Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition

Chapter 10

A BRAVE RESCUE AND A ROUGH RIDE

It happened upon a November evening (when I was about fifteen years old,
and out_growing my strength very rapidly, my sister Annie being turned
thirteen, and a deal of rain having fallen, and all the troughs in the
yard being flooded, and the bark from the wood_ricks washed down the
gutters, and even our water_shoot going brown) that the ducks in the
court made a terrible quacking, instead of marching off to their pen,
one behind another. Thereupon Annie and I ran out to see what might be
the sense of it. There were thirteen ducks, and ten lily_white (as the
fashion then of ducks was), not I mean twenty_three in all, but ten
white and three brown_striped ones; and without being nice about their
colour, they all quacked very movingly. They pushed their gold_coloured
bills here and there (yet dirty, as gold is apt to be), and they jumped
on the triangles of their feet, and sounded out of their nostrils; and
some of the over_excited ones ran along low on the ground, quacking
grievously with their bills snapping and bending, and the roof of their
mouths exhibited.

Annie began to cry 'Dilly, dilly, einy, einy, ducksey,' according to
the burden of a tune they seem to have accepted as the national duck's
anthem; but instead of being soothed by it, they only quacked three
times as hard, and ran round till we were giddy. And then they shook
their tails together, and looked grave, and went round and round
again. Now I am uncommonly fond of ducks, both roasted and roasting and
roystering; and it is a fine sight to behold them walk, poddling one
after other, with their toes out, like soldiers drilling, and their
little eyes cocked all ways at once, and the way that they dib with
their bills, and dabble, and throw up their heads and enjoy something,
and then tell the others about it. Therefore I knew at once, by the way
they were carrying on, that there must be something or other gone wholly
amiss in the duck_world. Sister Annie perceived it too, but with a
greater quickness; for she counted them like a good duck_wife, and could
only tell thirteen of them, when she knew there ought to be fourteen.

And so we began to search about, and the ducks ran to lead us aright,
having come that far to fetch us; and when we got down to the foot of
the court_yard where the two great ash_trees stand by the side of the
little water, we found good reason for the urgence and melancholy of the
duck_birds. Lo! the old white drake, the father of all, a bird of high
manners and chivalry, always the last to help himself from the pan of
barley_meal, and the first to show fight to a dog or cock intruding upon
his family, this fine fellow, and pillar of the state, was now in a sad
predicament, yet quacking very stoutly. For the brook, wherewith he
had been familiar from his callow childhood, and wherein he was wont to
quest for water_newts, and tadpoles, and caddis_worms, and other game,
this brook, which afforded him very often scanty space to dabble in,
and sometimes starved the cresses, was now coming down in a great brown
flood, as if the banks never belonged to it. The foaming of it, and the
noise, and the cresting of the corners, and the up and down, like a wave
of the sea, were enough to frighten any duck, though bred upon stormy
waters, which our ducks never had been.

There is always a hurdle six feet long and four and a half in depth,
swung by a chain at either end from an oak laid across the channel. And
the use of this hurdle is to keep our kine at milking time from straying
away there drinking (for in truth they are very dainty) and to fence
strange cattle, or Farmer Snowe's horses, from coming along the bed of
the brook unknown, to steal our substance. But now this hurdle, which
hung in the summer a foot above the trickle, would have been dipped more
than two feet deep but for the power against it. For the torrent came
down so vehemently that the chains at full stretch were creaking, and
the hurdle buffeted almost flat, and thatched (so to say) with the
drift_stuff, was going see_saw, with a sulky splash on the dirty red
comb of the waters. But saddest to see was between two bars, where a
fog was of rushes, and flood_wood, and wild_celery haulm, and dead
crowsfoot, who but our venerable mallard jammed in by the joint of his
shoulder, speaking aloud as he rose and fell, with his top_knot full of
water, unable to comprehend it, with his tail washed far away from him,
but often compelled to be silent, being ducked very harshly against his
will by the choking fall_to of the hurdle.

For a moment I could not help laughing, because, being borne up high and
dry by a tumult of the torrent, he gave me a look from his one little
eye (having lost one in fight with the turkey_cock), a gaze of appealing
sorrow, and then a loud quack to second it. But the quack came out of
time, I suppose, for his throat got filled with water, as the hurdle
carried him back again. And then there was scarcely the screw of his
tail to be seen until he swung up again, and left small doubt by the
way he sputtered, and failed to quack, and hung down his poor crest, but
what he must drown in another minute, and frogs triumph over his body.

