. Master Pooke, now growing rich and portly. 
 For though we had plenty of victuals with us, we were not to 
 begin upon them until all chance of victualling among our 
 friends was left behind. And during that first day we had 
 no need to meddle with our store at all, for, as had been 
 settled before we left home, we lay that night at Dunster, in 
 the house of a worthy tanner, first cousin to my mother, 
 who received us very cordially, and undertook to return old 
 Smiler to his stable at Plover's Barrows after one day's rest. 
 
 Thence we hired to Bridgwater, and from Bridgwater 
 on to Bristowe, breaking the journey between the two. 
 But, although the whole way was so new to me, and such 
 a perpetual source of conflict that the remembrance still 
 abides with me as if it were but yesterday, I must not be 
 so long in telling as it was in travelling, or you will wish 
 me further, both because Lorna was nothing there, and 
 also because a man in our neighbourhood hath done the 
 whole of it since my time, and feigns to think nothing of 
 it. However, one thing, in common justice to a person 
 
A SAFE PASS FOR KINC S MESSK.NGER. igg 
 
 who has been traduced, I am bound to mention. And 
 this is that, being two of us, and myself of such magni- 
 tude, we never could have made our journe\' without 
 either fight or running, but for the free pass which dear 
 Annie by some means (I know not what) had procured 
 from Master Faggus. And when 1 let it be known, by 
 some hap, that I was the own cousin of Tom Faggus, and 
 honoured with his society, there was not a house upon the 
 road but was proud to entertain me, in spite of my fell(jw- 
 traveller bearing the red badge of the King. 
 
 " I will keep this close, my son Jack," he said, having 
 stripped it off with a carving-knife ; " your flag is the best 
 to fly. The man who starved me on the way down, the 
 same shall feed me fat going home." 
 
 Therefore we pursued our way in excellent condition, 
 having thriven upon the credit of that very popular high- 
 wayman, and being surrounded with regrets that he had left 
 the profession, and sometimes begged to intercede that he 
 might help the road again. For all the landlords on the 
 road declared that now small ale was drunk, nor much of 
 spirits called for, because the farmers need not prime to 
 meet only common riders, neither were these worth the 
 while to get drunk with afterwards. Master Stickles him- 
 self undertook, as an officer of the King's Justices, to plead 
 this case with Squire Faggus (as everybody called him 
 now), and to induce him, for the general good, to return 
 to his proper ministry. 
 
 It was a long and weary journey, although the roads 
 are wondrous good on the further side of Kristowe, and 
 scarcely any man need be bogged, if he keeps his eyes 
 well open, save, perhaps, in Berkshire. In consequence of 
 the pass we had, and the vintners' knowledge of it, we 
 only met two public riders, one of whom made off straight- 
 way when he saw my companion's pistols and the stout 
 carbine I bore, and the other came to a parley with us, and 
 proved most kind and affable when he knew himself in the 
 presence of the cousin of Squire Faggus. " God save you, 
 gentlemen ! " he cried, lifting his hat politely. " Many 
 and many a happy day I have worked this road with him. 
 Such times will never be again. But commend me to his 
 love and prayers. King my name is, and king my nature. 
 Say that, and none will harm you." And so he made off 
 down the hill, being a perfect gentleman, and a very good 
 horse he was riding. 
 
 The night was falling very thick by the time we were 
 
200 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 come to Tyburn, and here the King's officer decided that 
 it would be wise to halt, because the way was unsafe by 
 night across the fields to Charing village. I for my part 
 was nothing loth, and preferred to see London by daylight. 
 
 And, after all, it was not worth seeing, but a very 
 hideous and dirty place, not at all like Exmoor. Some 
 of the shops were very fine, and the signs above them 
 finer still, so that I was never weary of standing still to 
 look at them. But in doing this there was no ease, for 
 before one could begin almost to make out the meaning 
 of them, either some of the wayfarers would bustle, and 
 scowl, and draw their swords, or the owner, or his appren- 
 tice boys, would rush out and catch hold of me, crying, 
 "Buy, buy, buy! What d'ye lack, what d'ye lack? Buy, 
 buy, buy !" At first I mistook the meaning of this — for 
 so we pronounce the word "boy" upon Exmoor — and I 
 answered with some indignation, " Sirrah, I am no boy 
 now, but a man of one-and-twenty years, and as for lack- 
 ing, I lack naught from thee, except what thou hast not 
 — good manners." 
 
 The only things that pleased me much were the river 
 Thames and the hall and church of Westminster, where 
 there are brave things to be seen, and braver still to think 
 about. But whenever I wandered in the streets, what 
 with the noise the people made, the number of the coaches, 
 the running of the footmen, the swaggering of great court- 
 iers, and thrusting aside of every body, many and many a 
 time I longed to be back among the sheep again for fear 
 of losing temper. They were welcome to the wall for me, 
 as I took care to tell them, for I could stand without 
 the wall, which, perhaps, was more than thev could do. 
 Though I said this with the best intention, meaning no 
 discourtesy, some of them were vexed at it, and one young 
 lord, being flushed with drink, drew his sword and made 
 at me. But I struck it up with my holly stick so that it 
 flew on the roof of a house, then I took him by the belt 
 with one hand, and laid him in the kennel. This caused 
 some little disturbance, but none of the rest saw fit to try 
 how the matter might be with them. 
 
 Now, this being the year of our Lord 1683, more than 
 nine years and a half since the death of my father, and 
 the beginning of this history, all London was in a great 
 ferment about the dispute between the Court of the King 
 and the City. The King, or rather, perhaps, his party (for 
 they said that His Majesty cared for little except to have 
 
A SAFE PASS FOR KING's iMKSSENC.ER. 20I 
 
 plenty of money and spend it), was quite resolved to be 
 supreme in the appointment oi the chief officers of the 
 corporation. But the citizens maintained that (under 
 their charter) this right lay entirely with themselves, upon 
 which a writ was issued against them for forfeiture of 
 their charter, and the cpiestion was now being tried in the 
 court of His Majesty's Bench. 
 
 This seemed to occupy all the attention of the judges, 
 and my case (which had appeared so urgent) was put off 
 from time to time, while the Court and the City contended. 
 And so hot was the conflict and hate between them that a 
 sheriff had been fined by the King in 100,000/, and a 
 former lord mayor had even been sentenced to the pillory 
 because he would not swear falsely. Hence the courtiers 
 and the citizens scarce could meet in the streets with 
 patience, or without railing and frequent blows. 
 
 \ow, although I heard so much of this matter, for noth- 
 ing else was talked of, and it seemed to me more im- 
 portant even than the churchwardenship of ( )are, I could 
 not for the life of me tell which side I should take to. 
 For all my sense of position and of confidence reposed in 
 me, and of mv father's opinions, lay heavily in one scale, 
 while all my reason and my heart went down plump 
 against injustice, and seemed to win the other stale. 
 Even so my father had been, at the breaking out of the 
 civil war, when he was less than my age now, and even less 
 skilled in politics ; and my mother told me after this, when 
 she saw how I myself was doubting and ve.xed with my- 
 self for doing so, that my father used to thank Cod often 
 that he had not been called upon to take one side or 
 other, but might remain obscure and quiet. .\nd yet he 
 alwavs considered himself to be a good, sound l-loyalist. 
 
 But now as I stayed there, only desirous to be heard 
 and to get away, and scarcely even guessing yet what was 
 wanted of me (for even Jeremy Stickles knew not, or pre- 
 tended not to know), things came to a dreadful pass be- 
 tween the King and all the people who dared to have an 
 opinion. For, about the middle of June, the judges gave 
 their sentence that the City of London had forfeited its 
 charter, and that its franchise should be taken into the 
 hands of the King. Scarcely was this judgment forth, 
 and all men hotly talking of it, when a far worse thing be- 
 fell. News of some great conspiracy was spread at every 
 corner, and that a man in the malting business had tried 
 to take up the brewer's work and lop the King and the 
 
202 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Duke of York. Every body was shocked at this, for the 
 King himself was not disliked so much as his advisers, 
 but every body was more than shocked — grieved, indeed 
 — to the heart with pain at hearing that Lord^\'illiam Rus- 
 sell and Mr. Algernon Sidney had been seized and sent to 
 the Tower of London upon a charge of high treason. 
 
 Having no knowledge of these great men, nor of the 
 matter how far it was true, I had not very much to say 
 about either them or it ; but this silence was not shared 
 (although the ignorance may have been) by the hundreds 
 of people around me. Such a commotion was astir, such 
 universal sense of wrong and stern resolve to right it, that 
 each man grasped his fellow's hand and led him into the 
 vintner's. Even I, although at that time given to excess 
 in temperance, and afraid of the name of cordials, was 
 hard set (I do assure you) not to be drunk at intervals 
 without coarse discourtesy. 
 
 However, that (as Betty Muxworthy used to say, when 
 argued down and ready to take the mop for it) is neither 
 here nor there. I have naught to do with great history, 
 and am sorry for those who have to write it, because they 
 are sure to have both friends and enemies in it, and can- 
 not act as they would towards them without damage to 
 their own consciences. 
 
 But as great events draw little ones, and the rattle of 
 the churn decides the uncertainty of the flies, so this 
 movement of the town, and eloquence, and passion, had 
 more than I guessed at the time to do with my own little 
 fortunes. For, in the first place, it was fixed (perhaps 
 from downright contumely, because the citizens loved him 
 so) that Lord Russell should be tried neither at W'estmin- 
 ster nor at Lincoln's Inn, but at the Court of Old Bailey, 
 within the precincts of the city. This kept me hanging 
 on much longer, because, although the good nobleman 
 was to be tried by the Court of Common Pleas, yet the 
 officers of the King's Bench, to whom I daily applied my- 
 self, were in council with their fellows, and put me off 
 from day to day. 
 
 Now I had heard of the law's delays, which the great- 
 est of all great poets (knowing much of the law himself, 
 as, indeed, of every thing) has specially mentioned, when 
 not expected, among the many ills of life. But I never 
 thought at my years to have such bitter experience of the 
 evil, and it seemed to me that if the lawyers failed to do 
 their duty, they ought to pay people for waiting upon them 
 
A SAFE PASS FOR KINCS MESSENCER. 
 
 201 
 
 instead of makinr;- them pay for it. But heic I was, iinw 
 in the second month, living at my own charges, in the 
 house of a worthy fellmonger at the sign of tiie Seal and 
 Squirrel, abutting upon the Strand road, which leads from 
 Temple Bar to Charing. Here I did ver)- well indeed, 
 having a mattrass of good skin-clrcssings and plenty to 
 eat every day of my life, but the butter was something to 
 cry " but " thrice at (according to a conceit of our school- 
 days), and the milk must have come from cows driven to 
 water. However, these evils were light compared with the 
 heavy bill sent up to me every Saturday afternoon, and 
 knt)wing how my mother had pinched to send me nobly 
 to London, and had told me to spare for nothing, but live 
 bravely with the best of them, the tears very nearly came 
 into my eyes as I thought, while I ate, of so robbing her. 
 At length, being quite at the end of my money, and 
 seeing no other help for it, I determined to listen to clerks 
 no more, but force my way up to the Justices, and insist 
 upon being heard by them or discharged from my recog- 
 nizance. For so they had termed the bond or deed which 
 I had been forced to execute in the presence of a chief clerk 
 or notary the very day after I came to London. And the 
 purport of it was that on pain of a heavy fine or cscheat- 
 ment I would hold myself ready and present to give evi- 
 dence when called upon. Having delivered me up to sign 
 this, Jeremy Stickles was quit of me, and went upon other 
 business ; not but what he was kind and good to me ^^•heu 
 his time and pursuits allowed of it. 
 
CHAPTER XXV. 
 
 A GREAT MAN ATTENDS TO BUSINESS. 
 
 AVI NO seen Lord Russell mur- 
 dered in the fields of Lincoln's 
 Inn, or rather, having gone there 
 to see it, but turned away with a 
 sickness and a bitter flood of 
 tears — for a whiter and a nobler 
 neck never fell before low beast 
 — I strode away towards West- 
 minster, cured of half my indig- 
 nation at the death of Charles 
 the First. Many people hurried 
 past me, chiefly of the more ten- 
 der sort, revolting at the butch- 
 ery. In their ghastly faces, as 
 they turned them back, lest the 
 sight should be coming after 
 them, great sorrow was to be 
 seen, and horror, and pity, and 
 some anger. 
 In Westminster Hall I found nobody, not even the 
 crowd of crawling varlets who used to be craving ever- 
 more for employment or for payment. I knocked at three 
 doors, one after other, of lobbies going out of it, where I 
 had formerly seen some officers and people pressing in 
 and out, but for my trouble I took nothing, except some 
 thumps from echo. And at last an old man told me that 
 all the lawyers were gone to see the result of their own 
 works in the fields of Lincoln's Inn. 
 
 However, in a few days' time I had better fortune, for 
 the court was sitting and full of business, to clear off the 
 arrears of work before the lawyers' holiday. As I was 
 waiting in the hall for a good occasion, a man with horse- 
 hair on his head, and a long blue bag in his left hand, 
 touched me gently on the arm, and led me into a quiet 
 place. I followed him very gladly, being confident that 
 
A CREAT MAX AITExXl >S TO BUSINKSS. 205 
 
 he came to me with a message from the Justitiaries. 
 But after taking pains to be sure that none could over- 
 hear us, he turned on me suddenly and asked : 
 
 ■■ Now, John, how is y.our dear mother?" 
 
 '■ Worshipful sir," I answered him, after recovering from 
 my surprise at his knowledge of our affairs, and kindly 
 interest in them, " it is two months now since I have seen 
 her. ^\'ould to God that I only knew how she is faring 
 now, and how the business of the farm goes I " 
 
 "Sir, I respect and admire you," the old gentleman 
 replied, with a bow very low and genteel ; " few young 
 court-gallants of our time are so reverent and dutiful. 
 ( )h, how I did love my mother ! " Here he turned up his 
 eyes to heaven in a manner that made me feel for him, 
 and vet with a kind of wonder. 
 
 " I am very sorry for you, sir," I answered, most re- 
 spectfully, not meaning to trespass on his grief, yet won- 
 dering at his mother's age, for he seemed to be at least 
 threescore, "but I am no court-gallant, sir; I am only a 
 farmer's son, and learning how to farm a little." 
 
 " Enough, John ; quite enough," he cried, " I can read 
 it in thy countenance. Honesty is written there, and 
 courage, and simplicity. But I fear that in this town of 
 London thou art apt to be taken in by people of no prin- 
 ciple. Ah, me ! Ah, me ! The world is bad, and I am 
 too old to improve it." 
 
 Then, finding him so good and kind, and anxious to im- 
 prove the age, I told him almost everv thing ; how much 
 I paid the fellmonger, and all the things I had been to 
 see, and how I longed to get away before the corn was 
 ripening, yet how (in spite of these desires) I felt myself 
 bound to walk up and down, being under a thing called 
 "recognizance." In short, I told him every thing, except 
 the nature of my summons (which I had no right to tell) 
 and that I was out of money. 
 
 Mv tale was told in a little archway, apart from other 
 lawyers, and the other lawyers seemed to me to shift 
 themselves and to look askew, like sheep through a 
 hurdle, when the rest are feeding. 
 
 " What ! Good God ! " my lawyer cried, smiting his 
 breast indignantly with a roll of something learned. " In 
 what country do we live ? Under what laws are we .gov- 
 erned ? No case before the court whatever ; no primary 
 deposition, so far as we are furnished ; not even a King's 
 writ issued, and here we have a fine young man dragged 
 
206 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 from his home and adoring mother, during the height of 
 agriculture, at his own cost and charges ! I have heard of 
 many grievances, but this is the very worst of all. Noth- 
 ing short of a Royal Commission could be warranty for it. 
 This is not only illegal, sir, but most gravely unconstitu- 
 tional." 
 
 "I had not told you, worthy sir," I answered him, in a 
 lower tone, " if I could have thought that your sense of 
 right would be moved so painfullv. But now I must beg 
 to leave you, sir, for I see that the door again is open. I 
 beg you, worshipful sir, to accept " 
 
 Upon this he put forth his hand and said, " Nay, nay, 
 my son ; not two, not two," yet looking away that he 
 might not scare me. 
 
 " To accept, kind sir, my very best thanks and most re- 
 spectful remembrances." And with that I laid my hand 
 in his. "And if, sir, any circumstances of business or of 
 pleasure should bring you to our part of the world, I trust 
 you will not forget that my mother and myself (if ever I 
 get home again) will do our best to make you comfortable 
 with our poor hospitality." 
 
 With this I was hasting away from him, but he held my 
 hand and looked round at me ; and he spoke without cor- 
 diality. 
 
 " Young man, a general invitation is no entry for my 
 fee-book. I have spent a good hour of business-time in 
 mastering thy case, and stating my opinion of it. And be- 
 ing a member of the bar, called si,\-and-tliirty years agone 
 by the honourable society of the Inner Temple, my fee is 
 at my <jwn discretion, albeit an honorarium. For the hon- 
 our of the profession and my position in it, I ought to 
 charge thee at least five guineas, although I would have 
 accepted one, offered with good will and delicacy. Now I 
 will enter it two, my son, and half-a-crown for my clerk's 
 fee." 
 
 Saying this, he drew forth from his deep, blue bag, a red 
 book, having clasps to it, and endorsed in gold letters, 
 " Fee-book," and before I could speak (being frightened 
 so) he had entered on a page of it, " To consideration of 
 case as stated by John Ridd, and advising thereupon, two 
 guineas." 
 
 " But, sir, good sir," I stammered forth, not having two 
 guineas left in the world, yet grieving to confess it, " I 
 knew not that I was to pay, learned sir. I never thought 
 of it in that way." 
 
A GKKAT MAN ATTEMiS Td IJUSINKSS. 207 
 
 " \\ounds of Ciod ! In what way thought you that a 
 lawyer listened to your rigmarole?" 
 
 " I thought that you listened from kindness, sir, and com- 
 passion of my grievous case, and a sort of liking for me." 
 
 " A lawyer like thee, young curmudgeon ! A lawyer af- 
 ford to feel compassion gratis ! Either thou art a very 
 deep knave, or the greenest of all greenhorns. V\'e\\, I 
 suppose 1 must let thee off for one guinea and the clerk's 
 fee. A bad business, a shocking business ! " 
 
 Now, if this man had continued kind and soft, as when 
 he heard my story, I would have pawned my clothes to 
 pay him, rather than leave a debt behind, although con- 
 tracted unwittingly. But when he used harsh language 
 so, knowing that I did not deserve it, I began to doubt 
 within myself whether he deserved my money. Therefore 
 I answered him with some readiness, such as comes some- 
 times to me, although I am so slow : 
 
 " Sir, I am no curmudgeon ; if a young man had called 
 me so, it would not have been well with him. This money 
 shall be paid, if due, albeit I had no desire to incur the 
 debt. Vou have advised me that the Court is liable for my 
 e-xpenses, so far as they be reasonable. If this be a reason- 
 able expense, come with me now to Lord Justice Jeffreys, 
 and receive from him the two guineas, or (it may be) five, 
 for the counsel vou have given me to deny his jurisdic- 
 tion." With these words I took his arm to lead him, for 
 the door was open still. 
 
 " In the name of God, bo\-, let me go. ^^'orthy sir, pray 
 let me go. My wife is sick, and my daughter dying — in 
 the name of God, sir, let me go." 
 
 " Nay, nay," I said, having fast hold of him ; " I cannot 
 let thee go unpaid, sir. Right is right, and thou shalt 
 have it." 
 
 " Ruin is what I shall have, boy, if you drag me before 
 that devil. He will strike me from the bar at once, and 
 starve me and all my family. Here, lad, good lad, take 
 these two guineas. Thou hast despoiled the spoiler. 
 Never again will I trust mine eyes for knowledge of a 
 greenhorn." 
 
 He slipped two guineas into the hand which I had 
 hooked through his elbow, and spoke in an urgent whis- 
 per again, for the people came crowding around us, " For 
 God's sake let me go, boy ; another moment will be too 
 late." 
 
 " Learned sir," I answered him, " twice you spoke, unless 
 
208 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 I err, of the necessity of a clerk's fee, as a thing to be 
 lamented." 
 
 " To be sure, to be sure, my son. You have a clerk as 
 much as I have. There it is. Now I pray thee, take to 
 the study of the law. Possession is nine points of it, which 
 thou hast of me. Self-possession is the tenth, and that 
 thou hast more than the other nine." 
 
 Being flattered by this, and by the feeling of the two 
 guineas and half-crown, I dropped my hold upon Counsel- 
 lor Kitch (for he was no less a man than that), and he was 
 out of sight in a second of time, wig, blue bag, and family. 
 And before I had time to make up my mind what I should 
 do with his money (for, of course, I meant not to keep it) 
 the crier of the Court (as they told me) came out and 
 wanted to know who I was. I told him, as shortly as I 
 could, that my business lay with His Majesty's bench, and 
 was very confidential, upon which he took me inside with 
 warning, and showed me to an under-clerk, who showed 
 me to a higher one, and the higher clerk to the head one. 
 
 When this gentleman understood all about my business 
 (which I told him without complaint) he frowned at me 
 very heavily, as if I had done him an injury. 
 
 "John Ridd," he asked me, with a stern glance, "is it 
 your deliberate desire to be brought into the presence of 
 the Lord Chief Justice?" 
 
 " Surely, sir, it has been my desire for the last two 
 months and more." 
 
 " Then, John, thou shalt be. But mind one thing, not 
 a word of thy long detention, or thou mayest get into 
 trouble." 
 
 " How, sir ? For being detained against my own wish ? " 
 I asked him, but he turned away, as if that matter were 
 not worth his arguing, as, indeed, I suppose it was not, 
 and led me through a little passage to a door with a cur- 
 tain across it. 
 
 " Now, if my Lord cross-question you," the gentleman 
 whispered to me, "answer him straight out truth at once, for 
 he will have it out of thee. And mind, he loves not to be 
 contradicted, neither can he bear a hang-dog look. Take 
 little heed of the other two, but note every word of the 
 middle one, and never make him speak twice." 
 
 I thanked him for his good advice as he moved the cur- 
 tain and thrust me in, but, instead of entering, withdrew, 
 and left me to bear the brunt of it. 
 
 The chamber was not very large, though lofty to my 
 
A i;keat man attends io luisiNEss. 209 
 
 eyes, and dark, with wooden panels round it. At the fur- 
 ther end were some raised seals, such as 1 have seen in 
 churches, lined with velvet, and havnig broad elbows, and a 
 canopy over the middle seat. There were only three men 
 sitting here, one in the centre, and one on each side, and all 
 three were done up wonderfully with fur and robes of state 
 and curls of thick grey horse-hair, crimped and gathered, 
 and plaited down to their shoulders. Each man had an 
 oak desk before him, set at a little distance, and spread 
 with pens and papers. Instead of writing, however, tlicv 
 seemed to be laughing and talking, or rather, the one m 
 the middle seemed to be telling some good story, which the 
 others received with approval. By reason of their great 
 perukes, it was hard to tell how old they were, but the one 
 who was speaking seemed the youngest, although he was 
 the chief of them. .V thick-set, burly, and bulky man, 
 with a blotchy, broad face, and great, sijuare jaws, and 
 fierce eyes, full of blazes ; he was one to be dreaded by 
 gentle souls and to be abhorred by the noble. 
 
 Between me and the three lord judges s(jme few lawyers 
 were gathering up bags, and papers, and pens, and so 
 forth, from a narrow table in the middle of the room, as if 
 a case had been disposed of, and no other were called on. 
 But before I had time to look round twice, the stout, fierce 
 man espied me, and shouted out with a flashing stare : 
 
 " How now, countryman ; who art thou ?" 
 
 " May it please your worship," I answered him, loudly, 
 " I am John Ridd, of Oare parish, in the county of Somer- 
 set, brought to this London some two months back by a 
 special messenger, whose name is Jeremy Stickles, and 
 then bound over to be at hand and ready, when called 
 upon to give evidence, in a matter unknown to me, but 
 touching the peace of our lord the King, and the well-be- 
 ing of his subjects. Three times I have met our lord the 
 King, but he hath said nothing about his peace, and only 
 held it towards me ; and every dav, save Sunday, I have 
 walked up and down the great hall of Westminster all the 
 business part of the day, expecting to be called upon, yet 
 no one hath called upon me. And now I desire to ask 
 your worship whether I may go home again ? " 
 
 " Well done, John," replied his lordship, while I was 
 panting with all this speech ; " I will go bail for thee, 
 John, thou hast never made such a long speech before, 
 and thou art a spunky Briton, or thou couldst not have 
 made it now. I remember the matter well, and I myself 
 
2IO LORNA DOONE. 
 
 will attend to it, although it arose before my time'' — he 
 was but newly Chief Justice — "but I cannot take it now, 
 John. There is no fear of losing thee, John, any more 
 than the Tower of London. I grieve for His Majesty's 
 exchequer after keeping thee two months or more." 
 
 " Nay, my lord, I crave your pardon. My mother hath 
 been keeping me. Not a groat have I received." 
 
 "Spank, is it so?" his lordship cried, in a voice that 
 shook the cobwebs, and the frown on his brow shook the 
 hearts of men, and mine as much as the rest of them. 
 " Spank, is His Majesty come to this, that he starves his 
 own approvers ? " 
 
 " My lord, my lord," whispered Mr. Spank, the chief 
 officer of evidence, " the thing hath been overlooked, my 
 lord, among such grave matters of treason." 
 
 " I will overlook thy head, foul Spank, on a spike from 
 Temple Bar, if ever I hear of the like again. Vile varlet, 
 what art thou paid for ? Thou hast swindled the money 
 thyself, foul Spank ; I know thee, though thou art new to 
 me. Bitter is the day for thee, that ever I came across 
 thee. Answer me not — one word more, and I will have 
 thee on a hurdle." And he swung himself to and fro on 
 his bench, with both hands on his knees, and every man 
 waited to let it pass, knowing better than to speak to him. 
 
 "John Ridd," said the Lord Chief Justice, at last re- 
 covering a sort of dignity, yet daring Spank from the cor- 
 ners of his eyes to do so much as look at him, " thou hast 
 been shamefully used, John Ridd. Answer me not, boy, 
 not a word, but go to Master Spank, and let me know how 
 he behaves to thee ; " here he made a glance at Spank, 
 which was worth at least ten pounds to me ; " be thou 
 here again to-morrow, and before any other case is taken 
 I will see justice done to thee. Now be off, boy ; thy name 
 is Ridd, and we are well rid of thee." 
 
 I was only too glad to go, after all this tempest, as you 
 may well suppose. For if ever I saw a man's eyes become 
 two holes for the devil to glare from, I saw it that day, and 
 the eyes were those of the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys. 
 
 Mr. Spank was in the lobby before me, and before I had 
 recovered myself — for I was vexed with my own terror — 
 he came up sidling and fawning to me, with a heavy bag 
 of yellow leather. 
 
 "Good Master Ridd, take it all, take it all, and say 
 a good word for me to his lordship. He hath taken a 
 strange fancy to thee, and thou must make the most of it. 
 
A CREAT MAX ATTENDS TO BUSIXKSS. 211 
 
 \Ve never saw man meet him eye to eye so, and yet not 
 contradict him, and that is just what he loveth. Abide 
 in London, Master Ridd, and he will make thy fortune. 
 His joke upon thy name proves that. And I pra\- you 
 remember, Master Ridd, that the Spanks are sixteen in 
 family." 
 
 But I would not take the bag from him, regarding it as 
 a sort of bribe to pay me such a lump of money without 
 so much as asking how great had been my expenses. 
 Therefore I only told him that if he would kindly keep the 
 cash for me until the morrow, I would spend the rest of 
 the day in counting (which always is sore work with me) 
 how much it had stood me in board and lodging since 
 Master Stickles had rendered me up, for until that time 
 he had borne my expenses. In the morning I would give 
 Mr. Spank a memorandum, duly signed and attested by 
 my landlord, including the breakfast of that day, and 
 in exchange for this I would take the exact amount from 
 the yellow bag, and be very thankful for it. 
 
 " If that is thy way of using opportunity," said Spank, 
 looking at me with some contempt, "thou wilt never 
 thrive in these times, my lad. Even the Lord Chief Jus- 
 tice can be little help to thee, unless thou knowest better 
 than that how to help thyself." 
 
 It mattered not to me. The word "approver" stuck 
 in my gorge, as used by the Lord Chief Justice, for we 
 looked upon an approver as a very low thing indeed. I 
 would rather pay for every breakfast, and even c\ery din- 
 ner, eaten by me since here I came, than take money as an 
 approver. And, indeed, I was much disappointed at being 
 taken in that light, having understood that I was sent for 
 as a trusty subject and humble friend of His Majesty. 
 
 In the morning I met Mr. Spank waiting for me at the 
 entrance, and very desirous of seeing me. I showed him 
 my bill, made out in fair copy, and he laughed at it and 
 said, "Take it twice over, Master Ridd; once for thine 
 own sake, and once for His Majesty's, as all his loval 
 tradesmen do when they can get any. His Majesty knows 
 and is proud of it, for it shows their love of his counte- 
 nance, and he says, 'Ms dat qui cito dat,' then how can I 
 grumble at giving twice when I give so slowlv?" 
 
 " Nay, I will take it but once," I said ; " if His Majesty 
 loves to be robbed he need not lack of his desire while the 
 Spanks are sixteen in family." 
 
 The clerk smiled cheerfully at this, being proud of his 
 
212 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 children's ability, and then, having paid my account, he 
 whispered : 
 
 " He is all alone this morning, John, and in rare good 
 humour. He hath been promised the handling of poor 
 Master Algernon Sidney, and he says he will soon make 
 republic of him, for his state shall shortly be headless. 
 He is chuckling over his joke, like a pig with a nut, and 
 that always makes him pleasant. John Ridd, my lord ! " 
 With that he swung up the curtain bravely, and, accord- 
 mg to special orders, I stood face to face and alone with 
 Judge Jeffreys. 
 
t^HAPTER XXVI. 
 
 JOHN IS DRAINED AND CAST ASIDE. 
 
 IS lordship was busy with some 
 letters, and did not look up for 
 a minute or two, although he 
 knew that I was there. Mean- 
 while I stood waiting to make 
 my bow ; afraid to begin upon 
 him, and wondering at his great 
 bull-head. Then he closed his 
 letters, well-pleased with their 
 import, and fixed his bold broad 
 stare on me, as if I were an oys- 
 ter opened, and he would know 
 how fresh I was. 
 
 " May it please your worship," 
 I said, "here I am according t(.) 
 order, awaiting your good plea- 
 sure." 
 
 " Thou art made to weight, 
 John, more than order. How 
 much dost thou tip the scales 
 to?" 
 
 " Only twelvescore pounds, my lord, when I be in wrest- 
 ling trim. And sure I must have lost weight here, fretting 
 so long in London." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! Much fret is there in thee ! Hath His Ma- 
 jesty seen thee ? " 
 
 " Yes, my lord, twice or even thrice ; and he made some 
 jest concerning me." 
 
 " A very bad one, I doubt not. His humor is not so 
 dainty as mine, but apt to be coarse and unmannerly. 
 Now John, or Jack, by the look of thee, thou art more 
 used to be called." 
 
 " Yes, your worship, when I am with old Molly and Betty 
 Muxworthy." 
 
 " Peace, thou forward varlet ! There is a deal too much 
 
2 14 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 of thee. We shall have to try short commons with thee, 
 and thou art a very long common. Ha, ha ! Where is 
 that rogue Spank ? Spank must hear that by-and by. It 
 is beyond thy great thick head, Jack." 
 
 " Not so, my lord ; I have been at school, and had very 
 bad jokes made upon me." 
 
 "Ha, ha! It hath hit thee hard. And faith, it would 
 be hard to miss thee, even with harpoon. And thou lookest 
 like to blubber, now. Capital, in faith ! I have thee on 
 every side, Jack, and thy sides are manifold ; many-folded 
 at any rate. Thou shalt have double expenses. Jack, for 
 the wit thou hast provoked in me." 
 
 " Heavy goods lack heavy payment, is a proverb down 
 our way, my lord." 
 
 "Ah, I hurt thee, I hurt thee. Jack. The harpoon hath 
 no tickle for thee. Now, Jack AVhale, having hauled thee 
 hard, we will proceed to examine thee." Here all his man- 
 ner was changed, and he looked with his heavy brows bent 
 upon me, as if he had never laughed in his life, and would 
 allow none else to do so. 
 
 "I am ready to answer my lord," I replied, "if he asks 
 me naught beyond my knowledge, or beyond my honour." 
 
 " Hadst better answer me every thing, lump. What hast 
 thou to do with honour ? Now is there in thy neighbour- 
 hood a certain nest of robbers, miscreants, and outlaws, 
 whom all men fear to handle ? " 
 
 " Yes, my lord. At least I believe some of them be rob- 
 bers ; and all of them are outlaws." 
 
 " And what is your high sheriff about, that he doth not 
 hang them all ? ( )r send them up for me to hang, without 
 more to-do about them ? " 
 
 " I reckon that he is afraid, my lord ; it is not safe to 
 meddle with them. They are of good birth, and reckless ; 
 and their place is very strong." 
 
 " Good birth ! \\'hat was Lord Russell of. Lord Essex, 
 and this Sidney ? 'Tis the surest heirship to the block, to 
 be the chip of an old one. What is the name of this pesti- 
 lent race, and how many of them are there ? " 
 
 "They are the Doones of Bagworthy forest, may it 
 please your worship. And we reckon there be about forty 
 of them, beside the women and children." 
 
 " Forty Doones, all forty thieves ! and women and chil- 
 dren ! Thunder of God ! How long have they been there 
 then ? " 
 
 "They may have been there thirty years, my lord ; and 
 
JOHN IS DkAl.XEli AND CAST ASIDE. 215 
 
 indeed they may have been forty, llefcire the great war 
 broke out they came, longer back than I can remember." 
 
 " Ay, long before thou wast born, John, ("lood, thou 
 speakest plainly. Woe betide a liar, whenso I get hold of 
 him. Ye want me on the Western Circuit, by ("lod, and 
 ye shall have me, when London traitors are spun and 
 swung. There is a family called De ^\'hichehalse living 
 very nigh thee, John?" 
 
 This he said in a sudden manner, as if to take me off my 
 guard, and fixed his great thick eyes on me. And in truth 
 I was much astonished, 
 
 '■ Yes, my lord, there is. At least, not so very far from 
 us. Baron de Whichehalse, of l.cv Manor." 
 
 "Baron, ha! of the K.Kchequer — eh, lad ? And taketh 
 dues instead of His Majesty. Somewhat which halts there 
 ought to come a little further, I trow. It shall be seen to, 
 as well as the witch which makes it so to halt. Riotous 
 knaves in West England, drunken outlaws, you shall dance 
 if ever I play pipe fur you, John Ridd, I will come to 
 ( )are parish, and rout out the Oare of Bab\-lon." 
 
 "Although your worship is so learned," I answered, see- 
 ing that now he was beginning to make things uneasy ; 
 "your worship, though being Chief Justice, does little 
 justice to us, ^Ve are downright good and kival folk ; 
 and I have not seen, since here I came to this great town 
 of London, any who may better us, or even come anigh us 
 in honesty and goodness, and duty to our neighbours. For 
 we are very quiet folk, not prating our own virtues" 
 
 " Enough, good John, enough ! Knowest thou not that 
 modesty is the maidenhood of virtue, lost even by her 
 own approval ? Now hast thou ever heard or thought, 
 that De \\'hichehalse is in league with the Doones of Bag- 
 worthy ?" 
 
 Saying these words rather slowly, he skewered his great 
 eyes into mine, so that I could not think at all, neither 
 look at him, nor yet awav. The idea was so new to me 
 that it set my wits all wandering ; and looking into me, he 
 saw that I was grouping for the truth. 
 
 " John Ridd, thine eyes are enough for me. I see thou 
 hast never dreamed of it. Now hast thou ever seen a man 
 whose name is Thomas Faggus ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, many and many a time. He is my own 
 
 worthy cousin ; and I fear that he hath intentions " 
 
 here I stopped, having no right there to speak about our 
 Annie. 
 
2l6 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " Tom Faggus is a good man," he said ; and his great 
 square face had a smile which showed me he had met my 
 cousin ; " Master Faggus hath made mistalces as to the 
 title to property, as lawyers oftentimes may do ; but take 
 him all for all, he is a thoroughly straightforward man ; 
 presents his bill, and has it paid, and makes no charge for 
 drawing it. Nevertheless, we must tax his costs, as of 
 any other solicitor." 
 
 " To be sure, to be sure, my lord ! " was all that I could 
 say, not understanding what all this meant. 
 
 "I fear he will come to the gallows," said the Lord 
 Chief Justice, sinking his voice below the echoes; "tell 
 him this from me, Jack. He shall never be condemned 
 before me ; but I cannot be every where ; and some of our 
 Justices may keep short memory of his dinners. Tell him 
 to change his name, turn parson, or do something else, to 
 make it wrong to hang him. Parson is the best thing ; 
 he hath such command of features, and he might take his 
 tithes on horseback. Now a few more things, John Ridd, 
 and for the present I have done with thee. 
 
 All my heart leaped up at this, to get away from London 
 so ; and yet I could hardly trust to it. 
 
 " Is there any sound round your way of disaffection to 
 His Majesty, His most gracious Majesty?" 
 
 " No, my lord ; no sign whatever. We pray for him in 
 church perhaps ; and we talk about him afterwards, hoping 
 it may do him good, as it is intended. But after that we 
 have naught to say, not knowing much about him — at 
 least till I get home again." 
 
 " That is as it should be, John. And the less you say 
 the better. But I have heard of things in Taunton, and 
 even nearer to you in Dulverton, and even nigher still upon 
 Exmoor ; things which are of the pillory kind, and even 
 more of the gallows. I see that you know naught of them. 
 Nevertheless, it will not be long before all England hears 
 of them. Now, John, I have taken a liking to thee ; for 
 never man told me the truth, without fear or favour, more 
 thoroughly and truly than thou hast done. Keep thou 
 clear of this, my son. It will come to nothing ; yet many 
 shall swing high for it. Even I could not save thee, John 
 Ridd, if thou wert mixed in this affair. Keep from the 
 Doones, keep from De Whichehalse, keep from every thing 
 which leads beyond the sight of thy knowledge. I meant 
 to use thee as my tool ; but I see thou art too honest and 
 simple. I will send a sharper down ; but never let me find 
 
JOHX IS DRAINED AND CAST ASIUK. 21"] 
 
 thee, John, either a tool for the other side, or a tube for 
 my words to pass throii.tih." 
 
 Here the Lord Justice gave me such a glare, that I 
 wished myself well rid of him, though thankful for his 
 warnings ; and seeing how he had made upon me a long 
 abiding mark of fear, he smiled again in a jocular manner, 
 and said : 
 
 " Now, get thee gone, Jack. I shall remember thee ; and 
 I trow, thou wilt'st not for many a day forget me." 
 
 '• My lord, 1 was never so glad to go ; for the hay must 
 be in, and the ricks unthatched, and none of them can 
 make spars like me, and two men to twist every hay rope, 
 and mother thinking it all right, and listening right and 
 left to lies, and cheated at every pig she kills, and even the 
 skins of the sheep to go" 
 
 " John Ridd, 1 thought none could come nigh your folk, 
 in honesty and goodness, and duty to their neighbours ! " 
 
 " Sure enough, my lord ; but by our folk, I mean our- 
 selves, not the men nor women neither" 
 
 ''That will do, John, (lu thy way. Not men, nor wo- 
 men neither, are better than they need be." 
 
 I wished to set this matter right ; but his worship would 
 not hear me; and only drove me out of the court, saying 
 that men were thieves and liars no more in one place than 
 another, but all alike all over the world, and women not far 
 behind them. It was not for me t(j dispute this point 
 (though I was not yet persuaded of it), both because my 
 lord was a Judge, and must know more about it, and also 
 that being a man myself I might seem to be defending 
 myself in an unbecoming manner. Therefore I made a 
 low bow, and went ; in doubt as to which had the right 
 of it. 
 
 But though he had so far dismissed me, I was not yet 
 quite free to go, inasmuch as I had not money enough to 
 take me all the way to Oare, unless, indeed, I should go 
 afoot, and beg my sustenance by the way, which seemed 
 to be below me. Therefore I got my few clothes packed, 
 and my few debts paid, all ready to start in half-an-hour, if 
 only they would give me enough to set out upon the road 
 with. For I doubted not, being young and strong, that I 
 could walk from London to Oare in ten days, or in twelve 
 at most, which was not much longer than horse-work ; 
 only I had been a fool, as you will say when you hear it. 
 For after receiving from Master Spank the amount of the 
 bill which I had delivered — less indeed by fifty shillings 
 
2l8 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 than the money my mother had given me, for I had spent 
 fifty shilUngs, and more, in seeing the town and treat- 
 ing people, which I could not charge to His Majesty — I 
 had first paid all my debts thereout, which were not very 
 many, and then supposing myself to be an established 
 creditor of the treasury for my coming needs, and already 
 scenting the country air, and foreseeing the joy of my 
 mother, what had I done but spent half my balance, ay and 
 more than three-quarters of it, upon presents for mother, 
 and Annie, and Lizzie, John Fry, and his wife, and Betty 
 Muxworthy, Bill Dadds, Jem Slocomb, and, in a word, half 
 of the rest of the people at Oare, including all the Snowe 
 family, who must have things good and handsome ? And 
 if I must while I am about it hide nothing from those who 
 read me, I had actually bought for Lorna a thing the price 
 of which quite frightened me, till the shop-keeper said it 
 was nothing at all, and that no young man, with a lady to 
 love him, could dare to offer her rubbish, such as the Jew 
 sold across the way. Now the mere idea of beautiful 
 Lorna ever loving me, which he talked about as patly 
 (though of course I never mentioned her) as if it were a 
 settled thing, and he knew all about it, that mere idea so 
 drove me abroad, that if he had asked three times as much 
 I could never have counted the money. 
 
 Now in all this I was a fool of course — not for remem- 
 bering my friends and neighbours, which a man has a right 
 to do, and indeed is bound to do, when he comes from 
 London — but for not being certified first what cash I had 
 to go on with. And to my great amazement, when I went 
 with another bill for the victuals of only three days more, 
 and a week's expense on the homeward road reckoned 
 very narrowl)'. Master Spank not only refused to grant me 
 any interview, but sent me out a piece of blue paper, look- 
 ing like a butcher's ticket, and bearing these words and no 
 more, " John Ridd, go to the devil. He who will not when 
 he may, when he will, he shall have nay." From this I 
 concluded that I had lost favour in the sight of Chief Jus- 
 tice Jeffreys ; perhaps because my evidence had not proved 
 of any value ; perhaps because he meant to let the matter 
 lie, till cast on him. 
 
 Anyhow, it was a reason of much grief, and some anger 
 to me, and very great anxiety, disappointment, and sus- 
 pense. For here was the time of the hay gone past, and 
 the harvest of small corn coming on, and the trout now 
 rising at the yellow Sally, and the blackbirds eating our 
 
JOHN IS DKAIXED AND CAST ASIDE. 2I9 
 
 white-heart cherries (I was sure, though I could not see 
 them), and who was to do any oood for mother, or stop 
 her from weeping continually ? And more than this, what 
 was become of Lorna ? Perhaps she had cast me awa)- 
 altogether, as a flouter and a changeling ; perhaps she had 
 drowned herself in the black well ; perhaps (and that was 
 worst of all) she was even married, child as she was, to 
 that vile Carver Donne, if the Doones ever cared about 
 marrying ! That last thought sent me down at once to 
 watch for Mr. Spank again, resolved that if I could catch 
 him, spank him I would to a pretty good tune, although 
 sixteen in family. 
 
 However, there was no such thing as to find him ; and 
 the usher vowed (having orders I doubt) that he was gone 
 to the sea for the good of his health, having sadly over- 
 worked himself, and that none but a poor devil like him- 
 self, who never had handling of money, w(juld stay in Lon- 
 don this foul, hot weather, which was likely to bring the 
 plague with it. Here was another new terror for me, who 
 had heard of the plagues of London, and the horrible 
 things that happened ; and so going back to mv lodgings 
 at once, I opened my clothes and sought for spots, especi- 
 ally as being so long at a hairy fellmonger's ; but finding 
 none, I fell down and thanked God for that same, and 
 vowed to start for Oare to-morrow, with mv carbine loaded, 
 come weal come w(je, come sun come shower, though all 
 the parish should laugh at me, for begging my way home 
 again, after the brave things said of mv going, as if I had 
 been the King's cousin. 
 
 But I was saved in some degree from this lowering of 
 mv pride, and what mattered more, of mother's ; for going 
 to buy with my last crown-piece (after all demands were 
 paid) a little shot and powder, more needful on the road 
 almost than even shoes or victuals, at the corner of the 
 street I met my good friend Jeremy Stickles, newly come 
 in search of me. I took him back to my little room — mine 
 at least till to-morrow morning — and told him all my 
 storv, and how much I felt aggrieved by it. But he sur- 
 prised me very much by showing no surprise at all. 
 
 "It is the way of the world. Jack. They have gotten 
 all they can from thee, and why should they feed thee 
 further? We feed not a dead pig, I trow, but baste him 
 well with brine and rue. Nay, we do not victual him upon 
 the day of killing ; which they have done to thee. Thou 
 art a lucky man, John ; thou hast gotten one day's wages, 
 
2 20 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 or at any rate half a day, after thy work was rendered. 
 God have mercy on me, John ! The things 1 see are mani- 
 fold ; and so is my regard of them. What use to insist on 
 this, or make a special point of that, or hold by something 
 said of old, when a different mood was on? I tell thee, 
 Jack, all men are liars ; and he is the least one who presses 
 not too hard on them for lying." 
 
 This was all quite dark to me, for I never looked at 
 things like that, and never would own myself a liar, not at 
 least to other people, nor even to myself, although I might 
 to God sometimes, when trouble was upon me. And if it 
 comes to that, no man has any right to be called a " liar " 
 for smoothing over things unwitting, through duty to his 
 neighbour. 
 
 " Five pounds thou shalt have. Jack,'' said Jeremy 
 Stickles suddenly, while I was all abroad with myself as 
 to being a liar or not ; " five pounds, and I will take my 
 chance of wringing it from that great rogue Spank, Ten 
 I would have made it, John, but for bad luck lately. Put 
 back your bits of paper, lad ; I will have no acknowledg- 
 ment. John Ridd, no nonsense with me ! " 
 
 For I was ready to kiss his hand, to think that any man 
 in London (the meanest and most suspicious place upon 
 all God's earth) should trust me with five pounds, without 
 even a receipt for it ! It overcame me so that I sobbed ; 
 for, after all, though big in body, I am but a child at heart. 
 It was n(jt the five pounds that moved me, but the way of 
 giving it ; and after so much bitter talk, the great trust in 
 my goodness. 
 
CHAPTER XXVII. 
 
 HOME AC.AIN AT LAST. 
 
 T was the beginning of wheat-har- 
 vest when I came to Dunster town, 
 having walked all the wav from 
 London, and being somewhat foot- 
 sore. For though five pounds was 
 enough to keep me in fund and 
 lodging upon the road, and leave 
 me man)- a shilling to give to far 
 poorer travellers, it would have 
 been nothing for horse-hire, as I 
 knew too well by the prices Jere- 
 my Stickles had paid upon our 
 way to London. Xdw, I never 
 saw a prettier town than Dunster 
 looked that evening, for, sooth to 
 sa)-, I had almost lost all hope of 
 reaching it that night, although 
 the castle was long in view, hut 
 being once there my troubles were 
 gone, at least as regartled wayfar- 
 ing, for mother's cousin, the worthy tanner (with whom 
 we had slept on the way to London), was in such indigna- 
 tion at the plight in which I came back to him, afoot and 
 weary, and almost shoeless — not to speak of upper things 
 — that he swore then, by the mercy of God, that if the 
 schemes abrewing round him against those bloody Papists 
 should come to any head or shape, and show good chance 
 of succeeding, he would risk a thousand pounds as though 
 it were a penny. 
 
 I told him not to do it because I had heard otherwise, 
 but was not at liberty to tell one-tenth of what I knew, and, 
 indeed, had seen in London town. But of this he took no 
 heed because I only nodded at him, and he could not 
 make it out. For it takes an old man, or at least a mid- 
 dle-aged one, to nod and wink with any power on the 
 
LORNA DOONE. 
 
 brains of other men. However, I think I made him know- 
 that the bad state in which I came to his town, and the 
 great shame I had wrought for him among the folk round 
 the card-table at the " Luttrell Arms," was not to be, even 
 there, attributed to King Charles the Second, nor even to 
 his counsellors, but to my own speed of travelling, which 
 
 had beat post-horses. For, be- 
 ing much distraught in mind 
 and desperate in body, I had 
 made all the way from London 
 to Dunster in six days, and no 
 more. It may be one hundred 
 and seventy miles, I cannot tell 
 to a furlong or two, especially 
 as I lost my way more than 
 a dozen times ; but at any 
 ,, rate there in six davs I was, 
 and most kindly they received 
 me. The tanner had some 
 excellent daughters, I forget how 
 many ; very pretty damsels, and 
 well set up, and able to make good tan- 
 _- ;, ■ ner's pie. But, though they asked me 
 
 .. ■-' many questions, and made a sort of lord of me, and 
 offered to darn my stockings (which in truth re- 
 quired it), I fell asleep in the midst of them, although 
 I would not acknowledge it, and they said, " Poor cousin ! 
 he is weary," and led me to a blessed bed, and kissed me 
 all round like swan's down. 
 
 In the morning all the Exmoor hills, the thoughts of 
 which had frightened me at the end of each day's travel, 
 seemed no more than bushels to me as I looked forth the 
 bedroom window, and thanked God for the sight of them. 
 And even so I had not to climb them, at least by my own 
 labour. For my most worthy uncle (as we often call a 
 parent's cousin), finding it impossible to keep me for the 
 day, and owning, indeed, that I was right in hastening to 
 my mother, vowed that walk I should not, even though he 
 lost his Saturday hides from Minehead and from A\'atchett. 
 Accordingly, he sent me forth on the vcrv strongest nag 
 he had, and the maidens came to wish me God speed, and 
 kissed their hands at the doorway. It made me proud 
 and glad to think that, after seeing so much of the world, 
 and having held my own with it, I was come once more 
 among my own people, and found them kinder and more 
 
miME A(;ai.\ at last. 
 
 warm-hearted, ay, and bctter-luDking, too, than almost any 
 I had happened upon in the mighty city of London. 
 
 lUit how shall 1 tell you the things I felt, and the swell- 
 ing of my heart within me as I drew nearer and more near 
 to the place of all I loved and owned, to the haunt of 
 every warm remembrance, the nest of all the fledgeling 
 hopes — in a word, to home? The first sheep I beheld on 
 the moor with a great red J, R. on his side (for mother 
 would have them marked with my name, instead of her 
 own, as they should have been), I do assure you my spirit 
 leaped, and all my siglit came to my eyes. I shouted out, 
 " Jem, bov ! " — for that was his name, and a rare hand he 
 was at fighting — and he knew me in spite of the stranger 
 horse, and I leaned over and stroked his head, and swore 
 he should never be mutton. And when I was passed he set 
 off at full gallop to call all the rest of the J. R.'s together 
 and tell them young master was come home at last. 
 
 But bless vour heart, and my own as well, it would take 
 me all the afternoon to lay before you one-tenth of ___^ 
 the things which came home to me in that one halt- r^ 
 hour, as the sun was sinking in the real way he .^ %^iS^ 
 ought to sink. I touched my horse with no spur <a*-*'P^ 
 
 nor whip, feeling that mv slow wits would go 
 if the sights came t(jo fast over them. 
 Here was the pool where we washed 
 the sheep, and there was the hollow 
 that oozed away, where I had shot 
 three wild ducks. Here was the peat 
 rick that hid my dinner when I could 
 not go home for it, and there was the 
 bush with the thyme growing round 
 it, where Annie had found a great swarm 
 of our bees. And now was the corner 
 of the drv stone wall, where the moor 
 gave over in earnest, and the partridges 
 whisked from it into the corn lands and 
 called that their supper was ready, 
 and looked at our house and 
 the ricks as they ran, and 
 would wait for that comfort 
 till winter. 
 
 And there I saw — but let 
 me go — Annie was too much for me. She nearly pulled 
 me off my horse and kissed the very mouth of the carbine. 
 
 " I knew vou would come. Oh, John ! Oh, John ! I 
 
2 24 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 have waited here every Saturday night, and I saw you for 
 the last mile or more, but I would not come round the 
 corner for fear that I should cry, John, and then not cry 
 when I got you. Now I may cry as much as I like, and 
 you need not try to stop me, John, because I am so happy. 
 But you mustn't cry yourself, John ; what will mother 
 think of you? She will be so jealous of me." 
 
 What mother thought I cannot tell, and, indeed, I doubt 
 if she thought at all for more than half-an-hour, but only 
 managed to hold me tight, and cry, and thank God now 
 and then, but with some fear of His taking me if she 
 should be too grateful. Moreover, she thought it was my 
 own doing, and I ought to have the credit of it, and she 
 even came down very sharply upon John's wife, Mrs. Fry, 
 for saying that we must not be too proud, for all of it was 
 the Lord's doing. However, dear mother was ashamed of 
 that afterwards, and asked Mrs. Fry's humble pardon ; and 
 perhaps I ought not to have mentioned it. 
 
 Old Smiler had told them that I was coming — all the 
 rest, I mean, except Annie — for, having escaped from his 
 halter-ring, he was come out to graze in the lane a bit, 
 when what should he see but a strange horse coming with 
 young master and mistress upon him, for Annie must 
 needs get up behind me, there being only sheep to look at 
 her. Then Smiler gave us a stare and a neigh, with his 
 tail quite stiff with amazement, and then (whether in joy, 
 or through indignation) he flung up his hind feet and gal- 
 loped straight home, and set every dog wild with barking. 
 
 Now, methinks, quite enough has been said concerning 
 this mighty return of the young John Ridd (which was 
 known up at t'osgate that evening), and feeling that I 
 cannot describe it, how can I hope that any one else will 
 labour to imagine it, even of the few who are able? F'or 
 very few can have travelled so far, unless, indeed, they 
 whose trade it is, or very unsettled people. And even of 
 those who have done so, not one in a hundred can have 
 such a home as I had to come home to. 
 
 Mother wept again, with grief and some wrath, and so 
 did Annie also, and even little Eliza, and all were unset- 
 tled in loyalty and talked about a republic when I told 
 them how I had been left without money for travelling 
 homeward, and expected to have to beg my wav, which 
 Farmer Snowe would have heard of. And though I could 
 see they were disappointed at my failure of any promo- 
 tion, they all declared how glad they were, and how much 
 
HOME AC.AIX AT LAST. 
 
 2-^5 
 
 better they liked me to be no more than what they were 
 accustomed to. At legist, my mother and Annie said so 
 without waiting to hear any more, but Lizzie did not 
 answer to it until I had openetl my bag and shown the 
 beautiful present I had for her. And then she kissed me, 
 almost like Annie, and vowed that she thought very little 
 of captains. 
 
 For Lizzie's present was the best of all, I mean, of 
 course, except Lorna's (which I carried in my breast all 
 the way, hoping that it might make her love me from hav- 
 ing lain so long close to my heart). For I had brought 
 Lizzie something dear, and a precious heavy book it was, 
 and much beyond my understanding ; whereas, I knew well 
 that to both the others my gifts would be dear for mine 
 own sake. And happier people could not be found than 
 the whole of us were that evening. 
 
 
 
 
CHAPTER XXVIII, 
 
 JOHN HAS HOPE OF LORNA. 
 
 UCH as I longed to know more 
 about Lorna, and though all m}- 
 heart was yearning, I could not 
 reconcile it yet with my duty to 
 mother and Annie, to leave them 
 on the following day, which hap- 
 pened to be a Sunday. For lo, 
 before breakfast was out of our 
 mouths, there came all the men 
 of the farm, and their wives, and 
 even the two crow-boys, dressed 
 as if going to Barnstaple fair, to 
 inquire how Master John was, 
 and whether it was true that the 
 King had made him one of his 
 body-guard ; and if so, what was 
 to be done with the belt for the 
 championship of the ^^'est Coun- 
 ties' wrestling, which I had held 
 now for a year or more, and none 
 were ready to challenge it. Strange to say, this last point 
 seemed the most important of all to them ; and none asked 
 who was to manage the farm, or answer for their wages ; 
 but all asked who was to wear the belt. 
 
 To this I replied, after shaking hands twice over all round 
 with all of them, that I meant to wear the belt myself, for 
 the honour of Oare parish, so long as ever God gave me 
 strength and health to meet all comers ; for I had never 
 been asked to be body-guard ; and if asked I would never 
 have done it. Some of them cried that the King must be 
 mazed, not to keep me for his protection, in these violent 
 times of Popery. I could have told them that the King was 
 not in the least afraid of Papists, but, on the contrary, very 
 fond of them ; however, I held my tongue, remembering 
 what Judge Jeffreys bade me. 
 
JOIIX HAS IIOPK (IK LORNA. 227 
 
 In church, the whole cony^i-egation, man, woman, and 
 child (except indeed the Snowe girls, who only looked when 
 I was not watching), turned on me with one accord, and 
 stared so steadfastly, to get some reflection of the King 
 from me, that they forgot the time to kneel down, and 
 the parson was forced to speak to them. If I coughed, or 
 moved my book, or bowed, or even said "Amen," glances 
 were exchanged which meant — " That he hath learned in 
 London town, and most likely from His Majesty." 
 
 However, all this went ofi in time ; and people became 
 even angry with me, for not being sharper (as they said), 
 or smarter, or a whit more fashionable, for all the great 
 company I had seen, and all the wondrous things wasted 
 upon me. 
 
 But though I may have been none the wiser by reason of 
 my stay in London, at any rate I was much the better in 
 virtue of coming home again. For now I had learned the 
 joy of quiet, and the gratitude for good things round us, 
 and the love we owe to others (even those who must be 
 kind), for their indulgence to us. All this, before my jour- 
 ney, had been too much as a matter of course to me ; but 
 having missed it, now I knew that it was a gift, and might 
 be lost. Moreover, I had pined so much, in the dust and 
 heat of that great town, for trees, and fields, and running 
 waters, and the sounds of country life, and the air of coun- 
 try winds, that never more could I grow weary of those soft 
 enjoyments ; or at least I thought so then. 
 
 To awake as the summer sun came slanting over the hill- 
 tops, with hope on every beam adance to the laughter of the 
 morning ; to see the leaves across the window ruffling on 
 the fresh new air, and the tendrils of the powdery vine turn- 
 ing from their beaded sleep. Then the lustrous meadows 
 far beyond the thatch of the garden-wall, yet seen beneath 
 the hanging scollops of the walnut-tree, all awaking, dressed 
 in pearl, all amazed at their own glistening, like a maid at 
 her own ideas. Down them troop the lowing kine, walking 
 each with a step of character (even as men and women do), 
 yet all alike with toss of horns, and spread of udders ready. 
 From them, without a word, we turn to the farm-yard 
 proper, seen on the right, and dryly strawed from the petty 
 rush of the pitch-paved runnel. Round it stand the snug 
 outbuildings, barn, corn-chamber, cider-press, stables, with a 
 blinker'd horse in every doorway munching, while his driver 
 tightens buckles, whistles and looks down the lane, dallying 
 to begin his labour till the milkmaids be gone by. Here 
 
220 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the cock comes forth at last — where has he been lingering? 
 — eggs may tell to-morrow — he claps his wings and shouts 
 " cock-a-doodle ; " and no other cock dare look at him. 
 Two or three go sidling off, waiting till their spurs be 
 grown ; and then the crowd of partlets comes, chattering 
 how their lord has dreamed, and crowed at two in the morn- 
 ing, and praying that the old brown rat would only dare to 
 face him. But while the cock is crowing still, and the pul- 
 let world admiring him, who comes up but the old turkey- 
 cock, with all his family round him. Then the geese at the 
 lower end begin to thrust their breasts out, and mum their 
 down-bits, and look at the gander, and scream shrill joy for 
 the conflict ; while the ducks in pond show nothing but tail, 
 in proof of their strict neutrality. 
 
 While yet we dread for the coming event, and the fight 
 which would jar on the morning, behold the grandmother 
 of sows, gruffly grunting, right and left, with muzzle which 
 no ring may tame (not being matrimonial), hulks across be- 
 tween the two, moving all each side at once, and then all of 
 the other side, as if she were chined down the middle, and 
 afraid of spilling the salt from her. As this mighty view of 
 lard hides each combatant from the other, gladly each re- 
 tires, and boasts how he would have slain his neighbour, but 
 that old sow drove the other away, and no wonder he was 
 afraid of her, after all the chicks she has eaten. 
 
 And so it goes on ; and so the sun comes, stronger from 
 his drink of dew ; and the cattle in the byres, and the 
 horses from the stable, and the men from cottage-door, 
 each has had his rest and food, all smell alike of hay and 
 straw, and every one must hie to work, be it drag, or draw, 
 or delve. 
 
 So thought I, on the Monday morning ; while my own 
 work lay before me, and I was plotting how to quit it, void 
 of harm to every one, and let my love have work a little — 
 hardest perhaps of all work, and yet as sure as sunrise. I 
 knew that my first day's task on the farm would be strictly 
 watched by every one, even by my gentle mother, to see 
 what I had learned in London. But could I let still another 
 day pass, for Lorna to think me faithless ? 
 
 I felt much inclined to tell dear mother all about Lorna, 
 and how I loved her, yet had no hope of winning her. 
 Often and often I had longed to do this, and have done 
 with it. But the thought of my father's terrible death at the 
 hands of the Doones prevented me. And it seemed to me 
 foolish and mean to grieve mother, without any chance of 
 
JOHN HAS HOPE OF LORNA. 229 
 
 my suit ever speeding. If once Lorna loveil me, my mother 
 should know it ; and it would be the greatest happiness to 
 me to have no concealment from her, though at first she 
 was sure to grieve terribly. But I saw no more chance of 
 Liirna loving me than of the man in the moon coming down ; 
 or rather of the moon coming down to the man, as related 
 in old mythology. 
 
 Now the merriment of the small birds, and the clear voice 
 of the waters, and the lowing of cattle in meadows, and the 
 view of no houses (except just our own and a neighbour's) 
 and the knowledge of every body around, their kindness of 
 heart, and simplicity, and love of their neighbour's doings, all 
 these could not help or please me at all, and many of them 
 were much against me, in my secret depth of longing and 
 dark tumult of the mind. Many people may think me fool- 
 ish, especially after coming from London, where many nice 
 maids looked at me (on account of my bulk and stature), 
 and I might have been fitted up with a sweetheart, in spite 
 of my west-country twang, and the smallness of my purse, if 
 only I had said the word. But nay ; I have contempt for a 
 man whose heart is like a shirt-stud (such as I saw in Lon- 
 don cards), fitted into one to-day, sitting bravely on the 
 breast ; plucked out on the morrow morn, and the place 
 that knew it gone. 
 
 Now, what did I do but take my chance ; reckless whether 
 any one heeded me or not, only craving Lorna's heed, and 
 time for ten words to her. Therefore I left the men of the 
 farm as far away as might be, after making them work with 
 me (which no man round our parts could do, to his own 
 satisfaction), and then knowing them to be well weary, very 
 unlike to follow me — and still more unlike to tell of me, for 
 each had his London present — I strode right away in good 
 trust of my speed, without any more misgivings, but re- 
 solved to face the worst of it, and to try to be home for 
 supper. 
 
 And first I went, I know not why, to the crest of the 
 broken highland, whence I had agreed to watch for any 
 mark or signal. And sure enough at last I saw (when it 
 was too late to see) that the white stone had been covered 
 over with a cloth or mantle — the sign that something had 
 arisen to make Lorna want me. For a moment I stood 
 amazed at my evil fortune ; that I should be too late, in the 
 very thing of all things on which my heart was set ! Then 
 after eyeing sorrowfully every crick and cranny, to be sure 
 that not a single flutter of my love was visible, off I set, with 
 
230 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 small respect either for my knees or neck, to make the 
 round of the outer cliffs, and come up my old access. 
 
 Nothing could stop me ; it was not long, although to me 
 it seemed an age, before I stood in the niche of rock at the 
 head of the slippery watercourse, and gazed into the quiet 
 glen, where my foolish heart was dwelling. Notwithstand- 
 ing doubts of right, notwithstanding sense of duty, and 
 despite all manly striving, and the great love of my home, 
 there my heart was ever dwelling, knowing what a fool it 
 was, and content to know it. 
 
 Many birds came twittering round me in the gold of Au- 
 gust ; many trees showed twinkling beauty, as the sun went 
 lower ; and the lines of water fell from wrinkles into 
 dimples. Little heeding, there I crouched ; though with 
 sense of every thing that afterwards should move me, like 
 a picture or a dream ; and every thing went by me softly, 
 while my heart was gazing. 
 
 At last, a little figure came, not insignificant (I mean), 
 but looking very light and slender in the moving shadows, 
 gently here and softly there, as if vague of purpose, with a 
 gloss of tender movement, in and out the wealth of trees, 
 and liberty of the meadow. Who was I to crouch, or doubt, 
 or look at her from a distance ; what matter if they killed 
 me now, an one tear came to bury me ? Therefore I rushed 
 out at once, as if shot-guns were unknown yet ; not from 
 any real courage, but from prisoned love burst forth. 
 
 I know not whether my own Lorna was afraid of what I 
 looked, or what I might say to her, or of her own thoughts 
 of me ; all I know is that she looked frightened, when I 
 hoped for gladness. Perhaps the power of my joy was 
 more than maiden liked to own, or in any way to answer to ; 
 and to tell the truth, it seemed as if f might now forget my- 
 self ; while she would take good care of it. This makes 
 a man grow thoughtful, unless, as some low fellows do, he 
 believe all women hypocrites. 
 
 Therefore I went slowly towards her, taken back in my 
 impulse, and said all I could come to say, with some dis- 
 tress in doing it. 
 
 " Mistress Lorna, I had hope that you were in need of me." 
 
 " Oh, yes ; but that was long ago ; two months ago, or 
 more, sir." And saying this she looked away, as if it all 
 were over. But I was now so dazed and frightened, that it 
 took my breath away, and I could not answer, feeling sure 
 that I was robbed, and some one else had won her. And I 
 tried to turn away without another word, and go. 
 
JOHN HAS MOW. OF L<IRXA. 23I 
 
 But I could not help one stupid sob, thoLii;]i mad with 
 myself for allowing it, but it cauK- too sharp for pritle to 
 stay it, and it told a world of things. Lorna heard it, and 
 ran to me, with her bright eyes full of wimder, pity, and 
 great kindness, as if amazed that I had more than a simple 
 liking for her. Then she held out both hands to me, and 
 I took and looked at them. 
 
 ■■ Master Ridd, I did not mean,'' she whispered very softly, 
 '■ I did not mean to vex you." 
 
 " If you would be loath to vex me, none else in this world 
 can do it," 1 answered out of my great love, but fearing yet 
 to look at her, mine eyes not being strong enough. 
 
 " Come away from this bright place," she answered trem- 
 bling in her turn ; " 1 am watched and spied of late. Come 
 beneath the shadows, John." 
 
 I would have leaped into the valley of the shadow of 
 death (as described by the late John Bunyan),only to hear 
 her call me " John," though Apollyon were lurking there, 
 and Despair should lock me in. 
 
 She stole across the silent grass ; but I strode hotly after 
 her ; fear was all beyond me now, except the fear of losing 
 her. I could not but behold her manner, as she went before 
 me, all her grace and lovely sweetness, and her sense of 
 what she was. 
 
 She led me to her own rich bower, which I told of once 
 before ; and if in spring it were a sight, what was it in sum- 
 mer glory ? But although my mind had notice of its fair- 
 ness and its wonder, not a heed mv heart took of it, neither 
 dwelt it in my presence more than flowing water. All that 
 in my presence dwelt, all that in my heart was felt, was the 
 maiden moving gently, and afraid to look at me. 
 
 For now the power of my love was abiding on her, new 
 to her, unknown to her; not a thing to speak about, nor 
 even to think clearly ; only just to feel and wonder, with a 
 pain of sweetness. She could look at me no more, neither 
 could she look away, with a studied manner — only to let fall 
 her eyes, and blush, and be put out with me, and still more 
 with herself. 
 
 I left her quite alone ; though close, though tingling to 
 have hold of her. Even her right hand was dropped, and 
 lay among the mosses. Neither did I try to steal one 
 glimpse below her eyelids. Life and death were hanging 
 on the first glance I should win ; yet I let it be so. 
 
 After long or short — I know not, yet ere I was weary, ere 
 I yet began to think or wish for any answer — Lorna slowly 
 
232 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 raised her eyelids, with a gleam of dew below them, and 
 looked at me doubtfully. Any look with so much in it 
 never met my gaze before. 
 
 " Darling, do you love me ? " was all that I could say to her. 
 
 " Yes, I like you very much," she answered, with her eyes 
 gone from me, and her dark hair falling over, so as not to 
 show me things. 
 
 " But do you love me, Lorna, Lorna ; do you love me 
 more than all the world ? " 
 
 " No, to be sure not. Now why should I ? " 
 
 " In truth, I know not why you should. Only I hoped 
 that you did, Lorna. Either love me not at all, or as I love 
 you, for ever." 
 
 " John, I love you very much ; and I would not grieve 
 you. You are the bravest, and the kindest, and the simplest 
 of all men — I mean of all people — I like you very much. 
 Master Ridd, and I think of you almost every day." 
 
 " That will not do for me, Lorna. Not almost every day 
 I think, but every instant of my life, of you. For you I 
 would give up my home, my love of all the world beside, 
 my duty to my dearest ones ; for you I would give up my 
 life, and hope of life beyond it. Do you love me so?" 
 
 " Not by any means," said Lorna ; " no ; I like you very 
 much, when you do not talk so wildly ; and I like to see 
 you come as if you would fill our valley up, and I like to 
 think that even Carver would be nothing in your hands — 
 but as to liking you like that, what should make it likely? 
 especially when I have made the signal, and for some two 
 months or more you have never even answered it ! If you 
 like me so ferociously, why do you leave me for other peo- 
 ple to do just as they like with me ? " 
 
 " To do as they like ! O, Lorna, not to make you marry 
 Carver ?" 
 
 " No, Master Ridd, be not frightened so ; it makes me 
 fear to look at you." 
 
 " But you have not married Carver yet ? Say quick ! 
 Why keep me waiting so ? " 
 
 " Of course I have not, Master Ridd. Should I be here 
 if I had, think you, and allowing you to like me so, and to 
 hold my hand, and make me laugh, as I declare you almost 
 do sometimes? And at other times you frighten me." 
 
 " Did they want you to marry Carver ? Tell me all the 
 truth of it." 
 
 "Nut yet, not yet. They are not half so impetuous as 
 you are, John. I am only just seventeen, you know, and 
 
JOHN HAS HOPE OF l.ORNA. 2^:; 
 
 who is to think of marrying ? But thty wanted me to ^ive 
 my word, and be formally betrothed to him in the presence 
 of my grandfather. It seems that something frightened 
 them. There is a youth named (."harleworth Doone, every 
 one calls him ' Cliarlie ; ' a headstrong and gay young man, 
 very gallant in his looks and manner ; and my uncle, the 
 Counsellor, chose to fancy that Charlie looked at me too 
 much, coming by my grandfather's cottage." 
 
 Here Lorna blushed so that I was frightened, and began 
 to hate this Charlie more, a great deal more, than even 
 Carver Doone. 
 
 " He had better not," said I ; " I will fling him over it, if 
 he dare. He shall see thee through the roof, Lorna, if at 
 all he see thee." 
 
 " Master Ridd, you are worse than Carver ! I thought 
 you were so kindhearted. ^\'ell, they wanted me to promise, 
 and even to swear a solemn oath (a thing I have never done 
 in my life) that I would wed my eldest cousin, this same 
 Carver Doone, who is twice as old as I am, being thirtv-five 
 and upwards. That was why I gave the token that I wished 
 to see you. Master Ridd. They pointed out how much it 
 was for the peace of all the family, and for mine own bene- 
 fit ; but I would not listen for a moment, though the (Coun- 
 sellor was most eloquent, and my grandfather begged me to 
 consider, and Carver smiled his pleasantest, which is a truly 
 frightful thing. Then both he and his crafty father were 
 for using force with me ; but Sir Ensor would not hear of it ; 
 and they have put off that extreme until he shall be past its 
 knowledge, or, at least, beyond preventing it. And now I am 
 watched, and spied, and followed, and half my little liberty 
 seems to be taken from me. I could not be here speaking 
 with you, even in my own nook and refuge, but for the aid, 
 and skill, and courage of dear little Gwenny Carfax. She 
 is now my chief reliance, and through her alone I hope to 
 baffle all my enemies, since others have forsaken me." 
 
 Tears of sorrow and reproach were lurking in her soft 
 dark eyes, until in fewest words I told her that my seeming 
 negligence was nothing but my bitter loss and wretched 
 absence far away, of which I had so vainly striven to give 
 any tidings without danger to her. "When she heard all 
 this, and saw what I had brought from London (which was 
 nothing less than a ring of pearls with a sapphire in the 
 midst of them, as pretty as could well be found), she let the 
 gentle tears flow fast, and came and sat so close beside me 
 that I trembled like a folded sheep at the bleating of her 
 
234 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 lamb. But recovering comfort quickly, without more ado I 
 raised her left hand, and observed it with a nice regard, 
 wondering at the small blue veins, and curves, and taper- 
 ing whiteness, and the points it finished with. My wonder 
 seemed to please her much, herself so well accustomed to it, 
 and not fond of watching it. And then, before she could say 
 a word, or guess what I was up to, as quick as ever I turned 
 hand at a bout of wrestling, on her finger was my ring — sap- 
 phire for the veins of blue, and pearls to match white fingers. 
 
 " Oh, you crafty Master Ridd ! " said Lorna, looking up 
 at me, and blushing now a far brighter blush than when she 
 spoke of Charlie ; " I thought that you were much too 
 simple ever to do this sort of thing. No wonder you can 
 catch the fish, as when first I saw you." 
 
 " Have I caught you, little fish ? Or must all my life be 
 spent in hopeless angling for you ?" 
 
 " Neither one nor the other, John ! You have not caught 
 me yet altogether, though I like you dearly, John ; and if 
 you will only keep away, I shall like you more and more. 
 As for hopeless angling, John — that all others shall have 
 until I tell you otherwise." 
 
 With the large tears in her eyes — tears which seemed to 
 me to rise partly from her want to love me with the power 
 of my love — she put her pure bright lips, half smiling, half 
 prone to reply to tears, against my forehead lined with 
 trouble, doubt, and eager longing. And then she drew my 
 ring from off that snowy twig, her finger, and held it out to 
 me ; and then, seeing how my face was falling, thrice she 
 touched it with her lips, and sweetly gave it back to me. 
 "John, I dare not take it now; else I should be cheating you. 
 I will try to love you dearly, even as you deserve and wish. 
 Keep it for me just till then. Something tells me I shall 
 earn it, in a very little time. Perhaps you will be sorry then, 
 sorry when it is all too late, to be loved by such as I am." 
 
 What could I do at her mournful tone but kiss a thousand 
 times the hand which she put up to warn me, and vow that 
 I would rather die with one assurance of her love, than with- 
 out it live for ever, with all beside that the world could give ? 
 Upon this she looked so lovely, with her dark eyelashes 
 trembling, and her soft eyes full of light, and the colour of 
 clear sunrise mounting on her cheeks and brow, that I was 
 forced to turn away, being overcome with beauty. 
 
 "Dearest darling, love of my life," I whispered through 
 her clouds of hair, " how long must I wait to know, how 
 long must I linger doubting whether you can ever stoop 
 
JOHN HAS HdPE OF LORNA. 235 
 
 from your birth and wondrous beauty t(i a poor coarse hijid 
 like me, an ignorant unlettered yeoman " 
 
 " I will not have you revile yourself," said Lorna, very 
 tenderly — just as I had meant to make her. " \ou are not 
 rude and unlettered, John. Vou know a great deal more 
 than I do ; you have learned both (Ireek and Latin, as you 
 told me long ago, and you have been at the very best school 
 in the West of England. None of us but my grandfather 
 and the Counsellor (who is a great scholar) can compare 
 with you in this. And though I have laughed at vour man- 
 ner of speech, I only laughed in fun, John ; I never meant 
 to ve.K you by it, nor knew that I had done so." 
 
 " Nought you say can vex me, dear," I answered, as she 
 leaned towards me in her generous sorrow, unless you say, 
 'Begone, John Ridd ; I love another more than you.' " 
 
 " Then I shall never vex you, John. Never, I mean, by 
 saying that. Now, John, if you please, be quiet " 
 
 For I was carried away so much by hearing her call me 
 " John " so often, and the music of her voice, and the way 
 she bent toward me, and the shadow of soft weeping in the 
 sunlight of her eyes, that some of my great hand was creep- 
 ing in a manner not to be imagined, and far less explained, 
 toward the lithsome, wholesome curving underneath her 
 mantle-fold, and out of sight and harm, as I thought ; not 
 being her front waist. However, I was dashed with that, 
 and pretended not to mean it ; only to pluck some lady-fern, 
 whose elegance did me no good. 
 
 " Now John," said Lorna, being so quick that not even a 
 lover could cheat her, and observing my confusion more 
 intently than she need have done ; " Master John Ridd, it 
 is high time for you to go home to your mother. I love 
 your mother very much, from what you have told me about 
 her, and I will n^t have her cheated." 
 
 " If you truly love my mother," said I, very craftily, " the 
 only way to show it is by truly loving me." 
 
 Upon that she laughed at me in the sweetest manner, and 
 with such provoking ways, and such come-and-go of glances, 
 and beginning of quick blushes, which she tried to laugh 
 away, that I knew, as well as if she herself had told me, by 
 some knowledge (void of reasoning, and the surer for it), I 
 knew quite well, while all my heart was burning hot within 
 me, and mine eyes were shy of hers, and her eyes were shy 
 of mine; for certain and for ever this I knew — as in a 
 glory — that Lorna Doone had now begun, and would go on 
 to love me. 
 
CHAPTER XXIX. 
 
 REAPING LEADS TO REVELLING. 
 
 ILTHOUGH I was under interdict 
 
 pi w^ for two months from my darling — 
 
 ^r B "one for 3-our sake, one for mine," 
 
 J^J she had whispered, with her head 
 
 ^^^1 withdrawn, yet not so very far from 
 
 m ■ me — lighter heart was not on Ex- 
 
 ^ *• moor than I bore for half the time, 
 
 and even for three-quarters. For 
 she was safe ; I knew that daily by 
 a mode of signals, well-contrived 
 between us now, on the strength 
 of our experience. " I have no- 
 thing now to fear, John," she had 
 said to me, as we parted ; " it is 
 true that I am spied and watched, 
 but Gwenny is too keen for them. 
 While I have my grandfather to 
 prevent all violence ; and little 
 Gwenny to keep watch on those 
 who try to watch me ; and you 
 above all others, John, ready at a moment, if the worst 
 comes to the worst — this neglected Lorna Doone was never 
 in such case before. Therefore do not squeeze my hand, 
 John ; I am safe without it, and you do not know your 
 strength." 
 
 Ah, I knew my strength right well. Hill and valley 
 scarcely seemed to be step and landing for me ; fiercest 
 cattle I would play with, making them go backward, and 
 afraid of hurting them, like John Fry with his terrier ; even 
 rooted trees seemed to me but as sticks I could smite down, 
 except for my love of every thing. The love of all things 
 was upon me, and a softness to them all, and a sense of 
 having something even such as they had. 
 
 Then the golden harvest came, waving on the broad hill- 
 side, and nestling in the quiet nooks scooped from out the 
 
REAPIXC, LEADS Td REVELLINt:. 
 
 o -» *7 
 -01 
 
 '--£J5«^ 
 
 ^^^^ 'M-l^i. 
 
 fringe of wood. A wealth of harvest, such as never glad- 
 dened all our country-side since my father ceased to reap 
 and his sickle hung to rust. There had not been a man on 
 Exmoor fit to work that reaping-hook since the time its 
 owner fell, in the prime of life and strength, before a sterner 
 reaper. But now I took it from the wall, where mother 
 
238 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 proudly stored it, while she watched me, hardly knowing 
 whether she should smile or cry. 
 
 All the parish was assembled in our upper courtyard, for 
 we were to open the harvest that year, as had been settled 
 with Farmer Nicholas, and with Jasper Kebby, who held 
 the third or little farm. We started in proper order, there- 
 fore, as our practice is : first, the parson, Josiah Bowden, 
 wearing his gown and cassock, with the parish Bible in his 
 hand, and a sickle strapped behind him. As he strode 
 along well and stoutly, being a man of substance, all our 
 family came next, I leading mother with one hand, in the 
 other bearing my father's hook, and with a loaf of our own 
 bread and a keg of cider upon my back. Behind us Annie 
 and Lizzie walked wearing wreaths of corn-flowers, set out 
 very prettily, such as mother would have worn, if she had 
 been a farmer's wife instead of a farmer's widow. Being 
 as she was, she had no adornment, e.xcept that her widow's 
 hood was off, and her hair allowed to flow, as if she had 
 been a maiden ; and very rich bright hair it was, in spite 
 of all her troubles. 
 
 After us the maidens came, milkmaids and the rest of 
 them, with Betty Muxworthy at their head, scolding even 
 now, because they would not walk fitly. But they only 
 laughed at her ; and she knew it was no good to scold with 
 all the men behind them. 
 
 Then the Snowes came trooping forward ; Farmer Nich- 
 olas in the middle, walking as if he would rather walk to a 
 wheatfield of his own, yet content to follow lead, because he 
 knew himself the leader ; and signing every now and then 
 to the people here and there as if I were nobody. But to 
 see his three great daughters, strong and handsome wenches, 
 making upon either side as if somebody would run off with 
 them — this was the very thing that taught me how to value 
 Lorna, and her pure simplicity. 
 
 After the Snowes, came Jasper Kebby, with his wife new- 
 married ; and a very honest pair they were, upon only a 
 hundred acres, and a right of common. After these the 
 men came hotly, without decent order, trying to spy the 
 girls in front, and make good jokes about them, at which 
 their wives laughed heartily, being jealous when alone 
 perhaps. And after these men and their wives came all the 
 children toddling, picking flowers by the way, and chatter- 
 ing and asking questions, as the children will. There must 
 have been threescore of us, take one with another ; and the 
 lane was full of people. When we were come to the big 
 
REATING LEADS TO REVELLIX(;. 239 
 
 field-gate, where the first sickle was to be, Parson Bowden 
 heaved up the rail with the sleeves of his gown done green 
 with it ; and he said that every body might hear him, 
 though his breath was short, " In the name of the Lord, 
 Amen ! " 
 
 " Amen ! So be it ! " cried the clerk, who was far behind, 
 being only a shoemaker. 
 
 Then Parson Bowden read some verses from the parish 
 Bible, telling us to lift up our eyes, and look upon the fields 
 already white to harvest ; and then he laid the Bible down on 
 the square head of the gate-post, and despite his gown and 
 cassock, three good swipes he cut of corn, and laid them 
 right end onwards. All this time the rest were huddling 
 outside the gate, and along the lane, not daring to interfere 
 with parson, but whispering how well he did it. 
 
 When he had stowed the corn like that, mother entered, 
 leaning on me, and we both said, " Thank the Lord for all 
 His mercies, and these the first fruits of His hand ! " And 
 then the clerk gave out a psalm verse by verse, done very 
 well ; although he sneezed in the midst of it, from a beard 
 of wheat thrust up his nose by the rival cobbler at Bren- 
 don. And when the psalm was sung, so strongly that the 
 fox-gloves on the bank were shaking, like a chime of bells, 
 at it, parson took a stoop of cider, and we all fell to at 
 reaping. 
 
 Of course I mean the men, not women ; although I know 
 that up the country women are allowed to reap ; and right 
 well they reap it, keeping row for row with men, comely, and 
 in due order ; yet, meseems, the men must ill attend to 
 their own reaping-hooks, in fear lest the other cut them- 
 selves, being the weaker vessel. But in our part, women do 
 what seems their proper business, following well behind the 
 men, out of harm of the swinging hook, and stooping with 
 their breasts and arms up they catch the swathes of corn, 
 where the reapers cast them, and tucking them together 
 tightly with a wisp laid under them, this they fetch around 
 and twist, with a knee to keep it close ; and lo, there is a 
 goodly sheaf, ready to set up in stooks ! After these the 
 children come, gathering each for his little self, if the farmer 
 be right-minded, until each has a bundle made as big as 
 himself, and longer, and tumbles now and again with it in 
 the deeper part of the stubble. 
 
 We, the men, kept marching onwards down the flank of 
 the yellow wall, with knees bent wide, and left arm bowed, 
 and right arm flashing steel. Each man in his several place, 
 
240 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 keeping down the rig or chine, on the right side of the 
 reaper in front, and the left of the man that followed him ; 
 each making further sweep and inroad into the golden 
 breadth and depth, each casting leftwards his rich clearance 
 on his foregoer's double track. 
 
 So like half a wedge of wildfowl, to and fro we swept the 
 field ; and when to either hedge we came, sickles wanted 
 whetting, and throats required moistening, and backs were 
 in need of easing, and every man had much to say, and 
 women wanted praising. Then all returned to the other 
 end, with reaping-hooks beneath our arms, and dogs left to 
 mind jackets. 
 
 But now, will you believe me well, or will you only laugh 
 at me ? For even in the world of wheat, when deep among 
 the varnished crispness of the jointed stalks, and below the 
 feathered yielding of the graceful heads, even as I gripped 
 the swathes and swept the sickle round them, even as I 
 flung them by to rest on brother stubble, through the whirl- 
 ing yellow world, and eagerness of reaping, came the vision 
 of my love, as with downcast eyes she wondered at my 
 power of passion. And then the sweet remembrance glowed 
 brighter than the sun through wheat, through my very 
 depth of heart, of how she raised those beaming eyes and 
 ripened in my breast rich hope. Even now I could descry, 
 like high waves in the distance, the rounded heads and 
 folded shadows of the wood of Bagworthy. Perhaps she 
 was walking in the valley, and softly gazing up at them. 
 Oh, to be a bird just there ! I could see a bright mist 
 hanging just above the Doone Glen. Perhaps it was shed- 
 ding its drizzle upon her. Oh, to be a drop of rain ! The 
 very breeze which bowed the harvest to my bosom gently, 
 might have come direct from Lorna, with her sweet voice 
 laden. Ah, the flaws of air that wander where they will 
 around her, fan her bright cheek, play with lashes, even 
 revel in her hair and reveal her beauties — man is but a 
 breath, we know ; would I were such breath as that ! 
 
 But confound it, while I ponder, with delicious dreams 
 suspended, with my right arm hanging frustrate and the 
 giant sickle drooped, with my left arm bowed for clasping 
 something more germane than wheat, and my eyes not mind- 
 ing business, but intent on distant woods — confound it, 
 what are the men about, and why am I left vapouring ? 
 They have taken advantage of me, the rogues ! They are 
 gone to the hedge for the cider-jars ; they have had up the 
 sledd of bread and meat, quite softly over the stubble, and 
 
REAl'INC LEADS TO REVi:i.LIN( ;. 241 
 
 if I can believe my eyes (so dazed with Ldnia's image), tlney 
 are sitting down to an excellent dinner, before the church 
 clock has i^one eleven ! 
 
 " John I'ry, you big villain ! " I cried, with John hanging 
 up in the air by the scruff of his neck-cloth, but holding 
 still by his knife and fork, and a go(jse-leg in between his 
 lips, "John Fry, what mean you by this, sir?" 
 
 " Latt me dowun, or I can't tell e," John answered with 
 some difficulty. So I let him come down, and I must con- 
 fess that he had reason on his side. " Plaise your worship " 
 — John called me so, ever since I returned from I^ondon, 
 firmly believing that the King had made me a magistrate at 
 least ; though I was to keep it secret — " us zeed as how 
 your worship were took with thinkin' of King's business, in 
 the middle of the whate-rigg ; and so us zed, ' Latt un coom 
 to his zell, us had better zave taime, by takking our dinner ; ' 
 and here us be, plaise your worship, and hopps no offence 
 with thick iron spoon full of vried taties." 
 
 I was glad enough to accept the ladle full of fried batatas, 
 and to make the best of things, which is generally done by 
 letting men have their own way. Therefore I managed to 
 dine with them, although it was so early. 
 
 For according to all that I can find, in a long life and a 
 varied one, twelve o'clock is the real time for a man to have 
 his dinner. Then the sun is at his noon, calling halt to look 
 around, and then the plants and leaves are turning, each 
 with a little leisure time, before the work of the afternoon. 
 Then is the balance of east and west, and then the right and 
 left side of a man are in due proportion, and contribute 
 fairly with harmonious fluids. And the health of this mode 
 of life, and its reclaiming virtue are well set forth in our 
 ancient rhyme : 
 
 " Sunrise, breakfast ; sun high, dinner ; 
 Sundown, sup ; makes a saint of a sinner." 
 
 Whish, the wheat falls ! ^\'hirl again ; ye have had good 
 dinners ; give your master and mistress plenty to supply 
 another year. And in truth we did reap well and fairly, 
 through the whole of that afternoon, I not only keeping 
 lead, but keeping the men up to it. We got through a 
 matter of ten acres, ere the sun between the shocks broke 
 his light on wheaten plumes, then hung his red cloak on 
 the clouds, and fell into grey slumber. 
 
242 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Seeing this we wiped our sickles, and our breasts and 
 foreheads, and soon were on the homeward road, looking 
 forward to good supper. 
 
 Of course all the reapers came at night to the harvest 
 supper, and Parson Bowden to say the grace, as well as to help 
 to carve for us. And some help was needed there, I can well 
 assure you ; for the reapers had brave appetites, and most 
 of their wives having babies were forced to eat as a duty. 
 Neither failed they of this duty ; cut and come again was 
 the order of the evening, as it had been of the day ; and I 
 had no time to ask questions, but help meat and ladle gra'i'y. 
 All the while our darling .Annie, with her sleeves tucked up, 
 
 and her comely figure panting, was 
 running about with a bucket of 
 taties mashed with lard and cab- 
 bage. Even Lizzie had left her 
 books, and was serving out beer 
 and cider ; while mother helped 
 plum-pudding largely on pewter 
 plates, with the mutton. And all 
 the time, Betty Muxworthy was 
 grunting in and out every where, 
 not having space to scold even, 
 but changing the dishes, serving 
 the meat, poking the fire, and 
 cooking more. But John Fry 
 would not stir a peg, except with 
 his knife and fork, having all the 
 airs of a visitor, and his wife to 
 keep him eating, till I thought 
 there would be no end of it. 
 Then having eaten all they could, they prepared them- 
 selves, with one accord for the business now of drinking. 
 But first they lifted the neck of corn, dressed with ribbons 
 gaily, and set it upon the mantel-piece, each man with his 
 horn a-froth ; and then they sang a song about it, every 
 one shouting in the chorus louder than harvest thunder- 
 storm. Some were in the middle of one verse, and some 
 at the end of the next one ; yet somehow all managed to 
 get together in the mighty roar of the burden. And if any 
 farmer up the country would like to know Exmoor harvest- 
 song, as sung in my time and will be sung long after I am 
 garnered home, lo here I set it down for him, omitting only 
 the dialect, which perchance might puzzle him : 
 
 ANNIE AND LIZZIE. 
 
-^ 
 
 ■1 ■>( 
 
 EXMOOR HARVEST-SONX,. 
 I 
 The com, oh the corn, 'tis the ripening of the corn ! 
 Go unto the door, my lad, and look beneath the moon. 
 Thou canst see, beyond the woodrick, how it is yelloon : 
 'Tis the harvesting of wheat, and the barley must be shorn, 
 
 CHORl'S. 
 
 The corn, oh the corn, and the yellow, mellow corn ! 
 
 Here's to the corn, with the cups upon the board ! 
 We've been reaping all the day, and we'll reap again the morn, 
 
 And fetch it home to mow-yard, and then we'll thank the Lord. 
 
244 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 The wheat, oh the wheat, 'tis the ripening of the wheat ! 
 All the day it has been hanging down its heavy head. 
 Bowing over on our bosoms with a beard of red : 
 
 'Tis the harvest, and the value makes the labour sweet. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The wheat, oh the wheat, and the golden, golden wheat ! 
 
 Here's to the wheat, with the loaves upon the board ! 
 We've been reaping all the day, and we never will be beat, 
 
 But fetch it all to mow-yard, and then we'll thank the Lord. 
 
 3 
 
 The barley, oh the barley, and the barley is in prime I 
 All the da\' it has been rustling with its bristles brown. 
 Waiting with its beard abowing, till it can be mown ! 
 
 'Tis the harvest, and the barley must abide its time. 
 
 The barley, oh the barley, and the barley ruddy brown 
 Here's to the barley, with the beer upon the board ! 
 
 We'll go amowing, soon as ever all the wheat is down ; 
 
 When all is in the mow-yard, we'll stop, and thank the Lord. 
 
 The oats, oh the oats, 'tis the ripening of the oats ! 
 
 All the day they have been dancing with their flakes of white, 
 Waiting for the girding-hook, to be the nags' delight ; 
 
 'Tis the harvest, let them dangle in their skirted coats. 
 
 CHORUS. 
 
 The oats, oh the oats, and the silver, silver oats ! 
 
 Here's to the oats with the backstone on the board ! 
 We'll go among them, when the barley has been laid in rotes ; 
 
 When all is home to mow-yard, we'll kneel and thank the Lord. 
 
 5 
 
 The corn, oh the corn, and the blessing of the corn ! 
 
 Come unto the door, my lads, and look beneath the moon, 
 We can see, on hill and valley, how it is yelloon, 
 
 AVith a breadth of glory, as when our Lord was born. 
 
 The corn, oh the corn, and the yellow, mellow corn I 
 Thanks for the corn, with our bread upon the board ! 
 
 So shall we acknowledge it, before we reap the morn. 
 With our hands to heaven, and our knees unto the Lord. 
 
 Now we sang this song very well the first time, having 
 the parish choir to lead us, and the clarionet, and the parson 
 to give us the time with his cup ; and we sang it again the 
 
REAPING LEA11S TO REVELLING. 245 
 
 second time, not so but what yoii might praise it (if you had 
 been with us all the evennig), although the parson was gone 
 then, and the clerk not fit to compare with him in the matter 
 of keeping time. But when that song was in its third sing- 
 ing, 1 defy any man (however sober) to have made out one 
 verse from the other, or even the burden from the verses, 
 inasmuch as every man present, ay, and woman too, sang as 
 became convenient to them in utterance both of words and 
 tune. 
 
 And in truth, there was much excuse for them ; because 
 it was a noble harvest, fit to thank the Lord for, without His 
 thinking us hypocrites. For we had more land in wheat 
 that year than ever we had before, and twice the crop to the 
 acre ; and I could not help now and then remembering, in 
 the midst of the merriment, how my father in the church- 
 yard yonder would have gloried to behold it. And my 
 mother, who had left us now, happening to return just then, 
 being called to have her health drunk (for the twentieth 
 time at least), I knew by the sadness in her eyes that she 
 was thinking just as I was. Presently, therefore, I slipped 
 away from the noise, and mirth, and smoking (although of 
 that last there was not much, e.xcept from Farmer Nicholas), 
 and crossing the courtyard in the moonlight, I went, just to 
 cool myself, as far as my father's tombstone. 
 
CHAPTER XXX. 
 
 ANNIE GETS THE BEST OF IT. 
 
 HAD long outgrown unwholesome 
 feeling as to my father's death ; 
 and so had Annie ; though Lizzie 
 (who must have loved him least) 
 still entertained some evil will, and 
 longing for a punishment. There- 
 fore I was surprised (and indeed, 
 startled would not be too much 
 to sa}', the moon being somewhat 
 fleecy) to see our Annie sitting 
 there as motionless as the tomb- 
 stone, and with all her best fal-lals 
 upon her, after stowing away the 
 dishes. 
 
 My nerves, however, are good 
 and strong, except at least in love 
 matters, wherein they always fail 
 me, and when I meet with witches ; 
 and therefore I went up to Annie, 
 although she looked so white and 
 pure ; for I had seen her before with those things on, and 
 it struck me who she was. 
 
 "What are you doing here, Annie?" I enquired rather 
 sternly, being vexed with her for having gone so very near 
 to frighten me. 
 
 "Nothing at all," said our Annie shortly. And indeed it 
 was truth enough for a woman. Not that I dare to believe 
 that women are such liars as men say ; only that I mean 
 they often see things round the corner, and know not which 
 is which of it. And indeed I never have known a woman 
 (though right enough in their meaning) purely and perfectly 
 true and transparent, except only my Lorna ; and even so, I 
 might not have loved her, if she had been ugly. 
 
 "Why, how so?" said I; ".Miss Annie, what business 
 have you here, doing nothing at this time of night ? And 
 leaving me with all the trouble to entertain our guests ! " 
 
ANNIE CELS THE ISKSf OF IT. 247 
 
 " Vou seem not to me to be doing it, John," Annie an- 
 swered softly ; " wliai business liave you liere doing notliing 
 at this time of night ? " 
 
 I was talcen so aback with this, and the extreme imperti- 
 nence of it, from a mere young girl like Annie, that I turned 
 round to march away and have nothing more to say to her. 
 But she jumped up, and caught me by the hand, and threw 
 herself upon my bosom, with her face all wet with tears. 
 
 " Oh John, I will tell you. I will tell you. Only don't 
 be angry, John." 
 
 " Angry ! no indeed," said I ; " what right have I to be 
 angry with you, because you have your secrets ? Every chit 
 of a girl thinks now that she has a right to her secrets." 
 
 " And you have none of your own, John ; of course you 
 have none of your own ? All your going out at night" 
 
 '' We will not quarrel here, poor Annie," I answered, with 
 some loftiness ; " there are many things upon my mind, 
 which girls can have no notion of." 
 
 " And so there are upon mine, John. Oh John, I will 
 tell you every thing, if you will look at me kindly, and 
 promise to forgive me. Oii, I am so miserable ! " 
 
 Now this, though she was behaving so badly, moved me 
 much towards her, especially as I longed to know what she 
 had to tell me. Therefore I allowed her to coax me, anil 
 to kiss me, and to lead me away a little, as far as the old 
 )'ew-tree ; for she would not tell me where she was. 
 
 But even in the shadow there, she was very long before 
 beginning, and seemed to have two minds about it, or rather 
 perhaps a dozen ; and she laid her cheek against the tree, 
 and sobbed till it was pitiful ; and I knew what mother 
 would say to her for spoiling her best frock so. 
 
 " Now will you stop ? " I said at last, harder than I meant 
 it ; for I knew that she would go on all night, if any 
 one encouraged her ; and though not well acquainted with 
 women, I understood my sisters ; or else I must be a born 
 fool — except of course that I never professed to understand 
 Eliza. 
 
 " Yes, I will stop," said Annie, panting ; " you are very 
 hard on me, John ; but I know you mean it for the best. 
 If somebody else — I am sure I don't know who, and have 
 no right to know, no doubt, but she must be a wicked thing 
 — if somebody else had been taken so with a pain all round 
 the heart, John, and no power of telhng it, perhaps you 
 would have coaxed, and kissed her, and come a little nearer, 
 and made opportunity to be very loving." 
 
248 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Now this was so exactly what I had tried to do to Lorna, 
 that my breath was almost taken away at Annie's so describ- 
 ing it. For a while I could not say a word, but wondered 
 if she were a witch, which had never been in our family ; 
 and then, all of a sudden, I saw the way to beat her, with 
 the devil at my elbow. 
 
 "From your knowledge of these things, Annie, you must 
 have had them done to you. I demand to know this very 
 moment who has taken such liberties." 
 
 " Then, John, you shall never know, if you ask in that 
 manner. Besides, it was no liberty in the least at all. 
 Cousins have a right to do things — and when they are one's 
 godfather" Here Annie stopped quite suddenly, hav- 
 ing so betrayed herself, but met me in the full moonlight, 
 being resolved to face it out, with a good face put upon it. 
 
 "Alas, I feared it would come to this," I answered very 
 sadly ; " I know he has been here many a time, without 
 showing himself to me. There is nothing meaner than for 
 a man to sneak, and steal a young maid's heart, without her 
 people knowing it." 
 
 " You are not doing any thing of that sort yourself, then, 
 dear John, are you ? " 
 
 " Onl}' a common highwayman!" I answered, without 
 heeding her ; " a man without an acre of his own, and liable 
 to hang upon any common, and no other right of common 
 over it " 
 
 "John," said my sister, "are the Doones privileged not 
 to be hanged upon common land ? " 
 
 At this I was so thunderstruck, that I 
 leaped in the air like a shot rabbit, and 
 rushed as hard as I could through the gate 
 and across the yard, and back into the 
 kitchen ; and there I asked Farmer Nicho- 
 las Snowe to give me some tobacco, and to lend me a spare 
 pipe. 
 
 This he did with a grateful manner, being now some five- 
 fourths gone ; and so I smoked the very first pipe that ever 
 had entered my lips till then ; and beyond a doubt it did 
 me good, and spread my heart at leisure. 
 
 Meanwhile the reapers were mostly gone, to be up betimes 
 in the morning ; and some were led by their wives ; and 
 some had to lead their wives themselves ; according to the 
 capacity of man and wife respectively. But Betty was as 
 lively as ever, bustling about with every one, and looking 
 out for the chance of groats, which the better off might be 
 
AXNIE GETS THE BEST OK IT. 249 
 
 free with. And over the kneedin,L,^-pan, next day she dropped 
 three and si.\pence out of licr pocket ; and Lizzie could not 
 tell for her life how much more might have been in it. 
 
 Now by the time I had almost finished smoking that pipe 
 of tubaccii, and wondering at myself for having so despised 
 it hitherto, and making up my mind to have another trial 
 to-morrow night, it began to occur to me that although dear 
 Annie had behaved so very badly and rudely, and almost 
 taken my breath away with the suddenness of her allusion, 
 yet it was not kind of me to leave her out there at that time 
 of night, all alone, and in such distress. Any of the reapers 
 going home might be gotten so far beyond fear of ghosts as 
 to venture into the churchyard ; and although they would 
 know a great deal better than to insult a sister of mine 
 when sober, there was no telling what they might do in 
 their present state of rejoicing. Moreover, it was only right 
 that I should learn, for Lorna's sake, how far Annie or any 
 one else had penetrated our secret. 
 
 Therefore I went forth at once, bearing my pipe in a 
 skilful manner, as I had seen Farmer Nicholas do ; and 
 marking, with a new kind of pleasure, how the rings and 
 wreaths of smoke hovered and fluttered in the moonlight, 
 like a lark upon his carol. Poor Annie was gone back 
 again to our father's grave, and there she sat upon the 
 turf, sobbing very gently, and not wishing to trouble any 
 one. So I raised her tenderly, and made much of her, and 
 consoled her, for I could not scold her there ; and perhaps 
 after all she was not to be blamed so much as Tom Faggus 
 himself was. Annie was very grateful to me, and kissed me 
 many times, and begged my pardon ever so often for her 
 rudeness to me. And then having gone so far with it, and 
 finding me so complaisant, she must needs try to go a little 
 further, and to lead me away from her own affairs, and into 
 mine concerning Lorna. But although it was clever enough 
 of her, she was not deep enough for me there ; and I soon 
 discovered that she knew nothing, not even the name of my 
 darling ; but only suspected from things she had seen, and 
 put together like a woman. Upon this I brought her back 
 again to Tom Faggus and his doings. 
 
 " My poor Annie, have you really promised him to be 
 his wife ?" 
 
 " Then, after all, you have no reason, John, no particular 
 reason I mean, for slighting poor Sally Snowe so ? " 
 
 " Without even asking mother or me ! Oh, Annie, it was 
 wrong of you ! " 
 
250 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " But, darling, you know that mother wishes you so much 
 to marry Sally ; and I am sure you could have her to-mor- 
 row. She dotes on the very ground " 
 
 " I dare say he tells you that, Annie, that he dotes on the 
 ground you walk upon — but did you believe him, child?" 
 
 " You may believe me, I assure you, John ; and half the 
 farm to be settled upon her, after the old man's time ; and 
 though she gives herself little airs, it is only done to entice 
 you ; she has the very best hand in the dairy, John, and the 
 lightest at a turn-over cake " 
 
 " Now, Annie, don't talk nonsense so. I wish just to 
 know the truth about you and Tom Faggus. Do you mean 
 to marry him ? " 
 
 " I to marry before my brother, and leave him with none 
 to take care of him ! \\'ho can do him a red deer collop, 
 except Sally herself, as I can ? Come home, dear, at once, 
 and I will do one for you ; for you never ate a morsel of 
 supper, with all the people you had to attend upon." 
 
 This was true enough ; and seeing no chance of any thing 
 more than cross-questions and crooked purposes, at which a 
 girl was sure to beat me, I even allowed her to lead me 
 home, with the thoughts of the collop uppermost. But I 
 never counted upon being beaten so thoroughly as I was ; 
 for knowing me now to be off my guard, the young hussy 
 stopped at the farmyard gate, as if with a briar entangling 
 her, and while I was stooping to take it away, she looked 
 me full in the face by the moonlight, and jerked out quite 
 suddenly : 
 
 " Can your love do a collop, John ? " 
 
 " No, I should hope not," I answered rashly ; " she is not 
 a mere cook-maid I should hope." 
 
 " She is not half so pretty as Sally Snowe, I will answer 
 for that," said Annie. 
 
 " She is ten thousand times as pretty as ten thousand 
 Sally Snowes," I replied, with great indignation. 
 
 " Oh, but look at Sally's eyes ! " cried my sister rapturously. 
 
 " Look at Lorna Doone's," said I ; " and you would never 
 look again at Sally's." 
 
 " Oh, Lorna Doone, Lorna Doone ! " exclaimed our An- 
 nie, half-frightened, yet clapping her hands with triumph, 
 at having found me out so. " Lorna Doone is the lovely 
 maiden who has stolen poor some body's heart so. Ah, I 
 shall remember it, because it is so queer a name. But stop, 
 I had better write it down. Lend me your hat, poor boy, 
 to write on." 
 
ANNIE GETS THE BEST OF IT. 25 1 
 
 " I have a great mind to lend you a box on the ear," I 
 answered her in my vexation; "and I would, if you had 
 not been crying so, you sly, good-for-nothing baggage. As 
 it is, I shall keep it for Master Faggus, and add interest for 
 keeping." 
 
 "Oh no, John ; oh no, John," she begged me earnestly, 
 being sobered in a moment. " \'our hand is so terribly 
 heavy, John ; and he never would forgive you ; although 
 he is so good-hearted, he cannot put up with an insult. 
 Promise me, dear John, that you will not strike him, and I 
 will promise you faithfully to keep your secret, even from 
 mother, and even from Cousin Tom himself." 
 
 " And from Lizzie ; most of all, from Lizzie," I answered, 
 very eagerly, knowing too well which one of my family 
 would be hardest with me. 
 
 "Of course from little Lizzie," said Annie with some con- 
 tempt ; " a young thing like her cannot be kept too long, in 
 my opinion, from the knowledge of such subjects. And 
 besides, I should be very sorry if Lizzie had the right to 
 know your secrets, as I have, dearest John. Not a soul shall 
 be the wiser for your having trusted me, John ; although 
 I shall be very wretched when you are late away at night, 
 among those dreadful people." 
 
 "Well," I replied, "it is no use crying over spilt milk, 
 Annie. Vou have my secret, and I have yours ; and I 
 scarcely know which of the tw(.) is likely to have the worst 
 time of it when it comes to mother's ears. I could put 
 up with perpetual scolding, but not with mother's sad 
 silence." 
 
 " That is exactly how I feel, John ; " and as Annie said it 
 she brightened up, and her soft eyes shone upon me ; " but 
 now I shall be much happier, dear, because I shall try to 
 help you. No doubt the young lady deserves it, John. She 
 is not after the farm, I hope ? " 
 
 " She ! " I exclaimed ; and that was enough ; there was 
 so much scorn in my voice and face. 
 
 " Then, I am sure, I am very glad ; " Annie always made 
 the best of things ; "for I do believe that Sally Snowe has 
 taken a fancy to our dairy-place, and the pattern of our 
 cream-pans ; and she asked so much about our meadows, 
 and the colour of the milk " 
 
 " Then, after all you were right, dear Annie ; it is the 
 ground she dotes upon ! " 
 
 " And the things that walk upon it," she answered me, 
 with another kiss : " Sally has taken a wonderful fancy to- 
 
252 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 our best cow, ' Nipple pins.' But she never shall have 
 her now ; what a consolation ! " 
 
 We entered the house quite gently thus, and found 
 Farmer Nicholas Snowe asleep, little dreaming how his 
 plans had been overset between us. And then Annie said 
 to me very slily, between a smile and a blush : 
 
 " Don't you wish Lorna Doone was here, John, in the 
 parlour along with mother, instead of those two fashion- 
 able milkmaids, as Uncle Ben will call them, and poor stu- 
 pid Mistress Kebby ? " 
 
 " That indeed I do, Annie. I must kiss you for only 
 thinking of it. Dear me, it seems as if you had known all 
 about us for a twelvemonth." 
 
 " She loves you, with all her heart, John. No doubt 
 about that, of course." And Annie looked up at me, as 
 much as to say she would like to know who could help it. 
 
 "That's the very thing she won't do," said I, knowing 
 that Annie would love me all the more for it ; "she is only 
 beginning to like me, Annie ; and as for loving, she is so 
 young that she only loves her grandfather. But I hope she 
 will come to it by-and-by." 
 
 " Of course she must," replied my sister ; " it will be im- 
 possible for her to help it." 
 
 " Ah, well ! I don't know ; " for I wanted more assurance 
 of it. " Maidens are such wondrous things ! " 
 
 " Not a bit of it," said Annie, casting her bright eyes 
 downwards ; " love is as simple as milking — when people 
 know how to do it. But you must not let her alone too 
 long ; that is my advice to you. What a simpleton j^ou 
 must have been not to tell me long ago ! I would have 
 made Lorna wild about you, long before this time, Johnny. 
 But now you go into the parlour, dear, while I do your 
 collop. Faith Snowe is not come, but Polly and Sally. 
 Sally has made up her mind to conquer you this very 
 blessed evening, John. Only look what a thing of a scarf 
 she has on ; I should be quite ashamed to wear it. But you 
 won't strike poor Tom, will you ? " 
 
 " Not I, my darling, for your sweet sake." 
 
 And so dear Annie, having grown quite brave, gave me a 
 little push into the parlour, where I was quite abashed to 
 enter, after all I had heard about Sally. And I made up 
 my mind to examine her well, and try a little courting with 
 her, if she should lead me on, that I might be in practice 
 for Lorna. But when I perceived how grandly and richly 
 both the young damsels were apparelled ; and how, in their 
 
ANNIE GKIS THK BEST OF IT. 
 
 25. 
 
 'i^^S&&^.^- 
 
 courtesies to me, they retreated, as if I were makinn- up to 
 them, in a way they had learned from Exeter ; and how they 
 began to talk of the Court, as if they had been there all 
 their lives, and the latest mode of the Duchess of this, and 
 the profile of the Countess of that, and the last good saying 
 of my Lord something ; instead of butter, and cream, and 
 eggs, and things which 
 they understood; I knew 
 there must be some body 
 in the room besides Jas- 
 per Kebby to talk at. 
 
 And so there was ; for 
 behind the curtain 
 drawn across the win- 
 dow-seat, no less a man 
 than Uncle Ben was 
 sitting half asleep and 
 wear)- ; and by his side 
 a little girl, very quiet 
 and ver)' watchful. My 
 mother led me to Uncle 
 Ben, and he took my 
 hand without rising, 
 muttering something 
 not over-polite, about my 
 being bigger than ever. 
 
 I asked him heartily how he was, and he said, " Well 
 enough, for that matter ; but none the better for the noise 
 you great clods have been making." 
 
 "I am sorry if we have disturbed you, sir," I answered 
 very civilly ; " but I knew not that you were here even ; 
 and you must allow for harvest time." 
 
 " So it seems," he replied ; " and allow a great deal, includ- 
 ing waste and drunkenness. Now (if you can see so small 
 a thing, after emptying flagons much larger) this is my 
 granddaughter, and my heiress" — here he glanced at 
 mother — "my heiress, little Ruth Huckaback." 
 
 " I am very glad to see you, Ruth," I answered, offering 
 her my hand, which she seemed afraid to take ; "welcome 
 to Plover's Barrows, my good cousin Ruth." 
 
 However, my good cousin Ruth only arose, and made me 
 a courtesy, and lifted her great brown eyes at me, more in 
 fear, as I thought, than kinship. And if ever any one looked 
 unlike the heiress to great property, it was the little girl 
 before me. 
 
254 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " Come out to the kitchen, dear, and let me chuck you to 
 the ceihng," I said, just to encourage her ; " I always do it 
 to httle girls ; and then they can see the hams and bacon." 
 But Uncle Reuben burst out laughing ; and Ruth turned 
 away with a deep rich colour. 
 
 " Do you know how old she is, you numskull !" said 
 Uncle Ben, in his dryest drawl ; " she was seventeen last 
 July, sir." 
 
 " On the first of July, grandfather," Ruth whispered, with 
 her back still to me ; " but many people will not believe it." 
 
 Here mother came up to my rescue, as she always loved 
 to do ; and she said, " If my son may not dance miss Ruth, 
 at any rate he may dance with her. We have only been 
 waiting for you, dear John, to have a little harvest dance, 
 with the kitchen door thrown open. You take Ruth ; Uncle 
 Ben take Sally ; Master Kebby pair off with Polly ; and 
 neighbour Nicholas will be good enough, if I can awake 
 him, to stand up with fair mistress Kebby. Lizzie will play 
 us the virginal. Won't you, Lizzie dear ? " 
 
 "But who is to dance with you, madam?" Uncle Ben 
 asked, very politely. " I think you must rearrange your 
 figure. I have not danced for a score of years, and I will 
 not dance now, while the mistress and the owner of the 
 harvest sits aside neglected." 
 
 " Nay, Master Huckaback," cried Sally Snowe, with a 
 saucy toss of her hair ; " Mistress Ridd is too kind a great 
 deal, in handing you over to me. You take her, and I will 
 fetch Annie to be my partner this evening. I like dancing 
 very much better with girls, for they never squeeze and 
 rumple one. Oh, it is so much nicer ! " 
 
 " Have no fear for me, my dears," our mother answered 
 smiling ; " Parson Bowden promised to come back again ; I 
 e.vpect him every minute ; and he intends to lead me off, 
 and to bring a partner for Annie, too, a very pretty young 
 gentleman. Now begin ; and I will join you." 
 
 There was no disobeying her, without rudeness ; and in- 
 deed the girls' feet were already jigging ; and Lizzie giving 
 herself wonderful airs with a roll of learned music ; and 
 even while Annie was doing my collop her pretty round 
 instep was arching itself, as I could see from the parlour 
 door. So I took little Ruth, and I spun her around as the 
 sound of the music came lively and ringing ; and after us 
 came all the rest with much laughter, begging me not to 
 jump over her ; and anon my grave partner began to smile 
 sweetly, and look up at me with the brightest of eyes, and 
 
AXXIE GETS THE liEST UF IT. 255 
 
 drop me the prettiest courtesies, till I thought what a great 
 stupe I must have been to dream of putting her in the cheese- 
 rack. But one thing I could not at all understand : wh\- 
 mother, who used to do all in her power to throw me across 
 Sally Snowe, should now do the very opposite; for she 
 would not allow me one moment with Sally, not even to 
 cross in the dance, or whisper, or go anywhere near a cor- 
 ner (which, as I said, 1 intended to do, just b>' way of prac- 
 tice), while she kept me, all the evening, as close as 
 possible with Ruth Huckaback, and came up and praised 
 me so to Ruth, times and again, that I declare I was quite 
 ashamed, although, of course, I knew that I deserved it all, 
 but I could not well say that. 
 
 Then Annie came sailing down the dance, with her beau- 
 tiful hair flowing round her ; the lightest figure in all the 
 room, and the sweetest, and the loveliest. She was blush- 
 ing, with her fair cheeks red beneath her dear blue eyes, as 
 she met my glance of surprise and grief at the partner she 
 was leaning on. It was Squire iVIarwood de Whichehalse. 
 I would sooner have seen her with Tom Faggus, as indeed 
 I had expected, when I heard of Parson liowden. And to 
 me it seemed that she had no right to be dancing so with 
 any other ; and to this effect I contrived to whisper; but 
 she only said, " See to yourself, John. No, but let us both 
 enjoy ourselves. You are not dancing with I.orna, John. 
 But vou seem uncommonly happy." 
 
 " Tush," I said ; "could I flip about so if I had my Iovl- 
 with me ? " 
 
CHAPTER XXXI. 
 
 JOHN FRY S ERRAND. 
 
 E kept up the dance very late that 
 night, mother being in such won- 
 derful spirits that she would not 
 hear of our going to bed, while 
 she glanced from young Squire 
 Marwood, very deep in his talk 
 with our Annie, to me and Ruth 
 Huckaback, who were beginning 
 to be very pleasant company. 
 Alas, poor mother, so proud as 
 she was, how little she dreamed 
 that her good schemes already 
 were hopelessly going awry ! 
 
 Being forced to be up before 
 daylight next day, in order to be- 
 gin right early, I would not go to 
 my bed-room that night for fear 
 of disturbing my mother, but de- 
 termined to sleep in the tallat 
 awhile, that place being cool, and airy, and refreshing with 
 the smell of sweet hay. Moreover, after my dwelling in 
 town, where I had felt like a horse on a lime-kiln, I could 
 not for a length of time have enough of country life. The 
 mooing of a calf was music, and the chuckle of a fowl was 
 wit, and the snore of the horses was news to me. 
 
 "AVult have thee own wai, I rackon," said Betty, being 
 cross with sleepiness, for she had washed up every thing ; 
 " slape in hog-pound, if thee laikes, Jan." 
 
 Letting her have the last word of it (as is the due of 
 women) I stood in the court and wondered awhile at the 
 glory of the harvest moon, and the yellow world it shone 
 upon. Then I saw, as sure as I was standing there in 
 the shadow of the stable, I saw a short, wide figure glide 
 across the foot of the courtyard between me and the six- 
 barred gate. Instead of running after it, as I should have 
 
JOHN FRY S ERRAND. 257 
 
 done, I began to consider who it cnidd be, and what on 
 earth it was doing there, when all our people were in bed, 
 and the reapers gone home or to the linhay close against 
 the wheatfield. 
 
 Having made up my mind at last that it could be none 
 of our people — though not a dog was barking — and also 
 that it must have been either a girl or a woman, I ran down 
 with all speed to learn what might be the meaning of it. 
 But I came too late to learn, through my own hesitation, 
 for this was the lower end of the courtyard, not the ap- 
 proach from the parish highway, but the end of the sledd- 
 wav across the fields where the brook goes down to the 
 Lynn stream, and where Squire Faggus had saved the old 
 drake. And here the dry channel of the brook, being 
 scarcely any water now, afforded plenty of place to hide, 
 leading also to a little coppice beyond our cabbage-garden, 
 and so further on to the parish highway. 
 
 I saw at once that it was vain to make any pursuit by 
 moonlight, and resolving to hold mv own counsel about it 
 (though puzzled not a little) and to keep watch there an- 
 other night, back I returned to the tallat-ladder, and slept 
 without leaving off till morning. 
 
 Now, many people may wish to know, as, indeed, I my- 
 self did very greatly, what had brought Master Huckaback 
 over from Dulverton at that time of year, when the clothing 
 business was most active on account of harvest was^^es, and 
 when the new wheat was beginning to sample from the 
 early parts up the country (for he meddled as well in corn- 
 dealing) and when we could not attend to him properly by 
 reason of our occupation. And yet more surprising, it 
 seemed to me, that he should have brought his grand- 
 daughter, also, instead of the troop of dragoons, without 
 which he had vowed he would never come here again. 
 And how he had managed to enter the house, together with 
 his granddaughter, and to be sitting quite at home in the 
 parlour there, without any knowledge or even suspicion on 
 my part. That last question was easily solved, for mother 
 herself had admitted them by means of the little passage 
 during a chorus of the harvest-song, which might have 
 drowned an earthquake ; but as for his meaning and mo- 
 tive, and apparent neglect of his business, none but himself 
 could interpret them, and as he did not see fit to do so, we 
 could not be rude enough to inquire. 
 
 He seemed in no hurry to take his departure, though his 
 visit was so inconvenient to us, as himself, indeed, must 
 
258 LORNA DUONE. 
 
 have noticed, and presently Lizzie, who was the sharpest 
 among us, said in my hearing that she believed he had pur- 
 posely timed his visit so that he might have liberty to 
 pursue his own object, whatsoever it were, without inter- 
 ruption from us. iVIother gazed hard upon Lizzie at this, 
 having formed a very different opinion, but Annie and my- 
 self agreed that it was worth looking into. 
 
 Now, how could we look into it without watching Uncle 
 Reuben whenever he went abroad, and trying to catch him 
 in his speech when he was taking his ease at night ? For, 
 in spite of all the disgust with which he had spoken of har- 
 vest wassailing, there was not a man coming into our 
 kitchen who liked it better than he did, only in a quiet way, 
 and without too many witnesses. Now, to endeavour to 
 get at the purpose of any guest, even a treacherous one 
 (which we had no right to think Uncle Reuben), by means 
 of observing him in his cups, is a thing which even the 
 lowest of people would regard with abhorrence. And to 
 my mind it was not clear whether it would be fair play at 
 all to follow a visitor, even at a distance from home and 
 clear of our premises, except for the purpose of fetching 
 him back and giving him more to go on with. Neverthe- 
 less, we could not but think, the times being wild and dis- 
 jointed, that Uncle Ben was not using fairly the part of a 
 guest in our house to make long expeditions, we knew not 
 whither, and involve us in trouble, we knew not what. 
 
 For his mode was, directly after breakfast, to pray to the 
 Lord a little (which used not to be his practice), and then 
 to go forth upon Dolly, the which was our Annie's pony, 
 very quiet and respectful, with a bag of good victuals hung 
 behind him, and two great cavalry pistols in front. And 
 he always wore his meanest clothes, as if expecting to be 
 robbed, or to disarm the temptation thereto, and he never 
 took his golden chronometer, neither his bag of money. 
 So much the girls found out and told me (for I was never 
 at home myself by day), and they very craftily spurred me 
 on, having less noble ideas, perhaps, to hit upon Uncle 
 Reuben's track and follow and see what became of him. 
 For he never returned until dark or more, just in time to 
 be in before us, who were coming home from the harvest. 
 And then Dolly always seemed very weary, and stained 
 with a muck from beyond our parish. 
 
 But I refused to follow him, not only for the loss of a 
 day's work to myself, and at least half a day to the other 
 men, but chiefly because I could not think that it would be 
 
JOHN FRY S ERRAND. 259 
 
 Upright and manly. It was all very well to creep warily 
 into the valley of the Doones, and heed every thing around 
 me, both because they were public enemies, and also be- 
 cause I risked my life at every step I took there. But as 
 to tracking a feeble old man (however subtle he might be), 
 a guest, moreover, of our own, and a relative through my 
 mother — "Once for all," I said, "it is below me, and I 
 won't do it." 
 
 Thereupon, the girls, knowing my way, ceased to tor- 
 ment me about it, but what was my astonishment the very 
 next day to perceive that instead of fourteen reapers, we 
 were only thirteen left, directly our breakfast was done with 
 — or mowers, rather, I should say, for we were gone into 
 the barley now. 
 
 "Who has been and left his scythe?" I asked; "and 
 here's a tin cup never handled ! " 
 
 " ^Vhoy, dudn't 'ee knaw, Maister Jan," said Bill Dadds, 
 looking at me queerly, " as Jan Vry wur gane avore brax- 
 vass?" 
 
 " Oh, very well," I answered, "John knows what he is 
 doing." For John Fry was a kind of foreman now, and it 
 would not do to say any thing that might lessen his au- 
 thority. However, 1 made up my mind to rope him when 
 I should catch him by himself, without peril to his dignity. 
 
 But when I came home in the evening, late and almost 
 weary, there was no Annie cooking my supper, nor Lizzie 
 by the fire reading, nor even little Ruth Huckaback watch- 
 ing the shadows and pondering. Upon this I went to the 
 girls' room, not in the very best of tempers, and there I 
 found all three of them in the little place set apart for 
 Annie, eagerly listening to John Fry, who was telling some 
 great adventure. John had a great jug of ale beside him, 
 and a horn well drained, and he clearly looked upon him- 
 self as a hero, and the maids seemed to be of the same 
 opinion. 
 
 "Well done, John," my sister was saying, "capitally 
 done, John Fry! How very brave you have been, John! 
 Now, quick, let us hear the rest of it ! " 
 
 " \\'hat does all this nonsense mean?" I said, in a voice 
 which frightened them, as I could see by the light of our 
 own mutton candles ; " John Fry, you be off to your wife 
 at once, or you shall have what I owe you now instead of 
 to-morrow morning." 
 
 John made no answer, but scratched his head and looked 
 at the maidens to take his part. 
 
26o LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " It is you that must be off, I think," said Lizzie, looking 
 straight at me with all the impudence in the world ; " what 
 right have you to come in here to the young ladies' room 
 without an invitation even?" 
 
 " Very well. Miss Lizzie, I suppose mother has some 
 right here." And with that I was going away to fetch her, 
 knowing that she always took my side, and never would 
 allow the house to be turned upside down in that manner. 
 But Annie caught hold of me by the arm, and little Ruth 
 stood in the doorway, and Lizzie said, " Don't be a fool, 
 John. We know things of you, you know — a great deal 
 more than you dream of." 
 
 Upon this I glanced at Annie to learn whether she had 
 been telling, but her pure true face reassured me at once, 
 and then she said very gently : 
 
 " Lizzie, you talk too fast, my child. No one knows any 
 thing of our John which he need be ashamed of ; and 
 working, as he does, from light to dusk, and earning the 
 living of all of us, he is entitled to choose his own good 
 time for going out and for coming in without consulting a 
 little girl five years younger than himself. Now, John, sit 
 down, and you shall know all that we have done, though I 
 doubt whether you will approve of it." 
 
 Upon this I kissed Annie, and so did Ruth, and John 
 Fry looked a deal more comfortable, but Lizzie only made 
 a face at us. Then Annie began as follows : 
 
 " You must know, dear John, that we have been ex- 
 tremely curious, ever since Uncle Reuben came, to know 
 what he was come for, especially at this time of year, when 
 he is at his busiest. He never vouchsafed any explanation, 
 neither gave any reason, true or false, which shows his 
 entire ignorance of all feminine nature. If Ruth had 
 known, and refused to tell us, we should have been much 
 easier, because we must have got it out of Ruth before two 
 or three days were over. But darling Ruth knew no more 
 than we did, and, indeed, 1 must do her the justice to say 
 that she has been quite as inquisitive. A\'ell, we might 
 have put up with it if it had not been for his taking Dolly, 
 my own pet Dolly, away every morning quite as if she be- 
 longed to him, and keeping her out until close upon dark, 
 and then bringing her home in a frightful condition. And 
 he even had the impudence, when I told him that Dolly 
 was my pony, to say that we owed him a pony ever since 
 you took from him that little horse upon which you found 
 him strapped so snugly, and he means to take Dolly to 
 
JOHN fry's errand. 261 
 
 Dulverton with him to run in his little cart. If there is 
 law in the land he shall not. Surely, John, you will not 
 let him ?" 
 
 " That I won't," said I, " except upon the conditions 
 which I offered him once before. If we owe him the pony, 
 we owe him the straps." 
 
 Sweet Annie laughed like a bell at this, and then she 
 went on with her story : 
 
 " Well, John, we were perfectly miserable. You cannot 
 understand it, of course ; but I used to go every evening 
 and hug poor Dolly, and kiss her, and beg her to tell me 
 where she had been and what she had seen that day. But 
 never having belonged to Balaam, darling Dolly was quite 
 unsuccessful, though often she strove to tell me, with her 
 ears down and both eyes rolling. Then I made John Fry 
 tie her tail in a knot with a piece of white ribbon, as if for 
 adornment, that I might trace her among the hills, at any 
 rate for a mile or two. But Uncle Ben was too deep for 
 that ; he cut off the ribbon before he started, saving he 
 would have no Doones after him. And then in despair I 
 applied to you, knowing how quick of foot you are, and I 
 got Ruth and Lizzie to help me ; but you answered us very 
 shortly, and a very poor supper you had that night, accord- 
 ing to your deserts. 
 
 " But though we were dashed to the ground for a time, 
 we were not wholly discomfited. Our determination to 
 know all about it seemed to increase with the difficulty. 
 And Uncle Ben's manner last night was so dry when we 
 tried to romp and to lead him out that it was much worse 
 than Jamaica ginger grated into a poor sprayed finger. So 
 we sent him to bed at the earliest moment, and held a 
 small council upon him. If you remember, you, John, 
 having now taken to smoke (which is a hateful practice), 
 had gone forth grumbling about your bad supper, and not 
 taking it as a good lesson." 
 
 " Why, Aunie," I cried in amazement at this, " I will never 
 trust you again for a supper. I thought you were so sorry." 
 
 "And so I was, dear ; very sorry. But still, we must do 
 our duty. And when we came to consider it, Ruth was 
 the cleverest of us all, for she said that surely we must have 
 some man we could trust, about the farm, to go on a little 
 errand, and then I remembered that old John Fry would do 
 any thing for money." 
 
 " Not for money, plaize, miss," said John Fry, taking a 
 pull at the beer, "but for the love o' your swate faice." 
 
262 LORNA DOOiNE. 
 
 " To be sure, John ; with the King's behind it. And so 
 Lizzie ran for John Fry at once, and we gave him direc- 
 tions how he was to slip out of the barley in the confusion 
 of the breakfast, so that none might miss him, and to run 
 back to the black combe bottom, and there he would find 
 the very same pony which Uncle Ben had been tied upon, 
 and there is no faster upon the farm. And then, without 
 waiting for any breakfast, unless he could eat it either 
 running or trotting, he was to travel all up the black 
 combe by the track Uncle Reuben had taken, and up at 
 the top to look forward carefully, and so to trace him with- 
 out being seen." 
 
 "Ay, and raight wuU a doo'd un," John cried, with his 
 mouth in the bullock's horn. 
 
 "Well, and what did you see, John?" I asked, with great 
 anxiety, though I meant to have shown no interest. 
 
 " John was just at the very point of it," Lizzie answered 
 me, sharply, "when you chose to come in and stop him." 
 
 " Then let him begin again," said I ; " things being gone 
 so far it is now my duty to know every thing, for the sake 
 of YOU girls and mother." 
 
 " Hem ! " cried Lizzie, in a nasty way ; but I took no 
 notice of her, for she was always bad to deal with. There- 
 fore John Fry began again, being heartily glad to do so, 
 that his story might get out of the tumble which all our 
 talk had made in it. But as he could not tell a tale in the 
 manner of my Lorna (although he told it very well for 
 those who understood him), I will take it from his mouth 
 altogether, and state in brief what happened. 
 
 When John, upon his forest pony, which he had much 
 ado to hold (its mouth being like a bucket), was come 
 to the top of the long black combe, two miles or more 
 from Plover's Barrows, and winding to the southward, he 
 stopped his little nag short of the crest, and got off, and 
 looked ahead of him from behind a tump of whortles. 
 It was a long, flat sweep of moorland over which he 
 was gazing, with a few bogs here and there, and brushy 
 places round them. Of course, John Fry, from his shep- 
 herd life and reclaiming of strayed cattle, knew as well as 
 need be where he was, and the spread of the hills before 
 him, although it was beyond our beat, or rather, I should 
 say, beside it. Not but what we might have grazed there, 
 had it been our pleasure, but that it was not worth our 
 while, and scarcely worth Jasper Kebby's even, all the 
 land being cropped (as one might say) with desolation. 
 
JOHN FRV'S EKRANI). 263 
 
 And nearly all our kndwieilLjx- of it sprang from the 
 unaccountable tricks of cows who have young calves with 
 them, at which time they have wild desire to get away 
 from the sight of man, and keep calf and milk for one 
 another, although it be in a barren land. At least, our 
 cows have gotten this trick, and I have heard other people 
 complain of it. 
 
 John Fry, as I said, knew the place well enough, but he 
 liked it none the more for that, neither did any of our peo- 
 ple, and, indeed, all the neighbourhood of 'liiomshill and 
 Larksborough, and most of all Black Barrow Down lay un- 
 der grave imputation of having been enchanted with a very 
 evil spell. Moreover, it was known, though folk were loth 
 to speak of it, even on a summer morning, that Squire 
 Thom, who had been murdered there a century ago or 
 more, had been seen by several shepherds, even in the mid- 
 dle day, walking with his severed head carried in his left 
 hand, and his right arm lifted towards the sun. 
 
 Therefore it was very bold in John (as I acknowledged) 
 to venture across that moor alone, even with a fast pony 
 under him, and some whiskey by his side. And he would 
 never have done so (of that I am quite certain), either for 
 the sake of Annie's sweet face, or of the golden Ljuinea 
 which the three maidens had subscribed to reward his skill 
 and valour, but the truth was that he could not resist his 
 own great curiosity. For, carefully sp\ ing across tlu- moor 
 from behind the tuft of whortles, at first he could discover 
 nothing having life and motion, except three or four wild 
 cattle roving in vain search for nourishment, and a dis- 
 eased sheep banished hither, and some carrion crows keep- 
 ing watch on her. But when John was taking his very last 
 look, being only too glad to go home again and acknowl- 
 edge himself baffled, he thought he saw a figure moving in 
 the furthest distance upon Black Barrow Down, scarcely a 
 thing to be sure of yet, on account of the want of colour. 
 But, as he watched, the figure passed between him and a 
 naked cliff, and appeared to be a man on horseback, mak- 
 ing his way very carefully in fear of bogs and serpents. 
 For all about there it is adders' ground, and large black 
 serpents dwell in the marshes, and can swim as well as 
 crawl. 
 
 John knew that the man who was riding there could 
 be none but Uncle Reuben, for none of the Doones ever 
 passed that way, and the shepherds were afraid of it. And 
 now it seemed an unkid place for an unarmed man to 
 
264 LORiXA DUONE. 
 
 venture through, especially after an armed one who might 
 not like to be spied upon, and must have some dark object 
 in visiting such drear solitudes. Nevertheless, John Fry 
 so ached with unbearable curiosity to know what an old 
 man, and a stranger, and a rich man, and a peaceable, could 
 possibly be after in that mysterious manner. Moreover, 
 John so throbbed with hope to find some wealthy secret that, 
 come what would of it, he resolved to go to the end of the 
 matter. 
 
 Therefore he only waited awhile, for fear of being dis- 
 covered, till Master Huckaback turned to the left, and en- 
 tered a little gully, whence he could not survey the moor. 
 Then John remounted, and crossed the rough land and 
 the stony places, and picked his way among the morasses as 
 fast as ever he dared to go, until, in about half an hour, he 
 drew nigh the entrance of the gully. And now it behooved 
 him to be most wary, for Uncle Ben might have stopped 
 in there, either to rest his horse or having reached the end 
 of his journey. And in either case, John had little doubt 
 that he himself would be pistolled, and nothing more ever 
 heard of him. Therefore he made his pony come to the 
 mouth of it sideways, and leaned over, and peered in around 
 the rocky corner, while the little horse cropped at the briars. 
 
 But he soon perceived that the gully was empty, so far at 
 least as its course was straight ; and with that he hastened 
 into it, though his heart was not working easily. When 
 he had traced the winding hollow for half a mile or more, 
 he saw that it forked, and one part led to the left up a steep 
 red bank, and the other to the right, being narrow, and 
 slightly tending downwards. Some yellow sand lay here 
 and there between the starving grasses, and this he ex- 
 amined narrowly for a trace of Master Huckaback. 
 
 At last he saw that, beyond all doubt, the man he was pur- 
 suing had taken the course which led down hill ; and down 
 the hill he must follow him. And this John did with deep 
 misgivings, and a hearty wish that he had never started 
 upon so perilous an errand. For now he knew not where 
 he was, and scarcely dared to ask himself, having heard of 
 a horrible hole, somewhere in this neighbourhood, called the 
 " Wizard's Slough." Therefore John rode down the slope 
 with sorrow and great caution. And these grew more as 
 he went onward, and his pony reared against him, being 
 scared, although a native of the roughest moorland. And 
 John had just made up his mind that God meant this for 
 a warning, as the passage seemed darker and deeper, when 
 
JOHN fry's errand. 265 
 
 suddenly he turned a corner and saw a scene which stopped 
 him. 
 
 For there was the \\'izartrs Slough itself, as black as 
 death, and bubbling, with a few scant yellow reeds in a ring 
 around it. Outside these, bright watergrass of the liveliest 
 green was creeping, tempting any unwary foot U> step, and 
 plunge and founder. And on the marge were blue cam- 
 panula, sundew and forget-me-not, such as no child ci.mld 
 resist. On either side, the hill fell back, and the ground 
 was broken with tufts of rush, and flag, and marestail, and 
 a few rough alder-trees overclogged with water. And not 
 a bird was seen or heard, neither rail nor water-hen, wag- 
 tail nor reed-warbler. 
 
 Of this horrible quagmire, the worst upon all Exmoor, 
 John had heard from his grandfather, and even from his 
 mother, when they wanted to keep him quiet ; but his 
 father had feared to speak of it to him, being a man of 
 piety, and up to the tricks of the evil one. This made John 
 the more desirous to have a good look at it now, onlv with 
 his girths well up, to turn away and flee at speed, if any 
 thing should happen. And now he pro\ed how well it is to 
 be wary and wide-awake, even in lonesome places. For at 
 the other side of the Slough, and a few landyards beyond 
 it, where the ground was less noisome, he had observed a 
 felled tree lying over a great hole in the earth, with staves 
 of wood, and slabs of stone, and some yellow gravel around 
 it. But the flags of reeds around the morass partly screened 
 it from his eyes, and he could not make out the meaning of 
 it, except that it meant no good, and probably was witch- 
 craft. Yet Dolly seemed not to be harmed by it ; for there 
 she was, as large as life, tied to a stump not far beyond, and 
 flipping the flies away with her tail. 
 
 While John was trembling within himself lest Dolly 
 should get scent of his pony, and neigh and reveal their 
 presence, although she could not see them, suddenly to his 
 great amazement something white arose out of the hole, 
 under the brown trunk of the tree. Seeing this his blood 
 went back within him ; yet was he not able to turn and flee, 
 but rooted his face in among the loose stones, and kept his 
 quivering shoulders back, and prayed to God to protect 
 him. However, the white thing itself was not so very awful, 
 being nothing more than a long-coned night-cap with a 
 tassel on the top, such as criminals wear at hanging-time. 
 But when John saw a man's face under it, and a man's 
 neck and shoulders slowly rising out of the pit, he could 
 
266 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 not doubt that this was the place where the murderers come 
 to Hfe again, according to the Exmoor story. He knew 
 that a man had been hanged last week, and that this was 
 the ninth day after it. 
 
 Therefore he could bear no more, thoroughly brave as he 
 had been ; neither did he wait to see what became of the 
 gallows-man ; but climbed on his horse with what speed he 
 might, and rode away at full gallop. Neither did he dare go 
 back by the way he came, fearing to face Black Barrow 
 Down. Therefore he struck up the other track leading 
 away towards Cloven Rocks, and after riding hard for an 
 hour and drinking all his whiskey, he luckily fell in with a 
 shepherd, who led him on to a public-house somewhere 
 near Exeford. And here he was so unmanned, the excite- 
 ment being over, that nothing less than a gallon of ale and 
 half a gammon of bacon, brought him to his right mind 
 again. And he took good care to be home before dark, 
 having followed a well-known sheep-track. 
 
 When John Fry had finished his story at last, after many 
 exclamations from Annie, and from Lizzie, and much praise 
 of his gallantry, yet some little disappointment that he had 
 not stayed there a little longer, while he was about it, so as 
 to be able to tell us more, I said to him very sternly : 
 
 " Now, John, you have dreamed half this, my man. I 
 firmly believe that you fell asleep at the top of the black 
 combe, after drinking all your whiskey, and never went on 
 the moor at all. You know what a liar you are, John." 
 
 The girls were exceedingly angry at this, and laid their 
 hands before my mouth ; but I waited for John to answer, 
 with my eyes fixed upon him steadfastly. 
 
 " Bain't for me to denai," said John, looking at me very 
 honestly, "but what a maight tull a lai now and awhiles, 
 zame as other men doth, and most of arl them as spaks 
 again it ; but this here be no lai, Maister Jan. I wush to 
 God it wor, boy; a maight slape this naight the better." 
 
 " I believe you speak the truth, John ; and I ask your 
 pardon. Now not a word to any one about this strange 
 affair. There is mischief brewing, I can see ; and it is my 
 place to attend to it. Several things come across me now — 
 only I will not tell you." 
 
 They were not at all contented with this ; but I would 
 give them no better, except to say, when they plagued me 
 greatly, and vowed to sleep at my door all night : 
 
 " Now, my dears, this is foolish of \'0u. Too much of this 
 matter is known already. It is for your own dear sakes 
 
JOHN FRY S ERRAND. 
 
 267 
 
 that I am bound to be cautious. I have an opinion of my 
 own, but it niav be a very wronL;' one ; I will not ask )'0U 
 to share it with me, neither will I make you inquisitive." 
 
 Annie pouted, and Lizzie frowned, and Ruth looked at 
 me with her eyes wide' open, but no other mark of re-^ard- 
 ing me. And I saw that if any one of the three (for John 
 Fry was gone home with the trembles) could be trusted to 
 keep a secret, that one was Ruth Huckaback. 
 
CHAPTER XXXII. 
 
 FEEDING OF THE PIGS. 
 
 HE Story told by John Fry that 
 night, and my conviction of its 
 truth, made me very uneasv, espe- 
 cially as following upon the warn- 
 ing of Judge Jeffreys, and the 
 hints received from Jeremy Stick- 
 les, and the outburst of the tanner 
 at Dunster, as well as sundry tales 
 and rumours, and signs of secret 
 understanding, seen and heard on 
 market-days, and at places of en- 
 tertainment. We knew for certain 
 that at Taunton, Bridgwater and 
 even Dulverton, there was much 
 disaffection towards the King, and 
 regret for the days of the Puritans. 
 Albeit I had told the truth, and the 
 pure and simple truth, when, upon 
 
 ' ~ my examination, I had assured his 
 
 lordship that, to the best of my 
 knowledge, there was nothing of the sort with us. 
 
 But now I was beginning to doubt whether I might not 
 have been mistaken, especially when we heard, as we did, 
 of arms being landed at Lynmouth, in the dead of the 
 night, and of the tramp of men having reached some one's 
 ears, from a hill where a famous echo was. For it must 
 be plain to any conspirator (without the example of the 
 Doones) that for the secret muster of men, and the stowing 
 of unlawful arms, and communication b}' beacon lights, 
 scarcely a fitter place could be found than the wilds of 
 Exmoor, with deep ravines running far inland from an un- 
 watched and mostly a sheltered sea. For the channel from 
 Countisbury Foreland up to Minehead, or even further, 
 though rocky, and gusty, and full of currents, is safe from 
 great rollers and the sweeping power of the south-west 
 
FEEDING OK THE PIGS. 269 
 
 Storms, which abound with us more than all the others, and 
 make sad work on the opposite coast. 
 
 But even supposing it probable that something against 
 King Charles the Second (or rather against his Roman ad- 
 visers, and especially his brother) were now in preparation 
 amongst us, was it likely that Master Huckaback, a wealthy 
 man, and a careful one, known moreover to the Lord Chief 
 Justice, would have anything to do with it ? To this I could 
 make no answer ; Uncle iJen was so close a man, so avari- 
 cious, and so revengeful, that it was quite impossible to say 
 what course he might pursue, without knowing all the 
 chances of gain, or rise, or satisfaction to him. That he 
 hated the Papists I knew full well, though he never spoke 
 much about them ; also that he had followed the march of 
 Oliver Cromwell's army, but more as a suttler (people said) 
 than as a real soldier ; and that he would go a long way, 
 and risk a great deal of money to have his revenge on the 
 Doones, although their name never passed his lips, during 
 the present visit. 
 
 But how was it likely to be as to the Doones themselves ? 
 AVhich side would they probably take in the coming move- 
 ment, if movement, indeed, it would be? So far as they had 
 any religion at all, by birth they were Roman Catholics — so 
 much I knew from Lorna ; and indeed it was well known all 
 around that a priest had been fetched more than once to the 
 valley to soothe some poor outlaw's departure. On the other 
 hand they were not likely to entertain much affection for the 
 son of the man who had banished them and confiscated their 
 property. And it was not at all impossible that desperate 
 men, such as they were, having nothing to lose, but estates 
 to recover, and not being held by religion much, should cast 
 away all regard for the birth from which they had been cast 
 out, and make common cause with a Protestant rising for 
 the chance of revenge and replacement. 
 
 However I do not mean to say that all these things oc- 
 curred to me as clearly as I have set them down ; only that 
 I was in general doubt, and very sad perplexity. For 
 mother was so warm, and innocent, and so kind to every 
 one, that knowing some little by this time of the English 
 constitution, I feared very greatly lest she should be pun- 
 ished for harbouring malcontents. As well as possible I 
 knew that if any poor man came to our door, and cried, 
 " Officers are after me ; for God's sake take and hide me," 
 mother would take him in at once, and conceal, and feed 
 him, even though he had been very violent ; and, to tell 
 
270 LORNA D(JOXE. 
 
 the truth, so would both my sisters, and so, indeed, would I 
 do. Whence it will be clear that we were not the sort of 
 people to be safe among disturbances. 
 
 Before I could quite make up my mind how to act in this 
 difficulty, and how to get at the rights of it (for I would not 
 spy after Uncle Reuben, though I felt no great fear of the 
 Wizard's Slough, and none of the man with white night-cap), 
 a difference came again upon it, and a change of chances. 
 For Uncle Ben went away as suddenly as he first had come 
 to us, giving no reason for his departure, neither claiming 
 the pony, and indeed leaving something behind him of 
 great value to my mother. For he begged her to see to his 
 young granddaughter, until he could find opportunity of 
 fetching her safely to Dulverton. Mother was overjoyed 
 at this, as she could not help displaying ; and Ruth was 
 quite as much delighted, although she durst not show it. 
 For at Dulverton she had to watch and keep such ward on 
 the victuals, and the in and out of the shopmen, that it went 
 entirely against her heart, and she never could enjoy herself. 
 Truly she was an altered maiden from the day she came to 
 us, catching our unsuspicious manners, and our free good- 
 will, and hearty noise of laughing. 
 
 By this time, the harvest being done, and the thatching 
 of the ricks made sure against south-western tempests, and 
 all the reapers being gone, with good money and thankful- 
 ness, I began to burn in spirit for the sight of Lorna. I had 
 begged my sister Annie to let Sally Snowe know, once for 
 all, that it was not in my power to have any thing more to 
 do with her. Of course our Annie was not to grieve Sally, 
 neither to let it appear for a moment that I suspected her 
 kind views upon me, and her strong regard for our dairy, 
 only I thought it right upon our part, not to waste Sally's 
 time any longer, being a handsome wench as she was, and 
 many young fellows glad to marry her. 
 
 And Annie did this uncommonly well, as she herself told 
 me afterwards, having taken Sally in the sweetest manner 
 into her pure confidence, and opened half her bosom to her, 
 about my very sad love affair. Not that she let Sally know, 
 of course, who it was, or what it was ; only that she made 
 her understand, without hinting at any desire of it, that 
 there was no chance now of having me. Sally changed 
 colour a little at this, and then went on about a red cow 
 which had passed seven needles at milking time. 
 
 Inasmuch as there are two sorts of month well recognized 
 by the calendar, to wit, the lunar and the solar, I made bold 
 
FEEDING OF THE PIGS 
 
 THATCHING OF THE RICKS. 
 
 to regard both my months, in the absence of any provision, 
 as intended to be strictly lunar. Therefore upon the very 
 day when the eight weeks were expiring, forth I went in 
 search of Lorna, taking the pearl ring hopefully, and all the 
 new-laid eggs I could find, and a dozen and a half of small 
 
272 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 trout from our brook. And the pleasure it gave me to 
 catch those trout, thinking as every one came forth and 
 danced upon the grass, how much she would enjoy him, is 
 more than I can now describe, although I well remember it. 
 And it struck me that, after accepting my ring, and saying 
 how much she loved me, it was possible that my sweet 
 might invite me even to stay and sup with her ; and so I 
 arranged with dear Annie beforehand, who now was the 
 greatest comfort to me, to account for my absence if I 
 should be late. 
 
 But alas, I was utterly disappointed ; for although I 
 waited and waited for hours, with an equal amount both of 
 patience and peril, no Lorna ever appeared at all, nor even 
 the faintest sign of her. And another thing occurred as 
 well, which vexed me more than it need have done, for so 
 small a matter. And this was that my little offering of the 
 trout and the new-laid eggs, was carried off in the coolest 
 manner by that vile Carver Doone. For thinking to keep 
 them the fresher and nicer, away from so much handling, I 
 laid them in a little bed of reeds by the side of the water, 
 and placed some dog-leaves over them. And when I had 
 quite forgotten about them, and was watching from my 
 hiding-place beneath the willow-tree (for I liked not to 
 enter Lorna's bower without her permission, except just 
 to peep that she was not there), and while I was turning the 
 ring in my pocket, having just seen the new moon, I be- 
 came aware of a great man coming leisurely down the valley. 
 He had" a broad-brimmed hat, and a leather jerkin, and 
 heavy jack boots to his middle thigh, and what was worst 
 of all for me, on his shoulder he bore a long carbine. Hav- 
 ing nothing to meet him withal but my staff, and desiring to 
 avoid disturbance, I retired promptly into the chasm, keep- 
 ing the tree betwixt us, that he might not descry me, and 
 watching from behind the jut of a rock, where now I had 
 scraped myself a neat little hole for the purpose. 
 
 Presently the great man reappeared, being now within 
 fifty yards of me, and the light still good enough, as he drew 
 nearer, for me to descry his features ; and though I am not 
 a judge of men's faces, there was something in his which 
 turned me cold, as though with a kind of horror. Not that 
 it was an ugly face ; nay, rather it seemed a handsome one, 
 so far as mere form and line might go, full of strength, and 
 vigour, and will, and steadfast resolution. From the short 
 black hair above the broad forehead, to the long black beard 
 descending below the curt bold chin, there was not any 
 
FEKDINd OF Tllli PICS. 27 
 
 O 
 
 curve t>r glimpse of weakness, or of afterthought. Nothing 
 playful, nothing pleasant, nothing with a track for smiles; 
 nothing which a friend could like, and laugh at him for 
 having. And yet he might have been a good man (for I 
 have known very good men so fortified by their own strange 
 ideas of t'.od) ; I say that he might have seemed a good 
 man, but for the cold and cruel hankering of his steel-blue 
 eves. 
 
 Now let no one suppose for a minute that I saw all this 
 in a moment, for I am very slow, and take a long time to 
 digest things, only I like to set down, and have done with 
 it, all the results of my knowledge, though they be not 
 manifold. But what I said to myself just then was no more 
 than this : " What a fellow to have Lorna ! " Havmg my 
 sense of right so outraged (although, of course, I would 
 never allow her to go so far as that), I almost longed that 
 he might thrust his head in to look after me. For there I 
 was, with mv ash staff clubbed, ready to have at him, and 
 not ill inclined to do so; if only he would come where 
 strength, not fire-arms, must decide it. However, he sus- 
 pected nothing of my dangerous neighbourhood ; but 
 walked his round like a sentinel, and turned at the brink 
 of the water. 
 
 Then as he marched back again, along the margin of the 
 stream, he espied my little hoard, covered up with dog- 
 leaves. He saw that the leaves were upside down, and this 
 of course drew his attention. I saw him stoop, and lay bare 
 the fish, and the eggs set a little way from them ; and in my 
 simple heart I thought that now he knew all about me. But 
 to my surprise, he seemed well-pleased ; and his harsh short 
 laughter came to me without echo : 
 
 "Ha, ha! Charlie Bov ! Fisherman Charlie, have I 
 caught thee setting bait for Lorna? Now I understand thy 
 fishings, and the robbing of Counsellor's hen roost. May 
 I never have good roasting if I have it not to-night, and 
 roast thee, Charlie, afterwards ! " 
 
 With this he calmly packed up my fish, and all the best 
 of dear ,\nnie's eggs, and went away chuckling steadfastly, 
 to his home, if one may call it so. But I was so thoroughly 
 grieved and stung, by this most impudent robbery, that I 
 started forth from my rocky screen with the intention of 
 pursuing him, until my better sense arrested me, barely in 
 time to escape his eyes. For I said to myself, that even 
 supposing I could contend unarmed with him, it would be 
 the greatest folly in the world to have my secret access 
 
74 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 known, and perhaps a fatal barrier placed between Lorna 
 and myself, and I knew not what trouble brought upon her, 
 all for the sake of a few eggs and fishes. It was better to 
 bear this trifling loss, however ignominious and goading to 
 the spirit, than to risk my love and Lorna's welfare, and 
 perhaps be shot into the bargain. And I think that all will 
 
 
 
 
 "ha, ha ! CHARL[E BUY 
 
 agree with me, that I acted for the wisest, in withdrawing 
 t(i my shelter though deprived of egys and fishes. 
 
 Having waited (as I said) until there was no chance what- 
 ever of my love appearing, I hastened homeward very sadly ; 
 and the wind of early autumn moaned across the moorland. 
 All the beauty of the harvest, all the gaiety was gone, and 
 the early fall of dusk was like a weight upon me. Never- 
 theless, I went ever\' evening thenceforward for a fortnight ; 
 hoping, every time in vain, to find my hope and comfort. 
 And meanwhile, what perplexed me most was that the signals 
 were replaced, in order as agreed upon, so that Lorna could 
 scarcely be restrained by any rigour. 
 
 One time I had a narrow chance of being shot and settled 
 
FEEDING OF THE I'lGS. 275 
 
 with ; and it befell me thus : I was waiting very carelessly, 
 being now a little desperate, at the entrance to the glen, in- 
 stead of watching through my sight-hole, as the proper 
 practice was. Suddenly a ball went by me, with a whizz 
 and whistle, passing through my hat, and sweeping it away 
 all folded up. My soft hat fluttered far down the stream, 
 before I had time to go after it, and with the help of both 
 wind and water, was fifty yards gone in a moment. At this 
 I had just enough mind left to shrink back very suddenly, 
 and lurk very still and closely, for I knew what a narrow 
 escape it had been, as I heard the bullet, hard set by the 
 powder, sing mournfully down the chasm, like a drone ban- 
 ished out of the hive. And as I peered through my little 
 cranny I saw a wreath of smoke still floating, where the 
 thickness was of the withy-bed, and presently Carver Doone 
 came forth, having stopped to reload his piece, perhaps, and 
 ran very swiftly to the entrance, to see what he had shot. 
 
 Sore trouble had I to keep close quarters, from the slip- 
 periness of the stone beneath me, with the water sliding 
 over it. My foe came quite to the verge of the fall, where 
 the river began to comb over ; and there he stopped for a 
 minute or two, on the utmost edge of dr)- land, upon the 
 very spot indeed where I had fallen senseless, when I clomb 
 it in my boyhood. I could hear him breathing hard and 
 grunting, as in doubt and discontent, for he stood within a 
 yard of me, and I kept my right fist readv for him, if he 
 should discover me. Then at the foot of the waterslide my 
 black hat suddenly appeared, tossing in white foam and 
 fluttering like a raven wounded. Now I had doubted which 
 hat to take, when I left home that day, till I thought that 
 the black became me best, and might seem kinder to Lorna. 
 
 " Have I killed thee, old bird, at last ? " my enemy cried 
 in triumph ; " 'tis the third time I have shot at thee, and 
 thou wast beginning to mock me. No more of thy cursed 
 croaking now, to wake me in the morning. Ha, ha ! there 
 are not many who get three chances from Carver Doone ; 
 and none ever go beyond it." 
 
 I laughed within myself at this, as he strode away in his 
 triumph, for was not this his third chance of me, and he no 
 whit the wiser ? And then I thought that perhaps the 
 chance might some day be on the other side. 
 
 For to tell the truth, I was heartily tired of lurking and 
 playing bopeep so long, to which nothing could have rec- 
 onciled me, except my fear for Lorna. And here I saw was 
 a man of strength fit for me to encounter, such as I had 
 
276 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 never met, but would be glad to meet with, having found 
 no man of late who needed not my mercy at wrestling or at 
 single-stick. And growing more and more uneasy, as I 
 found no Lorna, I would have tried to force the Doone 
 Glen from the upper end, and take my chance of getting 
 back, but for Annie and her prayers. 
 
 Now, that same night, I think it was, or at any rate the 
 next one, that I noticed Betty Muxworthy going on most 
 strangely. She made the queerest signs to me, when nobody 
 was looking, and laid her fingers on her lips, and pointed 
 over her shoulder. But I took little heed of her, being in a 
 kind of dudgeon, and oppressed with evil luck, believing, 
 too, that all she wanted was to have some little grumble 
 about some petty grievance. 
 
 But presently she poked me with the heel of a fire-bundle, 
 and passing close to my ear whispered, so that none else 
 could hear her, " Larna Doo-un." 
 
 By these words I was so startled that I turned round and 
 stared at her, but she pretended not to know it, and began 
 with all her might to scour an empty crock with a besom. 
 
 " Oh, Betty, let me help you ! That work is much too 
 hard for you," I cried with a sudden chivalry, which only 
 won rude answer. 
 
 " Zeed me adooing of thic every naight last ten year, Jan, 
 wiout vindin' out how hard it wor. But if zo bee thee wants 
 to help, carr pegs' bucket for me. Massy, if I ain't forgot- 
 ten to fade the pegs till now." 
 
 Favouring me with another wink, to which now I paid 
 the keenest heed, Betty went and fetched the lanthorn 
 from the hook inside the door. Then when she had kindled 
 it, not allowing me any time to ask what she was after, she 
 went outside and pointed to the great bock of wash, and 
 riddlings, and brown hulkage (for we ground our own corn 
 always), and though she knew that Bill Dadds and Jem 
 Slocomb had full work to carry it on a pole (with another'to 
 help to sling it), she said to me as quietly as a maiden might 
 ask one to carry a glove, " Jan Ridd, carr thic thing for me." 
 
 So I carried it for her without any words, wondering 
 what she was up to next, and whether she had ever heard of 
 being too hard on the willing horse. And when we came 
 to hog-pound, she turned upon me suddenly with the lan- 
 thorn she was bearing, and saw that I had the bock by one 
 hand very easily. 
 
 " Jan Ridd," she said, " there be no other man in England 
 cud a'dood it. Now thee shalt have Larna." 
 
FEEDING OF TME PICS. 
 
 277 
 
 While I was wondering how my chance of having Lorna 
 could depend upon my power to carry pig's-wash, and how 
 Betty could have any voice in the matter (which seemed to 
 depend upon her decision), and in short, while 1 was all 
 abroad as to her knowledge and every thing, the pigs, who 
 had been fast asleep and dreaming in their emptiness, awoke 
 with one accord at the goodness of the smell around them. 
 They had resigned themselves, as even pigs do, to a kind 
 
 THE PIGS. 
 
 of fast, hoping to break their fast more sweetly on the mor- 
 row morning. But now they tumbled out all headlong, pigs 
 below and pigs above, pigs point-blank and pigs across, pigs 
 courant and pigs rampant, but all alike prepared to eat, and 
 all in good cadence squeaking. 
 
 "Tak smarl boocket, and bale un out ; wad 'e waste sich 
 stoof as thic here be ? " So Betty set me to feed the pigs, 
 while she held the lanthorn ; and knowing what she was, I 
 saw that she would not tell me another word until all the 
 pigs were served. And in truth no man could well look at 
 them and delay to serve them, they were all e.xpressing appe- 
 tite in so forcible a manner, some running to and fro, and 
 rubbing, and squealing as if from starvation, some rushing 
 down to the oaken troughs, and poking each other away 
 from them ; and the kindest of all putting up their fore-feet 
 on the top rail of the hog-pound, and blinking their little 
 eyes, and grunting prettily to coax us, as who should say, 
 
278 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 " I trust you now ; you will be kind, I know, and give me 
 the first and the very best of it." 
 
 "Oppen ge-at now, wull 'e, Jan? Maind, young sow 
 wi' the baible back arlway hath first toorn of it, 'cos I 
 brought her up on my lap, I did. Zuck, zuck, zuck ! 
 How her sticketh her tail up ; do me good to zee un ! 
 Now thiccy trough, thee zany, and tak thee girt legs out 
 o' the wai. Wish they wud gie thee a good baite, mak thee 
 hop a bit vaster, I reckon. Hit that there girt ozebird 
 over's back wi' the broomsfick, he be robbing of my young 
 zow. Choog, choog, choog ! and a drap more left in the 
 dipping-pail." 
 
 " Come now, Betty,'' I said, when all the pigs were at it, 
 sucking, swilling, munching, guzzling, thrusting, and oust- 
 ing, and spilling the food upon the backs of their brethren 
 (as great men do with their charity), "come now, Betty, how 
 much longer am I to wait for your message ? Surely I am 
 as good as a pig." 
 
 " Dunno as thee be, Jan. No strakiness in thy bakkon. 
 And now I come to think of it, Jan, thee zed a wake agone 
 last A'riday, as how I had got a girt be-ard. ^\'ull 'e stick 
 to that now, Maister Jan ? " 
 
 " No, no, Betty, certainly not ; I made a mistake about it. 
 I should have said a becoming mustachio, such as you may 
 well be proud of." 
 
 " Then thee be a laiar, Jan Ridd. Zay so, laike a man, 
 lad." 
 
 " Not exactly that, Betty ; but I made a great mistake, 
 and I humbly ask your pardon ; and if such a thing as a 
 crown piece, Betty " 
 
 " No fai, no fai ! " said Betty, however she put it into 
 her pocket ; " now, tak my advice, Jan ; thee marry Zally 
 Snowe." 
 
 " Not with all England for her dowry. Oh Betty, you 
 know better." 
 
 " Ah's me ! I know much worse, Jan. Break thy poor 
 mother's heart it will. And to think of arl the dannger ! 
 Dost love Larna now so much ? " 
 
 " With all the strength of my heart and soul. I will have 
 her or I will die, Betty." 
 
 " \\'ull. Thee will die in aither case. But it baint for 
 me to argify. And do her love thee too, Jan ?" 
 
 " I hope she does, Betty. I hope she does. What do 
 you think about it ? " 
 
 " Ah, then I may hold my tongue to it. Knaw what boys 
 
FEEDINC OK THE I'lCS. 279 
 
 and maidens be, as well as I knaw )'()Ling pegs. I myzell 
 been o' that zort one taime, every bit sn well as you be." 
 And Bettv held the lanthorn up, and defied me to deny 
 it ; and the liL;"ht through the horn showed a gleam in her 
 eyes such as 1 had never seen there before. " No odds, no 
 odds about that," she contmued ; " mak' a fool of myzell to 
 spake of it. Arl gone into churchyard. But it be a lucky 
 foolery for thee, my boy, I can tuU 'e. For I love to see 
 the love in thee, Coom'th over me as the spring do, though 
 I be naigh threescore. Now, Jan, I -will tell thee one thing, 
 can't abear to zee thee vretting so. Hould thee head down, 
 same as they pegs do." 
 
 So I bent my head quite close to her ; and she whispered 
 in my car, "Goo of a marning, thee girt soft. Her can't 
 get out of an avening now, her hath zent word to me, to 
 tull 'e." 
 
 In the glory of my dehght at this, I bestowed upon Betty 
 a chaste salute, with all the pigs for witnesses ; and she took 
 it not amiss, considering how long she had been out of prac- 
 tice. But she fell back then, like a broom on its handle, 
 and stared at me, feigning anger. 
 
 " Oh fai, oh fai ! Lunnon impudence, I doubt. I vear 
 thee hast gone on zadly, Jan." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIII. 
 
 AN EARLY MORNING CALL. 
 
 F course, I was up the very next 
 
 O morning before the October sun- 
 
 rise, and away through the wild 
 and the woodland towards the 
 Bagworthy water, at the foot of 
 the long cascade. The rising of 
 the sun was noble in the cold and 
 warmth of it ; peeping down the 
 spread of light, he raised his 
 shoulder heavily over the edge 
 of grey mountain and wavering 
 length of upland. Beneath his 
 gaze the dew-fogs dipped, and 
 crept to the hollow places, then 
 stole away in line and column, 
 holding skirts and clinging subtly 
 at the sheltering corners, where 
 rock hung over grass-land, while 
 the brave lines of the hills came 
 forth, one beyond other gliding. 
 Then the woods arose in folds, like drapery of awakened 
 mountains, stately with a depth of awe and memory of the tem- 
 pests. Autumn's mellow hand was on them, as they owned 
 already, touched with gold, and red, and olive, and their joy 
 towards the sun was less to a bridegroom than a father. 
 
 Yet before the floating impress of the woods could clear 
 itself, suddenly the gladsome light leaped over hill and 
 valley, casting amber, blue, and purple, and a tint of rich 
 red rose, according to the scene they lit on, and the curtain 
 flung around ; yet all alike dispelling fear and the cloven 
 hoof of darkness, all on the wings of hope advancing, and 
 proclaiming, "God is here." Then life and jo}' sprang 
 reassured from every crouching hollow ; every flower, and 
 bud, and bird had a fluttering sense of them, and all the 
 flashing of God's gaze merged into soft beneficence. 
 

 - '>4 . 
 
 ^ t 
 
 •«!^5.»V ,\^ 
 
 
 
 AUTUMN S MELIJ3\V HAND WAS ON THEM. 
 
282 LORNA DOL)\E. 
 
 So, perhaps, shall break upon us that eternal morninj;, 
 when crag and cliasm shall be no more, neither hill and 
 valley, nor great uiivintaged ocean ; when glory shall nt)t 
 scare happiness, neither happiness envv glory, but all 
 things shall arise and shine in the light of the Father's 
 countenance, because itself is risen. 
 
 Who maketh His sun to rise upon both the just and the 
 unjust. ,\nd siirelv, but for the saving clause, Doone (ilen 
 had been in darkness. Nti\v, as 1 stood with scant v breath 
 — for few men could have won that climb — at the top of 
 the long defile, and the bottom of the mountain gorge, all 
 of myself, and the pain of it, and the cark of my discontent 
 fell awav into wonder and rapture. For I cannot help see- 
 ing things now and then, slow-witted as I have a right to 
 be, and perhaps because it comes so rareh', the sight dwells 
 with me like a picture. 
 
 The bar of rock, with the water-cleft breaking steeply 
 through it, stood bold, and bare, and dark in shadow, urev 
 with red gullies down it. But the sun was beginning to 
 glisten over the comb of the eastern highland, and through 
 an archway of the wood hung with old nests and ivy. The 
 lines of many a leaning tree were thrown from the cliffs of 
 the foreland down upon the sparkling grass at the foot of 
 the western crags. .\nd through the dewy meadow's 
 breast, fringed with shade, but touched on one side with 
 the sun-smile, ran the crystal water, curving in its brightness 
 like diverted hope. 
 
 On either bank, the blatles of grass, making their last 
 autumn growth, pricked their spears and crisped their tuft- 
 ings with the pearh' purity. The tenderness of their green 
 appeared under the glaucous mantle, while that grey suffu- 
 sion, which is the blush of green life, S|:)read its damask 
 chastity. Even then my soul was lifted, worried though my 
 mind was. Who can see such large, kind tloings and not 
 be ashamed of selfish grief? 
 
 Not only unashamed of grief, but much abashed with joy 
 was I when I saw my Lorna coming, purer than the morn- 
 ing dew, than the sun more bright and clear. That which 
 made me love her so, that which lifted m\' heart to her as 
 the spring wind lifts the clouds, was the ga)-ness of her 
 nature and its inborn playfulness. i\nd yet all this with 
 maiden shame, a conscit)us dream of things unknown, and 
 a sense of fate about them. 
 
 Down the valley still she came, not witting that I looked 
 at her, having ceased (through my own misprision) to 
 
"AT LAST, THEN, VOQ ARE COME, JOHN. 
 
284 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 expect me yet awhile, or, at least, she told herself so. In 
 the joy of awakened life and brightness of the morning she 
 had cast all care away, and seemed to float upon the sunrise 
 like a buoyant silver wave. Suddenly, at sight of me, for I 
 leaped forth at once in fear of seeming to watch her un- 
 awares, the bloom upon her cheeks was deepened, and the 
 radiance of her eyes, and she came to meet me gladly. 
 
 "At last, then, you are come, John. I thought you had 
 forgotten me. I could not make you understand — they 
 have kept me prisoner every evening ; but come into my 
 house, you are in danger here." 
 
 Meanwhile I could not answer, being overcome with joy, 
 but followed to her little grotto, where I had been twice be- 
 fore. I knew that the crowning moment of my life was 
 coming — that Lorna would own her love for me. 
 
 She made for awhile as if she dreamed not of the mean- 
 ing of my gaze, but tried to speak of other things, faltering 
 now and then, and mantling with a richer damask below 
 her long eyelashes. 
 
 " This is not what I came to know," I whispered, very 
 softly ; "you know what I am come to ask." 
 
 " If you are come on purpose to ask any thing, why do 
 you delay so ? " She turned away very bravely, but I saw 
 that her lips were trembling. 
 
 " I delay so long because I fear ; because my whole life 
 hangs in balance on a single word ; because what I have 
 near me now may never more be near me after, though 
 more than all the world, or than a thousand worlds, to me." 
 As I spoke these words of passion in a low, soft voice, 
 Lorna trembled more and more, but she made no answer, 
 neither yet looked up at me. 
 
 " I have loved you long and long," I pursued, being reck- 
 less now ; " when you were a little child, as a boy I wor- 
 shiped you ; then when I saw you a comely girl, as a strip- 
 ling I adored you ; now that you are a full-grown maiden, 
 all the rest I do, and more — I love you more than tongue 
 can tell, or heart can hold in silence. I have waited long 
 and long, and though I am so far below you, I can wait no 
 longer, but must have my answer." 
 
 " Vou have been very faithful, John," she murmured to 
 the fern and moss ; " I suppose I must reward you." 
 
 " That will not do for me," I said ; " I will not have 
 reluctant liking, nor assent for pity's sake, which only means 
 endurance. I must have all love or none ; I must have 
 your heart of hearts, even as you have mine, Lorna." 
 
AN EARLY MORNlNc; CAM,. 285 
 
 While I spoke she glanced up shyly through her flutter- 
 ing lashes to prolong my doubt one moment for her own 
 delicious pride. Then she opened wide upon me all the 
 glorious depth and softness of her loving eyes, and flung 
 both arms around my neck, and answered, with her heart 
 on mine : 
 
 " Darling, you have won it all. I shall never be my own 
 again. I am yours, my own one, for ever and for ever." 
 
 I am sure I know not what 1 did, or what I said there- 
 after, being overcome with transport by her words and at 
 her gaze. ()nly one thing I remember, when she raised 
 her bright lips to me like a child for me to kiss, such a 
 smile of sweet temptation met me through her flowing hair 
 that I almost forgot my manners, giving her no time to 
 breathe. 
 
 " That will do," said Lorna gently, but violently blush- 
 ing ; "for the present, that will do, John. And now re- 
 member one thing, dear : all the kindness is to be on mv 
 side, and you are to be very distant, as behoves to a young 
 maiden, except when I invite you. But you may kiss my 
 hand, John ; oh, yes, you may kiss my hand, yi.iu know. 
 Ah, to be sure ! I had forgotten ; how very stupid of me ! " 
 
 For bv this time I had taken one sweet hand and gazed 
 on it with the pride of all the world to think that such a 
 lovely thing was mine, and then I slipped my little ring 
 upon the wedding finger, and this time Lorna kept it, and 
 looked with fondness on its beauty, and clung to me with a 
 flood of tears. 
 
 " Every time you cry," said I, drawing her closer to me, 
 " I shall consider it an invitation not to be too distant. 
 There, now, none shall make you weep. Darling, you shall 
 sigh no more, but live in peace and happiness, with me to 
 guard and cherish you, and who shall dare to ve.\ you?" 
 But she drew a long, sad sigh, and looked at the ground 
 with the great tears rolling, and pressed one hand upon the 
 trouble of her pure young breast. 
 
 " It can never, never be," she murmured to herself alone ; 
 " Who am I to dream of it ? Something in my heart tells 
 me it can be so never, never." 
 
CHAPTER XXXIV. 
 
 TWO NEGATIVES MAKE AN AFFIRMATIVE. 
 
 HERE was, however, no possi- 
 bility of depressing me at such a 
 time. To be loved by Lorna, 
 the sweet, the pure, the playful 
 one, the fairest creature on God's 
 earth, and the most enchanting, 
 the lady of high birth and mind ; 
 that I, a mere clumsy, blunder- 
 ing yeoman, without wit, or 
 wealth, or lineage, should have 
 won that loving heart to be my 
 own for ever, was a thought no 
 fears could lessen and no chance 
 could steal from me. 
 
 Therefore, at her own en- 
 treaty taking a very quick adieu, 
 and by her own invitation an ex- 
 ceeding kind one, I hurried home 
 with deep exulting, yet some sad 
 misgivings, for Lorna had made 
 me promise now to tell my mother every thing, as, indeed, 
 I always meant to do when my suit should be gone too far 
 to stop. I knew, of course, that my dear mother would be 
 greatly moved and vexed, the heirship of Glen Doone not 
 being a very desirable dov^^er ; but, in spite of that, and all 
 disappointment as to little Ruth Huckaback, feeling my 
 mother s tenderness and deep affection to me, and forgiving 
 nature, I doubted not that before very long she would view 
 the matter as I did. Moreover, I felt that if once I could 
 get her only to look at I^orna, she would so love and glory 
 in her that I should obtain all praise and thanks, perchance 
 without deserving them. 
 
 Unluckily for my designs, who should be sitting down at 
 breakfast with my mother and the rest but Squire Faggus, 
 as every body now began to entitle him. I noticed some- 
 
IWO NKCATINKS AFAKE A\ AFKI KM ATI \E. 2S7 
 
 tiling' odd about him, sometiiing uncomfortable in his man- 
 ner, and a lack of that case and humour which hatl been 
 wont to distinguish him. He took his breakfast as it came, 
 without a single joke about it or iireference of this to that, 
 but with sly, st)ft looks at Annie, who seemed unable to sit 
 quiet or to look at any one steadfastly. I feared in my 
 heart what was coming on, and felt truly sorr\- for poor 
 mother. .Vfter breakfast it became my duty to see to the 
 jiloughino- of a barley-stubble ready for the sowing of 
 French grass, and I asked Tom Faggus to come with me, 
 but he refused, and 1 knew the reason. Being resolyed 
 to allow him fair field to himself, though with great dis- 
 pleasure that a man of such illegal repute should marry 
 into our family, which had always been counted so honest, 
 1 carried my dinner upon my back and spent the whole day 
 with the furrows. 
 
 When 1 returned .Squire Faggus was gone, which ap- 
 peared to me but a sorry sign, niasmuch as if mother had 
 taken kindly to him and to his intentions she would surely 
 haye made him remain awhile to celebrate the occasion. 
 And presently no doubt was left, for Lizzie came running 
 to meet me at the bottom of the wood-rick, and cried : 
 
 "Oh, John, there is such a business ! ^[other is in such 
 a state of mind, and .\nnie crying her eyes out! What do 
 you think? You never would guess, though I have sus- 
 pected it eyer so long." 
 
 " No need for me to guess,'' I replied, as though with 
 some indifference, because of her sclf-impnrtant air; "I 
 knew all about it long ago. You haye not been crymg 
 much, I see. I should like you better if you had." 
 
 "Why should I cry? I like Tom Faggus. He is the 
 only one I ever see with the spirit of a man." 
 
 This was a cut, of course, at me. Mr. Ivaggus had wnn 
 the good will of Lizzie by his hatred of the DuDnes, and 
 vows that if he could get a dozen men of any courage to 
 join him, he would pull their stronghold about their ears 
 without any more ado. This malice of his seemed strange 
 to me, as he had never suffered at their hands, so far, at 
 least, as I knew. Was it to be attributed to his jealousy of 
 outlaws who excelled him in his business? Xot being 
 good at repartee, I made no answer to Lizzie, having found 
 this course more irksome to her than the very best invec- 
 tive, and so we entered the house together, and mother 
 sent at once for me, while I was trying to console my dar- 
 ling sister Annie. 
 
288 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 " Oh, John, speak one good word for me ! " she cried, 
 with both hands laid in mine, and her tearful eyes looking 
 up at me. 
 
 " Not one, m\' pet, but a hundred," I answered, kindly 
 embracing her ; " have no fear, little sister, I am going to 
 make your case so bright, by comparison, I mean, that 
 mother will send for you in five minutes, and call you her 
 best, her most dutiful child, and praise Cousin Tom to the 
 skies, and send a man on horseback after him, and then 
 you will have a harder task to intercede for me, my dear." 
 
 " Oh, John, dear John, you won't tell her about Lorna — 
 oh, not to-day, dear." 
 
 " Yes, to-day, and at once, Annie. I want to have it 
 over and be done with it." 
 
 " Oh, but think of her, dear. I am sure she could not 
 bear it after this great shock already." 
 
 "She will bear it all the better," said I; "the one will 
 drive the other out. I know exactly what mother is. She 
 will be desperately savage first with you, and then with me, 
 and then for a very little while with both of us together, 
 and then she will put one against the other (in her mind, I 
 mean) and consider which was most to blame, and in 
 doing that she will be compelled to find the best in cither's 
 case, that it may beat the other ; and so, as the pleas come 
 before her mind, they will gain upon the charges, both of 
 us being her children, you know, and before very long 
 (particularly if we both keep out of the way) she will begin 
 to think that, after all, she has been a little too hasty, and 
 then she will remember how good we have always been to 
 her, and how like our father. Upon that she will think of 
 her own love-time, and sigh a good bit, and cry a little, 
 and then smile and send for both of us, and beg our par- 
 don, and call us her two darlings." 
 
 " Now, John, how on earth can 3'ou know all that?" ex- 
 claimed my sister, wiping her eyes, and gazing at me with 
 a stift, bright smile. "Who on earth can have told vou, 
 John ? People to call you stupid, indeed ! Why, I feel that 
 all you say is quite true, because you describe so exactly 
 what I should do myself; I mean — I mean if I had two 
 children who had behaved as we have done. But tell me, 
 darling John, how you learned all this." 
 
 " Never you mind," I replied, with a nod of some con- 
 ceit, I fear ; " I must be a fool if I did not know what 
 mother is by this time." 
 
 Now, inasmuch as the thing befell according to my 
 
TWO NECATIVKS MAKE AN AKKI KM AT] VE. 289 
 
 prediction, what need for me to dwell upon it after saying 
 how it would be? Moreover, I would retract to write down 
 what mother said about Lorna in her first surprise and trib- 
 ulation, not only because I was grieved by the gross injus- 
 tice of it, and frightened mother with her own words (re- 
 peated deeply after her), but rather because it is not well, 
 when people repent of hasty speech to enter it against them. 
 
 That is said to be the angels' business, and I doubt if they 
 can attend to it much without doing injury to themselves. 
 
 However, by the afternoon, when the sun began to go 
 down upon us, our mother sat on the garden bench with her 
 head on my great otter-skin waistcoat (which was water- 
 proof), and her right arm round our .Vnnie's waist, and 
 scarcely knowing which of us she ought to make the most 
 of, or which deserved most pity. Not that she had for- 
 given yet the rivals to her love — Tom Faggus, I mean, and 
 Lorna — but that she was beginning to think a little better 
 of them now, and a vast deal better of her own children. 
 
 And it helped her much in this regard that she was not 
 thinking half so well as usual of herself, or rather, of her 
 own judgment, for in good truth she had no self, only as it 
 came home to her by no very distant road, but by wav of 
 her children. A better mother never lived, and can I, after 
 searching all things, add another word to that? 
 
 And, indeed, poor Lizzie was not so very bad, but be- 
 haved (on the whole) verv well for her. She was much to 
 be pitied, poor thing, and great allowances made for her as 
 belonging to a well-grown family, and a very comely one, 
 and feeling her own shortcomings. This made her leap to 
 the other extreme, and reassert herself too much, endeav- 
 ouring to exalt the mind at the expense of the body, be- 
 cause she had the invisible one (so far as can be decided) 
 in better share than the visible. Not but what she had her 
 points, and very comely points of bod_\' — lovely eyes, to 
 wit, and very beautiful hands and feet (almost as good as 
 Lorna's), and a neck as white as snow, but Lizzie was not 
 gifted with our gait and port and bounding health. 
 
 Xow, while we sate on the garden bench, under the great 
 ash-tree, we left dear mother to take her own way and talk 
 at her own pleasure. Children almost always are more 
 wide-awake than their parents. The fathers and the moth- 
 ers laugh, but the young ones have the best of them. And 
 now both Annie knew, and I, that we had gotten the best 
 of mother, and, therefore, we let her lay down the law as if 
 we had been two dollies. 
 
290 
 
 LORNA DOUNE. 
 
 "Darling John," my mother said, "your case is a very 
 hard one. A young and very romantic girl — God send 
 that I be right in my charitable view of her — has met an 
 equally simple boy among great dangers and difficulties, 
 
 from which my son has saved 
 her at the risk of his life at 
 every step. Of course, she 
 became attached to him, 
 and looked up to him in 
 every way as a superior be- 
 ing " 
 
 "Come now, mother," I 
 said ; " if you only saw 
 Lorna you would look upon 
 
 me as the lowest dirt " 
 
 " No doubt I should," my 
 
 mother answered ; "and the 
 
 king, and queen, and all 
 
 the royal family. Well, this 
 
 poor angel, having made 
 
 up her mind to take com- 
 
 -^mm-- i.^ -J* passion on m)^ son when he 
 
 L^ had saved her life so many 
 
 times, persuades him to 
 
 marry her out of pure pity, 
 
 and throw his poor mother 
 
 And the saddest part of it all is this"- 
 
 
 AND NOW BOTH ANNIE K.XEW, AND I, THAT WE 
 HAD GOTTEN THE BEST OF MOTHER. 
 
 overboard. 
 
 "That my mother will never, never, never understand 
 the truth," said I. 
 
 "That is all I wish," she answered ; "just to get at the 
 simple truth from my own perception of it. John you are 
 very wise in kissing me, but perhaps you would not be so 
 wise in bringing Lorna for an afternoon, just to see what 
 she thinks of me. There is a good saddle of mutton now, 
 and there are some very good sausages left on the blue 
 dish with the anchor, Annie, from the last little sow we 
 killed." 
 
 "As if Lorna would eat sausages ! " said I, with appear- 
 ance of high contempt, though rejoicing all the while that 
 mother seemed to have her name so pat, and she pro- 
 nounced it in a manner which made my heart leap to my 
 ears. "Lorna to eat sausages ! " 
 
 " I don't see why she shouldn't," my mother answered 
 smiling ; "if she means to be a farmer's wife she must take 
 to farmer's ways, I think. What do you say, Annie ? 
 
TWO NKCATINES MAKE AN AFFIRMATIVE. 29I 
 
 " She will eat whatever John desires, I should hope," 
 said Annie, gravely, "particularly as I made them." 
 
 " Oh, that I could only get the chance of trying her ! " I 
 answered. " If you could once behold her, mother, you 
 would never let her go again. And she w(iLild love you 
 with all her heart, she is so good and gentle." 
 
 " That is a lucky thing for me ; " saying this my mother 
 wept, as she had been doing off and on when no one 
 seemed to look at her ; " otherwise, I suppose, John, she 
 would very soon turn me out of the farm, having )'<)u so 
 completely under her thumb as she seems to have. I see 
 now that my time is over. Lizzie and I will seek our for- 
 tunes. It is wiser so." 
 
 " Now, mother," I cried, " will you have the kindness 
 not to talk any nonsense ? Every thing belongs to you, 
 and so, I hope, your children do. And you, in turn, be- 
 long to us, as you have proved ever since — oh, ever since 
 we can remember. ' Why do you make Annie cry so ? Vou 
 ought to know better than that." 
 
 Mother upon this went over again all the things she had 
 said before ; how many times I know not, neither does it 
 matter. Only she seemed to enjoy it more, every time of 
 doing it. And then she said she was an old fool, and An- 
 nie (like a thorough girl) pulled her one grey hair out. 
 
c:hapter XXXV. 
 
 RUTH IS NOT LIKE LORNA. 
 
 LTHOUGH by our mother's re- 
 luctant consent a large part of 
 the obstacles between Annie and 
 her lover appeared to be re- 
 moved, on the other hand, Lorna 
 and myself gained little, except 
 as regarded comfort of mind and 
 some ease to the conscience. 
 Moreover, our chance of fre- 
 quent meetings and delightful 
 converse was much impaired, at 
 least for the present, because, 
 though mother was not aware of 
 my narrow escape from Carver 
 Doone, she made me promise 
 never to risk my life by needless 
 visits. And upon this point, 
 that is to say, the necessity of 
 the visit, she was well content, 
 as she said, to leave me to my own good sense and honour, 
 only begging me always to tell her of my intention before- 
 hand. This pledge, however, for her own sake, I declined 
 to give, knowing how wretched she would be during all the 
 time of my absence, and in that behalf I promised freely 
 that I would always give her a full account of my adventure 
 upon returning. 
 
 Now my mother, as might be expected, began at once to 
 cast about for some means of relieving me from all further 
 peril, and herself from great anxiety. She was full of plans 
 for fetching Lorna in some wonderful manner out of the 
 power of the Doones entirely, and into her own hands, 
 where she was to remain for at least a twelvemonth, learn- 
 ing all mother and Annie could teach her of dairy busi- 
 ness, and farm-house life, and the best mode of packing 
 butter. And all this arose from my happening to say. 
 
RUTH IS NOT LIKE LORNA. 293 
 
 without meaning any thing, how the [loor dear had longed 
 for quiet, and a Hfe of simplicity, and a rest awaj' from vio- 
 lence ! Bless thee, mother — now long in heaven, there is 
 no need to bless thee — but it often makes a dimness now 
 in my well-worn eyes when I think of thy loving kindness, 
 warmth, and romantic innocence. 
 
 As to stealing my beloved from that vile Glen Doone, 
 the deed itself was not impossible, nor beyond my daring, 
 but, in the first place, would she come, leaving her old 
 grandfather to die without her tendance ? And even if, 
 through fear of Carver and that wicked Counsellor, she 
 should consent to fly, would it be possible to keep her 
 without a regiment of soldiers? AVould not the Doones at 
 once ride forth to scour the country for their queen, and, 
 finding her (as they must do), burn our house, and murder 
 us, and carry her back triumphantly? 
 
 All this I laid before my mother, and to such effect that 
 she acknowledged with a sigh that nothing else remained 
 for me (in the present state of matters) except to keep a 
 careful watch upon Lorna from safe distance, observe the 
 policy of the Doones, and wait for a tide in their affairs. 
 Meanwhile I might even fall in love (as mother unwisely 
 hinted) with a certain more peaceful heiress, although of 
 inferior blood, who would be daily at my elbow. I am not 
 sure but what dear mother herself would have been disap- 
 pointed had I proved myself so fickle, and my disdain and 
 indignation at the mere suggestion did not so much dis- 
 please her, for she only smiled and answered : 
 
 " A\'ell, it is not for me to say ; God knows what is good 
 for us. Likings will not come to order, otherwise I should 
 not be where I am this day. And of one thing I am rather 
 glad : Uncle Reuben well deserves that his pet scheme 
 should miscarry. He who called my boy a coward, an 
 ignoble coward, because he would not join some crack- 
 brained plan against the valley which sheltered his beloved 
 one ! And all the time this dreadful ' coward ' risking his 
 life daily there, without a word to any one ! How glad I 
 am that you will not have, for all her miserable money, that 
 little dwarfish granddaughter of the insolent old miser 1 " 
 
 She turned, and by her side was standing poor Ruth 
 Huckaback herself, white and sad, and looking steadily at 
 my mother's face, which became as red as a plum, while 
 her breath deserted her. 
 
 " If you please, madam," said the little maiden, with her 
 large, calm eyes unwavering, " it is not my fault, but God 
 
294 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Almighty's, that I am a Httle dwarfish creature. I knew 
 not that you regarded me with so much contempt on that 
 account, neither have you told my grandfather, at least 
 within my hearing, that he was an insolent old miser. 
 When I return to 'Dulverton, which I trust to do to-morrow 
 
 (for it is too late to-day), 
 I shall be careful not to 
 tell him your opinion of 
 him, lest I should thwart 
 any schemes you may have 
 upon his property. I thank 
 you all for your kindness 
 to me, which has been very 
 great, far more than a lit- 
 tle dwarfish creature could, 
 for her own sake, expect. 
 I will only add, for your 
 further guidance, one more 
 little truth. It is by no 
 means certain that my 
 grandfather will settle any 
 of his miserable money 
 upon me. If I offend him, 
 as I would in a moment 
 for the sake of a brave and 
 straightforward man " — 
 here she gave me a glance 
 which I scarcely knew what to do with — ''my grandfather, 
 upright as he is, would leave me without a shilling. And 
 I often wish it were so. So many miseries come upon me 
 
 from the miserable money " • Here she broke down 
 
 and burst out crying, and ran away with a faint good-bye, 
 while we three looked at one another, and felt that we had 
 the worst of it. 
 
 " Impudent little dwarf ! " said my mother, recovering 
 her breath after ever so long. " Oh, John, how thankful 
 you ought to be ! What a life she would have led you ! " 
 "Well, I am sure!" said Annie, throwing her arms 
 around poor mother. " Who could have thought that little 
 atomy had such an outrageous spirit ! For my part, I 
 cannot think how she can have been sly enough to hide 
 it in that crafty manner that John might think her an 
 ■ angel ! " 
 
 "Well, for my part,'' I answered, laughing, "I never 
 admired Ruth Huckaback half, or a quarter so much. 
 
 Cr7C-?,_-'_ SHK TURXED, 
 
 AND 1-:y in-;R SIUE \v.l.S 
 
 SlAMjlNG I'ODR Rl'TIl IILCKAIJACK 
 HKRSliLF, 
 
RUTH IS NOT LIKE LORNA. 295 
 
 before. She is rare stuff. I would have been glad to have 
 married her to-morrow if I had never seen my Lorna." 
 
 '• And a nice nobody I should have been in my own 
 house ! " cried mother. " I never can be thankful enough 
 to darling Lorna for saving me. Did you see how her eyes 
 flashed ?" 
 
 " That I did, and very fine they were. Now, nine maid- 
 ens out of ten would have feigned not to have heard one 
 word that was said, and have borne black malice in their 
 hearts. Come, Annie, now, would not you have done so?" 
 
 " I think," said Annie, " although, of course, I cannot 
 tell, you know, John, that I should have been ashamed at 
 hearing what was never meant for me, and should have 
 been almost as angry with myself as any body." 
 
 " So you would," replied my mother ; " so anj' daughter 
 of mine would have done instead of railing and reviling. 
 However, I am very sorry that any words of mine, which 
 the poor little thing chose to overhear, should have made 
 her so forget herself. I shall beg her pardon before she 
 goes, and I shall expect her to beg mine." 
 
 " That she will never do," said I ; "a more resolute little 
 maiden never ^-et had right upon her side, although it was 
 a mere accident. I might have said the same thing myself ; 
 and she vifas hard upon you, mother dear." 
 
 After this we said no more, at least about that matter, and 
 little Ruth the next morning left us, in spite of all that 
 we could do. She vowed an everlasting friendship to my 
 younger sister Eliza, but she looked at Annie with some 
 resentment, when they said good-bye, for being so much 
 taller. At any rate, so Annie fancied, but she may have 
 been quite wrong. I rode beside the little maid till far 
 beyond Exeford, when all danger of the moor was past, and 
 then I left her with John Fry, not wishing to be too par- 
 ticular after all the talk about her money. She had tears 
 in her eyes when she bade me farewell, and she sent a kind 
 message home to mother, and promised to come again at 
 Christmas if she could win permission. 
 
 Upon the whole, my opinion was that she had behaved 
 uncommonly well for a maid whose self-love was outraged 
 — with spirit, I mean, and proper pride, and yet with a 
 great endeavour to forgive, which is, meseems, the hardest 
 of all things to a woman, outside of her own family. 
 
 After this, for another month, nothing worthy of notice 
 happened, except, perhaps, that I found it needful, accord- 
 ing to the strictest good sense and honour, to visit Lorna 
 
296 
 
 L(.iRXA DOUXE. 
 
 immediately after my discourse with mother, and to teU her 
 all about it. iNly beauty gave me one sweet kiss with all 
 her heart (as she always did when she kissed at all) and I 
 begged for one more to take to our mother, and, before leav- 
 ing, I obtained it. It is not for me to tell all she said, even 
 supposing (what is not likely) that any one cared to know 
 it, being more and more peculiar to our- 
 selves and no (iiic else. But one thing- 
 that slie said was this, and I took good 
 care to carry it, word for word, to my 
 mother and Annie : 
 
 I never can believe, dear 
 John, that after all the crime 
 and outrage wrought by my 
 reckless family, it ever can be 
 meant for me to set- 
 tle down to peace 
 and comfort in a 
 simple household. 
 With all my heart I 
 long for home ; any 
 home, however dull 
 and wearisome to 
 those used to it, 
 would seem a para- 
 dise to me, if only 
 free from brawl and 
 tumult, and such as 
 I could call my own. 
 But even if God 
 would allow me this, 
 in lieu of my wild 
 inheritance, it is quite 
 certain that the Doones never can and never will." 
 
 Again, when I told her how my mother and Annie, as 
 well as myself, longed to have her at Plover's Barrows, and 
 teach her all the quiet duties in which she was sure to take 
 such delight, she only answered with a bright blush that 
 while her grandfather was living she would never leave 
 him, and that even if she were free, certain ruin was all she 
 should bring to any house that received her, at least within 
 the utmost reach of her amiable family. This was too plain 
 to be denied, and seeing my dejection at it, she told me 
 bravely that we must hope for better times, if possible, and 
 asked how long I would wait for her. 
 
 SHE HAD TEARS IN HER EYES WHEN SHE BADE 
 ME FAREWELL. 
 
RUTH IS Not like I.OKXA. 297 
 
 "Not a day, if I had my will," I answered, vtry warmly, 
 at which she turned away confused, and w<iuld not look at 
 me for awhile, " but all my life," I went on to say, " if my 
 fortune is so ill. And how long would you wait for me, 
 Lorna ?" 
 
 " Till I could get you," she answered, slily, with a smile 
 which was brighter to me than the brightest wit could be. 
 "And now," she continued, "you bound me, John, with a 
 very beautiful ring to you, and when I dare not wear it I 
 carry it always on my heart. But I will bind you to me, 
 you dearest, with the very poorest and plainest thing that 
 ever you set eyes on. I could give you fifty fairer ones, 
 but they would not be honest, and I love you for your 
 honesty, and nothing else, of course, John, so don't you be 
 conceited. Look at it. What a queer old thing ! There 
 are some ancient marks upon it, very grotesque and won- 
 derful ; it looks like a cat in a tree almost, but never mind 
 what it looks like. This old ring must have been a giant's, 
 therefore it will fit you, perhaps, you enormous John. It 
 has been on the front of my old glass necklace (which my 
 grandfather found them taking away, and very soon made 
 them give back again) ever since I can remember, and long 
 before that, as some woman told me. Now you seem very 
 greatly amazed; pray, what thinks my lord of it?" 
 
 " That it is worth fifty of the pearl thing which I gave 
 you, you darling, and that I will not take it from you." 
 
 " Then you will never take me, that is all. I will have 
 nothing to do with a gentleman " 
 
 " No gentleman, dear — a yeoman." 
 
 "Very well, a yeoman — nothing to do with a yeoman 
 who will not accept my love-gage. So, if you please, give 
 it back again, and take your lovely ring back." 
 
 She looked at me in such a manner, half in earnest, half 
 in jest, and three times three in love, that in spite of all 
 good resolutions, and her own faint protest, I was forced to 
 abandon all firm ideas, and kiss her till she was quite 
 ashamed, and her head hung on my bosom, with the night 
 of her hair shed over me. Then I placed the pearl ring 
 back on the soft elastic bend of the finger she held up to 
 scold me, and on my own smallest finger drew the heavy 
 hoop she had given me. I considered this with satisfaction 
 until my darling recovered herself, and then I began very 
 gravely about it, to keep her (if I could) from chiding me : 
 
 " Mistress Lorna, this is not the ring of any giant. It is 
 nothing more nor less than a very ancient thumb-ring, such 
 
298 LuRNA DOONE. 
 
 as once, in my father's time, was plougiied up out of the 
 ground in our farm, and sent to learned doctors, who told 
 us all about it, but kept the ring for their trouble. I will 
 accept it, my own one love, and it shall go to my grave 
 with me." And so it shall, unless there be villains who 
 would dare to rob the dead. 
 