Annie was crying, and wringing her hands, and I was about to rush into
the water, although I liked not the look of it, but hoped to hold on by
the hurdle, when a man on horseback came suddenly round the corner of
the great ash_hedge on the other side of the stream, and his horse's
feet were in the water.

'Ho, there,' he cried; 'get thee back, boy. The flood will carry thee
down like a straw. I will do it for thee, and no trouble.'

With that he leaned forward, and spoke to his mare__she was just of the
tint of a strawberry, a young thing, very beautiful__and she arched up
her neck, as misliking the job; yet, trusting him, would attempt it. She
entered the flood, with her dainty fore_legs sloped further and further
in front of her, and her delicate ears pricked forward, and the size of
her great eyes increasing, but he kept her straight in the turbid rush,
by the pressure of his knee on her. Then she looked back, and wondered
at him, as the force of the torrent grew stronger, but he bade her go
on; and on she went, and it foamed up over her shoulders; and she tossed
up her lip and scorned it, for now her courage was waking. Then as the
rush of it swept her away, and she struck with her forefeet down the
stream, he leaned from his saddle in a manner which I never could have
thought possible, and caught up old Tom with his left hand, and set him
between his holsters, and smiled at his faint quack of gratitude. In a
moment all these were carried downstream, and the rider lay flat on his
horse, and tossed the hurdle clear from him, and made for the bend of
smooth water.

They landed some thirty or forty yards lower, in the midst of our
kitchen_garden, where the winter_cabbage was; but though Annie and I
crept in through the hedge, and were full of our thanks and admiring
him, he would answer us never a word, until he had spoken in full to the
mare, as if explaining the whole to her.

'Sweetheart, I know thou couldst have leaped it,' he said, as he patted
her cheek, being on the ground by this time, and she was nudging up to
him, with the water pattering off her; 'but I had good reason, Winnie
dear, for making thee go through it.'

She answered him kindly with her soft eyes, and smiled at him very
lovingly, and they understood one another. Then he took from his
waistcoat two peppercorns, and made the old drake swallow them, and
tried him softly upon his legs, where the leading gap in the hedge was.
Old Tom stood up quite bravely, and clapped his wings, and shook off the
wet from his tail_feathers; and then away into the court_yard, and his
family gathered around him, and they all made a noise in their throats,
and stood up, and put their bills together, to thank God for this great
deliverance.

Having taken all this trouble, and watched the end of that adventure,
the gentleman turned round to us with a pleasant smile on his face, as
if he were lightly amused with himself; and we came up and looked at
him. He was rather short, about John Fry's height, or may be a little
taller, but very strongly built and springy, as his gait at every step
showed plainly, although his legs were bowed with much riding, and he
looked as if he lived on horseback. To a boy like me he seemed very old,
being over twenty, and well_found in beard; but he was not more than
four_and_twenty, fresh and ruddy looking, with a short nose and keen
blue eyes, and a merry waggish jerk about him, as if the world were not
in earnest. Yet he had a sharp, stern way, like the crack of a pistol,
if anything misliked him; and we knew (for children see such things)
that it was safer to tickle than buffet him.

'Well, young uns, what be gaping at?' He gave pretty Annie a chuck on
the chin, and took me all in without winking.

'Your mare,' said I, standing stoutly up, being a tall boy now; 'I never
saw such a beauty, sir. Will you let me have a ride of her?'

'Think thou couldst ride her, lad? She will have no burden but mine.
Thou couldst never ride her. Tut! I would be loath to kill thee.'

'Ride her!' I cried with the bravest scorn, for she looked so kind and
gentle; 'there never was horse upon Exmoor foaled, but I could tackle in
half an hour. Only I never ride upon saddle. Take them leathers off of
her.'

He looked at me with a dry little whistle, and thrust his hands into his
breeches_pockets, and so grinned that I could not stand it. And Annie
laid hold of me in such a way that I was almost mad with her. And he
laughed, and approved her for doing so. And the worst of all was__he
said nothing.

'Get away, Annie, will you? Do you think I'm a fool, good sir! Only
trust me with her, and I will not override her.'

'For that I will go bail, my son. She is liker to override thee. But the
ground is soft to fall upon, after all this rain. Now come out into the
yard, young man, for the sake of your mother's cabbages. And the mellow
straw_bed will be softer for thee, since pride must have its fall. I
am thy mother's cousin, boy, and am going up to house. Tom Faggus is my
name, as everybody knows; and this is my young mare, Winnie.'