 Now, I have spoken about this ring (though I scarcely 
 meant to do so, and would rather keep to myself things so 
 very holy) because it holds an important part in the history 
 of my Lorna. I asked her where the glass necklace was, 
 from which the ring was fastened, and which she had worn 
 in her childhood, and she answered that she hardly knew, 
 but remembered that her grandfather had begged her to 
 give it up to him when she was ten years old or so, and 
 had promised to keep it for her until she could take care of 
 it, at the same time giving her back the ring, and fastening 
 it from her pretty neck, and telling her to be proud of it. 
 And so she always had been, and now from her sweet breast 
 she took it, and it became John Ridd's delight. 
 
 All this, or, at least, great part of it, I told my mother 
 truly, according to my promise, and she was greatly pleased 
 with Lorna for having been so good to me, and for speak- 
 ing so very sensibly ; and then she looked at the great gold 
 ring, but could by no means interpret it. Only she was 
 quite certain, as, indeed, I myself was, that it must have 
 belonged to an ancient race of great consideration and high 
 rank in their time. Upon which I was for taking it off, lest 
 it should be degraded by a common farmer's finger. But 
 mother said " No," with tears in her eyes ; " if the common 
 farmer had won the great lady of the ancient race, what 
 were rings and old-world trinkets when compared to the 
 living jewel?" Being quite of her opinion in this, and lov- 
 ing the ring (which had no gem in it) as the token of my 
 priceless gem, I resolved to wear it at any cost, except when 
 I should be ploughing, or doing things likely to break it, 
 although I must own that it felt very queer (for I never 
 had throttled a finger before), and it looked very queer, 
 for a length of time, upon my great, hard-working hand. 
 
 And before I got used to my ring, or people could think 
 that it belonged to me (plain and ungarnished though it 
 was), and before I went to see Lorna again, having failed 
 to find any necessity, and remembering my duty to mother, 
 we all had something else to think of, not so pleasant, and 
 even more puzzling. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVI. 
 
 JOHN RETURNS TO IIUSIXESS. 
 
 OW X'ovembcr was upon us, and 
 we had kept Allhallow-mass, with 
 roasting of skewered apples (hke 
 so many shuttlecocks), and after 
 that the day of Fawkes, as became 
 good Protestants, with merry bon- 
 fires and burned batatas, and plenty 
 of good feeding in honour of our 
 religion ; and then while we were 
 at wheat-sowing, another visitor 
 arrived. 
 
 This was Master Jeremy Stickles, 
 who had been a good friend to me 
 (as described before) in London, 
 and had earned my inother's grati- 
 tude, so far as ever he chose to 
 have it. And he seemed inclined 
 to have it all ; for he made our 
 farm-house his head-quarters, and 
 kept us quite at his beck and call, going out at any time of 
 the evening, and coming back at any time of the morning, 
 and always expecting us tn be ready, whether with horse, or 
 man, or maidens, or fire, or provisions. We knew that he 
 was employed somehow upon the service of the King, and 
 had at different stations certain troopers and orderlies, quite 
 at his disposal ; also we knew that he never went out, nor 
 even slept in his bedroom, without heavy fire-arms well 
 loaded, and a sharp sword nigh his hand ; and that he held 
 a great commission, under ro}'al signet, requiring all good 
 subjects, all officers of whatever degree, and especially 
 justices of the peace, to aid him to the utmost, with person, 
 beast, and chattel, or to answer it at their peril. 
 
 X'ow Master Jeremy Stickles, by this time knowing well 
 what women are, durst not open to any of them the nature 
 of his instructions. But, after awhile, perceiving that I 
 
 ^V^-JrJ^J^ 
 
300 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 could be relied upon, and that it was a great discomfort not 
 to have me with him, he took me aside in a lonely place, 
 and told me nearly every thing, having bound me first by 
 oath not to impart to any one, without his own permission, 
 until all was over. 
 
 But at this present time of writing, all is over long ago ; 
 ay and forgotten too, I ween, except by those who suffered. 
 Therefore may I tell the whole without any breach of con- 
 fidence. Master Stickles was going forth upon his usual 
 night journey, when he met me coming home, and I said 
 something half in jest, about his zeal and secrecy, upon 
 which he looked all around the yard, and led me to an open 
 space in the clover field adjoining. 
 
 "John," he said, "you have some right to know the mean- 
 ing of all this, being trusted as you were by the Lord Chief 
 Justice. But he found you scarcely supple enough, neither 
 gifted with due brains." 
 
 " Thank God for that same," I answered, while he tapped 
 his head to signify his own much larger allowance. Then 
 he made me bind myself, which in an evil hour I did, to 
 retain his secret ; and after that he went on solemnly, and 
 with much importance : 
 
 "There be some people fit to plot, and others to be 
 plotted against, and others to unravel plots, which is the 
 highest gift of all. This last hath fallen to my share, and a 
 very thankless gift it is, although a rare and choice one. 
 Much of peril, too, attends it ; daring courage and great cool- 
 ness are as needful for the work as ready wit and spotless 
 honour. Therefore His Majesty's advisers have chosen me 
 for this high task, and they could not have chosen a better 
 man. Although you have been in London, Jack, much 
 longer than you wished it, you are wholly ignorant, of course, 
 in matters of state and the public weal." 
 
 "^^'ell," said I, "no doubt but I am ; and all the better 
 for me. Although I heard a deal of them ; for every body 
 was talking, and ready to come to blows ; if only it could 
 be done without danger. But one said this, and one said 
 that ; and they talked so much about Birminghams, and 
 Tantivies, and Whigs, and Tories, and Protestant flails, and 
 such like, that I was only too glad to have my glass, and 
 clink my spoon for answer." 
 
 " Right, John, thou art right as usual. Let the King go 
 his own gait. He hath too many mistresses to be ever 
 England's master. Nobody need fear him, for he is not 
 like his father ; he will have his own way, 'tis true, but 
 
JOHN KETUKNS To liUSINKSS. 30I 
 
 without stopping otlier t'ulk of theirs ; and wtll he knows 
 what women are, for he never asks them questions. Now, 
 heard )-ou much in London town about the Duke of Mon- 
 mouth ? " 
 
 ■• Not so very much," I answered ; " not half so much as 
 in Devonshire ; only that he was a lieartv man, and a very 
 handsome one, and now was banished by the Tories ; and 
 most people wished he was coming back, instead of the 
 Duke of York, who was trying boots in Scotland." 
 
 " Things are changed since you were in town. The 
 Whigs are getting up again, through the folly of the Tories 
 in killing poor Lord Russell ; and now this Master Sidney 
 (if my Lord condemns him) will make it worse again. 
 There is much disaffection every where, and it must grow 
 to an outbreak. The King hath many troops in London, 
 and meaneth to bring more from Tangier ; but he cannot 
 command these country places, and the trained bands 
 cannot help him much, even if they would. Now, do you 
 understand me, John ? " 
 
 •' In truth, not L I see not what Tangier hath to do 
 with Exmoor ; nor the Duke of Monmouth with Jeremy 
 Stickles." 
 
 " Thou great clod, put it the other way. Jeremy Stickles 
 may have much to do about the Duke of Monmouth, The 
 Whigs have failed of Exclusion, and having been punished 
 bitterly for the blood they shed, are ripe for any violence. 
 And the turn of the balance is now to them. See-saw is the 
 fashion of England always, and the \\ bigs will soon be the 
 toji-sawyers." 
 
 " But," said I, still more confused, '' ' The King is the 
 top-sawyer,' according to our proverb. How, then, can the 
 Whigs be ? " 
 
 " Thou art a hopeless ass, John. Better to sew with a 
 chestnut than to teach thee the constitution. Let it be so ; 
 let it be. I have seen a boy of five years old more apt at 
 politics than thou. Xay, look not offended, lad. It is my 
 fault for being over-deep to thee. I should have considered 
 thy intellect." 
 
 "Nay, Master Jeremy, make no apologies. It is I that 
 should excuse myself ; but, God knows, I have no politics." 
 
 " Stick to that, my lad," he answered ; " so shalt thou die 
 easier. Now, in ten words (without parties, or trying thy 
 poor brain too much), I am here to watch the gathering of 
 a secret plot, not so much against the King as against the 
 due succession." 
 
302 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " Now I understand at last. But, Master Stickles, you 
 might have said all that an hour ago almost." 
 
 " It would have been better, if I had, to thee," he replied 
 with much compassion ; " thy hat is nearly off thy head 
 with the swelling of brain I have given thee. Blows, 
 blows, are thy business, Jack. There thou art in thine 
 element. And, haply, this business will bring thee plenty, 
 even for thy great head to take. Now hearken to one 
 who wishes thee well, and plainly sees the end of it — stick 
 thou to the winning side, and have nought to do with the 
 other one." 
 
 " That," said I, in great haste and hurry, " is the very 
 thing I want to do, if I only knew which was the winning 
 side, for the sake of Lorna — that is to say, for the sake of 
 my dear mother and sisters, and the farm." 
 
 " Ha ! " cried Jeremy Stickles, laughing at the redness of 
 my face — " Lorna, saidst thou ; now what Lorna ? Is it the 
 name of a maiden, or a light-o'-love ? " 
 
 " Keep to your own business," I answered, very proudly ; 
 " spy as much as e'er thou wilt, and use our house for doing 
 it, without asking leave or telling ; but if ever I find thee 
 spying into my affairs, all the King's lifeguards in London, 
 and the dragoons thou bringest hither, shall not save thee 
 from my hand — or one finger is enough for thee." 
 
 Being carried beyond myself by his insolence about Lorna, 
 I looked at Master Stickles so, and spake in such a voice, 
 that all his daring courage and his spotless honour quailed 
 within him, and he shrank — as if I would strike so small a 
 man. 
 
 Then I left him, and went to work at the sacks upon the 
 corn-floor, to take my evil spirit from me, before I should 
 see mother. For (to tell the truth) now my strength was 
 full, and troubles were gathering round me, and people took 
 advantage so much of my easy temper, sometimes, when I 
 was over-tried, a sudden heat ran over me, and a glowing 
 of all my muscles, and a tingling for a mighty throw, such 
 as my utmost self-command and fear of hurting any one 
 could but ill refrain. Afterwards, I was always very sadly 
 ashamed of myself, knowing how poor a thing bodily 
 strength is, as compared with power of mind, and that it is 
 a coward's part to misuse it upon weaker folk. For the 
 present there was a little breach between Master Stickles 
 and me, for which I blamed myself very sorely. But though 
 in full memory of his kindness and faithfulness in London, 
 I asked his pardon many times for my foolish anger with 
 
JOIIX RETURNS TO liUSlNKSS. 303 
 
 him, and offered to underL^i) any penalty he would lay upon 
 me, he only said it was no matter, there was nothing to for- 
 give. A\"hen people say that, the truth often is that they 
 can forgive nothing. 
 
 So for the present, a breach was made between Master 
 Jeremy and myself, which to me seemed no great loss, in- 
 asmuch as it relieved me from any privity to his dealings, 
 for which I had small liking. All I feared was lest I might 
 in any way be ungrateful to him ; but when he would have 
 no more of me, what could I do to help it ? However, in a 
 few days' time I was of good service to him, as you shall 
 see in its proper place. 
 
 But now my own affairs were thrown into such disorder 
 that I could think of nothing else, and had the greatest 
 difficulty in hiding my uneasiness. For suddenly, without 
 any warning, or a word of message, all my Lorna's signals 
 ceased, which I had been wont to watch for daily, and as it 
 were to feed upon them with a glowing heart. The first 
 time I stood on the wooded crest and found no change 
 from yesterday, I could hardly believe my eyes, or thought 
 at least that it must be some great mistake on the part of my 
 love. However, even that oppressed me with a heavy 
 heart, which grew heavier as I found from day to day no 
 token. 
 
 Three times I went, and waited long at the bottom of the 
 valley, where now the stream was brown and angry with the 
 rains of autumn, and the weeping trees hung leafless, liut 
 though I waited at every hour of day and far into the night, 
 no light footstep came to meet me, no sweet voice was in the 
 air ; all was lonely, drear, and drenched with sodden desola- 
 tion. It seemed as if my love was dead, and the winds 
 were at her funeral. 
 
 Once I sought far up the valley, where I had never been 
 before, even beyond the copse, where Lorna had found and 
 lost her brave young cousin. Following up the river chan- 
 nel, in the shelter of the evening fog, I gained a corner 
 within stone's throw of the last outlying cot. This was a 
 gloomy, low, square house, without any light in the win- 
 dows, roughly built of wood and stone, as I saw when I 
 drew nearer. For knowing it to be Carver's dwelling (or 
 at least suspecting so, from some words of Lorna's), I was 
 led by curiosity, and perhaps by jealousy, to have a closer 
 look at it. Therefore I crept up the stream, losing half my 
 sense of fear by reason of anxiety. And in truth there was 
 not much to fear, the sky being now too dark for even a 
 
304 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 
 \,-^ 
 
 
 ^"w/'i^ 
 
 4 
 
 shooter of wild fowl to make good 
 aim. And nothing else but guns 
 could hurt me, as in the pride of 
 my strength I thought, and in my 
 skill of single-stick. 
 ■* Nevertheless, I went warily, be- 
 
 ing now almost among this nest of 
 cockatrices. The back of Carver's 
 house abutted on the waves of the 
 rushing stream, and seeing a loop- 
 hole, vacant for muskets, I looked 
 in, but all was quiet. So far as I could 
 judge by listening, there was no one 
 now inside, and my heart for a mo- 
 (4^ ment leaped with joy, for I had 
 feared to find Lorna there. Then 
 I took a careful survey of the dwell- 
 ing, and its windows, and its door, 
 and aspect, as if I had been a robber 
 meaning to make privy entrance. It 
 was well for me that I did this, as you 
 will find hereafter. 
 Having impressed upon my mind 
 (ci slow but, perhaps, retentive mind) 
 all the bearings of the place, and all 
 its opportunities, and even the curve 
 of the stream along it, and the bushes 
 near the door, I was much inclined to 
 go further up and understand all the 
 village. But a bar of red light across the river, some forty 
 yards on above me, and crossing from the opposite side like 
 a chain, prevented me. In that second house there was a 
 gathering of loud and merry outlaws, making as much noise 
 as if they had the law upon their side. Some, indeed, as 
 I approached, were laying down both right and wrong as 
 purel)', and with as high a sense, as if they knew the differ- 
 ence. Cold and troubled as I was, I could hardly keep 
 from laughing. 
 
JOHN RETURNS TO BUSINESS. 305 
 
 Before I betook myself home that night, and eased dear 
 mother's heart so much, and made her sad face spread with 
 smiles, I had resolved to penetrate Glen Doone from the 
 upper end and learn all about my Lorna. Not but what I 
 might have entered from my unsuspected channel, as so 
 often I had done, but that 1 saw fearful need for knowing 
 something more than that. Here was every sort of trouble 
 gathering upon me ; here was Jeremy Stickles stealing upon 
 every one in the dark ; here was Uncle Reuben, plotting, 
 Satan only could tell what ; here was a white night-capped 
 man coming bodily from the grave ; here was my own sister 
 Annie committed to a highwayman, and mother in distrac- 
 tion ; most of all — here, there, and where — was my Lorna, 
 stolen, dungeoned, perhaps outraged. It was no time for 
 shilly shally, for the balance of this and that, or for a man 
 with blood and muscle to pat his nose and ponder. If I left 
 mj' Lorna so ; if I let those black-soul'd villains work their 
 pleasure on my love ; if the heart that clave to mine could 
 find no vigour m it — then let maidens cease from men, and 
 rest their faith in tabby-cats. 
 
 Rudely rolling these ideas in my heavy head and brain, I 
 resolved to let the morrow put them into form and order, 
 but not contradict them. And then, as my constitution 
 willed (being like that of England), I slept ; and there was 
 no stopping me. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVII. 
 
 A VERY DESPERATE VENTURE. 
 
 HAT the enterprise now resolved 
 upon was far more dangerous 
 than any hitherto attempted by 
 me needs no further proof than 
 this : I went and made my will 
 at Porlock with a middling hon- 
 est lawyer there ; not that I had 
 much to leave, but that none 
 could say how far the farm and 
 all the farming stock might de- 
 pend on my disposition. It makes 
 me smile when I remember how 
 particular I was, and how for the 
 life of me I was puzzled to be- 
 queath most part of my clothes, 
 and hats, and things altogether 
 my own, to Lorna, without the 
 shrewd old lawyer knowing who 
 she was and where she lived. At 
 last, indeed, I flattered myself that I had baffled old Tape's 
 curiosity, but his wrinkled smile and his speech at parting 
 made me again uneasy : 
 
 "A very excellent will, young sir. An admirably just 
 and virtuous will ; all your effects to your nearest of kin ; 
 filial and fraternal duty thoroughly exemplified ; nothing- 
 diverted to alien channels, except a small token of esteem 
 and reverence to an elderly lady, I presume, and which 
 may or may not be valid or invalid on the ground of un- 
 certainty, or the absence of any legal status on the part of 
 the legatee. Ha, ha ! Yes, yes ! Few young men are so 
 free from undesirable entanglements. Two guineas is my 
 charge, sir, and a rare good will for the money. Very pru- 
 dent of you, sir, Does you credit in every way. \\'e\\, 
 well ! We all must die, and often the young before the 
 old." 
 
A VERY DESPERATE \'ENTURE. 307 
 
 Not only did I think two guineas a great deal too much 
 money for a quarter of an hour's employment, but also I 
 disliked particularly the words with which he concluded ; 
 they sounded from his grating voice like the evil omen of 
 a croaking raven. Nevertheless, I still abode in my fixed 
 resolve to go and find out, if I died for it, what was become 
 of Lorna. And herein I lay no claim to courage, the mat- 
 ter being simply a choice between two evils, of which by 
 far the greater one was, of course, to lose my darling. 
 
 The journey was a great deal longer to fetch around the 
 southern hills and enter by the Doone-gate than to cross 
 the lower land and steal in by the water-slide. However, I 
 durst not take a horse (for fear of the Doones, who might 
 be abroad upon their usual business), but started betimes in 
 the evening so as not to hurry or waste any strength upon 
 the way. And thus I came to the robbers' highway, walk- 
 ing circumspectly, scanning the sky-line of every hill, and 
 searching the folds of every valley for any moving figure. 
 
 Although it was now well on towards dark, and the sun 
 was down an hour or so, I could see the robbers' road be- 
 fore me in a trough of the winding hills where the brook 
 ploughed down from the higher barrows, and the coving 
 banks were roofed with furze. At present there was no 
 one passing, neither post nor sentinel, so far as I could 
 descry, but I thought it safer to wait a little, as twilight 
 melted into night, and then I crept down a seam of the 
 highland, and stood upon the Donne-track. 
 
 As the road approached the entrance, it became more 
 straight and strong, like a channel cut from rock with the 
 water brawling darkly along the naked side of it. Not a 
 tree or bush was left to shelter a man from bullets ; all was 
 stern, and stiff, and rugged, as I could not help perceiving, 
 even through the darkness, and a smell as of churchyard 
 mould, a sense of being boxed in and cooped, made me 
 long to be out again. 
 
 And here I was, or seemed to be particularly unlucky, 
 for, as I drew near the very entrance, lightly of foot, and 
 warily, the moon (which had often been my friend) like an 
 enemy broke upon me, topping the eastward ridge of rock, 
 and filling all the open spaces with the play of wavering 
 light. I shrank back into the shadowy quarter on the right 
 side of the road, and gloomily employed myself to watch 
 the triple entrance on which the moonlight fell askew. 
 
 All across and before the three rude and beetling arch- 
 ways hung a felled oak overhead, black, and thick, and 
 
308 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 threatening. This, as I heard before, could be let fall in a 
 moment so as to crush a score of men and bar the ap- 
 proach of horses. Behind this tree the rocky mouth was 
 spanned as by a gallery, with brushwood and piled timber 
 all upon a ledge of stone, where thirty men might lurk un- 
 seen and fire at any invader. From that rampart it would 
 be impossible to dislodge them, because the rock fell sheer 
 below them twenty feet, or it may be more, while overhead 
 it towered three hundred, and so jutted over that nothing 
 could be cast upon them, even if a man could climb the 
 height. And the access to this portcullis place — if I 
 may so call it, being no portcullis there — was through cer- 
 tain rocky chambers known to the tenants only. 
 
 But the cleverest of their devices, and the most puzzling 
 to an enemy, was that, instead of one mouth only, there 
 were three to choose from, with nothing to betoken which 
 was the proper access, all being pretty much alike, and all 
 unfenced and yawning. And the common rumour was that 
 in times of any danger, when any force was known to be on 
 muster in their neighbourhood, they changed their entrance 
 every day, and diverted the other two by means of sliding 
 doors to the chasms and dark abysses. 
 
 Now I could see those three rough arches, jagged, black, 
 and terrible, and I knew that only one of them could lead 
 me to the valley ; neither gave the river now any further 
 guidance, but dived underground with a sullen roar where 
 it met the cross-bar of the mountain. Having no means at 
 all of judging which was the right way of the three, and 
 knowing that the other two would lead to almost certain 
 death in the ruggedness and darkness — for how could a 
 man, among precipices and bottomless depths of water, 
 without a ray of light, have any chance to save his life? — 
 I do declare that I was half inclined to go away and have 
 done with it. 
 
 However, I knew one thing for certain, to wit, that the 
 longer I stayed debating, the more would the enterprise 
 pall upon me, and the less my relish be. And it struck me 
 that in times of peace the middle way was the likeliest, and 
 the others diverging right and left in their further parts 
 might be made to slide into it (not far from the entrance) 
 at the pleasure of the warders. Also, I took it for good 
 omen that I remembered (as rarely happened) a very fine 
 line in the Latin grammar, whose emphasis and meaning is, 
 " Middle road is safest." 
 
 Therefore, without more hesitation, I plunged into the 
 
A VERY DESPERATE \ENTURE. 309 
 
 middle way, holding a long ash staff before me shodden 
 at the end with iron. Presently I was in black darkness, 
 groping along the wall, and feeling a deal more fear than 1 
 wished to feel, especially when, upon looking back, I could 
 no longer see the light which I had forsaken. Then I 
 stumbled over something hard, and sharp, and very cold, 
 moreover, st) grievous to my legs that it needed my very 
 best doctrine and humour to forbear from swearing in the 
 manner they use in London. But when I arose and felt it, 
 and knew it to be a culverin, I was somewhat reassured 
 thereby, inasmuch as it was not likely that they would plant 
 this engine except in the real and true entrance. 
 
 Therefore, I went on again, more painfully and wearily, 
 and presently found it to be good that I had received that 
 knock and borne it with such patience, for otherwise I 
 might have blundered full upon the sentries and been shot 
 without more ado. As it was, I had barely time to draw 
 back as I turned a corner upon them, and if their lanthorn 
 had been in its place they could scarce have failed to 
 descry me, unless, indeed, I had seen the gleam before I 
 turned the corner. 
 
 There seemed to be only two of them, of size, indeed, 
 and stature as all the Doones must be, but I need not have 
 feared to encounter them both, had they been unarmed as 
 I was. It was plain, however, that each had a long and 
 heavy carbine, not in his hands (as it should have been), 
 but standing close beside him. Therefore, it behoved me 
 now to be exceeding careful, and even that might scarce 
 avail without luck in proportion. So I kept well back at 
 the corner, and laid one cheek to the rock face, and kept 
 my outer eye round the jut in the wariest mode I coukl 
 compass, watching my opportunity, and this is what I saw : 
 
 The two villains looked very happy — which villains have 
 no right to be, but often are, meseemeth — they were sit- 
 ting in a niche of rock, with the lanthorn in the corner, 
 quaffing something from glass measures, and playing at 
 push-pin, or shepherd's chess, or basset, or some trivial 
 game of that sort. Each was smoking a long clay pipe, 
 quite of new London shape, I could see, for the shadow 
 was thrown out clearly, and each would laugh, from time to 
 time, as he fancied he got the better of it. One was sitting 
 with his knees up and left hand on his thigh, and this one 
 had his back to me, and seemed to be the stouter. The 
 other leaned more against the rock, half sitting and half 
 astraddle, and wearing leathern overalls, as if newly come 
 
3IO LORN A DOONE. 
 
 from riding. I could see his face quite clearly by the light 
 of the open lanthorn, and a handsomer or a bolder face I 
 had seldom, if ever, set eyes upon, insomuch that it made 
 me very unhappy to think of his being so near my Lorna. 
 
 "How long am I to stay crouching here?" I asked of 
 myself at last, being tired of hearing them cry, " Score 
 
 one ! " " Score two ! " " No, by , Charlie ! " " By I 
 
 say it is, Phelps ! " And yet, my only chance of slipping 
 by them unperceived was to wait till they quarrelled more 
 and came to blows about it. Presently, as I made up my 
 mind to steal along towards them (for the cavern was pretty 
 wide just there), Charlie, or Charleworth, Doone, the younger 
 and taller man, reached forth his hand to seize the money, 
 which he swore he had won that time. Upon this, the 
 other jerked his arm, vowing that he had no right to it, 
 whereupon Charlie flung at his face the contents of the 
 glass he was sipping, but missed him and hit the candle, 
 which spluttered with a flare of blue flame (from the 
 strength, perhaps, of the spirit), and then went out com- 
 pletely. At this, one swore and the other laughed, and 
 iDefore they had settled what to do, I was past them and 
 round the corner. 
 
 And then, like a giddy fool as I was, I needs must give 
 them a startler — the whoop of an owl, done so exactly, as 
 John Fry had taught me, and echoed by the roof so fear- 
 fully that one of them dropped the tinder box, and the 
 other caught up his gun and cocked it, at least, as I judged 
 by the sounds they made. And then, too late, I knew my 
 madness, for if either of them had fired, no doubt but what 
 all the village would have risen and rushed upon me. 
 However, as the luck of the matter went, it proved for my 
 advantage, for I heard one say to the other : 
 
 "Curse it, Charlie, what was that? It scared me so I 
 have dropped my box ; my flint is gone and every thing. 
 Will the brimstone catch from your pipe, my lad?" 
 
 " My pipe is out, Phelps, ever so long. Damn it, I am 
 not afraid of an owl, man ! Give me the lanthorn and stay 
 here. I'm not half done with you yet, my friend." 
 
 " Well said, my boy, well said ! Go straight to Carver's, 
 mind you. The other sleepy-heads be snoring, as there is 
 nothing up to-night. No dallying, now, under Captain's win- 
 dow. Queen will have naught to say to you, and Carver will 
 punch your head into a new wick for your lanthorn." 
 
 " Will he, though ? Two can play at that." And so, 
 after some rude jests, and laughter, and a few more oaths. 
 
A VERY DESPERATE \'ENTURE. 3II 
 
 I heard Charlie (or at any rate, somebody) coming toward 
 me with a loose and not too sober footfall. As he reeled a 
 little in his gait, and I would not move from his way one 
 inch after his talk of Lorna, but only longed to grasp 
 him (if common sense permitted it), his braided coat came 
 against my thumb, and his leathern gaiters brushed my 
 knee. If he had turned or noticed it, he would have been 
 a dead man in a moment, but his drunkenness saved him. 
 
 So I let him reel on unharmed, and thereupon it occurred 
 to me that I could have no better guide, passing, as he 
 would, exactly where I wished to be, that is to say, under 
 Lorna's window. Therefore I followed him without any 
 especial caution, and soon I had the pleasure of seeing his 
 form against the moonlit sky. Down a steep and winding 
 path, with a handrail at the corners (such as they have at 
 Ilfracombe), Master Charlie tripped along — and, indeed, 
 there was much tripping, and he must have been an active 
 fellow to recover as he did — and after him walked I, much 
 hoping (for his own poor sake) that he might not turn and 
 espy me. 
 
 But Bacchus (of whom I read at school with great won- 
 der about his meaning — and the same I may say of Venus) 
 that great deity preserved Charlie, his pious worshiper, from 
 regarding consequences. So he led me very kindly to the 
 top of the meadow land, where the stream from under- 
 ground broke forth, seething quietly with a little hiss of 
 bubbles. Hence I had fair view and outline of the rob- 
 bers' township, spread with bushes here and there, but not 
 heavily overshadowed. The moon, approaching now the 
 full, brought the forms in manner forth, clothing each with 
 character, as the moon (more than the sun) does to an eye 
 accustomed. 
 
 I knew that the Captain's house was first, both from what 
 Lorna had said of it and from my mother's description, and 
 now again from seeing Charlie halt there for a certain time 
 and whistle on his fingers, and hurry on, fearing conse- 
 quences. The tune that he whistled was strange to me, 
 and lingered in my ears as having something very new and 
 striking and fantastic in it. And I repeated it softly to 
 myself while I marked the position of the houses and the 
 beauty of the village. For the stream, in lieu of any street, 
 passing between the houses, and affording perpetual change, 
 and twinkling, and reflections, moreover, by its sleepy mur- 
 mur soothing all the dwellers there, this and the snugness 
 of the position, walled with rock and spread with herbage. 
 
312 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 made it look in the quiet moonlight like a little paradise. 
 And to think of all the inmates there sleeping with good 
 consciences, having plied their useful trade of making 
 others work for them, enjoying life without much labour, 
 yet with great renown ! 
 
 Master Charlie went down the village, and I followed 
 him carefully, keeping as much as possible in the shadowy 
 places, and watching the windows of every house, lest any 
 light should be burning. As I passed Sir Ensor's house, 
 my heart leaped up, for I spied a window higher than 
 the rest above the ground, and with a faint light moving. 
 This could hardly fail to be the room wherein my dar- 
 ling lay, for here that impudent young fellow had gazed 
 while he was whistling. And here my courage grew ten- 
 fold, and my spirit feared no evil — for lo, if Lorna had 
 been surrendered to that scoundrel, Carver, she would not 
 have been at her grandfather's house, but in Carver's ac- 
 cursed dwelling. 
 
 Warm with this idea, I hurried after Charleworth Doone, 
 being resolved not to harm him now, unless my own life 
 required it. And while I watched from behind a tree, 
 the door of the furthest house was opened, and, sure 
 enough, it was Carver's self who stood bare-headed and 
 half undressed in the doorway. I could see his great black 
 chest and arms by the light of the lamp he bore. 
 
 "Who wants me this time of night?" he grumbled, in a 
 deep, gruff voice. "Any young scamp prowling after the 
 maids shall have sore bones for his trouble." 
 
 " All the fair maids are for thee, are they, Master Car- 
 ver?" Charlie answered, laughing. "We young scamps 
 must be well content with coarser stuff than thou wouldst 
 have." 
 
 " Would have ? Ay, and will have," the great beast mut- 
 tered, angrily, " I bide my time, but not very long. Only 
 one word for thy good, Charlie : I will fling thee senseless 
 into the river if ever I catch thy girl-face there again." 
 
 " Mayhap, Master Carver, it is more than thou couldst 
 do. But I will not keep thee ; thou art not pleasant com- 
 pany to-night. All I want is a light for my lanthorn and a 
 glass of schnapps, if thou hast it." 
 
 "A\'hat is become of thy light, then? Good for thee I 
 am not on duty." 
 
 "A great owl flew between me and Phelps as we watched 
 beside the culverin, and so scared was he at our fierce, 
 bright eyes that he fell and knocked the light out." 
 
A VERY DESTERATE VENTURE. 313 
 
 " Likely tale, or likely lie, Charles ! We will have the 
 truth to-morrow. Here, take thy light and be gone with 
 thee. All virtuous men are in bed now.'' 
 
 "Then so will I be, and why art thou not? Ha, have I 
 earned my schnapps now?" 
 
 "If thou hast, thou hast paid a bad debt; there is too 
 much in thee already. Be off ! My patience is done with." 
 
 Then he slammed the door in the young man's face, 
 having kindled his lanthorn by this time, and Charlie went 
 up to the watch-place again, muttering as he passed me, 
 " Bad look-out for all of us when that surly old beast is 
 Captain. No gentle blood in him, no hospitality, not even 
 pleasant language, nor a good new oath in his frowsy pate ! 
 I've a mind to cut the whole of it, and but for the girls I 
 would so." 
 
 My heart was in my mouth, as they say, when I stood in 
 the shade by Lorna's window and whispered her name 
 gently. The house was of one storey only, as the others 
 were, with pine-ends standing forth the stone, and only two 
 rough windows upon that western side of it, and, perhaps, 
 both of them were Lorna's. The Doones had been their 
 own builders, for no one should know their ins and outs, 
 and, of course, their work was clumsy. .\s for their win- 
 dows, they stole them mostly from the houses round about. 
 But, though the window was not very close, I might have 
 whispered long enough before she would have answered me, 
 frightened as she was, no doubt, by many a rude ijverture. 
 And I durst not speak aloud, because I saw another watch- 
 man posted on the western cliff and commanding all the 
 valley. And now this man (having no companion for 
 drinking or for gambling) espied me against the wall of the 
 house, and advanced to the brink and challenged me. 
 
 '' Who are 3'ou there ? Answer ! One, two, three, and I 
 fire at thee." 
 
 The nozzle of his gun was pointed full upon me, as I 
 could see, with the moonlight striking on the barrel ; he 
 was not more than fifty yards off, and now he began to 
 reckon. Being almost desperate about it, I began to 
 whistle, wondering how far I should get before I lost my 
 windpipe, and, as luck would have it, my lips fell into that 
 strange tune I had practised last — the one I had heard 
 from Charlie. My mouth would scarcely frame the notes, 
 being parched with terror, but, to my surprise, the man fell 
 back, dropped his gun, and saluted. Oh, sweetest of all 
 sweet melodies ! 
 
314 L(.)RNA DO(.).\E. 
 
 That tune was Carver Doone's passport (as I heard long 
 afterwards), which Charleworth Doone had imitated for 
 decoy of Lorna. The sentinel took me for that vile Car- 
 ver, who was like enough to be prowling there for private 
 talk with Lorna, but not very likely to shout forth his name 
 if it might be avoided. The watchman, perceiving the 
 danger, perhaps, of intruding on Carver's privacy, not 
 only retired along the cliff, but withdrew himself to good 
 distance. 
 
 Meanwhile, he had done me the kindest service, for 
 Lorna came to the window at once to see what the cause 
 of the shout was, and drew back the curtain timidly. Then 
 she opened the rough lattice, and then she watched the 
 cliff and trees, and then she sighed very sadly. 
 
 "Oh, Lorna, don't you know me?" I whispered from 
 the side, being afraid of startling her by appearing over 
 suddenly. 
 
 Quick though she always was of thought, she knew me 
 not from my whisper, and was shutting the window hastily 
 when I caught it back and showed myself. 
 
 "John!" she cried, yet with sense enough not to speak 
 aloud, "oh, you must be mad, John." 
 
 "As mad as a March hare," said I, "without any news of 
 my darling. You knew I would come, of course you did." 
 
 "Well, I thought, perhaps — you know ; now, John, you 
 need not eat my hand. Do you see they have put iron 
 bars across ? " 
 
 " To be sure. Do you think I should be contented even 
 with this lovely hand but for these vile iron bars ? I will 
 have them out before I go. Now, darling, for one moment 
 — just the other hand, for a change, you know." 
 
 So I got the other, but was not honest, for I kept them 
 both, and felt their delicate beauty trembling as I laid them 
 to my heart. 
 
 "Oh, John, you will make me cry directly" — she had 
 been crying long ago — "if you go on in that way. You 
 know we can never have one another ; every one is against 
 it. Why should I make you miserable? Try not to think 
 of me any more." 
 
 ".And will you try the same of me, Lorna?" 
 
 " Oh, yes, John, if you agree to it. At least, I will try to 
 try it." 
 
 "Then you won't try any thing of the sort," I cried, 
 with great enthusiasm, for her tone was so nice and melan- 
 choly ; "the only thing we will try to try is to belong to 
 
A VKRY DESPERATE \ENTURE. 315 
 
 one another. And if we do our best, Lorna, Clod alone 
 can prevent us." 
 
 She crossed herself with one hand drawn free, as I spoke 
 so boldly, and something swelled in her little throat and 
 prevented her from answering. 
 
 "Now tell me," I said, "what means all this? Why are 
 you so pent up here? Why have you given me no token? 
 Has your grandfather turned against you ? Are you in any 
 danger? " 
 
 " My poor grandfather is very ill ; I fear that he will not 
 live long. The Counsellor and his son are now the masters 
 of the valley, and I dare not venture forth for fear of any 
 thing they might do to me. When I went forth to signal 
 for you, Carver tried to seize me, but I was too quick for 
 him. Little Gwenny is not allowed to leave the valley now, 
 so that I could send no message. I have been so wretched, 
 dear, lest you should think me false to you. The tyrants 
 now make sure of me. You must watch this house, both 
 night and day, if you wish to save me. There is nothing 
 they would shrink from if my poor grandfather — oh, I 
 cannot bear to think of myself, when I ought to think of 
 him only, dying without a son to tend him, or a daughter 
 to shed a tear." 
 
 " But surely he has sons enough ; and a deal too many," 
 I was going to say, but stopped myself in time ; "why do 
 none of them come to him?" 
 
 "I know not. I cannot tell. He is a very strange old 
 man, and few have ever loved him. He was black with 
 wrath at the Counsellor this very afternoon — but I must 
 not keep you here ; you are much too brave, John, and I 
 am much too selfish. There ! What was that shadow?" 
 
 " Nothing more than a bat, darling, come to look for his 
 sweetheart. I will not stay long, you tremble so, and yet 
 for that very reason how can I leave you, Lorna?" 
 
 "You must, you must," she answered. "I shall die if 
 they hurt you. I hear the old nurse moving. Grandfather 
 is sure to send for me. Keep back from the window." 
 
 However, it was only Gwenny Carfax, Lorna's little 
 handmaid. My darling brought her to the window and 
 presented her to me, almost laughing through her grief. 
 
 "Oh, I am so glad, John; Gwenny, I am so glad you 
 came. I have wanted long to introduce you to my 'young 
 man,' as you call him. It is rather dark, but you can see 
 him. I wish you to know him again, Gwenny." 
 
 " Whoy ! " cried Gwenny, with great amazement, standing 
 
3l6 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 on tiptoe to look out, and staring as if she were weighing 
 me. " Her be bigger nor any Doone ! Heared as her have 
 bate our Garnish champion awrasthng. 'Twadn't fair play 
 nohow. No, no, don't tell me ; 'twadn't fair play nohow." 
 
 " True enough, Gwenny," I answered her, for the play 
 had been very unfair, indeed, on the side of the Bodmin 
 champion; "it was not a fair bout, little maid, I am free 
 to acknowledge that." By that answer, or rather, by the 
 construction she put upon it, the heart of the Cornish girl 
 was won more than by gold and silver. 
 
 " I shall knoo thee again, young man, no fear of that," 
 she answered, nodding with an air of patronage. " Now, 
 missis, gae on coortin', and I wall gae outside and watch 
 for 'ee." Though expressed not over delicately, this pro- 
 posal arose, no doubt, from Gwenny's sense of delicacy, 
 and I was very thankful to her for taking her departure. 
 
 "She is the best little thing in the world," said Lorna, 
 softly laughing, "and the queerest and the truest. Noth- 
 ing will bribe her against me. If she seems to be on the 
 other side, never, never doubt her. Now, no more of your 
 'courtin', John! I love you far too well for that. Yes, 
 yes, ever so much ! If you will take a mean advantage of 
 me. As much as ever you like to imagine ; and then you 
 may double it after that. Only go, do go, good John ; kind, 
 dear, darling John, if you love me, go." 
 
 "How can I go without settling any thing?" I asked, 
 very sensibly. "How shall I know of your danger now? 
 Hit upon something, you are so quick. Any thing you can 
 think of, and then I will go and not frighten you." 
 
 " I have been thinking long of something," Lorna an- 
 swered rapidly, with that peculiar clearness of voice which 
 made every syllable ring like music of a several note. " You 
 see that tree with the seven rooks' nests bright against the 
 cliffs there ? Can you count them from above, do you 
 think? From a place where you will be safe, dear" 
 
 " No doubt I can, or if I cannot, it will not take me long 
 to find a spot whence I can do it." 
 
 " Gwenny can climb like any cat. She has been up there 
 in the summer, watching the young birds, day by day, and 
 daring the boys to touch them. There are neither birds 
 nor eggs there now, of course, and nothing doing. If you 
 see but six rooks' nests, I am in peril and want you ; if 
 you see but five, I am carried off by Carver." 
 
 "Good God ! " said I, at the mere idea, in a tone which 
 frightened Lorna. 
 
A \ERV DESPKUATE \KNTURE. 317 
 
 "Fear not, John," she whispered, sadly, and my blood 
 grew cold at it ; "I have means to stop him, or, at least, to 
 save myself. If you can come within one day of that man's 
 getting hold of me, you will find me quite unharmed. After 
 that you will find me dead or alive, according to circum- 
 stances, but in no case such that you need blush to look 
 at me." 
 
 Her dear, sweet face was full of pride, as even in the 
 gloom I saw, and I would not trespass on her feelings by such 
 a thing, at such a moment, as an attempt at any caress. I 
 only said, "God bless you, darling ! " and she said the same 
 to me in a very low, sad voice. And then I stole below 
 Carver's house in the shadow from the eastern cliff, and 
 knowing enough of the village now to satisfy all necessity, 
 betook myself to my well-known track in returning from 
 the valley, which was neither down the waterslide (a course 
 I feared in the darkness) nor up the cliffs at Lorna's bower, 
 but a way of my own inventing which there is no need to 
 dwell upon. 
 
 A weight of care was off my mind, though much of 
 trouble hung there still. One thing was quite certain : if 
 Lorna could not have John Ridd no one else should have 
 her. And my mother, who sat up for me, and with me 
 long time afterwards, agreed that this was comfort. 
 
CHAPTER XXXVIII. 
 
 A GOOD TURN" FOR JEREMY. 
 
 OHN FRY had now six shillings 
 a week of regular and permanent 
 wage, besides all harvest and 
 shearing money, as well as a 
 cottage rent-free, and enough of 
 garden-ground to rear pot-herbs 
 for his wife and all his family. 
 Now the wages appointed by our 
 Justices, at the time of sessions, 
 were four-and-sixpence a week for 
 summer, and a shilling less for 
 the winter-time ; and we could be 
 fined, and perhaps imprisoned, for 
 giving more than the sums so 
 fixed. Therefore John Fry was 
 looked upon as the richest man 
 upon Exmoor, I mean of course 
 among labourers, and there were 
 many jokes about robbing him, 
 as if he were the Mint of the 
 King ; and Tom Faggus promised to try his hand, if he 
 came across John on the highway, although he had ceased 
 from business, and was seeking a royal pardon. 
 
 Now is it according to human nature, or is it a thing 
 contradictory (as I would fain believe) ? But anyhow, 
 there was upon Exmoor no more discontented man, no man 
 more sure that he had not his worth, neither half so sore 
 about it than, or as, John Fry was. And one thing he did, 
 which I could not wholly (or indeed I may say, in any 
 measure) reconcile with my sense of right, much as I 
 laboured to do John justice, especially because of his 
 roguery ; and this was, that if we said too much, or accused 
 him at all of laziness (which he must have known to be in 
 him), he regularly turned round upon us, and quite com- 
 pelled us to hold our tongues, by threatening to lay infor- 
 mation against us for paying him too much wages ! 
 
A (lOOD TURN FOR JEREMY. 319 
 
 Now I have not mentioned all this of John Fry from 
 any disrespect for his memory (which is green and honest 
 amongst us), far less from any desire to hurt the feelings of 
 his grandchildren ; and I will do them the justice, once for 
 all, to avow thus publicly that I have known a great many 
 bigger rogues ; and most of themselves in the number. 
 But I have referred, with moderation, to this little flaw in a 
 worthy character (or foible, as we call it, when a man is 
 dead) for this reason only : that, without it, there was no 
 explaining John's dealings with Jeremy Stickles. 
 
 Master Jeremy, being full of London and Norwich ex- 
 perience, fell into the error of supposing that we clods 
 and yokels were the simplest of the simple, and could be 
 cheated at his good pleasure. Now this is not so ; when 
 once we suspect that people have that idea of us, we in- 
 dulge them in it to the top of their bent, and grieve that 
 they should come out of it, as they do at last in amaze- 
 ment, with less money than before, and the laugh now set 
 against them. 
 
 Ever since I had offended Jeremy, by threatening him (as 
 before related) in case of his meddling with my affairs, he 
 had more and more allied himself with simple-minded John, 
 as he was pleased to call him. John Fry was every thing : 
 it was, " run and fetch my horse, John " — " John, are my 
 pistols primed well?" — "I want you in the stable, John, 
 about something very particular;" until, except for the 
 rudeness of it, I was longing to tell Master Stickles that 
 he ought to pay John's wages. John, for his part, was not 
 backward, but gave himself the most wonderful airs of 
 secrecy and importance, till half the parish began to think 
 that the affairs of the nation were in his hand ; and he 
 scorned the sight of a dungfork. 
 
 It was not likely that this should last ; and being the only 
 man in the parish with any knowledge of politics, I gave 
 John Fry to understand that he must not presume to talk 
 so freely, as if he were at least a constable, about the con- 
 stitution, which could be no affair of his, and might bring 
 us all into trouble. At this he only tossed his nose, as if he 
 had been in London at least three times for my one, which 
 vexed me so that I promised him the thick end of the 
 plough-whip if even the name of a knight of the shire should 
 pass his lips for a fortnight. 
 
 Now I did not suspect in my stupid noddle, that John 
 Fry would ever tell Jeremy Stickles about the sight at 
 the Wizard's Slough, and the man in the white nightcap, 
 
320 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 because John had sworn on the blade of his knife, not to 
 breathe a word to any soul without my full permission. 
 However, it appears that John related, for a certain con- 
 sideration, all that he had seen, and doubtless more which 
 had accrued to it. Upon this Master Stickles was much 
 astonished at Uncle Reuben's proceedings, having always 
 accounted him a most loyal, keen, and wary subject. 
 
 All this I learned upon recovering Jeremy's good graces, 
 which came to pass in no other way than by the saving of 
 his life. Being bound to keep the strictest watch upon the 
 seven rooks' nests, and yet not bearing to be idle, and to 
 waste my mother's stores, I contrived to keep my work en- 
 tirely at the western corner of our farm, which was nearest 
 to Glen Doone, and whence I could easily run to a height 
 commanding the view I coveted. 
 
 One day Squire Faggus had dropped in upon us, just in 
 time for dinner ; and very soon he and King's messenger 
 were as thick as need be. Tom had brought his beloved 
 mare, to show her off to Annie, and he mounted his pretty 
 sweetheart upon her, after giving Winnie notice to be on 
 her very best behaviour. The squire was in great spirits, 
 having just accomplished a purchase of land which was 
 worth ten times what he gave for it ; and this he did by a 
 merry trick upon old Sir Roger Bassett, who never supposed 
 him to be in earnest, as not possessing the money. The 
 whole thing was done on a bumper of claret, in a tavern 
 where they met ; and the old knight, having once pledged 
 his word, no lawyers could hold him back from it. They 
 could only say that Master Faggus, being attainted of felony 
 was not a capable grantee. " I will soon cure that," quoth 
 Tom, " my pardon has been ready for months and months, 
 so soon as I care to sue it," 
 
 And now he was telling our Annie, who listened very 
 rosily, and believed every word he said, that, having been 
 ruined in early innocence by the means of lawyers, it was 
 only just, and fair turn for turn, that having become a 
 match for them by long practice upon the highway, he 
 should reinstate himself at their expense in society. And 
 now he would go to London at once, and sue out his par- 
 don ; and then would his lovely, darling Annie, &c., &c. — 
 things which I had no right to hear, and in which I was 
 not wanted. 
 
 Therefore I strode away up the lane to my afternoon's 
 employment, sadly comparing my love with theirs (which 
 now appeared so prosperous), yet heartily glad for Annie's 
 
A GOOD Tl.iKX FOR JEREMY. 32 1 
 
 sake ; only remembering now and then the old proverb, 
 " ^\"rong never comes right." 
 
 I worked very hard in the copse of young ash, with my 
 bill-hook and a shearing-knife ; cutting out the saplings 
 where they stooled too close together, making spars to keep 
 for thatching, wall-crooks to drive into the cob, stiles for 
 close sheep-hurdles, and handles for rakes, and hoes and 
 two-bills, of the larger and straighter stuff. And all the 
 lesser I bound in faggots, to come home on the sledd to the 
 wood-rick. It is niit to be supposed that I did all this work 
 without many peeps at the seven rooks' nests, which proved 
 my Lorna's safety. Indeed, whenever I wanted a change 
 either from cleaving, or hewing too hard, or stooping too 
 much at binding, I was up and away to the ridge of the hill 
 instead of standing and doing nothing. 
 
 Soon I forgot about Tom and Annie, and fell to think- 
 ing of Lorna only ; and how much I would make of her ; 
 and what I should call our children ; and how I would edu- 
 cate them, to do honour to her rank ; yet all the time I 
 worked none the worse by reason of meditation. Fresh-cut 
 spars are not so good as those of a little seasoning, espe- 
 cially if the sap was not gone down at the time of cutting. 
 Therefore we always find it needful to have plenty still in 
 stock. 
 
 It was very pleasant there in the copse, sloping to the west 
 as it was, and the sun descending brightlv, with rocks and 
 banks to dwell upon. The stems of mottled and dimpled 
 wood, with twigs coming out like elbows, hung and clung 
 together closely, with a mode of bending in, as children do 
 at some danger ; overhead the shrunken leaves quivered 
 and rustled ripely, having many points like stars, and rising 
 and falling delicately, as fingers play sad music. Along the 
 bed of the slanting ground, all between the stools of wood, 
 there were heaps of dead brown leaves, and sheltered mats 
 of lichen, and drifts of spotted stick gone rotten, and tufts 
 of rushes here and there, full of fray and feathering. 
 
 All by the hedge ran a little stream, a thing that could 
 barely name itself, flowing scarce more than a pint in a 
 minute, because of the sunny weather. Yet had this rill 
 little crooks and crannies, dark and bravely bearded, and a 
 gallant rush through a reeden pipe — the stem of a flag that 
 was grounded ; and here and there divided threads, from 
 the points of a branching stick, into mighty pools of rock 
 (as large as a grown man's hat almost) napped with moss all 
 around the sides and hung with corded grasses. Along and 
 
322 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 down the tiny banks, and nodding into one another, even 
 across main channel, hung the brown arcade of ferns ; some 
 with gold tongues languishing ; some with countless ear- 
 drops jerking ; some with great quilled ribs uprising and 
 long saws aflapping ; others cupped, and fanning over with 
 the grace of yielding, even as a hollow fountain spread by 
 winds that have lost their way. 
 
 Deeply each beyond other, pluming, stooping, glancing, 
 glistening, weaving softest pillow-lace, coying to the wind 
 and water, where their fleeting image danced, or by which 
 their beauty moved — God has made no lovelier thing ; and 
 only He takes heed of them. 
 
 It was time to go home to supper now, and I felt very 
 friendly towards it, having been hard at work for some 
 hours, with only the voice of the little rill, and some hares 
 and a pheasant for company. The sun was gone down be- 
 hind the black wood on the further cliffs of Bagworthy, and 
 the russet of the tufts and spear-beds was becoming grey, 
 while the greyness of the sapling ash grew brown against 
 the sky ; the hollow curves of the little stream became 
 black beneath the grasses and the fairy fans innumerable, 
 while outside the hedge our clover was crimping its leaves 
 in the dew-fall, like the cocked hats of wood-sorrel — when 
 thanking God for all this scene, because my love had gifted 
 me with the key to all things lovely, I prepared to follow 
 their example, and to rest from labour. 
 
 Therefore I wiped my bill-hook and shearing-knife very 
 carefully, for I hate to leave tools dirty, and was doubting 
 whether I should try for another glance at the seven rooks' 
 nests, or whether it would be too dark for it. It was now a 
 quarter of an hour, mayhap, since I had made any chopping 
 noise, because I had been assorting my spars, and tying 
 them in bundles, instead of plying the bill-hook ; and the 
 gentle tinkle of the stream was louder than my doings. To 
 this, no doubt, I owe my life, which then (without my 
 dreaming it) was in no little jeopardy. 
 
 For, just as I was twisting the bine of my very last fag- 
 got, before tucking the cleft tongue under, there came three 
 men outside the hedge, where the western light was yellow ; 
 and by it I could see that all three of them carried fire-arms. 
 These men were not walking carelessly, but following down 
 the hedge-trough, as if to stalk some enemy ; and for a mo- 
 ment it struck me cold to think it was I they were looking 
 for. With the swiftness of terror, I concluded that my visits 
 to Glen Doone were known, and now my life was the forfeit. 
 
A GOOD TURN FOR JEREMY. 323 
 
 It was a most lucky thing for me that I heard their clothes 
 catch in the brambles, and saw their hats under the rampart 
 of ash, which is made b}' what we call " splashing," and 
 lucky for me that I stood in a goyal, and had the dark cop- 
 pice behind me. To this I had no time to fi)', but with a 
 sort of instinct, threw myself flat in among the thick fern, 
 and held my breath, and lay still as a log. For I had seen 
 the light gleam on their gun-barrels, and knowing the faults 
 of the neighbourhood, would fain avoid swelling their num- 
 ber. Then the three men came to the gap in the hedge, 
 where I had been in and out so often, and stood up, and 
 looked in over. 
 
 It is all very well for a man to boast that, in all his life he 
 has never been frightened, and believes that he never could 
 be so. There may be men of that nature — I will not dare 
 to deny it — only I have never known them. The fright I 
 was now in was horrible, and all my bones seemed to creep 
 inside me, when lying there helpless, with only a billet and 
 the comb of fern to hide me, in the dusk of early evening 
 I saw three faces in the gap ; and what was worse, three 
 gun-muzzles. 
 
 " Somebody been at work here" — it was the deep voice 
 of Carver Doone ; "jump up, Charlie and look about; we 
 must have no witnesses." 
 
 " Give me a hand behind," said Charlie, the same hand- 
 some young Doone I had seen that night ; " this bank is 
 too devilish steep for me." 
 
 " Nonsense, man ! " cried Marwood de Whichehalse, who 
 to my amazement was the third of the number ; " only a 
 hind cutting faggots ; and of course he hath gone home 
 long ago. Blind man's holiday, as we call it. I can see all 
 over the place ; and there is not even a rabbit there." 
 
 At that I drew my breath again, and thanked God I had 
 gotten my coat on. 
 
 " Squire is right," said Charlie, who was standing up high 
 (on a root perhaps), "there is nobody there now, captain; 
 and lucky for the poor devil that he keepeth workman's 
 hours. Even his chopper is gone, I see." 
 
 " No dog, no man, is the rule about here, when it comes 
 to coppice work," continued young de Whichehalse ; "there 
 is not a man would dare work there without a dog to scare 
 the pixies." 
 
 " There is a big young fellow upon this farm,'' Carver 
 Doone muttered sulkily, " with whom I have an account to 
 settle, if ever I come across him. Hfi hath a cursed spite 
 
324 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 to US, because we shot his father. He was going to bring 
 the lumpers upon us, only he was afeared, last winter. And 
 he hath been in London lately, for some traitorous job, I 
 doubt." 
 
 " Oh, you mean that fool, John Ridd," answered the young 
 squire ; " a very simple clod-hopper. No treachery in him, 
 I warrant ; he hath not the head for it. All he cares about 
 is wrestling. As strong as a bull, and with no more brains." 
 
 " A bullet for that bull," said Carver ; and I could see the 
 grin on his scornful face ; " a bullet for ballast to his brain, 
 the first time I come across him." 
 
 " Nonsense, captain ! I won't have him shot, for he is my 
 old school-fellow, and hath a very pretty sister. But his 
 cousin is of a different mould, and ten times as dangerous." 
 
 " We shall see, lads, we shall see," grumbled the great 
 black-bearded man, " 111 bodes for the fool that would hinder 
 me. But come, let us onward. No lingering, or the viper 
 will be in the bush from us. Body and soul, if he give us 
 the slip, both of you shall answer it." 
 
 " No fear, captain, and no hurry," Charlie answered gal- 
 lantly ; " would I were as sure of living a twelvemonth as 
 he is of dying within the hour ! Extreme unction for him 
 in my bullet patch. Remember, I claim to be his confessor, 
 because he hath insulted me." 
 
 " Thou art welcome to the job for me," said Marwood, as 
 they turned away, and kept along the hedge-row ; " I love 
 to meet a man, sword to sword, not to pop at him from a 
 foxhole." 
 
 What answer was made I could not hear, for by this time 
 the stout ashen hedge was between us, and no other gap to 
 be found in it, until at the very bottom, where the corner of 
 the copse was. Yet was I not quit of danger now, for they 
 might come through that second gap and then would be 
 sure to see me, unless I crept into the uncut thicket, before 
 they could enter the clearing. But in spite of all my fear I 
 was not wise enough to do that. And in truth, the words 
 of Carver Doone had filled me with such anger, knowing 
 what I did about him, and his pretence to Lorna ; and the 
 sight of Squire Marwood, in such outrageous company had 
 so moved my curiosity, and their threats against some un- 
 known person so aroused my pity, that much of my pru- 
 dence was forgotten, or at least the better part of courage, 
 which loves danger at long distance. 
 
 Therefore, holding fast my bill-hook, I dropped myself 
 very quietly into the bed of the runnel, being resolved to 
 
A GOOD TURN FOR JEREMY. 325 
 
 take my chance of their entrance at the corner, where the 
 water dived through the hedge-row. And so 1 followed 
 them down the fence, as gently as the rabbit goes ; only I 
 was inside it, and they on the outside ; but yet so near, that 
 I heard the branches rustle as they pushed them. 
 
 Perhaps I had never loved ferns so much as when I came 
 to the end of that little gully, and stooped betwixt twij 
 patches of them, now my chiefest shelter ; for cattle had 
 been through the gap just there, in quest of fodder and 
 coolness, and had left but a mound of trodden earth between 
 me and the outlaws. I mean at least on my left hand (upon 
 which side they were), for in front, where the brook ran out 
 of the copse, was a good stiff hedge of holly. And now I 
 prayed Heaven to lead them straight on, for if they once 
 turned to their right, through the gap, the muzzles of their 
 guns would come almost against my forehead. 
 
 I heard them, for I durst not look ; and could scarce keep 
 still for trembling — I heard them trampling outside the 
 gap, uncertain which track they should follow. And in that 
 fearful moment, with my soul almost looking out of my 
 body, expecting notice to quit it, what do you think I did ? 
 I counted the threads in a spider's web, and the flies he had 
 lately eaten, as their skeletons shook in the twilight. 
 
 "We shall see him better in there," said Carver, in his 
 horrible gruff voice, like the creaking of the gallows chain ; 
 " sit there, behind holly hedge, lads, while he cometh down 
 yonder hill, and then our good evening to him ; one at his 
 iDody, and two at his head ; and good aim, lest we baulk the 
 devil." 
 
 " I tell you, captain, that will not do," said Charlie 
 almost whispering; "you are very proud of your skill, we 
 know, and can hit a lark if you see it ; but he may not 
 come until after dark, and we cannot be too nigh to him. 
 This holly hedge is too far away. He crosses down here 
 from Slocombslade, not from Tibbacot, 1 tell you ; but 
 along that track to the left there, and so by the foreland to 
 Glenthorne, where his boat is in the cove. Do you think I 
 have tracked him so many evenings without' knowing his 
 line to a hair ? Will you fool away all my trouble ? " 
 
 " Come then, lad ; we will follow thy lead. Thy life for 
 his, if we fail of it." 
 
 " After me then, right into the hollow ; thy legs are grow- 
 ing stiff, captain." 
 
 " So shall thy body be, young man, if thou leadest me 
 astray in this." 
 
326 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 I heard them stumbUng down the hill, which was steep 
 and rocky in that part, and peering through the hedge, I 
 saw them enter a covert, by the side of the track which 
 Master Stickles followed almost every evening, when he 
 left our house upon business. And then I knew who it 
 was they were come on purpose to murder — a thing which 
 I might have guessed long before, but for terror and cold 
 stupidity. 
 
 " Oh that God," I thought for a moment, waiting for my 
 blood to flow ; " oh that Ciod had given me brains to meet 
 such cruel dastards according to their villainy ! The power 
 to lie, and the love of it ; the stealth to spy, and the glory 
 in it ; above all, the quiet relish for blood, and joy in the 
 death of an enemy — these are what any man must have, 
 to contend with the Doones upon even terms. And yet, I 
 thank God that I have not any of these." 
 
 It was no time to dwell upon that, only to try, if might 
 be, to prevent the crime they were bound upon. To follow 
 the armed men down the hill would have been certain 
 death to me, because there was no covert there, and the 
 last light hung upon it. It seemed to me that my only 
 chance to stop the mischief pending was to compass the 
 round of the hill, as fast as feet could be laid to 
 ground, only keeping out of sight from the valley, and 
 then down the rocks, and across the brook, to the track 
 from Sldcombslade, so as to stop the King's messenger 
 from travelling any further, if only I could catch him 
 there. 
 
 And this was exactly what I did ; and a terrible run I 
 had for it, fearing at every step to hear the echo of shots 
 in the valley, and dropping down the scrubby rocks with 
 tearing and violent scratching. Then I crossed Bagworthv 
 stream, not far below Doone-valley, and breasted the hill 
 towards Slocombslade, with my heart very heavily panting. 
 Why Jeremy chose to ride this way, instead of the more 
 direct one (which would have been over Oare-hill), was 
 more than I could account for ; but I had nothing to do 
 with that ; all I wanted was to save his life. 
 
 And this I did by about a minute ; and (which was the 
 hardest thing of all) with a great horse-pistol at my head, 
 as I seized upon his bridle. 
 
 " Jeremy, Jerry," was all I could say, being so fearfully 
 short of breath ; for I had crossed the ground quicker than 
 any horse could. 
 
 " Spoken just in time, John Ridd ! " cried Master Stickles, 
 
A CdOI) TURN FOR JERE>rV. 327 
 
 Still, however, pointing- the pistol at me; "I might have 
 known thee by thy size, John. What art doing here ? " 
 
 " Come to save your life. For (jod's sake, go no further. 
 Three men in the covert there, with long guns, waiting 
 for thee." 
 
 " Ha ! I have been watched of late. That is why I 
 pointed at thee, John. Hack round this corner, and L^et 
 thy breath, and tell me all about it. I never saw a man so 
 hurried. I could beat thee now, John." 
 
 Jeremy Stickles was a man of courage and presence of 
 mind, and much resource, otherwise he would not have 
 been appointed for this business ; nevertheless he trembled 
 greatly when he heard what I had to tell him. But I took 
 good care to keep back the name of young Marwood de 
 Whichehalse ; neither did I show my knowledge of the 
 other men ; for reasons of my own not very hard to con- 
 jecture. 
 
 " We will let them cool their heels, John Ridd," said 
 Jeremy, after thinking a little. " I cannot fetch my mus- 
 keteers either from Glenthorne or Lynmouth, in time to 
 seize the fellows. And three desperate Doones, well- 
 armed, are too many for you and me. One re.sult this 
 attempt will have, it will make us attack them sooner than 
 we had intended. And one more it will have, good John, 
 it will make me thy friend forever. Shake hands, my lad, 
 and forgive me freely for having been so cold to thee. 
 jNIayhap, in the troubles coming, it will help thee not a 
 little to have done me this good turn." 
 
 Upon that he shook me by the hand, with a pressure 
 such as we feel not often ; and having learned from me 
 how to pass quite beyond view of his enemies, he rode on 
 to his duty, whatever it might be. For my part, I was 
 inclined to stay and watch how long the three fusileers 
 would have the patience to lie in wait ; but seeing less and 
 less use in that, as I grew more and more hungry, I swung 
 my coat about me, and went home to Plover's Barrows. 
 
CHAPTER XXXIX. 
 
 A TROUBLED STATE AND A FOOLISH JOKE. 
 
 TICKLES took me aside the next 
 day, and opened all his business to 
 me, whether I would or not. But 
 I gave him clearly to understand 
 that he was not to be ve.\ed with 
 me, neither to regard me as in any 
 way dishonest, if I should use for 
 my own purpose, or for the benefit 
 of my friends, any part of the 
 knowledge and privity thus en- 
 forced upon me. To this he agreed 
 quite readily, but upon the express 
 provision that I should do nothing 
 to thwart his schemes, neither un- 
 fold them to any one ; but other- 
 wise be allowed to act according to 
 my own conscience, and as con- 
 sisted with the honour of a loyal 
 gentleman — for so he was pleased 
 to term me. Now what he said lay in no great compass, 
 and may be summed in smaller still, especially as people 
 know the chief part of it already. Disaffection to the 
 King, or rather dislike to his brother, James, and fear of 
 Roman ascendancy, had existed now for several years, and 
 of late were spreading rapidly, partly through the down- 
 right arrogance of the Tory faction, the cruelty and aus- 
 terity of the Duke of York, the corruption of justice, and 
 confiscation of ancient rights and charters ; partlv through 
 jealousy of the French king, and his potent voice in our 
 affairs ; and partly (or perhaps one might even say, mainly) 
 through that natural tide in all political channels, which 
 verily moves as if it had the moon itself for its mistress. 
 No sooner is a thing done and fixed, being set far in ad- 
 vance perhaps of all that was done before (like a new mole 
 in the sea), but immediately the waters retire, lest they 
 
A TROUBLED STATE AND A EOULISH JOKE. 329 
 
 should undo it ; and every one says huw fine it is, but 
 leaves other people to walk on it. Then after awhile, the 
 vague endless ocean, having retired and lain still without 
 a breeze or murmur, frets and heaves again with impulse, 
 or with lashes laid on it, and in one great surge advances 
 over every rampart. 
 
 And so there was, at the time I speak of, a great surge 
 in England, not rolling yet, but seething, and one which 
 a thousand Chief Justices, and a million Jeremy Stickles, 
 should never be able to stop or turn, by stringing up men 
 in front of it, any more than a rope of onions can repulse 
 a volcano. But the worst of it was, that this great move- 
 ment took a wrong channel at first, not only missing legiti- 
 mate line, but roaring out that the back ditchway was the 
 true and established course of it. 
 
 Against this rash and random current nearly all the 
 ancient mariners of the State were set ; not to allow the 
 brave ship to drift there, though some little boats might 
 try it. For the present there seemed to be a pause, with 
 no open onset, but people on the shore expecting, each 
 according to his wishes, and the feel of his own finger, 
 whence the rush of wind should come which might direct 
 the water. 
 
 Now — to reduce high figures of speech into our own 
 little numerals — all the towns of Somersetshire and half 
 the towns of Devonshire were full of pushing, eager peo- 
 ple, ready to swallow any thing, or to make others swallow 
 it. Whether they believed the folly about the black box, 
 and all that stuff, is not for me to say ; only one thing I 
 know, they pretended to do so, and persuaded the ignorant 
 rustics. Taunton, Bridgewater, Minehead, and Dulverton 
 took the lead of the other towns in utterance of their dis- 
 content, and threats of what they meant to do, if ever a 
 Papist dared to climb the Protestant throne of England. 
 On the other hand, the Tory leaders were not as yet under 
 apprehension of an immediate outbreak, and feared to 
 damage their own cause by premature coercion, for the 
 struggle was not very likely to begin in earnest during the 
 life of the present King, unless he should (as some people 
 hoped) be so far emboldened as to make public profession 
 of the faith which he held (if any). So the Tory policy 
 was to watch, not indeed permitting their opponents to 
 gather strength, and muster in armed force or with order, 
 but being well apprised of all their schemes and intended 
 movements, to wait for some bold overt act, and then to 
 
330 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 strike severely. And as a Tory watchman — or spy, as 
 the ^^'higs would call him — Jeremy Stickles was now 
 among us ; and his duty was threefold : 
 
 First, and most ostensibly, to see to the levying of 
 poundage in the little haven of Lynmouth, and further up 
 the coast, which was now becoming a place of resort for 
 the folk whom we call smugglers, that is to say, who land 
 their goods without regard to King's revenue, as by law 
 established. And indeed there had been no officer ap- 
 pointed to take toll, until one had been sent to ^finehead, 
 not so very long before. The excise as well (which had 
 been ordered in the time of the Long Parliament) had been 
 little heeded by the people hereabouts. 
 
 Second, his duty was (though only the Doones had 
 discovered it) to watch those outlaws narrowly, and re- 
 port of their manners (which were scanty), doings (which 
 were too manifold), reputation (which was execrable), 
 and politics, whether true to the King and the Pope, or 
 otherwise. 
 
 Jeremy Stickles' third business was entirely political : to 
 learn the temper of our people and the gentle families, to 
 watch the movements of the trained bands (which could 
 not always be trusted), to discover any collecting of arms 
 and drilling of men among us, to prevent (if need were, by 
 open force) any importation of gunpowder, of which there 
 had been some rumour ; in a word, to observe and forestall 
 the enemy. 
 
 Xow in providing for this last-mentioned service the 
 Government had made a great mistake, doubtless through 
 their anxiety to escape any public attention. For all the 
 disposable force at their emissary's command amounted to 
 nil more than a score of musketeers, and these so divided 
 along the coast as scarcely to suffice for the duty of sen- 
 tinels. He held a commission, it is true, for the employ- 
 ment of the train-bands, but upon the understanding that 
 he was not to call upon them (except as a last resource) 
 for any political object, although he might use them 
 against the Doones as private criminals, if found needful, 
 and supposing that he could get them. 
 
 " So you see, John," he said, in conclusion, "I have more 
 work than tools to do it with. I am heartily sorry I ever 
 accepted such a mixed and meagre commission. At the 
 bottom of it lies (I am well convinced) not only the desire 
 to keep things quiet, but the paltry jealousy of the mili- 
 tary people. Because I am not a colonel, forsooth, or a 
 
A TROUBLED STATE AM) A IDOLIMI J(.)KE. 33I 
 
 captain in His Majesty's service, it would never do to trust 
 me with a company of soldiers ! And yet they would not 
 send either colonel or captain, for fear of a stir in the 
 rustic mind. The only thing that I can do, with any 
 chance of success, is to rout out these vile Doone fellows, 
 and burn their houses over their heads. Now what think 
 you of that, John Ridd ? " 
 
 "Destroy the town of the Doones," I said, "and all the 
 1 )oones inside it ! Surely, Jeremy, you would never think 
 of such a cruel act as that ! " 
 
 " A cruel act, John ! It would be a mercy for at least 
 three counties. No doubt you folk, who live so near, are 
 well accustomed to them, and would miss your liveliness 
 in coming home after nightfall, and the joy of finding your 
 sheep and cattle right, when you not e.xpected it. But 
 after awhile vou might get used to the dulness of being 
 safe in your beds, and not losing your sisters and sweet- 
 hearts. Surely, on the whole, it is as pleasant not to be 
 robbed as to be robbed?" 
 
 " I think we should miss them very much," I answered, 
 after consideration, for the possibility of having no J )oijnes 
 had never yet occurred to me, and we all were so thoroughly 
 used to them, and allowed for it in our year's reckoning ; 
 " I am sure we should miss them very sadly ; and some- 
 thing worse would come of it." 
 
 "Thou art the staunchest of all staunch Tories," cried 
 Stickles, laughing, as he shook my hand ; " thou believest 
 in the divine right of robbers, who are good enough to 
 steal thy own fat sheep. I am a jolly Tory, John ; but 
 thou art ten times jollier ; oh ! the grief in thy face at the 
 thought of being robbed no longer I " 
 
 He laughed in a very unseemly manner, while I descried 
 nothing to laugh about. For we always like to see our 
 way, and a sudden change upsets us. And unless it were 
 in the loss of the farm, or the death of the King, or of 
 Betty Muxworthy, there was nothing that could so unsettle 
 our minds as the loss of the Doones of Bagworthy. 
 
 And beside all this, I was thinking, of course, and think- 
 ing more than all the rest, about the troubles that might 
 ensue to my own beloved Lorna. If an attack of Glen 
 Doone were made by savage soldiers and rude train-bands, 
 what might happen, or what might not, to my delicate, in- 
 nocent darling ? Therefore, when Jeremy Stickles again 
 placed the matter before me, commending mv strength 
 and courage, and skill (to flatter me of the highest), and 
 
332 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 finished by saying that I would be v/orth at least four 
 common men to him, I cut him short as follows : 
 
 " Master Stickles, once for all, I will have naught to do 
 with it. The reason why is no odds of thine, nor in any 
 way disloyal. Only in thy plans remember, that I will not 
 strike a blow, neither give any counsel, neither guard any 
 prisoners." 
 
 " Not strike a blow," cried Jeremy, "against thy father's 
 murderers, John ! " 
 
 " Not a single blow, Jeremy, unless I knew the man 
 who did it, and he gloried in his sin. It was a foul and 
 dastard deed, yet not done in cold blood, neither in cold 
 blood will I take the Lord's task of avenging it." 
 
 "Very well, John," answered Master Stickles, "I know 
 thine obstinacy. When thy mind is made up, to argue 
 with thee is pelting a rock with peppercorns. But thou 
 hast some other reason, lad, unless I am much mistaken, 
 over and above thy merciful nature and Christian forgive- 
 ness. Anyhow, come and see it, John. There will be good 
 sport, I reckon, especially when we thrust our claws into 
 the nest of the ravens. Many a yeoman will find his 
 daughter, and some of the Porlock lads their sweethearts. 
 A nice young maiden, now, for thee, John, if, indeed, 
 any " 
 
 "No more of this," I answered very sternly; "it is no 
 business of thine, Jeremy, and I will have no joking upon 
 this matter." 
 
 " Good, my lord, so be it. But one thing I tell thee in 
 earnest. ^\'e will have thy old double-dealing uncle. Huck- 
 aback of Dulverton, and march him first to assault Doone 
 Castle, sure as my name is Stickles. I hear that he hath 
 often vowed to storm the valley himself, if only he could 
 find a dozen musketeers to back him. Now, we will give 
 him chance to do it, and prove his loyalty to the King, 
 which lies under some suspicion of late." 
 
 With regard to this, I had nothing to say, for it seemed 
 to me very reasonable that Uncle Reuben should have first 
 chance of recovering his stolen goods, about which he had 
 made such a sad to-do, and promised himself such ven- 
 geance. I made bold, however, to ask Master Stickles at 
 what time he intended to carry out this great and hazard- 
 ous attempt. He answered that he had several things re- 
 quiring first to be set in order, and that he must make an 
 inland journey, even as far as Tiverton, and perhaps Credi- 
 ton and Exeter, to collect his forces and ammunition for 
 
A TR<)UBLEIi STATE AND A FOOLISH JOKE. 333 
 
 them. For he meant to have sDiiie of the yeomanry, as 
 well as of the trained bands, so that if the Doones should 
 sally forth, as perhaps they would, on horseback, cavalry 
 might be there to meet them, and cut them off from re- 
 turning. 
 
 All this made me very uncomfortable, for many and 
 many reasons, the chief and foremost being of course my 
 anxiety about Lorna. If the attack succeeded, what was 
 to become of her ? \\'ho would rescue her from the brutal 
 soldiers, even supposing that she escaped from the hands of 
 her own people, during the danger and ferocity ? And in 
 smaller ways, I was much put out; for instance, who would 
 ensure our corn-ricks, sheep, and cattle, ay and even our 
 fat pigs, now coming on for bacon, against the spreading 
 all over the country of unlicensed marauders ? The Doones 
 had their rights, and understood them, and took them ac- 
 cording to prescription, even as the parsons had, and the 
 lords of manors, and the King himself, God save him ! 
 But how were these low, soldiering fellows (half-starved at 
 home very likely, and only too glad of the fat of the land, 
 and ready, according to our proverb, to burn the paper 
 they fried in), who were they, to come hectoring and hero- 
 ing over us, and Heliogabalizing, with our pretty sisters to 
 cook for them, and be chucked under chin perhaps after- 
 wards ? There is nothing England hates so much, accord- 
 ing to my sense of it, as that fellows taken from plough- 
 tail, cart-tail, pot-houses, and parish-stocks, should be 
 hoisted and foisted upon us (after a few months' drilling, 
 and their lying shaped into truckling) as defenders of the 
 public weal, and heroes of the universe. 
 
 In another way I was vexed, moreover — for after all 
 we must consider the opinions of our neighbours — namely 
 that I knew quite well how every bodv for ten miles round 
 (for my fame must have been at least that wide, after all 
 my wrestling), would lift up hands and cry out thus — 
 " Black shame on John Ridd, if he lets them go without 
 him ! " 
 
 Putting all these things together, as well as many others, 
 which your own wits will suggest to you, it is impossible 
 but what you will freely acknowledge that this unfortunate 
 John Ridd was now in a cloven stick. There was Lorna, 
 
 my love and life, bound by her duty to that old vil nay, 
 
 I mean to her good grandfather, who could now do little 
 mischief, and therefore deserved all praise — Lorna bound, 
 at any rate, by her womanly feelings, if not by sense of duty^ 
 
334 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 to remain in the thick of danger, with nobod}^ to protect 
 her, but every body to covet her, for beauty and position. 
 Here was all the country roused with violent excitement 
 at the chance of snapping at the Doones ; and not only 
 getting tit for tat, but every young man promising his 
 sweetheart a gold chain, and his mother at least a shilling. 
 And here was our own mow-yard, better filled than we 
 could remember, and perhaps every sheaf in it destined to 
 be burned or stolen, before we had finished the bread we 
 had baked. 
 
 Among all these troubles, there was, however, or seemed 
 to be, one comfort. Tom Faggus returned from London 
 very proudly and very ■ happily, with a royal pardon in 
 black and white, which every body admired the more be- 
 cause no one could read a word of it. The Squire himself 
 acknowledged cheerfully that he could sooner take fifty 
 purses than read a single line of it. Some people, indeed, 
 went so far as to say that the parchment was made from a 
 sheep Tom had stolen, and that was why it prevaricated so 
 in giving him a character. But I, knowing something by 
 this time of lawyers, was able to contradict them, affirm- 
 ing that the wolf had more than the sheep to do with this 
 matter. 
 
 For, according to our old saying, the three learned pro- 
 fessions live by roguery on the three parts of a man. The 
 doctor mauls our bodies ; the parson starves our souls ; 
 but the lawyer must be the adroitest knave, for he has to 
 ensnare our minds. Therefore he takes a careful delight 
 in covering his traps and engines with a spread of dead- 
 leaf words, whereof himself knows little more than half the 
 way to spell them. 
 
 But now Tom Faggus, although having wit to gallop 
 away on his strawberry mare, with the speed of terror from 
 lawyers (having paid them with money too honest to stop), 
 yet fell into a reckless adventure ere ever he came home, 
 from which any lawyer would have saved him, although he 
 ought to have needed none beyond common thought for 
 dear Annie. Now I am, and ever have been, so vexed 
 about this story that I cannot tell it pleasantly (as I try to 
 write in general) in my own words and manner. There- 
 fore I will let John Fry (whom I have robbed of another 
 story, to which he was more entitled, and whom I have 
 robbed of many speeches — which he thought very excel- 
 lent — lest I should grieve any one with his lack of educa- 
 tion — the last lack he ever felt, by-the-by), now with your 
 
A I'KOUBLEI) STATE AND A I(>(J[.IS1I J(.)Ki;. ^(35 
 
 y()i.)d leave, I will allow poor John to tell this tale, in his 
 own words and style, which he has a perfect right to do, 
 having been the first to tell us. For Squire Faggus kept 
 it close, not trusting even Annie with it (or at least she 
 said so), because no man knows much of his sweetheart's 
 tongue, until she has borne him a child or two. 
 
 C.)nly before John begins his story, this 1 would say, in 
 duty to him, and in common honest v — that I dare not 
 write down some few of his words, because thev are not 
 convenient, for dialect or other causes, and that I cannot 
 find any way of spelhng many of the words which I do 
 repeat, so that people not born on Exmoor, may know how 
 he pronounced them, even if they could bring their lips, 
 and their legs, to the proper attitude. And in this I speak 
 advisedly, having observed some thousand times that the 
 manner a man has of spreading his legs, and bending his 
 knees, or stiffening, and even the way he will set his heel, 
 make all the difference in his tone, and time of casting his 
 voice aright, and power of coming home to ycju. 
 
 We always liked John's stories, not for any wit in them, 
 but because we laughed at the man rather than the matter. 
 The way he held his head was enough, with his chin fi.xed 
 hard like a certainty (especiallv during his biggest lie) not 
 a sign of a smile in his lips or nose, but a power of not 
 laughing, and his eyes not turning to any body, unless 
 some body had too much of it (as young girls always do) 
 and went over the brink of laughter. Thereupon it was 
 good to see John Fry ; how he looked gravely first at the 
 laugher, as much as to ask, "A\'hat is it now?" then if the 
 fool went laughing more, as he or she was sure to do upon 
 that dry inquiry, John would look again, to be sure of it, 
 and then at some body else to learn whether the laugh had 
 company ; then if he got another grin, all his mirth came 
 out in glory with a sudden break ; and he wiped his lips, 
 and was grave again. 
 
 Now John, being too much encouraged by the girls (of 
 which I could never break them), came into the house 
 that December evening, with everv inch of him full of a 
 tale. Annie saw it, and Lizzie of course ; and even I, in 
 the gloom of great evils, perceived that John was a loaded 
 gun ; but I did not care to explode him. Now nothing 
 primed him so hotly as this : if you wanted to hear all 
 John Fry had heard, the surest of all sure ways to it was 
 to pretend not to care for a word of it. 
 
 " I wor over to Exeford in the marning," John began 
 
336 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 from the chimney-corner, looking straight at Annie ; " for 
 to zee a little calve, Jan, as us cuddn't get thee to lave 
 houze about. Meesus have got a quare vancy vor un, from 
 wutt her have heer'd of the brade. Now zit quite, wull 'ee 
 Miss Luzzie, or a 'wunt goo on no vurder. Vaine little 
 tayl I'll tuU 'ee, if so be thee zits quite, ^^'ull, as I coom 
 down the hill I zeed a saight of volks astapping of the ro- 
 udwai. Arl on 'em wi' girt goons, or two men out of dree 
 wi' em. Rackon there wor dree score on 'em, tak smarl 
 and beg togather laike, latt aloun the women and chillers ; 
 zum on 'em wi' matches blowing, t'others wi' flint-lacks. 
 ' Wutt be up now ? ' I says to Bill Blacksmith, as had knowl- 
 edge of me ; ' be the King acoomin ? If her be, do 'ee 
 want to shutt 'un ? ' 
 
 " ' Thee not knaw ! ' says Bill Blacksmith, just the zame 
 as I be a tullin of it ; ' whai, man, us expex Tam Faggus, 
 and zum on us manes to shutt 'un.' 
 
 " ' Shutt 'un wi'out a warrant ! ' says I ; ' sure 'ee knaws 
 better nor thic, Bill ! A man mayn't shutt to another man 
 wi'out have a warrant. Bill. \\'arship zed so last taime I 
 zeed 'un, and nothing to the contrairy.' 
 
 " ' Haw, haw ! Never frout about that,' saith Bill, zame 
 as I be tullin you ; ' us has warrants and warships enow, 
 dree or vour on 'em. And more nor a dizzen warranties, 
 fro'ut I know to contrairy. Shutt 'un, us manes, and shutt 
 
 'un us will ' Whai, Miss Annie, good Lord, whuttiver 
 
 maks 'ee stear so ?" 
 
 " Nothing at all, John," our Annie answered ; " only the 
 horrible ferocity of that miserable blacksmith." 
 
 " That be nayther here nor there," John continued, with 
 some wrath at his own interruption : "Blacksmith knawed 
 whutt the Squire had been, and veared to lose his own 
 custom, if Squire tuk to shooin' again. Shutt any man I 
 would myzell as intervared wi' my trade laike. ' Lucky 
 for thee,' said Bill Blacksmith, ' as thee bee'st so shart and 
 fat, Jan. Dree on us wor a gooin' to shutt 'ee, till us zeed 
 how fat thee waz, Jan.' 
 
 " ' Lor now, Bill ! ' I answered 'un, wi' a girt cold swat 
 upon me : 'shutt me, Bill ; and my own waife niver drame 
 of it!'" 
 
 Here John Fry looked round the kitchen ; for he had 
 never said any thing of the kind, I doubt ; but now made 
 it part of his discourse, from thinking that Mistress Fry 
 was come, as she generally did, to fetch him. 
 
 " Wull done then, Jan Vry," said the woman, who had 
 
A TROUBLED STATE AND A I'OOI.ISli JOKE. T,;^'J 
 
 entered quietly, but was only our old Molly. " \\'utt hand- 
 some manners thee hast gat, Jan, to spake so well of thy 
 waife laike, after arl the laife she lades thee ! " 
 
 "Putt thee pot on the fire, old 'ooman, and bile thee 
 own bakkon," John answered her, very sharply ; "nobody 
 no raight to meddle \vi' a man's bad 'ooman but himzell. 
 WuU, here was all these here men awaitin', zum wi' harses, 
 zum wi'out ; the common volk wi' long girt guns, and the 
 quarlity wi' girt broadswords. \\'ho wor there ? \\'hay 
 latt me zee. There wor Squire Maunder," here John as- 
 sumed his full historical key, " him wi' the pot to his vittle- 
 place, and Sir Richard Blewitt shaking over the zaddle, 
 and Squire Sandford of Lee, him wi' the long nose and 
 one eye, and Sir Gronus Batchildor over to Ninehead 
 Court, and ever so many more on 'em, fulling up how they 
 was arl gooin' to be promoted, for kitching of Tom Faggus. 
 
 " ' Hope to God,' says I to myzell, ' poor Tom wun't 
 coom here to-day ; arl up with her, if 'a doeth ; and who 
 be there to suckzade 'un ? ' Mark me n(j\v, all these charps 
 was good to shutt 'un, as her coom crass the waiter; the 
 watter be waide enow there and stony, but no deeper than 
 my knee-place. 
 
 '"Thee cas'n goo no vurder,' Bill Blacksmith saith to 
 me : ' nawbody 'lowed to crass the vord, until such time as 
 Faggus coom ; plaise God us may mak sure of 'un.' 
 
 " ' Amen, zo be it,' says I ; ' Ciod knowth I be never in 
 any hurry, and would zooner stop nor go on, most taimes.' 
 
 " Wi' that I pulled my vittles out, and zat a horse-barck, 
 atin' of 'em, and oncommon good they was. ' ^\'on't us 
 have 'un this taime just,' saith Tim Potter, as keepeth the 
 bull there ; ' and yet I be zorry for 'un. But a man must 
 kape the law, her must ; zo be her can only larn it. And 
 now poor Tom will swing as high as the tops of they girt 
 hashes there.' 
 
 "'Just thee kitch 'un virst,' says I; 'maisure rope, wi' 
 the body to maisure by.' 
 
 "'Hurrah ! here be another now,' saith Bill Blacksmith, 
 grinning ; ' another coom to help us. What a grave gentle- 
 man ! A warship of the pace, at laste ! ' 
 
 "For a gentleman, on a cue-ball horse, was coming 
 slowly down the hill on t'other zide of watter, looking at 
 us in a friendly way, and with a long papper standing 
 forth the lining of his coat laike. Horse stapped to drink 
 in the watter, and gentleman spak to 'un kindly, and then 
 they coom raight on to ussen, and the gentleman's face 
 
T,T,8 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 wor so long and so grave, us veared 'a wor gooin' to 
 prache to us. 
 
 "'Coort o' King's Bench,' saith one man ; 'Checker and 
 Plays,' saith another; ' Spishal Commission, I doubt,' saith 
 Bill Blacksmith ; 'backed by the Mayor of Taunton.' 
 
 '"Any Justice of the King's Peace, good people, to be 
 found near here ? ' said the gentleman, lifting his hat to us, 
 and very gracious in his manner. 
 
 "'Your honour,' saith Bill, with his hat off his head, 
 'there be sax or zeven warships here, arl on 'em very wise 
 uns. Squire ^Maunder there be the zinnyer." 
 
 "So the gentleman rode up to Squire Maunder, and 
 raised his cocked hat in a manner that took the Squire out 
 of countenance, for he could not do the like of it. 
 
 "'Sir,' said he, 'good and worshipful sir, I am here to 
 claim your good advice and valour, for purposes of jus- 
 tice. I hold His Majesty's commission, to make to cease 
 a notorious rogue, whose name is Thomas Faggus.' With 
 that he offered his commission ; but Squire Maunder told 
 the truth, that he could not rade even words in print, much 
 less written karakters.' Then the other magistrates rode 
 up, and put their lieads together, how to meet the London 
 gentleman without loss of importance. There wor one of 
 'em as could rade purty vair, and her made out King's 
 mark upon it, and he bcnved upon his horse to the gentle- 
 man, and he laid his hand on his heart and said, 'Worship- 
 ful sir, we, as has the honour of His Gracious Majesty's 
 commission, are entirely at }'our service, and crave instruc- 
 tions from you.' 
 
 " Then a waving of hats began, and a bowing, and 
 making of legs to wan anather, sich as nayver wor zeed 
 afore ; but none of 'em arl, for air and brading, cud coom 
 anaigh the gentleman with the long, grave face. 
 
 " ' Vour warships have posted the men right well,' saith 
 he with anather bow all round ; ' surely that big rogue will 
 have no chance left among so many valiant musketeers. 
 Ha ! Avhat see I there, my friend ? Rust in the pan of 
 your gun ! That gun would never go off, sure as I am the 
 
 ' Lest John Fry seem to underrate the erudition of Devonshire magis- 
 trates, I venture to offer copy of a letter from a Justice of the Peace to his 
 bookseller, circa iSio A.D., now in my possession ; 
 "Sur. 
 
 " plez to zen me the aks relatting to K-gustus-paks " - 
 
 —Ed. of L. D. 
 ■ [Emphasized thus in original.] 
 

 'HAND FORTH YOUR MOXEY AMI ALL YOUR WARRANTS. 
 
340 LURNA DOONE. 
 
 King's Commissioner. And I see another just as bad ; 
 and lo, there the third ! Pardon me, gentlemen, I have 
 been so used to His Majesty's Ordnance-yards, But I 
 fear that bold rogue would ride through all of you, and 
 laugh at your worships' beards, by George.' 
 
 " 'But what shall us do ? ' Squire Maunder axed ; ' I vear 
 there be no oil here.' 
 
 " ' Discharge your pieces, gentlemen, and let the men do 
 the same ; or at least let us try to discharge them, and 
 load again with fresh powder. It is the fog of the morning 
 hath spoiled the priming. That rogue is not in sight yet ; 
 but God knows we must not be asleep with him, or what 
 will His Majesty say to me, if we let him slip once more ?' 
 
 "'Excellent, wondrous well said, good sir,' Squire Maun- 
 der answered him; 'I never should have thought of that 
 now. Bill Blacksmith, tell all the men to be ready to 
 shoot up into the air, directly I give the word. Now, are 
 you ready there. Bill?' 
 
 "'All ready, your worship,' saith Bill, saluting like a 
 soldier. 
 
 "'Then, one, two, dree, and shutt ! ' cries Squire Maun- 
 der, standing up in the irons of his stirrups. 
 
 "Thereupon they all blazed out, and the noise of it went 
 all round the hills, with a girt thick cloud arising, and all 
 the air smelling of powder. Before the cloud was gone so 
 much as ten yards on the wind, the gentleman on the cue- 
 ball horse shuts up his face like a pair of nut-cracks, as 
 wide as it was long before, and out he pulls two girt pistols 
 longside of zaddle, and clap'th one to Squire Maunder's 
 head, and t'other to Sir Richard Blewitt's. 
 
 "'Hand forth your money and all your warrants,' he 
 saith like a clap of thunder ; ' gentlemen, have you now 
 the wit to apprehend Tom Faggus ? ' 
 
 "Squire iVIaunder swore so that he ought to be fined; 
 but he pulled out his purse none the slower for that, and 
 so did Sir Richard Blewitt. 
 
 "'First man I see go to load a gun, I'll gi'e 'un the 
 bullet to do it with,' said Tom : for you see it was him and 
 no other, looking quietly round upon all of them. Then 
 he robbed all the rest of their warships, as pleasant as 
 might be ; and he saith, ' Now gentlemen, do your duty ; 
 serve your warrants afore you imprison me ;' with that he 
 made them give up all the warrants, and he stuck them in 
 the band of his hat, and then he made a bow with it. 
 
 " ' Good morning to your warships now, and a merry 
 
A TROUBLED STATE AM) A KOohlSH JOKE. 341 
 
 Christmas all of you ! And the merrier both for rich and 
 poor, when gentlemen see their almsLjivini,^ Lest )-ou 
 deny yuurselves the pleasure, I will aid your warships. 
 And to save you the trouble of following me, when your 
 guns be loaded — this is my strawberry mare, gentlemen, 
 only with a little cream on her. Cientlemen all, in the 
 name of the King, I thank you.' 
 
 "All this while he was casting their money among the 
 poor folk by the handful ; and then he spak kaindly to the 
 red mare, and wor over the back of the hill in two zeconds, 
 and the best part of two maile away, I reckon, afore ever 
 a gun wor loaded." ' 
 
 ' The truth of this story is well established by first-rate tradition. 
 
 t+^jKi^ 
 
CHAPTER XL. 
 
 TWO FOlJLS TOGETHER. 
 
 HAT Story of John Fry's, instead 
 
 Tof causing any amusement, gave 
 us great disquietude, not only 
 because it showed that Tom 
 Faggus could not resist sudden 
 temptation and the dehght of 
 wildness, but also that we great- 
 ly feared lest the King's pardon 
 might be annulled, and all his 
 kindness cancelled by a reckless 
 deed of that sort. It was true 
 (as Annie insisted continually, 
 even with tears, to wear in her 
 arguments) that Tom had not 
 brought away any thing except 
 the warrants, which were of no 
 use at all after receipt of the 
 pardon, neither had he used any 
 violence except just to frighten 
 people, but could it be estab- 
 lished, even towards Christmas- 
 time, that Tom had a right to give alms, right and left, 
 out of other people's money ? 
 
 Dear .\nnie appeared to believe that it could, saying 
 that if the rich continually chose to forget the poor, a 
 man who forced them to remember, and so to do good to 
 themselves and to others, was a public benefactor, and en- 
 titled to every blessing. But I knew, and so Lizzie knew 
 — John Fry being now out of hearing — that this was not 
 sound argument. For, if it came to that, any man might 
 take the King by the throat and make him cast away 
 among the poor the money which he wanted sadly for 
 Her Grace the Duchess, and the beautiful Countess of 
 this, and of that. Lizzie, of course, knew nothing about 
 His Majesty's diversions, which were not fit for a young 
 
TWD FOOLS TOGETHER 
 
 '' 1 " 
 
 maid's thoughts, but I now put the form of the argument 
 as it occurred to me. 
 
 Therefore I said, once for all (and both my sisters al- 
 ways listened when I used the deep voice from my chest) : 
 
 "Tom Faggus hath done wrong herein — wrung to him- 
 self and to our Annie. All he need have done was to 
 show his pardon, and the magistrates would have rejoiced 
 with him. He might have led a most godly life, and have 
 been respected by every body, and knowing how brave 
 Tom is, I thought that he would have done as much. 
 Xow, if I were in love with a maid " — I put it thus for the 
 sake of poor Lizzie — "never would I so imperil my life, 
 and her fortune in life along with me, for the sake of a 
 poor diversion. A man's first duty is to the women, who 
 are forced to hang upon him " 
 
 " Oh, John, not that horrible word ! " cried Annie, tn my 
 great surprise and serious interruption. "Oh, John, anv 
 word but that ! " And she burst forth crying terribly. 
 
 "What word, Lizzie? \\'hat does the wench mean?" I 
 asked, in the saddest vexation, seeing no good to ask An- 
 nie at all, for she carried on most dreadfullv. 
 
 "Don't you know, you stupid lout?" said Lizzie, com- 
 pleting my wonderment by the scorn of her quicker intel- 
 ligence. "If you don't know, ax about." 
 
 And with that I was forced to be content, for Lizzie 
 took Annie in such a manner (on purpose to vex me, as I 
 could see), with her head drooping down and her hair 
 coming over, and tears and sobs rising and falling, to 
 boot, without either order or reason, that, seeing no good 
 for a man to do (since neither of them was Lorna), I even 
 went out into the courtyard and smoked a pipe, and won- 
 dered what on earth is the meaning of women. 
 
 Now, in this I was wrong and unreasonable (as all 
 women will acknowledge), but sometimes a man is so put 
 out by the way they take on about nothing that he really 
 cannot help thinking, for at least a minute, that women 
 are a mistake for ever, and hence are for ever mistaken. 
 Nevertheless, I could not see that any of these great 
 thoughts and ideas applied at all to my Lorna, but that 
 she was a different being, not woman enough to do any 
 thing bad, yet enough of a woman for man to adore. 
 
 And now a thing came to pass which tested my adora- 
 tion pretty sharply, inasmuch as I would far liefer have 
 faced Carver Doone and his father, nay, even the roaring 
 lion himself, with his hoofs and flaming nostrils, than have 
 
344 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 met, in cold blood, Sir Ensor Uoone, the founder of all 
 the colony, and the fear of the very fiercest. 
 
 But that I was forced to do at this time, and in the 
 manner following ; When I went up one morning to look 
 for my seven rooks' nests, behold, there were but six to be 
 seen, for the topmost of them all was gone, and the most 
 conspicuous. I looked and looked, and rubbed my eyes, 
 and turned to try them by other sights, and then I looked 
 again ; yes, there could be no doubt about it, the signal 
 was made for me to come because my love was in danger. 
 For me to enter the valley now, during the broad day- 
 light, could have brought no comfort, but only harm to 
 the maiden, and certain death to myself. Yet it was more 
 than I could do to keep altogether at distance, therefore 
 I ran to the nearest place where I could remain unseen, 
 and watched the glen from the wooded height for hours 
 and hours impatiently. 
 
 However, no impatience of mine made any difference in 
 the scene upon which I was gazing. In the part of the 
 valley which I could see, there was nothing movmg ex- 
 cept the water and a few stolen cows, going sadly along, as 
 if knowing that they had no honest right there. It sank 
 very heavily into my heart, with all the beds of dead 
 leaves around it, and there was nothing I cared to do ex- 
 cept blow on my fingers and long for more wit. 
 
 For a frost was beginning, which made a great differ- 
 ence t(^ Lorna and to myself, I trow, as well as to all the 
 five million people who dwell in this island of England, 
 such a frost as never I saw before,' neither hope ever to 
 see again ; a time when it was impossible to milk a cow 
 for icicles, or for a man to shave some of his beard (as I 
 liked to do for Lorna's sake, because she was so smooth) 
 without blunting his razor on hard grey ice. No man 
 could "keep yatt " (as we say), even though he aban- 
 doned his work altogether and thumped himself all on the 
 chest and the front till his frozen hands would have been 
 bleeding except for the cold that kept still all his veins. 
 
 However, at present there was no frost, although for a 
 fortnight threatening, and I was too young to know the 
 
 ' If John Ridd lived until the year 1740 (as so strong a man was 
 bound to do), he must have seen almost a harder frost, and perhaps it 
 put an end to him, for then he would be some fourscore years old. 
 But tradition makes him " keep yatt," as he says up to fivescore years. — 
 Ed. L. D. 
 
TWO FOOLS TOGETHER. 345 
 
 meaning of the way the dead leaves hung, and the worm- 
 casts prickUng like women's combs, and the leaden tone 
 upon every thing, and the dead weight of the sky. A\ill 
 Watcombe, the old man at Lynmouth, who had been half 
 tiver the world almost, and who talked so much of the 
 Gulf-stream, had (as 1 afterwards called to mind) foretold 
 a very bitter winter this year. But no one would listen to 
 him because there were not so many hips and haws as 
 usual, whereas we have all learned from our grandfathers 
 that Providence never sends very hard winters without 
 having furnished a large supply of berries for the birds to 
 feed upon. 
 
 It was lucky for me, while I waited here, that our very 
 best sheep-dog, old Watch, had chosen to accompany me 
 that day, for otherwise I must have had no dinner, being 
 unpersuaded, even by that, to quit my survey of the val- 
 ley. However, by aid of poor Watch, I contrived to ob- 
 tain a supply of food, for I sent him home with a note to 
 Annie fastened upon his chest, and in less than an hour 
 back he came, proud enough to wag his tail off, with his 
 tongue hanging out from the speed of his journey, and a 
 large lump of bread and of bacon fastened in a napkin 
 around his neck. I had not told my sister, of course, 
 what was toward, for why should I make her anxious? 
 
 When it grew towards dark, I was just beginning to 
 prepare for my circuit around the hills, but suddenly 
 Watch gave a long, low growl. I kept myself close as 
 possible, and ordered the dog to be silent, and presently 
 saw a short figure approaching from a thickly-wooded 
 hollow on the left side of my hiding-place. It was the 
 same figure I seen once before in the moonlight at Plov- 
 er's Barrows, and proved to my great delight, to be the 
 little maid, Gwenny Carfax. She started a moment at 
 seeing me, but more with surprise than fear, and then she 
 laid both her hands upon mine, as if she had known me for 
 twenty years. 
 
 "Young man," she said, "you must come with me. I 
 was gwain' all the way to fetch thee. Old man be dying, 
 and her can't die, or, at least, her won't, without first con- 
 sidering thee." 
 
 "Considering me!" I cried. "AVhat can Sir Ensor 
 Doone want with considering me? Has Mistress Lorna 
 told him ?" 
 
 "All concerning thee and thy doings when she knowed 
 old man were so near his end. That vexed he was about 
 
346 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 thy low blood, a' thought her would come to life again on 
 purpose for to bate 'ee. But, after all, there can't be 
 scarcely such bad luck as that. Now, if her strook thee, 
 thou must take it, there be no denaying of 'un. Fire I 
 have seen afore, hot, and red, and raging, but I never seen 
 cold fire afore, and it maketh me burn and shiver." 
 
 And in truth, it made me both burn and shiver to know 
 that I must either go straight to the presence of Sir Ensor 
 Doone or give up Lorna, once for all, and rightly be de- 
 spised by her. For the first time of my life I thought that 
 she had not acted fairly. \\'hy not leave the old man in 
 peace without vexing him about my affairs ? But pres- 
 ently I saw again that in this matter she was right ; that 
 she could not receive the old man's blessing (supposing 
 that he had one to give, which even a worse man might 
 believe) while she deceived him about herself and the life 
 she had undertaken. 
 
 Therefore, with great misgiving of myself, but no ill 
 thought of my darling, I sent Watch home and followed 
 Gwenny, who led me along very rapidly, with her short, 
 broad form gliding down the hollow from which she had 
 first appeared. Here at the bottom she entered a thicket 
 of grey ash stubs and black holly, with rocks around it, 
 gnarled with roots and hung with masks of ivy. Soon, in 
 a dark and lonely corner, with a pixie ring before it, she 
 came to a narrow door, very brown and solid, looking like 
 a trunk of wood at a little distance. This she opened 
 without a key by stooping down and pressing it where the 
 threshold met the jamb, and then she ran in very nimbly, 
 but I was forced to be bent in two, and even so without 
 comfort. The passage was close and difficult, and as dark 
 as any black pitch, but it was not long (be it as it might) 
 and in that there was some comfort. ^Ve came out soon at 
 the other end, and were at the top of Doone valley. In 
 the chilly dusk air it looked most untempting, especially 
 during that state of mind under which I was labouring. As 
 we crossed towards the Captain's house, we met a couple 
 of great Doones lounging by the water-side. Gwenny 
 said something to them, and, although they stared very 
 hard at me, they let me pass without hindrance. It is not 
 too much to say that when the little maid opened Sir En- 
 sor's door my heart thumped quite as much with terror as 
 with hope of Lorna's presence. 
 
 But in a moment the fear was gone, for Lorna was 
 trembling in my arms, and my courage rose to comfort her. 
 
TWO FOOLS TOOETllER. 347 
 
 The darling feared, beyimd all things else, lest I should 
 be offended with her for «hat she had said to her grand- 
 father, and for dragging me into his presence, but 1 told 
 her almost a falsehood (the first and the last that ever I did 
 tell her), to wit, that I cared nut that much — and showed 
 her the tip of my thumb as 1 said it — for old Sir Ensor and 
 all his wrath, so long as I had his granddaughter's love. 
 
 Xow, I tried to think this as I said it, so as to save it 
 from being a lie, but, somehow or other, it did not answer, 
 and I was vexed with myself both ways. But Lorna took 
 me by the hand as bravely as she could, and led me into a 
 little passage, where I could hear the river moaning and 
 the branches rustling. 
 
 Here I passed as long a minute as fear ever cheated 
 time of, saying to myself continually that there was noth- 
 ing to be frightened at, yet growing more and more afraid 
 by reason of so reasoning. At last, my Lorna came back 
 very pale, as I saw by the candle she carried, and whis- 
 pered, " Now be patient, dearest. Never mind what he 
 says to you, neither attempt to answer him. Look at him 
 gently and steadfastlv, and, if you can, with some show of 
 reverence, but, above all things, no compassion ; it drives 
 him almost mad. Now, come ; walk verv quietly." 
 
 She led me into a cold, dark room, rough and very 
 gloomy, although with two candles burning. I took little 
 heed of the things in it, though I marked that the window 
 was open. That which I heeded was an old man, \ery 
 stern and comely, with death upon his countenance, vet 
 not lying in his bed, but set upright in a chair, with a 
 loose red cloak thrown over him. Upon this his white 
 hair fell, and his pale fingers lay in a ghastly fashion, 
 without a sign of life or movement, or of the power that 
 kept him up — all rigid, calm, and relentless. Onlv in his 
 great black eyes, fixed upon me solemnly, all the power of 
 his body dwelt, all the life of his soul was burning. 
 
 I could not look at him very nicely, being afeared of 
 the death in his face, and most afeared to show it. And 
 to tell the truth, my poor blue eyes fell awav from the 
 blackness of his as if it had been my coffin-plate. There- 
 fore, I made a low obeisance, and tried not to shiver. 
 Only I groaned that Lorna thought it good manners to 
 leave us two together. 
 
 "Ah," said the old man, and his voice seemed to come 
 from a cavern of skeletons, "are you that great John 
 Ridd?" 
 
348 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "John Ridd is my name, your honour," was all that I 
 could answer, "and I hope your worship is better." 
 
 " Child, have you sense enough to know what you have 
 been doing?" 
 
 "Yes, I know right well," I answered, "that I have set 
 mine eyes far above my rank." 
 
 "Are you ignorant that Lorna Doone is born of the old- 
 est families remaining in North Europe?" 
 
 " I was ignorant of that, your worship, yet I knew of her 
 high descent from the Doones of Bagworthy." 
 
 The old man's eyes like fire probed me whether I was 
 jesting ; then, perceiving how grave I was, and thinking 
 that I could not laugh (as many people suppose of me), 
 he took on himself to make good the deficiency with a 
 very bitter smile. 
 
 " And know you of your own low descent, from the 
 Ridds of Oare ? " 
 
 "Sir," I answered, being as yet unaccustomed to this 
 style of speech, "the Ridds of Oare have been honest men 
 twice as long as the Doones have been rogues." 
 
 "I would not answer for that, John," Sir Ensor replied, 
 very quietly, when I expected fury. " If it be so, thy 
 family is the very oldest in Europe. Now hearken to 
 me, boy, or clown, or honest fool, or whatever thou art, 
 hearken to an old man's words, who has not many hours 
 to live. There is nothing in this world to fear, nothing to 
 revere or trust, nothing even to hope for, least of all is 
 there aught to love." 
 
 "I hope your worship is not quite right," I answered, 
 with great misgivings, "else it is a sad mistake for any 
 body to live, sir." 
 
 "Therefore," he continued, as if I had never spoken, 
 "though it may seem hard for a week or two, like the loss 
 of any other toy, I deprive you of nothing, but add to 
 your comfort and (if there be such a thing) to your happi- 
 ness when I forbid you ever to see that foolish child 
 again. All marriage is a wretched farce, even when man 
 and wife belong to the same rank of life, have temper 
 well assorted, similar likes and dislikes, and about the 
 same pittance of mind. But when they are not so matched 
 the farce would become a long, dull tragedy, if any thing 
 were worth lamenting. There, I have reasoned enough 
 with you ; I am not in the habit of reasoning. Though I 
 have little confidence in man's honour, I have some re- 
 liance in woman's pride. You will pledge your word in 
 
TWO FOOLS T(M.;ETIIER. 349 
 
 Lorna's presence never to sec or to .seek her again, never 
 even to think of her more. Now call her, for 1 am weary." 
 
 He kept his great eyes fi.xed upon me with their icy fire 
 (as if he scorned both life and death), and on his haughty 
 lips some slight amusement at my trouble, and then he 
 raised one hand (as if I were a poor dumb creature) and 
 pointed to the door. Although my heart rebelled and kin- 
 dled at his proud disdain, I could not disobey him freely, 
 but made a low salute and went straightway in search of 
 Lorna. 
 
 1 found my love (or not my love, according as now she 
 should behave, for I was very desperate, being put upon 
 so sadly) ; Lorna Doone was crying softly at a little win- 
 dow, and listening to the river's grief. I laid my heavy 
 arm around her, not with any air of claiming or of forcing 
 her thoughts to me, but only just to comfort her and ask 
 what she was thinking of. To my arm she made no an- 
 swer, neither to my seeking eyes, but to my heart, once 
 for all, she spoke with her own upon it. Not a word nor 
 sound between us, not even a kiss was interchanL,fed, but 
 man or maid who has ever loved hath learned our under- 
 standing. 
 
 Therefore it came to pass that we saw fit to enter Sir 
 Ensor's room in the following manner: Lorna, with her 
 right hand swallowed entirely by the palm of mine, and 
 her waist retired from view by means of my left arm. All 
 one side of her hair came down in a way to be remem- 
 bered upon the left and fairest part of my favourite otter- 
 skin waistcoat, and her head as well would have lain there, 
 doubtless, but for the danger of walking si>. I, for my 
 part, was too far gone to lag behind in the matter, but 
 carried my love bravely, fearing neither death nor hell 
 while she abode beside me. 
 
 Old Sir Ensor looked much astonished. For forty years 
 he had been obeyed and feared by all around him, and he 
 knew that I had feared him vastly before I got hold of 
 Lorna. And, indeed, I was still afraid of him, only for 
 loving Lorna so and having to protect her. 
 
 Then I made him a bow to the very best of all I had 
 learned both at Tiverton and in London ; after that I 
 waited for him to begin, as became his age and rank in life. 
 
 "Ye two fools!" he said at last, with a depth of con- 
 tempt which no words may utter. "Ye two fools ! " 
 
 ".May it please your worship," I answered softly, "may 
 be we are not such fools as we look. But though we 
 
35° LORNA DOONE. 
 
 be, we are well content so long as we may be two fools 
 together." 
 
 "Why, John," said the old man, with a spark as of smil- 
 ing in his eyes, " thou art not altogether the clumsy yokel 
 and the clod I took thee for." 
 
 " Oh, no, grandfather, oh, dear grandfather," cried 
 Lorna, with such zeal and flashing that her hands went 
 forward, "nobody knows what John Ridd is because he is 
 so modest. I mean, nobody except me, dear." And here 
 she turned to me again and rose upon tiptoe and kissed 
 me. 
 
 "I have seen a little of the world," said the old man, 
 while I was half ashamed, although so proud of Lorna, 
 "but this is beyond all I have seen, and nearly all I have 
 heard of. It is more fit for southern climates than for the 
 fogs of Exmoor." 
 
 " It is fit for all the world, your worship, with your hon- 
 our's good leave and will," I answered in humility, being 
 still ashamed of it; "when it happens so to people there 
 is nothing that can stop it, sir." 
 
 Now Sir Ensor Doone was leaning back upon his brown 
 chair-rail, which was built like a triangle, as in old farm- 
 houses (from one of which it had come, no doubt, free 
 from expense or gratitude), and as I spoke, he coughed a 
 little, and sighed a good deal more, and perhaps his dying 
 heart desired to open time again with such a lift of warmth 
 and hope as he descried in our eyes and arms. I could 
 not understand him then, any more than a baby playing 
 with his grandfather's spectacles ; nevertheless, I wondered 
 whether, at his time of life, or rather, on the brink of 
 death, he was thinking of his youth and prime. 
 
 "Fools you are, be fools for ever," said Sir Ensor Doone 
 at last, while we feared to break his thoughts, but let each 
 other know our own with little ways of pressure; "it is 
 the best thing I can wish you, boy and girl, be boy and 
 girl until you have grandchildren." 
 
 Partly in bitterness he spoke, and partly in pure weari- 
 ness, and then he turned so as not to see us, and his white 
 hair fell like a shroud around him. 
 
CHAPTER XLI. 
 
 CllLll C I.IMFDKT. 
 
 LL things being full of flaw, all 
 things being full of holes, the 
 strength of all things is in short- 
 ness. If Sir Ensor Doone had 
 dwelled for half-an-hour upon 
 himself, and an hour perhaps upon 
 Lorna and me, we must both have 
 wearied of him, and required 
 change of air. But now I longed 
 to see and know a great deal 
 more about him, and hoped that 
 he might not go to heaven for at 
 least a week or more. However 
 he was too good for this world 
 (as we sav of all people who leave 
 it); and 1 verily believe his heart 
 was not a bad one, after all. I-^vil 
 he had done, no doubt, as evil had 
 been done to him ; yet how manv 
 have done evil, while receiving only good ! ]!e that as it 
 may, nor further vexing of a question (settled for ever 
 without our votes), let us own that he was, at least, a brave 
 and courteous gentleman. 
 
 And his loss aroused great lamentation, not among the 
 Doones alone, and the women they had carried off, but 
 also of the general public, and many even of the magis- 
 trates, for several miles round Exmoor. And this, not 
 only from fear lest one more wicked might succeed him 
 (as appeared indeed too probable), but from true admira- 
 tion of his strong will, and sympathy with his misfortunes. 
 I will not deceive any one, by saying that Sir Ensor 
 Doone gave (in so many words) his consent to piv resolve 
 about Lorna. This he never did, except by his speech last 
 written down, from which, as he mentioned grandchildren, 
 a lawyer perhaps might have argued it. Not but what he 
 
 i««^ 
 
352 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 may have meant to bestow on us his blessing ; only that he 
 died next day, without taking the trouble to do it. 
 
 He called, indeed, for his box of snuff, which was a very 
 high thing to take, and which he never took without being 
 in very good humour, at least for him. And though it 
 would not go up his nostrils, through the failure of his 
 breath, he was pleased to have it there, and not to think 
 of dying. 
 
 "A\'ill your honour have it wiped ? " I asked him very 
 softlv, for the brown appearance of it spoiled (to my idea) 
 his white mustachio ; but he seemed to shake his head, 
 and I thought it kept his spirits up. I had never before 
 seen any one do what all of us have to do some day ; and 
 it greatly kept my spirits down, although it did not so very 
 much frighten me. 
 
 For it takes a man but a little while, his instinct being 
 of death perhaps, at least as much as of life (which accounts 
 for his slaying his fellow men so, and every other creature), 
 it does not take a man very long to enter into another 
 man's death, and bring his own mood to suit it. He knows 
 that his own is sure to come, and nature is fond of the 
 practice. Hence it came to pass that I, after easing my 
 mother's fears, and seeing a little to business, returned (as 
 if drawn by a polar needle) to the death-bed of Sir Ensor. 
 
 There was some little confusion, people wanting to get 
 away, and people trying to come in, from downright curi- 
 osity (of all things the most hateful), and others making 
 great to-do, and talking of their own time to come, telling 
 their own age, and so on. But every one seemed to think, 
 or feel, that I had a right to be there, because the women 
 took that view of it. As for Carver and Counsellor, they 
 were minding their own affairs, so as to win the succession, 
 and never found it in their business (at least so long as I 
 was there) to come near the dying man. 
 
 He, for his part, never asked for any one to come near 
 him, not even a priest, nor a monk or friar, but seemed to 
 be going his own way, peaceful and well contented. Only 
 the chief of the women said, that from his face she believed 
 and knew that he liked to have me at one side of his bed, 
 and Lorna upon the other. An hour or two ere the old 
 man died, when only we two were with him, he looked at 
 us both very dimly and softly, as if he wished to do some- 
 thing for us, but had left it now too late. Lorna hoped that 
 he wanted to bless us, but he only frowned at that, and let 
 his hand drop downward, and crooked one knotted finger. 
 
COLD COM FORI'. 353 
 
 '■ He wants something out of the bed, dear," Lorna whis- 
 pered to me ; " see what it is ; upon youi' side, there." 
 
 I followed the bent of his poor shrunlcen hand, and 
 sought among the pilings ; and there L felt something hard 
 and sharp, and drew it forth and gave it to him. It flashed, 
 like the spray of a fountain upon us, in the dark winter of 
 the room. He could not take it m his hand, but let it 
 hang, as daisies do ; only making Lorna see that he meant 
 her to have it. 
 
 ■'AA'hy, it is my glass necklace ! " Lorna cried, in great 
 surprise ; " my necklace he always promised me, and from 
 which you have got the ring, John. Ijut grandfather kept 
 it, because the children wanted to pull it from my neck. 
 ^Liy I have it now, dear grandfather? Not unless you 
 wish, dear." 
 
 Darling Lorna wept again, because the old man could 
 not tell her (except by one very feeble nod) that she was 
 doing what he wished. Then she gave to me the trinket, 
 for the sake of safety ; and I stowed it in my breast. He 
 seemed to me to follow this, and to be well content with it. 
 
 Before Sir Ensor Doone was buried, the greatest frost of 
 the century had set in, with its iron hand, and step of 
 stone, on every thing. How it came is not my business, 
 nor can I explain it, because I never have watched the 
 skies, as people now begin to do, when the ground is not 
 to their liking. Though of all this I know nothing, and 
 less than nothing I may say (because I ought to know 
 something), I can hear what people tell me, and I can 
 see before my eyes. 
 
 The strong men broke three good pickaxes, ere they got 
 through the hard brown sod, chequed with flakes of frosty 
 white, where old Sir Ensor was to lie upon his back, await- 
 ing the darkness of the judgment-day. It was in the little 
 chapel-yard ; I will not tell the name of it, because we 
 are now such Protestants that I might do it an evil turn ; 
 only it was the little place where Lorna's Aunt Sabina lay. 
 
 Here was I, remaining long, with a little curiosity, be- 
 cause some people told me plainly that I must be damned 
 for ever by a Papist funeral ; and here came Lorna, 
 scarcely breathing through the thick of stuff around her, 
 yet with all her little breath steaming on the air, like frost. 
 
 I stood apart from the ceremony, in which, of course, I 
 was not entitled, either by birth or religion, to bear any 
 portion ; and indeed it would have been wiser in me to 
 have kept away altogether, for now there was no one to 
 
354 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 protect me among those wild and lawless men ; and both 
 Carver and the Counseller had vowed a fearful vengeance 
 on me, as I heard from Gwenny. They had not dared to 
 meddle with me, while the chief lay dying, nor was it in 
 their policy, for a short time after that, to endanger their 
 succession, by an open breach with Lorna, whose tender 
 age and beauty held so many of the youths in thrall. 
 
 The ancient outlaw's funeral was a grand and moving 
 sight, more perhaps from the sense of contrast than from 
 that of fitness. To see those dark and mighty men, inured 
 to all of sin and crime, reckless both of man and God, yet 
 now with heads devoutly bent, clasped hands, and down- 
 cast eyes, following the long black coffin of their common 
 ancestor, to the place where they must join him, when their 
 sum of ill was done, and to see the feeble priest chanting 
 over the dead form words the living would have laughed 
 at, sprinkling with his little broom drops that could not 
 purify, while the children, robed in white, swung their 
 smokmg censors slowly over the cold and twilight grave ; 
 and after seeing all, to ask, with a shudder unexpressed, 
 " Is this the end that God intended for a man so proud and 
 strong ? " 
 
 Not a tear was shed upon him, except from the sweetest 
 of all sweet eyes ; not a sigh pursued him home. Except 
 in hot anger, his life had been very cold, and bitter, and 
 distant ; and now a week had exhausted all the Sdrrow of 
 those around him, a grief flowing less from affection than 
 fear. Aged men will show his tombstone ; mothers haste 
 with their infants by it ; children shrink from the name 
 upon it ; until in time his history shall lapse, and be for- 
 gotten by all, except the great Judge and God. 
 
 After all was over, I strode across the moors very sadly, 
 trying to keep the cold away, by virtue of quick movement. 
 Not a flake of snow had fallen yet ; all the earth was 
 caked and hard, with a dry brown crust upon it ; all the 
 sky was banked with darkness, hard, austere, and frown- 
 ing. The fog of the last three weeks was gone, neither 
 did any rime remain ; but all things had a look of same- 
 ness, and a kind of furzy colour. It was freezing hard and 
 sharp, with a piercing wind to back it ; and I had observed 
 that the holy water froze upon Sir Ensor's coffin. 
 
 One thing struck me with some surprise, as I made off 
 for our fireside (with a strong determination to heave an 
 ash-tree up the chimney-place), and that was how the birds 
 were going, rather than flying as they used to fly. All the 
 
COLD COMFORT. 355 
 
 birds were set in one direction, steadily journeying west- 
 ward, not with any heat of speed, neither ilying far at once ; 
 but all (as if on business bound), partly running, partly 
 flying, partly fluttering along ; silently, and without a 
 voice, neither pricking head nor tail. This mo\cment of 
 the birds went on, even for a week or more ; every kind of 
 thrushes passed us, every kind of wild fowl, even plovers 
 went away, and crows, and snipes, and woodcocks. .And 
 before half the frost was over, all we had in the sn(jwy 
 ditches were hares so tame that we could pat them ; par- 
 tridges that came to hand, with a dry noise in their crops; 
 heath-poults, making cups of snow ; and a few poor hop- 
 ping red-wings, flipping in and out the hedge, having lost 
 the power to fly. And all the time their great black eyes, 
 set with gold around them, seemed to look at any man, for 
 mercy and for comfort. 
 
 Annie took a many of them, all that she could find her- 
 self, and all the boys would bring her ; and she made a 
 great hutch near the fire, in the back-kitchen chimney- 
 place. Here, in spite of our old Betty (who sadly wanted 
 to roast them), Annie kept some fifty birds, with bread and 
 milk, and raw chopped meat, and all the seed she could 
 think of, and lumps of rotten apples, placed, to tempt them, 
 in the corners. Some got on, and some died off ; and 
 Annie cried for all that died, and buried them under the 
 wood-rick ; but, I do assure you, it was a pretty thing to 
 see, when she went to them in the morning. There was not 
 a bird but knew her well, after one day of comforting ; and 
 some would come to her hand, and sit, and shut one eye, 
 and look at her. Then she used to stroke their heads, and 
 feel their breasts, and talk to them ; and not a bird of them 
 all was there but liked to have it done to him. And I do 
 believe they would eat from her hand things unnatural to 
 them, lest she should be grieved and hurt, by not know- 
 ing what to do for them. One of them was a noble bird, 
 such as I never had seen before, of very fine bright plum- 
 age, and larger than a missel-thrush. He was the hardest 
 of all to please ; and yet he tried to do his best. I have 
 heard since then, from a man who knows all about birds, 
 and beasts, and fishes, that he must have been a Norwegian 
 bird, called in this country a " Roller," who never comes to 
 England but in the most tremendous winters. 
 
 Another little bird there was, whom I longed to welcome 
 home, and protect from enemies, a little bird no native to 
 us, but than any native dearer. But lo, in the very night 
 
356 LOKNA DUONE. 
 
 which followed old Sir Ensor's funeral, such a storm of 
 snow began as never have I heard nor read of, neither 
 could have dreamed it. At what time of night it first 
 began is more than I can say, at least from my own knowl- 
 edge, for we all went to bed soon after supper, being cold, 
 and not inclined to talk. At that time the wind was moan- 
 ing sadly, and the sky as dark as a wood, and the straw in 
 the yard swirling round and round, and the cows huddling 
 into the great cow house, with their chins upon one another. 
 But we, being blinder than they, I suppose, and not having 
 had a great snow for years, made no preparation against 
 the storm, except that the lambing ewes were in shelter. 
 
 It struck me, as I lay in bed, that we were acting fool- 
 ishly ; for an ancient shepherd had dropped in, and taken 
 supper with us, and foretold a heavy fall, and great dis- 
 aster to live stock. He said that he had known a frost 
 beginning just as this had done, with a black east wind, 
 after days of raw cold fog, and then on the third night of 
 the frost, at this very time of year (to wit on the 15th 
 of December) such a snow set in as killed half of the sheep, 
 and many even of the red deer, and the forest ponies. It 
 was threescore years agone,' he said, and cause he had to 
 remember it, inasmuch as two of his toes had been lost by 
 frost-nip, while he dug out his sheep, on the other side of 
 the Dunkery. Hereupon mother nodded at him, having 
 heard from her father about it, and how three men had 
 been frozen to death, and how badly their stockings came 
 off from them. 
 
 Remembering how the old man looked, and his manner of 
 listening to the wind, and shaking his head very ominously 
 (when Annie gave him a glass of schnapps), 1 grew quite 
 uneasy in my bed, as the room got colder and colder ; and I 
 made up my mind, if it only pleased God not to send the 
 snow till the morning, that every sheep, and horse, and 
 cow, ay and even the jackass, should be brought in snug, 
 and with plenty to eat, and fodder enough to roast them. 
 
 Alas, what use of man's resolves, when they come a day 
 too late, even if they may avail a little when they are most 
 punctual ! 
 
 In the bitter morning I arose, to follow out my purpose, 
 knowing the time from the force of habit, although the 
 room was so dark and gray. An odd white light was on 
 the rafters, such as I never had seen before, while all the 
 
 The frost of 1625. 
 
COLD COMFORT. 357 
 
 length of the room was grisly, like the heart of a mouldy 
 oat-rick. I went to the window at once, of course, and 
 at first I could not understand what was doing outside of 
 it. It faced due east (as I may have said), with the wal- 
 nut-tree partly sheltering it, and generally I could see the 
 yard, and the wood-rick, and even the church beyond. 
 
 But now, half the lattice was quite blocked up, as if 
 plastered with grey lime, and little fringes, like ferns, 
 came through, where the joining of the lead was, and in 
 the only undarkened part, countless dots came swarming, 
 clustering, beating with a soft low sound, then gliding 
 down in a slippery manner, not as drops of rain do, but 
 each distinct from his neighbour. Inside the iron frame 
 (which fitted, not to say too comfortably, and went along 
 the stone-work), at least a peck of snow had entered, fol- 
 lowing its own bend and fancv, light as any cobweb. 
 
 With some trouble, and great care, lest the ancient frame 
 should yield, I spread the lattice open, and saw at once 
 that not a moment must be lost, to save our stock. .\11 the 
 earth was flat with snow, all the air was thick with snow ; 
 more than this no man could see, for all the world was 
 snowing. 
 
 I shut the window, and dressed in haste ; and when I 
 entered the kitchen, not even Betty, the earliest of all early 
 birds, was there. I raked the ashes together a little, just 
 to see a spark of warmth, and then set forth to find John 
 Fry, Jem Slocomb, and Bill Dadds. But this was easier 
 thought than done, for when I opened the court-yard 
 door, I was taken up to my knees at once, and the power 
 of the drifting cloud prevented sight of any thing. How- 
 ever, I found my way to the wood-rick, and there got hold 
 of a fine ash-stake, cut by myself not long ago. \\'ith this 
 I ploughed along pretty well, and thundered so hard at 
 John Fry's door, that he thought it was the Doones at 
 least, and cocked his blunderbuss out of the window. 
 
 John was very loth to come down, when he saw the 
 meaning of it, for he valued his life more than any thing 
 else, though he tried to make out that his wife was to 
 blame. But I settled his doubts by telling him that I 
 would have him on my shoulder naked, unless he came in 
 five minutes ; not that he could do much good, but because 
 the other men would be sure to skulk, if he set them the 
 example. With spades, and shovels, and pitchforks, and a 
 round of roping, we four set forth to dig out the sheep ; 
 and the poor things knew that it was high time. 
 
CHAPTER XLII. 
 
 THE GREAT WINTER. 
 
 T must have snowed most won- 
 derfully to have made that 
 depth of covering in about eight 
 hours. For one of Master Stick- 
 les' men, who had been out all 
 the night, said that no snow be- 
 gan to fall until nearly midnight. 
 And here it was, blocking up the 
 doors, stopping the ways and 
 the water-courses, and making it 
 very much worse to walk than 
 in a saw-pit newly used. How- 
 ever, we trudged along in a line, 
 I first, and the other men after 
 me, trying to keep my track, but 
 finding legs and strength not up 
 to it. Most all, John Fry was 
 groaning, certain that his time 
 was come, and sending messages 
 to his wife and blessings to his 
 children. For all this time it was snowing harder than it 
 ever had snowed before, so far as a man might guess at it, 
 and the leaden depth of the sky came down like a mine 
 turned upside down on us. Not that the flakes were so 
 very large, for I have seen much larger flakes in a shower 
 of March while sowing peas, but that there was no room 
 between them, neither any relaxing nor any change of 
 direction. 
 
 Watch, like a good and faithful dog, followed us very 
 cheerfully, leaping out of the depth, which took him over 
 his back and ears already, even in the level places, while 
 in the drifts he might have sunk to any distance out of 
 sight and never found his way up again. However, we 
 helped him now and then, especially through the gaps 
 and gateways, and so, after a deal of floundering, some 
 
 "^ 
 
THE GREAT WIXIKK. 359 
 
 laughter, and a little swearinj;, we came all safe to the 
 lower meadow, where most of our flock was hurdled. 
 
 But, behold, there was no flock at all ! None, I mean, 
 to be seen any where, only at one corner uf 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 carvetl 
 (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 chine 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 per- 
 mitted 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, dig- 
 ging 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 heard 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 
 

 
 6o LORNA DOONE. 
 
 wethers, who had met me when I came home from Lon- 
 don, and been so glad to see me. And then we all fell to 
 again, and very soon we hauled him out. \\'atch took 
 charge of him at once, with an air of the noblest patron- 
 age, 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 be- 
 neath 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 threescore 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, thev 
 are better where they be. Watch, here, bo)', 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 autre. 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 journey, 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 
 
NONE CAN TELL WHAT THE LABOUR WAS WHO HAVE NOT FELT 
 THAT SNOW AND WIND. 
 
362 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 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 burrows, 
 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 find- 
 ing 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 chim- 
 ney-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. 
 ^\'e 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. ( )nly round 
 the sun himself and the spot of heaven he claimed, clus- 
 tered 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 Frohisher. 
 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 
 
THE C.REAT WINTER. 363 
 
 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 conies, 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 to 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. 1 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 Forna 
 (if it should ever please God to stop the sno^\ing) nii.L;ht 
 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 steam- 
 ing) had long icicles from their muzzles almost every morn- 
 ing. But of all things the very gravest, to my apprehen- 
 sion 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. 
 
364 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 possi- 
 ble) 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, be- 
 cause 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 shovelling long 
 before my "young lady" had her nightcap off), she posi- 
 tively kissed me, for the sake of warming her lips, per- 
 haps, or because she had something proud to say. 
 
 " Vou great fool, John ! " said my lady, as Annie and I 
 used to call her, on account of her airs and graces. 'A\'hat 
 a pity you never read, John ! " 
 
 " Much use, I should think, in reading ! " I answered, 
 though pleased with her condescension. "Read, I sup- 
 pose, with roof coming in, and only this chimney left stick- 
 ing 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? 
 AVhichever 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. Xow, 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 
 
THE GREAT WINTER. 365 
 
 your foreign climates, child. Now attend to mothers hot 
 coffee." 
 
 She looked a little disappointed, but she knew what I 
 had to do, and, after all, she was not so utterly unreason- 
 able, although she did read books. And when I had done 
 my morning's work, I listened to her patientl)', and it was 
 out of mv 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 by me of her les- 
 son 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 chokeil with glittering 
 spikes, and a man's skin might come off of him before he 
 could ask the reason. Nevertheless, the people there (al- 
 though 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 every thing, 
 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 
 
366 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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-pan- 
 cakes, 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 (iod 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. S(j 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 turn- 
 ing 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 
 
THE GKKAT WIN'llCR. 367 
 
 myself at thinking of m)- sad debarment from the sight of 
 Lorna, and nf 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 \\<irk, and the making of 
 traps, and so on, before very long 1 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 1 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 maidens, who were come to 
 look at me. But after a while I grew more expert, dis- 
 covering what my errors were, and altering the inclination 
 of the sh(.ies themselves, according to a plan which Lizzie 
 found in a book of old adventures. And this made such a 
 difference that I crossed the farm-yard 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 I was forced to help myself up-stairs with a 
 couple of mop-sticks and I rubbed the joints with neats- 
 foot oil, which comforted them greatly. And likely 
 enough I would have abandoned any further trial but for 
 Lizzie's ridicule and pretended s)-mpathy, 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 Slocomb when they saw me cuming 
 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 snow- 
 drift. 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. 
 
368 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 because I had been too hard at work), and rather than 
 watch me grievini;' so for some bodv or other, who now 
 was all in all to me, I might go upon my course, and 
 Crod's protection go with me! ^\t this 1 was am.izeil, 
 because it was not at all like mother, and knowmg" how 
 well 1 had behaved ever since the time of our snowing up, 
 1 was a little moved to tell her that she could not under- 
 stand me. However, my sense of dutv kept me, and my 
 knowledge of the catechism from sa\ mg 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 m Providence, and how I 
 could run in mv new snow-slioes, I took a short pipe in 
 my mouth, and started forth accordingly. 
 
CHAPTER XLIII. 
 
 NOT TOO SOON. 
 
 HEN 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 Cilen. 
 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 water-course, 
 over all the rolling folds of misty 
 white were hovering. There was 
 nothing square or jagged left, there was nothing perpen- 
 dicular ; 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 past 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 everv 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 
 
oJO 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 I WAS COME TO THE OPEN COUNTRY. 
 
 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 any 
 thing opposed it, there you 
 might very safely say that 
 it ran up to twenty feet, 
 or thirty, or even fifty, and I believe sometimes a hundred. 
 At last I got to my sjiy-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 
 
N(1T T(U) SOON. ^71 
 
 a patch of ,L;rass was there, not a black branch of a tree; 
 all was white ; and the little river Mowed 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 v.'indow would not shut, any more than mine would ; 
 and perhaps she wanted blankets. This idea worked me 
 up to such a chill of svmpathv, that seeing no Doones now 
 about, and doubting if anv 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 davs and days. 
 Therefore 1 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 mv back and elbows 
 well against a snow-drift, hanging far adown the cliff, and 
 saying some of the Lord's Prayer, threw myself on Provi- 
 dence. 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 nobtidy. 
 
 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 against 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. 
 iMoreover I was afraid of prying narrowly into them, as it 
 
372 LORN A DOOXE. 
 
 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, Ciwenny ? " I asked, as 
 I slipped about on the floor, for I could not stand there 
 firmly with my great snow-shues on. 
 
 " Maning enough, and bad maning too," the Cornish girl 
 made answer. " Us be shut in here, and starving, and 
 durstn't let any body 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 mean- 
 while was occupied, to the best of my ability, in taking my 
 snow-shoes off, yet wondering much within mj-self 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 sav 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. 
 
NOT TOO SOOX. 
 
 0/ J 
 
 with all her strength, the hard brown crust of the rye-bread 
 which she had snatched from me so. 
 
 " C'.et water, or gel snow," I said ; "don't you know what 
 fainting is, you verv stupid child ? " 
 
 " Never heered on it in Carnwall," she answered, trust- 
 ing 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 fam- 
 ished 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," (".wenny 
 answered laughing ; " you come in here with they red 
 chakes, and make us think o' sirloin." 
 
 "Eat up your bit of brown bread, dwenny. It is not 
 good enough for vour 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 over 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 sir- 
 loin, 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 enjoy- 
 ment, 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 
 
374 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 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 with such 
 bitterness, 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 both that this state of things could be en- 
 dured 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." 
 
NdT TCXi SOON. 375 
 
 " Gwenny, have you courage for it? Will you come 
 with your young mistress?" 
 
 "Will I stay behind?" cried Cwenny, 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 cjuickly 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, offer- 
 ing high festival to all in the vallev, in right of their own 
 commandership. And Gwenny said that nothing made 
 her so nearly mad with appetite as the account she re- 
 ceived, from a woman, of all the dishes preparing. Never- 
 theless she had answered bravely : 
 
 '■ Git 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 anv 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 
 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 that it is high 
 time to put on your snow-shoes, John?" 
 
 " Certainly not," I answered, " till we have settled some- 
 thing 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 differ- 
 ence 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," 
 
37^ LOKXA DOONE. 
 
 " 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 always says, at 
 the beginning of a speech, the situation, to say the least, 
 is serious enough for any thing. 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. C)h, 
 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 windov/, 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 loth 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 Protest- 
 ants 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 
 
NOT TOO SOON. 377 
 
 that you are bii^oted. The Dimncs are firing Dunkery 
 beacon, to celebrate then- new captain." 
 
 " But how could they bring it here, through the snow ? 
 If they have sledges, 1 can do nothing." 
 
 " They brought it before the snow began. The moment 
 poor grandfather was gone, even before his funeral, the 
 3'oung 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 inso- 
 lent. ' Can't a gentlemen go home, without a smoke behind 
 him?' I have often heard them saying. And though they 
 have done it no great harm, since they threw the firemen 
 on the fire, many, many years ago, they have often prom- 
 ised to bring it here for their candle ; and now they have 
 done it. Ah, now look ! The tar is kindled." 
 
 Th<jugh Lorna took it so in joke, I looked upon it very 
 gravely, knowing that this heavv outrage to the feelings of 
 the neighbourhood would cause more stir than a hundred 
 sheep stolen, or a sc(jre of houses sacked. Not of course 
 that the beacon was of the smallest use to any one, neither 
 stopped any body from stealing ; nay, rather it was like 
 the parish-knell, which begins when all is over, and de- 
 presses 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 si.xpence 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 Slocomb's grandfather. 
 
 However, in spite of all my regrets, the fire weiit up 
 very merrily, blazing red and white and yellow, as it 
 leaped on different things. And the light danced on the 
 snowdrifts 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 landyards 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 
 
378 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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. Vou are safe while they are dining, dear, and drink- 
 ing healths, and all that stuff ; and before they have done 
 with that, I shall be again with you. Have every thing 
 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 mis- 
 tress ; but she only nodded her head and said, " Young 
 man, go and teach thy grandmother." 
 
CHAPTER XLIV 
 
 BROUl.HT HOME AT LAST. 
 
 O 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, espe- 
 cially with the snow to aid me, I durst 
 not try to fetch Lorna up them, e\'en 
 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 woodtd 
 hollow), it was snowed up long ago 
 to the level of the hills around. 
 Therefore I was at mv 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 acrciss 
 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 
 
 7 
 
380 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 block- 
 ing 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 pur- 
 pose 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 head- 
 long 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 lin- 
 hay, 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 pleas- 
 ure 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 those ponies, coming 
 
BKOUCHT IKiNrE Al' 1,AST. 3S1 
 
 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 waitmg, like a 
 pretty lamp-post. 
 
 The full moon rose as bright behind me as a patin 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 
 
382 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 coughing brought good liquorice, felt a pressure on my 
 bosom, and a husl^ing 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 iishing-days 
 of boyhood. As then I had a trident fork, for sticking of 
 the loaches, so now I had a strong ash stake, to lay across 
 from rock to rock, and break the speed of descending. 
 A\'ith 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 rever- 
 end 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, v.'ithout 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 takmg 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. 
 
i,* 
 
384 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Lorna was behind a chair, crouching in the corner, with 
 her hands up, and a crucifix, or something that looked Hke 
 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 "^Miichehalse. For his 
 father's sake I spared him, and because he had been my 
 school-fellow, 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 mis- 
 lead 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 
 sealskin 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 un- 
 seen 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 
 
BROUGHT IlOAtE AT LAST. 385 
 
 too rapid way, and brought m)- grown love safely out, by 
 the self-same 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 farm-house. 
 
 Gwenny's nose was touched with frost, before we had 
 gone much further, 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 scold- 
 ing 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 snow-drifts, 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 quiv- 
 ering, 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 
 
386 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 jumped out, and hung back in the clearing, giving any rea- 
 son 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 daugh- 
 ter ? 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 chatter- 
 ing 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. There- 
 fore 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 miy 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, 
 
BROUCHT HDMK Al' LAST. 
 
 587 
 
 and then nothing" more to do with it ; and tlic 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 
 
 FOR IN THE SETTLE WAS MY LORNA. 
 
 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 appre- 
 ciated, 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 fire-place. 
 In her eyes no knowledge was of any thing around her, 
 neither in her neck the sense of leaning towards any thing. 
 Only both her lovely hands were entreating something, to 
 
388 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 spare her or to love her ; and the Hnes of supplication quiv- 
 ered in her sad white face. 
 
 " All go away except my mother," I said very quietly, 
 but so that I would be obeyed ; and every body 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 protecting 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 ! " 
 
 .Vnd 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 XI.V 
 
 A CHANGE LONG NEEDED. 
 
 EREMY STICKLES was gone 
 south ere ever the frost set in, for 
 the purpose of mustering forces to 
 attack the Doone Glen. But now 
 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 la)' piled 
 between us, with the surface soft 
 Of course, they would very soon discover where 
 
 'P'-V 
 
 and dry. 
 
 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 thev 
 intended. But Alarwood 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 recognized me, and to have told 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 r)iiones 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 
 
390 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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. Truly, 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 every 
 body'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 wor- 
 shipped 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 per- 
 fect plague, when Lorna came into the kitchen. For be- 
 twi.xt their curiosity to see a live J )oone 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 contrarv, 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 homeli- 
 ness, and the pleasant smell of every thing. 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 
 
A CIIAiNCiE LONG NEEliED. 391 
 
 and colour out of all the dulness, as I have seen the break- 
 ing 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 free- 
 dom from anxiety. It is possible that my company — al- 
 though I am accounted stupid, by folk who do not know 
 my way — may liave 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 stranger 
 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 fnliow, 
 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 lire. And 
 yet she never spoke a word which gave more pain than pleasure. 
 
 And even in her outward look there was much of differ- 
 ence. ^\'hether 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 manner's sake, 
 because she was our visitor ; and I might have it before 
 breakfast, or else when I came to say " good night ! " accord- 
 ing 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 
 
392 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 daylight, fresher than the daystar, and ^vith no one lookhig, 
 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 iNIarch), 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. 
 
 (!)ne leading feature of that long cold, and a thing re- 
 marked 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. ( )ur 
 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. JUit the land being 
 thoroughly blocked with snow, and the inshore parts of the 
 sea with ice (floating in great fields along). Mother Mell- 
 drum (if she it were) had the caverns all to herself, for 
 there was no getting at her. And speaking of the sea re- 
 minds me of a thing reported to us, and on good authority, 
 though people might be found hereafter who would not be- 
 lieve 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 moan- 
 ing 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 
 
A CHANGE LONC NEKDED. 
 
 393 
 
 manifold. And now the sky at Itn^th began to come to its 
 true manner, wliich we had not seen for months, a mixture 
 (if I so may speak) of various expressions. AVhereas 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 
 C'rod. People had begun to think, and some body 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 dwell- 
 ing 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 (accord- 
 ing to our view) he were destined to extremes of heat, to- 
 gether with all who followed him ? 
 
 Not to meddle with that subject, being beyond my judg- 
 ment, 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. 
 
394 LORXA DOOXE. 
 
 This I know no reason ' for, but am ready to swear that 1 
 saw it. 
 
 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 any thing, never- 
 theless 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 prophecies, 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 be- 
 cause 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 told her that \\'innie would soon have 
 four legs now. This referred to some stupid joke made by 
 John Fry or some body, 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 south-west 
 wind, and we could not have enough of it, even putting our 
 tongues to catch it, as little children might do, and begin- 
 ning to talk of primroses, the very noblest thing of all was 
 to hear, and see, the gratitude of the poor beasts yet remain- 
 ing, and the few surviving birds. From the cow house 
 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, 
 
 ' The reason is verj' simple, as all nature's reasons are, though the 
 subject has not yet been investigated thoroughly. In some trees the vas- 
 cular 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. — Ed. L. D. 
 
A CHANGE LONC NEKDKl). 395 
 
 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 thev should have work 
 again. To whom, as if in answer, came the feeble bleating 
 of the slieep, 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 con- 
 trary, 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 cock's crow ! 
 And then how daintily they took the wet upon their dustv 
 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, any thing like this be- 
 fore, and it was all that we could do to keep her from rush- 
 ing forth, with only little lamb's-wool 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, gootl 
 John. I want to see the snow go away, and the green 
 meadows coming forth. And here c(jmes our favourite 
 robin, who has lived in the oven so long, and sung 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 ^'ery 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 every body knew 
 
396 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 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 every thing. 
 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 inean 
 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 be- 
 fore, 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. 
 
 '^:' 
 
 <v 
 
 HROUGH 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 them- 
 selves at our back door, and 
 stood there with their cnats quite 
 stiff, and their flanks drawn in 
 and panting, and icicles some- 
 times on their chins, and their 
 great eyes fastened wistfully upon 
 any merciful person, cravmg 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 with- 
 out 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 
 
 -JT^ 
 
398 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 down from roof, and rock, and ivied tree, and floods be- 
 gan to roar and foam in every trough and gulley. The 
 drifts, that had been so white and fair, loolced yellow, and 
 smirched, and muddy, and lost their graceful curves, and 
 moulded lines, and airyness. 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 glori- 
 ous scenery, for nothing used to please me more than swim- 
 ming 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, be- 
 cause when the ground appeared through the crust of bub- 
 bled 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. Never- 
 theless, there was yard-work, and house-work, and tendance 
 of stock, enough to save any man from idleness. 
 
 As for Lorna, she would come out. There was no keep- 
 ing 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 
 
- ^ ' ' ■ ' :% 
 
 "'^. 
 
 "'^'*^: 
 
 >CV 
 
 r.-^" '^''^•.,- — *-i* 
 
 \ 
 
 -H^^H^^'-^ ^iU'>>^ 
 
 ^ts^^ 
 
 I WAS HALF INCLINED TO JUMP IN AND SWIM THROUGH SUCH 
 GLORIOUS SCENERY. 
 
400 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 before the snow was clean gone from it, and sowed a beau- 
 tiful 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 be 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 din- 
 ner while her sweetheart should tell us every thing. 
 
 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 Holland. When the lawyers knew thoroughly who 
 he was, and how he had made his money, they behaved un- 
 commonly 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 en- 
 deavours ; and the old gentleman, who now expected to 
 
SQUIRE FACCUS MAKES SOME 1,U('K\' HITS. 
 
 401 
 
 find a bill for him to pay, almost thought himself a rogue, 
 for getting any thing 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. l!ut 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 
 
 HE CLAD HER 0\ER THE LOINS. 
 
 well know what to do with. I have known a fog for a fort- 
 night, 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 
 
402 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 
 every thing, both his own and other people's (although so 
 free in scattering, when the humor lay upon him), he had 
 actually turned to hfs own advantage that extraordinary 
 weather which had so impoverished every one around him. 
 For he taught his ^\'innie (who knew his meaning as well 
 as any child could, and obeyed not only his word of mouth, 
 but every glance he gave her), to go forth in the snowy 
 evenings, when horses are seeking every where (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 appetite 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 inspi- 
 ration. 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 saga- 
 cious 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 
 
SQUIRE FA(;(.;US MAKKS SOME LUCKY HITS. 403 
 
 knowin;,'. Hinvever, I may judge him harshly, because I 
 myst'lf tell every thing. 
 
 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 venerv, and mi<4ht 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 re- 
 quired, 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 — 1 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 every thing 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 I 
 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 ; 
 
404 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 honestj^. 
 
 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 ver)' 
 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, every thing about 
 her was the neatest and the 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 every thing was so 
 nice, 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' 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 guest 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. AVith them, 
 of course, it is needful that the man (who has his hours 
 
SQUIRE FAtiGUS MAKES SOME I.UCKV HITS. 405 
 
 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 equiva- 
 lent in words for what bullying is in deeds, and no mure 
 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 ]Mux- 
 worthy waiting, and (Iwenny 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 pur- 
 pose to take us aback, in case of our hiding any thing : 
 
 " 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." 
 
406 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "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 connec- 
 tion 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 pleas- 
 antly, "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 some- 
 thing 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 enjo)'- 
 ing 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 any thing 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 
 
SQUIRE FAGGUS MAKES SOME LUCKY HITS. 407 
 
 '"MASTER FAGGUS," BEGAN 
 MY MOTHER. 
 
 our Stock and the house above 
 our heads, but also of our pre- 
 cious lives, and, after all, was she 
 worth it, although so very beautiful ? 
 Upon which I told him with indig- 
 nation 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 
 
408 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 Dul- 
 verton." 
 
 "What,'' said I, "that common glass thing which she has 
 had from her childhood ?" 
 
 " Glass, indeed I 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 roys- 
 tering 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 op- 
 portunity — 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 carbined outriders, 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 
 
SQUIRE FALlGUS MAKES SOME LUCKY IIIIS. 409 
 
 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 1 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 \\'innie after him, over our farm-yard gate. 
 For I am violent when roused, and freely hereby acknowl- 
 edge 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 justiv caused) of my dearest friends to be a 
 great deal to rouse me. 
 
CHAPTER XLVII. 
 
 JEREMY IN DANGER. 
 
 OTHING very long abides, as the 
 greatest of all writers (in whose 
 extent I am for ever lost in rap- 
 tured wonder, and )'et for ever 
 quite at home, as if his heart were 
 mine, although his brains so dif- 
 ferent), in a word, as Mr. ^\'illiam 
 Shalcespeare, 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 hun- 
 dred 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 vio- 
 lently, 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 win- 
 dow. 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, and 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 
 
JEREMY IN DANGER. 
 
 411 
 
 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 nut 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 man- 
 hood, but also the comfort, and 
 even the hope, of my now de- 
 clining years. In a word, it is i { 
 
 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 
 iin,^-, if she be at all of the proper 
 
 sort. And my mother, 
 
 1 being one of the very 
 j best, could not long re- 
 ' tain her wrath against 
 I the Squire Faggus, es- 
 pecially when she came 
 I to reflect, upon Annie's 
 suggestion, how natu- 
 I ral, and one might say, 
 i how inevitable it was, 
 that a young man, fond 
 
 r - 
 
 ■'^ ^^VKSmcw ^-'-m^^ 
 
 BUT SUDDENLY SOMETHING FELL ON MY HEAD. 
 
412 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 of adventure and change, and winning good profits by jeop- 
 ardy, should not settle down without some regret 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 left 
 the Jericho traveller alone, inasmuch as he rather fell among 
 Tom Fagguses than resembled them. However, her rea- 
 soning 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 that 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 to- 
 wards 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 exam- 
 ine 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 as 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 ; " vou 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 ?" 
 
JEREMY IX llANCKR. 
 
 413 
 
 "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 I 
 Oh, if it were not 
 
 TOM FAGGUS TOOK IT EAGERLY, AND 
 BORE IT TO THE WINDOW. 
 
 for Annie, I could make mv for- 
 -''-J tune." 
 
 " 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 
 
414 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 hand 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 worshiped 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 espe- 
 cially to Annie, who was wondering at his learning) a dis- 
 sertation 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 soever 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 possibili- 
 ties 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 black- 
 
JEREMY IX DANCER. 415 
 
 smith ? 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 sure 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 him- 
 self. 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. 
 
41 6 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 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, ac- 
 cording to his own standard ; and you might rely upon him 
 always, up to a certain point, I mean, to be there or there- 
 abouts. 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 among the embers ; " a 
 pretty plight you may call this, for His Majesty's Commis- 
 sioner to return to his head-quarters 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 an- 
 swered ; " 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 wav from 
 Landacre Bridge I have ridden a race for my precious life, 
 at the peril of my limbs and neck. Three great l)oones 
 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." 
 
JEREMY IN DANCER. 417 
 
 However he left me to do it, while he made himself com- 
 fortable ; 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 of it. 
 lly 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 lieavy, 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 lloods, 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 proposctl 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. < Ui 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 (.)wn 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 the 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 
 
41 8 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 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 hickily 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, hearing 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 suft'ering 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 
 
JEREMY IN DAXCER. 
 
 419 
 
 
 encouraged his nag and put him into a 
 good hand gallop, heading away towards 
 Withycombe. At first he had thought of 
 turning to the right and making off for 
 A\'ithypool, a mile or so tlown the val- 
 ley, but his good sense told him that no 
 one there would 
 «k dare to protect him 
 
 Mfej, ^E\ against the Doones, 
 
 ■^a .-_ -fJIM^ gQ j^g resolved 
 
 to go on his 
 
 i^|.,^vcl 
 
 ■\ S«4i»<-- 
 
 HE ACKNOWLEDGED IT WITH A WAVE OF 
 HIS HAT. 
 
 /'^ 
 
 ZJ 
 
 ' fit 
 
 A 
 
 If 
 
 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 
 
420 LOKNA DOONE. 
 
 guns, neither was wood or coppice nigii, 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, he stuck 
 fast in a " dancing bog," as we call them upon Exmoor. 
 The horse had broken through the crust of moss and sedge 
 and marish-weed, 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 Lucot 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 iDeen so many foxes. 
 
 Their only answer was to fire the remaining charge at 
 him, but the distance was too great for any aim from horse- 
 back, 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 fashion- 
 able in London for expression of contempt. However, they 
 followed him yet further, hoping to make him pay out 
 dearly, if he should only miss the track, or fall upon mo- 
 rasses. But the neighbourhood of our Lynn stream is not 
 so very boggy, and the King's messenger now knew his 
 
JEREMY IN I)AN(JER. 
 
 421 
 
 way as well as an_v of his chasers 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 ver)- 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 vou were struck b}' 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, ;\Iistress 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." 
 
 •v^-<'' ■'.-.•■;<'"<^' ■'■■•' 
 
CHAPTER XLVIII. 
 
 EVERY MAN MUST DEFEND HIMSELF. 
 
 T 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 cau- 
 tion that Lorna (whom he had not 
 seen as 3-et) must not be 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 what- 
 ever 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 Plym- 
 outh, 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. 
 
E\ERV MAN MUST DEKKND HIMSi:!.!'. 423 
 
 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 afterward, but 
 now their discipline was gone, and the younger generation 
 had seen no real fighting. Each would have his own opin- 
 ion, and would want to argue it, and if this were not al- 
 lowed 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 lUig- 
 worth)' was not in their county, the Devonshire people 
 affirming vehemently that it lay in the county of Somerset, 
 and the Somerset 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 (')are 
 and Brandon 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 
 equallv contribute to the e.xtirpation of this pest, which 
 shamed and injured them both alike. But hence arose 
 another difficulty, for the men of Devon said the\- would 
 march when Somerset had taken the held, and tlie 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 Iving's Commissioner returned 
 without any army whatever, but with promise of two hun- 
 dred 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 at- 
 tack from the outlaws, and the more especially now that they 
 
424 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 hand- 
 ling 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 be- 
 low 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 wind- 
 ing 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, upset- 
 ting 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 foot-bridge had 
 been carried away long ago. And the men I was seeking 
 must have their dwelling 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' chief 
 mate, and so he went back and fetched his comrades, bring- 
 
KVERV MAX MUST LUiKKXD HliMSEI,F. 425 
 
 ing their weapons, but leaving their horses behind. As it 
 happened, there were but four of them ; h(nvever, 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 ni(_)orland. 
 
 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 1 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, be- 
 ing 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 vic- 
 tim. 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 
 
426 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 which I swore to God that night upon my knees, in secret, 
 that I would smite down Carver Uoone, 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 overrated my slow nature to ad- 
 mit the question. 
 
 While she leaned there, quite unable yet to save herself, 
 Carver came to the brink of the flood, which alone was be- 
 tween them, and then he stroked his jet-black beard, and 
 waited for Lorna to begin. Very likely he 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 no- 
 bodies, 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 — which 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 
 
KVKRV MAX MUST DHKKMi HIMSELF. 427 
 
 rather than keep our garrison hungry. And all our men 
 were exceedingly brave, and counted their rounds of the 
 house in half-pints. 
 
 Jiefiirc the maidens went to bed Lorna made a remark 
 which seemed to me a very clever one, and then I won- 
 dered how on earth it had never occurred to me before. 
 l')Ut 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 kind- 
 ness. 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 hap- 
 piness." 
 
 "Dear child, we are paying no price at all," replied my 
 mother, embracing her ; " we are not threatened for vour 
 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 histor}? as the Rve House, or the meal-tub, 
 or even the great black box, in \\ hich she was a firm be- 
 liever ; 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 Walter's place, she would keej) 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." " Xo," I used to say; "I can give you no 
 reason why it ma}- 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 onh- too 
 gladly believe, if true, is nevertheless kept dark from them." 
 "There you are again, John," mother would reply, "all 
 
428 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 to 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 an- 
 swered 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 ac- 
 count ; and that if she should hear, b)- 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 out- 
 let down my famous water-slide. The valley must be under 
 
EVERY MAN MUST DllFKXl) HIMSELF. 429 
 
 water twenty feet at least. \\'cll, if ever there was a fool, I 
 am he, for not havinjj, thou,y;ht of it." 
 
 "I remember once before," said Lorna, reckoning on her 
 fingers, " when there was very heavy rain, all through the 
 autumn and winter, five or it may be si.\ years ago, the 
 river came down with such a rush that the water was t\v(7 
 feet deep in our rooms, and we all had to camp by the cliff- 
 edge. But yt)u think that the floods are higher now, I be- 
 lieve I heard you say, John." 
 
 " I don't think about it, mv 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 as no living man can remember, neither will ever 
 behold again. C!onsider three months of sno\v, snow, snow, 
 and a fortnight of rain on the top of it, and all to be drained 
 in a few days away ! .Vnd great barricades of ice still in 
 the rivers blocking them up, and ponding them. Vou may 
 take my word for it. Mistress Lorna, that your pretty bower 
 is si.\ feet deep." 
 
 "Well, my bower has served its time," said Lorna, blush- 
 ing 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 shelter- 
 ing 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 \'ou 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." 
 
 ^\'e 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 quarrelling. 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 con- 
 duct, although they spoke very confidently over their cans 
 of cider. Neither were their weapons fitted for much ex- 
 ecution, unless it were at close quarters, which they would be 
 
430 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 likely to avoid. Bill Dadds had a sickle, Jem Slocomb 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 1 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 anvwhere) 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 inhabit- 
 ants, 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 un- 
 willing to have them burned, and fearful that they might 
 kindle, if well roused up with fire upon the windward side. 
 
 By the by, these Doones had got the worst of this pleas- 
 ant trick one time. For happening to fire the ricks of a 
 lonely farm called Yean worthy, 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 
 
EVKkV MAN MUST DEFl'XIi HIMSELF. 43 I 
 
 or six fine voiini;' DiKines came dancing a reel (as tlieir 
 manner was) lietwixt her and the (laming 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. Vou 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. 'l"he 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 
 mv 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 reso- 
 lutions, 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. 
 
 MAIDEX SENTINELS ARE BEST. 
 
 T was not likely that the outlaws 
 would attack our 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 consid- 
 eration, I must have striven 
 harder against the stealthy ap- 
 proach of slumber. But even 
 so, it was very foolish to aban- 
 don 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 awaking 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 3'our head, dear ! " 
 
 " How could I sleep, while at any moment you might be 
 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, 
 
MAIDKN SENTINELS ARi: BEST. 
 
 433 
 
 and clearly lighting all the watered valleys. I'o sleep any 
 longer might be death, not only to myself, but all. 
 
 "The man un guard at the back of the house is fast 
 asleep," she continued; " (iwenny, who let me out, and 
 
 came with me, has 
 heard him snoring for 
 two hours. I think 
 the women ought to 
 be the watch, be- 
 cause they have had 
 notravelhng. Where 
 do you suppose little 
 Gwennv is ? " 
 
 s"^-^ 
 
 " 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 in yonder tree, which commands the Bar- 
 row 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 tliey 
 cross, she is sure to see them and in good time to let us know. " 
 
434 LORXA I)(i(_iNE. 
 
 " 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 thaii' 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 fi,ght, 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 moon- 
 light ; 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 disobe- 
 dience 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, vou 
 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. A'ery 
 well ; I will not climb the tree, for I should defeat my own 
 purpose, I fear, being easier to be seen than see. 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, 
 "Gild keep you, love !" and then away she tripped across 
 the yard, with the step I loved to watch so. And there- 
 upon I shouldered arms, and resolved to tramp till morn- 
 ing. 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 to- 
 wards me, in and out the shadows, and I saw that it was 
 
MAIDEN SKNTINEl.S AKK liEST. 435 
 
 no other than the Uttle maid herself, and that she bore 
 some tidings. 
 
 " Ten on 'em crossctl the waiter down yonner," said 
 Ciwenny, putting her hand to her mouth, and seeming to 
 regard it as good news rather than otherwise; "be arl 
 craping up by hedge-row now. I could shutt dree on 'em 
 from the bar of the gate, if so be I had your goon, \oung 
 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 impor- 
 tance. l)Ut it seemed to me like a sort of triumph that they 
 should even be 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 bv. 
 
 The robbers rode into our yard as coolly as if tliey 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 awav, for we think so much of 
 our horses, liv this time I could see our troopers waiting 
 in the shadow of the house, round the' corner from where 
 the Doones were, and expectuig the order to fire. l!ut 
 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, ^\'e 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 
 lightly) 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 ! 
 
436 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 straightfor- 
 ward 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, the 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. A\'ith 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 in- 
 clined to advance and challenge Carver Doone to meet me ; 
 but I bore in mind that he would be apt to shoot me with- 
 out 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 ? 
 
 \\'hile I was hesitating thus (for I always continue to hesi- 
 tate, 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 an- 
 swer. 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. 
 
MAIDEN SENTINELS ARE BEST. 
 
 437 
 
 "Now, Carvei- 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 man- 
 hood. 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-vard, 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 Cap- 
 tain 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, 
 v.'hom I had smitten by the 
 clover -rick. And two dead 
 Doones were left behind, whom (as we buried them in the 
 church-yard 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 enemv, 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 
 
 TOOK HI.M BY THE BE.\RU. 
 
438 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 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 eye-brow, and being fired 
 so near at hand the powder, too, had scarred me. There- 
 fore 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 inten- 
 tion 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 be- 
 come 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 any thing 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 peas- 
 ants' 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 are only contemptible ; second, the 
 
MAIDKX SENTIXKI.S AKK i;i;.ST. 439 
 
 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 tlie\' ever tried to open, they 
 began at the back of the cuver. 
 
 Now I did not like to hear such things, and to me they 
 a]ipeared to be insolent, as well as narrow-minded. For if 
 vou came to that, wliv miglit not men, as well as women, 
 be diviiied into the same three classes, and be pronounced 
 upon by women, as beings even more devoid than their 
 gentle judges of reason? M(.)reover 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 ; verv keen, more- 
 over, at seeing the right, be it by reason or otherwise. And 
 upon the whole, I prefer them much to the people of my 
 own se-\, as goodness of heart is more important than to 
 show good reason for having it. .\nd so I said to Jeremy : 
 
 " You have been ill-treated, perhaps, Master Stickles, by 
 some woman or other?" 
 
 " Av, 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 wr(jnged 
 in any way, never even let her know that I liked another 
 better. And yet when I was at Berwick last, with the regi- 
 ment on guard there against those vile moss-tr(jopers, what 
 does that woman do but llv in the face of all authority, and 
 of my especial business, bv running awav 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 inso- 
 lence of the thing was such that cverv body 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' view of the matter was so entirely unro- 
 mantic 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 Mas- 
 ter 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 
 
440 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 BOUND THIl BROKEN ARM. 
 
 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 al- 
 though 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 mat- 
 ter 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 re- 
 spected. 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 com- 
 mon justice, to belong to me, and 
 I have a good right to let him go, 
 if I think proper to do so. How- 
 ever, 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 commis- 
 sioner, and therefore I let my prisoners go, and wished them 
 a happy deliverance. Stickles replied, with a merry grin, 
 that if they ever got it, it would be a gaol 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 
 
MAIDEN SENTINELS ARE l!l':.Sr. 
 
 441 
 
 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 flooths 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. 
 
 0\V 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 objec- 
 tion, 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 some body 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 
 \\\\\ 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. 
 
A MERKV MEl-ynXC A SAD ()\K. 443 
 
 However, mv dear mother would have it that Lorna was 
 too voting as \et, to think of being married ; and indeed, I 
 myscif was compelled to admit that her form was becoming 
 more perfect and lovely, though I had not thought it pos- 
 sible. And another difficulty was, that as we had all been 
 Protestants from the time of (^)ueen Elizabeth, the maiden 
 must be converted first, and taught to hate all Papists. 
 Now Lorna had not the smallest idea of ever being con- 
 verted. 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 ISowden 
 re-appeared 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." 
 
 Every body in our parish, who could walk at all, or hire 
 a boy and a wheelbarrow, ay and half the folk from Coun- 
 tisbury, 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 firebrand, 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 
 
444 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 ser- 
 vice, 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 Ex- 
 moor, 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 new by the bang of the door, having 
 eased the lock for her lately. Lorna saw there was some- 
 thing 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 lutestring 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 some- 
 thing about our John, I am sure, for she never worries 
 
A AlERRY MEETING A SAD ONE. 445 
 
 herself very much about an\' body but him." And here 
 Annie made a look at me, such as I had had five hundred of. 
 
 " Vou keep your opinions to yourself," I replied, because 
 I knew the dear, and her little bits of jealousy ; " it hap- 
 pens that you are quite wrong;, this time. Lorna, come 
 with me, ni)- 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." 
 
 iMy 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 other- 
 wise among so many women. H(jweyer, we ^^■ere always 
 doubly kind to her afterwards, and although her mind was 
 so sensitive and quick that she must have sulTered, she 
 never allowed us to perceive it, nor lowered herself by 
 resenting it. 
 
 Possibly I may have mentioned that little Ruth Huck- 
 aback had been asked, and had 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." 
 
446 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Now one of the little ways in which Ruth had been very 
 useful, was the purchase of the scarlet feathers of the flam- 
 ing 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 1 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 council 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 believe 
 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 ? A\'e are not wheat, we are human 
 beings, and all we care for is human doings." This may be 
 vei"y 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 — never- 
 theless, 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). 
 
A MEKRV MEiniNC A SAD (iM-:. 447 
 
 because thereafter all otiiers know how much uf the milk he 
 had, and he can suck no longer, and they value him accord- 
 ingly, 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 of 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 sank, 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. 
 
448 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Now Ruth as yet had never heard a word about dear 
 Lorna, and when she led me into the kitchen (where every 
 thing 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 endeavor 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 any thing 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, or a scavenger of 
 the roads, instead of the decent suit of kersey, or of Sab- 
 bath doe-skin, 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 
 any thing that he eats or drinks, nor even in counting his 
 money, as he used to do all Sunday ; indeed no pleasure 
 in any thing, unless it be smoking his pipe, and thinking, 
 
A MERRY MEETING A SAD ONE. 449 
 
 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 fore- 
 man and to me." 
 
 " And what will become of you, dear Ruth, if any thing 
 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 busi- 
 ness 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 some- 
 times, 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 exactlv what I said, or meant a 
 single atom more, or would not have said the same, if Lorna 
 had been standing by. \\'hat I had always liked in Ruth 
 was the calm straightforward gaze, and beauty of her large 
 brown eves. 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. Vou 
 see I remember what you are, when once you get among 
 horses, or cows, or things of that sort." 
 
 "Things of that sort! A\'ell done, Ruth I One would 
 think you were quite a Cockney." 
 
450 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 Uncle Rueben 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 
 so 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 under- 
 stand it, but I cannot help myself. Only you look out, if 
 ever " — and before he had finished winking, the door was 
 
A MERRV MEETING A SAD ONE. 45 1 
 
 shut behind him. Then Ruth said to me in the simplest 
 manner, " You have ridden far to-day, Cousin Ridd, and 
 have far to ride to get home again. AVhat 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 resigna- 
 tion. "I cannot bear bad manners, dear; and how old are 
 you next birthday?" 
 
 "Eighteen, dear John," said Ruth, coming over with the 
 
452 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 or 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. AMll 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-car- 
 ried 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 every thing, 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 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 ? " 
 
A MERRY MEETINC A SAD ONE. 453 
 
 Then I told her how, for years and years, I had been m 
 love with 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 C(.)me between us, except on the 
 score of religion, upon which point 1 trusted soon to over- 
 come 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 sav 
 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 happv, with — I mean in vour 
 new life," she whispered very softly, "as happy as you 
 deserve to be, and as happ)' 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 Rueben 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 be- 
 come 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 
 
454 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 even 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 ? 
 
 ^•fe-. 
 
 
 ;?r~ 
 
CHAPTER LI. 
 
 A VISIT FROM THE COUNSELLOR. 
 
 0^\', while I was riding home that 
 
 N evening with a tender conscience 
 
 about Ruth, although not a wound- 
 ed one, I guessed but little that 
 all ni)- 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 jMoses," I in- 
 quired, having picked up that 
 phrase at Dulverton, "what are 
 )'ou at about me now? There is 
 no ]X'ace for a quiet fellow." 
 
 "It is iK.ithing we are at,'' she 
 answered, "neither may you make light of it. It is some- 
 thing very important about ^listress 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 inex- 
 haustible." 
 
 "No doubt," replied Lizzie, in the driest manner; "es- 
 pecially 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 
 
456 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 copses were last winter ? He never can comb it, that is 
 quite certain, with any comb yet invented." 
 
 " Then go you and offer your services. There are few 
 things you cannot scarify. I know the man from your de- 
 scription, 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 com- 
 monest 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 in my arms 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 courtesies 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 (if 
 her title to it) was encouraged to deliver. 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 she had suffered, 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, 
 
A VISIT FROM THE CnUNSEI.LdR. 457 
 
 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." 
 
 " \ou 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 ter- 
 rible loss to this neighbourhood? As one of our great 
 writers says — I think it must be Milton — 'V\'e 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 every thing 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 courtesy, and 
 really did look very nice. 
 
 " Now, though I have quoted the poets amiss, as your son 
 informs me (for which I tender mv 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 ilwell 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. Mis- 
 tress Ridd?" 
 
 "^\'elI, 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 
 
458 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 can- 
 not 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 any thing 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 " 
 
 "On, 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 disquali- 
 fication 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 incur- 
 able. I have known such cases. Violent prejudice, bred 
 entirely of education, and anti-economical to the last de- 
 gree. And when it is so, it is desperate ; no man after im- 
 bibing 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 
 
A VISIT FROM THE COUNSELLOR. 459 
 
 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 ob- 
 ject 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 matri- 
 monial 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 vou 
 weary of — well, say of one another, if you can now, by any 
 means, conceive of such a possibility. .\.nd perfect justice 
 meted out, mutual good-will resulting from the sense (if 
 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. How- 
 ever, 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 
 
460 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 squeez- 
 ing both my hands, I never yet Icnew 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?" 
 
 " S(j please your worship," I answered, "no kind of vio- 
 lence can surprise us, since first came Doones upon Ex- 
 moor. Up to that time, none heard of harm, except of 
 taking a purse, may be, 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 any thing." 
 
 "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 ! ^\'hat, 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 with- 
 out any kind of argument, which I would never wish to try 
 
A \isrr iRdM THE counsellor. 461 
 
 with one of your worship's leaniin^j. 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 the\', 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 sim- 
 plest 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." 
 
 " Vou know, without any words of mine," she answered 
 very softly, yet not withdrawing from my hand, " that al- 
 though 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 happv 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 over- 
 rated her strength about it, and the sustenance of irony. 
 So at last she fell into my arms, which had long been wait- 
 ing 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 
 
462 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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, know- 
 ing 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 heart- 
 less 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. 
 
 " 'Lhat 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 
 
A VISIT FROM THE COUNSELLOR. 463 
 
 the bottom of the second glass and having a trifle or s(i 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 mi.\ 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 to- 
 gether), 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, Ood 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. ^-Etas 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 won- 
 dered whether it might have so ruined me, but for God's 
 mercy in stopping it. 
 
CHAPTER LII. 
 
 THE WAY TO MAKE THE CREAM RISE. 
 
 HAT night the reverend Coun- 
 sellor, 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 good-will towards us, and to 
 see that nothing else could be of 
 any use to him, or whether he 
 was merely acting so as to de- 
 ceive 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 sleep again. 
 
 After breakfast, the Counsellor (who looked no whit 
 the worse for schnapps, but even more grave and vener- 
 able) 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, 
 
THE WAV TO MAKE THE CREAM RJSE. 465 
 
 for he had nobly condemned the people who spoke against 
 Tom Faggus. 
 
 " Your honour must plainl)- 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 en- 
 joyed this talk with Annie, "that if you pass across the 
 top, without breaking the surface, a string of beads, or pol- 
 ished glass, or any thing 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 ! fSut 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 any 
 thing 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. 1 )earest 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 any 
 thing 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 awav 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 1" cried the Counsellor; "nay, we shall do it 
 good, my dear. It will help to raise the cream ; and you 
 
466 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 loolied 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, mislik- 
 ing 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 ! \\'hat 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 sud- 
 denly in the opening with our Betty, no doubt, behind it. 
 But .\nnie, 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 shaggy brows were knit across them, and his 
 forehead scowled in black furrows, so that Annie said 
 
THE WAY TO MAKE THE CREAM RISE. 467 
 
 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. 
 
 " Xow," he said in a deep, stern whisper, " not a word of 
 this to livini; 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 bot- 
 tom, and vou will bless me for a secret which will make 
 youT 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 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 fore- 
 head, 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 courtesy, and ran away to her bed- 
 room ; 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 e.xpired. 
 
 Meanwhile the Counsellor was gone. He bade our 
 mother adieu with so much dignity of bearing, and such 
 warmth and 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 hail used last 
 night, as if it would teach her the graces. AntI 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 charm- 
 ing 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 emo- 
 tion, but pressed my hand in silence ! Oh Lizzie, you have 
 
468 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 Clalahad. 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 Liz- 
 zie's face, for she could not look at me ; and Lizzie looked 
 at me, to know ; and as for me, I could have stamped al- 
 most 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 al- 
 ways 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 any thing 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 be- 
 yond 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." 
 
THE WAV TO MAKp; THE CREAM RISE. 469 
 
 Poor mother bent on Lorna's shoulder, without thought 
 uf 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 dinner-time) 
 than it had been since the day on which Tom Faggus dis- 
 covered 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 tlie 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 slie 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 tell- 
 ing her, if she wanted a witch, to seek good Mother Mell- 
 drum, a legitimate performer. 
 
 That same night Master Jeremy Stickles (of whfise ab- 
 sence 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 impos- 
 sible 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) 
 sharpened their old cutlasses, and laid pitchforks on the 
 
470 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 con- 
 tempt, 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. 
 
 " A\'hat ! " cried I, with my blood running cold. " AVe 
 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. AA'e 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 those wondrous 
 
THE WAV TO MAKE THE CREAAr RISE. 47 1 
 
 jewels. Now will \'ou keep as close as death c\cTy word 
 I tell you?" 
 
 " Ry the honour of a man, I will. Until you y(.)urself 
 release me." 
 
 "That is quite enough, John. From you I want no oath, 
 which, according to my experience, tempts a bad man to 
 lie the more, by making it more important. I know V(.)U 
 now too well to swear you, though I have the power. 
 Now, my lad, what I have to sav 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. Onlv 
 think of loving Lorna, only think of kissing her, and then 
 remembering that her fatlier had destroyed the life of 
 mine ! " 
 
 "Only think," said Master Stickles, imitating my very 
 voice, "of Lorna loving you, John, of Lorna kissing vou, 
 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 onesided all men are 1 " 
 
 " 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. 
 
 OU know, my son," said Jeremy 
 
 Y Stickles, with a good pull at his 
 
 pipe, because he was going to talk 
 so much, and putting his legs well 
 along in 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 
 every thing about every body. 
 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 minds 
 is this, 'A\'as this action kind and 
 Long after that you say to yourselves, ' Does the 
 Taw enjoin or forbid this thing?' Now, here is your funda- 
 mental error, for among all truly civilized people the fore- 
 most of all questions is, 'How stands the law herein?' 
 And if the law approve, no need for any further question- 
 ing. 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 
 
JEREMY FINliS OUT SdMETHINi;. 473 
 
 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 de- 
 livering himself so grandly. "\\'hy, you yourself ha\e 
 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 ?" 
 
 " iMy 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, ff.ir 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 
 Uulverton 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. Fur they would tell me 
 nothing at all about their fellow-townsman, your worthy 
 Uncle Huckaback, except that he was a Clod-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 
 tune I might have known that through your western home- 
 liness 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 un- 
 derstand us 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 after- 
 noon, 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 
 
474 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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, 
 
 VS s\L(, V I niLL 
 HnLbE BLIMvED iiN me, 
 
 \s L\rk I b\U 
 OK WISHED 111 ^Er 
 
 piled with pop- weed, ^--^..^-^^"'"and I tried to make 
 him face the waves, j-^j'j;:.* and then I looked about me. 
 "Watchett town was "^"-j^ not to be seen on account 
 of a little foreland a mile or i more upon my course, and 
 standing to the right of me. There was room enough be- 
 low the chffs (which are nothing there to )'ours, 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 
 eyebrows of wrack-weed, 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 
 
JKREMV FINDS OUT SdM ETIIIN(;. 475 
 
 yiveii to the common lusts of the flesh, John. ]\Iy 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. Never- 
 theless, 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 be found to move. 1 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 dift'erence. 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 on his eyes, sleeps better in dark 
 stable, and needs no moon t(j help him. 
 
 " Seeing, therefore, that this same inn had four windows, 
 and no more, I thought to myself how snug it was, and 
 how beautifully 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 be first 
 to speak, 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 ; besides 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. (Jur 
 fishers would have drawn the nets, but the waves were vio- 
 lent. 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-a- 
 dozen eggs with it, and a quart of fresh-drawn ale. You 
 make me rage with hunger, madam. Is it cruelty or hos- 
 pitality ?' 
 
 '"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.' 
 
476 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " ' 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 mat- 
 ter 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, be- 
 cause the least pleasing supposition) my ready and per- 
 manent 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. A\'hen I say 
 'charming,' I mean, of course, by manners and by intelli- 
 gence, 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 re- 
 quested my opinion, and I answered, ' If there be a change, 
 let madam blame the seasons,' 
 
 " However, not to dwell too much upon our little pleas- 
 antries (for I always get on with these foreign women better 
 than with your AIolls 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 \\'atchett. And what was the meaning of the em- 
 blem 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 
 
JERKMV FINDS OUT S(.)M L;T1IIX( ;. 477 
 
 hateful country, where the sky for half the year was foi^^^ 
 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 Holv 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 re- 
 ceivers of any thing, 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 some- 
 thing about dividing land ; Benita knew not what it was. 
 
 "But this Benita did know : that they were all great peo- 
 ple, and rich, and very liberal, so that when they offered to 
 take her to attend to the children, and to speak the lan- 
 guage for them, and to comfort the lady, she was only too 
 glad to go, little foreseeini^r 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. 
 
 " ,\nd 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 for- 
 tune. 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 ? 
 
478 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " 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 in- 
 fant, and not only contented, but noisily happy with any 
 thing. 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. 
 
 " jMy 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 every step. 
 
 " 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 melan- 
 choly 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 sim- 
 ply disbelieved the thing, and trusted God to right it. The 
 Protestants, who have no faith, cannot understand this feel- 
 ing. 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. 
 
JEREMY KlXriS OUT SOMETHING. 479 
 
 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 l)evonshire coast, ten or 
 eleven years agone, and stayed some days at E.xeter, and 
 set out thence in a hired coach, without any proper attend- 
 ance, for Watchett, in the north of Somerset. For the ladv 
 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 lav 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 )'ear 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 
 ver\' 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 sometimes 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 thank- 
 ing God, to the pitch and slope of the sea-bank, leading on 
 towards ^\'atchett town, and where my horse had shied so. 
 
480 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 there the Uttle 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 blunderbusses, 
 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 so 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 sup- 
 pose, 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 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 than 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 
 
JERKMV FINDS OUT SOMETHINC. 481 
 
 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 woman stole up softly to her side and whispered, ' It 
 is the will of God.' 
 
 " ' St) 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 
 AVatchett, 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 bov. 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 show mine own 
 against them. 
 
 " And what was the lady's name ? " I asked, " and what be- 
 came of the little girl ? And why did the woman stay there ? " 
 
 " Well ! " cried Jeremy Stickles, only too glad to be cheer- 
 ful 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. 
 
482 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " 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 IHSCOMFITURE. 
 
 T must not be supposed that I was 
 altogether so thick-headed as Jer- 
 emy 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 en- 
 lighten 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 u]i while he 
 is sounding mine so !" Not that I 
 would so behave, dud forbid, with 
 anybody (be it manor 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 Jer- 
 emy 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 mv guess at first, and now 
 my firm belief, that the child of those unluckv 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 Jer- 
 emy Stickles' 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 
 
484 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 light, the tramp of the out- 
 law 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 saw-pit, and the 
 agony of mv mother's tears, it did not fail to strike me as 
 a thing of omen, that the self-same 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 
 disc(_)very being his, he had a right to be so — that not a 
 word of all these things must be imparted to Lorna her- 
 self, 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, (lod 
 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." 
 
MUTUAL DISCOMFITURK. 4X5 
 
 "Then, Jeremy, what a fool y<.)u must be, if yoa cudgel 
 your brains to malce money of this, to open the barn-door 
 to me, and show me all yt)ur 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, b)- 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 good-will, 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. .\s sure as I hold this 
 glass, and drink your health and love, in another drop 
 (forced on me by pathetic words), so surel\- 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 re- 
 gards the issue, although, perhaps, you were not right in 
 leading me into a bargain like this, without my own con- 
 sent 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 
 
486 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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, &c. &c. — Xow 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' 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 every body 
 say, "this man never can have loved Lorna." Therefore 
 the less of that the better ; only I thought, "what a differ- 
 ence 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 gate-post. "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 the right of his known eloquence, 
 "hus tould harfizers, as a wor no nade of un, now King's 
 man hiszel wor coom, a puppose vor tou command us 
 laike." 
 
 "And do you mean to say, you villains," cried Jeremy, 
 
MUTUAL IJISCOMFITURE. 4<S7 
 
 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 
 a barn-door flying. The Doones will make riddles of all 
 of us." 
 
 However he had better hopes, when the sons of ])ev<in 
 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 up-stair 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, nav, 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 express- 
 ing the rigours of last winter. Let Annie make out the 
 bill every day, and I at night will double it. \'ou 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 
 
488 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 Devon- 
 shire band, 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 be 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, 
 
MUTUAL DISCOMFITURK. 489 
 
 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 1 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 swear- 
 ing. It had been arranged, very justlv, no doubt, and 
 quite in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution, but as 
 it proved not too wisely, that either boilv 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 snowdrifts. 
 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 band, 
 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. 
 
490 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 The tatics of this grand campaign appeared to me so 
 clever, and beautifully ordered, that I commended " Colonel 
 Stickles," as every body 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 any thing, when they saw their way to it, but know- 
 ing 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 ques- 
 tion. I told him that I had been shot at once or twice 
 before, but nevertheless disliked it as much as almost any 
 thing. 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 veo- 
 manry 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 
 
MUTUAL DISCOMFITURE. 49 1 
 
 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, e.^cept 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 cour- 
 age 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. .Sume five or six men 
 came after me, the foremost of whom was Jeremy, when a 
 storm of shots whistled and pattered 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 Doone 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 to come and 
 
492 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 some body to come and take 
 command of us. But no one came ; and I was grieved 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 fel- 
 lows 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 side- 
 long step, and an impudence : 
 
 "Ciot the worst of it ! " cried the boy, "better be off all 
 of you. Zomerzett 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 reputa- 
 tion, by means of what the other men might have done 
 
MUIUAI. lUSroMFITURE. 493 
 
 without us. And we could not understand at all how 
 Devonshire and Somerset, beiny embarked in the same 
 cause, should be iightini;' with one another. 
 
 Finding nothing more to be done in the way of carr\-in|j; 
 on the war, we laid poor Master Stickles and two ni(jre of 
 the wounded upon the carriage of bark and hurdles, 
 whereon our gun had laid, and we rolled the gun into the 
 river, and harnessed the lu)rses 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 come 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. .Vnd 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, befure the\' could get into due 
 position on the western side of the I )oone Glen. And 
 knowing that their cousins in yellow would claim the whole 
 of the glorv, if allowed to be first with the firing, these 
 worthy fellows waited not to take good aim with their 
 cannon, seeing the others about to shoot, but fettled it anv 
 how on the slope, pointing in a general direction, and 
 trusting in God for aim-worthiness, laid the rope to the 
 breech, and fired. Now as Providence ordained it, the 
 shot, which was a casual mixture of any thing considered 
 hard — for instance jug-bottoms and knobs of doors — the 
 whole of this pernicious dose came scattering and shatter- 
 ing 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 ? Nor 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 r)evonshire men 
 
494 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 concerning their coats could entirely excuse them. Now I 
 need not tell the rest of it, for the tale makes a man dis- 
 contented. 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 over head) 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 three cannons 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 every body 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 reasoning 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. 
 
 WO of the Devonshire officers 
 (Captains Pyke and Dalian) now 
 took command of the men who 
 were left, and ordered all to i^o 
 home again, commending much 
 the bravery which had been dis- 
 pla}ed on all sides, and the lo^-- 
 alty to the King and the English 
 Constitution. I'hi.s last word al- 
 ways seems to me to settle every 
 thing 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 hriday), went home, 
 and our Somerset friends only 
 stayed for two days more to back- 
 bite 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 in- 
 cense 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 saw-pit, 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 
 
496 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 was proud to see blood upon them. He looked at us 
 ever so man)- 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 tu 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 verv 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' authority and manner of levying duties had not 
 been taken kindly by the people round our neighbourhood. 
 The manners of P^ast Lynn and West Lynn, and even that 
 of W'oolhanger — 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 de- 
 clared, by the quartering of soldiers in their neighbour- 
 hood, united very kindly to oppose the King's Commis- 
 sioner. However, Jeremy had contrived to conciliate the 
 whole of them, not so much by any thing engaging in his 
 deportment or delicate address, as by holding out bright 
 hopes that the plunder of Doone Glen might become di- 
 visible among the adjoining manors. Now, I have never 
 discovered a thing wliich 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 elder 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 
 
(.lETTINC INTO CIl A\L'i:k\ . 497 
 
 around us, not at his failure, but at himself, fcjr 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 wearying about 
 the matter between us. Neither liked to look at the other 
 as they used to do, with mother admiring Lorna's eves, 
 and grace, and form of breeding, and Lorna loving moth- 
 er'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' illness was a griev- 
 ous thing to us in that we had no one now to command 
 the troopers. Ten of these were still alive, and so well ap- 
 proved to us that they could never fancy aught, whether 
 for dinner or supper, without its being forthcoming. If 
 they wanted trout, they should have it ; if colloped veni- 
 son, or broiled ham, or salmon from Lynmouth and Tren- 
 tisoe, 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 
 
498 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 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 em- 
 bittered 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 be- 
 tween plunderer and victim saved us from an}' piece of 
 spite, kindliness having won the day, and every one lov- 
 ing every one. 
 
 But yet another cause arose, and this was the strongest 
 one of all, to prove the need of Stickles' aid and calamity 
 of his illness. And this came to our knowledge first with- 
 out 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 i)oones, and scarce knowing what 
 their tricks might be, we received these strangers cau- 
 tiously, 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 every body's good, and boldly redressing evil. 
 This Court has a power of scent unknown to the Com- 
 mon-law practitioners, and slowly, yet surely, tracks its 
 
 ' There are said to be no loach now in the Lynn. This proves that 
 John Ridd caught all of them. 
 
GETTINCI INTO CHANCERY. 499 
 
 game, even as the great lumberint; dogs now introduced 
 from Spain, and called by some people "pointers," differ 
 from the swift gaze-hound, «'ho 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 choic e between 
 these two, let him rather be chased by the hounds of law 
 than tracked by the pointers of Equity. 
 
 Now, as it fell in a very black day (for all e.vcept 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 be on vour 
 skins." And with no more manners than that, tliey 
 stripped and lashed them out of the valley, only bidding 
 them come to us if they wanted Lorna 1 )oone, and to us 
 they came accordingly. Neither were they sure at first 
 but that we should treat them so, for they had no knowl- 
 edge of west country, and thought it quite a godless place, 
 wherein no writ was holy. 
 
 ^^'e, however, comforted and cheered them so consider- 
 ably 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 to keep in readiness to travel whenever called 
 upon, and commit herself to nobody, except the accred- 
 ited 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 both threatened and exhorted, and held out hopes 
 of recompense if she were rendered truly. My mother 
 and I held consultation ove-r both these documents with a 
 
500 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 mixture of some wrath and fear, and a fork of great 
 sorrow to stir them. And now having Jeremy Stickles' 
 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 re- 
 ceived 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 ques- 
 tion 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 be 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 be- 
 yond 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 purfled. 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, slop- 
 ing to one another, nor even the delicate tone of foliage 
 following suit, and neighbouring. Even the breathing of 
 
GETTING INTO CHAXCERV. 50I 
 
 the wind, soft and gentle in and out, movinj^ 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 with- 
 out 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, over- 
 coftie 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 very 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 knf)w 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 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 
 

 iM/hh 
 
 
 
 SHE, IN' A SHOWER OF DAMASK ROSES, RAISED HER EYES AND 
 LOOKED AT ME. 
 
r.ETTING INIO ClIANCEKV. 503 
 
 your rank and propt-r dignity. Vou must iit-x'tr look at 
 me with any thing 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 nic, 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 make me ever 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 hear 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 
 
504 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 father was killed by an accident in the Pyrenean moun- 
 tains, 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 breast, could any one say that she 
 lived and thought. And yet she pressed my hand with 
 hers, that now I might tell her all of it. 
 
CHAPTER LVI. 
 
 JOHN BECOMES TOO POPULAR. 
 
 O 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 pres- 
 sure of my hand, how each wijrd 
 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 yuur 
 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 never had 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 
 
506 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 into one little ear, " that you could ever so love me, beauty, 
 as to give up the world for me." 
 
 " ^\'ould 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 deep- 
 est 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 besides 
 all this, I doubted much about being fit for heaven, where 
 no ploughs are, and no cattle, unless sacrificed bulls went 
 thither. 
 
 Therefore I said, " Now kiss me, Lorna, and don't talk 
 any nonsense." And the darling came and did it, being 
 kindly obedient, as the other world often makes us. 
 
 "You sweet love," I said at this, being slave to her soft 
 obedience, " do you suppose I should be content to leave 
 you until Elysium?" 
 
 " How on earth can I tell, dear John, what you will be 
 content with ? " 
 
JOHN I'.KCO.MES TOO POPULAR. 507 
 
 " \'ou and only you," said 1 ; "the whole of it lies in a 
 syllable. Now you know my entire want, and want must 
 be my comfort." 
 
 " ISut surely if I have money, sir, and birth, and rank, 
 and all sorts of grandeur, you never w(juld dare to think 
 of me ? " 
 
 She drew herself up with an air of pride, as she gravely 
 pronounced these words, and gave me a scornful glance, 
 t>r tried, and turned away as if to enter some grand coach 
 or palace, while I was so amazed, and grieved, in my raw 
 simplicity, especially after the way in which she had first 
 received my news (so loving and warm-hearted), that I 
 never said a word, but stared and thought, " How does she 
 mean it ? " 
 
 She saw the pain upon my forehead, and the wonder in 
 my eyes, and leaving coach and palace, too, back she flew 
 to me in a moment, as simple as simplest milkmaid. 
 
 " (.)h, you fearfully stupid John, you inexpressibly stupid 
 John," she cried, with both arms round my neck, and her 
 lips upon my forehead, "you have called yourself thick- 
 headed, John, and I never would believe it. But now I do 
 with all my heart. Will you never know what I am, love? " 
 
 " No, Lorna, that I never shall. I can understand my 
 mother well, and one at least of my sisters, and both the 
 Snowe girls very easilv, but you I never understand, only 
 love you all the more for it." 
 
 " Then never try to understand me, if the result is that, 
 dear John. And yet I am the verv simplest of all foolish, 
 simple creatures. Nay, I am wrong ; therein I yield the 
 palm to you, my dear. To think that I can act so ! No 
 wonder they want me in London, as an ornament for the 
 stage, John." 
 
 Now in after days, when I heard of Lorna, as the richest, 
 and noblest, and loveliest lady to be found in London, I 
 often remembered that little scene, and recalled every word 
 and gesture, wondering what lay under it. Even now, 
 while it was quite impossible once to doubt those clear 
 deep eyes, and the bright lips trembling so, nevertheless I 
 felt how much the world would have to do with it, and that 
 the best and truest people cannot shake themselves quite 
 free. However, for the moment, I was very proud, and 
 showed it. 
 
 And herein differs fact from fancy, things as they befall 
 us from things as we would have them, human ends from 
 human will ; that the first are moved by a thousand, and 
 
508 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the last on two wheels only, which (being named) are — 
 desire and fear. Hope, for instance, is nothing more than 
 desire with a telescope, magnifying distant matters, over- 
 looking near ones ; opening one eye on the objects, closing 
 the other to all objections, And if hope be the future 
 tense of desire, the future of fear is religion — at least with 
 too many of us. 
 
 Whether I am right, or wrong, in these small moralities, 
 one thing is sure enough, to wit, that hope is the fastest 
 traveller, at any rate in the time of youth. And so I hoped 
 that Lorna might be proved of blameless family, and hon- 
 ourable rank and fortune, and yet none the less for that, 
 love me, and belong to me. So I led her into the house, 
 and she fell into mj^ mother's arms, and I left them to have 
 a good cry of it, with Annie ready to help them. 
 
 If Master Stickles should not mend enough to gain his 
 speech a little, and declare to us all he knew, I was to set 
 out for Watchett, riding upon horseback, and there to hire 
 a cart with wheels, such as we had not begun as yet to use 
 on Exmoor. For all our work went on broad wood, with 
 runners and with earth-boards, and many of us still looked 
 upon wheels (though mentioned in the Bible) as the inven- 
 tion of the evil one, and Pharaoh's especial property. 
 
 Now instead of getting better. Colonel Stickles grew 
 worse and worse, in spite of all our tendance of him, with 
 simples and with nourishment, and no poisonous medicines, 
 such as doctors would have given him. And the fault of 
 this lay not with us, but purely with himself, and his un- 
 quiet constitution. For he roused himself up to a perfect 
 fever, when through Lizzie's giddiness he learned the very 
 thing which mother and Annie were hiding from him with 
 the utmost care, namely, that Serjeant Bloxham had taken 
 upon himself to send direct to London, by the Chancery 
 ofEcers, a full report of what had happened, and of the ill- 
 ness of his chief, together with an urgent prayer for a full 
 battalion of King's troops, and a plenary commander. 
 
 This Serjeant Bloxham, being senior of the surviving 
 soldiers, and a very worthy man in his way, but a trifle 
 over zealous, had succeeded to the captaincy upon his 
 master's disablement. Then, with desire to serve his coun- 
 try and show his education, he sat up most part of three 
 nights, and wrote this wonderful report by the aid of our 
 stable lanthorn. It was a very fine piece of work, as three 
 men to whom he read it (but only one at a time) pro- 
 nounced, being under seal of secrecy. And all might have 
 
JUlIX BECOMES T(Hi P(J1'ULAK. 509 
 
 gone well with it, if the author cnuld only have held his 
 tongue when near the ears of women, liut this was be- 
 yond his sense, as it seems, although so good a writer. 
 For having heard that our Lizzie was a famous judge of 
 literature (as indeed she told almost every one) he ccjuld 
 not contain himself, but must have her opinion upon his 
 work. 
 
 Lizzie sat on a log of wood, and listened with all her 
 ears up, having made proviso that no one else should be 
 there to interrupt her. And she put in a syllable here and 
 there, and many a time she took out one (for the Serjeant 
 overloaded his gun more often than undercharged it, like 
 a liberal man of letters) and then she declared the result so 
 good, and the style to be so elegant, so chaste, and yet so 
 fervent, that the Serjeant broke his pipe in three and fell 
 in love with her on the spot. Now this has led me out of 
 my way, as things are always doing, partlv through their 
 own perverseness, partly through my kind desire to give 
 fair turn to all of them, and to all the people who do them. 
 If any one expects of me a strict and well-drilled story, 
 standing " at attention " all the time, with hands at the 
 side like two wens on my trunk, and eyes going neither 
 right nor left, I trow that man has been disappointed manv 
 a page ago, and has left me to my evil ways ; and if not, I 
 love his charity. Therefore let me seek his grace, and get 
 back, and just begin again. 
 