What a fool I must have been not to know it at once! Tom Faggus, the
great highwayman, and his young blood_mare, the strawberry! Already her
fame was noised abroad, nearly as much as her master's; and my longing
to ride her grew tenfold, but fear came at the back of it. Not that I
had the smallest fear of what the mare could do to me, by fair play and
horse_trickery, but that the glory of sitting upon her seemed to be too
great for me; especially as there were rumours abroad that she was not a
mare after all, but a witch. However, she looked like a filly all over,
and wonderfully beautiful, with her supple stride, and soft slope of
shoulder, and glossy coat beaded with water, and prominent eyes full of
docile fire. Whether this came from her Eastern blood of the Arabs newly
imported, and whether the cream_colour, mixed with our bay, led to
that bright strawberry tint, is certainly more than I can decide, being
chiefly acquaint with farm_horses. And these come of any colour and
form; you never can count what they will be, and are lucky to get four
legs to them.

Mr. Faggus gave his mare a wink, and she walked demurely after him, a
bright young thing, flowing over with life, yet dropping her soul to a
higher one, and led by love to anything; as the manner is of females,
when they know what is the best for them. Then Winnie trod lightly upon
the straw, because it had soft muck under it, and her delicate feet came
back again.

'Up for it still, boy, be ye?' Tom Faggus stopped, and the mare stopped
there; and they looked at me provokingly.

'Is she able to leap, sir? There is good take_off on this side of the
brook.'

Mr. Faggus laughed very quietly, turning round to Winnie so that she
might enter into it. And she, for her part, seemed to know exactly where
the fun lay.

'Good tumble_off, you mean, my boy. Well, there can be small harm to
thee. I am akin to thy family, and know the substance of their skulls.'

'Let me get up,' said I, waxing wroth, for reasons I cannot tell you,
because they are too manifold; 'take off your saddle_bag things. I will
try not to squeeze her ribs in, unless she plays nonsense with me.'

Then Mr. Faggus was up on his mettle, at this proud speech of mine; and
John Fry was running up all the while, and Bill Dadds, and half a dozen.
Tom Faggus gave one glance around, and then dropped all regard for me.
The high repute of his mare was at stake, and what was my life compared
to it? Through my defiance, and stupid ways, here was I in a duello,
and my legs not come to their strength yet, and my arms as limp as a
herring.

Something of this occurred to him even in his wrath with me, for he
spoke very softly to the filly, who now could scarce subdue herself;
but she drew in her nostrils, and breathed to his breath and did all she
could to answer him.

'Not too hard, my dear,' he said: 'led him gently down on the mixen.
That will be quite enough.' Then he turned the saddle off, and I was
up in a moment. She began at first so easily, and pricked her ears so
lovingly, and minced about as if pleased to find so light a weight upon
her, that I thought she knew I could ride a little, and feared to show
any capers. 'Gee wug, Polly!' cried I, for all the men were now looking
on, being then at the leaving_off time: 'Gee wug, Polly, and show what
thou be'est made of.' With that I plugged my heels into her, and Billy
Dadds flung his hat up.

Nevertheless, she outraged not, though her eyes were frightening Annie,
and John Fry took a pick to keep him safe; but she curbed to and fro
with her strong forearms rising like springs ingathered, waiting and
quivering grievously, and beginning to sweat about it. Then her master
gave a shrill clear whistle, when her ears were bent towards him, and I
felt her form beneath me gathering up like whalebone, and her hind_legs
coming under her, and I knew that I was in for it.

First she reared upright in the air, and struck me full on the nose with
her comb, till I bled worse than Robin Snell made me; and then down
with her fore_feet deep in the straw, and her hind_feet going to heaven.
Finding me stick to her still like wax, for my mettle was up as hers
was, away she flew with me swifter than ever I went before, or since, I
trow. She drove full_head at the cobwall__'Oh, Jack, slip off,' screamed
Annie__then she turned like light, when I thought to crush her, and
ground my left knee against it. 'Mux me,' I cried, for my breeches were
broken, and short words went the furthest__'if you kill me, you shall
die with me.' Then she took the court_yard gate at a leap, knocking my
words between my teeth, and then right over a quick set hedge, as if the
sky were a breath to her; and away for the water_meadows, while I lay
on her neck like a child at the breast and wished I had never been
born. Straight away, all in the front of the wind, and scattering clouds
around her, all I knew of the speed we made was the frightful flash of
her shoulders, and her mane like trees in a tempest. I felt the earth
under us rushing away, and the air left far behind us, and my breath
came and went, and I prayed to God, and was sorry to be so late of it.