 That great despatch was sent to I^nndon by the C'han- 
 cery officers, whom we fitted up with clotlies, and for three 
 days fattened them, which in strict justice they needed 
 much, as well as in point of equitv. Thev were kind 
 enough to be pleased with us, and accepted my new shirts 
 generously ; and urgent as their business was, another 
 week (as they both declared) could do no harm to nobody, 
 and might set them upon their legs again. And knowing, 
 although they were London men, that fish do live in water, 
 these two fellows went fishing all dav, but never landed 
 any thing. However, their holiday was cut short, for the 
 Serjeant, having finished now his narrative of proceedings, 
 was not the man to let it hang fire, and be quenched, 
 perhaps, by Stickles. 
 
 Therefore, having done their business, and served both 
 citations, these two good men had a pannier of victuals put 
 up by dear Annie, and borrowing two of our horses, rode 
 to Dunster, where they left them, and hired on towards 
 London. We had not time to like them much, and so we 
 
5IO LORNA DOONE. 
 
 did not miss them, especially in our great anxiety about 
 poor Master Stickles. 
 
 Jeremy lay between life and death, for at least a fort- 
 night. If the link of chain had flown upwards (for half a 
 link of chain it was which took him in the mouth so), even 
 one inch upwards, the poor man could have needed no one 
 e.xcept Parson Bowden, for the bottom of his skull, which 
 holds the brain as in an egg-cup, must have clean gone 
 from him. But striking him horizontally, and a little upon 
 the skew, the metal came out at the back of his neck, and 
 (the powder not being strong, I suppose) it lodged in his 
 leather collar. 
 
 Now the rust of this iron hung in the wound, or at least 
 we thought so, though since I have talked with a man 
 of medicine, I am not so sure of it. And our chief aim 
 was to purge this rust, when rather we should have stopped 
 the hole, and let the oxide do its worst with a plug of new 
 flesh on both sides of it. 
 
 At last I prevailed upon him, by argument, that he must 
 get better, to save himself from being ignobly and unjustly 
 superseded; and hereupon I reviled Serjeant Bloxham 
 more fiercely than Jeremy's self could have done, and in- 
 deed to such a pitch that Jeremy almost forgave him, and 
 became much milder. And after that his fever and the 
 inflammation of his wound diminished very rapidly. 
 
 However, not knowing what might happen, or even how 
 soon poor Lorna might be taken from our power, and, fall- 
 ing into lawyers' hands, have cause to wish herself most 
 heartily back among robbers, I set forth one day for ^\"at- 
 chett, taking advantage of the visit of some troopers 
 from an outpost, who would make our house quite safe. I 
 rode alone, being fuUv primed, and having no misgivings. 
 For it was said that even the Uoones had begun to fear 
 me, since I cast their culverin through the door, as above 
 related, and they could not but believe, from my being still 
 untouched (although so large an object) in the thickest of 
 their fire, both of gun and cannon, that I must bear a 
 charmed life, proof against ball and bullet. However, 1 
 knew that Carver Doone was not a likely man to hold any 
 superstitious opinions, and of him I had an unshapen dread, 
 although quite ready to face him. 
 
 Riding along, I meditated upon Lorna's history ; how 
 many things were now beginning to unfold themselves 
 which had been obscure and dark ! For instance, Sir 
 Ensor Doone's consent, or to say the least his indifference. 
 
JOHN liECdMES '[-OO I'urUI.AK. 51I 
 
 to her marriage with a yeoman, which in a man so proud 
 (though dying) had greatly puzzled both of us. But now, 
 if she not only proved to be no grandchild of the Doone, 
 but even descended from his enemy, it was natural enough 
 that he should feel no great repugnance to her humiliation. 
 And that Lorna's father had been a foe to the house of 
 Doone, I gathered from her mother's cry when she beheld 
 their leader. Moreover that fact would supply their motive 
 in carrving off the unfortunate little creature, and rearing 
 her among them, and as one of their own family, yet hiding 
 her true birth from her. She was a " great card," as we say, 
 when playing All-fours at Christmas-time, and if one of 
 them could marry her, before she learned of right and 
 wrong, vast property, enough to buy pardons for a thous- 
 and Doones, would be at their mercy. And since I was 
 come to know Lorna better, and she to know me thoroughly, 
 many things had been outspoken which her early bash- 
 fulness had kept covered from me. Attempts, I mean, to 
 pledge her love to this one, or that other, some of which, 
 perhaps, might have been successful if there had not been 
 too many. 
 
 And then, as her beauty grew richer and brighter, Carver 
 Doone was smitten strongly, and would hear of no one 
 else as a suitor for her, and by the terror of his claim 
 drove off all the others. Here, too, lay the explanation of a 
 thing which seemed to be against the laws of human 
 nature, and upon which I longed, but dared not, to cross- 
 question Lorna. How could such a lovely maid, although 
 so young, and brave, and distant, have escaped the vile 
 affections of a lawless company ? 
 
 ]!ut now it was as clear as need be. For any proven 
 violence would have utterly vitiated all claim upon her 
 grand estates ; at least as those claims must be urged be- 
 fore a court of equity. And therefore all the elders (with 
 views upon her real estate) kept strict watch on the young- 
 ers, who confined their views to her personality. 
 
 Now I do not mean to say that all this, or the hundred 
 other things which came, crowding consideration, were 
 half as plain to me at the time, as I have set them down 
 above. Far be it from me to deceive you so. No doubt 
 my thoughts were then dark and hazy, like an oil-lamp full 
 of fungus ; and I have trimmed them, as though at the 
 time, with scissors sharpened long afterwards. All I mean 
 to say is this, that jogging along to a certain tune of the 
 horse's feet, which we call " three half-pence and two 
 
512 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 pence," I saw my way a little into some things which had 
 puzzled me. 
 
 When I knocked at the little door, whose sill was gritty 
 and grimed with sand, no one came for a very long time to 
 answer me, or to let me in. Not wishing to be unmannerly, 
 I waited a long time, and watched the sea, from which the 
 wind was blowing, and whose many lips of waves — though 
 the tide was half-way out — spoke to and refreshed me. 
 After awhile I knocked again, for my horse was becoming 
 hungry ; and a good while after that again, a voice came 
 through the key-hole : 
 
 " Who is that wishes to enter ?" 
 
 "The boy who was at the pump," said I, "when the car- 
 riage broke down at Dulverton. The boy that lives at 
 Oh-ah ; and some day you would come seek for him." 
 
 " Oh yes, I remember, certainly. My leetle boy, with 
 the fair white skin. I have desired to see him, oh many, 
 yes, many times." 
 
 She was opening the door, while saying this, and then 
 she started back in affright, that the little boy should have 
 grown so. 
 
 "You cannot be that leetle boy. It is quite impossible. 
 Why do you impose on me?" 
 
 " Not only am I that little boy, who made the water to 
 flow for you, till the nebule came upon the glass, but also 
 I am come to tell you all about your little girl." 
 
 "Come in, you very great leetle boy," she answered, 
 with her dark eyes brightened. And I went in, and looked 
 at her. She was altered by time, as much as I was. The 
 slight and graceful shape was gone ; not that I remem- 
 bered any thing of her figure, if you please, for boys of 
 twelve are not yet prone to note the shapes of women, 
 but that her lithe straight gait had struck me as being so 
 unlike our people. Now her time for walking so was past, 
 and transmitted to her children. Yet her face was comely 
 still, and full of strong intelligence. I gazed at her, and 
 she at me ; and we were sure of one another. 
 
 "Now what will ye please to eat?" she asked, with a 
 lively glance at the size of my mouth ; "that is always the 
 first thing you people ask, in these barbarous places." 
 
 " I will tell you by-and-by," I answered, misliking this 
 satire upon us ; " but I might begin with a quart of ale, to 
 enable me to speak, madam." 
 
 "Very well. One quevart of be-or," she called out to 
 a little maid, who was her eldest child, no doubt. " It is 
 
JOHN BECOMES TOD roi'Ul.AR. 513 
 
 t(.) be expected, sir, Be-or, be-or, be-or, all day long, with 
 you Englishmen ! " 
 
 "Nay," I replied; "not all day long, if madam will 
 excuse me. Only a pint at breakfast time, and a pint 
 and a half at eleven o'clock, and a quart or so at dinner. 
 -\nd then no more till the afternoon ; and half a gallon 
 at supper time. No one can object to that." 
 
 "Well, I suppose it is right," she said with an air of 
 resignation ; "God knows. But I do not understand it. It 
 is 'good for business,' as you say, to preclude everything." 
 
 "And it is good for us, madam," 1 answered with indig- 
 nation, for beer is my favourite beverage; "and I am a 
 credit to beer, madam, and so are all who trust to it." 
 
 " At any rate you are, young man. If beer has made 
 you grow so large, I will put my children upon it ; it is too 
 late for me to begin. The smell to me is hateful." 
 
 Now I only set down that to show how perverse those 
 foreign people are. They will drink their wretched heart- 
 less stuff, such as they call claret, or wine of Aledoc, or 
 Bordeaux, or what not, with no more meaning than st)ur 
 rennet, stirred with the pulp from the cider press, and 
 strained through the cap of our Betty. This is very well 
 for them, and as good as they deserve, no doubt ; and 
 meant perhaps by the will of God for those unhappy 
 natives. But to bring it over to England, and set it 
 against our home-brewed ale (not to s|)eak of wines from 
 Portugal), and sell it at ten times the price, as a cure for 
 British bile, and a great enlightenment, this I say is the 
 vilest feature of the age we live in. 
 
 Madame Benita Odam — for the name of the man who 
 turned the wheel proved to be John ()dam — showed me 
 into a little room containing two chairs and a fir-wood 
 table, and sat down on a three-legged seat and studied 
 me very steadfastly. This she had a right to do ; and I, 
 having all my clothes on now, was not disconcerted. It 
 would not become me to repeat her judgment upon my 
 appearance, which she delivered as calmly as if I were a 
 pig at market, and as proudly as if her own pig. And she 
 asked me whether I had ever got rid of the black marks 
 on my breast. 
 
 Not wanting to talk about myself (though very fond of 
 doing so, when time and season favour), I led her back to 
 that fearful night of the day when first I had seen her. She 
 was not desirous to speak of it, because of her own little 
 children ; however, I drew her gradually to recollection 
 
514 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 of Lorna, and then of the little boy who died, and the 
 poor mother buried with him. And her strong hot nature 
 kindled, as she dwelled upon these things, and my wrath 
 waxed within me, and we forgot reserve and prudence 
 under the sense of so vile a wrong. She told me (as near- 
 ly as might be) the very same story which she had told to 
 Master Jeremy Stickles, only she dwelled upon it more, 
 because of my knowing the outset. And being a woman, 
 with an inkling of my situation, she enlarged upon the 
 little maid, more than to dry Jeremy. 
 
 " Would you know her again ! " I asked being stirred by 
 these accounts of Lorna, when she was five years old ; 
 "would you know her as a full-grown maiden?" 
 
 " I think I should," she answered ; "it is not possible to 
 say, until one sees the person ; but from the eyes of the 
 little girl, I think that I must know her. Oh, the poor 
 young creature ! Is it to be believed that the cannibals 
 devoured her ? What a people you are in this country ! 
 Meat, meat, meat ! 
 
 As she raised her hands and eyes in horror at our carniv- 
 orous propensities, to which she clearly attributed the dis- 
 appearance of Lorna, I could scarce help laughing, even 
 after that sad story. For though it is said at the present 
 day, and will doubtless be said hereafter, that the Doones 
 had devoured a baby once, as they came up Porlock hill, 
 after fighting hard in the market-place, I knew that the 
 tale was utterly false, for, cruel and brutal as they were, 
 their taste was very correct and choice, and indeed one 
 might sav fastidious. Nevertheless, I could not stop to 
 argue that matter with her. 
 
 "The little maid has not been devoured," I said to Mis- 
 tress Odam ; " and now she is a tall young lady, and as 
 beautiful as can be. If I sleep in your good hostel to- 
 night, after going to ^V'atchett town, will you come with 
 me to Oare to-morrow, and see your little maiden?" 
 
 "I would like — and yet I fear. This country is so bar- 
 barous. And I am good to eat — my (iod, there is much 
 picking on my bones ! " 
 
 She surveyed herself with a glance so mingled of pity 
 and admiration, and the truth of her words was so appar- 
 ent (only that it would have taken a week to get at the 
 bones, before picking), that I nearly lost good manners ; 
 for she really seemed to suspect even me of cannibal in- 
 clinations. However, at last I made her promise to come 
 with me on the morrow, presuming that Master Odam 
 
JOHN BECOMES TOO I'OI'ULAK. 515 
 
 could by any means be persuaded to keep her company in 
 the cart, as propriety demanded. Havint;- little doubt that 
 Master Odam was entirely at his wife's command, I looked 
 upon that matter as settled, and set off for W'atchett, to see 
 the grave of Lorna's poor mother, and to hire a cart for 
 the morrow. 
 
 And here (as so often happens with men) I succeeded 
 without any trouble or hindrance, where I had looked for 
 both of them, namely in finding a suitable cart ; whereas 
 the other matter, in which I could have expected no diffi- 
 culty, came very near to defeat me. For when I heard 
 that Lorna's father was the Earl of Dugal — as Benita im- 
 pressed upon me with a strong enforcement, as much as to 
 say, " \Vho are you, young man, to come even asking 
 about her ? " — then I never thought but that every bodv in 
 \\'atchett town must know all about the tombstone of the 
 Countess of Dugal. 
 
 This, however, proved otherwise. For Lord Dugal had 
 never lived at AVatchett (Grange, as their place was called, 
 neither had his name become familiar as its owner, be- 
 cause the Grange had only devolved to him bv will, at the 
 end of a long entail, when the last of the Fitz-Pains died 
 out ; and though he liked the idea of it, he had gone 
 abroad, without taking seisin. And upon news of Ins 
 death, John Jones, a ricli gentleman from Llandaff, had 
 taken possession, as next of right, and hushed up all the 
 story. And though, even at the worst of times, a lady of 
 high rank and wealth could not be robbed, and as bad as 
 murdered, and then buried in a little place, without moving 
 some excitement, yet it had been given out, on purpose 
 and with diligence, that this was only a foreign lady, 
 travelling for her health and pleasure, along the sea-coast 
 of England. And as the poor thing never spoke, and 
 several of her servants and her baggage looked so foreign, 
 and she herself died in a collar of lace unlike any made in 
 England, all Watchett, without hesitation, pronounced her 
 to be a foreigner. And the English serving-man and maid, 
 who might have cleared up every thing, either were bribed 
 by Master Jones, or else decamped of their own accord with 
 the relics of the baggage. So the poor Countess of Dugal, 
 almost in sight of her own grand house, was buried in an 
 unknown grave, together with her pair of infants, without 
 a plate, without a tombstone (worse than all), without a 
 tear, except from the hired Italian woman. Surely my 
 poor Lorna came of an ill-starred family. 
 
5l6 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Now in spite of all this, if I had only taken Benita with 
 me, or even told her what I wished, and craved her 
 directions, there could have been no trouble. But I do 
 assure you that among the stupid people of Watchett (com- 
 pared with whom our folk of Oare, exceeding dense though 
 being, are as Hamlet against Dogberry), what with one of 
 them and another, and the firm conviction of all the town 
 that I could be come only to wrestle, I do assure you (as I 
 said before) that my wits almost went out of me. And 
 what vexed me yet more about it was, that I saw my own 
 mistake, in coming myself to seek out the matter, instead 
 of sending some unknown person. For my face and form 
 were known at that time (and still are so) to nine people 
 out of every ten living in forty miles of me. Not through 
 any excellence, or any thing of good desert, in either the 
 one or the other, but simply because folk will be fools, on 
 the rivalry of wrestling. The art is a fine one in itself, and 
 demands a little wit of brain, as well as strength of body ; 
 it binds the man who studies it to temperance, and chastity, 
 to self-respect, and most of all to an even and sweet temper ; 
 for I have thrown stronger men than myself (when I was a 
 mere sapling, and before my strength grew hard on me) 
 through their loss of temper. But though the art is an 
 honest one, surely they who excel therein have a right (like 
 all the rest of mankind) to their own private life. 
 
 Be that either way — and I will not speak too strongly, for 
 fear of indulging my own annoyance — any how, all Watch- 
 ett town cared ten times as much to see John Ridd, as to 
 show him what he wanted. I was led to every public-house, 
 instead of to the churchyard ; and twenty tables were ready 
 for me, in lieu of a single gravestone. "Zummerzett thou 
 bee'st, Jan Ridd, and Zummerzett thou shalt be. Thee carl 
 theezell a Davonshire man ! Whoy, thee lives in Zummer- 
 zett ; and in Zummrezett thee wast barn, lad." And so it 
 went on, till I was weary, though very much obliged to 
 them. 
 
 Steadfast and solid as I am, and with a wild duck waiting 
 for me at good Mistress Odam's, I saw that there was 
 nothing for it but to yield to these good people, and prove 
 me a man of Somerset by eating a dinner at their expense. 
 As for the churchyard, none would hear of it, and I grieved 
 for broaching the matter. 
 
 But how was I to meet Lorna again, without having done 
 the thing of all things which I had promised to see to ? It 
 would never do to tell her that so great was my popularity 
 
JOHN BKCDMES K K i I'ol'UI.AK. 
 
 517 
 
 and so strong the desire t(i feed me, that I eould not attend 
 to her mother. Least of all could I say that every one in 
 Watchett knew John Ridd, while none had heard of the 
 Countess of Dugal. And yet that was about the truth, as 
 I hinted very delicately to Mistress (Jdam that evening. 
 But she (being vexed about her wild duck, and not having 
 English ideas on the matter of sports, and so on) made a 
 poor unwitting face at me. Nevertheless Master ( )dam 
 restored me to my self-respect, for he stared at me till I 
 went to bed, and he broke his hose with excitement. For 
 being in the leg-line myself, I wanted to know what the 
 muscles were of a man who turned a wheel all day. I had 
 never seen a tread-mill (though they have one now at 
 Exeter), and it touched me much to learn whether it were 
 good exercise. And herein, from what I saw of Odam, I 
 incline to think that it does great harm, as moving the 
 muscles too much in a line, and without variety. 
 
CHAPTER LVII. 
 
 LORNA KNOWS HER NURSE, 
 
 "''fC'])^?^^ 
 
 AVING obtained from Benita Odam 
 a very close and full description of 
 the place where her poor mistress 
 lay, and the marks whereby to know 
 it, I hastened to ^\'atchett the fol- 
 lowing morning, before the sun was 
 up, or any people were about. And 
 so, 'without interruption, I was in 
 the churchyard at sunrise. 
 
 In the furthest and darkest nook, 
 overgrown with grass, and over- 
 hung by a weeping tree, a little 
 bank of earth betokened the round- 
 ing off of a hapless life. There was 
 nothing to tell of rank, or wealth, 
 of love, or even pity ; nameless as a 
 peasant lay the last (as supposed) 
 of a mighty race. Only some un- 
 ■"' "• "■'■ skilful hand, probably Master 
 
 Odam's under his wife's teaching, had carved a rude L., 
 and a ruder D., upon a large pebble from the beach, and 
 set it up as a headstone. 
 
 I gathered a little grass for Lorna, and a sprig of the 
 weeping tree, and then returned to the " Forest Cat," as 
 Benita's lonely inn was called. For the way is long from 
 Watchett to Oare, and though you may ride it rapidly, as 
 the Doones had done on that fatal night, to travel on wheels, 
 with one horse only, is a matter of time and of prudence. 
 Therefore we set out pretty early, three of us, and a baby, 
 who could not well be left behind. The wife of the man 
 who owned the cart had undertaken to mind the business 
 and the other babies, upon condition of having the keys of 
 all the taps left with her. 
 
 As the manner of journeying over the moor has been de- 
 scribed oft enough already, I will say no more, except that 
 
'•J^^J' 
 
520 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 we all arrived, before dusk of the summer's day, safe at 
 Plover's Barrows. Mistress Benita was delighted with the 
 change from her dull hard life, and she made many excel- 
 lent observations, such as seem natural to a foreigner look- 
 ing at our country. 
 
 As luck would have it, the first who came to meet us at 
 the gate was Lorna, with nothing whatever upon her head 
 (the weather being summerly), but her beautiful hair shed 
 round her, and wearing a sweet white frock tucked in, and 
 showing her figure perfectly. In her joy she ran straight 
 up to the cart, and then stopped and gazed at Benita. At 
 one glance her old nurse knew her. "Oh the eyes, the 
 eyes ! " she cried, and was over the rail of the cart in a mo- 
 ment, in spite of all her substance. Lorna, on the other 
 hand, looked at her with some doubt and wonder, as though 
 having right to know much about her, and yet unable to do 
 so. But when the foreign woman said something in Roman 
 language, and flung new hay from the cart upon her, as if 
 in a romp of childhood, the young maid cried, "Oh, Nita, 
 Nita ! " and fell upon her breast and wept, and after that 
 looked round at us. 
 
 This being so, there could be no doubt as to the power 
 of proving Lady Lorna's birth, and rights, both by evidence 
 and token. For though we had not the necklace now — 
 thanks to Annie's wisdom — we had the ring of heavy gold, 
 a very ancient relic, with which my maid (in her simple 
 way) had pledged herself to me. And Benita knew this 
 ring as well as she knew her own fingers, having heard a 
 long history about it, and the efifigy on it of the wild cat was 
 the bearing of the house of Lome. 
 
 For though Lorna's father was a nobleman of high and 
 goodly lineage, her mother was of yet more ancient and re- 
 nowned descent, being the last in line direct from the great 
 and kingly chiefs of Lome. A wild and headstrong race 
 they were, and must have every thing their own way. Hot 
 blood was ever among them, even of one household, and 
 their sovereignty (which more than once had defied the 
 King of Scotland) waned and fell among themselves, by 
 continual quarrelling. And it was of a piece with this, that 
 the Doones (who were an offset, by the mother's side, hold- 
 ing in co-partnership some large property, which had come 
 by the spindle, as we say) should fall out with the Earl of 
 Lome, the last but one of that title. 
 
 The daughter of this nobleman had married Sir Esnor 
 Doone, but this, instead of healing matters, led to fiercer 
 
LORNA KNOWS HER NURSE. 52 1 
 
 conflict. I never could quite understand all the ins and 
 outs of it, which none but a la\v\er may go through, and 
 keep his head at the end of it. The motives of mankind 
 are plainer than the motions they produce, especially 
 when charity (such as found among us) sits to judge the 
 former, and is never weary of it, while reason does not care 
 to trace the latter complications, except for fee or title. 
 
 Therefore it is enough to sav, that knowing Lorna to be 
 direct in heirship to vast property, and bearing especial 
 spite against the house of which she was the last, the 
 Doones had brought her up with full intention of lawful 
 marriage, and had carefully secluded her from the wildest 
 of their young gallants. ( )f course, if they had been next 
 in succession, the child would have gone down the waterfall 
 to save any further trouble, but there was an intercepting 
 branch of some honest family, and they being outlaws, 
 would have a poor chance (though the law loves outlaws) 
 against them. Only Lorna was of the stock, and Lorna 
 they must marry. And what a triumph against the old 
 Earl, for a cursed Doone to succeed him ! 
 
 As for their outlawry, great robberies, and grand murders, 
 the veriest child, now-a-days, must know that money heals 
 the whole of that. Even if they had murdered people of 
 a good position, it would only cost about twice as much to 
 prove their motives loyal. I'.ut they had never slain any 
 man above the rank of yeoman, and folk even said that my 
 father was the highest of their victims, for the death of 
 Lorna's mother and brother was never set to their account. 
 
 Pure pleasure it is to any man, to reflect upon all these 
 things. How truly we discern dear justice, and how well 
 we deal it. If any poor man steals a sheep, having ten chil- 
 dren starving, and regarding it as mountain game (as a rich 
 man does a hare), to the gallows with him. If a man of 
 rank beats down a door, smites the owner upon the head, 
 and honours the wife with attention, it is a thing to be 
 grateful for, and to slouch smitten head the lower. 
 
 ^Vhile we were full of all these things, and wondering 
 what would happen next, or what we ought ourselves to do, 
 another very important matter called for our attention. 
 This was no less than Annie's marriage to the Squire 
 Faggus. We had tried to put it off again, for in spite of all 
 advantages, neither my mother nor myself had any real 
 heart for it. Not that we dwelled upon Tom's shortcom- 
 ings, or rather perhaps his going too far, at the time when 
 he worked the road so. All that was covered by the King's 
 
52 2 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 pardon, and universal respect of the neighbourhood. But 
 our scruple was this — and the more we talked the more it 
 grew upon us — that we both had great misgivings as to his 
 future steadiness. 
 
 For it would be a thousand pities, we said, for a fine, well 
 grown, and pretty maiden (such as our Annie was), useful, 
 too, in so many ways, and lively, and warm-hearted, and 
 mistress of 500/., to throw herself away on a man with a 
 kind of a turn for drinking. If that last were ever hinted, 
 Annie would be most indignant, and ask, with cheeks as 
 red as roses, who had ever seen Master Faggus any the 
 worse for liquor indeed ? Her own opinion was, in truth, 
 that he took a great deal too little, after all his hard work, 
 and hard riding, and coming over the hills to be insulted ! 
 And if ever it lay in her power, and with no one to grudge 
 him his trumpery glass, she would see that poor Tom had 
 the nourishment which his cough and his lungs required. 
 
 His lungs being quite as sound as mine, this matter was 
 out of all argument, so mother and I looked at one another, 
 as much as to say, " Let her go upstairs, she will cry, and 
 come down more reasonable." And while she was gone, 
 we used to say the same thing over and over again, but 
 without perceiving a cure for it. And we almost always 
 finished up with the following reflection, which sometimes 
 came from mother's lips, and sometimes from my own : 
 "Well, well, there is no telling. None can say how a man 
 may alter, when he takes to matrimony. But if we could 
 only make Annie promise to be a little firm with him ! " 
 
 I fear that all this talk on our part only hurried matters 
 forward, Annie being more determined every time we pitied 
 her. And at last Tom Faggus came, and spoke as if he 
 were on the King's high-road, with a pistol at my head, and 
 one at mother's. " No more fast and loose," he cried, 
 " either one thing, or the other. I love the maid, and she 
 loves me, and we will have one another, either with your 
 leave or without it. How many more times am I to dance 
 over these vile hills, and leave my business, and get nothing 
 more than a sigh or a kiss, and 'Tom, I must wait for 
 mother ' ? You are famous for being straightforward, you 
 Ridds. Just treat me as I would treat you, now." 
 
 I looked at my mother, for a glance from her would have 
 sent Tom out of the window, but she checked me with her 
 hand, and said, "You have some ground of complaint, sir; 
 I will not deny it. Now I will be as straightforward with 
 you, as even a Ridd is supposed to be. My son and myself 
 
LORN A KNOWS IlKR NURSE. 523 
 
 have all along disliked your marriage with Annie, Not for 
 what you have been, so much as for what we fear you will 
 be. Have patience, one moment, if you please. We do not 
 fear your taking to the highway life again, for that you are 
 too clever, no doubt, now that you have property, liut we 
 fear that you will take to drinking, and to squandering 
 money. There are many e.xamples of this around us, and 
 we know what the fate of the wife is. It has been hard to 
 
 tell vou this, under our own roof, and with our own" 
 
 Here mother hesitated. 
 
 " Spirits, and cider, and beer,'' I broke in ; "out with it, 
 like a Ridd, mother, as he will have all of it." 
 
 "Spirits, and cider, and beer," said mother very firmly 
 after me, and then she gave way and said, " You know, 
 Tom, you are welcouie to every drop, and more of it." 
 
 Now Tom must have had a far sweeter temper than ever 
 I could claim, for I should have thrust my glass away, and 
 never taken another drop in the house where such a check 
 had met me. But instead of that, Master Faggus replied 
 with a pleasant smile : 
 
 " I know that I am welcome, good mother, and to prove 
 it, I will have some more." 
 
 And thereupon he mi.\ed himself another glass of hol- 
 lands, with lemon and hot water, yet pouring it very deli- 
 cately. 
 
 "Oh, I have been so miserable! — take a little more, 
 Tom," said mother, handing the bottle. 
 
 "Yes, take a little more," I said, "you have mi.xed it over 
 weak, Tom." 
 
 "If ever there was a sober man," cried Tom, complying 
 with our request ; " if ever there was in Christendom a man 
 of perfect sobriety, that man is now before you. Shall we 
 say to-morrow week, mother ? It will suit your washing- 
 day." 
 
 " How very thoughtful you are, Tom ! Now John would 
 never have thought of that, in spite of all his steadiness." 
 
 "Certainly not," I answered proudly; "when my time 
 comes for Lorna, I shall not study Betty Mu.xworthv." 
 
 In this way the Squire got over us, and Farmer Nicholas 
 Snowe was sent for, to counsel with mother about the mat- 
 ter, and to set his two daughters sewing. 
 
 When the time for the wedding came, there was such a 
 stir and commotion as had never been known in the parish of 
 Oare since my father's marriage. For .Annie's beauty and 
 kindliness had made her the pride of the neighbourhood, 
 
524 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 and the presents sent her, from all around, were enough to 
 stock a shop with. Master Stickles, who now could walk, 
 and who certainl)- owed his recovery, with the blessing of 
 (lod, to Annie, presented her witli a mighty Bible, silver- 
 clasped, and very handsome, beating the parson's out and 
 out, and for which he had sent to Taunton. Even the 
 common troopers, having tasted her cookery many times 
 (to help out their poor rations), clubbed together, and must 
 have given at least a week's pay apiece, to have turned out 
 what they did for her. This was no less than a silver pot, 
 well designed, but suited surely rather to the bridegroom's 
 taste than bride's. In a word, every body gave her things. 
 
 And now my Lorna came to me, with a spring of tears 
 in appealing eyes — for she was still somewhat childish, or 
 rather, I should say, more childish now than when she lived 
 in misery — and she placed her little hands in mine, and she 
 was half afraid to speak, and dropped her eyes for me to 
 ask. 
 
 "What is it, little darling?" I asked, as I saw her breath 
 come fast, for the smallest excitement moved her form. 
 
 " Vou don't think, John, you don't think, dear, that you 
 could lend me any money ? " 
 
 " All I have got," I answered ; " how much do you want, 
 dear heart ? " 
 
 " I have been calculating, and I fear that I cannot do any 
 good with less than ten pounds, John." 
 
 Here she looked up at me, with horror at the grandeur 
 of the sum, and not knowing what I could think of it. But 
 I kept my eyes from hers. " Ten pounds ! " I said, in my 
 deepest voice, on purpose to have it out in comfort, when 
 she should be frightened, "what can you want with ten 
 pounds, child ? " 
 
 "That is my concern," said Lorna, plucking up her spirit 
 at this, " when a lady asks for a loan, no gentleman pries 
 into the cause of her asking it." 
 
 " That may be, as may be," I answered in a judicial man- 
 ner, " ten pounds or twenty, you shall have. But I must 
 know the purport." 
 
 " Then that you never shall know, John. I am very 
 sorry for asking you. It is not of the smallest consequence. 
 Oh dear, no ! " Herewith she was running away. 
 
 " Oh dear, yes ! " I replied, it is of very great consequence, 
 and I understand the whole of it. You want to give that 
 stupid Annie, who has lost you a hundred thousand pounds, 
 and who is going to be married before us, dear — God only 
 
BUT I KEPT MY EYES JROM ILERS. 
 
526 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 can tell why, being my younger sister — you want to give 
 her a wedding present. And you shall do it, darling, 
 because it is so good of you. Don't you know your title, 
 love ? How humble you are with us humble folk. You are 
 Lady Lorna something, so far as I can make out yet, and 
 you ought not even to speak to us. You will go away, and 
 disdain us." 
 
 " If you please, talk not like that, John. I will have 
 nothing to do with it, if it comes between you and me, 
 John," 
 
 " You cannot help yourself," said I. And then she vowed 
 that she could and would. And rank and birth were ban- 
 ished from between our lips in no time. 
 
 "What can I get her good enough ? I am sure I do not 
 know," she asked, "she has been so kind and good to me, 
 and she is such a darling. How I shall miss her, to be 
 sure ! By-the-by, you seem to think, John, that I shall be 
 rich some day." 
 
 " Of course 3'ou will. As rich as the French King who 
 keeps ours. Would the Lord Chancellor trouble himself 
 about you, if you were poor ? " 
 
 " Then if I am rich, perhaps you would lend me twenty 
 pounds, dear John. Ten pounds would be very mean for a 
 wealthy person to give her." 
 
 To this I agreed, upon condition that I should make the 
 purchase myself, whatever it might be. For nothing could 
 be easier than to cheat Lorna about the cost, until time 
 should come for her paying me. And this was better than 
 to cheat her for the benefit of our family. For this end, 
 and for many others, I set off to Dulverton, bearing more 
 commissions, more messages, and more questions, than a 
 man of thrice my memory might carry so far as the corner 
 where the saw-pit is. And to make things worse, one girl 
 or other would keep on running up to me, or even after 
 me (when started), with something or other she had just 
 thought of, which she could not possibly do without, and 
 which I must be sure to remember, as the most important 
 of the whole. 
 
 To my dear mother, who had partly outlived the exceed- 
 ing value of trifles, the most important matter seemed to 
 ensure Uncle Reuben's countenance and presence at the 
 marriage. And if I succeeded in this, I might well for- 
 get all the maidens' trumpery. This she would have been 
 wiser to tell me when they were out of hearing, for I left 
 her to fight her own battle with them, and laughing at her 
 
l.ORXA KNOWS II KR NURSE. 527 
 
 predicament, promised to do the best I could for all, so 
 far as my wits would go. 
 
 Uncle Reuben was not at home, but Ruth, who received 
 me verv kindly, although without any expressions of joy, 
 was sure of his return in the afternoon, and persuaded me 
 to wait for him. And by the time that I had finished all I 
 could recollect of my orders, even with paper to help me, 
 the old gentleman rode into the \ard, and was more sur- 
 prised than pleased to see me. ISut if he was surprised, I 
 was more than that — I was utterly astonished at the change 
 in his appearance since the last time I had seen him. From 
 a hale, and rather heavy man, greyhaired, but plump, and 
 ruddv, he was altered to a shrunken, wizened, trembling, 
 and almost decrepit figure. Instead of curly and comely 
 locks, grizzled indeed, but plentiful, he had only a few lank 
 white hairs scattered and flattened upon his forehead. But 
 the greatest change of all was in the expression of his eyes, 
 which had been so keen, and restless, and bright, and a 
 little sarcastic. Bright, indeed, they still were, but with a 
 slow unhealthy lustre ; their keenness was turned to per- 
 petual outlook, their restlessness to a haggard want. As for 
 the humour which once gleamed there (which people who 
 fear it call sarcasm), it had been succeeded by stares of ter- 
 ror, and then mistrust and shrinking. There was none of 
 the interest in mankind, which is needful c\en for satire. 
 
 " Now what can this be ? " thought I to myself ; " has the 
 old man lost all his property, or taken too much to strong 
 waters ? " 
 
 "Come inside, John Ridd," he said, "I will have a talk 
 with you. It is cold out here, and it is too light. Come 
 inside, John Ridd, boy." 
 
 I followed him into a little dark room, quite different 
 from Ruth Huckaback's. It was closed from the shop by 
 an old division of boarding, hung with tanned canvas, and 
 the smell was very close and faint. Here there was a 
 ledger-desk, and a couple of chairs, and a long-legged stool. 
 
 " Take the stool," said Uncle Reuben, showing me in 
 very quietly, "it is fitter for your height, John. A\'ait a 
 moment, there is no hurry." 
 
 Then he slipped out by another door, and closing it 
 quickly after him, told the foreman and waiting-men that 
 the business of the day was done. They had better all go 
 home at once, and he would see to the fastenings. (Jf 
 course they were only too glad to go, but I wondered at his 
 sending them, with at least two hours of daylight left. 
 
528 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 However, that was no business of mine, and I waited, and 
 pondered whether fair Ruth ever came into this dirty room, 
 and if so, how she kept her hands from it. For Annie 
 would have had it upside down in about two minutes, and 
 scrubbed, and brushed, and dusted, until it looked quite 
 another place, and yet all this done without scolding and 
 crossness, which are the curse of clean women, and ten 
 times worse than the dustiest dust. 
 
 Uncle Ben came reeling in, not from any power of liquor, 
 but because he was stiff from horseback, and weak from 
 work and worry. 
 
 "Let me be, John, let me be," he said, as I went to help 
 him, " this is an unkid, dreary place, but many a hundred of 
 good gold Carolus has been turned in this place, John." 
 
 " Not a doubt about it, sir," I answered, in my loud and 
 cheerful manner, " and many another hundred, sir, and may 
 you long enjoy them ! " 
 
 " My boy, do you wish me to die ? " he asked, coming up 
 close to my stool, and regarding me with a shrewd, though 
 blear-eyed gaze ; " many do. Do you, John ? " 
 
 " Come," said I, " don't ask such nonsense. You know 
 better than that. Uncle Ben. Or else, I am sorry for you. 
 
 I want you to live as long as possible, for the sake of " 
 
 Here I stopped. 
 
 " For the sake of what, John ? I know it is not for my 
 own sake. For the sake of what, my boy ? " 
 
 " For the sake of Ruth," I answered ; " if you must have 
 all the truth. \\'ho is to mind her when you are gone ? " 
 
 "But if you knew that I had gold, or a manner of getting 
 gold, far more than ever the sailors got out of the Spanish 
 galleons, far more than ever was heard of, and the secret 
 was to be yours, John, yours after me, and no other soul's, 
 then you would wish me dead, John." Here he eyed me, as 
 if a speck of dust in my eyes should not escape him. 
 
 " You are wrong. Uncle Ben, altogether wrong. For all 
 the gold ever heard or dreamed of, not a wish would cross 
 my heart to rob you of one day of life." 
 
 At last he moved his eyes from mine, but without any 
 word, or sign, to show whether he believed or disbelieved. 
 Then he went to a chair, and sat with his chin upon the 
 ledger-desk, as if the effort of probing me had been too 
 much for his weary brain. " Dreamed of ! All the gold 
 ever dreamed of ! As if it were but a dream ! " he muttered, 
 and then he closed his eyes, to think. 
 
 "Good Uncle Reuben," I said to him, "you have been a 
 
LORNA KNOWS IlKR NURSK. 529 
 
 long way to-day, sir. Let me .yn and get you a glass of 
 good wine, t'ousin Ruth knows where to find it." 
 
 " How do you know how far I have been ? " he asked, 
 with a vicious look at me. "And Cousin Ruth ! \'ou are 
 very pat with my granddaughter's name, young man ! " 
 
 "It would be hard upon me, sir, not to know my own 
 cousin's name." 
 
 " \'ery well. Let that go by. You have behaved very 
 badly to Ruth. She loves you ; and y<-)u love her not," 
 
 At this I was so wholly amazed — not at the thing itself 
 I mean, but at his knowledge of it — that I could not say a 
 smgle word, but looked, no doubt, very foolish. 
 
 "You may well be ashamed, young man," he cried, with 
 some triumph over me ; " you are the biggest of all fools, 
 as well as a conceited co.\comb. What can you want more 
 than Ruth ? She is a little damsel truly ; but finer men 
 than you, John Ridd, with all your boasted strength and 
 wrestling, have wedded smaller maidens. And as for qualitv, 
 and value, — bots ! one inch of Ruth is worth all your seven 
 feet put together." 
 
 Xow I am not seven feet high, nor ever was six feet ei^lit 
 inches, in my very prime of life, and nothing \e.\es me s(j 
 much as to make me out a giant, and above human syin- 
 pathv, and human scale of weakness. It cost me hard to 
 hold my tongue, which, luckily, is not in proportion to my 
 stature. And only for Ruth's sake I held it. But L^ncle 
 Ben (being old and worn) was vexed by not having any 
 answer, almost as much as a woman is. 
 
 " \'ou want me to go on," he continued, with a look of 
 spite at me, "about my poor Ruth's love for you, to feed 
 your cursed vanity. Because a set of asses call nou the 
 finest man in England, there is no maid (I suppose) who is 
 not in love with you. I believe you are as deep as you are 
 long, John Ridd. Shall I ever get to the bottom of your 
 character ?" 
 
 This was a little too much for me. Any insult I could 
 take (with good will) from a white-haired man, and one who 
 was my relative, unless it touched my love for Lorna, or my 
 conscious modesty. Now both of these were touched to 
 the quick by the sentences of the old gentleman. There- 
 fore, without a word, I went, only making a bow to him. 
 
 But women, who are (beyond all doubt) the mothers of 
 all mischief, also nurse that babe to sleep, when he is too 
 noisy. And there was Ruth, as I took my horse (with a 
 trunk of frippery on him), poor little Ruth was at the bridle, 
 
530 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 and rusting all the knops of our town-going harness with 
 tears. 
 
 " Good-bye, dear," I said, as she bent her head away from 
 me, "shall I put you up on the saddle, dear?" 
 
 "Cousin Ridd, you may take it lightly," said Ruth, turn- 
 ing full upon me, "and very likely you are right, according 
 to your nature" — this was the only cutting thing the little 
 soul ever said to me — "but oh, Cousin Ridd, you have no 
 idea of the pain you will leave behind you." 
 
 " How can that be so, Ruth, when I am as good as 
 ordered to be off the premises?" 
 
 "In the first place. Cousin Ridd, grandfather will be 
 angry with himself, for having so ill-used you. And now he 
 is so weak and poorly, that he is always repenting. In the 
 ne-\t place, I shall scold him first, until he admits his sor- 
 row ; and when he has admitted it, I shall scold myself for 
 scolding him. And then he will come round again, and 
 think that I was hard on him, and end perhaps by hating 
 you ; for he is like a woman now, John." 
 
 That last little touch of self-knowledge in Ruth, which 
 she delivered with a gleam of some secret pleasantry, made 
 me stop and look closely at her ; but she pretended not to 
 know it. " There is something in this child," I thought, 
 " very different from other girls. What it is I cannot tell ; 
 for one very seldom gets at it." 
 
 At any rate the upshot was that the good horse went back 
 to the stable, and had another feed of corn, while my wrath 
 sank within me. There are two things, according to my 
 experience (which may not hold with another man), fitted 
 beyond any others to take hot tempers out of us. The first 
 is to see our favourite creatures feeding, and licking up 
 their food, and happily snuffling over it, yet sparing time to 
 be grateful, and showing taste and perception ; the other is 
 to go gardening boldly, in the spring of the year, without 
 any misgiving about it, and hoping the utmost of every 
 thing. If there be a third anodyne, approaching these two 
 in power, it is to smoke good tobacco well, and watch the 
 setting of the moon, and if this should only be over the sea, 
 the result is irresistible. 
 
 Master Huckaback showed no especial signs of joy at my 
 return, but received me with a little grunt, which appeared 
 to me to mean, "Ah, I thought he would hardly be fool 
 enough to go." I told him how sorry I was for having in 
 some way offended him ; and he answered that I did well 
 to grieve for one at least of my offences. To this I made 
 
f 
 
 -f'^*^ 
 
 J 
 
 POOR LITTLE RUTH WAS AT THE BRIDLE, AND RUSTING ALL THE KNOPS 
 OF OUR TOWN-GOING HARNESS WITH TEARS. 
 
532 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 no reply, as behoves a man dealing with cross and fractious 
 people ; and presently he became better-tempered, and sent 
 little Ruth for a bottle of wine. She gave me a beautiful 
 smile of thanks for my forbearance, as she passed, and I 
 knew by her manner that she would bring the best bottle in 
 all the cellar. 
 
 As I had but little time to spare (although the days were 
 long and light), we were forced to take our wine with prompti- 
 tude and rapidity, and whether this loosened my uncle's 
 tongue, or whether he meant beforehand to speak, is now 
 almost uncertain. But true it is that he brought his chair 
 very near to mine, after three or four glasses, and sent Ruth 
 away upon some errand which seemed of small importance. 
 At this I was vexed, for the room always looked so different 
 without her. 
 
 " Come, Jack," he said, " here's your health, young fellow, 
 and a good and obedient wife to you. Not that your wife 
 will ever obey you, though — you are much too easy-tem- 
 pered. Even a bitter and stormy woman might live in 
 peace with you. Jack. But never you give her the chance 
 to try. Marry some sweet little thing, if you can. If not, 
 don't marry any. Ah, we have the maid to suit you, my 
 lad, in this old town of Dulverton." 
 
 " Have you so, sir? but perhaps the maid might have no 
 desire to suit me." 
 
 " That you may take my word she has. The colour of 
 this wine will prove it. The sly little hussy has been to the 
 cobwebbed arch of the cellar, where she has no right to go, 
 for any one under a magistrate. However, I am glad to 
 see it, and we will not spare it, John. After my time, some- 
 body, whoever marries little Ruth, will find some rare wine 
 there, I trow, and perhaps not know the difference." 
 
 Thinking of this the old man sighed, and expected me to 
 sigh after him. But a sigh is not (like a yawn) infectious, 
 and we are all more prone to be sent to sleep than to sor- 
 row, by one another. Not but what a sigh sometimes may 
 make us think of sighing. 
 
 "Well, sir," cried I, in my sprightliest manner, which 
 rouses up most people, "here's to your health and dear little 
 Ruth's ; and may you live to knock off the cobwebs from 
 every bottle in under the arch ! Uncle Reuben, your life 
 and health, sir ! " 
 
 With that, I took my glass thoughtfully, for it was won- 
 drous good ; and Uncle Ben was pleased to see me dwelling 
 pleasantly on the subject, with parenthesis, and self-com- 
 
l.ORXA KNOWS IIKR NURSK. 533 
 
 mune, and oral jiuloinent unpronounced, though smacking 
 of fine decision. ''Curia viilt aJi'isari," as the lawyers say, 
 which means, " Let us have another glass, and then we can 
 think about it." 
 
 " Come now, John," said Uncle Ben, laying his wrinkled 
 hand on my knee, when he saw that none could heed us, 
 " I know that you have a sneaking fondness for my grand- 
 child, Ruth. Don't interrujit me now, you have; and to 
 deny it will only provoke me." 
 
 " I do like Ruth, sir," I said boldly, for fear of misunder- 
 standing, "but I do not love her." 
 
 " \'ery well, that makes no difference. Liking may very 
 soon be loving (as some people call it), when the maid has 
 money to help her." 
 
 " ISut if there be, as there is in my case " 
 
 "(_)nce for all, John, not a word. I do not attempt to 
 lead you into any engagement with little Ruth, neither will 
 I blame you (though I may be disappointed) if no such en- 
 gagement should ever be. But whether you will have my 
 grandchild or whether you will not — and such a chance is 
 rarely offered to a fellow of your standing" — L'ncle lien 
 despised all farmers — "in any case I have at last resolved 
 to let you know my secret, and for two good reasons. The 
 first is, that it wears me out to dwell upon it, all alone ; and 
 the second is, that I can trust vou to fulfil a promise. 
 Moreover you are my ne.xt of kin, except among the women- 
 kind, and you are just the man I want to help me in my 
 enterprise." 
 
 " And I will help you, sir," I answered, fearing some con- 
 spiracy, "m anything that is true, and loyal, and accordmg 
 to the laws of the realm." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! " cried the old man, laughing until his eyes ran 
 over, and spreading out his skinny hands upon his shining 
 breeches, " thou hast gone the same fool's track as the rest, 
 even as spy Stickles went, and all his precious troopers. 
 Landing of arms at Cilenthorne and Lynmouth, waggons 
 escorted across the moor, sounds of metal, and booming 
 noises ! Ah, but we managed it cleverly, to cheat even those 
 so near to us. Disaffection at Taunton, signs of insurrec- 
 tion at Dulverton, revolutionary tanner at Dunster ! AVe 
 set it all abroad, right well. And not even you to suspect 
 our work, though we thought at one time that you vi^atched 
 us. Now who, do you suppose, is at the bottom of all tliis 
 Exmoor insurgency, all this western rebellion — not that I 
 say there is none, mind — but who is at the bottom of it ? " 
 
534 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "Either Mother Melldrum," said I, being now a little 
 angry, "or else old Nick himself." 
 
 " Nay, old Uncle Reuben ! " Saying this, Master Hucka- 
 back cast back his coat, and stood up, and made the most 
 of himself. 
 
 " \Vell ! " cried I, being now quite come to the limits of 
 ' my intellect, " then, after all, Captain Stickles was right 
 in calling you a rebel, sir ! " 
 
 Of course he was ; could so keen a man 
 
 be wrong about an old fool like me? But 
 
 come and see our rebellion, John. I will 
 
 trust you now with every thing. I will 
 
 take no oath from you, only your word to 
 
 keep silence ; and most of all from your 
 
 mother." 
 
 ' I will give you my word," I said, 
 although not liking such pledges, which 
 make a man think before he speaks in 
 ordinary company, against his usual 
 practice. However, I was now so 
 curious that 1 thought of nothing else, 
 and scarcely could believe at all that 
 Uncle Ben was quite right in his head. 
 " Take another glass of wine, my 
 son," he cried, with a cheerful counte- 
 nance, which made him look more than 
 ten years younger ; " you shall come into part- 
 nership with me ; your strength will save us 
 two horses, and we always fear the horse 
 work. Come and see our rebellion, my boy ; 
 you are a made man from to-night." 
 " But where am I to come and see it ? Where am I to 
 find it, sir ?" 
 
 "Meet me," he answered, yet closing his hands, and 
 wrinkling with doubt his forehead ; "come alone, of course, 
 and meet me at the Wizard's Slough, at ten to-morrow 
 morning." 
 
 MASTER HUCKABACK CAST 
 BACK HIS CU.AT. 
 
CHAPTER LVIII. 
 
 MASTER HUCKABACK S SECRET. 
 
 XOWING Master Huckaback to be 
 
 Ka man of his word, as well as 
 one who would have others so, I 
 was careful to^ be in good time the 
 next morning by the side of the 
 Wizard's Slough. 1 am free to ad- 
 mit that the name of the place bore 
 a feeling of uneasiness and a love 
 of distance, in some measure to 
 my heart. But I did my best not 
 to think of this, onlv f thought it 
 a wise precaution, and due for the 
 sake of my mother and Lorna, to 
 load my gun with a dozen slugs 
 made from the lead of the old 
 church-porch, laid by long since, 
 against witchcraft. 
 
 I am \\ell aware that some peo- 
 '^''■"''^ pie now begin to doubt about witt^i- 
 craft, or, at any rate, feign to do so, being desirous to dis- 
 believe whatever they are afraid of. This spirit is growing 
 too common among us, and will end (unless we put a stop 
 to it) in the destruction of all religion. And as regards 
 witchcraft, a man is bound either to believe in it or to dis- 
 believe the Bible. For even in the New Testament, dis- 
 carding many things of the Old, such as sacrifices, and 
 Sabbath, and fasting, and other miseries, witchcraft is 
 clearly spoken of as a thing that must continue, that the 
 evil one be not utterly robbed of his vested interests. 
 Hence, let no one tell me that witchcraft is done away 
 with, for I will meet him with St. Paul, than whom no 
 more religious man, and few less superstitious, can be 
 found in all the Bible. 
 
 Feeling these things more in those days than I feel 
 them now, I fetched a goodish compass round, by the way 
 
536 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 of the Cloven rocks, rather than cross Black Barrow Down 
 in a reckless and unholy manner. There were several 
 spots upon that down, cursed, and smitten, and blasted, 
 as if thunderbolts had fallen there and Satan sat to keep 
 them warm. At any rate, it was good (as every one ac- 
 knowledged) not to wander there too much, even with a 
 doctor of divinity upon one arm, and of medicine upon the 
 other. 
 
 Therefore I, being all alone and on foot (as seemed the 
 wisest), preferred a course of roundabout, and, starting 
 about eight o'clock, without mentioning my business, ar- 
 rived at the mouth of the deep descent, such as John Fry 
 described it. Now this (though I have not spoken of it) 
 was not my first time of being there. For, although I 
 could not bring myself to spy upon Uncle Reuben, as 
 John Fry had done, yet I thought it no ill manners, after 
 he had left our house, to have a look at the famous place 
 where the malefactor came to life, at least in John's opin- 
 ion. At that time, however, I saw nothing, except the 
 great, ugly, black morass, with the grisly weeds around it, 
 and 1 did not care to go very near it, much less to pry on 
 the further side. 
 
 Now, on the other hand, I was bent to get at the very 
 bottom of this mystery (if there were any), having less 
 fear of witch or wizard with a man of Uncle Reuben's 
 wealth to take my part and see me through. So I rattled 
 the ramrod down my gun, just to know if the charge were 
 right after so much walking, and finding it full si.\ inches 
 deep, as I like to have it, went boldly down the steep 
 gorge of rock, with a firm resolve to shoot any witch, un- 
 less it were good Mother .Melldrum. Nevertheless, to my 
 surprise, all was quiet and fair to look at in the decline of 
 the narrow way, with great stalked ferns coming forth like 
 trees, yet hanging like cobwebs over one. And along one 
 side a little spring was getting rid of its waters. Any man 
 might stop and think, or he might go on and think, and in 
 either case there was none to say that he was making a 
 fool of himself. 
 
 ^\'hen I came to the foot of this ravine, and over and 
 against the great black slough, there was no sign of Mas- 
 ter Huckaback, nor of any other living man, except myself, 
 in the silence. Therefore I sat in a niche of rock, gazing 
 at the slough, and pondering the old tradition about it. 
 
 They say that in the ancient times a mighty necroman- 
 cer lived in the wilderness of Exmoor. Here, by spell and 
 
MASTKR IIUCKAIIACK S SKCRKT. 537 
 
 incantation, he built himself a strong;-, high palace, eight- 
 sided, like a spider's web, and standing on a central sleep, 
 St) that neither man nor beast could cross the moor with- 
 out his knowledge. If he wished to rob and slay a travel- 
 ler, or to have wild ox or stag for food, he had nothing 
 more to do than sit at one of his eight windows and point 
 his unholy book at him. Anv movmg creature at which 
 that book was pointed must obey the call, and come from 
 whatever distance, if sighted once by the wizard. 
 
 This was a bad condition of things, and all the countrv 
 groaned under it, and Exmoor (although the most honest 
 place that a man could wish to live in) was beginning to get 
 a bad reputation, and all through that vile wizard. No man 
 durst even go to steal a sheep, or a pony, or so much as a 
 deer for dinner, lest he should be brought to book by a far 
 bigger rogue than he was. And this went on for many 
 years, though they prayed to God to abate it. But at last, 
 when the wizard was getting fat and haughty upon his 
 high stomach, a mighty deliverance came to Exmoor, and 
 a warning, and a memory. For one day the sorcerer gazed 
 from his window facing the southeast of the compass, and 
 he yawned, having killed so many men that now he was 
 weary of it. 
 
 "'Ifackins!" he cried, or some such oath, both profane 
 and uncomely, "I see a man on the verge of the sky-line, 
 going along laboriously. A pilgrim, I trow, or some such 
 fool, with the nails of his boots inside them. Too thin to 
 be worth eating, but I will have him for the fun of the 
 thing, and most of those saints have got money." 
 
 With these words he stretched forth his legs on a stool, 
 and pointed the book of heathenish spells back upwards at 
 the pilgrim. Now, this good pilgrim was plodding along 
 soberly and religiously, with a pound of flints in either 
 boot, and not an ounce of meat inside him. He felt the 
 spell of the wicked book, but only as a horse might feel a 
 "gee-wug!" addressed to him. It was in the power of 
 this good man either to go on or turn aside and see out 
 the wizard's meaning. And for a moment he halted and 
 stood like one in two minds about a thing. Then the wiz- 
 ard clapped one cover to, in a jocular and insulting man- 
 ner, and the sound of it came to the pilgrim's ear, about 
 five miles in the distance, like a great gun fired at him. 
 
 "By our Lady ! " he cried, "I must see to this, although 
 my poor feet have no skin below them. I will teach this 
 heathen miscreant how to scoff at Glastonbury." 
 
538 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Thereupon he turned his course and ploughed along 
 through the moors and bogs towards the eight-sided pal- 
 ace. The wizard sat on his chair of comfort, and with the 
 rankest contempt observed the holy man ploughing towards 
 him. " He has something good in his wallet, I trow," 
 said the black thief to himself ; " these fellows get always 
 the pick of the wine, and the best of a woman's money." 
 Then he cried, "Come in, come in, good sir!" as he al- 
 ways did to every one. 
 
 "Bad sir, I will not come in," said the pilgrim, "neither 
 shall you come out again. Here are the bones of all you 
 have slain, and here shall your own bones be." 
 
 " Hurry me not," cried the sorcerer ; "that is a thing to 
 think about. How many miles hast thou travelled this 
 day?" 
 
 But the pilgrim was too wide awake, for if he had spoken 
 of any number bearing no cross upon it, the necromancer 
 would have had him like a ball at bando-play. Therefore 
 he answered as truly as need be, "By the grace of our 
 Lady, nine." 
 
 Now nine is the crossest of all cross numbers, and full 
 to the lip of all crotchets. So the wizard staggered back, 
 and thought, and inquired again with bravery, "Where can 
 you find a man and wife, one going up-hill and one going 
 down, and not a word spoken between them?" 
 
 "In a cucumber plant," said the modest saint, blushing 
 even to think of it, and the wizard knew he was done for. 
 
 "You have tried me with ungodly questions," continued 
 the honest pilgrim, with one hand still over his eyes as he 
 thought of the feminine cucumber, "and now I will ask 
 you a pure one : To whom of mankind have you ever 
 done good since God saw fit to make you?" 
 
 The wizard thought, but could quote no one, and he 
 looked at the saint and the saint at him, and both their 
 hearts were trembling. "Can you tell of only one?" asked 
 the saint, pointing a piece of the true cross at him, hoping 
 he might cling to it. " Even a little child will do ; try to 
 think of some one." 
 
 The earth was rocking beneath their feet, and the palace 
 windows darkened on them with a tint of blood, for now 
 the saint was come inside, hoping to save the wizard. 
 
 "If I must tell the pure truth," said the wizard, looking 
 up at the arches of his windows, " I can tell of only one to 
 whom I ever have done good." 
 
 "One will do, one is quite enough ; be quick, before the 
 
MASTER llUCKAliAiKS SECRi;!'. 539 
 
 ground opens. The name of one, and this cross will save 
 you. Lay yiinr thumb on the end ot it." 
 
 " Nay, that I cannot do, great saint. The devil have 
 mercy upon me ! " 
 
 All this while the palace was sinking and blackness com- 
 ing over them. 
 
 "Thou hast all but done for thyself," said the saint, with 
 a glory burning round his head, "by that last invocation. 
 Vet give us the name of the one, my friend ; if one there 
 be, it will save thee with the cross upon thy breast. All is 
 crashing round us ; dear brother, who is that one?" 
 
 " iM\' own self ! " cried the wretched wizard. 
 
 "Then there is no help for thee." And with that the 
 honest saint went upward, and the wizard, and all his pal- 
 ace, and even the crag that bore it, sank to the bowels of 
 the earth, and over them was nothing left except a black 
 bog fringed with reed of the tint of the wizard's whiskers. 
 The saint, however, was all right, after sleeping off the ex- 
 citement, and he founded a chapel some three miles west- 
 ward, and there he lies with his holy relic, and thither in 
 after ages came (as we all come home at last) both mv 
 Lorna's Aunt Sabina, and her guardian, Sir Ensor Itoone. 
 
 ^^'hile vet I dwelled upon this strange storv, wondering 
 if it all were true, and why such things do not happen now, 
 a man on horseback appeared as suddenly as if he had 
 risen out of the earth, on the other side of the great black 
 slough. At first I was a little scared, mv mind being in the 
 tune for wonders, but presently the white hair, whiter from 
 the blackness of the bog between us, showed me that it 
 was Uncle Reuben come to look for me that way. Then I 
 left my chair of rock, and wavctl my hat, and shouted to 
 him, and the sound of my voice among the crags and 
 lonely corners frightened me." 
 
 Old Master Huckaback made no answer, but (so far as 
 I could guess) beckoned me to come to him. There was 
 just room between the fringe of reed and the belt of rock 
 around it for a man going very carefully to escape that 
 horrible pit-hole. And so I went round to the other side, 
 and there found open space enough, with stunted bushes, 
 and starveling trees, and straggling tufts of rushes. 
 
 "You fool, you are frightened," said Uncle Ben, as he 
 looked at my face after shaking hands. "I want a young 
 man of steadfast courage, as well as of strength and si- 
 lence. And after what I heard of the battle at Glen 
 Uoone, I thought I might trust you for courage." 
 
540 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 "So you may," said I, "wherever I see mine enemy, but 
 not where witch and wizard be." 
 
 "Tush, great fool!" cried Master Huckaback. "The 
 only witch or wizard here is the one that bewitcheth all 
 men. Now fasten up my horse, John Ridd, and not too 
 near the slough, lad. Ah, we have chosen our entrance 
 wisely. Two good horsemen and their horses coming 
 hither to spy us out, are gone mining on their own ac- 
 count (and their last account it is) down this good wiz- 
 ard's bog-hole." 
 
 \\"ith these words, Uncle Reuben clutched the mane of 
 his horse and came down, as a man does when his legs are 
 old, and as I myself begin to do at this time of writing. 
 I offered a hand, but he was vexed, and would have 
 naught to do with it. 
 
 " Now follow me, step for step," he said, when I had 
 tethered his horse to a tree; "the ground is not death 
 (like the wizard's hole), but many parts are treacherous. 
 I know it well bv this time." 
 
 Without any more adu, he led me in and out the marshy 
 places to a great round hole or shaft, bratticed up with 
 timber. I never had seen the like before, and wondered 
 how thev could want a well with so much water on every 
 side. Around the mouth were a few little heaps of stuff 
 unused to the daylight, and I thought at once of the tales 
 I had heard concerning mines in Cornwall, and the silver 
 cup at Combe-Martin sent to the Queen Elizabeth. 
 
 "We had a tree across it, John," said Uncle Reuben, 
 smiling grimly at my sudden shrink from it, "but some 
 rogue came spying here just as one of our men went up. 
 He was frightened half out of his life, I believe, and 
 never ventured to come again. But we put the blame of 
 that upon you, and I see that we were wrong, John." 
 Here he looked at me with keen eyes, though weak. 
 
 " You were altogether wrong," I answered. " Am I mean 
 enough to spy upon any one dwelling with us? And more 
 than that, Uncle Reuben, it was mean of you to suppose it." 
 
 "All ideas are different," replied the old man to my 
 heat, like a little worn-out rill running down a smithy ; 
 "you with your strength, and youth, and all that, are in- 
 clined to be romantic. I take things as I have known 
 them going on for seventy years. Now, will you come 
 and meet the wizard, or does your courage fail you?" 
 
 "My courage must be none," said I, "if I would not go 
 where you go, sir." 
 
MASTER HUCKAI'.ACK's SKCRl'.T. 
 
 541 
 
 He said no more, but 
 signed to me to lift a lieavy 
 wooden corb with an iron 
 loop across it, and sunk in 
 a little pit of earth, a yard 
 or so from the mouth of 
 
 I NEVER HAD SEEN 
 THE LIKE BEFORE. 
 
 the shaft. I raised 
 it and by his direc- 
 tion dropped it into the throat 
 of the shaft, where it hung and 
 shook from a great cross-beam 
 laid at the level of the earth. A 
 very stout thick rope was fast- 
 ened to the handle of the corb, 
 and ran across a pulley hanging 
 from the centre of the beam, and 
 thence out of sight in the nether 
 places. 
 
 "I will first descend," he said; 
 
542 LOKNA D(_)()NE. 
 
 "your weight is too great for safety. Wfien the bucket 
 comes up again, follow me, if your heart is good." 
 
 Then he whistled down, with a quick, sharp noise, and 
 a whistle from below replied, and he clomb into the vehi- 
 cle, and the rope ran through the pulley, and Uncle Ben 
 went merrily down, and was out of sight before I had time 
 to think of him. 
 
 Now, being left on the bank like that, and in full sight 
 of the goodly heaven, I wrestled hard with my flesh and 
 blood about going down into the pit-hole. And but for 
 the pale shame of the thing, that a white-headed man 
 should adventure so, and green youth doubt about it, 
 never could I have made up my mind, for I do love air 
 and heaven. However, at last up came the bucket, and 
 with a short sad prayer I went into whatever might 
 happen. 
 
 My teeth would chatter, do all I could, but the strength 
 of my arms was with me, and by them I held on the grimy 
 rope, and so eased the foot of the corb, which threatened 
 to go awa}' fathoms under me. Of course, I should still 
 have been safe enough, being like an egg in an egg-cup, 
 too big to care for the bottom ; still, I wished that all 
 should be done in good order, without excitement. 
 
 The scoopings of the side grew black, and the patch of 
 sky above more blue, as with many thoughts of Lorna a 
 long way underground I sank. Then I was fetched up at 
 the bottom with a jerk and rattle, and but for holding by 
 the rope so, must have tumbled over. Two great torches 
 of bale-resin showed me all the darkness, one being held 
 by Uncle Ben, and the other by a short, square man, with 
 a face which seemed well known to me. 
 
 " Hail to the world of gold, John Ridd," said i\Iaster 
 Huckaback, smiling in the old dry manner; "bigger cow- 
 ard never came down the shaft, now, did he. Carfax?" 
 
 "They be all alike," said the short, square man, "fust 
 time as they doos it." 
 
 "May I go to heaven," I cried, "which is a thing quite 
 out of sight" — for I always have a vein of humour, too 
 small to be followed by any one — "if ever again of my 
 own accord I go so far away from it ! " Uncle Ben grinned 
 less at this than at the way I knocked my shin in getting 
 out of the bucket, and as for Master Carfax, he would not 
 even deign to smile. And he seemed to look upon my en- 
 trance as an interloping. 
 
 For my part, I had naught to do, after rubbing my 
 
MASTER IIUCKAliACK S S1'.(;RF:T. 543 
 
 bruised leg", except to look about me, so far as the dul- 
 ness of light would help. And hereni 1 seemed like a 
 mouse in a trap, able no more than to run to and fro, and 
 knock himself, and stare at things. For here was a little 
 channel grooved with posts on either side of it, and end- 
 ing with a heap of darkness, whence the sight came back 
 again, and there was a scooped place like a funnel, but 
 pouring only to darkness. So I waited for some body to 
 speak first, not seeing my way to any thing. 
 
 "You seem to be disappointed, John," said Uncle Reu- 
 ben, looking blue by the light of the flambeaux ; "did you 
 expect to see the roof of gold, and the sides of gold, and 
 the floor of gold, John Ridd?" 
 
 "Ha, ha!" cried Master Carfax. "I reckon her did; 
 no doubt her did." 
 
 "You are wrong," I replied; "but I did expect to see 
 something better than dirt and darkness." 
 
 "Come on, then, my lad, and we will show you some- 
 thing better. We want your great arm on here for a job 
 that has beaten the whole of us." 
 
 ^Vith these words, Uncle Ben led the way along a nar- 
 row passage, roofed with rock, and floored with slate-col- 
 oured shale and shingle, and winding in and out, until we 
 stopped at a great stone block or boulder lying across the 
 floor, and as large as my mother's best oaken wardrobe. 
 Beside it were several sledge-hammers, some battered, and 
 some with broken helves. 
 
 " Thou great villain ! " cried Uncle Ben, giving the 
 boulder a little kick. "I believe thy time has come at 
 last. Now, John, give us a sample of the things thev tell 
 of thee. Take the biggest of them sledge-hammers and 
 crack this rogue in two for us. We have tried at him for 
 a fortnight, and he is a nut worth cracking. But we have 
 no man who can swing that hammer, though all in the 
 mine have handled it." 
 
 "I will do my very best," said I, pulling off my coat and 
 waistcoat as if I were going to wrestle, "but I fear he will 
 prove too tough for me." 
 
 "Ay, that her wuU," grunted Master Carfax; "lack'th a 
 Carnishman, and a beg one, too, not a little charp, such as 
 I be. There be no man outside Carnwall as can crack 
 that boolder." 
 
 "Bless my heart," I answered, "but I know something 
 of you, my friend, or, at any rate, of your family. Well, I 
 have beaten most of your Cornish men, though not my 
 
544 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 place to talk of it. But mind, if I crack this rock for you, 
 I must have some of the gold inside it." 
 
 "Dost think to see the gold come tumbling out like 
 the kernel of a nut, thou zany?" asked Uncle Reuben, 
 
 pettishly. " Now, 
 wilt thou crack it, 
 or wilt thou not ? 
 For I believe thou 
 canst do it, though 
 only a lad of Som- 
 erset." 
 
 Uncle Reuben 
 showed by saying 
 this, and by a 
 glance at Carfax 
 that he was proud 
 of his county, and 
 would be disap- 
 pointed for it if I 
 failed to crack the 
 boulder. So I 
 begged him to 
 stoop his torch a 
 little that I might 
 examine my sub- 
 ject. To me there 
 appeared to be 
 nothing at all re- 
 markable about it, 
 except that it 
 sparkled here and 
 there when the 
 flash of the flame 
 fell upon it. A great obstinate, oblong, 
 sullen stone, how could it be worth the 
 breaking, except for making roads with? 
 
 Nevertheless, I took up the hammer, and swinging it 
 far behind my head, fetched it down with all my power 
 upon the middle of the rock. The roof above rang might- 
 ily, and the echo went down delven galleries, so that all 
 the miners flocked to know what might be doing. But 
 Master Carfax only smiled, although the blow shook him 
 where he stood, for, behold, the stone was still unbroken, 
 and as firm as ever ! Then I smote it again, with no bet- 
 ter fortune, and Uncle Ben looked vexed and angry, but 
 all the miners grinned with triumph. 
 
 I SWUNG ME ox HIGH TO 
 TIIK SWING OF THE SLEDGE. 
 
MASTER HUCKABACKS SK(l;ET. 545 
 
 "This little tool is too light," I cried; "one of you 
 give- me a piece of strong cord." 
 
 Then I took two more of the weightiest hammers, and 
 lashed them fast to the back of mine, not so as to strike, 
 but to burden the fall. Having made this firm, and with 
 room to grasp the handle of the largest one onl)- — for the 
 helves of the others were shorter — I smiled at Uncle Ben, 
 and whirled the mighty implement round my head, just to 
 try whether I could manage it. Upon that the miners gave 
 a cheer, being honest men and desirous of seeing fair play 
 between this "shameless stone" (as Dan Homer calls it) 
 and me with my hammer hammering. 
 
 Then I swung me on high to the swing of the sledge, as 
 a thresher bends back to the rise of his flail, and with 
 all my power descending, delivered the ponderous onset. 
 Crashing and crushed, the great stone fell over, and threads 
 of sparkling gold appeared in the jagged sides of the 
 breakage. 
 
 "How now, Simon Uarfax?" cried Uncle Ben, trium- 
 phantly; "wilt thou find a man in Cornwall can do the 
 like of that?" 
 
 "Ay, and more," he answered; "however, it be pretty 
 fair for a lad of these outlandish parts, (let your rollers, 
 my lads, and lead it to the crushing engine." 
 
 I was glad to have been of some service to them, for 
 it seems that this great boulder had been too large to be 
 drawn along the gallery, and too hard to crack. But now 
 they moved it very easily, taking piece by piece, and care- 
 fully picking up the fragments. 
 
 "Thou hast done us a good turn, my lad," said Uncle 
 Reuben, as the others passed out of sight at the corner, 
 "and now I will show thee the bottom of a very wondrous 
 mystery. But we must not do it more than once, for the 
 time of day is the wrong one." 
 
 The whole affair being a mystery to me, and far beyond 
 my understanding, I followed him softly, without a word, 
 yet thinking very heavily, and longing to be above ground 
 again. He led me through small passages to a hollow 
 place near the descending shaft, where I saw a most ex- 
 traordinary monster fitted up. In form it was like a great 
 coffee-mill, such as I had seen in London, only a thousand 
 times larger, and with a heavy windlass to work it. 
 
 " Put in a barrow-load of the smoulder," said Uncle Ben 
 to Carfax, "and let them work the crank for John to un- 
 derstand a thing or two." 
 
546 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "At this time of day," cried Simon Carfax, "and the 
 watching as has been o' late?" 
 
 However, he did it without more remonstrance, pouring 
 into the scuttle at the top of the machine about a basket- 
 ful of broken rock, and then a dozen men went to the 
 wheel and forced it round, as sailors do. Upon that, such 
 a hideous noise arose as I never should have believed any 
 creature capable of making, and I ran to the well of the 
 mine for air and to ease my ears, if possible. 
 
 "Enough, enough!" shouted Uncle Ben, by the time I 
 was nearly deafened. "We will digest our goodly boulder 
 after the devil is come abroad for his evening work. Now, 
 John, not a word about what you have learned, but hence- 
 forth you will not be frightened by the noise we make at 
 dusk." 
 
 I could not deny but what this was very clever manage- 
 ment. If they could not keep the echoes of the upper air 
 from moving, the wisest plan was to open their valves dur- 
 ing the discouragement of the falling evening, when folk 
 would rather be driven away than drawn into the wilds 
 and quagmires by a sound so deep and awful coming 
 through the darkness. 
 
 \yii.Lr6\ '] \ou,fV~ 
 
CHAl'TER LIX. 
 
 LORN A GONE AWAY. 
 
 LTHOUGH there are very ancient 
 tales of gold being found upon Ex- 
 moor, in lumps, and solid hum- 
 mocks, and of men who slew one 
 another for it, this deep digging 
 and great labour seemed to me a 
 dangerous and unholy enterprise. 
 And ^Master Huckaback confessed 
 that, up to the present time, his 
 two partners and himself (for they 
 proved to be three adventurers) 
 had put into the earth more .^okl 
 than they had taken out of it. 
 Nevertheless, he felt quite sure 
 that it must in a very short time 
 succeed, and pay them back an 
 hundredfold, and he pressed me 
 with great earnestness to join 
 them, and work there as much 
 as 1 could, without moving my 
 mother's suspicions. I asked him huw they had managed so 
 long to carry on without discovery ; and he said that this 
 was partly through the wildness of the neighbourhood, and 
 the legends that frightened people of a superstitious turn ; 
 partly through their own great caution, and manner of 
 fetching both supplies and implements by night, but most 
 of all, they had to thank the troubles of the period, the sus- 
 picions of rebellion, and the terror of the Doones, which 
 (like the wizard I was speaking of) kept folk from being 
 too inquisitive where they had no business. The slough, 
 moreover, had helped them well, both by making their 
 access dark, and yet more by swallowing up and concealing 
 all that was cast from the mouth of the pit. Once, before 
 the attack on Glen Doone, they had a narrow escape from 
 the King's Commissioner, for Captain Stickles, having heard 
 
548 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 no doubt the story of John Fry, went with half-a-dozen 
 troopers, on purpose to search the neighbourhood. Now if 
 he had ridden alone, most likely he would have discovered 
 every thing ; but he feared to venture so, having suspicion 
 of a trap. Coming as they did in a company, all mounted 
 and conspicuous, the watchman (who was posted now on 
 the top of the hill almost every day since John Fry's appear- 
 ance) could not help espying them, miles distant, over the 
 moorland. He watched them under the shade of his hand, 
 and presently ran down the hill, and raised a great commo- 
 tion. Then Simon Carfax and all his men came up and 
 made things natural, removing every sign of work, and 
 finally, sinking under ground, drew across the mouth of the 
 pit a hurdle thatched with sedge and heather. Only Simon 
 himself was left behind, ensconced in a hole of the crags, 
 to observe the doings of the enemy. 
 
 Captain Stickles rode very bravely, with all his men clat- 
 tering after him, down the rocky pass, and even to the 
 margin of the slough. And there they stopped, and held 
 council, for it was a perilous thing to risk the passage upon 
 horseback between the treacherous brink and the cliff unless 
 one knew it thoroughly. Stickles, however, and one fol- 
 lower, carefully felt their way along, having their horses 
 well in hand, and bearing a rope to draw them out in case 
 of being foundered. Then they spurred across the rough, 
 boggy land further away than the shaft was. Here the 
 ground lay jagged and shaggy, wrought up with high tufts 
 of reed, or scragged with stunted brushwood. And be- 
 tween the ups and downs (which met any body anyhow) 
 green covered places tempted the foot, and black bog-holes 
 discouraged it. It is not to be marvelled at that amid such 
 place as this, for the first time visited, the horses were a 
 little skeary, and their riders partook of the feeling as all 
 good riders do. In and out the tufts they went, with their 
 eyes dilating, wishing to be out of harm, if conscience were 
 but satisfied. And of this tuftv, flaggy ground, pocked with 
 bogs and boglets, one especial nature is that it will not hold 
 impressions. 
 
 Seeing thus no track of men, nor any thing but marsh- 
 work, and stormwork, and of the seasons, these two honest 
 men rode back, and were glad to do so. For above them 
 hung the mountains, cowled with fog, and seamed with 
 storm, and around them desolation, and below their feet 
 the grave. Hence they went with all good will, and vowed 
 for ever afterwards that fear of a simple place like that was 
 
LOKXA com; away. 549 
 
 only too ridiculous. So they ail rode home witli mutual 
 praises, and tlieir courage well approved, and the only re- 
 sult of the expedition was to confirm John Fr)''s repute as 
 a hiiiger liar than ever. 
 
 Now 1 hatl enough of that underground work, as before 
 related, to last me for a year to eonie ; neither would I, for 
 sake of gold, have ever stepped into that bucket of my own 
 good will again. But when I told Lorna — whom I could 
 trust in any matter of seerecy, as if she had never been a 
 woman — all about mv great descent, and the honeycomb- 
 ing of the earth, and the mournful noise at eventide, when 
 the gold was under the crusher, and bewailing the mischief 
 it must do, then Lorna's chief desire was to know more 
 about Simon Carfax. 
 
 " It must be our (Iwenny's father," she cried ; " the man 
 ndio disappeared underground, and whom she has ever 
 been seeking. How grieved the poor little thing will be if 
 it should turn out, after all, that he left his child on pur- 
 pose ! I can hardly believe it, can you, John ? 
 
 "M'ell," I replied, "all men are wicked, more or less, to 
 some extent, and no man may say otherwise." 
 
 For I did not wish to commit myself to an opinion about 
 Simon, lest I might be wrong, and Lorna think less of my 
 judgment. 
 
 But being resolved to seek this out, and do a good turn 
 if I could to Gwenny, who had done me many a good one, 
 I begged my Lorna to say not a word of this matter to the 
 handmaiden, until I had further searched it out. And to 
 carry out this resolve I went again to the place of business, 
 where they were grinding gold as freely as an apothecary 
 at his pills. 
 
 Having now true right of entrance, and being known to 
 the watchman, and regarded (since I cracked the boulder) 
 as one who could pay his footing, and perhaps would be 
 the master when Uncle Ben should be choked with monev, 
 I found the corb sent up for me rather sooner than I wished 
 it. For the smell of the places underground, and the way 
 men's eyes come out of them, with links and brands, and 
 flambeaux, instead of God's light to look at, were to me a 
 point of caution rather than of pleasure. 
 
 No doubt but that some men enjoy it, being born, like 
 worms, to dig and to live in their own scoopings. Yet even 
 the worms come up sometimes, after a good soft shower of 
 rain, and hold discourse with one another, whereas these 
 men, and the horses let down, come above ground never. 
 
550 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 And the changing of the sky is half the change our nature 
 calls for. Earth we have, and all its produce (moving from 
 the first appearance, and the hope with infant's eyes, through 
 the bloom of beauty's promise, to the rich and bright fulfil- 
 ment, and the falling back to rest) ; sea we have (with all its 
 wonder shed on eyes, and ears, and heart ; and the thought 
 of something more) — but without the sky to look at, what 
 would earth, and sea, and even our own selves, be to us? 
 
 Do we look at earth with hope? Yes, for victuals only. 
 Do we look at sea with hope ? Yes, that we may escape it. 
 At the sky alone (though questioned with the doubts of 
 sunshine, or scattered with uncertain stars), at the sky alone 
 we look with pure hope, and with memory. 
 
 Hence it always hurt my feelings when I got into that 
 bucket, with my small clothes turned up over, and a ker- 
 chief round my hat. But knowing that my purpose was 
 sound, and my motives pure, I let the sky grow to a little 
 blue hole, and then to nothing over me. At the bottom 
 Master Carfax met me, being captain of the mine, and 
 desirous to know my business. He wore a loose sack round 
 his shoulders, and his beard was two feet long. 
 
 " My business is to speak with you," I answered rather 
 sternly, for this man, who was nothing more than Uncle 
 Reuben's servant, had carried things too far with me, show- 
 ing no respect whatever ; and though I do not care for 
 much, I liked to receive a little, even in my early days. 
 
 " Coom into the muck-hole, then," was his gracious an- 
 swer ; and he led me into a filthy cell, where the miners 
 changed their jackets. 
 
 " Simon Carfax," I began with a manner to discourage 
 him, " I fear you are a shallow fellow, and not worth my 
 trouble.'' 
 
 " Then don't take it," he replied ; " I want no man's 
 trouble." 
 
 " For your sake I would not," I answered ; "but for your 
 daughter's sake I will ; the daughter whom you left to 
 starve so pitifully in the wilderness." 
 
 " The man stared at me with his pale grey eyes, whose 
 colour was lost from candle-light, and his voice as well as 
 his body shook, while he cried : 
 
 " It is a lie, man. No daughter and no son have I. Nor 
 was ever child of mine left to starve in the wilderness. You 
 are too big for me to tackle, and that makes you a coward 
 for saying it." His hands were playing with a pickaxe- 
 helve, as if he longed to have me under it. 
 
IJ^RNA GONE AWAY. 55 I 
 
 " Perhaps I have wronged you, Simon," I answered very 
 softly, for the sweat upon his forehead shone in the smoky 
 torchUght ; " if I have 1 crave your pardon. But did you 
 not bring up from Cornwall a little maid named ' Gwcnny,' 
 and supposed to be your daughter?" 
 
 " Ay, and she was my daughter, my last and only child 
 of five ; and for her I would give this mine, and all the 
 gold will ever come from it." 
 
 " You shall have her without either mine or gold, if you 
 only prove to me that you did not abandon her." 
 
 "Abandon her! I abandon Gwenny ! " he cried, with 
 such a rage of scorn, that I at once believed him. "They 
 told me she was dead, and crushed, and buried in the drift 
 here, and half my heart died with her. The Almighty blast 
 their mining-work, if the scoundrels lied to me ! " 
 
 "The scoundrels must have lied to you," I answered with 
 a spirit fired by his heat of fury ; " the maid is living, and 
 with us. Come up, and you shall see her." 
 
 " Rig the bucket," he shouted out along the echoing 
 gallery, and then he fell against the wall, and through the 
 grimy sack I saw the heaving of his breast, as I have seen 
 my opponent's chest in a long hard bout of wrestling. For 
 my part I could do no more than hold my tongue and look 
 at him. 
 
 \Vithout another word we rose to the level of the moors 
 and mires ; neither would Master Carfa.x speak as I led him 
 across the barrows. In this he was welcome to his own 
 way, for I do love silence, so little harm can come of it. 
 And though Gwenny was no beauty, her father might be 
 fond of her. 
 
 So I put him in the cow-house (not to frighten the little 
 maid), and the folding shutters over him, such as we used 
 at the beestings, and he listened to my voice outside, and 
 held on and preserved himself. For now he would have 
 scooped the earth, as cattle do at yearning-time, and as 
 meekly and as patiently, to have his child restored to him. 
 Not to make a long tale of it — for this thing is beyond me, 
 through want of true experience — I went and fetched his 
 Gwenny forth from the back kitchen, where she was fight- 
 ing, as usual, with our Betty. 
 
 "Come along, you little Vick," I said, for so we called 
 her ; " I have a message to you, Gwenny, from the Lord in 
 heaven." 
 
 " Don't 'ee talk about He," she answered ; " Her have long 
 forgatten me." 
 
552 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " That He has never done, you stupid. Come and see 
 who is in the cow-house." 
 
 Gwenney knew ; she knew in a moment. Looking into 
 my eyes, she knew, and hanging back from me to sigh, she 
 knew it even better. 
 
 She had not much elegance of emotion, being flat and 
 square all over, but none the less for that her heart came 
 quick, and her words came slowly. 
 
 " Oh, Jan, you are too good to cheat me. Is it joke you 
 are putting upon me ? " 
 
 I answered her with a gaze alone, and she tucked up her 
 clothes and followed me, because the road was dirty. Then 
 I opened the door just wide enough for the child to go to 
 her father, and left those two to have it out as might be 
 most natural. And they took a long time about it. 
 
 Meanwhile I needs must go and tell my Lorna all the 
 matter, and her joy was almost as great as if she herself had 
 found a father. And the wonder of the whole was this, 
 that I got all the credit, of which not a thousandth part 
 belonged by right and reason to me. Yet so it almost 
 always is. If I work for good desert, and slave, and lie 
 awake at night, and spend my unborn life in dreams, not a 
 blink, nor wink, nor inkling of my labour ever tells. It 
 would have been better to leave unburned, and to keep 
 undevoured, the fuel and the food of life. But if I have 
 laboured not, only acted bv some impulse, whim, caprice, or 
 any thing, or even acting not at all, have floated upon for- 
 tune's haul — piled upon me commendations, bravoes, and 
 applauses, almost work me up to tempt once again (though 
 sick of it) the ill-luck of deserving. 
 
 \\'ithout intending anv harm, and meaning only good 
 indeed, I had now done serious wrong to Uncle Reuben's 
 prospects. For Captain Carfax was full as angry at the 
 trick played on him, as he was happy in discovering the 
 falsehood and the fraud of it. Nor could I help agreeing 
 with him, when he told me all of it, as with tears in his eyes 
 he did, and ready to be my slave henceforth ; I could not 
 forbear from owning that it was a low and heartless trick, 
 unw(jrthv of men who had families, and the recoil whereof 
 was well deserved, whatever it might end in. 
 
 For when this poor man left his daughter (asleep as he 
 supposed, and having his food and change of clothes, and 
 Sunday hat to see to), he meant to return in an hour or so, 
 and settle about her sustenance in some house of the neigh- 
 bourhood. But this was the very thing of all things which 
 
I.OKNA CtiXE AWAV. 553 
 
 the leaders of the enierprise, who had brou.nht him up from 
 Cornwall, for his noted skill in metals, were determined, 
 whetiier 1)\- fair means or foul, to stop at the very outset. Se- 
 crecy being their main object, wiiat chance could there be of 
 it if the miners were allowed to keep their children in the 
 neighbourhood ? Hence, on the plea of feasting Simon, they 
 kept him drunk for three days and three nights, assuring 
 him (whenever he had gleams enough to ask for her) that 
 his daughter was as well as could be, and enjoying herself 
 with the children. Not wishing the maid to see him tipsy, 
 he pressed the matter no further, but applied himself to the 
 bottle again, and drank her health with pleasure. 
 
 However, after three days of this, his constitution rose 
 against it, and he became quite sober, with a certain low- 
 ness of heart, moreover, and a sense of error. And his first 
 desire to right himself, and easiest way to do it, was bv ex- 
 erting parental authority upon (jwennv. l-'ossessed with 
 this intention (for he was not a sweet-tempered man, and 
 his head was aching sadly), he sought for (Iwenny high and 
 low ; first with threats, and then with fears, and then with 
 tears and wailing. And so he became to the other men a 
 warning and great annoyance. Therefore they combined 
 to swear what seemed a very likely thing, and might be true 
 for all they knew, to wit., that C;wenn\' had come to seek 
 for her father down the shaft-hole, and peering too eagerlv 
 into the dark, had toppled forward, and gone down, and 
 lain at the bottom as dead as a stone. 
 
 " And thou being so happy with drink," the villains 
 finished up to him, " and gettmg drunker every day, we 
 thought it shame to trouble thee, and we buried the wench 
 in the lower drift, and no use to think more of her, but 
 come and have a glass, Sim." 
 
 But Simon Carfax swore that drink had lost him his wife, 
 and now had lost him the last of his five children, and would 
 lose him his own soul, if further he went on with it, and 
 from that day to his death he never touched strong drink 
 again. Nor only this, but being soon appointed captain of 
 the mine, he allowed no man on any pretext to bring cordials 
 thither, and to this and his stern hard rule, and stealth)- 
 secret management (as much as to good luck and place) 
 might it be attributed that scarcelv any but themselves had 
 dreamed about this Exmoor mine. 
 
 As for me, I had no ambition to become a miner, and the 
 state to which gold-seeking had brought poor Uncle Ben was 
 not at all encouraging. My busines was to till the ground 
 
554 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 and tend the growth that came of it, and store the fruit in 
 Heaven's good time, rather than to scoop and burrow, like 
 a weasel or a rat, for the yellow root of evil. Moreover, I 
 was led from home, between the hay and corn harvests 
 (when we often have a week to spare), by a call there was 
 no resisting, unless I gave up all regard for wrestling, and 
 for my county. 
 
 Now here many persons may take me amiss, and there 
 always has been some confusion, which people who ought 
 to have known better have wrought into subject of quarrel- 
 ling. By birth, it is true, and cannot be denied, that I am a 
 man of Somerset, nevertheless by breed I am, as well as by 
 education, a son of Devon also. And just as both our two 
 counties vowed that Glen Doone was none of theirs, but be- 
 longed to the other one, so now, each with hot claim and 
 jangling (leading even to blows sometimes), asserted and 
 would swear to it (as I became more famous) that John 
 Ridd was of its own producing, bred of its own true blood, 
 and basely stolen by the other. 
 
 Now I have not judged it in any way needful, or even 
 becoming and delicate, to enter into my wrestling adven- 
 tures, or describe my progress. The whole thing is so dif- 
 ferent from Lorna, and her gentle manners, and her style of 
 walking ; moreover I must seem (even to kind people) to 
 magnify myself so much, or at least attempt to do it, that I 
 have scratched out written pages, through my better taste 
 and sense. 
 
 Neither will I, upon this head, make any difference even 
 now, being simply betrayed into mentioning the matter, be- 
 cause bare truth requires it, in the tale of Lorna's fortunes. 
 
 For a mighty giant had arisen in a part of Cornwall, and 
 his calf was twenty-five inches round, and the breadth of 
 his shoulders two feet and a quarter, and his stature seven 
 feet and three quarters. Round the chest he was seventy 
 inches, and his hand a foot across, and there were no scales 
 strong enough to judge of his weight in the market-place. 
 Now this man — or I should say his backers and his boast- 
 ers, for the giant himself was modest — sent me a brave and 
 haughty challenge, to meet him in the ring at Bodmin town, 
 on the first day of August, or else to return my champion's 
 belt to them by the messenger. 
 
 It is no use to deny that I was greatly dashed and scared 
 at first. For my part, I was only, when measured without 
 clothes on, sixty inches round the breast, and round the 
 calf scarce twenty-one, only two feet across the shoulders, 
 
LORXA GONE AWAV. 555 
 
 and in height not six and three quarters. However, my 
 mother would never beheve that this man could beat me, and 
 Lorna being of the same mind, I resolved to go and try 
 him, as they would pay all expenses, and a hundred pounds, 
 if I conquered him, so confident were those Cornishmen. 
 
 Now this story is too well-known for me to go through it 
 again and again. Every child in Devonshire knows, and 
 his grandson will know, the song which some clever man 
 made of it, after I had treated him to water, and to lemon, 
 and a little sugar, and a drop of eau de vie. Enough that 
 I had found the giant quite as big as they had described 
 him, and enough to terrify any one. But trusting in my 
 practice and study of the art, I resolved to try a back with 
 him, and when my arms were round him once, the giant was 
 but a farthingale put into the vice of a blacksmith. The 
 man had no bones ; his frame sank in, and I was afraid of 
 crushing him. He lay on his back, and smiled at me, and 
 I begged his pardon. 
 
 Now this affair made a noise at the time, and redounded 
 so much to my credit, that I was deeply grieved at it, be- 
 cause deserving none. For I do like a good strife and 
 struggle, and the doubt makes the joy of victory, whereas in 
 this case I might as well have been sent for a match with a 
 hay-mow. However, I got my hundred pounds, and made 
 up my mind to spend every farthing in presents for mother 
 and Lorna. 
 
 For Annie was married by this time, and long before I 
 went away, as need scarcely be said, perhaps, if any one fol- 
 lows the weeks and the months. The wedding was quiet 
 enough, except for every body's good wishes, and I desire 
 not to dwell upon it, because it grieved me in many ways. 
 
 But now that I had tried to hope the very best for dear 
 Annie, a deeper blow than could have come, even through 
 her, awaited me. For after that visit to Cornwall, and with 
 my prize-money about me, I came on foot from (^kehamp- 
 ton to Oare, so as to save a little sum towards my time of 
 marrying. For Lorna's fortune I would not have, small or 
 great I would not have it, only if there were no denying, 
 we would devote the whole of it to charitable uses, as Mas- 
 ter Peter Blundell had done, and perhaps the future ages 
 would endeavour to be grateful. Lorna and I had settled 
 this question, at least twice a day, on the average, and each 
 time with more satisfaction. 
 
 Now coming into the kitchen, with all my cash in my 
 breeches pocket (golden guineas, with an elephant on them, 
 
556 LORNA LXJOXE. 
 
 for the stamp of the guinea company), I found dear mother 
 most heartily glad to see me safe and sound again — for she 
 had dreaded that giant, and dreamed of him — and she 
 never asked me about the money. Lizzie, also, was softer 
 and more gracious than usual, especially when she saw me 
 pour guineas, like pepper-corns, into the pudding-basin. 
 But by the way they hung about, I knew that something 
 was gone wrong. 
 
 " Where is Lorna ? " I asked at length, after trying not to 
 ask it, " I want her to come, and see my money. She never 
 saw so much before." 
 
 " Alas ! " said mother, with a heavy sigh, " she will see a 
 great deal more, I fear, and a deal more than is good for 
 her. A\'hether you ever see her again will depend upon her 
 nature, John." 
 
 " \\'hat do you mean, mother? Have you quarrelled? 
 \Vhy does not Lorna come to me ? Am I never to know ?" 
 
 "Now, John, be not so impatient," my mother replied, 
 quite calmly, for in truth she was jealous of Lorna, "you 
 could wait now very well, John, if it were till this day week, 
 for the coming of your mother, John. And yet your mother 
 is vuur best friend. Who can ever till her place ? " 
 
 Thinking of her future absence, mother turned away and 
 cried, and the box-iron singed the blanket. 
 
 " Now," said I, being wild by this time, " Lizzie, you have 
 a little sense, will you tell me where is Lorna?" 
 
 " The Lady Lorna Dugal," said Lizzie, screwing up her 
 lips, as if the title were too grand, " is gone to London, 
 brother John, and not likely to come back again. We must 
 try to get on without her." 
 
 " You little " — [something] I cried, which I dare not 
 write down here, as all you are too good for such language, 
 but Lizzie's lips provoked me so — "my Lorna gone, my 
 Lorna gone ! And without good-bye to me even ! It is 
 your spite has sickened her." 
 
 "You are quite mistaken there," she replied, "how can 
 folk of low degree have either spite or liking towards the 
 people so far above them ? The Lady Lorna Dugal is gone, 
 because she could not help herself, and she wept enough to 
 break ten hearts — if hearts are ever broken, John." 
 
 "Darling Lizzie, how good you are!" I cried, without 
 noticing her sneer, " tell me all about it, dear ; tell me every 
 word she said." 
 
 "That will not take long," said Lizzie, quite as unmoved 
 by soft coaxing as by urgent cursing, " the lady spoke very 
 
LORNA t;()NE AWAV. 55" 
 
 little to any one, except indeed to mother, and to (Iwenny 
 Cartax, and (.'iwenny is ,ii;one with her, so that the benefit of 
 that IS lost. But she left a letter for ' poor John,' as in 
 charity she called him. How grand she looked, to be sure, 
 with the fine clothes on that were come for her ! " 
 
 " \Miere is the letter, you utter vi.xen ? Oh, may you have 
 a husband ! " 
 
 " Who will thrash it out of you, and starve it, and swear it 
 out of you," was the meaning of my imprecation, but Lizzie, 
 not dreaming as yet of such things, could not understand 
 me, and was rather thankful, therefore sine answered quietly : 
 
 " The letter is in the little cupboard, near the head of 
 Lady Lorna's bed, where she used to keep the diamond 
 necklace, which we contrived to get stolen." 
 
 Without another word, I rushed (so that every board in 
 the house shook) up to my lost Lorna's room, and tore the 
 little wall-niche open, and espied my treasure. It was as 
 simple, and as homely, and loving, as even I could wish. 
 Part of it ran as follows — the other parts it behoves me not 
 to open out to strangers: ''My own love, and sometime 
 lord. — Take it not amiss of me, that even without farewell, 
 I go, for I cannot persuade the men to wait, your return 
 being doubtful. My great uncle, some grand lord is await- 
 ing me at Dunster, having fear of venturing too near this 
 Exmoor country. I, who have been so lawless alwa\s, and 
 the child of outlaws, am now to atone for this, it seems, by 
 living in a court of law, and under special surveillance (as 
 they call it, I believe) of His Majesty's Court of (Chancery. 
 My uncle is appointed my guardian and master, and I must 
 live beneath his care until I am twenty-one years old. To 
 me this appears a dreadful thing, and verv unjust and cruel, 
 for why should I lose my freedom, through heritage of land 
 and gold ? I offered to abandon all, if they woukl only let 
 me go; I went down on my knees to them, and said I 
 wanted titles not, neither land, nor money, only to stay 
 where I was, where first I had known happiness. But they 
 only laughed, and called me ' child,' and said I must talk of 
 that to the King's High Chancellor. Their orders they 
 had, and must obey them, and Master Stickles was ordered, 
 too, to help, as the King's Commissioner. And then, al- 
 though it pierced my heart not to say one ' Good-bye, John,' 
 I was glad upon the whole that you were not here to dispute 
 it. For I am almost certain that you would not, without 
 force to yourself, have let your Lorna go to people who 
 never, never can care for her." 
 
558 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Here my darling had wept again, by tlie tokens on the 
 paper, and then there followed some sweet words, too sweet 
 for me to chatter them. But she finished with these noble 
 lines, which (being common to all humanity, in a case of 
 steadfast love) I do no harm, but rather help all true love, 
 by repeating : " Of one thing rest you well assured — and I 
 do hope that it may prove of service to your rest, love, else 
 would my own be broken — no difference of rank, or for- 
 tune, or of life itself, shall ever make me swerve from truth 
 to you. We have passed through many troubles, dangers, 
 and dispartments, but never yet was doubt between us, 
 neither ever shall be. Each has trusted well the other, and 
 still each must do so. Though they tell you I am false, 
 though your own mind harbours it, from the sense of things 
 around, and your own under-valuing, yet take counsel of 
 your heart, and cast such thoughts away from you ; being 
 unworthy of itself, they must be unworthy also of the one 
 whod wells there, and that one is, and ever shall be, your 
 own Lorna Dugal." 
 
 Some people cannot understand that tears should come 
 from pleasure, but whether from pleasure or from sorrow 
 (mi.xed as they are in the twisted strings of a man's heart, 
 or a woman's), great tears fell from my stupid eyes, even on 
 the blots of Lorna's. 
 
 " Nu doubt it is all over ! " my mind said to me bitterly ; 
 " Trust me, all shall yet be right ! " my heart replied very 
 sweetly. 
 
CHAPTER LX. 
 
 ANNIE LUCKIER THAN JOHN. 
 
 OME people may look down upon 
 us for our slavish ways (as they 
 may choose to call them), but in 
 our part of the country, we do love 
 to mention title, and to roll it on 
 our tongues, with a conscience and 
 a comfort. Even if a man knows 
 not, through fault of education, 
 who the Duke of this is, or the 
 Earl of that, it will never do for 
 him to say so, lest the room look 
 down on him. Therefore he must 
 nod his head, and say, ".\h, to be 
 sure ! I know him as well as ever 
 I know my own good woman's 
 brother. He married Lord Flip- 
 flap's second daughter, and a pre- 
 cious life she led him." AA'here- 
 upon the room looks up at him. 
 But I, being quite unable to carry all this in my head, as I 
 ought, was speedily put down by people of a noble tendency, 
 apt at Lords, and pat with Dukes, and knowing more about 
 the King than His Afajesty would have requested. There- 
 fore, I fell back in thought, not daring in words to do so, 
 upon the titles of our horses. And all these horses deserved 
 their names, not having merely inherited, but by their own 
 doing earned them. Smiler, for instance, had been so called, 
 not so much from a habit of smiling, as from his general 
 geniality, white nose and white ankle. This worthy horse 
 wa.s now in years, but hale and gay as ever, and when you 
 let him out of the stable, he could neigh and whinny, and 
 make men and horses know it. On the other hand, Kick- 
 ums was a horse of morose and surly order, harbouring up 
 revenge, and leading a rider to false confidence. Very 
 smoothly he would go, and as gentle as a turtle-dove, until 
 
560 LORNA IJOONE. 
 
 his rider fully believed that a pack thread was enough for him, 
 and a pat of approval upon his neck the aim and crown of 
 his worthy life. Then suddenly up went his hind feet to 
 heaven, and the rider for the most part flew over his nose ; 
 whereupon good Kickums would take advantage of his 
 favourable position to come and bite a piece out of his 
 back. Now in my present state of mind, being understood 
 of nobody, having none to bear me company, neither wish- 
 ing to have any, an indefinite kind of attraction drew me 
 into Kickums' society, A bond of mutual svmpath}' was 
 soon established between us. I would ride no other horse, 
 neither Kickums be ridden by any other man. And this 
 good horse became as jealous about me as a dog might be, 
 and would lash out, or run teeth foremost, at any one who 
 came near him when I was on his back. 
 
 This season, the reaping of the corn, which had been, but 
 a year ago, so pleasant and so lightsome, was become a 
 heavy labour, and a thing for grumbling rather than for 
 gladness. However, for the sake of all, it must be attended 
 to, and with as fair a show of spirit and alacrity as might 
 be. For otherwise the rest would drag, and drop their 
 hands and idle, being quicker to take infection of dulness 
 than of diligence. And the harvest was a heavy one, even 
 heavier than the year before, although of poorer quality. 
 Therefore was I forced to work as hard as any horse could, 
 during all the daylight hours, and defer till night the brood- 
 ing upon my misfortune. But the darkness always found 
 me stiff with work, and weary, and less able to think than to 
 dream, may be, of Lorna. But now the house was so dull 
 and lonesome, wanting Annie's pretty presence, and the 
 light of Lorna's eyes, that a man had no temptation, after 
 supper-time, even to sit and smoke a pipe. 
 
 For Lizzie, though so learned, and pleasant when it suited 
 her, never had taken very kindly to my love for Lorna, and 
 being of a proud and slightly upstart nature, could not bear 
 to be eclipsed in bearing, looks, and breeding, and even in 
 clothes, by the stranger. For one thing I will say of the 
 Doones, that whether by purchase or plunder, they had 
 always dressed my darling well, with her own sweet taste to 
 help them. And though Lizzie's natural hate of the maid 
 (as. a Doone, and burdened with father's death) should have 
 been changed to remorse, when she learned of Lorna's real 
 parentage, it was only altered to sullenness, and discontent 
 with herself, for frequent rudeness to an innocent person, 
 and one of such high descent. Moreover the child had 
 
ANNIE LUCKIER THAN JOHN. 56 1 
 
 imbibed strange ideas as to our aristocrac)-, partly, perhaps, 
 from her own wa}' of thinking, and partly from reading of 
 history. For while from one point of view she looked up 
 at them very demurely, as commissioned by God for the 
 country's good, from another sight she disliked them, as 
 ready to sacrifice their best, and follow their worst members. 
 
 Vet why should this wench dare to judge upon a matter 
 so far beyond her, and form opinions which she knew better 
 than to declare before mother ? But with me she had no 
 such scruple, for I had no authority over her, and my 
 intellect she looked down upon, because I praised her own 
 so. Thus she made herself very unpleasant to me, by little 
 jags and jerks of sneering, sped as though unwittingly, 
 which I (who now considered myself allied to the aristoc- 
 racy, and perhaps took airs on that account) had not wit 
 enough to parry, yet had wound enough to feel. 
 
 Now any one who does not know exactly how mothers 
 feel and think, would have expected my mother (than whom 
 could be no better one) to pet me, and make much of me, 
 under my sad trouble ; to hang with anxiety on my looks, and 
 shed her tears with mine (if any), and season every dish of 
 meat put by for her John's return. And if the whole truth 
 must be told, I did expect that sort of thing, and thought 
 what a plague it would be to me ; yet not getting it, was 
 vexed, as if by some new injury. For mother was a special 
 creature (as I suppose we all are), being the warmest of the 
 warm, when fired at the proper corner-; and yet if taken at 
 the wrong point, you would say she was incombustible. 
 
 Hence it came to pass that I had no one even to speak to 
 about Lorna and my grievances, for Captain Stickles was 
 now gone southward, and John Fry, of course, was too low 
 for it, although a married man, and well under his wife's 
 management. But finding mvself unable at last to bear this 
 any longer, upon the first day when all the wheat was cut, 
 and the stooks set up in every field, yet none quite fit for 
 carrying, I saddled good Kickums at five in the morning, 
 and without a word to mother (for a little anxiety might do 
 her good) off I set for Molland parish, to have the counsel 
 and the comfort of my darling Annie. 
 
 The horse took me over the ground so fast (there being 
 few better to go, when he liked), that by nine o'clock Annie 
 was in my arms, and blushing to the colour of Winnie's 
 cheeks with sudden delight and young happiness. 
 
 "You precious little soul!" I cried; "how does Tom 
 behave to you ?" 
 
562 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "Hush!" said Annie, "how dare you ask? He is the 
 liindest, and the best and the noblest of all men, John, not 
 even setting yourself aside. Now look not jealous, John ; so 
 it is. AVe all have special gifts, you know. You are as good 
 as you can be, John ; but my husband's special gift is 
 nobility of character." Here she looked at me, as one who 
 has discovered something quite unknown. 
 
 "I am devilish glad to hear it," said I, being touched at 
 going down so ; " keep him to that mark, my dear, and cork 
 the whiskey bottle." 
 
 "Yes, darling John," she answered quickly, not desiring 
 to open that subject, and being too sweet to resent it ; "and 
 how is lovely Lorna ! What an age it is since I have seen 
 you ! I suppose we must thank her for that." 
 
 " You may thank her for seeing me now," said I, " or 
 rather," seeing how hurt she looked, "you may thank my 
 knowledge of your kindness, and my desire to speak of her 
 to a soft-hearted dear little soul like you. I think all the 
 women are gone mad. Even mother treats me shamefully. 
 
 And as for Lizzie " Here I stopped, knowing no words 
 
 strong enough, without shocking Annie. 
 
 " Do you mean to say that Lorna is gone ?" asked Annie, 
 in great amazement, yet leaping at the truth, as women do, 
 with nothing at all to leap from. 
 
 "Gone. And I never shall see her again. It serves me 
 right for aspiring so." 
 
 Being grieved at my manner, she led me in where none 
 could interrupt us ; and in spite of all my dejection, I could 
 not help noticing how very pretty, and even elegant all 
 things were around. For we upon Exmoor have little taste ; 
 all we care for is warm comfort, and plenty to eat, and to give 
 away, and a hearty smack in every thing. But Squire 
 Faggus had seen the world, and kept company with great 
 people ; and the taste he had first displayed in the shoeing 
 of farmers' horses (which led almost to his ruin, by bringing 
 him into jealousy, and flattery, and dashing ways) had now 
 been cultivated in London, and by moonlight, so that none 
 could help admiring it. 
 
 " Well ! " I cried, for the moment dropping care and woe 
 in astonishment ; " we have nothing like this at Plover's 
 Barrows ; nor even Uncle Reuben. I do hope it is honest, 
 Annie ?" 
 
 "Would I sit in a chair that was not my own?" asked 
 Annie, turning crimson, and dropping defiantly, and with a 
 whisk of her dress which I never had seen before, into the 
 
ANNIE luckii:r THAN JOHN. 563 
 
 very grandest one ; "would I lie on a couch, brother John, 
 do you think, unless good money was paid for it ? Because 
 other people are clever, John, you need not grudge them 
 their earnings." 
 
 " A couch?" I replied ; "why what can you want with a 
 couch in the day-time, Annie ! A couch is a small bed, set 
 up in a room without space for a good four-poster. What 
 can you want with a couch downstairs? I never heard of 
 such nonsense. And you ought to be in the dairy." 
 
 '■ I won't cry, brother John, I won't, because you want to 
 make me cry;" and all the time she was crying; "you 
 always were so nasty, John, sometimes. .\h, you have no 
 nobility of character, like my husband. And I have not seen 
 you for two months, John, and now you come to scold me ! " 
 
 " Vou little darling," I said, for Annie's tears always con- 
 quered me, " if all the rest ill-use me, I will not quarrel with 
 you, dear. You have always been true to me, and I can 
 forgive your vanity. Your things are very pretty, dear ; and 
 you may couch ten times a day, without my interference. 
 Xo doubt your husband has paid for all this, with the ponies 
 he stole from Exmoor. Nobility of character is a thing 
 beyond my understanding ; but wlien my sister loves a man, 
 and he does well and flourishes, who am 1 to find fault with 
 him? Mother ought to see these things ; they would turn 
 her head almost ; look at the pimples on the chairs ! " 
 
 " They are nothing," Annie answered, after kissing me for 
 my kindness ; " they are only put in f(jr the time, mdeed ; 
 and we are to have much better, with gold all round the 
 bindings, and double plush at the corners, so soon as ever 
 the King repays the debt he owes to my poor Tom." 
 
 I thought to myself that our present King had been most 
 unlucky in one thing: debts all over the kingdom. Not a 
 man who had struck a blow for the King, or for his p<j(jr 
 father, or even said a good word for him, in the time ot his 
 adversity, but expected at least a baronetcy, and a grant of 
 estates to support it. .Many have called King Charles un- 
 grateful, and he may have been so. But some indulgence 
 is due to a man with entries few on the credit side, and 
 a terrible column of debits. 
 
 "Have no fear for the chair,'' I said, for it creaked under 
 me fearfully, having legs not so large as my finger ; " if the 
 chair breaks, Annie, your fear should be, lest the tortoise- 
 shell run into me. Why it is striped like a viper's loins ! I 
 saw some hundreds in London, and very cheap they are. 
 They are made to be sold to the country people, such as 
 
564 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 you and me, dear, and carefully kept they will last for 
 almost half-a-year. Now will you come back from your 
 furniture, and listen to my story?" 
 
 Annie was a hearty dear, and she knew that half my talk 
 was joke, to make light of my worrying. Therefore she 
 took it in good part, as I well knew that she would do ; and 
 she led me to a good honest chair, and she sat in my lap, 
 and kissed me. 
 
 " All this is not like you, John. All this is not one bit 
 like you, and your cheeks are not as they ought to be. I 
 shall have to come home again, if the women worry my 
 brother so. \\'e always held together, John, and we always 
 will, you know." 
 
 " Vou dear ! " I cried, " there is nobody who understands 
 me as you do. Lorna makes too much of me, and the rest 
 they make too little." 
 
 " Not mother ; oh, not mother, John ! " 
 
 " No, mother makes too much, no doubt, but wants it 
 all for herself alone, and reckons it as a part of her. She 
 makes me more wroth than any one, as if not only my life 
 but all my head and heart must seek from hers, and have no 
 other thought or care." 
 
 Being sped of my grumbling thus, and eased into better 
 temper, I told Annie all the strange history about Lorna, 
 and her departure, and the small chance that now remained 
 to me of ever seeing my love again. To this Annie would 
 not hearken twice, but judging women by her faithful self, 
 was quite vexed with me for thinking so. And then, to my 
 surprise and sorrow, she would deliver no opinion as to 
 what I ought to do, until she had consulted darling Tom. 
 
 Dear Tom knew much of the world, no doubt, especially 
 the dark side of it. But to me it scarcely seemed becoming 
 that my course of action with regard to the Lady Lorna 
 Dugal should be referred to Tom Faggus, and depend upon 
 his decision. However, I would not grieve Annie again by 
 making light of her husband, and so when he came into 
 dinner, the matter was laid before him. 
 
 Now this man never confessed himself surprised, under 
 any circumstances, his knowledge of life being so profound, 
 and his charity universal. And in the present case he 
 vowed that he had suspected it all along, and could have 
 thrown light upon Lorna's history, if we had seen fit to 
 apply to him. Upon further inquiry I found that this light 
 was a very dim one, flowing only from the fact that he had 
 stopped her mother's coach, at the village of Bolham, on 
 
ANNIE LUCKIKR TIIAX JOHN. 565 
 
 the Bampton road, the day before I saw them. Finding 
 only women therein, and these in a sad condition, Tom with 
 his usual chivalry (as he had no scent of the necklace), 
 allowed them to pass, with nothing more than a pleasant 
 exchange of courtesies, and a testimonial forced upon him, 
 in the shape of a bottle of Burgundy wine. This the poor 
 countess handed him, and he twisted the cork out with his 
 teeth, and drank her health with his hat off. 
 
 '' A lady she was, and a true one, and I am a pretty good 
 judge," said Tom ; " ah, I do like a high lady ! " 
 
 Our .Vnnie looked rather queer at this, having no preten- 
 sions to be one, but she conquered herself, and said, "Yes, 
 Tom ; and many of them liked you." 
 
 With this Tom went on the brag at once, being but a shal- 
 low fellow, and not of settled principles, though steadier than 
 he used to be, until I felt myself almost bound to fetch him 
 back a little ; for of all things, I do hate brag the most, as 
 any reader of this tale must by this time know. Therefore 
 I said to Squire Faggus, " Come back from your highway 
 days. You have married the daughter of an honest man, 
 and such talk is not fit for her. If you were right in rob- 
 bing people, I am right in robbing you. I could bind you 
 to your own mantel-piece, as you know thoroughly well, 
 Tom, and drive away with your own horses, and all your 
 goods behind them, but for the sense of honest}'. .\nd 
 should I not do as fine a thing as any you did on the high- 
 way? If every thing is of public right, how does this chair 
 belong to you? Clever as you arc, Tom Faggus, you are 
 nothing but a fool to mix your felony with your farmership. 
 Drop the one, or drop the other ; you cannot maintain 
 them both." 
 
 As I finished very sternly a speech which had exhausted 
 me more than ten rounds of wrestling — but I was carried 
 away by the truth, as sometimes happens to all of us — Tom 
 had not a word to say, albeit his mind was so much more 
 nimble and rapid than ever mine was. He leaned against 
 the mantel-piece (a newly-invented affair in his house) as if 
 I had corded him to it, even as I spoke of doing. And he 
 laid one hand on his breast in a way which made .Vnnie 
 creep softly to him, and look at me not like a sister. 
 
 " You have done me good, John," he said at last, and the 
 hand he gave me was trembling ; " there is no other man on 
 God's earth would have dared to speak to me as you have 
 done. From no other would I have taken it. Nevertheless 
 every word is true, and I shall dwell on it when you are 
 
566 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 gone. If you never did good in your life before, John, my 
 brother, you have done it now." 
 
 He turned away in bitter pain, that none might see his 
 trouble, and Annie going along with him looked as if I had 
 killed our mother. For my part I was so upset for fear of 
 having gone too far, that without a word to either of them 
 but a message on the title-page of King James his Prayer- 
 book, I saddled Kickums, and was off, and glad of the 
 moorland air again. 
 
CHAPTER LXI. 
 
 THEREFORE HE SEEKS COMFORT. 
 
 T was for poor Annie's sake that 
 I had spoken my mind to her 
 husband so freely, and even 
 harshly. For we all knew she 
 would break her heart if Tom 
 took to evil ways again. And 
 the right mode of preventing 
 this was not to coax, and flatter, 
 and make a hero of him (which 
 he did for himself quite suffi- 
 ciently), but to set before him 
 the folly of the thing and the 
 ruin to his nwn interests. 
 
 They would both be vexed 
 with me, of course, for having 
 left them so hastily, and es- 
 pecially just before dinner-time ; 
 but that would soon vear off, and 
 most likely they would come to 
 see mother and tell her that 1 
 was hard to manage, and they 
 could feel for her about it. 
 Now, with a certain yearning, I know not what, for soft- 
 ness, and for one who could understand me — for, simple 
 as a child though being, I found few to do that last, at any 
 rate in my love-time — I relied upon Kickums' strength to 
 take me round by Dulverton. It would make the journey 
 some eight miles longer, but what was that to a brisk 
 young horse, even with my weight upon him? And hav- 
 ing left Squire Faggus and Annie much sooner than had 
 been intended, I had plenty of time before me, and too 
 much, ere ever a prospect of dinner. Therefore I struck 
 to the right, across the hills for Dulverton. 
 
 Pretty Ruth was in the main street of the town, with a 
 basket in her hand, going home from the market. 
 
568 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "Why, Cousin Ruth, you are grown," I exclaimed; "I 
 do beheve you are, Ruth ! And you were almost too tall 
 already." 
 
 At this the little thing was so pleased that she smiled 
 through her blushes beautifully, and must needs come to 
 shake hands with me, though I signed to her not to do it, 
 because of my horse's temper. But scarcely was her hand 
 in mine when Kickums turned like an eel upon her, and 
 caught her by the left arm with his teeth so that she 
 screamed with agony. I saw the white of his vicious eye, 
 and struck him there with all my force, with my left hand 
 over her right arm, and he never used that eye again, none 
 the less he kept his hold on her. Then I smote him again 
 on the jaw, and caught the little maid up by her right 
 hand, and laid her on the saddle in front of me, while the 
 horse, being giddy and staggered with blows, and foiled of 
 his spite, ran backwards. Ruth's wits were gone, and she 
 lay before me in such a helpless and senseless way that I 
 could have killed vile Kickums. I struck the spurs into 
 him past the rowels, and away he went at full gallop, while I 
 had enough to do to hold on, with the little girl lying in front 
 of me. But I called to the men who were flocking around 
 to send up a surgeon as quick as could be to Master Reu- 
 ben Huckaback's, 
 
 The moment I brought my right arm to bear, the vicious 
 horse had no chance with me, and if ever a horse was well 
 paid for spite, Kickums had his change that day. The 
 bridle would almost have held a whale, and I drew on it 
 so that his lower jaw was well-nigh broken from him, while 
 with both spurs I tore his flanks, and he learned a little 
 lesson. There are times when a man is more vicious than 
 any horse may vie with. Therefore, by the time we had 
 reached Uncle Reuben's house at the top of the hill, the 
 bad horse was only too happy to stop ; every string of his 
 body was trembling and his head hanging down with im- 
 potence. I leaped from his back at once and carried the 
 maiden into her own sweet room. 
 
 Now Cousin Ruth was recovering softly from her fright 
 and faintness, and the volley of the wind from galloping so 
 had made her little ears quite pink, and shaken her locks 
 all round her. But any one who might wish to see a 
 comely sight, and a moving one, need only have looked at 
 Ruth Huckaback when she learned (and imagined yet 
 more than it was) the manner of her little ride with me. 
 Her hair was of hazel-brown, and full of waving readiness, 
 
THEREFORE HE SEEKS COMFORT. 569 
 
 and with no concealment of the trick she spread it over her 
 eyes and face. Heing so delighted with her, and so glad 
 to see her safe, I kissed her through the thick of it, as a 
 cousin has a right to do, yea, and ought to do, with gravity. 
 
 "Darling," 1 said, "he has bitten you dreadfully; show 
 me your poor arm, dear." 
 
 She pulled up her sleeve in the simplest manner, rather 
 to look at it herself than to show me where the wound was. 
 Her sleeve was of dark blue Taunton staple, and her white 
 arm shone, coming out of it, as round, and plump, and vel- 
 vety as a stalk of asparagus newly fetched out of ground. 
 But above the curved soft elbow, where no room was for 
 one cross word (according to our proverb'), three sad 
 gashes, edged with crimson, spoiled the flow of the pearly 
 flesh. My presence of mind was lost altogether, and I 
 raised the poor sore arm to my lips, both to stop the bleed- 
 ing and to take the venom out, having heard how wise it 
 was, and thinking of my mother. But Ruth, to my great 
 amazement, drew away from me in bitter haste, as if 1 had 
 been inserting instead of extracting poison. For the bite 
 of a horse is most venomous, especially when he sheds his 
 teeth, and far more to be feared than the bite of a dog, or 
 even of a cat. And in my haste I had forgotten that Ruth 
 might not know a word about this, and might doubt about 
 mv meaning and the warmth of my osculation. But, know- 
 ing her danger, I durst not heed her childishness or her 
 feelings. 
 
 "Don't be a fool, Cousin Ruth," I said, catching her so 
 that she could not move; "the poison is soaking into you. 
 Do you think that I do it for pleasure?" 
 
 The spread of shame on her face \'\as such when she saw 
 her own misunderstanding that I was ashamed to look at 
 her, and occupied myself with drawing all the risk of glan- 
 ders forth from the white limb, hanging helpless now, and 
 left entirely to my will. Before I was quite sure of having 
 wholly e-xhausted suction, and when I had made the holes 
 in her arm like the gills of a lamprey, in came the doctor, 
 partly drunk, and in haste to get through his business. 
 
 " Ha, ha ! I see," he cried. " Bite of a horse, they tell 
 me. Very poisonous ; must be burned away. Sally, the 
 iron in the fire, if you have a fire this weather." 
 
 "Crave your pardon, good sir," I said, for poor little 
 
 "A maid with an elbow sharp, or knee, 
 Hath cross words two, out of every three." 
 
570 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Ruth was fainting again at his savage orders, "but my 
 cousin's arm shall not be burned ; it is a great deal too 
 pretty, and I have sucked all the poison out. Look, sir, 
 how clean and fresh it is." 
 
 " Bless my heart, and so it is ! No need at all for cau- 
 terizing. The epidermis will close over, and the cutis, and 
 the pellis. John Ridd, you ought to have studied medicine 
 with your healing powers. Half my virtue lies in touch. 
 A clean and wholesome body, sir ; I have taught you the 
 Latin grammar. I leave you in excellent hands, my dear, 
 and they wait for me at shovel-board. Bread and water 
 poultice, cold, to be renewed, tribiis horis. John Ridd, I 
 was at school with you, and you beat me very lamentably 
 when I tried to fight with you. You remember me not ? 
 It is likely enough. I am forced to take strong waters, 
 John, from infirmity of the liver. Attend to my directions, 
 and I will call again in the morning." 
 
 And in that melancholy plight, caring nothing for busi- 
 ness, went one of the cleverest fellows ever known at Tiv- 
 erton. He could write Latin verses a great deal faster than 
 I could ever write English prose, and nothing seemed too 
 great for him. We thought that he would go to Oxford 
 and astonish every one, and write in the style of Buchanan, 
 but he fell all abroad very lamentably, and now, when I 
 met him again, was come down to push-pin and shovel- 
 board, with a wager of spirits pending. 
 
 When Master Huckaback came home he looked at me 
 very sulkily, not only because of my refusal to become a 
 slave to gold-digging, but also because he regarded me as 
 the cause of a savage broil between Simon Carfax and the 
 men who had cheated him as to his Gwenny. However, 
 when Uncle Ben saw Ruth, and knew what had befallen 
 her, and she, with tears in her eyes, declared that she owed 
 her life to Cousin Ridd, the old man became very gracious 
 to me, for if he loved any one on earth, it was his little 
 granddaughter. 
 
 I could not stay very long, because my horse being quite 
 unfit to travel (from the injuries which his violence and 
 vice had brought upon him), there was nothing for me but 
 to go on foot, as none of Uncle Ben's horses could take me 
 to Plover's Barrows without downright cruelty, and though 
 there would be a harvest-moon, Ruth agreed with me that 
 I must not keep my mother waiting, with no idea where I 
 might be, until a late hour of the night. I told Ruth all 
 about our Annie and her noble furniture, and the little 
 
TIIERKKORE HE SEEKS CdMIORT. 571 
 
 maid was very lively (although her wounds were paining 
 her so that half her laughter came " on the wrong side of 
 her mouth," as we rather coarsely express it) ; especially 
 she laughed about Annie's new-fangled closet for clothes, 
 or standing-press, as she called it. This had frightened me 
 so that 1 would not come without my stick to look at it, for 
 the front was inlaid with two fiery dragons, and a glass 
 which distorted every tiling, making even Annie look hide- 
 ous, and when it was opened, a woman's skeleton, all in 
 white, revealed itself in the midst of three standing women. 
 " It is only to keep my best frocks in shape," Annie had 
 explained to me; "hanging them up does ruin them so. 
 But I own that I was afraid of it, John, until I had got all 
 my best clothes there, and then I became very fond of it. 
 But even now it frightens me sometimes in the moonlight." 
 
 Having made poor Ruth a little cheerful with a full ac- 
 count of all Annie's frocks, material, pattern, and fashion 
 (of which I had taken a list for my mother and for Lizzie, 
 lest they should cry out at man's stupidity about anv thing 
 of real interest), I proceeded to tell her about my own 
 troubles, and the sudden departure of Lorna, concluding 
 with all the show of indifference which my pride could 
 muster that now I never should see lier again, and must do 
 my best to forget her as being so far above me. I had not 
 intended to speak of this, but Ruth's face was so kind and 
 earnest that I could not stop myself. 
 
 " Vou must not talk like that. Cousin Ridd," she said, in 
 a low and gentle tone, and turning her eyes awav from me ; 
 "no lady can be above a man who is pure, and brave, and 
 gentle. And if her heart be worth having she will never let 
 you give her up for her grandeur and her nobility." 
 
 She pronounced those last few words, as I thought, with 
 a little bitterness, unperceived by herself, perhaps, for it 
 was not in her appearance. liut I, attaching great impor- 
 tance to a maiden's opinion about a maiden (because she 
 might judge from experience), would have led her further 
 into that subject, but she declined to follow, having now no 
 more to say in a matter so removed from her. Then I 
 asked her full and straight, and looking at her in such a 
 manner that she could not look away without appearing 
 vanquished by feelings of her own, which thing was very 
 vile of me, but all men are so selfish : 
 
 " Dear cousin, tell me, once for all, what is your advice 
 to me ?" 
 
 "My advice to you," she answered, bravely, with her 
 
57- 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 dark eyes full of pride, and instead of flinching, foiling me, 
 " is to do what every man must do, if he would win fair 
 maiden. Since she cannot send you token, neither is free 
 to return to you, follow her, pay your court to her, show 
 that you will not be forgotten, and perhaps she will look 
 down — I mean, she will relent to you." 
 
 "She has nothing to relent about. I have never vexed 
 nor injured her. My thoughts have never strayed from her. 
 There is no one to compare with her." 
 
 "dear cousin, tell me, once for all, what is vriuR 
 
 ADVICE TO ME?" 
 
 " Then keep her in that same mind about you. See now, 
 I can advise no more. My arm is swelling painfully, in spite 
 of all your goodness and bitter task of surgeonship. I 
 shall have another poultice on and go to bed, I think, Cousin 
 Ridd, if you will not hold me ungrateful. I am so sorrv for 
 your long walk. Surely, it might be avoided. Give my 
 love to dear Lizzie. Oh, the room is going round so." 
 
 And she fainted into the arms of Sally, who was come 
 just in time to fetch her ; no doubt she had been suffering 
 
THEREFORE ME SEEKS COMFORT. 573 
 
 agony all the time she talked to me. Leaving- word that 1 
 would come again to inquire for her, and fetch Ivickums 
 home, so soon as the harvest permitted me, 1 gave direc- 
 tions about the horse, and striding away from the ancient 
 town, was soon upon the moorlands. 
 
 Now, through the whole of that long walk — the latter 
 part of which was led by starlight, till the moon arose — I 
 dwelt, in my young and foolish way, upon the ordering of 
 our steps by a Power beyond us. ]3ut as I could not bring 
 my mind to any clearness upon this matter, and the stars 
 shed no light upon it, but rather confused me with wonder- 
 ing how their Lord could attend to all of them, and yet to 
 a puny fool like me, it came to pass that my thoughts on 
 the subject were not worth ink, if I knew them. 
 
 But it is, perhaps, worth ink to relate, so far as I can 
 do so, mother's delight at my return, when she had almost 
 abandoned hope, and concluded that I was gone to London 
 in disgust at her behaviour. And now she was looking up 
 the lane at the rise of the harvest-moon, in despair, as she 
 said afterwards. But if she had despaired in truth, what 
 use to look at all? Yet according to the epigram, made by 
 a good Blundellite : 
 
 " Despair was never yet so deep 
 In sinking, as in seeming ; 
 Despair is hope just dropp'd asleep, 
 For better ciiance of dreaming." 
 
 And mother's dream was a happ)' one, when she knew my 
 step at a furlong distant ; for the night was of those that 
 carry sounds thrice as far as day can. She recovered her- 
 self, when she was sure, and even made up her mind to 
 scold me, and felt as if she could do it. But when she was 
 in my arms, into which she threw herself, and I by the light 
 of the moon descried the silver gleam on one side of her 
 head (now spreading since Annie's departure), bless my 
 heart, and yours therewith, no room was left for scolding. 
 She hugged me, and she clung to me, and I looked at her 
 with duty made tenfold, and discharged by love. We said 
 nothing to one another, but all was right betiveen us. 
 
 Even Lizzie behaved very well, so far as her nature ad- 
 mitted, not even saying a nasty thing all the time she was 
 getting my supper ready, with a weak imitation of Annie. 
 She knew that tne gift of cooking was not vouchsafed by 
 God to her, but sometimes she would do her best by intel- 
 lect to win it. Whereas it is no more to be won by intellect 
 
574 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 than is divine poetry. An amount of strong quick heart is 
 needful, and the understanding must second it, in the one 
 art as in the other. Now my fare was very choice for the 
 next three days or more, yet not turned out hke Annie's. 
 They could do a thing well enough on the fire, but they 
 could not put it on table so, nor even have plates all piping 
 hot. This was Annie's special gift, born in her, and ready 
 to cool with her, like a plate borne away from the fire-place. 
 I sighed sometimes about Lorna, and they thought it was 
 about the plates. And mother would stand and look at me, 
 as much as to say, "No pleasing him;" and Lizzie would 
 jerk up one shoulder, and cry, " He had better have Lorna 
 to cook for him," while the whole truth was that I wanted 
 not to be plagued about any cookery, but just to have some- 
 thing good and quiet, and then smoke and think about 
 Lorna. 
 
 Nevertheless the time went on, with one change and an- 
 other, and we gathered all our harvest in, and Parson Bowden 
 thanked God for it, both in church and out of it, for his 
 tithes would be very goodly. The unmatched cold of the 
 previous winter, and general fear of scarcity, and our own 
 talk about our ruin, had sent prices up to a grand high 
 pitch, and we did our best to keep them there. For nine 
 Englishmen out of every ten believe that a bitter winter 
 must breed a sour summer, and explain away topmost 
 prices, while, according to my experience, more often it 
 would be otherwise, except for the public thinking so. 
 However, I have said too much, and if any farmer reads 
 my book he will vow that I wrote it for nothing else e.xcept 
 to rob his family. 
 
CHAPTER l.Xn. 
 
 THE KING MUST NOT BV. PRAYED FOR. 
 
 LL our neighbourhood was sur- 
 prised that the Doones had 
 not ere now attacked, and 
 probably made an end of us. 
 For we lay almost at their 
 mercy now, having only Ser- 
 jeant BUjxham, and three 
 men, to protect us. Captain 
 Stickles having been ordered 
 southwards with all his force, 
 except such as might be need- 
 ful for collecting toll, and 
 watching the imports at Lyn- 
 mouth, and thence to Porlock. 
 The Serjeant, having now im- 
 bibed a taste fur writing re- 
 ports (though his first great 
 effort had done him no good, 
 and only offended Stickles), 
 reported weekly from Pluver's 
 Barrows, whenever he could 
 find a messenger. And though we fed not Serjeant Plox- 
 ham at our own table, with the best we had (as in the case 
 of Stickles, who represented His Majesty), yet we treated 
 him so well, that he reported very highly of us, as loyal and 
 true-hearted lieges, and most devoted to our lord the King. 
 And indeed he could scarcely have done less, when Lizzie 
 wrote great part of his reports, and furbished up the rest to 
 such a pitch of lustre that Lord Clarendon himself need 
 scarce have been ashamed of them. And though this cost 
 a great deal of ale, and even of strong waters (for Lizzie 
 would have it the duty of a critic to stand treat to the 
 author), and though it was otherwise a plague, as giving the 
 maid such airs of patronage, and such pretence to politics, 
 yet there was no stopping it, without the risk of mortal 
 offence to both writer and reviewer. Our mother, also. 
 
 >->^ 
 
576 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 while disapproving Lizzie's long sta}' in the saddle-room on 
 a Friday night and a Saturday, and insisting that Betty 
 should be there, was nevertheless as proud as need be, that 
 the King should read our Eliza's writing — at least so the 
 innocent soul believed — and we all looked forward to 
 something great, as the fruit of all this history. And some- 
 thing great did come of it, though not as we expected, for 
 these reports, or as many of them as were ever opened, 
 stood us in good stead the next year, when we were accused 
 of harbouring and comforting guilty rebels. 
 
 Now the reason why the Doones did not attack us, was 
 that they were preparing to meet another and more power- 
 ful assault upon their fortress, being assured that their 
 repulse of King's troops could not be looked over when 
 brought before the authorities. And no doubt they were 
 right, for although the conflicts in the government during 
 that summer and autumn had delayed the matter, yet posi- 
 tive orders had been issued, that these outlaws and male- 
 factors should at any price be brought to justice, when the 
 sudden death of King Charles the Second threw all things 
 into confusion, and all minds into a panic. 
 
 We heard of it first in church, on Sunday, the eighth day 
 of February, 1684-5, from a cousin of John Fry, who had 
 ridden over on purpose from Porlock. He came in just 
 before the anthem, splashed and heated from his ride, so 
 that every one turned and looked at him. He wanted to 
 create a stir (knowing how much would be made of him), 
 and he took the best way to do it. For he let the anthem 
 go by very quietly — or rather I should say very pleasingly, 
 for our choir was exceedingly proud of itself, and I sang 
 bass twice as loud as a bull, to beat the clerk with the 
 clarionet — and then just as Parson Bowden, with a look of 
 pride at his minstrels, was kneeling down to begin the 
 prayer for the King's Most Excellent Majesty (for he never 
 read the Litany, e.\cept upon Easter Sunday), up jumps 
 young Sam Fry, and shouts : 
 
 " I forbid that there prai-er.'' 
 
 "What ! " cried the parson, rising slowly, and looking for 
 some one to shut the door, " have we a rebel in the congre- 
 gation?" For the parson was growing short-sighted now, 
 and knew not Sam Fry at that distance. 
 
 " No," replied Sam, not a whit abashed by the staring of 
 all the parish, " no rebel, parson, but a man who mislaiketh 
 popery and murder. That there prai-er be a prai-er for the 
 dead." 
 
THE KING MUST XOT BE rKAVKD KoK. 577 
 
 "Nay," cried the parson, now reco^nizini; and knowing 
 him to be our John's first t'ousin, "you do not mean to say, 
 Sam, that His (.Iracious Majesty is dead." 
 
 ■' Dead as a sto-un ; jioisoned by they J'apishers," And 
 Sam rubbed his hands with enjoyment, at the effect he had 
 produced. 
 
 " Remember where you are, Sam," said I'arson Bowden, 
 solemnly; "when did this most sad thing happen? The 
 Kin;;- is the head of the church, Sam Fry ; when did His 
 Majesty leave her?" 
 
 " Day afore yesterday. Twelve o'clock. A\'arn't us quick 
 to hear of 'un ? " 
 
 " Can't be," said the minister, " the tidings can never have 
 come so soon. Anyhow, he will want it all the more. Let 
 us pray for His Gracious Majesty." 
 
 And with that he proceeded as usual, but nobody cried 
 "Amen," for fear of being entangled with popery. But 
 after giving forth his text, our parson said a few words out 
 of book, about the many virtues of His ^Majest}', and self- 
 denial, and devotion, comparing his pious mirth to the dan- 
 cing of the patriarch David before the ark of the cove- 
 nant, and he added, with some severity, that if his flock 
 would not join their pastor (who was much more likely to 
 judge aright) in praying for the King, the least they could 
 do, on returning home, was to pray that the King might 
 not be dead, as his enemies had asserted. 
 
 Now when the service was over, we killed the King, and 
 we brought him to life, at least fifty times in the churchyard, 
 and Sam Fry was mounted on a higii grayestoiie, to tell 
 every one all he knew of it. But he knew no more than he 
 had told us in the church, as before repeated, upon which 
 we were much disappointed with him, and inclined to dis- 
 believe him, until he happily remembered that His Majesty 
 had died in great pain, with blue spots on his breast, and 
 black spots all across his back, and these in the form of a 
 cross, by reason of papists having poisoned him. When 
 Sam called this to his remembrance (or to his imagination) 
 he was overwhelmed, at once, with so many invitations to 
 dinner, that he scarce knew which of them to accept, but 
 decided in our favour. 
 
 Grieving much for the loss of the King, however greatly 
 it might be (as the parson had declared it was, while tell- 
 ing us to pray against it) for the royal benefit, I resolved to 
 ride to Porlock myself, directly after dinner, and make sure 
 whether he were dead or not. For it was not by any means 
 
578 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 hard to suppose that Sam Fry, being John's first cousin, 
 might have inherited (either from grandfather or grand- 
 mother) some of those gifts which had made our John so 
 famous for mendacity. At Porlocli, I found that it was too 
 true, and the women of the town were in great distress, for 
 the King had always been popular with them ; the men, on 
 the other hand, were forecasting what would be likely to 
 ensue. 
 
 And I myself was of this number, riding sadly home 
 again, although bound to the King, as churchwarden now, 
 which dignity, next to the parson's in rank, is with us (as it 
 ought to be in every good parish) hereditary. For who can 
 stick to the church like the man whose father stuck to it be- 
 fore him, and who knows all the little ins, and great outs, 
 which must in these troublous times come across ? 
 
 But though appointed at last, by virtue of being best 
 farmer in the parish (as well as by vice of mismanagement, 
 on the part of my mother and Nicholas Snowe, who had 
 thoroughly mu.xed up every thing, being too quick-headed), 
 yet, while I dwelled with pride upon the fact that I stood 
 in the King's shoes, as the manager and promoter of the 
 Church of England — and I knew that we must miss His 
 Majesty (whose arms were above the Commandments), as 
 the leader of our thoughts in church, and handsome upon 
 a guinea — nevertheless I kept on thinking how his death 
 would act on me. 
 
 And here I saw it, many ways. In the first place, troubles 
 must break out ; and we had eight-and-twenty ricks, count- 
 ing grain, and straw, and hay. Moreover, mother was grow- 
 ing weak about riots, and shooting, and burning, and she 
 gathered the bed-clothes around her ears every night, when 
 her feet were tucked up, and prayed not to awake until 
 morning. In the next place, much rebellion (though we 
 would not own it, in either sense of the verb, to " own ") 
 was whispering, and plucking skirts, and making signs, 
 among us. And the terror of the Doones helped greatl)^, 
 as a fruitful tree of lawlessness, and a good excuse for every 
 body. And after this — or rather before it, and first of all 
 indeed (if I must state the true order) — arose upon me the 
 thought of Lorna, and how these things would affect her 
 fate. 
 
 And indeed I must admit that it had occurred to me 
 sometimes, or been suggested by others, that the Lady 
 Lorna had not behaved altogether kindly, since her depar- 
 ture from among us. For although in those days the post 
 
THE kim; must no'I' bk prayed for. 579 
 
 (as we call the service of lettei'-carrying, which now comes 
 within twenty miles of us) did not extend to our part of the 
 world, yet it might have been possible to procure for hire a 
 man who wt)uld ride pi_)st, if Lorna feared to trust the pack- 
 horses, or the troopers, who went to and fro. Yet no mes- 
 sage whatever had reached us, neither any token even of 
 her safety in London. .\s to this last, however, we had no 
 misgivings, having learned from the orderlies, more than 
 once, that the wealth, and beauty, and adventures of young 
 Lady Lorna Dugal, were greatly talked of, both at court 
 and among the common people. 
 
 Now riding sadly homewards, in the sunset of the early 
 spring, I was more than ever touched with sorrow, and a 
 sense of being, as it were, abandoned. And the weather 
 growing quite beautiful, and so mild that the trees were 
 budding, and the cattle full of happiness, I could not but 
 think of the difference between the world of to-day and the 
 world of this day twelvemonth. Then all was howling deso- 
 lation, all the earth blocked up with snow, and all the air 
 with barbs of ice as small as splintered needles, yet glitter- 
 ing, in and out, like stars, and gathering so upon a man (if 
 long he stayed among them) that they began to weigh him 
 down to sleepiness and frozen death. Not a sign of life 
 was moving, nor was any change of view, unless the wild 
 wind struck the crest of some cold drift, and bowed it. 
 
 Now, on the other hand, all was good. The open palm 
 of spring was laid upon the yielding of the hills, and each 
 particular valley seemed to be the glnve for a finger. And 
 although the sun was low, and dipping in the western clouds, 
 the grey light of the sea came up, and took, and taking, 
 told the special tone of every thing. All this lay upon my 
 heart, without a word of thinking, spreading light and 
 shadow there, and the soft delight of sadness. Neverthe- 
 less, I would it were the savage snow around me, and the 
 piping of the restless winds, and the death of every thing. 
 For in those days I had Lorna. 
 
 Then I thought of promise fair, such as glowed around 
 me, where the red rocks held the sun, when he was departed, 
 and the distant crags endeavoured to retain his memory. 
 But as evening spread across them, shading with a silent 
 fold, all the colour stole away ; all remembrance waned and 
 died. 
 
 " So has it been with love," I thought, " and with simple 
 truth and warmth. The maid has chosen the glittering 
 stars, instead of the plain daylight." 
 
580 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 Nevertheless I would not give in, although in deep de- 
 spondency (especially when I passed the place where my 
 dear father had fought in vain), and I tried to see things 
 right, and then judge aright about them. This, however, 
 was more easy to attempt than to achieve, and by the time 
 I came down the hill, I was none the wiser. Only I could 
 tell my mother that the King was dead for sure, and she 
 would have tried to cry, but for thought of her mourning. 
 
 There was not a moment for lamenting. All the mourn- 
 ing must be ready (if we cared to beat the Snowes) in eight- 
 and forty hours, and although it was Sunday night, mother 
 now feeling sure of the thing, sat up with Lizzie, cutting 
 patterns, and stitching things on brown paper, and snipping, 
 and laying the fashions down, and requesting all opinions, 
 yet when given, scorning them, insomuch that I grew weary 
 even of tobacco (which had comforted me since Lorna), and 
 prayed her to go on, until the King should be alive again. 
 
 The thought of that so flurried her — for she never yet 
 could see a joke — that she laid her scissors on the table, 
 and said, "The Lord forbid, John! after what I have cut 
 up ! " 
 
 " It would be just like him," I answered, with a knowing 
 smile. "Muther, you had better stop. Patterns may do 
 very well, but don't cut up any more good stuff." 
 
 " Well, good lack, I am a fool ! Three tables pegged 
 with needles ! The Lord in His mercy keep His Majesty, 
 if ever He hath gotten him ! " 
 
 By this device we went to bed, and not another stitch was 
 struck, until the troopers had office-tidings that the King 
 was truly dead. Hence the Snowes beat us by a day, and 
 both old Betty and Lizzie laid the blame upon me, as usual. 
 
 Almost before we had put off the mourning, which as 
 loyal subjects we kept for the King three months and a 
 week, rumours of disturbances, of plottings, and of out- 
 break began to stir among us. "We heard of fighting in 
 Scotland, and buying of ships on the continent, and of arms 
 in Dorset and Somerset, and we kept our beacon in readi- 
 ness to give signals of a landing, or rather the soldiers did 
 so. For we, having trustworthy reports that the new King 
 had been to high mass himself in the Abbey of ^^'estminster, 
 making all the bishops go with him, and all the guards in 
 London, and then tortured all the Protestants who dared to 
 wait outside, moreover had received from the Pope a flower 
 grown in the Virgin JMary's garden, and warranted to last 
 for ever, we of the moderate party, hearing all this and ten 
 
THE KING MUST NOT I'.K rRAVEI) FOR. 58 1 
 
 times as much, and having' no love fur this sour James, such 
 as we had for the hvelv Charles, were ready to wait for 
 what might happen, rather than care about stopping it. 
 Therefore we Hstened to rumours gladly, and shook our heads 
 with gravity, and predicted, every man something, but 
 scarce any two the same. Nevertheless, in our part, things 
 went on as usual, until the middle of June was nigh. We 
 ploughed the ground, and sowed the corn, and tended the 
 cattle, and heeded every one his neighbour's business as 
 carefully as heretofore, and the only thing that moved us 
 much was that Annie had a baby. This being a very fine 
 child with blue eyes, and christened " John," in compliment 
 to me, and with me for his godfather, it is natural to suppose 
 that I thought a good deal about him, and when mother or 
 Lizzie would ask me, all of a sudden, and treacherously, 
 when the fire flared up at supper-time (for we always kept a 
 little wood just alight in summer-time, and enough to make 
 the pot boil), then when they would say to me, " John, 
 what are you thinking of? At a word, speak!" I would 
 always answer, " Little John Faggus," and so they made 
 no more of me. 
 
 But when I was down on Saturday the thirteenth of June, 
 at the blacksmith's forge by Brendon town, where the 
 Lynn stream runs so close that he dips his horse-shoes in it, 
 and where the news is apt to come first of all our neigh- 
 bourhood (except upon a Sunday), while we were talking of 
 the hay-crop, and of a great sheep-stealer, round the corner 
 came a man upon a pie-bald horse, looking flagged and 
 weary. But seeing half-a-dozen of us, young and brisk, 
 and hearty, he made a flourish with his liorse, and waved a 
 blue flag vehemently, shouting with great glory : 
 
 " Monmouth and the Protestant faith ! Monmouth, and 
 no Popery ! Monmouth, the good King's eldest son ! 
 Down with the poisoning murderer ! Down with the black 
 usurper, and to the devil with all papists ! " 
 
 "Why so, thou little varlet?" I asked very quietly, for 
 the man was too small to quarrel with, yet knowing Lorna 
 to be a "papist," as we choose to call them — though they 
 might as well call us " kingists," after the head of our 
 Church — I thought that this scurvy scampish knave might 
 show them the way to the place he mentioned, unless his 
 courage failed him. 
 
 "Papist yourself, be you?" said the fellow, not daring to 
 answer much, "then take this, and read it." 
 
 And he handed me a long rigmarole, which he called a 
 
582 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 "Declaration." I saw that it was but a heap of lies, and 
 thrust it into the blacksmith's fire, and blew the bellows 
 thrice at it. No one dared attempt to stop me, for my 
 
 t^~ 
 P 
 
 
 «iag>>a 
 
 •' i§^:~^ii_, " 
 
 WAVED A BLUE FLAG ^"EHEMENTLY, 
 
 mood had not been sweet of late, and of course they knew 
 my strength. 
 
 The man rode on with a muttering noise, having won no 
 recruits from us, by force of my example, and he stopped at 
 
THE KING MUST X(.)T BE rUAVEl) I(iR. 583 
 
 the alehouse further down, where the road goes away from 
 the Lynn stream. Some of us went thither after a time, 
 when our horses were shodden and rasped, for although we 
 might not like the man, we might be glad of his tidings, 
 which seemed to be something wonderful. He had set up 
 his blue flag in the tap-room, and was teaching every one. 
 
 " Here coom'th Maister Jan Ridd," said the landlady, 
 being well pleased with the call for beer and cider ; " her 
 hath been to Lunnon town, and live within a made of me. 
 Arl the news coom from them now-a-days, instead of from 
 here, as her ought to do. If Jan Ridd say it be true, I will 
 try a'most to belave it. Hath the good Duke landed, sir?" 
 .\nd she looked at me over a foaming cup, and blew the 
 froth off, and put more in. 
 
 '' I have no doubt it is true enough," I answered before 
 drinking; "and too true. Mistress Pugsley. Many a poor 
 man will die ; but none shall die from our parish, nor from 
 Brendon, if I can help it." 
 
 And I knew that I could help it, for every one in those 
 little places would abide by my advice, not only from the 
 fame of my schooling, and long sojourn in L(jndon, but also 
 because I had earned repute for being very "slow and sure," 
 and with nine people out of ten this is the very best recom- 
 mendation. For they think themselves much before you in 
 wit, and under no obligation, but rather conferring a favour 
 by doing the thing that you do. Hence, if I cared for in- 
 fluence — which means, for the most part, making ]icople do 
 one's will, without knowing it — my first step toward it 
 would be to be called, in common parlance, " slow but sure." 
 
 For the next fortnight we were daily troubled with con- 
 flicting rumors, each man relating what he desired, rather 
 than what he had right, to believe. We were told that the 
 Duke had been proclaimed King of England, in everv town 
 of Dorset and of Somerset ; that he had won a great battle 
 at Axminster, and another at Bridport, and another some- 
 where else ; that all the western counties had risen as one 
 man for him, and all the militia joined his ranks ; that 
 Taunton, and Bridgewater, and Bristowe, were all mad with 
 delight, the two former being in his hands, and the latter 
 craving to be so. And then, on the other hand, we heard 
 that the Duke had been vanquished, and put to flight, and 
 upon being apprehended had confessed himself an impostor 
 and a papist, as bad as the King was. 
 
 We longed for Colonel Stickles (as he always became 
 in time of war, though he fell back to Captain, and even 
 

 
 84 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Lieutenant directly the fight was over), for then we should 
 have won trusty news, as well as good consideration. But 
 even Serjeant Bloxham, much against his will, was gone, hav- 
 ing left his heart with our Lizzie, and a collection of all his 
 writings. All the soldiers had been ordered away at full 
 speed for Exeter, to join the Duke of Albemarle, or if he 
 were gone, to follow him. As for us, who had fed them so 
 long (although not quite for nothing), we must take our 
 chance of Doones, or any other enemies. 
 
 Now all these tidings moved me a little ; not enough to 
 spoil appetite, but enough to make things lively, and to 
 teach me that look of wisdom which is bred of practice 
 only, and the hearing of many lies. Therefore I withheld 
 my judgment, fearing to be triumphed over, if it should 
 happen to miss the mark. But mother and Lizzie, ten times 
 in a day, predicted all they could imagine, and their prophe- 
 cies increased in strength according to contradiction. Yet 
 this was not in the proper style for a house like ours, which 
 knew the news, or at least had known it, and still was 
 famous all around for the last advices. Even from Lyn- 
 mouth, people sent up to Plover's Barrows to ask how 
 things were going on, and it was very grievous to answer 
 that in truth we knew not, neither had heard for days and 
 days, and our reputation was so great, especially since the 
 death of the King had gone abroad from Oare parish, that 
 many inquirers would only wink, and lay a finger on the 
 lip, as if to say, " You know well enough, but see not fit to 
 tell me." And before the end arrived, those people believed 
 that they had been right all along, and that we had con- 
 cealed the truth from them. 
 
 For I myself became involved (God knows how much 
 against my will and my proper judgment) in the troubles 
 and the conflict, and the cruel work coming afterwards. If 
 ever I had made up my mind to any thing in all my life, it 
 was at this particular time, and as stern and strong as could 
 be. I had resolved to let things pass — to hear alDout them 
 gladly, to encourage all my friends to talk, and myself to 
 express opinion upon each particular point, when in the 
 fulness of time no further doubt could be. But all my 
 policy went for nothing, through a few touches of feeling. 
 
 One day at the beginning of July, I came home from 
 mowing about noon, or a little later, to fetch some cider for 
 all of us, and to eat a morsel of bacon. For mowing was 
 no joke that year, the summer being wonderfullv wet (even 
 for our wet country) and the swathe falling heavier over 
 
THE kinm; must nut be pravkd kok. 5S5 
 
 the sc^-the than ever I eould remember it. We were 
 drenched with rain ahiiost every ihiy ; but the mowini,^ 
 must be done somehow, and we must trust to God for the 
 ha\-mai<ing. 
 
 In the courtyard I saw a little cart, with iron breaks under- 
 neath it, such as fastidious people use to deaden the jolt- 
 ing of the road, but few men under a lord or baronet would 
 be sii particular. Therefore I wondered who our noble 
 visitor could be. But when I entered the kitchen-place, 
 brushing up my hair for some body, behold it was no one 
 greater than our Annie, with my godson in her arms, and 
 looking pale and tear-begone. And at first she could not 
 speak to me. But presently having sat down a little, and 
 received much praise for her baby, she smiled, and blushed 
 and found her tongue, as if she had never gone from us. 
 
 " How natural it all looks again ! Oh, I love this old 
 kitchen so ! Baby dear, only look at it, wid him pitty, pitty 
 eyes, and him tongue out of his mousy ! But who put the 
 flour riddle up there? And look at the pestle and mortar, 
 and rust I declare in the patty pans! And a book, posi- 
 tively a dirt)' book, where the clean skewers ought to hang ! 
 Oh, Lizzie, Lizzie, Lizzie !" 
 
 "You may just as well cease lamenting," I said, "for vou 
 can't alter Lizzie's nature, and you will only make mother 
 uncomfortable, and perhaps have a quarrel with Lizzie, who 
 is proud as Punch of her housekeeping." 
 
 " She ! " cried Annie, with all the contempt that could be 
 compressed in a syllable. "Well, John, no doubt you are 
 right about it. I will try not to notice things. V>\it it is a 
 hard thing, after all my care, to see every thing going to 
 ruin. But what can be expected of a girl who knows all 
 the kings of Carthage?" 
 
 " There were no kings of Carthage, Annie. The\' were 
 called, why let me see — they were called — oh, something 
 else." 
 
 " Never mind what they were called," said Annie ; " will 
 they cook our dinner for us? But now, John, I am in such 
 trouble. All this talk is make-believe." 
 
 '■ Don't you cry, my dear; don't cry, my darling sister,'' 
 I answered, as she dropped into the worn place of the settle 
 and bent above her infant, rocking as if both their hearts 
 were one; "don't you know, Annie, I cannot tell, but I 
 know, or at least I mean, I have heard the men of experi- 
 ence say, it is so bad for the baby." 
 
 " Perhaps I know that as well as you do, John," said 
 
,86 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Vnnie, looking up at me with a gleam of her old laughing ; 
 'but how can I help crying? I am in such trouble." 
 
 " Tell me what it is, my dear. Any grief of yours will 
 'ex me greatly; but I will try to bear it." 
 
 " Then, John, it is just this. Tom has gone off with the 
 ebels ; and you must, oh, you must go after him." 
 
CHAPTER LXIII. 
 
 JOHN IS WORSTED BY THE WOMEN. 
 
 ( A'ED as I was by Annie's 
 tears and gentle style of coax- 
 ing, and most of all by mv 
 love for her, I vet declared 
 that I could not go and leave 
 our house and homestead, far 
 less my dear mother and Lizzie 
 at the mercy of the merciless 
 Doones. 
 
 "Is that all your objection, 
 John?" asked Annie, in her 
 quick, panting way. " Would 
 you go but for that, John ?" 
 
 "Now," I said, "be in no 
 such hurry," for, while I was 
 gradually yielding, I liked to 
 pass it through my fniiiers, as 
 if my fingers shaped it ; " there 
 are many things to be thought 
 about, and many ways of view- 
 ing it." 
 
 " Oh, you never can have loved Lorna ! No wonder 
 you gave her up so ! John, you can love nobody but your 
 oat-ricks and your hay-ricks." 
 
 " Sister mine, because I rant not, neither rave of what I 
 feel, can you be so shallow as to dream that I feel nothing .' 
 What is your love for Tom Faggus, what is your love for 
 your baby (pretty darling as he is) to compare with such a 
 love as for ever dwells with me ? Because I do not prate 
 of it ; because it is beyond me, not only to express, but 
 even to form to my own heart in thoughts ; because I do 
 not shape my face, and would scorn to play to it as a thing 
 of acting, and lay it out before you, are you fools enough 
 
 to think " but here I stopped, having said more than 
 
 was usual with me. 
 
588 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " I am very sorry, John ; dear John, I am so sorry. AVhat 
 a shallow fool I am ! " 
 
 "I will go seek your husband," I said, to change the sub- 
 ject, for even to Annie I would not lay open all my heart 
 about Lorna, "but only upon condition that you insure this 
 house and people from the Doones meanwhile. Even for 
 the sake of Tom, I cannot leave all helpless. The oat-ricks 
 and the hay-ricks, which are my only love, they are wel- 
 come to make cinders of. But I will not have mother 
 treated so, nor even little Lizzie, although you scorn your 
 sister so." 
 
 " Oh, John, I do think you are the hardest, as well as the 
 softest, of all the men I know. Not even a woman's bitter 
 word but what you pay her out for. Will you never under- 
 stand that we are not like you, John? We say all sorts of 
 spiteful things without a bit of meaning. John, for God's 
 sake fetch Tom home, and then revile me as you please, 
 and I will kneel and thank you." 
 
 "I will not promise to fetch him home," I answered, be- 
 ing ashamed of myself for having lost command so, " but I 
 will promise to do my best, if we can only hit on a plan for 
 leaving mother harmless." 
 
 Annie thought for a little while, trying to gather her 
 smooth, clear brow into maternal wrinkles, and then she 
 looked at her child and said, "I will risk it for daddy's 
 sake, darling ; you precious soul, for daddy's sake." I 
 asked what she was going to risk. She would not tell m'e, 
 but took upper hand, and saw to my cider-cans and ba- 
 con, and went from corner to cupboard exactly as if she 
 had never been married, only without an apron on. And 
 then she said, "Now to your mowers, John, and make the 
 most of this fine afternoon ; kiss your godson before you 
 go." And f, being used to obey her in little things of that 
 sort, kissed the baby, and took my cans, and went back to 
 my scythe again. 
 
 By the time I came home it was dark night, and pouring 
 again with a foggy rain, such as we have in July even more 
 than in January. Being soaked all through and through, 
 and with water quelching in my boots, like a pump with a 
 bad bucket, I was only too glad to find Annie's bright face 
 and quick figure flitting in and out the firelight, instead of 
 Lizzie sitting grandly, with a feast of literature and not a 
 drop of gravy. Mother was in the corner, also, with her 
 cherry-coloured ribbons glistening very nice by candle light, 
 looking at Annie now and then with memories of her baby- 
 
JOHN IS \V(.)RSTE1) BY THE WOAIEN. 589 
 
 hood, and then at her having a baby, yet half afraid of 
 praising her much for fear of that young Lizzie. But Liz- 
 zie showed no jealousy ; she truly loved our Annie (now 
 that she was gone from us), and she wanted to know all 
 sorts of things, and she adored the baby. Therefore Annie 
 was allowed to attend to me as she used to do. 
 
 " Now, John, you must start the first thing in the morn- 
 ing," she said, when the others had left the room, but some- 
 how she stuck to the baby, "to fetch me back my rebel, 
 according to your promise." 
 
 "Not so," I replied, misliking the job; "all I promised 
 was to go if this house were assured against any onslaught 
 of the Doones." 
 
 " Just so ; and here is that assurance." With these words 
 she drew forth a paper and laid it on my knee with tri- 
 umph, enjoying my amazement. This, as you may sup- 
 pose, was great, not only at the document, but also at her 
 possession of it. For in truth it was no less than a formal 
 undertaking on the part of the Doones not to attack Plov- 
 er's Barrows farm, or molest any of the inmates, or carry 
 off any chattels during the absence of John Ridd upon a 
 special errand. This document was signed not onlv bv the 
 Counsellor, but by many other Doones ; whether Carver's 
 name were there, I could not say for certain, as, of course, he 
 would not sign it under his name of "Carver," and I had 
 never heard Lorna say to what (if any) he had been baptized. 
 
 In the face of such a deed as this I could no longer re- 
 fuse to go, and having received my promise, Annie told me 
 (as was only fair) how she had procured that paper. It 
 was both a clever and courageous act, and would have 
 seemed to me, at first sight, far beyond Annie's power. But 
 none may gauge a woman's power when her love and faith 
 are moved. 
 
 The first thing Annie had done was this ; she made her- 
 self look ugly. This was not an easy thing, but she had 
 learned a great deal from her husband upon the subject of 
 disguises. It hurt her feelings not a little to make so sad a 
 fright of herself, but what could it matter? If she lost 
 Tom she must be a far greater fright in earnest than now 
 she was in seeming. And then she left her child asleep 
 under Betty Mux worthy's tendance — for Betty took to that 
 child as if there never had been a child before — and away 
 she went in her own "spring-cart" (as the name of that en- 
 gine proved to be), without a word to any one, except the 
 old man who had driven her from Molland parish that 
 
590 LOKXA DOONE. 
 
 morning, and who coolly took one of our best horses with- 
 out " by your leave " to any one. 
 
 Annie made the old man drive her within easy reach of 
 the Doone-gate, whose position she knew well enough from 
 all our talk about it. And there she bade the old man stay 
 until she should return to him. Then, with her comely 
 figure hidden by a dirty old woman's cloak, and her fair 
 young face defaced by patches and by liniments, so that none 
 might covet her, she addressed the young men at the gate 
 in a cracked and trembling voice, and they were scarcely 
 civil to the "old hag," as they called her. She said that 
 she bore important tidings for Sir Counsellor himself, and 
 must be conducted to him. To him accordingly she was 
 led, without even any hoodwinking, for she had spectacles 
 over her eyes, and made believe not to see ten yards. 
 
 She found Sir Counsellor at home, and when the rest 
 were out of sight, threw off all disguise to him, flashing 
 forth as a lovely young woman from all her wraps and dis- 
 figurements. She flung her patches on the floor, amid the 
 old man's laughter, and let her tucked-up hair come down, 
 and then went up and kissed him. 
 
 " Worthy and reverend Counsellor, I have a favour to 
 ask," she began. 
 
 "So I should think from your proceedings," the old man 
 interrupted. "Ah, if I were half my age" 
 
 " If you were I would not sue so. But, most excellent 
 Counsellor, you owe me some amends, you know, for the 
 way in which you robbed me." 
 
 " Beyond a doubt I do, my dear. You have put it rather 
 strongly, and it might offend some people. Nevertheless, 
 I own my debt, having so fair a creditor." 
 
 "And do you remember how you slept, and how much 
 we made of you, and would have seen you home, sir, only 
 you did not wish it." 
 
 " And for excellent reasons, child. !My best escort was 
 in my cloak after we made the cream to rise. Ha, ha ! The 
 unholy spell. My pretty child, has it injured you?" 
 
 "Yes, I fear it has," said Annie, "or whence can all my 
 ill luck come ? " And here she showed some signs of cry- 
 ing, knowing that the Counsellor hated it. 
 
 " You shall not have ill luck, my dear. I have heard all 
 about your marriage to a very noble highwayman. Ah, 
 you made a mistake in that ; you were worthy of a Doone, 
 my child ; your frying was a blessing meant for those who 
 can appreciate." 
 
JOHN IS WORSTEIi liY THE WOMl'.X. 59 1 
 
 " My husband can appreciate," she answered, very 
 proudly; "but what I wish to know is this: will you try 
 to help me?" 
 
 The Counsellor answered that he would do so, if her 
 needs were moderate, whereupon she opened her meaning 
 to him, and told of all her anxieties. Considering' that Lorna 
 was gone, and her necklace in his possession, and that I 
 (against whom alone of us the Doones could bear any mal- 
 ice) would be out of the way all the while, the old man readily 
 undertook that our house should not be assaulted, nor our 
 property molested until my return. And to the promptitude 
 of his pledge two things, perhaps, contributed, namely, that 
 he knew not how we were stripped of all defenders, and that 
 some of his own forces were away in the rebel camp. For 
 (as I learned thereafter) the Doones being now in direct 
 feud with the present government, and sure to be crushed 
 if that prevailed, had resolved to drop all religious ques- 
 tions and cast in their lot with Monmouth. And the turbu- 
 lent youths, being long restrained from their wonted outlet 
 for vehemence, by the troopers in the neighbourhood, were 
 only too glad to rush forth upon any promise of blows and 
 excitement. 
 
 However, Annie knew little of this, but took the Coun- 
 sellor's pledge as a mark of especial favour in her behalf 
 (which it may have been, to some e.xtent), and thanked him 
 for it most heartily, and felt that he had earned the neck- 
 lace ; while he, like an ancient gentleman, disclaimed all 
 obligation, and sent her under an escort safe to her own 
 cart again. But Annie, repassing the sentinels, with her 
 youth restored, and blooming with the flush of triumph, 
 went up to them very gravely, and said, " The old hag 
 wishes you good evening, gentlemen," and so made her 
 best courtesy. 
 
 Now, look at it as I would, there was no excuse left for 
 me after the promise given. Dear Annie had not only 
 cheated the Doones, but also had gotten the best of me by 
 a pledge to a thing impossible. ^Vnd I bitterly said, "I am 
 not like Lorna; a pledge once given, I keep it." 
 
 " I will not have a word against Lorna," cried Annie ; 
 "I will answer for her truth as surely as I would for my 
 own, or yours, John." And with that she vanquished me. 
 
 But when my poor mother heard that I was committed, 
 by word of honour, to a wild-goose chase among the rebels 
 after that runagate, Tom Faggus, she simply stared, and 
 would not believe it. For lately I had joked with her, in a 
 
592 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 little Style of jerks, as people do when out of sorts, and she, 
 not understanding this, and knowing jokes to be out of my 
 power, would only look, and sigh, and toss, and hope that 
 I meant nothing. At last, however, we convinced her that 
 I was in earnest, and must be off in the early morning, and 
 leave John Fry with the hay crop. 
 
 Then mother was ready to fall upon Annie as not con- 
 tent with disgracing us by wedding a man of new honesty 
 (if, indeed, of any), but laying traps to catch her brother 
 and entangle him, perhaps to his death, for the sake of a 
 worthless fellow — and "felon," she was going to say, as 
 by the shape of her lips I knew. But I laid my hand upon 
 dear mother's lips, because what must be, must be, and if 
 mother and daughter stayed at home, better in love than in 
 quarrelling. 
 
 Right early in the morning I was off, without word to 
 any one, knowing that mother and sister mine had cried each 
 her good self to sleep, relenting when the light was out, and 
 sorry for hard words and thoughts, and yet too much alike 
 in nature to understand each other. Therefore I took 
 good Kickums, who (although with one eye spoiled) was 
 worth ten sweet-tempered horses to a man who knew how 
 to manage him, and being well charged both with bacon 
 and powder, forth I set on my wild-goose chase. 
 
 For this I claim no bravery. I cared but little what 
 came of it, save for mother's sake, and Annie's, and the 
 keeping of the farm, and discomfiture of the Snowes, and 
 lamenting of Lorna at my death, if die I must in a lone- 
 some manner, not found out till afterwards, and bleaching 
 bones left to weep over. However, I had a little kettle, 
 and a pound and a half of tobacco, and two dirty pipes and 
 a clean one, also a bit of clothes for change, also a brisket 
 of hung venison, and four loaves of farm-house bread, and 
 of the upper side of bacon a stone and a half it might be, 
 not to mention divers small things for campaigning, which 
 may come in handily when no one else has gotten them. 
 
 We went away in merry style, my horse being ready for 
 any thing, and I only glad of a bit of change, after months 
 of working and brooding, with no content to crown the 
 work, no hope to hatch the brooding, or without hatch- 
 ing to reckon it. Who could tell but what Lorna might be 
 discovered, or, at any rate, heard of, before the end of this 
 campaign — if campaign it could be called of a man who 
 went to fight nobody, only to redeem a runagate ? And 
 vexed as I was about the hay and the hunch-backed ricks 
 
JOllX IS WORSTED LV THE WoM I'.N. 593 
 
 John was sure to make (which spoil the look of a farm- 
 yard), still even this was better than to have the mows and 
 houses fired, as 1 had nightly expected, and been worn out 
 with the worry of it. 
 
 Yet there was one thing rather unfavourable to my pres- 
 ent enterprise, namely, that 1 knew nothing of the country 
 I was bound to, nor even in what part of it my business 
 might be supposed to lie. P'or beside the uncertainty caused 
 by the conflict of reports, it was likely that King Mon- 
 mouth's army would be moving from place to place, accord- 
 ing to the prospect of supplies and of reinforcements. 
 However, there would arise more chance of getting news 
 as I went on ; and my road being towards the east and 
 south, Dulverton would not lie so very far aside of it but 
 what it might be worth a visit, both to collect the latest 
 tidings, and to consult the maps and plans in Uncle Reu- 
 ben's parlour. Therefore I drew the off-hand rein, at the 
 cross-road on the hills, and made for the town, expecting, 
 perhaps, to have breakfast with Master Huckaback, and 
 Ruth to help and encourage us. This little maiden was now 
 become a very great favourite with me, having long out- 
 grown, no doubt, her childish fancies and follies, such as 
 my mother and Annie had planted under her soft brown 
 hair. It had been my duty, as well as my true interest (for 
 Uncle Ben was more and more testy, as he went on gold- 
 digging), to ride thither, now and again, to inquire what the 
 doctor thought of her. Not that her wounds were long in 
 healing, but that people can scarcely be too careful and too 
 inquisitive, after a great horse-bite. And she always let me 
 look at the arm, as I had been first doctor, and she held it 
 up in a graceful manner, curving at the elbow, and with a 
 sweep of white roundness going to a wrist the size of my 
 thumb or so, and without any thimble-top standing forth, 
 such as even our Annie had. But gradually all I could see, 
 above the elbow, where the bite had been, was very clear, 
 transparent skin, with very firm, sweet flesh below, and three 
 little blue marks as far asunder as the prongs of a toasting- 
 fork, and no deeper than where a twig has chafed the peel 
 of a waxen apple. And then I used to say in fun, as the 
 children do, "Shall I kiss it to make it well, dear?" 
 
 Now Ruth looked very grave, indeed, upon hearing of 
 this my enterprise, and crying, said she could almost cry, 
 for the sake of my dear mother. Did I know the risks and 
 chances, not of the battle-field alone, but of the havoc after- 
 wards ; the swearing away of innocent lives, and the hurdle, 
 
594 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 and the hanging? And if I would please not to laugh 
 (which was so unkind of me), had I never heard of imprison- 
 ments, and torturing with the cruel boot, and selling into 
 slavery, where the sun and the lash outvied one another in 
 cutting a man to pieces ? I replied that of all these things 
 I had heard, and would take especial care to steer me free 
 of all of them. My duty was all that I wished to do, and 
 none could harm me for doing that. And I begged my 
 cousin to give me good-speed, instead of talking dolefully. 
 Upon this she changed her manner wholly, becoming so 
 lively and cheerful that I was convinced of her indifference, 
 and surprised even more than gratified. 
 
 "Go and earn your spurs. Cousin Ridd," she said, "you 
 are strong enough for any thing. Which side is to have the 
 benefit of your doughty arm?" 
 
 " Have I not told you, Ruth," I answered, not being fond 
 of this kind of talk, more suitable for Lizzie, "that I do not 
 mean to join either side, that is to say, until " 
 
 " Until, as the common proverb goes, you know which 
 way the cat will jump. Oh, John Ridd ! Oh, John 
 Ridd ! " 
 
 " Nothing of the sort," said I, " what a hurry you are in ! 
 I am for the King, of course." 
 
 "But not enough to fight for him. Only enough to vote, 
 I suppose, or drink his health, or shout for him, as soon as 
 you are sure who is the King." 
 
 " I can't make you out to-day. Cousin Ruth ; j-ou are 
 nearly as bad as Lizzie. You do not say any bitter things, 
 but you seem to mean them." 
 
 " No, cousin, think not so of me. It is far more likely 
 that I say them without meaning them." 
 
 " Any how, it is not like you. And I know not what I 
 can have done in any way, to vex you." 
 
 " Dear me, nothing. Cousin Ridd, you never do any thing 
 to vex me." 
 
 " Then I hope I shall do something now, Ruth, when I 
 say good-bye. God knows if we ever shall meet again, 
 Ruth ; but I hope we may." 
 
 "To be sure we shall," she answered in her brightest 
 manner. "Try not to look wretched, John; you are as 
 happy as a Maypole." 
 
 "And you as a rose in May," I said, "and pretty nearly 
 as pretty. Give my love to Uncle Ben ; and I trust him to 
 keep on the winning side." 
 
 " Of that you need have no misgiving. Never yet has he 
 
TdHX IS WORSTED l;V THE \V(J.\1K\. 
 
 595 
 
 failed of it. Now, t'ousin Ridd, why i^o you not? \'ou 
 hurried me so at breakfast time?" 
 
 "My only reason for waiting, Ruth, is that you have not 
 kissed me, as you are almost bound to do, for the last time, 
 perhaps, of seeing me." 
 
 '' r)h, if that is all, just fetch the stool, and I will do my 
 best, cousin.", 
 
 " I pray you be not so vexatious ; you always used to do 
 it nicely, without any stool, Ruth." 
 
 " Ah, but you are grown since then, and become a famous 
 man, John Ridd, and a member of the nobility. Go your 
 way, and win your spurs. I want no lip-service." 
 
 Being at the end of my wits, I did even as she ordered 
 me. At least I had no spurs to win, because there were big 
 ones on my boots, paid for in the Easter bill, and made by 
 a famous saddler, so as never to clog with marsh-weed, but 
 prick as hard as any horse, in reason, could desire. And 
 Kickums never wanted spurs, but always went tail-foremdst, 
 if any body offered them for his consideration. 
 
CHAPTER LXIV. 
 
 SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES. 
 
 E rattled away at a merry pace, out 
 of the town of Dulverton, my horse 
 being gaily fed, and myself quite fit 
 again for going. Of course I was 
 puzzled about Cousin Ruth, for her 
 behaviour was not at all such as I 
 had expected ; and indeed I had 
 hoped for a far more loving and 
 moving farewell than I got from 
 her. But I said to myself, " It is 
 useless ever to count upon what a 
 woman will do ; and I think that 
 I must have vexed her, almost as 
 much as she vexed me. And now 
 to see what comes of it.'' So I put 
 my horse across the moorland, and 
 he threw his chest out bravely. 
 
 Now if I tried to set down at 
 length all the things that hap- 
 pened to me upon this adventure, 
 every in and out, and up and down, and to and fro, that 
 occupied me, together with the things I saw, and the things 
 I heard of — however much the wiser people might applaud 
 my narrative, it is likely enough that idle readers might ex- 
 claim, " What ails this man ? Knows he not that men of 
 parts, and of real understanding, have told us all we care 
 to hear of that miserable business. Let him keep to his 
 farm and bacon, his wrestling, and constant feeding." 
 
 Fearing to meet with such rebuffs (which after my death 
 would vex me), I will try to set down only what is needful 
 for my story, and the clearing of my character, and the 
 good name of our parish. But the manner in which I was 
 bandied about by false information, from pillar to post, or 
 at other times driven quite out of my way by the presence 
 of the King's soldiers, may be known by the names of the 
 
 
SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSH KS. 5()7 
 
 following- towns. In which I was sent in succession: Bath, 
 Frome, Wells, \\incanton, Glastonbury, Shepton, iiradford, 
 Axbridge, Sonierton, and liridn'cwatcr. 
 
 This last place I reached on a Sunday night, the fourth 
 or fifth of July, I think — or it might be the sixth, for that 
 matter, inasmuch as I had been too much worried to get 
 the day of the month at church. Only I know that my 
 horse and myself were glad to come to a decent place where 
 meat and corn could be had for money, and being quite 
 weary of wandering about, we hoped to rest there a httle. 
 
 Of this, however, we found no chance, for the town was 
 full of the good Duke's soldiers, if men may be called so, 
 the half of whom had never been drilled, nor had fired a 
 gun. And it was rumoured among them that the " popish 
 army," as they called it, was to be attacked that very night 
 and with (rod's assistance beaten. However, by this time 
 I had been taught to pay little attention to rumours, and 
 having sought vainly for Tom Faggus among these poor 
 rustic warriors, I took to my hostel, and went to bed, being 
 as weary as weary can be. 
 
 Falling asleep immediately, I took heed of nothing, al- 
 though the town was all alive, and lights had come glanc- 
 ing, as I lay down, and shouts making echo all around my 
 room. But all I did was to hug my pillow, and not an inch 
 would I budge unless the house, and even my bed, were on 
 fire. And so for several hours I lay, in the depth of the 
 deepest slumber, without even a dream on its surface, 
 until I was roused and awakened at last by a pushing and 
 pulling, and pinching, and a plucking of hair out by the 
 roots. And at length, being able to open mine eyes, I saw 
 the old landlady, with a candle, heavily wondering at me. 
 
 " Can't you let me alone," I grumbled ; " I have paid for 
 my bed, mistress, and I won't get up for any one." 
 
 " Would to God, young man," she answered, shaking me 
 as hard as ever, " that the popish soldiers may sleep, this 
 night, only half as strong as thou dost ! Fie on thee, fie on 
 thee ! Get up and go fight ; we can hear the battle already, 
 and a man of thy size mought stop a cannon." 
 
 " I would rather stop a-bed," said I ; " what have I to do 
 with fighting? I am for King James, if any." 
 
 " Then thou mayest even stop a-bed," the old woman 
 muttered sulkily. " A' would never have laboured half-an- 
 hour to awake a Papisher. But hearken you one thing, 
 young man : Zummerzett thou art, by thy brogue, or at least 
 by thy understanding of it ; no Zummerzett maid will look 
 
598 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 at thee, in spite of thy size and stature, unless thou strikest 
 a blow this night." 
 
 " I lack no Zummerzett maid, mistress ; I have a fairer 
 than your brown things, and for her alone would I strike a 
 blow." 
 
 At this the old woman gave me up, as being beyond cor- 
 rection, and it vexed me a little that my great fame had not 
 reached so far as Bridge-water, when I thought that it went 
 to Bristowe. But those people in East Somerset know 
 nothing about wrestling. Devon is the head-quarters of the 
 art, and Devon is the county of my chief love. Howbeit, 
 my vanity was moved by this slur upon it — for I had told 
 her my name was " John Ridd," when I had a gallon of ale 
 with her, ere ever I came upstairs, and she had nodded in 
 such a manner that I thought she knew both name and 
 fame — and here was I, not only shaken, pinched, and with 
 many hairs pulled out, in the midst of my first good sleep 
 for a week, but also abused and taken amiss, and (which 
 vexed me most of all) unknown. 
 
 Now there is nothing like vanity to keep a man awake at 
 night, however he be weary, and most of all when he be- 
 lieves that he is doing something great — this time, if never 
 done before — yet other people will not see, except what 
 they may laugh at, and so be far above him, and sleep 
 themselves the happier. Therefore their sleep robs his 
 own, for all things play so, in and out (with the godly and 
 ungodly ever swaying in a balance, as they have done in my 
 time, almost every year or two), all things have such nice 
 reply of produce to the call for it, and such a spread across 
 the world, giving here and taking there, j^et on the whole 
 pretty even, that haply sleep itself has but a certain stock, 
 and keeps in hand, and sells to flattered (which can pay) 
 that which flattened vanity cannot pay, and will not sue for. 
 
 Be that as it may, I was by this time wide awake, though 
 much aggrieved at feeling so, and through the open window 
 heard the distant roll of musketry, and the beating of drums, 
 with a quick rub-a-dub, and the " come round the corner," 
 of trumpet-call. And perhaps Tom Faggus might be there 
 and shot at any moment, and my dear Annie left a poor 
 widow, and my godson Jack an orphan, without a tooth to 
 help him. 
 
 Therefore I reviled myself for all my heavy laziness, and 
 partly through good honest will, and partly through the 
 stings of pride, and yet a little, perhaps, by virtue of a 
 young man's love of riot, up I arose and dressed my- 
 
SLAUCHTKK IN THE MARSHES. 599 
 
 self, and woke Kickums (who was snoring), and set out 
 to sec the worst of it. The sleepy hostler scratched 
 his poll and could not tell me which way to take ; what 
 odds to him who was King, or Pope, so long as he paid his 
 way and got a bit of bacon on Sunday ? And would I please 
 to remember that I had roused him up at night, and the 
 quality always made a point of paying four times over for a 
 man's loss of his beauty-sleep. I replied that his loss of 
 beauty-sleep was rather improving to a man of so high com- 
 plexion, and that I, being none of the quality, must pay 
 half-quality prices ; and so I gave him clouble fee, as be- 
 came a good farmer, and he was glad to be quit of ICick- 
 ums, as I saw by the turn of his eye while going out at the 
 archway. 
 
 All this was done by lanthorn light, although the moon 
 was high and bold, and in the northern heaven flags and 
 ribbons of a jostling pattern, such as we often have in 
 autumn, but in July very rarely. Of these blaster Dryden 
 has spoken somewhere in his courtly manner ; but of him I 
 think so little — because by fashion preferred to Shakes- 
 peare — that I cannot remember the passage; neither is it 
 a credit to him. 
 
 Therefore I was guided mainly by the sound of guns and 
 trumpets in riding out of the narrow ways and into the 
 open marshes. And thus I might have found my road in 
 spite of all the spread of water, and the ;;laze of moonshine, 
 but that, as I followed sound (far from hedge or causeway) 
 fog (like a chestnut-tree in blossom, touched with moonlight) 
 met me. Now fog is a thing that I understand, and can do 
 with well enough, where I know the country, but here I had 
 never been before. It was nothing to our Exmoor fogs ; 
 not to be compared with them ; and all the time one C(juld 
 see the moon, which we cannot do in our fogs, nor even the 
 sun, for a week together. Yet the gleam of water always 
 makes a fog more difficult, like a curtain on a mirror ; none 
 can tell the boundaries. 
 
 And here we had broad water-patches, in and out inlaid 
 on land, like mother-of-pearl in brown .Shittim wood. To 
 a wild duck, born and bred there, it would almost be a 
 puzzle to find her own nest amongst them ; what chance, 
 then, had I and Kickums, both unused to marsh and mere? 
 Each time when we thought that we must be right, now at 
 last, by track or passage, and approaching the conflict, with 
 the sounds of it waxing nearer, suddenly a break of water 
 would be laid before us, with the moon looking mnldly over 
 
600 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 it, and the northern lights behind us, dancing down the 
 Hnes of fog. 
 
 It was an awful thing, I say (and to this day I remember 
 it), to hear the sounds of raging fight, and the yells of rav- 
 ing slayers, and the howls of poor men stricken hard, and 
 shattered from wrath to wailing ; then suddenly the dead 
 low hush, as of a soul departing, and spirits kneeling over 
 it. Through the vapour of the earth, and white breath of 
 the water, and beneath the pale round moon (bowing as the 
 drift went by), all this rush and pause of fear passed, or 
 lingered, on my path. 
 
 At last, when I almost despaired of escaping from this 
 tangle of spongy banks, and of hazy creeks, and reed-fringe, 
 my horse heard the neigh of a fellow-horse, and was only 
 too glad to answer it, upon which the other, having lost his 
 rider, came up, and pricked his ears at us, and gazed through 
 the fog very steadfastly. Therefore I encouraged him with a 
 soft and genial whistle, and Kickums did his best to tempt 
 him with a snort of inquiry. However, nothing would suit 
 that nag except to enjoy his new freedom, and he capered 
 away with his tail set on high, and the stirrup-irons clash- 
 ing under him. Therefore, as he might know the way, and 
 appeared to have been in the battle, we followed him very 
 carefully, and he led us to a little hamlet, called (as I found 
 afterwards) West Zuyland, or Zealand, so named, perhaps, 
 from its situation amid this inland sea. 
 
 Here the King's troops had been quite lately, and their 
 fires were still burning, but the men themselves had been 
 summoned away by the night attack of the rebels. Hence 
 I procured for my guide a young man who knew the dis- 
 trict thoroughly, and who led me by many intricate ways to 
 the rear of the rebel army. We came upon a broad open 
 moor, striped with sullen water-courses, shagged with sedge, 
 and yellow iris, and in the drier part with bilberries. For 
 by this time it was four o'clock, and the summer sun, arising 
 wanly, showed us all the ghastly scene. 
 
 Would that I had never been there ! Often in the lonely 
 hours, even now it haunts me ; would, far more, that the 
 piteous thing had never been done in England ! Flying 
 men, flung back from dreams of victory and honour, only 
 glad to have the luck of life and limbs to fly with, mud- 
 bedraggled, foul with slime, reeking both with sweat and 
 blood, which they could not stop to wipe, cursing, with their 
 pumped-out lungs, every stick that hindered them, or gory 
 puddle that slipped the step, scarcely able to leap over the 
 
SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES. 6oi 
 
 corses that had dragged to die. And to see how the corses 
 lay ; some, as fair as death in sleep, with the smile of placid 
 valour, and of noble manhood, hovering yet on the silent 
 lips. These had bloodless hands put upwards, white as 
 wax, and firm as death, clasped (as on a monument) in 
 praver for dear ones left behind, or in high thanksgiving. 
 And of these men there was nothing in their broad blue 
 eyes to fear. But others were of different sort : simple fel- 
 lows unused to pain, accustomed to the bill-hook, perhaps, 
 or rasp of the knuckles in a quick-set hedge, or making 
 some to do, at breakfast, over a thumb cut in sharpening a 
 scythe, and expecting their wives to make more to do. Yet 
 here lay these poor chaps, dead ; dead, after a deal of pain, 
 with little mind to bear it, and a soul they had never 
 thought of ; gone, their God alone knows whither, but to 
 mercy we may trust. Upon these things I cannot dwell, 
 and none, I trow, would ask me, only if a plain man saw 
 what I saw that morning, he (if God had blessed him with 
 the heart that is in most of us) must have sickened of all 
 desire to be great among mankind. 
 
 Seeing me riding to the front (where the work of death 
 went on, among the men of true English pluck, which, 
 when moved, no further moves), the fugitives called out to 
 me, in half-a-dozen dialects, to make no utter fool of myself, 
 for the great guns were come, and the fight was over ; all 
 the rest was slaughter. 
 
 " Arl oop wi Moonmo'," shouted one big fellow, a miner 
 of the Mendip hills, whose weapon was a pickaxe, " na oose 
 to vaight na moor. Wend thee hame, young mon, agin." 
 
 Upon this I stopped my horse, desiring not to be shot for 
 nothing, and eager to aid some poor sick people, who tried 
 to lift their arms to me. And this I did to the best of my 
 power, though void of skill in the business, and more in- 
 clined to weep with them than to check their weeping. 
 While I was giving a drop of cordial from my flask to one 
 poor fellow, who sat up, while his life was ebbing, and with 
 slow insistence urged me, when his broken voice would 
 come, to tell his wife (whose name I knew not) something 
 about an apple-tree, and a golden guinea stored in it, to di- 
 vide among six children — in the midst of this, I felt warm 
 lips laid against my cheek quite softly, and then a little 
 push, and behold it was a horse leaning over me ! I arose 
 in haste, and there stood Winnie, looking at me with be- 
 seeching eyes, enough to melt a heart of stone. Then 
 seeing my attention fixed, she turned her head, and glanced 
 
6o2 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 back sadly towards the place of battle, and gave a little 
 wistful neigh, and then looked me full in the face again, as 
 much as to say, " Do you understand ? " while she scraped 
 with one hoof impatiently. If ever a horse tried hard to 
 speak, it was Winnie at that moment. I went to her side 
 and patted her, but that was not what she wanted. Then I 
 offered to leap into the empty saddle, but neither did that 
 seem good to her, for she ran away toward the part of the 
 field at which she had been glancing back, and then turned 
 round, and shook her mane, entreating me to follow her. 
 
 Upon this I learned from the dying man where to find 
 his apple-tree, and promised to add another guinea to the 
 one in store for his children, and so, commending him to 
 God, I mounted my own horse again, and to A\'innie's great 
 delight, professed myself at her service. With her ringing 
 silvery neigh, such as no other horse of all I ever knew 
 could equal, she at once proclaimed her triumph, and told 
 her master (or meant to tell, if death should not have closed 
 his ears,) that she was coming to his aid, and bringing one 
 who might be trusted, of the higher race that kill. 
 
 A cannon-bullet fired low, and ploughing the marsh 
 slowly, met poor Winnie front to front, and she, being as 
 quick as thought, lowered her nose to sniff at it. It might 
 be a message from her master, for it made a mournful noise. 
 But luckily for Winnie's life, a rise of wet ground took the 
 ball, even under her very nose, and there it cut a splashy 
 groove, missing her off hind-foot by an inch, and scattering 
 black mud over her. It frightened me much more than 
 Winnie, of that I am quite certain, because, though I am 
 firm enough, when it comes to a real tussle, and the heart of 
 a fellow warms up, and tells him that he must go through 
 with it, yet I never did approve of making a cold pie of 
 death. 
 
 Therefore, with those reckless cannons, brazen-mouthed, 
 and bellowing, two furlongs off, or it might be more (and 
 the more the merrier), I would have given that year's hay- 
 crop for a bit of a hill, or a thicket of oaks, or almost even 
 a badger's earth. People will call me a coward for this 
 (especially when I had made up my mind that life was not 
 worth having without any sign of Lorna), nevertheless, I 
 cannot help it ; those were my feelings, and I set them 
 down, because they made a mark on me. At Glen Doone I 
 had fought, even against cannon, with some spirit and fury, 
 but now I saw nothing to fight about, but rather in every 
 poor doubled corpse, a good reason for not fighting. So, 
 
SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES. 603 
 
 in cold blood riding on, and yd ashamed that a man should 
 shrink where a horse went bravely, I east a bitter blame 
 upon the reckless ways of W innie. 
 
 Nearly all were scattereil now. ( )f the noble countr\-nien 
 (armed with scythe, or pickaxe, blacksmith's hammer, or 
 fold-pitcher), who had stood their liround for hours against 
 blazing musketry, from men whom they could not get at, by 
 reason of the water-dyke, and then against the deadly can- 
 non, dragged by the ISishop's horses to slaughter his own 
 sheep ; of these sturdy Englishmen, noble in their want of 
 sense, scarce one out of four remained for the cowards to 
 shoot down. " Cross the rhaine," they shouted out, " cross 
 the rhaine, and coom within rache," but the other mongrel 
 Britons, with a mongrel at their head, found it pleasanter 
 to shoot men, who could not shoot in answer, than to meet 
 the chance of mischief, from strong arms and stronger hearts. 
 
 The last scene of this piteous play was acting just as I 
 rode up. Broad daylight, and upstanding sun, winnowing 
 fog from the eastern hills, and spreading the moors with 
 freshness, all along the dykes they shone, glistened on the 
 willow-trunks, and touched the banks with a hoary grey. 
 But alas 1 those banks were touched more deeply with a 
 gory red, and strewn with fallen trunks, more woeful than 
 the wreck of trees, while howling, cursing, yelling, and the 
 loathsome reek of carnage, drowned the scent of new-mown 
 hay, and the carol of the lark. 
 
 Then the cavalry of the King, with their horses at full 
 speed, dashed from either side upon the helpless mob of 
 countrymen. A few pikes feebly levelled met them, but 
 they shot the pikemen, drew swords, and helter-skelter 
 leaped into the shattered and scattering mass. Right and 
 left, they hacked and hewed ; I could hear the snapping of 
 scythes beneath them, and see the flash of their sweeping 
 swords. How it must end was plain enough, even to one 
 like myself, who had never beheld such a battle before. 
 But Winnie led me away to the left ; and as I could not help 
 the people, neither stop the slaughter, but found the can- 
 non-bullets coming very rudely nigh me, I was only too glad 
 to follow her. 
 
CHAPTER LXV. 
 
 FALLING AMONG LAMBS. 
 
 HAT faithful creature, whom I be- 
 gan to admire as if she were my 
 own (which is no little thing for a 
 man to say of another man's horse), 
 stopped in front of a low black shed, 
 such as we call a "linhay," And 
 here she uttered a little greeting, in 
 a subdued and softened voice, hop- 
 ing to obtain an answer, such as her 
 master was wont to give in a cheery 
 manner. Receiving no reply, she 
 entered, and I (who could scarce 
 keep up with her, poor Kickums 
 being weary) leaped from his back, 
 and followed. There I found her 
 sniffing gently, but with great emo- 
 tion, at the body of Tom Faggus. 
 A corpse poor Tom appeared to be, 
 if ever there was one in this world ; 
 and I turned away, and felt unable to keep altogether from 
 weeping. But the mare either could not understand, or else 
 would not believe it. She reached her long neck forth, and 
 felt him with her under lip, passing it over his skin as softly 
 as a mother would do to an infant ; and then she looked up 
 at me again, as much as to say, " He is all right." 
 
 Upon this I took courage, and handled poor Tom, which 
 being young I had feared at first to do. He groaned very 
 feebly as I raised him up, and there was the wound, a great 
 savage one (whether from pike-thrust or musket-ball), gap- 
 ing and welling in his right side, from which a piece seemed 
 to be torn away. I bound it up with some of my linen, so 
 far as I knew how, just to stanch the flow of blood, until we 
 could get a doctor. Then I gave him a little weak brandy 
 and water, which he drank with the greatest eagerness, and 
 made sign to me for more of it. But not knowing how 
 
FALLINC; AMONG LAMllS. 605 
 
 far it was right to iiive cordial under the circumstances, 
 I handed him unmixed water that time, thinking that he 
 was too far gone to perceive the difference. But herein I 
 wronged Tom Faggus, for he shook his heatl, and frowned 
 at me. Even at the door of death, he would not drink what 
 Adam drank, by whom came death into the world. So I 
 gave him a little more can de vie, and he took it most sub- 
 missively. 
 
 After that he seemed better, and a little colour came into 
 his cheeks, and he looked at Winnie and knew her, and 
 would have her nose in his clammy hand, though I thought 
 it not good for either of them. \\'\\.\\ the stay of my arm he 
 sat upright, and faintly looked about him, as if at the end 
 of a violent dream, too much for his power of mind. Then 
 he managed to whisper, " Is ^\'innie hurt?" 
 
 " As sound as a roach," I answered. " Then so am I," said 
 he, "put me upon her back, John ; she and I die together." 
 
 Surprised as I was at this fatalism (for so it appeared to 
 me), of which he had often shown symptoms before (but I 
 took them for mere levity), now I knew not what to do, for 
 it seemed to me a murderous thing to set such a man on 
 horseback, where he must surely bleed to death, even if he 
 could keep the saddle. But he told me, Avith manv breaks 
 and pauses, that unless I obeyed his orders, he would tear 
 off all my bandages and accept no further aid from me. 
 
 While I was yet hesitating, a storm of horse at full gallop 
 went bv, tearing, swearing, bearing awav all the countrv 
 before them. Only a little pollard hedge kept us from their 
 blood-shot eyes. " Now is the time," said mv cousin Tom, 
 so far as I could make out his words ; "on their heels, I am 
 safe, John, if I only have A\'mnie under me. Winnie and I 
 die together." 
 
 Seeing this strong bent of his mind, stronger than any 
 pains of death, I even did what his feeble eves sometimes 
 implored, and sometimes commanded. A\'ith a strong sash, 
 from his own hot neck, bound and tvv'isted tight as wax 
 around his damaged waist, I set him upon Winnie's back, 
 and placed his trembling feet in stirrups, with a band from 
 one to other, under the good mare's body, so that no swerve 
 could throw him out ; and then I said, " Lean forward, Tcmi, 
 it will stop your hurt from bleeding." He leaned almost on 
 the neck of the mare, which, as I knew, must close the 
 wound, and the light of his eyes was quite different, and the 
 pain of his forehead unstrung itself, as he felt the undulous 
 readiness of her volatile paces under him. 
 
6o6 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "God bless you, John, I am safe," he whispered, fearing 
 to open his lungs much ; "who can come near my Winnie 
 mare ? A mile of her gallop is ten years of life. Look out 
 for yourself, John Ridd." He sucked his lips, and the mare 
 went off, as easy and swift as a swallow. 
 
 " Well," thought I, as I looked at Kickums, ignobly crop- 
 ping a bit of grass, " I have done a very good thing, no 
 doubt, and ought to be thankful to God for the chance. 
 But as for getting away unharmed, with all these scoundrels 
 about me, and only a foundered horse to trust in — good 
 and spiteful as he is — upon the whole, I begin to think that 
 I have made a fool of myself, according to my habit. No 
 wonder Tom said, ' Look out for yourself ! ' I shall look 
 out from a prison window, or perhaps even out of a halter. 
 And then, what will Lorna think of me?" 
 
 Being in this wistful mood, I resolved to abide awhile, 
 even where fate had thrown me, for my horse required good 
 rest, no doubt, and was taking it even while he cropped, 
 with his hind legs far away stretched out, and his fore legs 
 gathered under him, and his muzzle on the mole-hills, so 
 that he had five supportings from his mother earth. More- 
 over the linhay itself was full of very ancient cow-dung, than 
 which there is no balmier and more maiden soporific. 
 Hence I resolved, upon the whole, though grieving about 
 breakfast, to light a pipe, and go to sleep, or at least until 
 the hot sun should arouse the flies. 
 
 I may have slept three hours, or four, or it might be even 
 five — for I never count time, while sleeping — when a shak- 
 ing, more rude than the old landlady's, brought me back to 
 the world again. I looked up with a mighty yawn, and saw 
 twenty, or so, of foot-soldiers. 
 