All the long swift while, without power of thought, I clung to her crest
and shoulders, and dug my nails into her creases, and my toes into her
flank_part, and was proud of holding on so long, though sure of being
beaten. Then in her fury at feeling me still, she rushed at another
device for it, and leaped the wide water_trough sideways across, to and
fro, till no breath was left in me. The hazel_boughs took me too hard
in the face, and the tall dog_briers got hold of me, and the ache of
my back was like crimping a fish; till I longed to give up, thoroughly
beaten, and lie there and die in the cresses. But there came a shrill
whistle from up the home_hill, where the people had hurried to watch us;
and the mare stopped as if with a bullet, then set off for home with
the speed of a swallow, and going as smoothly and silently. I never had
dreamed of such delicate motion, fluent, and graceful, and ambient,
soft as the breeze flitting over the flowers, but swift as the summer
lightning. I sat up again, but my strength was all spent, and no time
left to recover it, and though she rose at our gate like a bird, I
tumbled off into the mixen.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 11

TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER

'Well done, lad,' Mr. Faggus said good naturedly; for all were now
gathered round me, as I rose from the ground, somewhat tottering, and
miry, and crest_fallen, but otherwise none the worse (having fallen
upon my head, which is of uncommon substance); nevertheless John Fry was
laughing, so that I longed to clout his ears for him; 'Not at all bad
work, my boy; we may teach you to ride by_and_by, I see; I thought not
to see you stick on so long__'

'I should have stuck on much longer, sir, if her sides had not been wet.
She was so slippery__'

'Boy, thou art right. She hath given many the slip. Ha, ha! Vex not,
Jack, that I laugh at thee. She is like a sweetheart to me, and better,
than any of them be. It would have gone to my heart if thou hadst
conquered. None but I can ride my Winnie mare.'

'Foul shame to thee then, Tom Faggus,' cried mother, coming up suddenly,
and speaking so that all were amazed, having never seen her wrathful;
'to put my boy, my boy, across her, as if his life were no more than
thine! The only son of his father, an honest man, and a quiet man, not
a roystering drunken robber! A man would have taken thy mad horse and
thee, and flung them both into horse_pond__ay, and what's more, I'll
have it done now, if a hair of his head is injured. Oh, my boy, my boy!
What could I do without thee? Put up the other arm, Johnny.' All the
time mother was scolding so, she was feeling me, and wiping me; while
Faggus tried to look greatly ashamed, having sense of the ways of women.

'Only look at his jacket, mother!' cried Annie; 'and a shillingsworth
gone from his small_clothes!'

'What care I for his clothes, thou goose? Take that, and heed thine own
a bit.' And mother gave Annie a slap which sent her swinging up against
Mr. Faggus, and he caught her, and kissed and protected her, and she
looked at him very nicely, with great tears in her soft blue eyes. 'Oh,
fie upon thee, fie upon thee!' cried mother (being yet more vexed with
him, because she had beaten Annie); 'after all we have done for thee,
and saved thy worthless neck__and to try to kill my son for me! Never
more shall horse of thine enter stable here, since these be thy returns
to me. Small thanks to you, John Fry, I say, and you Bill Dadds, and you
Jem Slocomb, and all the rest of your coward lot; much you care for your
master's son! Afraid of that ugly beast yourselves, and you put a boy
just breeched upon him!'

'Wull, missus, what could us do?' began John; 'Jan wudd goo, now wudd't
her, Jem? And how was us__'

'Jan indeed! Master John, if you please, to a lad of his years and
stature. And now, Tom Faggus, be off, if you please, and think yourself
lucky to go so; and if ever that horse comes into our yard, I'll
hamstring him myself if none of my cowards dare do it.'

Everybody looked at mother, to hear her talk like that, knowing how
quiet she was day by day and how pleasant to be cheated. And the men
began to shoulder their shovels, both so as to be away from her, and
to go and tell their wives of it. Winnie too was looking at her, being
pointed at so much, and wondering if she had done amiss. And then she
came to me, and trembled, and stooped her head, and asked my pardon, if
she had been too proud with me.

'Winnie shall stop here to_night,' said I, for Tom Faggus still said
never a word all the while; but began to buckle his things on, for he
knew that women are to be met with wool, as the cannon_balls were at the
siege of Tiverton Castle; 'mother, I tell you, Winnie shall stop; else
I will go away with her, I never knew what it was, till now, to ride a
horse worth riding.'