 "This linhay is not yours," I said, when they had quite 
 aroused me, with tongue, and hand, and even sword-prick ; 
 "what business have y<iu here, good fellows?" 
 
 "Business bad for you," said one, "and will lead you to 
 the gallows." 
 
 " Do you wish to know the way out again ? " I asked, very 
 quietly, as being no braggadocio. 
 
 " We will show thee the way out," said one ; " And the way 
 out of the world," said another; "But not the way to 
 heaven," said one chap, most unlikely to know it ; and there- 
 upon they all fell wagging, like a bed of clover leaves in the 
 morning, at their own choice humour. 
 
 "\\'ill you pile your arms outside," I said, "and try a bit 
 of fair play with me ? " 
 
^"ALLI^'(; amonc lami;.s. 607 
 
 For I disliked these men sincerely, and was fain to teach 
 them a lesson, thev were so unchristian in appearance, 
 having faces of a coffee colour, and dirty beards half over 
 them. Moreover their dress was outrageous, and their 
 address still worse. However I had wiser let them alone, 
 as will appear afterwards. These savage-looking fellows 
 laughed at the idea of my having any chance against some 
 twenty of them; but I knew that the place was in my 
 favour, for my part of it had been fenced off (for weaning a 
 calf, most likely), so that only two could come at me at 
 once, and I must be very much out of training if I could 
 not manage two of them. Therefore I laid aside my car- 
 bine, and the two horse-pistols, and they with many coarse 
 jokes at me went a little way outside, and set their weapons 
 against the wall, and turned up their coat-sleeves jauntily, 
 and then began to hesitate. 
 
 " Go you first. Bob," I heard them say ; " you are the big- 
 gest man of us, and Dick the wrestler along of you. Us 
 will back you up, boy." 
 
 " I'll warrant I'll draw the badger," said Bob, "and not a 
 tooth will I leave him. But mind, for the honour of Kirke's 
 lambs, every man stands me a glass of gin." Then he, and 
 another man, made a rush, and the others came double- 
 quick-march on their heels. But as Bob ran at me most 
 stupidly, not even knowing how to place his hands, I 1 aught 
 him with my knuckles at the back of his neck, and with all 
 the sway of my right arm sent him over the heads of his 
 comrades. Meanwhile Dick the wrestler had grappled me, 
 expecting to show off his art, of which, indeed, he had some 
 small knowledge, but being quite of the light weights, in a 
 second he was flying after his companion. Bob. 
 
 Now these two men were hurt so badly, the light one hav- 
 ing knocked his head against the lintel of the outer gate, 
 that the rest had no desire to encounter the like misfortune. 
 So they hung back whispering, and before they had made 
 up their minds, I rushed into the midst of them. The sud- 
 denness and the weight of my onset took them wholly by 
 surprise, and for once in their lives, perhaps, Kirke's lambs 
 were worthy of their name. Like a flock of sheep at a dog's 
 attack, thev fell away, hustling one another, and my only 
 difficulty was not to tumble over them. 
 
 I had taken my carbine out with me, having a fondness 
 for it, but the two horse-pistols I left behind, and therefore 
 felt good title to take two from the magazine of the lambs. 
 And with these and my carbine I leaped upon Kickums, 
 
6o8 LORXA DOOXE. 
 
 who was now quite glad of a gallop again, and I bade 
 adieu to that mongrel lot, yet they had the meanness to 
 shoot at me. Thanking God for my deliverance (inasmuch 
 as those men would have strung me up from a pollard ash 
 without trial, as I heard them tell one another, and saw the 
 tree they had settled upon), I ventured to go rather fast on 
 my way, with doubt and uneasiness urging me. And now 
 my way was home again. Nobody could say but what I 
 had done my duty and rescued Tom (if he could be res- 
 cued) from the mischief into which his own perverseness 
 and love of change (rather than deep religious convictions, 
 to which our Annie ascribed his outbreak) had led, or 
 seemed likely to lead him. And how proud would my 
 mother be, and — ah, well, there was nobody else to be 
 proud of me now. 
 
 But while thinking these things, and desiring my break- 
 fast beyond any power of describing, and even beyond my 
 remembrance, I fell into another fold of lambs, from which 
 there was no exit. These like true crusaders, met me, 
 swaggering very heartily, and with their barrels of cider set 
 like so many cannon, across the road, over against a small 
 hostel. 
 
 " We have won the victory, my lord king, and we mean 
 to enjoy it. Down from thy horse and have a stoup of 
 cider, thou big rebel ! " 
 
 "No rebel am I. My name is John Ridd. I belong to 
 the side of the King, and I want some breakfast." 
 
 These fellows were truly hospitable, that much I will say 
 for them. Being accustomed to Arab ways, they could toss 
 a grill, or fritter, or the inner meaning of an egg into any 
 form they pleased, comely and very good to eat, and it led 
 me to think of Annie. So I made the rarest breakfast any 
 man might hope for, after all his troubles, and getting on 
 with these brown fellows better than could be expected, 
 I craved permission to light a pipe, if not disagreeable. 
 Hearing this they roared at me with a superior laughter, 
 and asked me whether or not I knew the tobacco-leaf from 
 the chick-weed, and when I was forced to answer no, not 
 having gone into the subject, but being content with any 
 thing brown, they clapped me on the back, and swore they 
 had never seen any one like me. Upon the whole, this 
 pleased me much, for I do not wish to be taken always as 
 of the common pattern, and so we smoked admirable to- 
 bacco — for they would not have any of mine, though very 
 courteous concerning it — and I was beginning to under- 
 
FALLINC AMDNC LAMllS. 609 
 
 Stand a little of what they told me, when up came those 
 confounded lambs who had shown more tail than head to 
 me in the linhay, as I mentioned. 
 
 Now, these men upset every thing. Having been among 
 wrestlers so much, as my duty compelled me to be, and hav- 
 ing learned the necessity of the rest which follows the con- 
 flict, and the right of discussion which all people have who 
 pay their si.xpence to enter, and how they obtrude this 
 right and their wisdom upon the man who has laboured, 
 until he forgets all the work he did, and begins to think 
 that they did it ; having some knowledge of this sort of 
 thing, and the flux of minds swimming in liquor, I foresaw 
 a brawl as plainly as if it were Bear Street in Barnstaple. 
 
 And a brawl there was, without any error, except of the 
 men who hit their friends, and those who defended their 
 enemies. My partners in beer-can and tobacco swore that I 
 was no prisoner, but the best and most loyal subject and the 
 finest-hearted fellow they had ever the luck to meet with. 
 Whereas the men from the linhay swore that I was a rebel 
 miscreant, and have me they would, with a rope's-end 
 ready, in spite of every [violent language] who had got 
 drunk at my expense and been misled by my [strong word] 
 lies. 
 
 While this fight was going on (and its mere occurrence 
 shows, perhaps, that my conversation in those davs was not 
 entirely despicable — else why should my new friends fight 
 for me when I had paid for the ale, anil therefore won the 
 wrong tense of gratitude ?) it was in my power at any mo- 
 ment to take horse and go. And this would have been my 
 wisest plan, and a very great saving of money, but somehow 
 I felt as if it would be a mean thing to slip off so. Even 
 while I was hesitating, and the men were breaking each 
 other's heads, a superior officer rode up with his sword 
 drawn and his face on fire. 
 
 ''\\'hat, my lambs, my lambs ! " he cried, smiting with the 
 flat of his sword ; "is this how you waste my time and my 
 purse when you ought to be catching a hundred prisoners, 
 worth ten pounds apiece to me? A\'ho is this young fellow 
 we have here ? Speak up, sirrah ; what art thou, and how 
 much will thy good mother pay for thee ? " 
 
 "My mother will pay naught for me," I answered, while 
 the lambs fell back and glowered at one another; "so 
 please your worship, I am no rebel, but an honest farmer, 
 and well proved of loyalty." 
 
 " Ha, ha ! A farmer art thou ? Those fellows always pay 
 
6lO LORNA DOONE. 
 
 the best. Good farmer, come to yon barren tree ; thou 
 shalt make it fruitful." 
 
 Colonel Kirke made a sign to his men, and before I could 
 think of resistance, stout new ropes were flung around me, 
 and with three men on either side, I was led along very 
 painfully. And now I saw, and repented deeply of my 
 careless folly, in stopping with those boon-companions, 
 instead of being far away. But the newness of their man- 
 ners to me, and their mode of regarding the world (differing 
 so much from mine own), as well as the flavour of their 
 tobacco, had made me quite forget my duty to the farm and 
 to myself. Yet methought they would be tender to me, 
 after all our speeches ; how, then, was I disappointed, when 
 the men who had drunk my beer, drew on those grievous 
 ropes twice as hard as the men I had been at strife with ! 
 Yet this may have been from no ill will, but simply that, 
 having fallen under suspicion of laxity, they were compelled, 
 in self-defence, now to be over-zealous. Nevertheless, 
 however pure and godly might be their motives, I beheld 
 myself in a grievous case, and likely to get the worst of it. 
 For the face of the Colonel was hard and stern as a block 
 of bog-wood oak, and though the men might pity me, and 
 think me unjustly executed, yet they must obey their orders, 
 or themselves be put to death. Therefore I addressed my- 
 self to the Colonel, in a most ingratiating manner, begging 
 him not to sully the glory of his victory, and dwelling upon 
 my pure innocence, and even good service to our lord 
 the King. But Colonel Kirke only gave command that I 
 should be smitten in the mouth, which office Bob, whom I 
 had flung so hard out of the linhay, performed with great 
 zeal and efficiency. But being aware of the coming smack, 
 I thrust forth a pair of teeth, upon which the knuckles of 
 my good friend made a melancholy shipwreck. 
 
 It is not in my power to tell half the thoughts that moved 
 me, when we came to the fatal tree, and saw two men hang- 
 ing there already, as innocent, perhaps, as I was, and hence- 
 forth entirely harmless. Though ordered by the Colonel to 
 look steadfastly upon them, I could not bear to do so, upon 
 which he called me a paltry coward, and promised my 
 breeches to any man who would spit upon my countenance. 
 This vile thing Bob, being angered, perhaps, by the smart- 
 ing wound of his knuckles, bravely stepped forward to do 
 for me, trusting, no doubt, to the rope I was led with. But, 
 unluckily, as it proved for him, my right arm was free for a 
 moment, and therewith I dealt him such a blow, that he 
 
FALLING AMONC LAMllS. 6ll 
 
 never spake again. For this tiling I have often grieved, 
 but the provocation was very sore to the pride of a young 
 man, and 1 trust that God has forgiven me. At the sound 
 and sight of that bitter stroke, the other men drew back, 
 and Colonel Kirke, now black in the face with fury and 
 vexation, gave orders for to shoot me, and cast me into the 
 ditch hard by. The men raised their pieces, and pointed 
 at me, waiting for the word to fire, and I, being quite over- 
 come by the hurry of these events, and quite unprepared to 
 die yet, could only think all upside down about Lorna, and 
 my mother, and wonder what each would say to it. I 
 spread my hands before my eyes, not being so brave as 
 some men, and hoping, in some foolish way, to cover my 
 heart with my elbows. I heard the breath of all around, as 
 if my skull were a sounding-board, and knew even how 
 the different men were fingering their triggers. And a cold 
 sweat broke all over me, as the Colonel, prolonging his 
 enjoyment, began slowly to say, " Fire." 
 
 But while he was yet dwelling on the " F," the hoofs of a 
 horse dashed out on the road, and horse and horseman 
 flung themselves betwi.\t me and the gun-muzzles. Sd nar- 
 rowly was I saved, that one man could not check his trig- 
 ger; his musket went off, and the ball struck the horse on 
 the withers, and scared him exceedingly. He began to lash 
 out with his heels all around, and the Colonel was glad to 
 keep clear of him, and the men made excuse to lower their 
 guns, not really wishing to shoot me. 
 
 "How now. Captain Stickles?" cried Kirke, the more 
 angry because he had shown his cowardice, " dare you, sir, 
 to come betwixt me and my lawful prisoner ? " 
 
 " Nay, hearken one moment, Colonel," replied my old 
 friend, Jeremy, and his damaged voice was the sweetest 
 sound I had heard for many a day, "for your own sake 
 hearken." He looked so full of momentous tidings, that 
 Colonel Kirke made a sign to his men not to shoot me till 
 further orders, and then he went aside with Stickles, so 
 that in spite of all my anxiety I could not catch what passed 
 between them. But I fancied that the name of the Lord 
 Chief-Justice Jeffreys was spoken more than once, and with 
 emphasis, and deference. 
 
 " Then I leave him in your hands. Captain Stickles," said 
 Kirke at last, so that all might hear him, and though the 
 news was so good for me, the smile of baffled malice made 
 his dark face look most hideous, "and I shall hold you 
 answerable for the custody of this prisoner." 
 
6l2 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 "Colonel Kirke, I will answer for him," Master Stickles 
 replied, with a grave bow, and one hand on his breast, 
 " John Ridd, you are my prisoner. Follow me, John 
 Ridd." 
 
 Upon that, those precious lambs flocked away, leaving 
 the rope still around me, and some were glad, and some 
 were sorry, not to see me swinging. Being free of my arms 
 again, I touched my hat to Colonel Kirke, as became his 
 rank and experience, but he did not condescend to return 
 my short salutation, having espied in the distance a prisoner 
 out of whom he might make money. 
 
 I wrung the hand of Jeremy Stickles, for his truth and 
 goodness, and he almost wept (for since his wound he had 
 been a weakened man) as he answered, "Turn for turn, 
 John. You saved my life from the Doones, and by the 
 mercy of God I have saved you from a far worse company. 
 Let your sister Annie know it." 
 
CHAPTER LXVI. 
 
 suitai;le devotion. 
 
 OW Kickums was not like Winnie, 
 any more than a man is like a 
 woman, and so he had not fol- 
 lowed my fortunes, except at his 
 own distance. No doubt but what 
 he felt a certain interest in me, 
 but his interest was not devotion, 
 and man might go his way and 
 be hanged, rather than horse 
 would meet hardship. Therefore 
 seeing things to be bad, and his 
 master involved in trouble, what 
 did the horse do but start for the 
 ease and comfort of Plover's liar- 
 rows, and the plentiful rations of 
 oats abiding in his own manger. 
 For that I do not blame him. It 
 is the manner of mankind. 
 
 But I could not help being very 
 uneasy at the thought of my mother's discomfort and 
 worry, when she should spv this good horse coming home, 
 without any master or rider, and I almost hoped that he 
 might be caught (although he was worth at least twenty 
 pounds) by some of the King's troopers, rather than find 
 his way home, and spread distress among our people. \'et 
 knowing his nature, I doubted if any could catch, or catch- 
 ing, would keep him. 
 
 Jeremy Stickles assured me, as we took the road to 
 Bridgewater, that the only chance for my life (if I still re- 
 fused to fly) was to obtain an order forthwith for my dis- 
 patch to London, as a suspected person iirdeed, but not 
 found in open rebellion, and believed to be under the 
 patronage of the great Lord Jeffreys. "For," said he, "in 
 a few hours' time you would fall into the hands of Lord 
 Feversham, who has won this fight, without seeing it, and 
 
6l4 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 who has returned to bed again, to have his breakfast more 
 comfortably. Now he may not be quite so savage, per- 
 haps, as Colonel Kirke, nor find so much sport in gibbeting, 
 but he is equally pitiless, and his price, no doubt, would 
 be higher." 
 
 " I will pay no price whatever," I answered, " neither 
 will I fly. An hour agone I would have fled, for the sake 
 of my mother and the farm. But now that I have been 
 taken prisoner, and my name is known, if I fly the farm is 
 forfeited, and my mother and sister must starve. More- 
 over, I have done no harm ; I have borne no weapons 
 against the King, nor desired the success of his enemies. 
 I like not that the son of a bonaroba should be King of 
 England, neither do I count the papists any worse than 
 we are. If they have aught to try me for, I will stand my 
 trial." 
 
 " Then to London thou must go, my son. There is no 
 such thing as trial here ; we hang the good folk without it, 
 which saves them much anxiety. But quicken thy step, 
 good John ; I have influence with Lord Churchill, and we 
 must contrive to see him, ere the foreigner falls to work 
 again. Lord Churchill is a man of sense, and imprisons 
 nothing but his money." 
 
 We were lucky enough to find this nobleman, who has 
 since become so famous by his foreign victories. He re- 
 ceived us with great civility, and looked at me with much 
 interest, being a tall and fine young man himself, but not 
 to compare with me in size, although far better favoured. 
 I liked his face well enough, but thought there was some- 
 thing false about it. He put me a few keen questions, 
 such as a man not assured of honesty might have found 
 hard to answer, and he stood in a very upright attitude, 
 making the most of his figure. 
 
 I saw nothing to be proud of, at the moment, in this in- 
 terview, but since the great Duke of Marlborough rose to 
 the top of glory, I have tried to remember more about him 
 than my conscience quite backs up. How should I know 
 that this man would be foremost in our kingdom in five- 
 and-twenty years or so ; and not knowing, why should I 
 heed him, except for my own pocket ? Nevertheless, I 
 have been so cross-questioned — far worse than by young 
 Lord Churchill — about His Grace the Duke of Marl- 
 borough, and what he said to me, and what I said then, 
 and how His Grace replied to that, and whether he 
 smiled like another man, or screwed up his lips like a 
 
SUITABLE lii:V(iTI(iX. 615 
 
 button (as our parish tailor said of him), and whether I 
 knew from the turn of his nose that no Frenchman could 
 stand before him ; all these inquiries have worried me so, 
 ever since the battle of Blenheim, that if tailors would 
 only print upon waistcoats, I would give double price for 
 a vest bearing this inscription, " No information can be 
 given about the Duke of Marlborough." 
 
 Now this good Lord Churchill — for one might call him 
 good by comparison with the very bad people around him 
 — granted, without any long hesitation, the order for my 
 safe deliverance to the Court of King's Bench at West- 
 minster, and Stickles, who had to report in London, was 
 empowered to convey me, and made answerable for pro- 
 ducing me. This arrangement would have been entirely 
 to my liking, although the time of year was bad for leav- 
 ing Plover's Barrows so ; but no man may quite choose his 
 times, and on the whole I would have been quite content to 
 visit London, if my mother could be warned that nothing 
 was amiss with me, only a mild, and as one might say, nomi- 
 nal captivity. And to prevent her anxiety, I did my best to 
 send a letter through good Serjeant Bloxham, of whom I 
 heard as quartered with r)umbarton's regiment at Chedzuy. 
 But that regiment was away in pursuit, and I was forced 
 to entrust my letter to a man who said that he knew him, 
 and accepted a shilling to see to it. 
 
 For fear of any unpleasant change, we set forth at once 
 for London, and truly thankful may I be that God in His 
 mercy spared me the sight of the cruel and bloody work 
 with which the whole country reeked and howled, during 
 the next fortnight. I have heard things that set mv hair 
 on end, and made me loathe good meat for davs, but I 
 make a point of setting down only the things which I saw 
 done, and in this particular case, not many will quarrel 
 with my decision. Enough, therefore, that we rode on (for 
 Stickles had found me a horse at last) as far as Wells, 
 where we slept that night, and being joined in the morn- 
 ing by several troopers and orderlies, we made a slow but 
 safe journey to London, by way of Bath and Reading. 
 
 The sight of London warmed my heart with various 
 emotions, such as a cordial man must draw from the heart 
 of all humanity. Here there are quick ways and manners, 
 and the rapid sense of knowledge, and the power of under- 
 standing ere a word be spoken, \Vhereas at Oare, you 
 must say a thing three times, very slowly, before it gets 
 inside the skull of the good man you are addressing. And 
 
6l6 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 yet we are far more clever there, than in any parish for 
 fifteen miles. 
 
 But what moved me most, when I saw again the noble 
 oil and tallow of the London lights, and the dripping 
 torches at almost every corner, and the handsome sign- 
 boards, was the thought that here my Lorna lived, and 
 walked and took the air, and perhaps thought now and 
 then of the old days in the good farm-house. Although I 
 would make no approach to her, any more than she had 
 done to me (upon which grief I have not dwelt for fear of 
 seeming selfish), yet there must be some large chance, or 
 the little chance might be enlarged, of falling in with the 
 maiden somehow, and learning how her mind was set. If 
 against me, all should be over. I was not the man to sigh 
 and cry for love, like a hot-brained Romeo ; none should 
 even guess my grief, except my sister Annie. 
 
 But if Lorna loved me still — as in my heart of hearts I 
 hoped — then would I for no one care, except her own 
 delicious self. Rank and title, wealth and grandeur, all 
 should go to the winds, before they scared me from my 
 own true love. 
 
 Thinking thus, I went to bed in the centre of London 
 town, and was bitten so grievously, by creatures whose 
 name is " Legion," mad with the delight of getting a whole- 
 some farmer among them, that verily I was ashamed to 
 walk in the courtly parts of the town next day, having 
 lumps upon my face the size of a pickling walnut. The 
 landlord said that this was nothing, and that he expected 
 in two days at the utmost, a very fresh young Irishman, 
 for whom they would all forsake me. Nevertheless, I de- 
 clined to wait, unless he could find me a hayrick to sleep 
 in, for the insects of grass only tickle. He assured me that 
 no hayrick could now be found in London, upon which I 
 was forced to leave him, and with mutual esteem we parted. 
 
 The next night I had better luck, being introduced to 
 a decent widow, of ver)r high Scotch origin. That house 
 was swept and garnished so that not a bit was left to eat 
 for either man or insect. The change of air having made 
 me hungry, I wanted something after supper, being quite 
 ready to pay for it, and showing my purse as a symptom. 
 But the face of ^\'idow MacAlister, when I proposed to 
 have some more food, was a thing to be drawn (if it could 
 be drawn further) by our new caricaturist. 
 
 Therefore I left her, also, for liefer would I be eaten 
 myself than have nothing to eat ; and so I came back to 
 
SUITABLE liEVOTIOX. (317 
 
 my old furrier, the which was a thoroughly hearty man, 
 and welcomed me to my room again, with two shillings 
 added to the rent, in the joy of his heart at seeing me. 
 Being under parole to Master Stickles, I only went out 
 betwixt certain hours, because I was accounted as liable to 
 be called upon; for what purpose I knew not, but hoped 
 it might be a good one. I felt it a loss and a hindrance 
 to me, that I was so bound to remain at home during the 
 session of the courts of law, for thereby the chance of ever 
 beholding Lorna was greatly damaged, if not altogether 
 done away with. For these were the very hours in which 
 the people of fashion, and the high world, were wont to 
 appear to the rest of mankind, so as to encourage them. 
 And of course, by this time, the Lady Lorna was high 
 among people of fashion, and was not likely to be seen out 
 of fashionable hours. It is true that there were some 
 places of expensive entertainment at which the better sort 
 of mankind might be seen and studied, in their hours of 
 relaxation, by those of the lower order who could pay 
 sufficiently. But alas, my money was getting low, and the 
 privilege of seeing my betters was more and more denied 
 to me, as my cash drew shorter. For a man must have a 
 good coat at least, and the pockets not wholly empty, 
 before he can look at those whom (lod has created for his 
 ensample. 
 
 Hence, and from many other causes — part of which was 
 my own pride — it happened that I abode in London be- 
 twixt a month and five weeks' time ere ever I saw Lorna. 
 It seemed unfit that I should go and waylay her, and spy 
 on her, and say (or mean to sav), " Lo, here is vour poor 
 faithful farmer, a rnan who is unworthy of you, by means 
 of his common birth, and yet who dares to crawl across 
 your path, that you may pity him. For God's sake show 
 a little pity, though you may not feel it." Such behaviour 
 might be comely in a love-lorn boy, a page to some grand 
 princess, but I, John Ridd, would never stoop to the low- 
 ering of love so. 
 
 Nevertheless I heard of Lorna, from my worthy furrier, 
 almost every day, and with a fine exaggeration. This 
 honest man was one of those who, in virtue of their trade, 
 and nicety of behaviour, are admitted into noble life, to 
 take measurements and show patterns. And while so do- 
 ing they contrive to acquire what is to the English mind at 
 once the most important and most interesting of all knowl- 
 edge — the science of being able to talk about the titled 
 
6l8 LORNA DUOXE. 
 
 people. So my furrier (whose name was Ramsack), having 
 to make robes for peers, and cloaks for their wives and 
 otherwise, knew the great folk, sham or real, as well as he 
 knew a fox, or skunk, from a wolverine skin. 
 
 And when, with some fencing and foils of inquiry, I 
 hinted about Lady Lorna Dugal, the old man's face be- 
 came so pleasant, that I knew her birth must be wondrous 
 high. At this my own countenance fell, I suppose — for 
 the better she was born, the harder she would be to marry 
 — and mistaking my object, he took me up : 
 
 " Perhaps you think, Master Ridd, that because her lady- 
 ship, Lady Lorna Dugal, is of Scottish origin, therefore her 
 birth is not as high as of our English nobility. If you 
 think so, you are wrong, sir. She comes not of the sandy 
 Scotch race, with high cheek-bones, and raw shoulder- 
 blades, who set up pillars in their court-yards. But she 
 comes of the very best Scotch blood, descended from the 
 Norsemen. Her mother was of the very noblest race, the 
 Lords of Lome ; higher even than the great Argyle, who 
 has lately made a sad mistake, and paid for it most sadly. 
 And her father was descended from the King Dugal, who 
 fought against Alexander the Great. No, no. Master Ridd ; 
 none of your promiscuous blood, such as runs in the veins 
 of half our modern peerage." 
 
 "Why should you trouble yourself about it. Master Ram- 
 sack?" I replied, "let them all go their own ways, and 
 let us all look up to them, whether they come by hook 
 or crook." 
 
 "Not at all, not at all, my lad. That is not the way to 
 regard it. We look up at the well-born folk, and sideways 
 at the base-born." 
 
 "Then we are all base-born ourselves. I will look up to 
 no man, except for what himself has done." 
 
 " Come, Master Ridd, you might be lashed from New- 
 gate to Tyburn, and back again, once a week, for a twelve- 
 month, if some people heard you. Keep your tongue more 
 close, young man, or here you lodge no longer, albeit I 
 love your company, which smells to me of the hay-field. 
 Ah, I have not seen a hay-field for nine-and-twenty years, 
 John Ridd. The cursed moths keep me at home every day 
 of the summer." 
 
 "Spread your furs on the hay-cocks," I answered very 
 boldly ; " the indoor moth cannot abide the presence of the 
 outdoor ones." 
 
 " Is it so ? " he answered, " I never thought of that before. 
 
SUITABLE DEV(i'lll_).\. 619 
 
 And yet I have known such strange things happen in the 
 way of fur, that I can well believe it. If you only knew, 
 John Ridd, the way in which they lay their eggs, and how 
 
 they work tail foremost" 
 
 "Tell me nothing of the kind," I replied, with equal 
 confidence, "they cannot work tail foremost; and they 
 have no tails to work with." For I knew a little about 
 grubs, and the ignorance concerning them, which we have 
 no right to put up with. However, not to go into that (for 
 the argument lasted a fortnight, and then was only come 
 so far as to begin again). Master Ramsack soon convinced 
 me of the things I knew already : the excellence of Lorna's 
 birth, as well as her lofty place at Ct)urt, and beauty, and 
 wealth, and elegance. But all these only made me sigh, 
 and wish that I were born to them. 
 
 From Master Ramsack I discovered that the nobleman 
 to whose charge Lady Lorna had been committed by the 
 Court of Chancery, was Earl Brandir of Loch .Vwe, her poor 
 mother's uncle. For the Countess of Dugal was daughter, 
 and only child, of the last Lord Lome, whose sister had 
 married Sir Ensor Doone, while he himself had married 
 the sister of Earl Brandir. This nobleman had a country 
 house near the village of Kensington, and here his niece 
 dwelled with him, when she was not in attendance on Her 
 Majesty the Queen, who had taken a liking to her. Now 
 since the King had begun to attend the celebration of 
 mass in the chapel at Whitehall, — and not at ^^'estminstcr 
 Abbev, as our gossips had averred — he had given order 
 that the doors should be thrown open, so that all who 
 could make interest to get into the antechamber, might see 
 this form of worship. Master Ramsack told me that Lorna 
 was there almost every Sunday, their Majesties being 
 most anxious to have the presence of all the nobility of 
 the Catholic persuasion, so as to make a goodly show. 
 And the worthy furrier, having influence with the door- 
 keepers, kindly obtained admittance for me, one Sunday, 
 into the antechamber. 
 
 Here I took care to be in waiting, before the royal pro- 
 cession entered ; but being unknown, and of no high rank, 
 I was not allowed to stand forward among the better 
 people, but ordered back into a corner very dark and 
 dismal, the verger remarking, with a grin, that I could see 
 over all other heads, and must not set my own so high. 
 Being frightened to find myself among so many people, of 
 great rank and gorgeous apparel, I blushed at the notice 
 
620 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 drawn upon me by this uncourteous fellow, and silently fell 
 back into the corner by the hangings. 
 
 You may suppose that my heart beat high, when the 
 King and Queen appeared, and entered, followed by the 
 Duke of Norfolk bearing the sword of state, and by several 
 other noblemen, and people of repute. Then the doors of 
 the chapel were thrown wide open, and though I could only 
 see a little, being in the corner so, I thought that it was 
 beautiful. Bowers of rich silk were there, and plenty of 
 metal shining, and polished wood with lovely carving ; flow- 
 ers, too, of the noblest kind, and candles made by some 
 body who had learned how to clarify tallow. This last 
 thing amazed me more than all, for our dips never will 
 come clear, melt the mutton fat how you will. And me- 
 thought that this hanging of flowers about was a very 
 pretty thing ; for if a man can worship God best of all be- 
 neath a tree, as the natural instinct is, surely when by fault 
 of climate the tree would be too apt to drip, the very best 
 make-believe is to have enough, and to spare, of flowers, 
 which to the dwellers in London, seem to have grown on 
 the tree denied them. 
 
 Be that as it may, when the King and Queen crossed the 
 threshold, a mighty flourish of trumpets arose, and a wav- 
 ing of banners. The Knights of the Garter (whoever they 
 be) were to attend that day in state ; and some went in, 
 and some stayed out, and it made me think of the differ- 
 ence betwixt the ewes and the wethers. For the ewes will 
 go wherever you lead them ; but the wethers will not, 
 having strong opinions, and meaning to abide by them. 
 And one man I noticed was of the wethers, to wit, the 
 Duke of Norfolk, who stopped outside with the sword of 
 state, like a beadle with a rapping-rod. This has taken 
 more time to tell than the time it happened in. For after 
 all the men were gone, some to this side, some to that, ac- 
 cording to their feelings, a number of ladies, beautifully 
 dressed, being of the Queen's retinue, began to enter, and 
 were stared at three times as much as the men had been. 
 And indeed they were worth looking at (which men never 
 are to my ideas, when they trick themselves with gewgaws), 
 but none was so well worth eye-service as my own beloved 
 Lorna. She entered modestly and shyly, with her eyes 
 upon the ground, knowing the rudeness of the gallants, 
 and the large sum she was priced at. Her dress was of 
 the purest white, very sweet and simple, without a line of 
 ornament, for she herself adorned it. The way she walked. 
 
SUITAl'.I.E ])1-;\'()TI()X. 621 
 
 and touched her skirt (rather than seemed to hold it up), 
 with a white hand bearinj; one red rose, this, and her 
 stately supple neck, and the flowing- of her hair would 
 show, at a distance of a hundred )-arils, that she could be 
 none but Lorna Doone — Lorna Doone of my early hjve, 
 in the days when she blushed for her name before me, by 
 reason of dishonesty, but now the Lady Lorna Dui^al, as 
 far beyond reproach as above my poor affection. All my 
 heart, and all my mind, gathered themselves upon her. 
 Would she see me, or would she pass? \\'as there instinct 
 in our love ? 
 
 By some strange chance she saw me. Or was it through 
 our destiny ? While with eyes kept sedulously on the 
 marble floor, to shun the weight of admiration thrust too 
 boldly on them, while with shy quick steps she passed, 
 some one (perhaps with purpose), trod on the skirt of her 
 clear white dress ; with the quickness taught her bv many 
 a scene of danger, she looked up and her eyes met mine. 
 
 As I gazed upon her, steadfastly, yearningly, yet with 
 some reproach, and more of pride than humility, she made 
 me one of the courtly bows which I do so much detest, 
 yet even that was sweet and graceful, when mv Lorna did 
 it. But the colour of her pure clear cheeks was nearlv as 
 deep as that of my own, when she went on for the religious 
 work. And the shining of her eyes was owing to an un- 
 paid debt of tears. 
 
 Upon the whole I was satisfied. Lorna had seen me, 
 and had not (according to the phrase of the high world 
 then) even tried to "cut" me. Whether this low phrase is 
 born of their own stupid meanness, or whether it comes of 
 necessity exercised on a man without money, I know not, 
 and I care not. But one thing I know right well : any 
 man who "cuts" a man (except for vice, or meanness) 
 should be quartered without quarter. 
 
 All these proud thoughts rose within me, as the lovely 
 form of Lorna went inside, and was no more seen. And 
 then I felt how coarse I was ; how apt to think strong 
 thoughts, and so on, without brains to bear me out, even 
 as a hen's egg laid without enough of lime, and looking 
 only a poor jelly. 
 
 Nevertheless, I waited on, as my usual manner is. For 
 to be beaten while running away is ten times worse than 
 to face it out, and take it, and have done with it. So at 
 least I have always found, because of reproach of con- 
 science ; and all the things those clever people carried on 
 
622 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 inside, at large, made me long for our Parson Bowden, that 
 he might know how to act. 
 
 While I stored up in my memory enough to keep our 
 parson going through six pipes on a Saturday night — to 
 have it as right as could be next day — a lean man with a 
 yellow beard, too thin for a good Catholic (which religion 
 always fattens,) came up to me, working sideways, in the 
 manner of a female crab. 
 
 "This is not to my liking," I said ; "if aught thou hast, 
 speak plainly, while they make that musical roar inside." 
 
 Nothing had this man to say, but with many sighs, be- 
 cause I was not of the proper faith, he took my reprobate 
 hand to save me, and with several religious tears, looked 
 up at me, and winked with one eye. Although the skin of 
 my palms was thick, I felt a little suggestion there, as of a 
 gentle leaf in spring, fearing to seem too forward. I paid 
 the man, and he went happy ; for the standard of heretical 
 silver is purer than that of the Catholics. 
 
 Then I lifted up my little billet, and in that dark corner 
 read it, with a strong rainbow of colours coming from the 
 angled light. And in mine eyes there was enough to make 
 rainbow of strongest sun, as my anger clouded off. 
 
 Not that it began so well, but that in my heart I knew 
 (ere three lines were through me) that I was with all heart 
 loved — and beyond that, who may need? The darling of 
 my life went on, as if I were of her own rank, or even 
 better than she was ; and she dotted her "i's" and crossed 
 her "t's," as if I were at least a schoolmaster. All of it 
 was done in pencil ; but as plain as plain could be. In my 
 cofBn it shall lie, wuth my ring, and something else. There- 
 fore will I not expose it to every man who buys this book, 
 and haply thinks that he has bought me to the bottom of 
 my heart. Enough for men of gentle birth (who never are 
 inquisitive) that my love told me, in her letter, just to 
 come and see her. 
 
 I ran away and could not stop. To behold even her, at 
 the moment, would have dashed my fancy's joy. Yet my 
 brain was so amiss, that I must do something. Therefore 
 to the river Thames, with all speed, I hurried, and keep- 
 ing all my best clothes on (indued for sake of Lorna,) into 
 the quiet stream I leaped, and swam as far as London 
 Bridge, and ate noble dinner afterwards. 
 
CHAPTER LXVII. 
 
 LORNA STILL IS LORNA. 
 
 LTHOUGH a man may be as 
 simple as the flowers of the 
 field, knowing when, but scarce- 
 ly why, he closes to the bitter 
 wind ; and feeling why, but 
 scarcely when, he opens to the 
 genial sun ; yet without his 
 questing much into the capsule 
 of himself — to do which is a 
 misery — he may have a general 
 notion how he happens to be 
 getting on. 
 
 I felt myself to be getting on 
 better than at any time since 
 the last wheat-harvest, as I took 
 the lane to Kensington upon 
 the Monday evening. For al- 
 though no time was given in 
 my Lorna's letter, I was not 
 than decencv required. And 
 though I went and watched the house, tlecency would not 
 allow me to knock on the Sunday evening, especially when 
 I found at the corner that his lordship was at home. 
 
 The lanes and fields between Charing Cross and the vil- 
 lage of Kensington are, or were at that time, more than 
 reasonably infested with footpads, and with highwaymen. 
 However, my stature and holly club kept these fellows from 
 doing more than casting sheep's eyes at me. For it was 
 still broad daylight, and the view of the distant villages, 
 Chelsea, Battersea, T3'burn, and others, as well as a few 
 large houses, among the hams, and towards the river, made 
 it seem less lonely. Therefore I sang a song in the broad- 
 est Exmoor dialect, which caused no little amazement in the 
 minds of all who met me. 
 
 When I came to Earl Brandir's house, my natural modesty 
 
 inclined to wait any more 
 
624 LORNA D(JONE. 
 
 forbade me to appear at the door for guests, therefore I 
 went to the entrance for servants and retainers. Here, to 
 my great surprise, who should come and let me in but little 
 Gwenny Carfax, whose very existence had almost escaped 
 my recollection. Her mistress, no doubt, had seen me com- 
 ing, and sent her to save trouble. But when I offered to 
 kiss Gwenny, in my joy and comfort to see a farm-house 
 face again, she looked ashamed, and turned away, and would 
 hardly speak to me. 
 
 I followed her to a little room, furnished very daintily, 
 and there she ordered me to wait, in a most ungracious 
 manner. "Well," thought I, "if the mistress and the maid 
 are alike in temper, better it had been for me to abide at 
 Master Ramsack's." But almost ere my thought was done, 
 I heard the light quick step which I knew as well as Watch, 
 my dog, knew mine, and my breast began to tremble, like 
 the trembling of an arch ere the keystone is put in. 
 
 Almost ere I hoped — for fear and hope were so entangled, 
 that they hindered one another — the velvet hangings of the 
 door-way parted, with a little doubt, and then a good face 
 put on it. Lorna, in her perfect beauty, stood before the 
 crimson folds, and her dress was all pure white, and her 
 cheeks were rosy pink, and her lips were scarlet. 
 
 Like a maiden, with skill and sense checking violent 
 impulse, she stayed there for one moment only, just to be 
 admired, and then, like a woman, she came to me, seeing 
 how alarmed I was. The hand she offered me I took, and 
 raised it to my lips with fear, as a thing too good for me. 
 "Is that all?" she whispered; and then her eyes gleamed 
 up at me ; and in another instant she was weeping on my 
 breast. 
 
 " Darling Lorna, Lady Lorna," I cried, in astonishment, 
 yet unable but to keep her closer to me, and closer, "surely, 
 though I love you so, this is not as it should be." 
 
 "Yes it is, John. Yes, it is. Nothing else should ever 
 be. Oh, why have you behaved so ? " 
 
 "I am behaving," I replied, "to the very best of my 
 ability. There is no other man in the world could hold you 
 so, without kissing you." 
 
 "Then why don't you do it, John?" asked Lorna, looking 
 up at me, with a flash of her old fun. 
 
 Now this matter, proverbially, is not so meet for discus- 
 sion as it is for repetition. Enough that we said nothing 
 more than, " Oh, John, how glad I am!" and, "Lorna, 
 Lorna, Lorna ! " for about five minutes. Then my darling 
 
U)RXA STILL IS L(.)KXA. 625 
 
 drew back proudly ; with blushing cheeks, and tear-bright 
 eyes, she began to cross-examine me. 
 
 "Master John Ridd, you shall tell the truth, the whole 
 truth, and nothing but the truth. I have been in Chancery, 
 sir, and can detect a story. Now why have you never, for 
 more than a twelvemonth, taken the smallest notice of yuur 
 old friend, Mistress Lorna Doone ? " Although she spoke 
 in this lightsome manner, as if it made no difference, I saw 
 that her quick, heart was moving, and the flash of her eyes 
 controlled. 
 
 "Simply for this cause," I answered, "that my old friend, 
 and true love, took not the smallest heed of me. Nor knew 
 I where to find her." 
 
 " What ! " cried Lorna, and nothing more, being over- 
 come with wondering, and much inclined to fall away, but 
 for my assistance. I told her, over and over again, that 
 not a single syllable of any message from her, or tidings of 
 her welfare, had reached me, or any one of us, since the 
 letter she left behind, except by soldiers' gossip. 
 
 "Oh, you poor dear John!" said Lorna, sighing at 
 thought of my misery; "how wonderfully good of you, 
 thinking of me as you must have done, not to marry that 
 little plain thing (or perhaps I should say that lovely crea- 
 ture, for I have never seen her). Mistress Ruth — 1 forget 
 her name, but something like a towel." 
 
 " Ruth Huckaback is a worthy maid," I answered with 
 some dignity, " and she alone of all our world, except, indeed, 
 poor Annie, has kept her confidence in you, and told me not 
 to dread your rank, but trust your heart, Lady Lorna." 
 
 "Then Ruth is my best friend," she answered, "and is 
 worthv of you, John. And now remember one thing, dear, 
 if God should part us, as may be by nothing short of death, 
 try to marry that little Ruth, when you cease to remember 
 me. And now for the head traitor. I have often suspected 
 it, but she looks me in the face, and wishes — fearful things, 
 which I cannot repeat." 
 
 With these words, she moved an implement such as I had 
 not seen before, and which made a ringing noise at a serious 
 distance. And before I had ceased wondering — for if such 
 things go on, we might ring the church bells, while sitting 
 in our back kitchen — little Gwenny Carfax came, with a 
 grave and sullen face. 
 
 " Gwenny," began my Lorna, in a tone of high rank and 
 dignity, " go and fetch the letters, which I gave you at 
 various times for dispatch to Mistress Ridd." 
 
626 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " How can I fetch them, when they are gone ? It be no 
 use for him to tell no lies" 
 
 "Now, Gwenny, can you look at me?" I asked very 
 sternly, for the matter was no joke; to me, after a year's 
 unhappiness. 
 
 " I don't want to look at 'ee. AVhat should I look at a 
 young man for, although he did offer to kiss me ?" 
 
 I saw the spite and impudence of this last remark, and 
 so did Lorna, although she could not quite refrain from 
 smiling. 
 
 " Now, Gwenny, not to speak of that," said Lorna very 
 demurely, "if you thought it honest to keep the letters, was 
 it honest to keep the money?" 
 
 At this the Cornish maiden broke into a rage of honesty : 
 " A' putt the money by for 'ee. 'Ee shall have every farden 
 of it." And so she flung out of the room. 
 
 "And, Gwenny," said Lorna very softly, following under 
 the door-hangings, " if it is not honest to keep the money, 
 it is not honest to keep the letters, which would have been 
 worth more than any gold, to those who were so kind to 
 you. Your father shall know the whole, Gwenny, unless 
 you tell the truth." 
 
 "Now, a' will tell all the truth," this strange maiden an- 
 swered, talking to herself at least as much as to her mistress, 
 while she went out of sight and hearing. And then I was 
 so glad at having my own Lorna once again, cleared of all 
 contempt for us, and true to me through all of it, that I 
 would have forgiven Gwenny for treason, or even forgery. 
 
 " I trusted her so much," said Lorna, in her old ill-for- 
 tuned way, " and look how she has deceived me ! That is 
 why I love you, John (setting other things aside), because 
 you never told me falsehood, and you never could, you 
 know." 
 
 " Well, I am not so sure of that. I think I could tell anjr 
 lie, to have you, darling, all my own." 
 
 " Yes. And perhaps it might be right. To other people 
 besides us two. But you could not do it to me, John. You 
 never could do it to me, you know." 
 
 Before I quite perceived my way to the bottom of this 
 distinction — although beyond doubt a valid one — Gwenny 
 came back with a leathern bag, and tossed it upon the table. 
 Not a word did she vouchsafe to us, but stood there, look- 
 ing injured. 
 
 " Go, and get your letters, John,'" said Lorna very gravely, 
 " or at least your mother's letters, made of messages to you. 
 
LORXA STILL IS Li>K\A. 627 
 
 As for Gwenny, she shall j^o before Lord Justice Jeffreys." 
 1 knew that Lorna meant it not, but thought that the girl 
 deserved a frightening, as indeed she did. But we both mis- 
 took the courage of this child of Cornwall. She stepped 
 upon a little round thing, in the nature of a stool, such as I 
 never had seen before, and thus delivered her sentiments: 
 
 "And you may take me, if )-(>u please, before the great 
 Lord Jefferays. I have done no more than duty, though 
 I did it crookedly, and told a heap of lies, for your sake. 
 And pretty gratitude I gets." 
 
 "Much gratitude you have shown," replied Lorna, "tu 
 Master Ridd, for all his kindness, and his goodness to vou. 
 "Who was it that went down, at the peril of his life, and 
 brought your father to you, when you had lost him for 
 months and months ? A\"ho was it ? Answer me, Gwenny ? " 
 
 " Girt Jan Ridd," said the handmaid, very sulkily. 
 
 "What made you treat me so, little Gwennv ? " I asked, 
 for Lorna would not ask, lest the reply should vex me. 
 
 " Because 'ee be'est below her so. Her shanna' have a 
 poor farmering chap, not even if her were a Carnishman. 
 All her land, and all her birth — and who be you, I'd like 
 to know ? " 
 
 "Gwenny, you may go," said Lorna, retldening with 
 quiet anger, "and remember that you come not near me for 
 the next three days. It is the only way to punish her," she 
 continued to me, when the maid was gone, in a storm of 
 sobbing and weeping. " Now, for the next three davs, she 
 will scarcely touch a morsel of food, and scarcely dei a thing 
 but cry. Make up your mind to one thing, John, if you 
 mean to take me, for better for worse, you will have to take 
 Gwenny with me." 
 
 " I would take you with fifty Gwennies," said I, "although 
 every one of them hated me, which I do not believe this 
 little maid does, in the bottom of her heart." 
 
 " No one can possiblv hate you, J(_)hn," she answered 
 very softly, and I was better pleased with this than if she 
 had called me the most noble and glorious man in the 
 kingdom. 
 
 After this, we spoke of ourselves, and the way people 
 would regard us, supposing that when Lorna came to be 
 her own free mistress (as she must do in the course of time) 
 she were to throw her rank aside, and refuse her title, and 
 caring not a fig for folk who cared less than a fig-stalk for 
 her, should shape her mind to its native bent, and to my 
 perfect happiness. It was not my place to say much, lest I 
 
628 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 should appear to use an improper and selfish influence. 
 And of course to all men of common sense, and to every 
 body of middle age (who must know best what is good for 
 youth), the thoughts which my Lorna entertained would be 
 enough to prove her madness. 
 
 Not that we could not keep her well, comfortably, and 
 with nice clothes, and plenty of flowers, and fruit, and land- 
 scape, and the knowledge of our neighbours' affairs, and 
 their kind interest in our own. Still this would not be as if 
 she were the owner of a county, and a haughty title, and 
 able to lead the first men of the age by her mind, and face, 
 and money. 
 
 Therefore was I quite resolved not to have a word to say, 
 while this young queen of wealth and beauty, and of noble- 
 man's desire, made her mind up how to act for her purest 
 happiness. But to do her justice, this was not the first 
 thing she was thinking of, the test of her judgment was 
 only this, " How will my love be happiest ? " 
 
 ■' Now, John," she cried, for she was so quick that she 
 always had my thoughts beforehand, " why will you be 
 backward, as if you cared not for me ? Do you dream that 
 I am doubting ? My mind has been made up, good John, 
 that you must be my husband, for — well, I will not say 
 how long, lest you should laugh at my folly. But I believe 
 it was ever since you came, with your stockings off, and 
 the loaches. Right early for me to make up my mind, but 
 you know that you made up yours, John, and, of course, I 
 knew it, and that had a great effect on me. Now, after all 
 this age of loving, shall a trifle sever us ? " 
 
 I told her that it was no trifle, but a most important 
 thing, to abandon wealth and honour and the brilliance of 
 high life, and be despised by every one for such abundant 
 folly. Moreover, that I should appear a knave for taking 
 advantage of her youth, and boundless generosity, and 
 ruining (as men would say) a noble maid by my selfishness. 
 And I told her outright, having worked myself up by my 
 own conversation, that she was bound to consult her guar- 
 dian, and that without his knowledge, I would come no 
 more to see her. Her flash of pride at these last words 
 made her look like an empress, and I was about to explain 
 myself better, but she put forth her hand, and stopped me. 
 
 " I think that condition should rather have proceeded 
 from me. You are mistaken, Master Ridd, in supposing 
 that I would think of receiving you in secret. It was a 
 different thing in Glen Uoone, where all except yourself 
 
LORNA STILL IS LORNA. 629 
 
 were thieves, and when 1 was but a simple child, and 
 oppressed with constant fear. Vou are quite right in threat- 
 ening to visit me thus no more, but I think you might have 
 waited for an invitation, sir." 
 
 "And you are quite right, Lady Lorna, in pointing out 
 my presumption. It is a fault that must ever be found in 
 any speech of mine to you." 
 
 This I said so humbly, and not with any bitterness — for 
 I knew that I had gone tot) far — and made her su polite a 
 bow, that she forgave me in a moment, and we begged 
 each other's pardon. 
 
 " Now, will you allow me just to explain my own view of 
 this matter, John?" said she, once more my darling. " It 
 may be a very foolish view, but I shall never change it. 
 Please not to interrupt me, dear, until you have heard me 
 to the end. In the first place, it is quite certain that 
 neither you nor I can be happy without the other. Then 
 what stands between us ? ^Vo^ldly ■ position, and nothing; 
 else. I have no more education than you have, John Ridd ; 
 nay, and not so much. My birth and ancestry are not one 
 whit more pure than yours, although thev ma)' be better 
 known. Your descent from ancient freeholders, for five- 
 and-twenty generations of .i^ood, honest men, although you 
 bear no coat of arms, is better than the lineage of nine 
 proud English noblemen out of every ten I meet with. In 
 manners, though your mighty strength, and hatred of any 
 meanness, sometimes break out in violence — of which 1 
 must try to cure vou, dear — in manners, if kindness, and 
 gentleness, and modesty are the true things wanted, you are 
 immeasurably above anv of our Court gallants, who, indeed, 
 have very little. As for difference of religion, we allow for 
 one another, neither having been brought up in a bitterly 
 pious manner." 
 
 Here, though the tears were in my eyes, at the loving 
 things love said of me, I could not help a little laugh, at the 
 notion of any bitter piety being found among the Doones, 
 or even in mother, for that matter. Lorna smiled, in her 
 slyest manner, and went on again : 
 
 " Now, you see, I have proved my point ; there is nothing 
 between us but worldly position — if you can defend me 
 against the Doones, for which, I trow, I may trust you. 
 And worldly position means wealth, and title, and the right 
 to be in great houses, and the pleasure of being envied. I 
 have not been here for a year, John, without learning some- 
 thing. Oh, I hate it ; how I hate it ! Of all the people I 
 
630 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 know, there are but two, besides my uncle, who do not 
 either covet or detest me. And who are those two, think 
 you ? " 
 
 " Gwenny, for one," I answered. 
 
 " Yes, Gwenny for one, and the Queen for the other. 
 The one is too far below me (I mean, in her own opinion), 
 and the other too high above. As for the women who dis- 
 like me, without having even heard my voice, I simply have 
 nothing to do with them. As for the men who covet me, 
 for my land and money, I merely compare them with you, 
 John Ridd, and all thought of them is over. Oh, John, 
 you must never forsake me, however cross I am to you. I 
 thought you would have gone, just now, and though I 
 would not move to stop you, my heart would have broken." 
 
 " You don't catch me go in a hurr)^," I answered very 
 sensibly, "when the loveliest maiden in the world, and the 
 best, and the dearest loves me. All my fear of you is gone, 
 darling Lorna, all my fear" 
 
 " Is it possible you could fear me, John, after all we have 
 been through together ? Now you promised not to inter- 
 rupt me ; is this fair behaviour ? "\^'ell, let me see where I 
 left off; — oh, that my heart would have broken. Upon 
 that point I will say no more, lest you should grow con- 
 ceited, John, if any thing could make you so. But I do 
 assure you that half London — however, upon that point, 
 also, I will check my power of speech, lest you think me 
 conceited. And now to put aside all nonsense, though I 
 have talked none for a year, John, having been so unhappy, 
 and now it is such a relief to me" 
 
 " Then talk it for an hour," said I, " and let me sit and 
 watch you. To me it is the very sweetest of all sweetest 
 wisdom." 
 
 " Nay, there is no time," she answered, glancing at a 
 jewelled timepiece, scarcely larger than an oyster, which 
 she drew from near her waist-band, and then she pushed it 
 away, in confusion, lest its wealth should startle me. " My 
 uncle will come home in less than half-an-hour, dear, and 
 you are not the one to take a side-passage, and avoid him. 
 I shall tell him that you have been here, and that I mean 
 you to come again." 
 
 As Lorna said this, with a manner as confident as need 
 be, I saw that she had learned in town the power of her 
 beauty, and knew that she could do with most men aught 
 she set her mind upon. And as she stood there, flushed 
 with pride and faith in her own loveliness, and radiant with 
 
LtlKNA STILL IS LOKNA. 
 
 631 
 
 the love itself, I felt that she must do exactly as she pltased 
 with every one. For now, in turn, and elegance, and rich- 
 ness, and variety, there was nothing to compare with her 
 face, unless it were her figure. Therefore 1 gave in and 
 said : 
 
 " Darling, do just what you please. Only make no rogue 
 of me." 
 
 For that she gave me the simplest, kindest, and sweetest 
 of all kisses, and I went down the great stairs grandly, 
 thinking of nothing else but that. 
 
CHAPTER LXVIII. 
 
 JOHN IS JOHN NO LONGER. 
 
 T would be hard for me to tell the 
 state of mind in which I lived for 
 a long time after this. I put 
 away from me all torment and 
 the thought of future cares, and 
 the sight of difficulty, and to my- 
 self appeared, which means that 
 I became the luckiest of lucky 
 fellows since the world itself be- 
 gan. I thought not of the har- 
 vest even, nor of the men who 
 would get their wages without 
 having earned them, nor of my 
 mother's anxiety and worry about 
 John Fry's great fatness (which 
 was growing upon him), and how 
 she would cry fifty times in a day, 
 " Ah, if our John would only come 
 home, how different every thing 
 would look ! " 
 
 Although there were no soldiers now quartered at Plov- 
 er's Barrows, all being busied in harassing the country and 
 hanging the people where the rebellion had thriven most, 
 my mother, having received from me a message contain- 
 ing my place of abode, contrived to send me, by the pack- 
 horses, as fine a maund as need be of provisions, and 
 money, and other comfort. Therein I found addressed to 
 Colonel Jeremiah Stickles, in Lizzie's best handwriting, 
 half a side of the dried deer's flesh in which he rejoiced so 
 greatly. Also, for Lorna, a fine green goose, with a little 
 salt towards the tail, and new-laid eggs inside it, as well 
 as a bottle of brandied cherries, and seven, or it may have 
 been eight, pounds of fresh home-made butter. Moreover, 
 to myself there was a letter full of good advice, excellently 
 well expressed, and would have been of the greatest value 
 
JOHX IS JOHN NO r.dXCER. 633 
 
 if I had cared to read it. But I read all about the farm 
 affairs, and the man who had offered himself to our ISetty 
 for the five pounds in her stocking, as well as the antics 
 of Sally Snowe, and how she had almost thrown herself at 
 Parson Bouxlcn's head (old enough to be her grandfather), 
 because on the Sunday after the hanging of a Countisbury 
 man, he had preached a beautiful sermon about Christian 
 love, which Lizzie, with her sharp eyes, found to be the 
 work of good Bishop Ken. Also, I read that the Doones 
 were quiet, the parishes round about having united to feed 
 them well through the harvest time, so that, after the day's 
 hard work, the farmers might go to bed at night. And 
 this plan had been found to answer well, and to save much 
 trouble on both sides, so that every body wondered it had 
 not been done before. But Lizzie thought that the 
 Doones could hardly be expected much longer to put up 
 with it, and probably would not have done so now, but for 
 a little adversity, to wit, that the famous Colonel Kirke 
 had in the most outrageous manner hanged no less than 
 six of them, who were captured among the rebels, for he 
 said that men of their rank and breeding, and, above all, 
 of their religion, should have known better than to join 
 plough-boys, and carters, and pickaxemen a;.;ainst our 
 lord the King, and his holy Holiness the I'ope. This 
 hanging of so many Doones caused some indignation 
 among people who were used to them, and it seemed for 
 a while to check the rest from any spirit of enterprise. 
 
 Moreover, I found from this same letter (which was 
 pinned upon the knuckle of a leg of mutton, for fear of 
 being lost in straw) that good Tom Faggus was at home 
 again, and nearly cured of his dreadful wound, but in- 
 tended to go to war no more, only to mind his family. 
 And it grieved him more than any thing he ever could 
 have imagined that his duty to his family, and the strong 
 power of his conscience, so totally forbade him to come up 
 and see after me. For now his design was to lead a new 
 life, and be in charity with all men. Many better men 
 than he had been hanged, he saw no cause to doubt, but 
 by the grace of God, he hoped himself to cheat the gallows. 
 
 There was no further news of moment in this very clever 
 letter, except that the price of horses' shoes was gone up 
 again, though already twopence-farthing each, and that 
 Betty had broken her lover's head with the stocking full 
 of money, and then in the corner it was written that the 
 distinguished man of war and worshipful scholar, Master 
 
634 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Bloxham, was now promoted to take the tolls and catch 
 all the rebels around our part. 
 
 Lorna was greatly pleased with the goose, and the butter, 
 and the brandied cherries, and the Earl JBrandir himself 
 declared that he never tasted better than those last, and 
 would beg the young man from the country to procure 
 him instructions for making them. This nobleman, being 
 as deaf as a post, and of a very solid mind, could never 
 be brought to understand the nature of my thoughts to- 
 wards Lorna. He looked upon me as an excellent youth, 
 who had rescued the maiden from the Doones, whom he 
 cordially detested, and learning that I had thrown two of 
 them out of window (as the story was told him), he patted 
 me on the back and declared that his doors would ever be 
 open to me, and that I could not come too often. 
 
 I thought this very kind of his lordship, especially as it 
 enabled me to see my darling Lorna, not, indeed, as often 
 as I wished, but, at any rate, very frequently, and as many 
 times as modesty (ever my leading principle) would in 
 common conscience approve of. And I made up my mind 
 that if ever I could help Earl Brandir, it would be — as we 
 say when with brandy and water — the "proudest moment 
 of my life" when I could fulfil the pledge. 
 
 And I soon was able to help Lord Brandir, as I think, in 
 two different ways : first of all, as regarded his mind, and 
 then as concerned his body, and the latter, perhaps, was 
 the greatest service at his time of life. But not to be too 
 nice about that, let me tell how these things were. 
 
 Lorna said to me one day, being in a state of excitement 
 — whereto she was over-prone, when reft of my slowness 
 to steady her : 
 
 "I will tell him, John; I must tell him, John. It is 
 mean of me to conceal it." 
 
 I thought that she meant all about our love, which we 
 had endeavoured thrice to drill into his fine old ears, but 
 could not make him comprehend without the risk of bring- 
 ing the house down, and so I said, "By all means, darling, 
 have another try at it." 
 
 Lorna, however, looked at me — for her eyes told more 
 than tongue — as much as to say, "Well, you are a stupid ! 
 We agreed to let that subject rest." And then she saw 
 that I was vexed at my own want of quickness, and so she 
 spoke very kindly : 
 
 "I meant about his poor son, dearest, the son of his old 
 age, almost, whose loss threw him into that dreadful cold 
 
JOHN IS JOHN NO LONGER. 635 
 
 — for he went, without hat, to look for him — which ended 
 in his losing the use of his dear old ears. I believe if 
 we could only get him to Plover's Barrows for a month, 
 he would be able to hear again. And look at his age ; he 
 is not much over seventy, John, you know, and I hope 
 that you will be able to hear me long after you are sev- 
 enty, John." 
 
 "Well," said I, "God settles that, or, at any rate, He 
 leaves us time to think about those questions when we are 
 over fifty. Now let me know what you want, Lorna. 
 The idea of my being seventy ! But you would still be 
 beautiful." 
 
 "To the one who loves me," she answered, trying to 
 make wrinkles in her pure, bright forehead, "but if you 
 will have common sense, as you always will, John, whether 
 I wish it or otherwise, I want to know whether I am bound, 
 in honour and in conscience, to tell my dear and good old 
 uncle what I know about his son." 
 
 " First let me understand quite clearly," said I, never 
 being in a hurry, except when passion moves me, " what 
 his lordship thinks at present, and how far his mind is 
 urged with sorrow and anxiety." This was not the first 
 time we had spoken of the matter. 
 
 "Why, you know, John, well enough," she answered, 
 wondering at my coolness, "that my poor uncle still be- 
 lieves that his one beloved son will come to li,i,^ht and life • 
 again. He has made all arrangements accordingly ; all his 
 property is settled on that supposition. He knows that 
 young Alan always was what he calls a 'feckless ne'er-do- 
 weel,' but he loves him all the more for that. He cannot 
 believe that he will die without his son coming back to 
 him, and he always has a bedroom ready, and a bottle (if 
 Alan's favourite wine, cool from out the cellar ; he has 
 made me work him a pair of slippers from the size of a 
 mouldy boot, and if he hears of a new tobacco — much as 
 he hates the smell of it — he will go to the other end of 
 London to get some for Alan. Now, you know how deaf 
 he is, but if any one say 'Alan,' even in the place outside 
 the door, he will make his courteous bow to the very high- 
 est visitor, and be out here in a moment, and search the 
 entire passage, and yet let no one know it." 
 
 "It is a piteous thing," I said, for Lorna's eyes were full 
 of tears. 
 
 " .\nd he means me to marry him. It is the pet scheme 
 of his life. I am to grow more beautiful, and more highly 
 
636 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 taught, and graceful, until it pleases Alan to ccnie back 
 and demand me. Can you understand this matter, John, 
 or do you think my uncle mad?" 
 
 " Lorna, I should be mad myself to call any man mad 
 for hoping." 
 
 " Then will you tell me what to do ? It makes me very 
 sorrowful, for I know that Alan Brandir lies below the sod 
 in Doone-valley." 
 
 "And if you tell his father," I answered, softly, but 
 clearly, "in a few weeks he will lie below the sod in Lon- 
 don — at least, if there is any." 
 
 "Perhaps you are right, John," she replied; "to lose 
 hope must be a dreadful thing when one is turned of sev- 
 enty, therefore I will never tell him." 
 
 The other way in which I managed to help the good 
 Earl Brandir was of less true moment to him, but as he 
 could not know of the first, this was the one which moved 
 him. And it happened pretty much as follows — though 
 I hardly like to tell, because it advanced me to such a 
 height as I myself was giddy at, and which all my friends 
 resented greatly (save those of my own family), and even 
 now are sometimes bitter, in spite of all my humility. 
 Now, this is a matter of history, because the King was 
 concerned in it, and being so strongly misunderstood, es- 
 pecially in my own neighbourhood, I will overcome (so 
 far as I can) my diffidence in telling it. 
 
 The good Earl Brandir was a man of the noblest charity. 
 True charity begins at home, and so did his, and was 
 afraid of losing the way if it went abroad. So this good 
 nobleman kept his money in a handsome pewter box, with 
 his coat of arms upon it, and a double lid, and locks. 
 Moreover, there was a heavy chain fixed to a staple in the 
 wall, so that none might carry off the pewter with the 
 gold inside of it. Lorna told me the box was full, for she 
 had seen him go to it, and she often thought that it would 
 be nice for us to begin the world with. I told her that she 
 must not allow her mind to dwell upon things of this sort, 
 being wholly against the last commandment set up in our 
 church at Oare. 
 
 Now, one evening towards September, when the days 
 were drawing in, looking back at the house to see whether 
 Lorna were looking after me, I espied (by a little glimpse, 
 as it were) a pair of villainous fellows (about whom there 
 could be no mistake) watching from the thicket-corner, 
 some hundred yards or so behind the good Earl's dwelling. 
 
JOHN IS JOHN NO I.oN(;ER. 637 
 
 "There is mischief afoot," thought I to myself, being 
 thoroughly conversant with theft from my knowledge of 
 the Doones ; "how will be the moon to-night, and when 
 may we expect the watch ? " 
 
 1 found that neither moon nor watch could be looked 
 for until the morning ; the moon, of course, before the 
 watch, and more likely to be punctual. Therefore I re- 
 solved to wait and see what those two villains did, and save 
 (if it were possible) the Earl of Brandir's pewter box. 
 But, inasmuch as those bad men were almost sure to have 
 seen me leaving the house, and looking back, and striking 
 out on the London road, I marched along at a merry pace 
 until they could not discern me, and then I fetched a com- 
 pass round, and refreshed myself at a certain inn, entitled 
 "The Cross-bones and Buttons." 
 
 Here I remained until it was very nearly as dark as 
 pitch, and the house being full of foot-pads and cut- 
 throats, I thought it right to leave them. One or two 
 came after me in the hope of designing a stratagem, but I 
 dropped them in the darkness, and knowing all the neigh- 
 bourhood well, I took up my position, two hours before 
 midnight, among the shrubs at the eastern end of Lord 
 Brandir's mansion. Hence, although I might not see, I 
 could scarcely fail to hear, if any unlawful entrance, either 
 at back or front, were made. 
 
 From my own observation, I thought it likely that the 
 attack would be in the rear, and so, indeed, it came to 
 pass. For when all the lights were quenched, and all the 
 house was quiet, I heard a low and wily whistle from a 
 clump of trees close by, and then three figures passed be- 
 tween me and a whitewashed wall, and came to a window 
 which opened into a part of the servants' basement. This 
 window was carefully raised by some one inside the house, 
 and after a little whispering, and something which sounded 
 like a kiss, all the three men entered. 
 
 "Oh, you villains!" I said to myself. "This is worse 
 than any Doone job, because there is treachery in it." 
 But without waiting to consider the subject from a moral 
 point of view, I crept along the wall and entered very 
 quietly after them, being rather uneasy about my life, be- 
 cause I bore no fire-arms, and had nothing more than my 
 holly staff for even a violent combat. 
 
 To me this was matter of deep regret, as I followed 
 these vile men inward. Nevertheless, I was resolved that 
 my Lorna should not be robbed again. Through us (or, at 
 
638 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 least, through our Annie) she had lost that brilliant neck- 
 lace, which then was her only birthright, therefore it be- 
 hoved me doubly to preserve the pewter box, which must 
 belong to her in the end, unless the thieves got hold of it. 
 
 I went along very delicately (as a man who has learned 
 to wrestle can do, although he may weigh twenty stone), 
 following carefully the light brought by the traitorous 
 maid, and shaking in her loose, dishonest hand. I saw her 
 lead the men into a little place called a pantry, and there 
 she gave them cordials, and I could hear them boasting. 
 
 Not to be too long over it — which they were much in- 
 clined to be — I followed them from this drinking-bout, by 
 the aid of the light they bore, as far as Earl Brandir's bed- 
 room, which I knew because Lorna had shown it to me 
 that I might admire the tapestry. But I had said that no 
 horse could ever be shod as the horses were shod therein, 
 unless he had the foot of a frog as well as a frog to his foot. 
 And Lorna had been vexed at this (as taste and high art 
 always are at any small accurate knowledge), and so she 
 had brought me out again before I had time to admire 
 things. 
 
 Now, keeping well away in the dark, yet nearer than 
 was necessary to my own dear Lorna's room, I saw these 
 fellows try the door of the good Earl Brandir, knowing 
 from the maid, of course, that his lordship could hear 
 nothing except the name of Alan. They tried the lock, 
 and pushed at it, and even set their knees upright, but 
 a Scottish nobleman may be trusted to secure his door 
 at night. So they were forced to break it open, and at 
 this the guilty maid, or woman, ran away. These three 
 rogues — for rogues they were, and no charity may deny 
 it — burst into Earl Brandir's room, with a light, and a 
 crowbar, and tire-arms. I thought to myself that this was 
 hard upon an honest nobleman, and if further mischief 
 could be saved, I would try to save it. 
 
 When I came to the door of the room, being myself in 
 shadow, I beheld two bad men trying vainly to break open 
 the pewter box, and the third with a pistol muzzle laid to 
 the night-cap of his lordship. With foul face, and yet 
 fouler words, this man was demanding the key of the box, 
 which the other men could by no means open, neither 
 drag it from the chain. " I tell you," said this aged Earl, 
 beginning to understand at last what these rogues were up 
 for, "I will give no key to you. It all belongs to my boy, 
 Alan. No one else shall have a farthing." 
 
640 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 " Then you may count your moments, lord. The key is 
 in your old cramped hand. One, two, and at three I shoot 
 you." 
 
 I saw that the old man was abroad, not with fear, but 
 with great wonder, and the regret of deafness. And I 
 saw that rather would he be shot than let these men go 
 rob his son, buried now, or laid to bleach in the tangles of 
 the wood, three, or it might be four, years agone, but still 
 alive to his father. Hereupon my heart was moved, and 
 I resolved to interfere. The thief with the pistol began to 
 count as I crossed the floor very quietly, while the old Earl 
 fearfully gazed at the muzzle, but clenched still tighter 
 his wrinkled hand. The villain, with hair all over his 
 eyes, and the great horse-pistol levelled, cried, " three ! " 
 and pulled the trigger, but, luckily, at that very moment, 
 I struck up the barrel with my staff, so that the shot 
 pierced the tester, and then, with a spin and a thwack, I 
 brought the good holly down upon the rascal's head in a 
 manner which stretched him upon the floor. 
 
 iVIeanwhile, the other two robbers had taken the alarm 
 and rushed at me, one with a pistol, and one with a 
 hanger, which forced me to be very lively. Fearing the 
 pistol most, I flung the heavy velvet curtain of the bed 
 across that he might not see where to aim at me, and then 
 stooping very quickly, I caught up the senseless robber, 
 and set him up for a shield and target, whereupon he was 
 shot immediateh', without having the pain of knowing it, 
 and a happy thing it was for him. Now the other two 
 were at my mercy, being men below the average strength, 
 and no hanger, except in most skilful hands, as well as 
 firm and strong ones, has any chance to a powerful man 
 armed with a stout cudgel, and thoroughly practised in 
 single-stick. 
 
 So I took these two rogues and bound them together, 
 and leaving them under charge of the butler (a worthy 
 and shrewd Scotchman), I myself went in search of the 
 constables, whom, after some few hours, I found, neither 
 were they so drunk but what they could take roped men 
 to prison. In the morning, these two men were brought 
 before the Justices of the Peace, and now my wonderful 
 luck appeared, for the merit of having defeated and 
 caught them would never have raised me one step in the 
 State, or in public consideration, if they had only been 
 common robbers, or even notorious murderers. But when 
 these fellows were recognized by some one in the court as 
 
JOHN IS JOHN NO LONGER. 64 1 
 
 Protestant witnesses out of employment, companions and 
 understrappers to Oates, and lledioe, and Carstairs, and 
 hand-in-glove with Dangerfield, Turberville, and Dugdale 
 — in a word, the very men against whom His Majesty, the 
 King, bore the bitterest rancour, but whom he had hith- 
 erto failed to catch — when this was laid before the public 
 (with emphasis and admiration), at least a dozen men 
 came up, whom I had never seen before, and prayed me 
 to accept their congratulations, and to be sure to remem- 
 ber them, for all were of neglected merit, and required no 
 more than a piece of luck. 
 
 I answered them very modestly, and each according to 
 his worth, as stated by himself, who, of course, could 
 Judge the best. The magistrate made me many compli- 
 ments, ten times more than I deserved, and took good 
 care to have them copied, that His Majesty might see 
 them. And ere the case was thoroughly heard, and those 
 poor fellows were committed, more than a score of gen- 
 erous men had offered to lend me a hundred pounds 
 wherewith to buy a new Court suit when called before His 
 Majesty. 
 
 Now this may seem very strange to us, who live in a 
 better and purer age — or say at least that we do so — and 
 yet who are we to condemn our fathers, for teaching us 
 better manners, and at their own expense? \\'ith these 
 points any virtuous man is bound to deal quite tenderly, 
 making allowance for corruption, and not being too sure 
 of himself. And to tell the truth, although 1 had seen so 
 little of the world as yet, that which astonished me in the 
 matter was not so much that they paid me court, as that 
 they found out so soon the expediency of doing it. 
 
 In the course of that same afternoon, I was sent for by 
 His Majestv. He had summoned first the good Earl 
 Brandir, and received the tale from him, not without exag- 
 geration, although my lord was a Scotchman. But the 
 chief thing His Majesty cared to know was that, beyond 
 all possible doubt, these were the very precious fellows 
 from perjury turned to robbery. 
 
 Being fully assured at last of this, His Majesty had 
 rubbed his hands, and ordered the boots of a stricter pat- 
 tern, which he himself had invented, to be brought at 
 once, that he might have them in the best possible order. 
 And he oiled them himself, and expressed his fear that 
 there was no man in London quite competent to work 
 them. Nevertheless he would try one or two, rather than 
 
643 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 wait for his pleasure, till the torturer came from Edin- 
 burgh. 
 
 The next thing he did was to send for me ; and in great 
 alarm and flurry, I put on my best clothes, and hired a 
 fashionable hair-dresser, and drank half-a-gallon of ale, 
 because both my hands were shaking. Then forth I set, 
 with my holly staff, wishing myself well out of it. I was 
 shown at once, and before I desired it, into His Majesty's 
 presence, and there I stood most humbly, and made the 
 best bow I could think of. 
 
 As I could not advance any further — for I saw that 
 the Queen was present, which frightened me tenfold — His 
 Majesty, in the most gracious manner, came down the 
 room to encourage me. And as I remained with my head 
 bent down, he told me to stand up, and look at him. 
 
 "I have seen thee before, young man," he said; "thy 
 form is not one to be forgotten. Where was it? Thou art 
 most likely to know." 
 
 " May it please Your Most Gracious Majesty the King," 
 I answered, finding my voice in a manner which surprised 
 myself ; "it was in the Royal Chapel." 
 
 Now I meant no harm whatever by this. I ought to 
 have said the "Ante-Chapel," but I could not remember 
 the word, and feared to keep the King looking at me. 
 
 "I am well pleased," said his Majesty, with a smile 
 which almost made his dark and stubborn face look pleas- 
 ant, "to find that our greatest subject, greatest I mean 
 in the bodily form, is a good Catholic. Thou needest not 
 say otherwise. The time shall be, and that right soon, 
 when men shall be proud of the one true faith." Here he 
 stopped, having gone rather far; but the gleam of his 
 heavy eyes was such that I durst not contradict. 
 
 "This is that great Johann Reed," said her Majesty, 
 coming forward because the King was in meditation, "for 
 whom I have so much heard, from the dear, dear Lorna. 
 Ah, she is not of this black countree, she of the breet 
 Italic." 
 
 I have tried to write it, as she said it, but it wants a 
 better scholar to express her mode of speech. 
 
 " Now, John Ridd," said the King, recovering from his 
 thoughts about the true Church, and thinking that his wife 
 was not to take the lead upon me, " thou hast done great 
 service to the realm, and to religion. It was good to save 
 Earl Brandir, a loyal and Catholic nobleman, but it was 
 great service to catch two of the vilest blood-hounds ever 
 
JOHN IS JOHN NO I,ONGi;i;. 643 
 
 laid on by heretics. And to make them shoot another — it 
 was rare ; it was rare, my lad. Now ask us any thing in 
 reason; thou canst carr\- any honours, on thy club, like 
 Hercules. What is thy chief ambition, lad?" 
 
 " Well," said I, after thinkinu; a little, and meaning to 
 make the most of it, for so the ( hieen's eyes conveyed to 
 me, " my mother always used to think tliat having been 
 schooled at Tiverton, with thirty marks a year to pav, I 
 was worthy of a coat of arms. And that is what she 
 longs for." 
 
 "A good lad! A very good lad," said the King, and 
 he looked at the Queen, as if almost in joke ; "but what is 
 thv condition in life?" 
 
 " I am a freeholder," I answered in my confusion, "ever 
 since the time of King Alfred. A Ridd was with him 
 in the isle of Athelney, and we hold our farm by gift 
 from him ; or at least people say so. ^\'e have had three 
 very good harvests running, and might support a coat of 
 arms ; but for myself I want it not." 
 
 "Thou shalt have a coat, my lad," said the King, smiling 
 at his own humour ; "but it must be a large one to fit thee. 
 And more than that shalt thou have, John Ridd, being of 
 such loyal breed, and having done such service." 
 
 And while I wondered what he meant, he called to some 
 of the people in waiting at the farther end of the room, 
 and they brought him a little sword, such as Annie would 
 skewer a turkey with. Then he signified to me to kneel, 
 which I did (after dusting the board, for the sake of my 
 best breeches), and then he gave me a little tap very nicely 
 upon my shoulder, before I knew what he was up to, and 
 said, "Arise, Sir John Ridd ! " 
 
 This astonished and amazed me to such extent of loss 
 of mind, that when I got up I looked about, and thought 
 what the Snowes would think of it. And I said to the 
 King, without forms of speech : 
 
 " Sir, I am very much obliged. But what be I to do 
 with it ? " 
 
CHAPTER LXIX. 
 
 NOT TO BE PUT UP WITH. 
 
 HE coat of arms devised for me by 
 the Royal heralds was of great 
 size, and rich colours, and full of 
 bright imaginings. They did me 
 the honour to consult me first, and 
 to take no notice of my advice. 
 For I begged that there might be 
 a good-sized cow on it, so as to 
 stamp our pats of butter before 
 they went to market ; also a horse 
 on the other side, and a flock 
 snowed up at the bottom. But 
 the gentlemen would not hear of 
 this ; and to find something more 
 appropriate, they inquired strictly 
 into the annals of our family. I 
 told them, of course, all about 
 King Alfred ; upon which they 
 settled that one quarter should be 
 three cakes on a bar, with a lion 
 regardant, done upon a field of gold. Also I told them 
 that very likely there had been a Ridd in the battle fought 
 not very far from Plovers' Barrows, by the Earl of Devon 
 against the Danes, when Hubba, their chief, was killed, 
 and the sacred standard taken. As some of the Danes are 
 said to be buried even upon land of ours, and we call 
 their graves (if such they be) even to this day " barrows," 
 the heralds quite agreed with me that a Ridd might have 
 been there, or thereabouts ; and if he was there, he was 
 almost certain to have done his best, being in sight of 
 hearth and home ; and it was plain that he must have had 
 good legs to be at the same time both there and in Athel- 
 ney ; but good legs are an argument for good arms, and 
 supposing a man of this sort to have done his utmost (as 
 the manner of the Ridds is), it was ne.xt to certain that he 
 himself must have captured the standard. Moreover the 
 
v,»i"'" 
 
 JOHN RIDD ADMIRING HIS COAT OF ARMS. 
 
646 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 name of our farm was pure proof ; a plover being a wild 
 bird, just the same as a raven is. Upon this chain of rea- 
 soning, and without any weak misgiving, they charged my 
 growing escutcheon with a black raven on a ground of red. 
 And the next thing which I mentioned possessing absolute 
 certainty, to wit, that a pig with two heads had been born 
 upon our farm, not more than two hundred years agone 
 (although he died within a week), my third quarter was 
 made at once, by a two-headed boar with noble tusks, sable 
 upon silver. All this was very fierce and fine ; and so I 
 pressed for a peaceful corner in the lower dexter, and ob- 
 tained a wheat-sheaf set upright, gold upon a field of green. 
 
 Here I was inclined to pause and admire the effect, for 
 even De \\'hichehalse could not show a bearing so mag- 
 nificent. But the heralds said that it looked a mere sign- 
 board, without a good motto under it ; and the motto must 
 have my name in it. They offered me first, "Ridd non 
 ridendus ; " but I said, " for God's sake, gentlemen, let me 
 forget my Latin." Then they proposed, "Ridd readeth 
 riddles ; " but I begged them not to set down such a lie, for 
 no Ridd ever had made or made out such a thing as a 
 riddle since Exmoor itself began. Thirdly, they gave me, 
 " Ridd never be ridden," and fearing to make any further 
 objections, I let them inscribe it in bronze upon blue. The 
 heralds thought that the King would pay for this noble 
 achievement, but His Majesty, although graciously pleased 
 with their ingenuity, declined in the most decided manner 
 to pay a farthing towards it ; and as I had no money left, 
 the heralds became as blue as azure, and as red as gules, 
 until Her Majesty the Queen came forward very kindly, 
 and said that if His Majesty gave me a coat of arms, I was 
 not to pay for it ; therefore she herself did so quite hand- 
 somely, and felt good will towards me in consequence. 
 
 Now being in a hurry — so far at least as it is in my 
 nature to hurry — to get to the end of this narrative, is it 
 likely that I would have dwelled so long upon my coat of 
 arms but for some good reason? And this good reason is 
 that Lorna took the greatest pride in it, and thought (or 
 at any rate said), that it quite threw into the shade, and 
 eclipsed, all her own ancient glories. And half in fun, and 
 half in earnest, she called me "Sir John" so continually, 
 that at last I was almost angry with her, until her eyes were 
 bedewed with tears, and then I was angry with myself. 
 
 Beginning to be short of money, and growing anxious 
 about the farm, longing also to show myself and my noble 
 
NOT TO BE PUT UP WITH. 647 
 
 escutcheon to mother, I took advantai^c of Lady Lorna's 
 interest with the Queen to obtain my ac(|uittance and full 
 discharge from even nominal custody. It had been in- 
 tended to keep me in waiting until the return of Lord 
 Jeffreys from that awful circuit of shambles, through wliich 
 Ills name is still used by mothers to frighten their children 
 into bed. And right glad was I — for even London shrank 
 with horror at the news — to escape a man so blood-thirsty, 
 savage, and even to his friends (among whom I was reck- 
 oned) malignant. 
 
 Earl Brandir was greatly pleased with me, not only for 
 having saved his life, but for saving that which he valued 
 more, the wealth laid by for Lord Alan. And he intro- 
 duced me to many great people, who quite kindly encour- 
 aged me, and promised to help me in every way, when they 
 heard how the King had spoken. As for the furrier, he 
 could never have enough of my society ; and this worthy 
 man, praying my commendation, demanded of me one 
 thing only — to speak of him as I found him. As I had 
 found him, many a Sunday, furbishing up old furs for new 
 with a glaze to conceal the moth's ravages, I begged him 
 to reconsider the point, and not to demand such accuracy. 
 He said, "Well, well ; all trades had tricks, especially the 
 trick of business ; and I must take him — if I were his true 
 friend — according to his own description." This I was glad 
 enough to do, because it saved so much trouble, and I hatl 
 no money to spend with him. But still he requested the 
 use of my name, and 1 begged him to do the best with it, 
 as I never had kept a banker. And the "John Ridd cuffs," 
 and the "Sir John mantles," and the "Holly-staff capes," 
 he put into his window, as the winter was coming on, ay 
 and sold (for every body was burning with gossip about 
 me), must have made this good man's fortune, smce the 
 excess of price over value is the true test of success in life. 
 
 To come away from all this stuff, which grieves a man 
 in London — when the brisk air of the autumn cleared its 
 wav to Ludgate Hill, and clever 'prentices ran out and 
 sniffed at it, and fed upon it (having little else to eat); and 
 when the horses from the country were a goodly sight to 
 see, with the rasp of winter bristles rising through and 
 among the soft summer-coat ; and when the new straw 
 began to come in, golden with the harvest-gloss, and smell- 
 ing most divinely, at those strange livery-stables where 
 the nags are put quite tail to tail ; and when all the Lon- 
 don folk themselves were asking about white frost (from 
 
648 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 recollections of childhood), then, I say, such a yearning 
 seized me for moory crag, and for dewy blade, and even 
 the grunting of our sheep (when the sun goes down), that 
 nothing but the new wisps of Samson could have held me 
 in London town. 
 
 Lorna was moved with equal longing towards the country 
 and country ways, and she spoke quite as much of the glis- 
 tening dew as she did of the smell of our oven. And here 
 let me mention — although the two are quite distinct and 
 different — that both the dew, and the bread, of Exmoor 
 may be sought, whether high or low, but never found else- 
 where. The dew is so crisp, and pure, and pearly, and in 
 such abundance ; and the bread is so sweet, so kind, and 
 homely, you can eat a loaf, and then another. 
 
 Now, while I was walking daily in and out great crowds 
 of men (few of whom had any freedom from the cares of 
 money, and many of whom were even morbid with a worse 
 pest, called "politics"), I could not be quit of thinking 
 how we jostle one another. God has made the earth quite 
 large, with a spread of land enough for all to live on, with- 
 out fighting. Also a mighty spread of water, laying hands 
 on sand and cliff, with a solemn voice in storm-time, and 
 in the gentle weather moving men to thoughts of equity. 
 This, as well, is full of food, being two-thirds of the world, 
 and reserved for devouring knowledge, by the time the 
 sons of men have fed away the dry land. Vet before the 
 land itself has acknowledged touch of man upon one in a 
 hundred acres, and before one mile in ten thousand of the 
 exhaustless ocean has ever felt the plunge of hook, or 
 combing of the haul-nets, lo, we crawl, in flocks together, 
 upon the hot ground that stings us, even as the black 
 grubs crowd upon the harried nettle ! Surely we are too 
 much given to follow the tracks of each other. 
 
 However, for a moralist I never set up, and never shall, 
 while common sense abides with me. Such a man must 
 be truly wretched, in this pure dearth of morality, like a 
 fisherman where no fish be ; and most of us have enough to 
 do to attend to our own morals. Enough that I resolved 
 to go, and as Lorna could not come with me, it was even 
 worse than stopping. Nearly every body vowed that I 
 was a great fool indeed to neglect so rudely — which was 
 the proper word, they said — the pushing of my fortunes. 
 But I answered that to push was rude, and I left it to 
 people who had no room, and thought that my fortune 
 must be heavy if it would not move without pushing. 
 
xoT I'O r.K PUT UP wrri-i. 649 
 
 Lorna cried when I came away (which gave me great 
 satisfaction), and she sent a whole trunkful of things for 
 mother, and Annie, and even Lizzie. And she seemed to 
 think, though she said it not, that I made my own occa- 
 sion for going, and might have stayed on till the winter. 
 Whereas I knew well that my mother would think (and 
 every one on the farm the same) that here I had been in 
 London, lagging and taking my pleasure, and looking at 
 shops upon pretence of King's business, and leavmg the 
 harvest to reap itself, not to mention the spending of 
 money, while all the time there was nothing whatever ex- 
 cept my own love of adventure and sport to keep me from 
 coming home again ; but I knew that my coat of arms 
 and title would turn every bit of this grumbling into fine 
 admiration. 
 
 And so it fell out to a greater extent than even I desired, 
 for all the parishes round about united in a sumptuous 
 dinner, at the Mother Melldrum inn — for now that good 
 lady was dead, and her name and face set on a sign-post 
 — to which I was invited, so that it was as good as a sum- 
 mons. And if my health was no better next day it was 
 not from want of good wishes any more than from stint of 
 the liquor. 
 
 It is needless to say that the real gentry for a long time 
 treated my new honours with contempt and ridicule; but 
 gradually, as they found that I was not such a fool as to 
 claim any equality with them, but went about my farm- 
 work, and threw another man at wrestling, and touched 
 my hat to the magistrates, just the same as ever, some 
 gentlemen of the highest blood — of which we think a great 
 deal more than of gold, around our neighbourhood — actu- 
 ally expressed a desire to make my acquaintance. And 
 when, in a manner quite straightforward, and wholly free 
 from bitterness, I thanked them for this (which appeared 
 to me the highest honour yet offered me), but declined to 
 go into their company, because it would make me uncom- 
 fortable, and themselves as well, in a different way — they 
 did what nearly all Englishmen do, when a thing is right 
 and sensible — they shook hands with me, and said that 
 they could not deny but that there was reason in my view 
 of the matter. And although they themselves must be the 
 losers — which was a handsome thing to say — they would 
 wait until I was a little older and more aware of my own 
 value. 
 
 Now this reminds me how it is that an English gentle- 
 
650 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 man is so far in front of foreign noblemen and princes. I 
 have seen, at times, a little, both of one and of the other, 
 and making more than due allowance for the difficulties of 
 language, and the difference of training, upon the whole 
 the balance is in favour of our people. And this, because 
 we have two weights, solid and (even in scale of manners) 
 outweighing all light complaisance ; to wit, the inborn love 
 of justice, and the power of abiding. 
 
 Yet some people may be surprised that men with any 
 love of justice, whether inborn or otherwise, could con- 
 tinue to abide the arrogance, and rapacity, and tyranny of 
 the Doones. 
 
 For now as the winter passed, the Doones were not keep- 
 ing themselves at home, as in honour they were bound to 
 do. Twenty sheep a week, and one fat ox, and two stout 
 red deer (for wholesome change of diet), as well as three- 
 score bushels of flour, and two hogsheads and a half of 
 cider, and a hundredweight of candles, not to mention 
 other things of almost every variety, which they got by 
 insisting upon it — surely these might have sufficed to keep 
 the robbers happy in their place, with no outburst of wan- 
 tonness. Nevertheless it was not so : they had made com- 
 plaint about something — too much ewe-mutton, I think it 
 was — and in spite of all the pledges given they had ridden 
 forth and carried awav two maidens of our neighbourhood. 
 
 Now these two maidens were known because they had 
 served the beer at an ale-house, and many men who had 
 looked at them, over a pint or quart vessel (especially as 
 they were comely girls), thought that it was very hard for 
 them to go in that way, and perhaps themselves unwilling. 
 And their mother (although she had taken some money, 
 which the Doones were always full of) declared that it was 
 a robbery ; and though it increased for a while the custom, 
 that must soon fall off again. And who would have her 
 two girls now, clever as they were and good ? 
 
 Before we had finished meditating upon this loose out- 
 rage — for so I at least would call it, though people ac- 
 customed to the law may take a different view of it — we 
 had news of a thing far worse, which turned the hearts of 
 our women sick. This I will tell in most careful language, 
 so as to give offence to none, if skill of words may help it.' 
 
 'The following story is strictly true ; and true it is that the country- 
 people rose, to a man, at this dastard cruelty, and did what the govern- 
 ment failed to do — Ed. L. D. 
 
X(iT TO i;e put ur with. 651 
 
 Mistress Margery Badeock, a healthy and upright young 
 woman, with a good rich colour, and one of the finest hen- 
 roosts any where round our neighbourhood, was nursing 
 her child about six of the clock, and looking out for her 
 husband. N\>w this child was too old to be nursed, as every 
 body told her, for he could run say two yards alone, and 
 perhaps four or five, by holding two handles. And he had 
 a way of looking round, and spreading his legs, and laugh- 
 ing, with his brave little body well fetched up, after a des- 
 perate journey to the end of the table, which his mother 
 said nothing could equal. Nevertheless he would come to 
 be nursed, as regular as a clock almost ; and inasmuch as 
 he was the first, both father and mother made much of him, 
 for (rod only knew whether they could ever compass such 
 another one. 
 
 Christopher Badcock was a tenant farmer, in the parish 
 of Martinhoe, renting some fifty acres of land, with a right 
 of common attached to them ; and at this particular time, 
 being now the month of February, and fine open weather, 
 he was hard at work ploughing and preparing for spring 
 corn. Therefore his wife was not surprised, although the 
 dusk was falling, that Farmer Christopher should be at 
 work in "blind man's holiday," as we call it. 
 
 But she was surprised, nay astonished, when bv the light 
 of the kitchen fire (brightened up for her husband) she saw 
 six or seven great armed men burst into the room upon 
 her ; and she screamed so that the maid in the back kitchen 
 heard her, but was afraid to come to help. Two of the 
 strongest and fiercest men at once seized poor young Mar- 
 gery, and though she fought for her child and home, she 
 was but an infant herself in their hands. In spite of tears 
 and shrieks and struggles, they tore the babe from the 
 mother's arms and cast it on the lime-ash floor ; then they 
 bore her away to their horses (for by this time she was 
 senseless), and telling the others to sack the house, rode 
 off with their prize to the valley. And from the descrip- 
 tion of one of those two, who carried off the poor wo- 
 man, I knew beyond all doubt that it was Carver Doone 
 himself. 
 
 The other Doones being left behind, and grieved per- 
 haps in some respects, set to with a wdl to scour the house, 
 and to bring away all that was good to eat. And being a 
 little vexed herein (for the Badcocks were not a rich 
 couple), and finding no more than bacon, and eggs, and 
 cheese, and little items, and nothing to drink but water — in 
 
652 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 a word, their taste being offended, tliey came bacli to the 
 liitchen, and stamped ; and tiiere was tlie baby lying. 
 
 By evil luck this child began to squeal about his mother, 
 having been petted hitherto and wont to get all he wanted, 
 by raising his voice but a little. Now the mark of the floor 
 was upon his head, as the maid (who had stolen to look at 
 him, when the rough men were swearing upstairs) gave 
 evidence. And she put a dish-cloth under his head and 
 
 TWO OF THE STRONGEST AND FIERCEST irEN AT ONCE SEIZED POOR 
 YOUNG MARGERY. 
 
 kissed him, and ran away again. Her name was Honour 
 Jose, and she meant what was right by her master and 
 mistress, but could not help being frightened. And many 
 women have blamed her, and as I think unduly, for her 
 mode of forsaking baby so. If it had been her own baby, 
 instinct rather than reason might have had the day with 
 her ; but the child being born of her mistress, she wished 
 him good luck and left him, as the fierce men came down- 
 
NOT TO BK PUT UP WITH. 653 
 
 Stairs. And being alarmed by their power of language 
 (because they had found no silver), she crept away in 
 breathless hurry, and afraid how her breath might come 
 back to her, for oftentime she had hiccoughs. 
 
 While this good maid was in the oven, by side of back- 
 kitchen fire-|)lace, with a faggot of wood drawn over her, 
 and lying so that her own heart beat worse than if she 
 were baking, the men (as I said before) came downstairs 
 and stamped around the baby. 
 
 "Rowland, is the bacon good?" one of them asked, with 
 an oath or two ; "it is too bad of Carver to go off with the 
 only prize, and leave us in a starving cottage, and not 
 enough to eat for two of us. Fetch down the staves of the 
 rack, my boy. \Miat was farmer to have for supper ? " 
 
 " Naught but an onion or two, and a loaf, and a rasher 
 of rusty bacon. These poor devils live so badly they are 
 not worth robbing." 
 
 " No game ! Then let us have a game of loriot with the 
 baby ! It will be the best thing that could befall a lusty 
 infant heretic. Ride a cock-horse to Banbury Cross. Bye, 
 bye, baby Bunting ; toss him up, and let me see if my wrist 
 be steady." 
 
 The cruelty of this man is a thing it makes me sick to 
 speak of. Enough that when the poor baby fell (without 
 attempt at cry or scream, thinking it part of his usual play, 
 when they tossed him up, to come down again), the maid 
 in the oven of the back-kitchen, not being any door be- 
 tween, heard them say as follows : 
 
 " If any man asketh who killed thee, 
 Say 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy. " ' 
 
 Now I think that when we heard this story, and poor 
 Kit Badcock came all around, in a sort of half-crazy man- 
 ner, not looking up at any one, but dropping his eyes, 
 and asking whether we thought he had been well-treated, 
 and seeming void of regard for life, if this were all the 
 style of it ; then, having known him a lusty man, and a fine 
 singer in an ale-house, and much inclined to lay down the 
 law, and show a high hand about women, I really think 
 that it moved us more than if he had gone about ranting, 
 and raving, and vowing revenge upon every one. 
 
 Always pronounced " Badgery.'' 
 
CHAPTER LXX. 
 
 COMPELLED TO VOLUNTEER. 
 
 HERE had been some trouble in 
 our own home, during the previous 
 autumn, while yet I was in Lon- 
 don. For certain noted fugitives 
 from the army of King JNIonmouth 
 (which he himself had deserted, 
 in a low and currish manner), hav- 
 ing failed to obtain free shipment 
 from the coast near Watersmouth, 
 had returned into the wilds of 
 Exmoor, trusting to lurk, and be 
 comforted, among the common 
 people. Neither were they dis- 
 appointed, for a certain length of 
 time, nor in the end was their dis- 
 appointment caused by fault on 
 our part. Major Wade was one 
 of them, an active and well-mean- 
 ing man, but prone to fail in 
 courage, upon lasting trial, although in a moment ready. 
 Squire John AMiichehalse (not the Baron) and Parson 
 Powell' caught him, two or three months before my return, 
 in Farley farm-house, near Brendon. He had been up at 
 our house several times, and Lizzie thought a great deal of 
 him. And well I know that if at that time I had been in 
 the neighbourhood, he should not have been taken so easily. 
 John Birch, the farmer who had sheltered him, was so 
 fearful of punishment that he hanged himself, in a few 
 days' time, and even before he was apprehended. But 
 nothing was done to Grace Howe, of Bridgeball, who had 
 been Wade's greatest comforter ; neither was any thing 
 
 ' Not our Parson Bowden, nor any more a friend of his. Our Parson 
 Bowden never had nauglit whatever to do with it, and never smoked a 
 pipe with Parson Powell after it. — J. R. 
 
CUMl'ELLED TO \'OLUNTEER. 655 
 
 done to us, although F^liza added j^iL-atly to mother's alarm 
 and danger by falling upon Rector I'owcll and most soundly 
 rating him for his meanness, and his cruelty, and cowardice, 
 as she called it, in setting men with iire-arms upon a poor 
 helpless fugitive, and robbing all our neighbourhood of its 
 fame for hospitality. However, by means of Sergeant 
 Bloxham, and his good report of us, as well as by virtue of 
 \Vade's confession (which proved of use to the government) 
 my mother escaped all penalties. 
 
 It is likelv enough that good folk will think it hard upon 
 our neighbourhood to be threatened, and sometimes heavily 
 punished, for kindness and humanity, and yet to be left to 
 help ourselves against tyranny and base rapine. And now 
 at last our gorge was risen, and our hearts in tumult. \\'e 
 had borne our troubles long, as a wise and wholesome 
 chastisement, quite content to have some few things of our 
 own unmeddled with. But what could a man dare to call 
 his own, or what right could he have to wish for it, while he 
 left his wife and children at the pleasure of any stranger ? 
 
 The people came flocking all around me, at the black- 
 smith's forge, and the Brendon ale-house, and I could 
 scarce come out of church, but they got me among the 
 tombstones. They all agreed that I was bound to take 
 command and management. I bade them go to the magis- 
 trates, but they said they had been too often. Then I told 
 them that I had no wits for ordering of an armament, 
 although I could find fault enough with the one which had 
 not succeeded. But they would hearken to none of this. 
 All they said was, " Try to lead us, and we will try not to 
 run away." 
 
 This seemed to me to be common sense, and good stuff, 
 instead of mere bragging ; moreover, 1 myself was moved 
 by the bitter wrongs of Margery, having known her at the 
 Sunday-school, ere ever 1 went to Tiverton, and having, in 
 those days, serious thoughts of making her my sweetheart, 
 although she was three years my elder. But now I felt this 
 difficulty — the Doones had behaved very well to our farm, 
 and to mother, and all of us, while I was away in London, 
 therefore would it not be shabby, and mean, for me to 
 attack them now ? 
 
 Yet being pressed still harder and harder, as day by day 
 the excitement grew (with more and more talking over it), 
 and no one else coming forward to undertake the business, 
 I agreed at last to this : that if the Doones, upon fair chal- 
 lenge, would not endeavor to make amends, by giving up 
 
656 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Mistress Margery, as well as the man who had slain the 
 babe, then I would lead the expedition, and do my best to 
 subdue them. All our men were content with this, being 
 thoroughly well assured, from experience, that the haughty 
 robbers would only shoot any man who durst approach 
 them with such proposal. 
 
 And then arose a difficult question — who was to take 
 the risk of making overtures so unpleasant ? I waited for 
 the rest to offer, and as none was ready, the burden fell on 
 me, and seemed to be of my own inviting. Hence I under- 
 took the task, sooner than reason about it, for to give the 
 cause of every thing is worse than to go through with it. 
 
 It may have been three of the afternoon, when leaving 
 my witnesses behind (for they preferred the background) 
 I appeared with our Lizzie's white handkerchief upon a 
 kidney-bean stick, at the entrance to the robbers' dwelling. 
 Scarce knowing what might come of it I had taken the 
 wise precaution of fastening a Bible over my heart, and 
 another across my spinal column, in case of having to run 
 away, with rude men shooting after me ; for my mother 
 said that the Word of God would stop a two-inch bullet 
 with three ounces of powder behind it. Now I took no 
 weapons save those of the Spirit, for fear of being mis- 
 understood. But I could not bring myself to think that 
 any of honourable birth would take advantage of an un- 
 armed man coming in guise of peace to them. 
 
 And this conclusion of mine held good, at least for a 
 certain length of time, inasmuch as two decent Doones 
 appeared, and hearing of my purpose, offered, without vio- 
 lence, to go and fetch the Captain, if I would stop where I 
 was, and not begin to spy about any thing. To this, of 
 course, I agreed at once, for I wanted no more spying, 
 because I had thorough knowledge of all ins and outs 
 already. Therefore, I stood waiting steadily, with one hand 
 in my pocket feeling a sample of corn for market, and the 
 other against the rock, while I wondered to see it so brown 
 already. 
 
 Those men came back in a little while, with a sharp short 
 message that Captain Carver would come out and speak to 
 me, by-and-by, when his pipe was finished. Accordingly, I 
 waited long, and we talked about the signs of bloom for the 
 coming apple season, and the rain that had fallen last Wed- 
 nesday night, and the principal dearth of Devonshire, that 
 it will not grow many cowslips — which we quite agreed to 
 be the prettiest of spring flowers ; and all the time I was 
 
COMPELLED TO \'oLUNTEER. 
 
 657 
 
 wondering how many black and deadly deeds these two 
 innocent youths had committed, even since last Christmas. 
 
 At length, a heavy and haughty step sounded along the 
 stone roof of the way, and then the great Carver Doone 
 drew up, and looked at me rather scornfully. Not with 
 any spoken scorn, nor flash of strong contumely, but with 
 that air of thinking little, and praying not to be troubled, 
 which always vexes a man who feels that he ought not to 
 be despised so, and yet know-s not how 
 to help it. 
 
 " What is it you want, young man ?" 
 he asked, as if he had never seen me 
 before. 
 
 In spite of that strong 
 loathing, which I al- 
 ways felt at sight of 
 him, I commanded my 
 temper moderately, and 
 told him that I was 
 come for his good, and 
 that of his worshipful 
 company, far more 
 than for my own. 
 That a general 
 feeling of indigna- 
 tion had arisen 
 among us, at the 
 recent behaviour 
 of certain young 
 men, for which he 
 
 might not be an- ___ 
 
 swerable, and for 
 
 which we would not condemn him, without knowing the 
 rights of the question. But I begged him clearly to 
 understand, that a vile and inhuman wrong had been 
 done, and such as we could not put up with ; but that if 
 he would make what amends he could by restoring the 
 poor woman, and giving up that odious brute who had slain 
 the harmless infant, we would take no further motion, and 
 things should go on as usual. As I put this in the fewest 
 words that would meet my purpose, I was grieved to 
 see a disdainful smile spread on his sallow countenance. 
 Then he made me a bow of mock courtesy, and replied 
 as follows : 
 
 "Sir John, your new honours have turned your poor 
 
 I WAS GRIEVED 
 TO SEE A DISDAIN 
 FUL S>ULE SPREVn ON 
 
 SALLOW COLMENANi 
 
658 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 head, as might have been expected. We are not in the 
 habit of deserting any thing that belongs to us, far less our 
 sacred relatives. The insolence of your demands well-nigh 
 outdoes the ingratitude. If there be a man upon Exmoor, 
 who has grossly ill-used us, kidnapped our young women, 
 and slain half a dozen of our young men, you are that out- 
 rageous rogue. Sir John. And after all this, how have we 
 behaved ? We have laid no hand upon your farm, we have 
 not carried off your women, we have even allowed you to 
 take our Queen, by creeping and crawling treachery ; and 
 we have given you leave of absence to help your cousin the 
 highwayman, and to come home with a title. And now, 
 how do you requite us ? By inflaming the boorish indigna- 
 tion at a little frolic of our young men, and by coming with 
 insolent demands to yield to which would ruin us. Ah, 
 you ungrateful viper ! " 
 
 As he turned away in sorrow from me, shaking his head 
 at my badness, I became so overcome (never having been 
 quite assured, even by people's praises, about my own good- 
 ness), moreover the light which he threw upon things dif- 
 fered so greatly from my own, that, in a word — not to be 
 too long — I feared that I was a villain. And with many 
 bitter pangs — for I have bad things to repent of — I began 
 at my leisure to ask myself, whether or not this bill of in- 
 dictment against John Ridd was true. Some of it I knew 
 to be (however much I condemned myself) altogether out 
 of reason ; for instance, about my going away with Lorna 
 very quietly, over the snow, and to save my love from being 
 starved away from me. In this there was no creeping, 
 neither crawling treachery, for all was done with sliding ; 
 and yet I was so out of training for being charged by other 
 people beyond mine own conscience, that Carver Doone's 
 harsh words came on me like prickly spinach sown with 
 raking. Therefore I replied, and said : 
 
 " It is true that I owe you gratitude, sir, for a certain time 
 of forbearance, and it is to prove my gratitude that I am 
 come here now. I do not think that my evil deeds can be 
 set against your own, although I cannot speak flowinglv 
 upon my good deeds, as you can. I took your Queen be- 
 cause you starved her, having stolen her long before, and 
 killed her mother and brother. This is not for me to dwell 
 upon now, any more than I would say much about your 
 murdering of my father. But how the balance hangs be- 
 tween us, God knows better than thou or I, thou low mis- 
 creant, Carver Doone." 
 
COMPELLED TO VOLUNTEER. 659 
 
 I had worked myself up, as I al\va\'s do, in the manner of 
 heavy men, growing hot \\ke an ill-washered wheel revolving, 
 though I start with a cool axle ; and 1 felt ashamed of my- 
 self for heat, and ready to ask pardon. But Carver Doone 
 regarded me with a noble and fearless grandeur. 
 
 "I have given thee thy choice, John Ridd," he said, in a 
 lofty manner, which made me drop away under him ; " I 
 always wish to do my best with the worst people who come 
 near me. .\nd of all I have ever met with, thou art the 
 very worst, Sir John, and the most dishonest." 
 
 Now after all my labouring to pay every man to a penny, 
 and to allow the women over, when among the couch-grass 
 (which is a sad thing for their gowns), to be charged like 
 this, I say, so amazed me, that I stood, with my legs quite 
 open, and ready for an earthquake. And the scornful way 
 in which he said " Sir John" went to my very heart, remind- 
 ing me of my littleness. But seeing no use in bandying 
 words, nay, rather the chance of mischief, I did my best to 
 look calmly at him, and to say with a quiet voice, "Fare- 
 well, Carver Doone, this time ; our day of reckoning is 
 nigh." 
 
 "Thou fool, it is come," he cried, leaping aside into the 
 niche of rock by the doorway ; " Fire ! " 
 
 Save for the quickness of spring, and readiness, learned 
 in many a wrestling bout, that knavish trick must have 
 ended me; but scarce was the word " Fire !" out of his 
 mouth ere I was out of fire, by a single bound behind tlie 
 rocky pillar of the opening. In this jump I was so brisk, at 
 impulse of the love of life (for I saw the muzzles set upon 
 me from the darkness of the cavern), that the men who had 
 trained their guns upon me with good will and daintiness, 
 could not check their fingers crooked upon the heavy trig- 
 gers, and the volley sang with a roar behind it, down the 
 avenue of crags. 
 
 With one thing and another, and most of all the treachery 
 of this dastard scheme, I was so amazed that I turned and 
 ran, at the very top of my speed, away from these vile fel- 
 lows ; and luckily for me, they had not another charge to 
 send after me. And thus by good fortune, I escaped, but 
 with a bitter heart, and mind, at their treacherous usage. 
 
 Without any further hesitation I agreed to take command 
 of the honest men, who were burning to punish, ay, and 
 destroy, those outlaws, as now beyond all bearing. One 
 condition however I made, namely, that the Counsellor 
 should be spared, if possible ; not because he was less a 
 
66o 
 
 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 AND THE VOLI.KY SANG WITH A ROAR BEHIND IT, 
 DOWN 'I HE A\T',iNUE OF CRAGS. 
 
 villain than any of the others, but that he 
 seemed less violent, and above all, had been 
 good to Annie. And I found hard work to 
 make them listen to my wish upon this point ; 
 for of all the Doones, Sir Counsellor had made 
 
 himself most hated by his love of law and reason. 
 
 We arranged that all our men should come and fall into 
 
 order with pike and musket, over against our dunghill, and 
 
COMPELLED TO VOUINTEKK. 66 1 
 
 we settled, early in the day, that their wives might come 
 and look at them. For most of these men had good wives, 
 quite different from sweethearts, such as the militia had ; 
 women indeed who could hold to a man, and see to him, 
 and bury him — if his luck were evil — and perhaps have no 
 one afterwards. And all these women pressed their rights 
 upon their precious husbands, and brought so many children 
 with them, and made such a fuss, and hugging, and racing 
 after little legs, that our farm-yard might be taken for an 
 out-door school for babies, rather than a review-ground. 
 
 I myself was to and fro among the children continuallv ; 
 for if I love any thing in the world, foremost I love children. 
 I'hey warm, and yet they cool our hearts, as we think of 
 what we were, and what in young clothes we hoped to be, 
 and how many things have come across. And to see our 
 motives moving in the little things, that know not what 
 their aim or object is, must almost, or ought at least, to lead 
 us home, and soften us. For either end of life is home, 
 both source and issue being God. 
 
 Nevertheless, I must confess, that the children were a 
 plague sometimes. Thev never could have enough of me 
 — being a hundred to one, you might say — but I had more 
 than enough of them, and yet was not contented. For they 
 had so many ways of talking, and of tugging at my hair, and 
 of sitting upon my neck (not even two with their legs alike), 
 and they forced me to jump so vehemently, seeming to 
 court the peril of my coming down neck-and-crop with them, 
 and urging me still to go faster, however fast I might go 
 with them. I assure you that they were sometimes so hard 
 and tyrannical over me that I might almost as well have 
 been among the very Doones themselves. 
 
 Nevertheless the way in which the children made me use- 
 ful proved also of some use to me, for their mothers were 
 so pleased by the exertions of the "great dee-gee" — as all 
 the small ones entitled me — that they gave me unlimited 
 power and authority over their husbands ; moreover, they 
 did their utmost among their relatives round about to fetch 
 recruits for our little band. And by such means, several of 
 the yeomanry from Barnstaple, and from Tiverton, were 
 added to our number ; and inasmuch as these were armed 
 with heavy swords, and short carbines, their appearance was 
 truly formidable. 
 
 Tom Faggus also joined us heartily, being now quite 
 healed of his wound, except at times when the wind was 
 easterly. He was made second in command to me, and I 
 
662 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 would gladly have had him first, as more fertile in expedi- 
 ents, but he declined such rank on the plea that I knew 
 most of the seat of war ; besides, that I might be held in 
 some measure to draw authority from the King. Also 
 Uncle Ben came over to help us with his advice and pres- 
 ence, as well as with a band of stout warehousemen, whom 
 he brought from Dulverton. For he had never forgiven the 
 old outrage put upon him, and though it had been to his 
 interest to keep quiet during the last attack, under Com- 
 mander Stickles — for the sake of his secret gold mine — yet 
 now he was in a position to give full vent to his feelings. 
 For he, and his partners, when fully assured of the value of 
 their diggings, had obtained from the Crown a licence to 
 adventure in search of minerals, by payment of a heavy fine 
 and a yearly royalty. Therefore they had now no longer 
 any cause for secrecy, neither for dread of the outlaws, 
 having so added to their force as to be a match for them. 
 And although Uncle Ben was not the man to keep his 
 miners idle one hour more than might be helped, he 
 promised that when we had fixed the moment for an assault 
 on the valley, a score of them should come to aid us, headed 
 by Simon Carfax, and armed with the guns which they 
 always kept for the protection of their gold. 
 
 Now whether it were Uncle Ben, or whether it were Tom 
 Faggus, or even my own self — for all three of us claimed 
 the sole honour — is more than I think fair to settle, without 
 allowing them a voice. But at any rate, a clever thing was 
 devised amongst us ; and perhaps it would be the fairest 
 thing to say that this bright stratagem (worthy of the great 
 Duke himself) was contributed, little by little, among the 
 entire three of us, all having pipes, and schnapps-and-water, 
 in the chimney-corner. However, the world, which always 
 judges according to reputation, vowed that so fine a stroke 
 of war could only come from a highwayman ; and so Tom 
 Faggus got all the honour, at less, perhaps, than a third of 
 the cost. 
 
 Not to attempt to rob him of it — for robbers, more than 
 any other, contend for rights of property — let me try to 
 describe this grand artifice. It was known that the Doones 
 were fond of money, as well as strong drink, and other 
 things, and more especially fond of gold, when they could 
 get it pure and fine. Therefore it was agreed, that in this 
 way we should tempt them, for we knew that they looked 
 with ridicule upon our rustic preparations : after repulsing 
 King's troopers, and the militia of two counties, was it 
 
COMPELLED TO VOLUNTEER, 
 
 66: 
 
 likely that they should yield their fortress to a set of plough- 
 boys ? We, for our part, felt, of course, the power of this 
 reasoning, and that where regular troops had failed, half- 
 armed countrymen must fail, except by superior judgment 
 and harmony of action, though, perhaps, the militia would 
 
 ANll SriIN'.\PI'S- 
 AND-WATFR, IN THE ClIIMNEV- 
 CORNF.R. 
 
 have sufficed if thev had only fought 
 against the foe instead of against each 
 other. From these things we took 
 warning : having failed through over-confidence, was it not 
 possible now to make the enemy fail, through the self-same 
 cause ? 
 
 Hence, what we devised was this : to delude from home a 
 part of the robbers, and fall by surprise on the other part. 
 We caused it to be spread abroad that a large heap of gold 
 was now collected at the mine of the Wizard's Slough. 
 And when this rumour must have reached them, through 
 women who came to and fro, as some entirely faithful to 
 them were allowed to do, we sent Captain Simon Carfax, 
 the father of little Gwenny, to demand an interview with 
 the Counsellor by night, and as it were secretly. Then he 
 
664 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 was to set forth a list of imaginary grievances against the 
 owners of the mine, and to offer, partly through resentment, 
 partly through the hope of gain, to betray into their hands, 
 upon the Friday night, by far the greatest weight of gold as 
 yet sent up for refining. He was to have one quarter part, 
 and they to take the residue. But inasmuch as the convoy 
 across the moors, under his command, would be strong, 
 and strongly armed, the Doones must be sure to send not 
 less than a score of men, if possible. He himself, at a place 
 agreed upon, and fit for an ambuscade, would call a halt, and 
 contrive in the darkness to pour a little water into the prim- 
 ing of his company's guns. 
 
 It cost us some trouble, and a great deal of money, to 
 bring the sturdy Cornishman into this deceitful part, and 
 perhaps he never would have consented but for his obliga- 
 tion to me, and the wrongs (as he said) of his daughter. 
 However, as he was the man for the task, both from his 
 coolness and courage, and being known to have charge of 
 the mine, I pressed him, until he undertook to tell all the 
 lies we required. And right well he did it too, having once 
 made up his mind to it, and perceiving that his own inter- 
 ests called for the total destruction of the robbers. 
 
CHAPTER LXXI. 
 
 A LONG ACCOUNT SETTLED. 
 
 lAVINUi resolved on a night-assault 
 
 H(as our undisciplined men, three- 
 fourths of whom had never been 
 shot at, could not fairly be expect- 
 ed to march up to visible musket- 
 mouths), we cared not much about 
 drilling our forces, only to teach 
 them to hold a musket, so far as 
 we could supply that weapon to 
 those with the cleverest eyes, and 
 to give them familiarity with the 
 noise it made in exploding. And 
 we fixed upon Friday night for our 
 venture, because the moon wduld 
 be at the full, and our powder was 
 coming from Dulverton on the 
 Friday afternoon. 
 
 Uncle Reuben did not mean to 
 expose himself to shooting, his time 
 of life for risk of life being now 
 well over, and the residue too valuable. But his counsels, 
 and his influence, and, above all, his warehousemen, well 
 practised in beating carpets, were of true service to us. 
 His miners also did great wonders, having a grudge 
 against the Doones, as, indeed, who had not for thirty 
 miles round their valley ? 
 
 It was settled that the yeomen, having good horses un- 
 der them, should give account with the miners' help of as 
 many Doones as might be despatched to plunder the pre- 
 tended gold. And as soon as we knew that this party of 
 robbers, be it more or less, was out of hearing from the 
 valley, we were to fall to, ostensibly at the Doone-gate 
 (which was impregnable now), but in reality upon their 
 rear, by means of my old water-slide. For I had chosen 
 twenty young fellows, partly miners, and partly ware- 
 
666 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 housemen, and sheep-farmers, and some of other voca- 
 tions, but all to be relied upon for spirit and power of 
 climbing. And with proper tools to aid us, and myself to 
 lead the way, I felt no doubt whatever but that we could 
 all attain the crest where first I had met with Lorna. 
 
 Upon the whole, I rejoiced that Lorna was not present 
 now. It must have been irksome to her feelings to have 
 all her kindred and old associates (much as she kept aloof 
 from them) put to death without ceremony, or else putting 
 all of us to death. For all of us were resolved this time 
 to have no more shilly-shallying, but to go through with a 
 nasty business in the style of honest Englishmen when the 
 question comes to "Your life or mine." 
 
 There was hardly a man among us who had not suffered 
 bitterly from the miscreants now before us. One had lost 
 his wife, perhaps, another had lost a daughter, according to 
 their ages, another had lost his favourite cow — in a word, 
 there was scarcely any one who had not to complain of a 
 hay-rick, and what surprised me then, not now, was that 
 the men least injured made the greatest push concerning 
 it. But be the wrong too great to speak of, or too small 
 to swear about, from poor Kit Badcock to rich Master 
 Huckaback, there was not one but went, heart and soul, 
 for stamping out these firebrands. 
 
 The moon was lifting well above the shoulder of the 
 uplands when we, the chosen band, set forth, having the 
 short cut along the valleys to foot of the Bagworthy 
 water ; and therefore, having allowed the rest an hour to 
 fetch round the moors and hills, we were not to begin our 
 climbing until we heard a musket fired from the heights 
 on the left-hand side, where John Fry himself was sta- 
 tioned, upon his own and his wife's request, to keep him 
 out of combat. And that was the place where I had been 
 used to sit and watch for Lorna. And John Fry was to 
 fire his gun, with a ball of wool inside it, so soon as he 
 heard the hurly-burly at the Doone-gate beginning, which 
 we, by reason of water-fall, could not hear down in the 
 meadows there. 
 
 We waited a very long time, with the moon marching 
 up heaven steadfastly, and the white fog trembling in 
 chords and quavers, like a silver harp of the meadows. 
 And then the moon drew up the fogs and scarfed herself 
 in white with them, and so, being proud, gleamed upon 
 the water, like a bride at her looking-glass, and yet there 
 was no sound of either John Fry or his blunderbuss. 
 
A LONG AtCDUNT SETTLED. 667 
 
 I beyan to think thtU the worthy John, being out of all 
 danger, and ha\'ini; brought a counterpane (according to 
 his wife's directions, because one of the children had a 
 cold), must veritably have gone to sleep, leaving other 
 people to kill or be killed, as might be the will of (lod, so 
 that he were comfortable. But herein I did wrong to 
 John, and am ready to acknowledge it, for suddenly the 
 most awful noise that anything short of thunder could 
 make, came down among the rocks, and went and hung 
 upon the corners. 
 
 "The signal, my lads!" I cried, leaping up and rubbing 
 my eyes, for even now, while condemning John unjustly, 
 I was giving him right to be hard upon me. "Now hold 
 on by the rope, and lay your quarter-staffs across, my 
 lads, and keep your guns pointing to heaven, lest haply we 
 shoot one another." 
 
 " Us shan't never shutt one anoother wi' our goons at 
 that mark, I reckon," said an oldish chap, but as tough as 
 leather, and esteemed a wit for his dryness. 
 
 "You come next to me, old Ike ; you be enough to dry 
 up the waters. Now, remember, all lean well forward. 
 If any man throws his weight back, down he goes, and 
 perhaps he may never get up again, and most likely he 
 will shoot himself." 
 
 I was still more afraid of their shooting me, for my 
 chief alarm in this steep ascent was neither of the water 
 nor of the rocks, but of the loaded guns we bore. If any 
 man slipped, off might go his gun, and however good his 
 meaning, I, being first, was most likely to take far more 
 than I fain would apprehend. 
 
 For this cause I had debated with Uncle Ben and with 
 Cousin Tom, as to the expediency of our climbing with 
 guns unloaded. But they, not being in the way them- 
 selves, assured me that there was nothing to fear, except 
 through uncommon clumsiness, and that as for charging 
 our guns at the top, even veteran troops could scarce be 
 trusted to perform it properly in the hurry and the dark- 
 ness, and the noise of fighting before them. 
 
 However, thank God, though a gun went off, no one 
 was any the worse for it, neither did the Doones notice it 
 in the thick of the firing in front of them. For the order 
 to those of the sham attack, conducted by Tom Faggus, 
 was to make the greatest possible noise, without exposure 
 of themselves, until we in the rear had fallen to, which 
 John Fry was again to give signal of. 
 
668 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Therefore we of the chosen band stole up the meadow 
 quietly, keeping in the blots of shade and hollow of the 
 water-course. And the earliest notice the Counsellor had, 
 or any one else, of our presence, was the blazing of the 
 log-wood house where lived that villain Carver. It was 
 my especial privilege to set this house on fire, upon which 
 I had insisted, exclusively and conclusively. No other 
 hand but mine should lay a brand or strike steel on flint 
 for it ; I had made all preparations carefully for a good 
 blaze. And I must confess that I rubbed my hands with 
 a strong delight and comfort when I saw the home of 
 that man, who had fired so many houses, having its turn 
 of smoke, and blaze, and of crackling fury. 
 
 AVe took good care, however, to burn no innocent women 
 or children in that most righteous destruction, for we 
 brought them all out beforehand ; some were glad, and 
 some were sorry, according to their dispositions. For 
 Carver had ten or a dozen wives, and perhaps that had 
 something to do with his taking the loss of Lorna so 
 easily. One child I noticed as I saved him ; a fair and 
 handsome little fellow, beloved by Carver Doone as much 
 as any thing beyond himself could be. The boy climbed 
 on my back and rode, and much as I hated his father, it 
 was not in my heart to say or do a thing to vex him. 
 
 Leaving these poor, injured people to behold their burn- 
 ing home, we drew aside, by my directions, into the covert 
 beneath the cliff. But not before we had laid our brands 
 to three other houses, after calling the women forth and 
 bidding them go for their husbands to come and fight a 
 hundred of us. In the smoke, and rush, and fire, they be- 
 lieved that we were a hundred, and away they ran in con- 
 sternation to the battle at the Doone-gate. 
 
 "All Doone-town is on fire, on fire!" we heard them 
 shrieking as they went. "A hundred soldiers are burning 
 it, with a dreadful great man at the head of them ! " 
 
 Presently, just as I expected, back came the warriors 
 of the Doones, leaving but two or three at the gate, and 
 burning with wrath to crush under foot the presumptuous 
 clowns in their valley. Just then the waxing fire leaped 
 above the red crest of the cliffs, and danced on the pillars 
 of the forest, and lapped like a tide on the stones of the 
 slope. All the valley flowed with light, and the limpid 
 waters reddened, and the fair young women shone, and 
 the naked children glistened. 
 
 But the finest sight of all was to see those haughty men 
 
A LUNG ACC(_)UNT SETTLED. 669 
 
 Striding- down tlie causeway darlvly, reckless of their end, 
 but resolute to have two lives for every one. A finer 
 dozen of young men could not have been found in the 
 world, perhaps, nor a braver, nor a viler one. 
 
 Seeing how few there were of them, I was very loth to 
 fire, although I covered the leader, who appeared to be 
 dashing Charley, for they were at easy distance now, 
 brightly shown by the fire-light, yet ignorant where to 
 look for us. I thought that we might take them prisoners 
 — though what good that could be, God knows, as they 
 must have been hanged thereafter — anyhow, I was loth 
 to shoot or to give the word to my followers. 
 
 But my followers waited for no word ; they saw a fair 
 shot at the men they abhorred, the men who had robbed 
 them of home, or of love, and the chance was too much for 
 their charity. At a signal from old Ikey, who levelled his 
 own gun first, a dozen muskets were discharged, and half 
 of the Doones dropped lifeless, like so many logs of fire- 
 wood or chopping-blocks rolled over. 
 
 Although I had seen a great battle before, and a hun- 
 dred times the carnage, this appeared to me to be horrible, 
 and I was at first inclined to fall upon our men for behav- 
 ing so. But one instant showeil me that they were right, 
 for while the valley was filled with howling and with 
 shrieks of women, and the beams of blazing houses fell 
 and hissed in the bubbling river, all the rest of the ])oones 
 leaped at us like so many demons. 'rhc\- fired wildly, not 
 seeing us well among the hazel bushes, and then they 
 clubbed their muskets or drew their swords, as might be, 
 and furiouslv drove at us. 
 
 For a moment, although we were twice their number, we 
 fell back before their valorous fame and the power of 
 their onset. For my part, admiring their courage greatly, 
 and counting it slur upon manliness that two should be 
 down upon one so, I withheld my hand awhile, for I cared 
 to meet none but Carver, and he was not among them. 
 The whirl and hurry of this fight, and the hard blows rain- 
 ing down — for now all guns were empty — took away my 
 power of seeing or reasoning upon any thing. Vet one 
 thing I saw which dwelled long with me, and that was 
 Christopher Badcock spending his life to get Charley's. 
 
 H(jw he had found out, none may tell, both being dead 
 so long ago, but, at any rate, lie had found out that 
 Charley was the man who had robbed him of his wife and 
 honour. It was Carver Doone who took her away, but 
 
670 LORN A DOONE. 
 
 Charleworth Doone was beside him, and, according to cast 
 of dice, slie fell to Charley's share. All this Kit Badcock 
 (who was mad, according to our measures) had discovered 
 and treasured up, and now was his revenge-time. 
 
 He had come into the conflict without a weapon of any- 
 kind, only begging me to let him be in the very thick of it. 
 For him, he said, life was no matter after the loss of his 
 wife and child, but death was matter to him, and he meant 
 to make the most of it. Such a face I never saw, and 
 never hope to see again, as when poor Kit Badcock spied 
 Charley coming towards us. 
 
 ^\'e had thought this man a patient fool, a philosopher 
 of a little sort, or one who could feel nothing. And his 
 quiet manner of going about, and the gentleness of his an- 
 swers (when some brutes asked him where his wife was, 
 and whether his baby had been well trussed), these had 
 misled us to think that the man would turn the mild cheek 
 to every thing. But I, in the loneliness of our barn, had 
 listened and had wept with him. 
 
 Therefore was I not surprised so much as all the rest of 
 us when, in the foremost of red light, Kit went up to 
 Charleworth Doone as if to some inheritance, and took his 
 seisin of right upon him, being himself a powerful man, 
 and begged a word aside with him. What they said aside 
 I know not ; all I know is that, without weapon, each man 
 killed the other. And Margery Badcock came, and wept 
 and hung upon her dead husband, and died that summer 
 of heart-disease. 
 
 Now for these and other things (whereof I could tell a 
 thousand) was the reckoning come that night, and not a 
 line we missed of it as soon as our bad blood was up. I 
 like not to tell of slaughter, though it might be of wolves 
 and tigers, and that was a night of fire, and slaughter, and 
 of very long-harboured revenge. Enough that ere the 
 daylight broke upon that wan March morning, the only 
 Doones still left alive were the Counsellor and Carver. 
 And of all the dwellings of the Doones (inhabited with 
 luxury, and luscious taste, and licentiousness) not even 
 one was left, but all made potash in the river. 
 
 This may seem a violent and unholy revenge upon them. 
 And I (who led the heart of it) have in these, my latter 
 years, doubted how I shall be judged, not of men — for 
 God only knows the errors of man's judgments — but by 
 that great God Himself, the front of whose forehead is 
 mercy. 
 
CHAPTER LXXII. 
 
 THE COUNSELLOR, AND THE CARVER. 
 
 ROM that great confusion — 
 
 rfor nothing can be broken up, 
 whether lawful or unlawful, 
 without a vast amount of dust, 
 and many people grumbling, 
 and mourning for the good old 
 times, when all the world was 
 happiness, and every man a 
 gentleman, and the sun himself 
 far brighter than since the 
 brassy idol upon which he shone 
 was broken — from all this loss 
 of ancient landmarks (as un- 
 robbed men began to call our 
 clearance of those murderers), 
 we returned on the following 
 day, almost as full of anxiety, 
 as we were of triumph. In the 
 first place, what could we fru- 
 gally do with all these women 
 and children, thrown on our hands, as one might say, with 
 none to protect and care for them ? Again, how should we 
 answer to the Justices of the Peace, or perhaps even to Lord 
 Jeffreys, for having, without even a warrant, taken the law 
 into our own hands, and abated our nuisance so forcibly ? 
 And then, what was to be done with the spoil, which was of 
 great value, though the diamond necklace came not to 
 public light ? For we saw a mighty host of claimants al- 
 ready leaping up for booty. Every man, who had ever been 
 robbed, expected usury on his loss ; the lords of the manors 
 demanded the whole, and so did the King's Commissioner 
 of Revenue at Porlock, and so did the men who had fought 
 our battle, while even the parsons, both Bowden and Powell, 
 and another who had no parish in it, threatened us with the 
 just wrath of the Church, unless each had tithes of the 
 whole of it. 
 
672 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Now this was not as it ought to be, and it seemed as if by 
 burning the nest of robbers, we had but hatched their eggs ; 
 until being made sole guardian of the captured treasure (by 
 reason of my known honesty) I hit upon a plan which gave 
 very little satisfaction, yet carried this advantage, that the 
 grumblers argued against one another, and for the most 
 part came to blows, which renewed their good-will to me, 
 as being abused by the adversary. 
 
 And my plan was no more than this : not to pay a farth- 
 ing to lord of manor, parson, or even King's Commissioner, 
 but after making good some of the recent and proven losses 
 
 — where the men could not afford to lose — to pay the resi- 
 due (which might be worth some fifty thousand pounds) 
 into the Exchequer at Westminster, and then let all the 
 claimants file what bills they pleased in Chancery. 
 
 Now this was a very noble device, for the mere name of 
 Chancery, and the high repute of the fees therein, and the 
 low repute of the lawyers, and the comfortable knowledge 
 that the woolsack itself is the golden fleece, absorbing gold 
 for ever, if the standard be but pure ; consideration of these 
 things staved off at once the lords of the manors, and all the 
 little farmers, and even those whom most I feared, videlicet, 
 the parsons. And the King's Commissioner was compelled 
 to profess himself contented, although of all he was most 
 aggrieved, for his pickings would have been goodly. 
 
 Moreover, by this plan I made — although I never thought 
 of that — a mighty friend, worth all the enemies whom the 
 loss of money moved. The first man now in the kingdom 
 (by virtue perhaps of energy, rather than of excellence) was 
 the great Lord Jeffreys, appointed the head of the Equity, 
 as well as of the larger law, for his kindness in hanging five 
 hundred people, without the mere grief of trial. Nine out 
 of ten of these people were innocent, it was true, but that 
 proved the merit of the Lord Chief Justice so much the 
 greater for hanging them, as showing what might be ex- 
 pected of him, when he truly got hold of a guilty man. 
 Now the King had seen the force of this argument, and not 
 being without gratitude for a high-seasoned dish of cruelty, 
 had promoted the only man in England combining the gifts 
 both of butcher and cook. 
 
 Nevertheless, I do beg you all to believe of me — and I 
 think that, after following me so long, you must believe it 
 
 — that I did not even know at the time of I^ord Jeffreys' 
 high promotion. Not that my knowledge of this would 
 have led me to act otherwise in the matter, for my object 
 
THE COUNSELLOR AND THE CARVER. 673 
 
 was to pay into an office, and not to any official ; neitlier 
 if I had known tlie fact, could I have seen its bearing 
 upon the receipt of my money. For the King's Exchequer 
 is, meseemeth, of the L'onmion Law, while Chancery is of 
 Equity, and well named for its many chances. But the true 
 result of the thing was this : Lord Jeffreys being now head 
 of the law, and almost head of the kingdom, got possession 
 of that money, and was kindly pleased with it. 
 
 -\nd this met our second difficulty, for the law having won 
 and laughed over the spoil, must have injured its own title 
 by impugning our legality. 
 
 Xe.xt, with regard to the women and children, we were long 
 in a state of perplexity. We did our very best at the farm, 
 and so did many others, to provide for them, until they 
 should manage about their own subsistence. And after a 
 while, this trouble went, as nearly all troubles go with time. 
 Some of the women were taken back by their parents, or 
 their husbands, or it may be their old sweethearts, and those 
 who failed of this, went forth, some upon their own account 
 to the New World plantations, where the fairer sex is valu- 
 able, and some to English cities, and the plainer ones to 
 field-work. And most of the children went with their 
 mothers, or were bound apprentices ; only Carver Doone's 
 handsome child had lost his mother, and stayed wish me. 
 
 This boy went about with me every-where. He had taken 
 as much of liking to me — first shown in his eyes by the 
 firelight — as his father had of hatred ; and I, perceiving his 
 noble courage, scorn of lies, and high spirit, became almost 
 as fond of Ensie as he was of me. He told us that his 
 name was " Ensie," meant for " Ensor," I suppose, from his 
 father's grandfather, the old Sir Ensor Doone. And this 
 boy appeared to be Carver's heir, having been born in wed- 
 lock, contrary to the general manner and custom of the 
 Doones. 
 
 However, although I loved the poor child, I could not 
 help feeling very uneasy about the escape of his father, the 
 savage and brutal Carver. This man was left to roam the 
 country, homeless, foodless, and desperate, with his giant 
 strength, and great skill in arms, and the whole world to be 
 revenged upon. For his escape the miners, as I shall show, 
 were answerable, but of the Counsellor's safe departure the 
 burden lay on myself alone. And, inasmuch as there are 
 people who consider themselves ill-used, unless one tells 
 them every thing, straightened though I am for space, I will 
 glance at this transaction. 
 
674 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 After the desperate charge of young Doones had been 
 met by us, and broken, and just as poor Kit Badcock died in 
 the arms of the dead Charley, I happened to descry a patch 
 of white on the grass of the meadow, Uke the head of a 
 sheep after washing-day. Observing, with some curiosity, 
 how carefully this white thing moved along the bars of dark- 
 ness betwixt the panels of fire-light, I ran up to intercept 
 it, before it reached the little postern which we used to call 
 Gwenny's door. Perceiving me, the white thing stopped, 
 and was for making back again, but I ran up at full speed, 
 and h), it was the flowing, silvery hair of that sage the 
 Counsellor, who was scuttling away upon all fours, but now 
 rose, and confronted me. 
 
 " John," he said, " Sir John, you will not play falsely with 
 your ancient friend, among these violent fellows. I look to 
 you to protect me, John." 
 
 " Honoured sir, you are right," I replied, "but surely that 
 posture was unworthy of yourself, and your many resources. 
 It is my intention to let you go free." 
 
 " I knew it. I could have sworn to it. You are a noble 
 fellow, John ; I said so from the very first ; you are a noble 
 fellow, and an ornament to any rank." 
 
 "But upon two conditions," I added, gently taking him 
 by the arm, for instead of displaying any desire for com- 
 mune with my nobility, he was edging away towards the 
 postern : " the first is, that you tell me truly (for now it can 
 matter to none of you) who it was that slew my father." 
 
 " I will tell you, truly and frankly, John, however painful 
 to me to confess it. It was my son. Carver." 
 
 "I thought as much, or I felt as much, all along," I an- 
 swered, " but the fault was none of yours, sir ; for you were 
 not even present." 
 
 " If I had been there, it would not have happened. I am 
 always opposed to violence. Therefore, let me haste away ; 
 this scene is against my nature." 
 
 "You shall go directly. Sir Counsellor, after meeting my 
 other condition, which is, that you place in my hands Lady 
 Lorna's diamond necklace." 
 
 "Ah, how often I have wished," said the old man with a 
 heavy sigh, "that it might yet be in my power, to ease my 
 mind in that respect, and to do a thoroughly good deed, by 
 lawful restitution." 
 
 " Then try to have it in your power, sir. Surelv, with my 
 encouragement, you might summon resolution." 
 
 "Alas, John, the resolution has been ready long ago. 
 
THE C0UNS1-:LL()R AM) THE CARVKR. 675 
 
 But the thing is not in my possession. Carver, my son, who 
 slew your father, upon him you will find the necklace. 
 What are jewels to me, young man, at my time of life? 
 Baubles and trash ; I detest them, from the sins they have 
 led me to answer for. \\'hen you come to my age, good Sir 
 John, you will scorn all jewels, and care only for a pure and 
 bright conscience. Ah ! ah ! Let me go. I have made my 
 peace with God." 
 
 He looked so hoary, and so silvery, and serene in the 
 moonlight, that verily I must have believed him, if he had 
 not drawn in his breast. But I happened to have noticed, 
 that when an honest man gives vent to noble and great sen- 
 timents, he spreads his breast, and throws it out, as if his 
 heart were swelling, whereas I had seen this old gentleman 
 draw his breast in more than once, as if it happened to con- 
 tain better goods than sentiment. 
 
 " Will you applaud me, kind sir," I said, keeping him 
 very tight all the while, " if I place it in your power to 
 ratify your peace with God ? The pledge is upon your 
 heart, no doubt, for there it lies at this moment." 
 
 With these words, and some apology for having recourse 
 to strong measures, I thrust my hand inside his waistcoat, 
 and drew forth Lorna's necklace, purely sparkling in the 
 moonlight, like the dancing of new stars. The old man 
 made a stab at me, with a knife which I had not espied ; 
 but the vicious onset failed, and then he knelt, and clasped 
 his hands. 
 
 " Oh, for God's sake, John, my son, rob me not in that 
 manner. They belong to me, and I love them so, I would 
 give almost my life for them. There is one jewel there I 
 can look at for hours, and see all the ligiits of heaven in it, 
 which I never shall see elsewhere. All my wretched, wicked 
 life — oh, John, I am a sad hypocrite — but give me back 
 my jewels. Or else kill me here ; I am a babe in your 
 hands ; but I must have back my jewels." 
 
 As his beautiful white hair fell away from his noble fore- 
 head, like a silver wreath of glory, and his powerful face, 
 for once, was moved with real emotion, I was so amazed 
 and overcome by the grand contradictions of nature, that 
 verily I was on the point of giving him back the necklace. 
 But honesty, which is said to be the first instinct of all Ridds 
 (though I myself never found it so), happened here to occur 
 to me, and so I said, without more haste than might be 
 expected : 
 
 " Sir Counsellor, I cannot give you what does not belong 
 
676 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 to me. But if you will show me that particular diamond, 
 which is heaven to you, I will take upon myself the risk, and 
 the folly, of cutting it out for you. And with that you must 
 go contented ; and I beseech you not to starve, with that 
 jewel upon your lips." 
 
 Seeing no hope of better terms, he showed me his pet love 
 of a jewel, and I thought of what Lorna was to me, as I cut 
 it out (with the hinge of my knife severing the snakes of 
 gold) and placed it in his careful hand. Another moment, 
 and he was gone, and away through Gwenny's postern, and 
 God knows what became of him. 
 
 Now as to Carver, the thing was this — so far as I could 
 ascertain from the valiant miners, no two of whom told the 
 same story, any more than one of them told it twice. The 
 band of Doones which sallied forth for the robbery of the 
 pretended convoy, was met by Simon Carfax, according to 
 arrangement, at the ruined house called the "Warren," in 
 that part of Bagworthy Forest where the river Exe (as yet 
 a very small stream) runs through it. The Warren, as all 
 our people know, had belonged to a fine old gentleman, 
 whom every one called "The Squire," who had retreated 
 from active life, to pass the rest of his days in fishing, and 
 shooting, and helping his neighbours. For he was a man 
 of some substance, and no poor man ever left the Warren 
 without a bag of good victuals, and a few shillings put in 
 his pocket. However, this poor Squire never made a greater 
 mistake, than in hoping to end his life peacefully, upon the 
 banks of a trout-stream, and in the green forest of Bag- 
 worthy. For as he came home from the brook at dusk, 
 with his fly-rod over his shoulder, the Doones fell upon him, 
 and murdered him, and then sacked his house, and burned it. 
 
 Now this had made honest people timid about going past 
 the Warren, at night, for of course it was said that the 
 old Squire "walked," upon certain nights of the moon, in 
 and out the trunks of trees, on the green path from the 
 river. On his shoulder he bore a fishing-rod, and his book 
 of trout-flies in one hand, and on his back a wicker creel, 
 and now and then he would burst out laughing, to think of 
 the way he was caught by the Doones. 
 
 And now that one turns to consider it, this seems a 
 strangely righteous thing, that the scene of one of the 
 greatest crimes, even by Doones committed, should, after 
 twenty years, become the scene of vengeance falling (like 
 hail from heaven) upon them. For (although the Warren 
 lies well away to the westward of the mine, and the gold. 
 
THE COUNSELLOR AND THE CARVER. 677 
 
 under escort to Eristowc, or London, would have gone in 
 the other direction) Captain Carfax, iindini;- this place best 
 suited for \vorkin>,r of his design, had persuaded tlie Doones, 
 that for reasons of government, the ore must go first to 
 Barnstaple for inspection, or something of that sort. And 
 as every one knows that our government sends all things 
 westward when eastward bound, this had won the more 
 faith for Simon, as being according to nature. 
 
 Now Suuon, having met these flowers of the flock of vil- 
 lainy, where the rising moonlight flowed through the weir- 
 work of the wood, begged them to dismount, and led them. 
 
 WHERE THE RISING MOO.NLIGHT FLOWED THROUGH THE WEIR- 
 WORK OF THE WOOD, 
 
 with an air of mystery, into the Squire's ruined hall, black 
 with fire, and green with weeds. 
 
 "Captain, I have found a thing," he said to Carver Doone 
 himself, " which may help to pass the hour, ere the lump 
 of gold comes by. The smugglers are a noble race, but a 
 miner's eyes are a match for them. There lies a puncheon 
 of rare spirit, with the Dutchman's brand upon it, hidden 
 behind the broken hearth. Set a man to watch outside, and 
 let us see what this be like." 
 
 With one accord they agreed to this, and Carver pledged 
 Master Carfax, and all the Doones grew merry. But Simon 
 being bound, as he said, to see to their strict sobriety, drew 
 a bucket of water from the well, into which they had thrown 
 
678 LORXA DOONE. 
 
 the dead owner, and begged them to mingle it with their 
 drink, which some of them did, and some refused. 
 
 But the water from that well was poured, while they were 
 carousing, into the priming-pan of every gun of theirs, even 
 as Simon had promised to do with the guns of the men they 
 were come to kill. Then just as the giant Carver arose, 
 with a glass of pure hollands in his hand, and by the light 
 of the torch they had struck, proposed the good health of 
 the Squire's ghost — in the broken doorway stood a press of 
 men, with pointed muskets, covering every drunken Doone. 
 How it fared upon that I know not, having none to tell 
 me, for each man wrought, neither thought of telling, nor 
 whether he might be alive to tell. The Doones rushed to 
 their guns at once, and pointed them, and pulled at them, 
 but the Squire's well had drowned their fire, and then they 
 knew that they were betrayed, but resolved to fight like men 
 for it. Upon fighting I can never dwell, it breeds such 
 savage delight in me, of which I would fain have less. 
 Enough that all the Doones fought bravely, and like men 
 (though bad ones) died in the hall of the man they had 
 murdered. And with them died poor young De Whiche- 
 halse, who, in spite of all his good father's prayers, had cast 
 in his lot with the robbers. Carver Doone alone escaped, 
 partly through his fearful strength, and his yet more fearful 
 face, but mainly, perhaps, through his perfect coolness, and 
 his mode of taking things. 
 
 I am happy to say that no more than eight of the gallant 
 miners were killed in that combat, or died of their wounds 
 after\\'ards, and adding to these the eight we had lost in our 
 assault on the valley (and two of them excellent warehouse- 
 men), it cost no more than sixteen lives to be rid of nearly 
 forty Doones, each of whom would most likely have killed 
 three men, in the course of a year or two. Therefore, as I 
 said at the time, a great work was done very reasonably ; 
 here were nigh upon forty Doones destroyed (in the val- 
 ley, and up at the A\'arren), despite their extraordinary 
 strength, and high skill in gunnery ; whereas, of us ignorant 
 rustics, there were only sixteen to be counted dead — though 
 others might be lamed, or so — and of those sixteen, only 
 two had left wives, and their wives had no trouble to marry 
 again. 
 
 Yet, for Lorna's sake, I was vexed at the bold escape of 
 Carver. Not that I sought for Carver's life, any more than 
 I did for the Counsellor's, but that for us it was no light 
 thing, to have a man of such power, and resource, and des- 
 
THE COUNSELLOR AND THE CARVER. 679 
 
 peration, left at large and furious, like a famished wolf round 
 the sheep-fold. Yet greatly as 1 blamed the yeomen who 
 were posted on their horses just out of shot from the Doone- 
 gate, for the very purpose of intercepting those who escaped 
 the miners, I could not get them to admit that any blame 
 attached to them. 
 
 But lo, he had dashed through the whole of them, with 
 his horse at full gallop, and was out of range, ere ever they 
 began to think of shooting him. Then it appears from 
 what a boy said — for boys manage to be everywhere — 
 that Captain Carver rode through the Doone-gate, and so to 
 the head of the valley. There he discovered all the houses, 
 and his own among the number, flaming with a handsome 
 blaze, and throwing a fine light around, such as he often 
 had revelled in, when of other people's property. Now he 
 swore the deadliest of all oaths, and seeing himself to be 
 vanquished (so far as the luck of the moment went), 
 spurred his great black horse away, and passed into the 
 darkness. 
 
CHAPTER LXXIII. 
 
 HOW TO GET OUT OF CHANCERY. 
 
 HINGS at this time so befell me, 
 that I cannot tell one half, but am 
 like a boy who has left his lesson 
 (to the master's very footfall) un- 
 ready, except with false excuses. 
 And as this makes no good work, 
 so I lament upon my lingering, in 
 the times when I might have got 
 through a good page, but went 
 astray after trifles. However, every 
 man must do according to his intel- 
 lect, and looking at the easy manner 
 of my constitution, I think that 
 most men will regard me with pity 
 and good will, for trying, more than 
 with contempt and wrath, for hav- 
 ing tried unworthily. Even as in 
 the wrestling ring, whatever man 
 did his very best, and made an 
 honest conflict, I always laid him 
 down with softness, easing off his dusty fall. 
 
 But the thing which next betided me was not a fall of 
 any sort, but rather a most glorious rise to the summit of all 
 fortune. For in good truth it was no less than the return 
 of Lorna — my Lorna, my own darling, in wonderful health 
 and spirits, and as glad as a bird to get back again. It 
 would have done any one good for a twelvemonth to behold 
 her face and doings, and her beaming eyes and smile (not 
 to mention blushes also at my salutation), when this Queen 
 of every heart ran about our rooms again. She did love 
 this, and she must see that, and where was her old friend, 
 the cat ? All the house was full of brightness, as if the sun 
 had come over the hill, and Lorna were his looking-glass. 
 
 My mother sat in an ancient chair, and wiped her cheeks, 
 and gazed at her, and even Lizzie's eyes must dance to the 
 
now Tf) GET OUT OF LllANCERV. 68 1 
 
 freshness and joy of her beauty. As tor me, you might call 
 me mad, for I ran out, and flung ni)- best hat on the barn, 
 and kissed mother Fry till she made at me with the clacker 
 of the churn. 
 
 \\'hat a quantity of things Lorna had to tell us ! And 
 yet h(i\v often we stopped her mouth — at least mother, I 
 mean, and Lizzie — and she quite as often would stop her 
 own, runnin.i;- up in her joy to some one of us ! And then 
 there arose the eating business — which people now call 
 "refreshment," in these dandyfied days of our language — for 
 how was it possible that our Lorna could have come all that 
 way, and to her own Exmoor, without being terribly hungry ? 
 
 " Oh, I do love it all so much," said Lorna, now for the 
 fiftieth time, and not meaning only the victuals ; "the scent 
 of the gorse on the moors drove me wild, and the primroses 
 under the iiedges. I am sure I was meant for a farmer's — I 
 mean for a farm-house life, dear Lizzie" — for Lizzie was 
 looking saucily — "just as you were meant for a soldier's 
 bride, and for writing despatches of victory. And now, 
 since y(ja will not ask me, dear mother, in the excellence of 
 your manners — and even John has not the impudence, in 
 spite of all his coat of arms — I must tell you a thing 
 which I vowed to keep until to-morrow morning, but m\' 
 resolution fails me. I am my own mistress ; what think 
 you of that, mother? I am my own mistress !" 
 
 " Then you shall not be so long," cried I, for mother 
 seemed not to understand her, and sought about for her 
 glasses ; " darling, you shall be mistress of me, and I \vill be 
 your master." 
 
 " A frank announcement of your intent, and beyond 
 doubt a true one, but surely unusual at this stage, and a 
 little premature, John. However, what must be, must be." 
 And with tears springing out of smiles, she fell on my 
 breast, and cried a bit. 
 
 When I came to smoke a pipe over it (after the rest were 
 gone to bed), I could hardly believe in my good luck. For 
 here was I, without any merit except of bodily power, and 
 the absence of any falsehood (which surely is no commen- 
 dation), so placed that the noblest men in England might 
 envy me and be vexed with me. For the noblest lady in 
 all the land, and the purest, and the sweetest, hung upon 
 my heart, as if there was none to equal it. 
 
 I dwelled upon this matter long and very severely, while 
 I smoked a new tobacco, brought by my own Lorna for 
 me, and next to herself most delicious, and as the smoke 
 
682 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 curled away, I thought, " Surely this is too fine to last, for 
 a man who never deserved it ! " 
 
 Seeing no way out of this, I resolved to place my faith in 
 God, and so went to bed, and dreamed of it. For having 
 no presence of mind to pray for any thing, under the circum- 
 stances, I thought it best to fall asleep, and trust myself to 
 the future. Yet, ere I fell asleep, the roof above me swarmed 
 with angels, having Lorna under it. 
 
 In the morning, Lorna was ready to tell her story, and 
 we to hearken, and she wore a dress of most simple stuff, 
 and yet perfectly wonderful, by means of the shape and her 
 figure. Lizzie was wild with jealousy, as might be expected 
 (though never would Annie have been so, but have praised 
 it, and craved for the pattern), and mother, not under- 
 standing it, looked forth to be taught about it. For it was 
 strange to note that lately my dear mother had lost her 
 quickness, and was never quite brisk, unless the question 
 were about myself. She had seen a great deal of trouble, 
 and grief begins to close on people, as their power of life 
 declines. We said that she was hard of hearing, but my 
 opinion was, that seeing me inclined for marriage made her 
 think of my father, and so, perhaps, a little too much to 
 dwell upon the courting of thirty years agone. Anyhow, 
 she was the very best of mothers, and would smile and 
 command herself, and be (or try to believe herself) as happy 
 as could be, in the doings of the younger folk, and her own 
 skill in detecting them, yet, with the wisdom of age, re- 
 nouncing any opinion upon the matter, since none could 
 see the end of it. 
 
 But Lorna, in her bright young beauty, and her knowledge 
 of my heart, was not to be checked by any thoughts of 
 haply coming evil. In the morning she was up, even sooner 
 than I was, and through all the corners of the hens, remem- 
 bering every one of them. I caught her, and saluted her 
 with such warmth (being now none to look at us), that she 
 vowed she would never come out again, and yet she came 
 the next morning ! 
 
 These things ought not to be chronicled. Yet I am of 
 such nature, that finding many parts of life adverse to our 
 wishes, I must now and then draw pleasure from the blessed 
 portions. And what portion can be more blessed than 
 with youth, and health, and strength, to be loved by a vir- 
 tuous maid, and to love her with all (jne's heart ? Neither 
 was my pride diminished, when I found what she had done, 
 only from her love of me. 
 
llnW T(i CET OUT OF CHANCERY. 683 
 
 Earl Brandir's aiKiciit steward, in whose charge she had 
 travelled, with a proper escort, looked upon her as a lovely 
 maniac, and the mixture of pity and admiration wherewith 
 he regarded her was a strange thing to obser\ e, especially 
 after he had seen our simple house and manners. On the 
 other hand, Lorna considered him a worthy but foolish old 
 gentleman, to whom true happiness meant no more than 
 money and high position. 
 
 These two last she had been ready to abandon wholly, 
 and had in part escaped from them, as the enemies of her 
 happiness. And she took advantage of the times in a truly 
 clever manner. For that happened to be a time — as indeed 
 all times hitherto (s{j far as my knowledge extends), have, 
 somehow or other, happened to be — when every body was 
 only too glad to take money for doing any thmg. And the 
 greatest money-taker in the kingdom (next to the King and 
 C^ueen, of course, who had due pre-eminence, and had 
 taught the maids of honour) was generally acknowledged 
 to be the Lord Chief Justice Jeffreys. 
 
 Upon his return from the Bloody Assizes, with triumph 
 and great glory, after hanging every man who was too poor 
 to help it, he pleased His Gracious Majesty so purely with 
 the description of their delightful agonies, that the King 
 exclaimed, " This man alone is worthy to be at the head of 
 the law." Accordingly, in his hand was placed the (ireat 
 Seal of England. 
 
 So it came to pass that Lorna's destiny hung upon Lord 
 Jeffrevs, for at this time Earl Brandir died, being taken 
 with gout in the heart, soon after I left London. Lorna 
 was very sorry for him, but as he had never been able to 
 hear one tone of her sweet silver)- voice, it is not to be sup- 
 posed that she wept without consolation. She grieved for 
 him, as we ought to grieve for any good man going, and 
 yet with a comforting sense of the benefit which the blessed 
 exchange must bring to him. 
 
 Now the Lady Lorna Dugal appeared, to Lord Chancel- 
 lor Jeffrevs, so exceeding wealthy a ward, that the lock 
 would pay for turning. Therefore he came, of his own 
 accord, to visit her, and to treat with her, having heard (for 
 the man was as big a gossip as never cared for any body, 
 yet loved to know all about every body) that this wealthy 
 and beautiful maiden would not listen to any young lord, 
 having pledged her faith to the plain John Ridd. 
 
 Thereupon, our Lorna managed so to hold out golden 
 hopes to the Lord High Chancellor, that he, being not more 
 
684 LORNA DOOXE. 
 
 than three parts drunk, saw his way to a heap of money. 
 And there and then (for he was not the man to dally long 
 about any thing) upon surety of a certain round sum — the 
 amount of which I will not mention, because of his kindness 
 towards me — he gave to his fair ward permission, under 
 sign and seal, to marry that loyal knight, John Ridd, upon 
 condition only that the King's consent should be obtained. 
 
 His Majesty, well-disposed towards me for my previous 
 service, and regarding me as a good Catholic, beuig moved 
 moreover by the Queen, who desired to please Lorna, con- 
 sented, with(3ut much hesitation, upon the understanding 
 that Lorna, when she became of full age, and the mistress 
 of her property (which was still under guardianship), should 
 pay a heavy fine to the Crown, and devote a fixed portion 
 of her estate to the promotion of the holy Catholic faith, in 
 a manner to be dictated by the King himself. Inasmuch, 
 however, as King James was driven out of his kingdom be- 
 fore this arrangement could take effect, and another king 
 succeeded, who desired not the promotion of the Catholic 
 religion, neither hankered after subsidies (whether French 
 or English), that agreement was pronounced invalid, im- 
 proper, and contemptible. However, there was no getting 
 back the money once paid to Lord Chancellor Jeffreys. 
 
 But what thought we of money, at this present moment, 
 or of position, or any thing else, e.xcept indeed one another ? 
 Lorna told me, with the sweetest smile, that if I were 
 minded to take her at all, I must take her without any 
 thing, inasmuch as she meant, upon coming of age, to make 
 over the residue of her estate to the next of kin, as being 
 unfit for a farmer's wife. And I replied, with the greatest 
 warmth, and a readiness to worship her, that this was ex- 
 actly what I longed for, but had never dared to propose it. 
 But dear mother looked most exceeding grave, and said that 
 to be sure her opinion could not be expected to count for 
 much, but she really hoped that in three years' time, we 
 should both be a little wiser, and have more regard for our 
 interests, and perhaps those of others by that time ; and 
 Master Snowe, having daughters only, and nobody coming 
 to marry them, if any thing happened to the good old man 
 — and who could tell in three years' time, what might hap- 
 pen to all, or any of us? — why, perhaps his farm would be 
 for sale, and perhaps Lady Lorna's estates in Scotland 
 would fetch enough money to buy it, and so throw the two 
 farms into one, and save all the trouble about the brook, as 
 my poor father had longed to do many and many a time, 
 
?I(l\V TO GET OUT OF C?I.\NCER^■. 685 
 
 but not having a title, could not do all quite as he wanted. 
 And then if we youni; penple i^rew tired of the old mother, 
 as seemed only too likely, and was according to nature, why 
 we could send her over there, and Lizzie to keep her com- 
 pany. 
 
 A\'hen mother had finished, and wiped her eyes, Lorna, 
 who had been blushing rosily at some portions of this great 
 speech, flung her fair arms around mother's neck, and 
 kissed her very heartily, and scolded her (as she well 
 deserved) for her want of confidence in us. My mother 
 replied, that if any body could deserve her John, it was 
 Lorna, but that she could not hold with the rashness of 
 giving up money so easily, while her next of kin would be 
 John himself, and who could tell what others, by the time 
 she was one-and-twenty. 
 
 Hereupon I felt that, after all, my mother had common 
 sense on her side, for if Master Snowe's farm should be for 
 sale, it would be far more to the purpose than my coat of 
 arms, to get it, for there was a different pasture there, just 
 suited for change of diet to our sheep, as well as large cattle. 
 And beside this, even with all Annie's skill (and of course 
 yet more now she was gone), their butter would alwavs 
 command in the market from one to three farthings a pound 
 more than we could get for ours. And few things vexed us 
 more than this. AVhereas, if we got possession of the farm, 
 we might, without breach of the market-laws, or any harm 
 done to any one (the price being but a prejudice), sell all 
 our butter as Snowe butter, and do good to all our cus- 
 tomers. 
 
 Thinking thus, yet remembering that Farmer Nicholas 
 might hold out for another score of years — as I heartily 
 hoped he might — or that one if not all, of his comely daugh- 
 ters might marry a good young farmer (or farmers, if the 
 case were so) — or that, even without that, the farm might 
 never be put up for sale, I begged my Lorna to do as she 
 liked, or rather to wait and think of it, for as yet she could 
 do nothing. 
 
CHAPTER LXXIV. 
 
 BLOOD UPON THE ALTAR. 
 
 ■\f^ > j< 
 
 VERYTHING was settled 
 
 L smoothly, and without any fear 
 
 or fuss, that Lorna might find 
 end of troubles, and myself of 
 eager waiting, with the help of 
 Parson Bowden, and the good 
 wishes of two counties. I could 
 scarce believe my fortune when 
 I looked upon her beauty, gen- 
 tleness, and sweetness, mingled 
 with enough of humour, and 
 warm woman's feeling never to 
 be dull or tiring, never them- 
 selves to be weary. 
 
 For she might be called a 
 woman now, although a very 
 young one, and as full of play- 
 ful ways, or perhaps I mav sav 
 ten times as full, as if she had 
 known no trouble. To wit, 
 °"' "'"'' the spirit of bright childhood, 
 
 having been so curbed and 
 straitened, ere its time was over, now broke forth, enriched 
 and varied with the garb of conscious maidenhood. And 
 the sense of steadfast love, and eager love enfolding her, 
 coloured with so many tinges all her looks, and words, and 
 thoughts, that to me it was the noblest vision even to 
 think about her. 
 
 But this was far too bright to last, without bitter break, 
 and the plunging of happiness in horror, and of passionate 
 joy in agony. My darling, in her softest moments when 
 she was alone with me, when the spark of defiant eyes was 
 veiled beneath dark lashes, and the challenge of gay beautv 
 passed into sweetest invitation, at such times of her purest 
 
BLOOD UrON THE ALTAR. 687 
 
 love and warmest faith in me, a deep abiding fear would 
 flutter in her bounding heart, as of deadly fate's approach. 
 She would cling to me, and nestle to me, being scared of 
 cuvLshness, and lay one arm around my neck, and ask if I 
 could do without her. 
 
 Hence, as all emotions haply, of those who are more to 
 us than ourselves, find within us stronger echo, and more 
 perfect answer, so I could not be regardless of some hid- 
 den evil, and my dark misgivings deepened as the time 
 drew nearer. I kept a steadfast watch on Lorna, neglect- 
 ing a field of beans entirely, as well as a litter of young 
 pigs, and a cow somewhat given to jaundice. And I let 
 Jem Slocomb go to sleep in the tallat, all one afternoon, 
 and Bill Dadds draw off a bucket of cider, without so much 
 as a " by your leave." For these men knew that my knight- 
 hood, and my coat of arms, and (most of all) my love, were 
 greatly against good farming, the sense of our country 
 being — and perhaps it may be sensible — that a man 
 who sticks up to be any thing, must allow himself to be 
 cheated. 
 
 But f never did stick up, nor would, though all the 
 parish bade me ; and I whistled the same tunes to my 
 horses, and held my plough-tree just the same as if no 
 King nor Queen had ever come to spoil my tune or hand. 
 For this thing, nearly all the men around our part up- 
 braided me, but the women praised me; and for the most 
 part these are right, when themselves are not concerned. 
 
 However humble I might be, no one knowing any thing 
 of our part of the countrv, would for a moment doubt that 
 now here was a great to do, and talk of John Ridd and his 
 wedding. The fierce fight with the Uoones so lately, and 
 my leading of the combat (though I fought not more than 
 need be), and the vanishing of Sir Counsellor, and the 
 galloping madness of Carver, and the religious fear of the 
 women that this last was gone to hell — for he himself had 
 declared that his aim, while he cut through our yeomanry, 
 also their remorse that he should have been made to go 
 thither, with all his children left behind — these things, I 
 say (if ever I can again contrive to say any thing), had led 
 to the broadest excitement about my wedding of Lorna. 
 We heard that people meant to come for more than thirty 
 miles around, upon excuse of seeing my stature and Lorna's 
 beauty, but in good truth out of sheer curiosity, and the 
 love of meddling. 
 
 Our clerk had given notice, that not a man should come 
 
688 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 inside the door of his church without shilling-fee, and wo- 
 men (as sure to see twice as much) must every one pay 
 two shillings. I thought this wrong, and as churchwarden 
 begged that the money might be paid into mine own hands 
 when taken. But the clerk said that was against all law, 
 and he had orders from the parson to pay it to him with- 
 out any delay. So, as I always obey the parson, when I 
 care not much about a thing, I let them have it their own 
 way, though feeling inclined to believe, sometimes, that I 
 ought to have some of the money. 
 
 Dear mother arranged all the ins and outs of the way in 
 which it was to be done ; and Annie, and Lizzie, and all 
 the Snowes, and even Ruth Huckaback (who was there 
 after great persuasion), made such a sweeping of dresses, 
 that I scarcely knew where to place my feet, and longed 
 for a staff, to put by their gowns. Then Lorna came out 
 of a pew half-way, in a manner which quite astonished me, 
 and took my left hand in her right, and I prayed God that 
 it were done with. 
 
 My darling looked so glorious, that I was afraid of 
 glancing at her, yet took in all her beauty. She was in a 
 fright, no doubt, but nobody should see it ; whereas I said 
 (to myself at least), " I will go through it like a grave- 
 digger." 
 
 Lorna's dress was of pure white, clouded with faint lav- 
 ender (for the sake of the old Earl Brandir), and as simple 
 as need be, except for perfect loveliness. I was afraid to 
 look at her, as I said before, except when each of us said 
 " I will," and then each dwelled upon the other. 
 
 It is impossible for any, who have not loved as I have, 
 to conceive my joy and pride when, after ring and all was 
 done, and the parson had blessed us, Lorna turned to look 
 at me, with her playful glance subdued, and deepened by 
 this solemn act. 
 
 Her eyes, which none on earth may ever equal, or com- 
 pare with, told me such a tale of hope, and faith, and 
 heart's devotion, that I was almost amazed, thoroughly as 
 I knew them. Darling eyes, the clearest eyes, the loveliest, 
 the most loving eyes — the sound of a shot rang through 
 the church, and those eyes were dim with death. 
 
 Lorna fell across my knees, when I was going to kiss her, 
 as the bridegroom is allowed to d(j, and encouraged, if he 
 needs it ; a flood of blood came out upon the yellow wood 
 of the altar steps, and at my feet lay Lorna, trying to tell 
 me some last message out of her faithful eyes. I lifted 
 
liLOdl) Ul'DN THE ALTAR. 689 
 
 her up, and petted her, and coaxed her, but it was no good ; 
 the only sign of life remaining was a drip of bright red 
 blood. 
 
 Some men know what things befall them in the supreme 
 time of their life — far above the time of death — but to 
 me comes back as a hazy dream, without any knowledge 
 in it, what I diil, or felt or thought, with my wife's arms 
 flagging, fla,i;ging, around my neck, as I raised her up and 
 softly put them there. She sighed a long sigh on my 
 breast, for her last farewell to life, and then she grew so 
 cold, and cold, that I asked the time of year. 
 
 It was now Whit-Tuesday, and the lilacs all in blossom, 
 and why I thought of the time of year, with the young 
 death in my arms, God, or His angels may decide, having 
 so strangely given us. Enough that so I did, and looked, 
 and our white lilacs were beautiful. Then I laid my wife 
 in my mother's arms, and begging that no one would make 
 a noise, went forth for my revenge. 
 
 Of course, I knew who had done it. There was but one 
 man upon earth, or under it, where the devil dwells, who 
 could have done such a thing — such a thing. I used no 
 harsher word about it, while I leaped upon our best horse, 
 with bridle but no saddle, and set the head of Kickums 
 towards the course now pointed out to me. Who showed 
 me the course, I cannot tell. I only know that I took it. 
 And the men fell back before me. 
 
 \Veapon of no sort had I. Unarmed, and wondering 
 at my strange attire (with a bridal vest, wrought by our 
 Annie, and red with the blood of the bride), I went forth 
 just to find out this : whether in this world there be, or be 
 not, God of justice. 
 
 With my vicious horse at furious speed, I came upon 
 Black Barrow Down, directed by some shout of men, which 
 seemed to me but a whisper. And there, about a furlong 
 before me, rode a man on a great black horse, and I knew 
 that the man was Carver Doone. 
 
 " Thy life, or mine," I said to myself, " as the will of 
 God may be. But we two live not upon this earth one 
 hour more together." 
 
 I knew the strength of this great man, and I knew that 
 he was armed with a gun — if he had time to load again, 
 after shooting mv Lorna — or at any rate with pistols, and 
 a horseman's sword as well. Nevertheless, I had no more 
 doubt of killing the man before me than a cook has of 
 spitting a headless fowl. 
 
690 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 Sometimes seeing no ground beneath me, and sometimes 
 heeding every leaf, and the crossing of the grass blades, I 
 followed over the long moor, reckless whether seen or not. 
 But only once the other man turned round, and looked 
 back again, and then I was beside a rock, with a reedy 
 swamp behind me. 
 
 Although he was so far before me, and riding as hard as 
 ride he might, I saw that he had something on the horse in 
 front of him ; something which needed care, and stopped 
 him from looking backward. In the whirling of my wits I 
 fancied first that this was Lorna, until the scene I had 
 been through fell across hot brain and heart like the drop 
 at the close of a tragedy. Rushing there, through crag 
 and quag, at utmost speed of a maddened horse, I saw, as 
 of another's fate, calmly (as on canvas laid), the brutal 
 deed, the piteous anguish, and the cold despair. 
 
 The man turned up the gully leading from the moor to 
 Cloven Rocks, through which John Fry had tracked Uncle 
 Ben, as of old related. But as Carver entered it, he turned 
 round, and beheld me not a hundred yards behind ; and I 
 saw that he was bearing his child, little Ensie, before him. 
 Ensie also descried me, and stretched his hands, and cried 
 to me, for the face of his father frightened him. 
 
 Carver Doone, with a vile oath, thrust spurs into his 
 flagging horse, and laid one hand on a pistol-stock, whence 
 I knew that his slung carbine had received no bullet since 
 the one that had pierced Lorna. And a cry of triumph 
 rose from the, black depths of my heart. What cared I for 
 pistols ? I had no spurs, neither was my horse one to need 
 the rowel, I rather held him in than urged him, for he was 
 fresh as ever, and I knew that the black steed in front, if 
 he breasted the steep ascent, where the track divided, 
 must be in our reach at once. 
 
 His rider knew this, and, having no room in the rocky 
 channel to turn and fire, drew rein at the crossways 
 sharply, and plunged into the black ravine leading to the 
 Wizard's Slough. "Is it so?" I said to myself, with brain 
 and head cold as iron; "though the foul fiend come from 
 the slough to save thee, thou shalt carve it. Carver." 
 
 I followed my enemy carefully, steadily, even leisurely, 
 for I had him, as in a pitfall, whence no escape might 
 be. He thought that I feared to approach him, for he 
 knew not where he was, and his low disdainful laugh 
 came back. "Laugh he who wins," thought I. 
 
 A gnarled and half-starved oak, as stubborn as my own 
 
m.oon uroN the altar. 691 
 
 resolve, and smitten by some storm of old, hung from the 
 crag above me. Rising from my horse's back, although I 
 had no stirrups, 1 caught a limb, and tore it (like a wlicat- 
 awn) from the socket. Men show the rent even now, with 
 wonder, none with more wonder than myself. 
 
 Carver Doone turned the corner suddenly, on the black 
 and bottomless bog ; with a start oi fear he reined back 
 his horse, and I thought he would have rushed upon me, 
 but instead of that, he again rode on, hoping to find a way 
 round the side. 
 
 Now there is a way between cliff and slough, for those 
 who know the ground thoroughly, or have time enough to 
 search it ; but for him there was no road, and he lost some 
 time in seeking it. Upon this he made up his mind, and 
 wheeling, fired, and then rode at me. 
 
 His bullet struck me somewhere, but I took no heed of 
 that. Fearing only his escape, I laid my horse across the 
 way, and with the limb of the oak struck full on the fore- 
 head his charging steed. Ere the slash of the sword came 
 nigh me, man and horse rolled over, and well-nigh bore 
 my own horse down, with the power of their onset. 
 
 Carver Doone was somewhat stunned, and could not 
 arise for a moment. Meanwhile I leaped on the ground, 
 and waited, smoothing my hair back, and baring my arms, 
 as though in the ring for wrestling. 'J'hen the little boy 
 ran to me, clasped my leg, and looked up at me, and the 
 terror in his eyes made me almost fear nnself. 
 
 " Ensie, dear," I said quite gently, grieving that he 
 should see his wicked father killed, "run up yonder round 
 the corner, and try to find a bunch of bluebells for the 
 pretty lady." The child obeyed me, hanging back, and 
 looking back, and then laughing, while I prepared for 
 business. There and then, I might have killed mine 
 enemy with a single blow, while he lay unconscious, but 
 it would have been foul play. 
 
 With a sullen and black scowl, the Carver gathered his 
 mighty limbs, and arose, and looked round for his weapons, 
 but I had put them well away. Then he came to me and 
 gazed, being wont to frighten thus young men. 
 
 " I would not harm you, lad," he said, with a lofty style 
 of sneering ; " I have punished you enough, for most of 
 your impertinence. For the rest I forgive you, because 
 you have been good and gracious to my little son. C^o, 
 and be contented." 
 
 For answer, I smote him on the cheek, lightly, and not 
 
692 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 to hurt him, but to make his blood leap up. I would not 
 sully my tongue by speaking to a man like this. 
 
 There was a level space of sward between us and the 
 slough. With the courtesy derived from London, and the 
 processions I had seen, to this place I led him. And that 
 he might breathe himself, and have every fibre cool, and 
 every muscle ready, my hold upon his coat I loosed, and 
 left him to begin with me, whenever he thought proper. 
 
 I think he felt that his time was come. I think he knew 
 from my knitted muscles, and the firm arch of my breast, 
 and the way in which I stood, but most of all from my stern 
 blue eyes, that he had found his master. At any rate a 
 paleness came, an ashy paleness on his cheeks, and the vast 
 calves of his legs bowed in as if he were out of training. 
 
 Seeing this, villain as he was, I offered him first chance. 
 I stretched forth my left hand, as I do to a weaker antago- 
 nist, and I let him have the hug of me. But in this I was 
 too generous, having forgotten my pistol-wound, and the 
 cracking of one of my short lower ribs. Carver Doone 
 caught me round the waist with such a grip as never yet 
 had been laid upon me. 
 
 I heard my rib go ; I grasped his arm, and tore the 
 muscle out of it' (as the string comes out of an orange); 
 then I took him by the throat, which is not allowed in 
 wrestling, but he had snatched at mine, and now was no 
 time of dalliance. In vain he tugged, and strained, and 
 writhed, dashed his bleeding fist into my face, and flung 
 himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath the iron of 
 my strength — for God that day was with me — I had him 
 helpless in two minutes, and his blazing eyes lolled out. 
 
 " I will not harm thee any more," I cried, so far as I 
 could for panting, the work being very furious; "Carver 
 Doone, thou art beaten ; own it, and thank God for it, and 
 go thy way, and repent thyself." 
 
 It was all too late. Even if he had yielded in his raven- 
 ing frenzy — for his beard was frothy as a mad dog's jowl — 
 even if he would have owned that for the first time in his 
 life he had found his master, it was all too late. 
 
 The black bog had him by the feet ; the sucking of the 
 ground drew on him, like the thirsty lips of death. In our 
 fury we had heeded neither wet nor dry, nor thought of 
 earth beneath us. I myself might scarcely leap, with the 
 
 ' A far more terrible clutch than this is handed down, to weaker ages, 
 of the great John Ridd. — Ed. L. D. 
 
BLOOD Ul'ON THE ALTAR. 
 
 6g. 
 
 last spring of o'er-laboured legs, from the engulfing grave 
 of slime. He fell back, with his swarthy breast (from which 
 my gripe had rent all clothing), like a hummock of bog-oak 
 standing out the quagmire ; and then he tossed his arms 
 to heaven, and they were black to the elbow, and the glare 
 of his eyes was ghastly. I could only gaze and pant, for 
 my strength was no more than an infant's, from the fury 
 and the horror. Scarcely could I turn away, while, joint 
 by joint, he sank from sight. 
 
CHAPTER LXXV 
 
 GIVE AWAY THE GRANDEUR. 
 
 HEN the little boy came back with 
 the bluebells, which he had man- 
 aged to find — as children always 
 do find flowers when older eyes 
 see none — the only sign of his 
 father left was a dark brown bub- 
 ble upon a new-formed patch of 
 blackness. But to the centre of 
 its pulpy gorge the greedy slough 
 was heaving, and sullenly grind- 
 ing its weltering jaws among the 
 flags and the sedges. 
 
 With pain and ache, both of mind 
 and body, and shame at my own 
 fury, I heavily mounted my horse 
 again, and looked down at the in- 
 nocent Ensie. \\'ould this playful, 
 loving child grow up like his cruel 
 father, and end a godless life of 
 hatred with a death of violence ? 
 He lifted his noble forehead towards me as if to answer, 
 " Nay, I will not," but the words he spoke were these : 
 
 "Don" — for he never could say "John" — "oh, Don, I 
 am so glad that nasty, naughty man is gone away. Take 
 me home, Don, take me home." 
 
 It has been said of the wicked, "Not even their own chil- 
 dren love them." And I could easily perceive that Car- 
 ver Doone's cold-hearted ways had scared from him even 
 his favourite child. No man would I call truly wicked, 
 unless his heart be cold. 
 
 It hurt me more than I can tell, even through all other 
 grief, to take into my arms the child of the man just slain 
 
GIVE AWAV THE C.RANDEUR. 695 
 
 by me. The feeling was a foolish one, and a wrontj one, 
 as the thing had been — for 1 would fain have saved that 
 man after he was eonquered — nevertheless, my arms went 
 coldly round that Httle fellow, neither would they have 
 gone at all if there had been any help for it. But I could 
 not leave him there till some one else might fetch him, on 
 account of the cruel slough, and the ravens which had 
 come hovering over the dead horse, neither could I, with 
 my wound, tie him on my horse and walk. 
 
 For now I had spent a great deal of blood, and was 
 rather faint and weary. And it was lucky for me that 
 Kickums had lost spirit, like his master, and went home as 
 mildly as a lamb. For when we came towards the farm I 
 seemed to be riding in a dream almost, and the voices both 
 of men and women (who had hurried forth upon my track), 
 as they met me, seemed to wander from a distant muffling 
 cloud. Only the thought of Lorna's death, like a heavy 
 knell, was tolling in the belfry of my brain. 
 
 When we came to the stable door, I rather fell from my 
 horse than got off, and John Fry, with a look of wonder, 
 took Kickums' head and led him in. Into the old farm- 
 house I tottered, like a weanling child, with mother in her 
 common clothes helping me along, yet fearing, except by 
 stealth, to look at me. 
 
 "I have killed him," was all I said, "even as he killed 
 Lorna. Now let me see my wife, mother. She belongs to 
 me none the less, though dead." 
 
 " Vou cannot see her now, dear John," said Ruth Hucka- 
 back, coming forward, since no one else had the courage. 
 "Annie is with her now, John." 
 
 "What has that to do with it? Let me see my dead one, 
 and then die." 
 
 All the women fell away, and whispered, and looked at 
 me with side-glances, and some sobbing, for my face was 
 hard as flint. Ruth alone stood by me, and dropped her 
 eyes, and trembled. Then one little hand of hers stole into 
 my great shaking palm, and the other was laid on my tat- 
 tered coat, yet with her clothes she shunned my blood, 
 while she whispered gently: 
 
 "John, she is not your dead one. She may even be 
 your living one yet, your wife, your home, and your happi- 
 ness. But you must not see her now." 
 
 "Is there any chance for her — for me, I mean; for 
 me, I mean ?" 
 
 "God in heaven knows, dear John. But the sight of 
 
696 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 you, and in this sad plight, would be certain death to her. 
 Now, come first, and be healed yourself." 
 
 I obeyed her like a child, whispering only as I went — for 
 none but myself knew her goodness — "Almighty God will 
 bless you, darling, for the good you are doing now." 
 
 Tenfold, ay, and a thousand-fold, I prayed, and I believed 
 it when I came to know the truth. If it had not been for 
 this little maid, Lorna must have died at once as in my 
 arms she lay for dead from the dastard and murderous 
 cruelty. But the moment I left her, Ruth came forward 
 and took the command of every one, in right of her firm- 
 ness and readiness. 
 
 She made them bear her home at once upon the door 
 of the pulpit, with the cushion under her drooping head. 
 ^\'ith her own little hands she cut off, as tenderly as a pear 
 is peeled, the bridal-dress so steeped and stained, and then 
 with her dainty, transparent fingers (no larger than a pen- 
 cil, she probed the vile wound in the side, and fetched 
 the reeking bullet forth, and then with the coldest water 
 staunched the flowing of the life-blood. All this while my 
 darling lay insensible and white as death, and the rest 
 declared that she was dead, and needed nothing but her 
 maiden shroud. 
 
 But Ruth still sponged the poor side and forehead, and 
 watched the long eyelashes flat upon the marble cheek, and 
 laid her pure face on the faint heart, and bade them fetch 
 her Spanish wine. Then she parted the pearly teeth 
 (feebly clenched on the hovering breath), and poured in 
 wine from a christening spoon, and raised the graceful 
 neck and breast, and stroked the delicate throat, and 
 waited, and then poured in a little more. 
 
 Annie all the while looked on with horror and amaze- 
 ment, counting herself no second-rate nurse, and this as 
 against all theory. But the quiet lifting of Ruth's hand, 
 and one glance from her dark, bright eyes told Annie just 
 to stand away, and not intercept the air so. And at the 
 very moment when all the rest had settled that Ruth was 
 a simple idiot, but could not harm the dead much, a little 
 flutter in the throat, followed by a short, low sigh, made 
 them pause, and look, and hope. 
 
 For hours, however, and days, she lay at the very verge 
 of death, kept alive by nothing but the care, the skill, the 
 tenderness, and perpetual watchfulness of Ruth. Luckily, 
 Annie was not there very often, so as to meddle, for kind 
 and clever nurse as she was, she must have done more 
 
C.IVE AWAV THE (i kANJiiaiR. 697 
 
 harm than good. But my broken rib, which was set by a 
 doctor who chanced to be at the wedding, was allotted to 
 Annie's care, and, great inflammation ensuing, it was quite 
 enough to content her. This doctor had pronounced poor 
 Lorna dead, wherefore Ruth refused most firmly to have 
 aught to do with him. She took the whole case on herself, 
 and with liod's help she bore it through. 
 
 Now, wliether it were the light and brightness of my 
 Lorna's nature, or the freedom from anxiety — for she 
 knew not of my hurt — or, as some people said, her birth- 
 right among wounds and violence, or her manner of not 
 drinking beer, I leave that doctor to determine who pro- 
 nounced her dead. But, anyhow, one thing is certain, sure 
 as the stars of hope above us, Lorna recovered long ere 
 I did. 
 
 On me lay overwhelming sorrow, having lost my love 
 and lover at the moment she was mine. AVith the power 
 of fate upon me, and the black cauldron of the wizard's 
 death boiling in my heated brain, I had no faith in the 
 tales thev told. I believed that Lorna was in the church- 
 yard, while these rogues were lying to me. For with 
 strength of blood like mine, and power of heart behind it, 
 a broken bone must burn himself. 
 
 Mine went hard with fires of pain, being of such size and 
 thickness, and I was ashamed of him for breaking by rea- 
 son of a pistol-ball and the mere hug of a man. And it 
 fetched me down in conceit of strength, so that I was 
 careful afterwards. 
 
 All this was a lesson to me. All this made me very 
 humble, illness being a thing, as yet, altogether unknown 
 to me. Not that I cried small, or skulked, or feared the 
 death which some foretold — shaking their heads about 
 mortification and a green appearance. < >nly that I seemed 
 quite fit to go to heaven and Lorna. For in my sick, dis- 
 tracted mind (stirred with many tossings), like the bead in 
 a wisp of frog-spawn drifted by the current, hung the black 
 and worthless burden of the life before me. A life without 
 Lorna, a tadpole life — all stupid head and no body. 
 
 IVIany men may like such life — anchorites, fakirs, high- 
 priests, and so on, but to my mind it is not the native thing 
 God meant for us. Aly dearest mother was a show with 
 crying and with fretting. The Doones, as she thought, 
 were born to destroy us. Scarce had she come to some 
 liveliness (though sprinkled with tears every now and then) 
 after her great bereavement, and ten years' time to dwell 
 
OoS 
 
 1A>K\A IHHIM'. 
 
 on it — wlien, In, \wrv w.i'^ licr liusb.uurs son. \\\c nci cliiUl 
 111 lu-r iiwn l;i>(h1 John, luuuloicd like his l.ilhcr! Will, 
 Uu' w.ivs of t'lod well' w onilorl'ul ! 
 
 So Ihcv were, and so thr\ .nc, ,nul so \Uv\ cm'I will ln' 
 111 us debate them , IS we will, oni w.us.ne Ilis, andnuuh 
 tile s.nne, onlv seeond h.iiul lioni Him, And I e\peeled 
 somelhin.u iVom llim, e\en in m\ uorsi ol limes, knoxvmi; 
 tliat 1 had i.\ouc m\ hesl. 
 
 This is not ediixin^ I, ilk .is the rinitans used lo lemind 
 niv lathei', when there was no more to drink --- Iheieloi e lei 
 me onl\- tell w h.il heeanie of l.onia, Oiu' d,i\', 1 w.issiltin^ 
 in my bed-room, lor 1 eould not i;el downsl.uis, and llieie 
 was no one sliong enoii,L;h lo e.irr\' me, exen il I wouki li.i\e 
 borne it. 
 
 I'hoiii^h il eosi me sore (rouble and we.iriness, 1 had put 
 on ,ill n\x .Siindax' elothes, out of respei I lor the doeloi . who 
 w.is eomui'^ lo bk'ed uu- ,ii;.iin (.is he .ilw.ns did, tw lee .i 
 week), and U struck me, th.il he li.id seemed hurt m Ins 
 muul, bee.uise 1 wore in\' worst clothes lo be bled in — lor 
 lie in bed I would not, .liter si\ o'ehnk, .ind exen th.il w.is 
 i;real l,\/iness. 
 
 1 looked .11 ni\ ri;^hl hand, w'hosi' .i^i.isp h.id jieen like 
 til, it of ,1 blaeksinilh's vice, and il si'eme<l lo imsell nupos 
 sible thai this eoiild be |olm Kidd's. The iMe.il Iraineol 
 the li.iiul was there, as well .is Ihe niiiseles, sl.indnii; lorlli 
 like the l;ii1 terin,n' of :\ eaiulle, and llie bio, id blue \eiiis, 
 t;oin,t; up the back, and {lossiiu; evi'ix' finder, Itul .is loi 
 colour, cvi'H l.orn.i's could scineb' ha\i' been wliilei ; and 
 as lor slren.i^lh, lillle h'nsie J)oone mi^lit li.u'c (niue ;ind 
 held it fast. I l.ui<;hed, ,is 1 tried in \.im lo lill llie b,isiii 
 sel lor bleedim.; me. 
 
 Then 1 thought of .ill Ihe lo\'el\' ihiuLjs u"iil'; "\\ oiil of 
 doors jusl now, eoiieei iilii'.; which Ihe diin\s\ sonn' <i|' ||u' 
 bees c.ime to me. These iiiiisl he ;mion^ the lli\me, b\ 
 the sound of llieir i;rcal content. I'lieieloie the loses niiisl 
 be in blossom, .and the wdodlmie, .iiid iloxcnjlh' llower; 
 the c'lu'rrics on Ihe wall must be luniiiiLi led, and llie liisl 
 brood o I 111 rushes come I o watch 1 hem do il ; whe.il iiiiisl be 
 c.'illou' wilh a lulled ipiix'crini;, and Ihe e,iil\' nieadows 
 sw.il lied w'll h h;i\'. 
 
 \' r[ here was I, .a helpless ire.iliire, (|uile linlil lo sin 
 .imonj; lliein, t;llled wilh no siidil, no scent of ;ill 1 he cIi.iii;m's 
 Ihal mox'c our lo\c, .iiid le.id our hearts, fioin monlli lo 
 mouth, .iloiu.; the (|iii(i palh of lile. And w hal w.is worse, I 
 had no hope ol cirini; ever for I hem more. 
 
(;IV1-; AWAY THE (GRANDEUR. 699 
 
 Presently a little knock sounded throuj^di 015' glodni}' 
 r<H>ni, and sujipusini,' it tn be the doctor, I tried to n^e and 
 make my bow. But to my surprise, it was little Ruth, who 
 had never (ince come to visit me since I was placed under 
 the doctor's hands. Ruth was dressed so gaily, with ro- 
 settes, and flowers, and what not, that I was surrv for her 
 bad manners, and thought she was come to conquer me, 
 now that Lorna was done with. 
 
 Ruth ran towards me with sparkling eyes, being rather 
 short of sight, then suddenly she stopped, and I saw entire 
 amazement in her face. 
 
 "(all you receive visitors. Cousin Ridd ' — why, they 
 never told me of this ! " she cried ; " I knew that you were 
 weak, dear Jojin, but not that you were dying. Whatever 
 is that basin for ' " 
 
 " I have no intention of dying, Ruth, and I like not Uj 
 talk about it. But that basin, if you must know, is for the 
 doctor's purpose." 
 
 '' What, do you mean bleeding you ? You poor weak 
 cousin ! Is it possible that he does that still .'" 
 
 '■ Twire a week for the last six weeks, dear. Nothing 
 else has kept me alive." 
 
 " Nothing else has killed yriu, nearly. There ! " and "-be 
 set her little boot across the basin, and crushed it. " Not 
 another drop shall they have from you. Is Annie such a 
 fool as that ? .\nd Lizzie, like a zany, at her books ? And 
 killing their brother, between them ? " 
 
 I was surprised to see Ruth e.xeited, her character being 
 so calm and quiet. And I tried to soothe her with my 
 feeble hand, as now she knelt before me. 
 
 " Dear cousin, the doctor must know best. Annie say-, 
 so, every day. Else what has he been brought up for ' " 
 
 " Brought up for slaying, and murdering. Twenty doc- 
 tors killed King Charles, in spite of all the women. Will 
 vou leave it to me, John ? I have a little will of my own, 
 and I am not afraid of doctors. Will you leave it to me, 
 dear John? I have saved your Lorna's life, and now I 
 will save yours, which is a far, far easier business." 
 
 " \'ou have saved my Lorna's life 1 What do you mean 
 bv talking so ?" 
 
 "Only what I say. Cousin John, though perhaps I over- 
 prize my work. But at any rate she says so." 
 
 " I do not understand," I said, falling back with bewil- 
 derment ; "all women are such liars." 
 
 " Have you ever known me to tell a lie?" cried Ruth m 
 
700 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 great indignation — more feigned, I doubt, than real — 
 "your mother may tell a story, now and then, when she 
 feels it right, and so may both your sisters. But so you 
 cannot do, John Ridd, and no more than you, can I 
 do it." 
 
 If ever there was virtuous truth in the eyes of any woman, 
 it was now in the eyes of Ruth Huckaback, and my brain 
 began very slowly to move, the heart being almost torpid 
 from perpetual loss of blood. 
 
 " I do not understand," was all I could say for a very 
 long time. 
 
 " Will you understand, if I show you Lorna ? I have 
 feared to do it, for the sake of you both. But now Lorna 
 is well enough, if you think that you are. Cousin John. 
 Surely you will understand, when you see your wife." 
 
 Following her to the very utmost of my mind and heart, 
 I felt that all she said was truth, and yet I could not make 
 it out. And in her last few words, there was such a power 
 of sadness, rising through the cover of gaiety, that I said to 
 myself, half in a dream, " Ruth is very beautiful." 
 
 Before I had time to listen much for the approach of 
 footsteps, Ruth came back, and behind her Lorna, coy as 
 if of her bridegroom, and hanging back with her beauty. 
 Ruth banged the door, and ran away, and Lorna stood 
 before me. 
 
 But she did not stand for an instant, when she saw what 
 I was like. At the risk of all thick bandages, and upsetting 
 a dozen medicine bottles, and scattering leeches right and 
 left, she managed to get into my arms, although they could 
 not hold her. She laid her panting warm young breast on 
 the place where they meant to bleed me, and she set my 
 pale face up, and she would not look at me, having greater 
 faith in kissing. 
 
 I felt my life come back, and glow ; I felt my trust in 
 God revive ; I felt the joy of living and of loving dearer 
 things than life. It is not a moment to describe ; who 
 feels can never tell of it. But the compassion of my sweet- 
 heart's tears, and the caressing of my bride's lips, and the 
 throbbing of my wife's heart (now at last at home on mine) 
 made me feel that the world was good, and not a thing to 
 be weary of. 
 
 Little more have I to tell. The doctor was turned out 
 at once, and slowly came back my former strength, with a 
 darling wife, and good victuals. As for Lorna, she never 
 tired of sitting and watching me eat and eat. And such is 
 
GIYI-; AWAV THE GRANDEUR. 70I 
 
 her heart, that she never tires of being with me here and 
 there, among the beautiful places, and talkiiv^- with her 
 arm around me — so far at least as it can go, though half 
 of mine may go round her — of the many fears and troubles, 
 dangers and discouragements, and worst of all the bitter 
 partings, which we used to undergo. 
 
 There is no need for my farming harder than becomes a 
 man of weight. Lorna has great stores of money, though 
 we never draw it out, e.xcept for some poor neighbour, 
 unless I find her a sumptuous dress, out of her own per- 
 quisites. And this she always looks upon as a wondrous 
 gift from me, and kisses me much when she puts it on, and 
 walks like the noble woman she is. And yet I may never 
 behold it again, for she gets back to her simple clothes, 
 and I love her the better in them. I believe that she gives 
 half the grandeur away, and keeps the other half for the 
 children. 
 
 As for poor Tom Faggus, every one knows his bitter 
 adventures, when his pardon was recalled, because of his 
 sally to Sedgemoor. Xcjt a child in the county, I doubt, 
 but knows far more than I do of Tom's most desperate 
 doings. The law had ruined him once, he said, and then 
 he had been too much for the law, and now that a quiet life 
 was his object, here the base thing came after him. And 
 such was his dread of this evil spirit, that being caught 
 upon Barnstaple Bridge, with soldiers at either end of it 
 (yet doubtful about approaching him), he set his straw- 
 berry mare, sweet Winnie, at the left hand parapet, with a 
 whisper into her dove-coloured ear. \\'ithout a moment's 
 doubt she leaped it, into the foaming tide, and swam, and 
 landed according to orders. Also his flight from a public 
 house (where a trap was set for him, but \\'innie came, and 
 broke down the door, and put two men under, and trod on 
 them), is as well known as any ballad. It was reported for 
 awhile that poor Tom had been caught at last, by means 
 of his fondness for liquor, and was hanged before 'Taunton 
 Gaol, but luckily we knew better. A\'ith a good wife, and a 
 wonderful horse, and all the country attached to him, he 
 kept the law at a wholesome distance, until it became too 
 much for its master, and a new king arose. Upon this Tom 
 sued his pardon afresh, and Jeremy Stickles, who suited 
 the times, was glad to help him m getting it, as well as a 
 compensation. Thereafter, the good and respectable Tom 
 lived a godly and righteous (though not always sober) life. 
 
702 LORNA DOONE. 
 
 and brought up his children to honesty, as the first of all 
 qualifications. 
 
 ^ly dear mother was as happy as possibly need be with 
 us, having no cause for jealousy, as others arose around 
 her. And every body was well pleased when Lizzie 
 came in one day and tossed her book-shelf over, and de- 
 clared that she would have Captain Bloxham, and nobody 
 should prevent her. For that he alone, of all the men she 
 had met with, knew good writing when he saw it, and could 
 spell a word when told. As he had now succeeded to Cap- 
 tain Stickles' position (Stickles going up the tree), and had 
 the power of collecting, and of keeping what he liked, 
 there was nothing to be said against it, and we hoped that 
 he would pay her out. 
 
 I sent little Ensie to Blundell's school, at my own cost 
 and charges, having changed his name, for fear of what 
 any one might do to him. I called him "Ensie Jones," 
 and I hope that he will be a credit to us. For the bold 
 adventurous nature of the Doones broke out on him, and 
 we got him a commission, and after many scrapes of spirit, 
 he did great things in the Low Countries. He looks upon 
 me as his father, and without my leave will not lay claim 
 to the heritage and title of the Doones, which clearly be- 
 long to him. 
 
 Ruth Huckaback is not married yet, although upon Uncle 
 Reuben's death she came into all his property, except, in- 
 deed, 2000/., which Uncle Ben, in his driest manner, be- 
 queathed " to Sir John Ridd, the worshipful knight, for 
 greasing of the testator's boots." And he left almost a 
 mint of money, not from the mine, but from the shop, and 
 the good use of usury. For the mine had brought in just 
 what it cost, when the vein of gold ended suddenly, leav- 
 ing all concerned much older, and some, I fear, much 
 poorer, but no one utterly ruined, as is the case with most 
 of them. Ruth, herself, was his true mine, as upon death- 
 bed he found. I know a man even worthy of her, and 
 though she is not very young, he loves her as I love 
 Lorna. More and more I hope, and think that in the end 
 he will win her ; and I do not mean to dance again, except 
 at dear Ruth's wedding, if a floor can be found strong 
 enough, 
 
 Of Lorna, of my lifelong darling, of my more and more 
 loved wife, I will not talk, for it is not seemly that a man 
 should exalt his pride. Vear by year her beauty grows, 
 
(.•.I\E AWAY THE GRANDEUR. 
 
 703 
 
 with the i^rowth of goodness, kindness, and true happiness 
 — above all with loving. I'or change, she makes a joke 
 of this, and plays with it, and laughs at it ; and then, when 
 my slow nature marvels, back she comes to the earnest 
 thing. And if I wish to pay her out for something very 
 dreadful — as may happen once or twice, when we become 
 too glailsome — 1 bring her to forgotten sadness, and to 
 me for cure of it, by the two words, " Lorna Doone." 
 
 ccne. 
 
 "Thl Fnd