'Young man,' said Tom Faggus, still preparing sternly to depart, 'you
know more about a horse than any man on Exmoor. Your mother may well be
proud of you, but she need have had no fear. As if I, Tom Faggus, your
father's cousin__and the only thing I am proud of__would ever have let
you mount my mare, which dukes and princes have vainly sought, except
for the courage in your eyes, and the look of your father about you. I
knew you could ride when I saw you, and rarely you have conquered. But
women don't understand us. Good_bye, John; I am proud of you, and I
hoped to have done you pleasure. And indeed I came full of some courtly
tales, that would have made your hair stand up. But though not a crust
have I tasted since this time yesterday, having given my meat to a
widow, I will go and starve on the moor far sooner than eat the best
supper that ever was cooked, in a place that has forgotten me.' With
that he fetched a heavy sigh, as if it had been for my father; and
feebly got upon Winnie's back, and she came to say farewell to me. He
lifted his hat to my mother, with a glance of sorrow, but never a word;
and to me he said, 'Open the gate, Cousin John, if you please. You have
beaten her so, that she cannot leap it, poor thing.'

But before he was truly gone out of our yard, my mother came softly
after him, with her afternoon apron across her eyes, and one hand ready
to offer him. Nevertheless, he made as if he had not seen her, though he
let his horse go slowly.

'Stop, Cousin Tom,' my mother said, 'a word with you, before you go.'

'Why, bless my heart!' Tom Faggus cried, with the form of his
countenance so changed, that I verily thought another man must have
leaped into his clothes__'do I see my Cousin Sarah? I thought every one
was ashamed of me, and afraid to offer me shelter, since I lost my best
cousin, John Ridd. 'Come here,' he used to say, 'Tom, come here, when
you are worried, and my wife shall take good care of you.' 'Yes, dear
John,' I used to answer, 'I know she promised my mother so; but people
have taken to think against me, and so might Cousin Sarah.' Ah, he was a
man, a man! If you only heard how he answered me. But let that go, I am
nothing now, since the day I lost Cousin Ridd.' And with that he began
to push on again; but mother would not have it so.

'Oh, Tom, that was a loss indeed. And I am nothing either. And you
should try to allow for me; though I never found any one that did.' And
mother began to cry, though father had been dead so long; and I looked
on with a stupid surprise, having stopped from crying long ago.

'I can tell you one that will,' cried Tom, jumping off Winnie, in a
trice, and looking kindly at mother; 'I can allow for you, Cousin Sarah,
in everything but one. I am in some ways a bad man myself; but I know
the value of a good one; and if you gave me orders, by God__' And he
shook his fists towards Bagworthy Wood, just heaving up black in the
sundown.

'Hush, Tom, hush, for God's sake!' And mother meant me, without pointing
at me; at least I thought she did. For she ever had weaned me from
thoughts of revenge, and even from longings for judgment. 'God knows
best, boy,' she used to say, 'let us wait His time, without wishing
it.' And so, to tell the truth, I did; partly through her teaching, and
partly through my own mild temper, and my knowledge that father, after
all, was killed because he had thrashed them.

'Good_night, Cousin Sarah, good_night, Cousin Jack,' cried Tom, taking
to the mare again; 'many a mile I have to ride, and not a bit inside of
me. No food or shelter this side of Exeford, and the night will be black
as pitch, I trow. But it serves me right for indulging the lad, being
taken with his looks so.'

'Cousin Tom,' said mother, and trying to get so that Annie and I could
not hear her; 'it would be a sad and unkinlike thing for you to despise
our dwelling_house. We cannot entertain you, as the lordly inns on the
road do; and we have small change of victuals. But the men will go home,
being Saturday; and so you will have the fireside all to yourself and
the children. There are some few collops of red deer's flesh, and a ham
just down from the chimney, and some dried salmon from Lynmouth weir,
and cold roast_pig, and some oysters. And if none of those be to your
liking, we could roast two woodcocks in half an hour, and Annie would
make the toast for them. And the good folk made some mistake last week,
going up the country, and left a keg of old Holland cordial in the
coving of the wood_rick, having borrowed our Smiler, without asking
leave. I fear there is something unrighteous about it. But what can a
poor widow do? John Fry would have taken it, but for our Jack. Our Jack
was a little too sharp for him.'

Ay, that I was; John Fry had got it, like a billet under his apron,
going away in the gray of the morning, as if to kindle his fireplace.
'Why, John,' I said, 'what a heavy log! Let me have one end of it.'
'Thank'e, Jan, no need of thiccy,' he answered, turning his back to
me; 'waife wanteth a log as will last all day, to kape the crock a
zimmerin.' And he banged his gate upon my heels to make me stop and rub
them. 'Why, John,' said I, 'you'm got a log with round holes in the end
of it. Who has been cutting gun_wads? Just lift your apron, or I will.'

But, to return to Tom Faggus__he stopped to sup that night with us, and
took a little of everything; a few oysters first, and then dried salmon,
and then ham and eggs, done in small curled rashers, and then a few
collops of venison toasted, and next to that a little cold roast_pig,
and a woodcock on toast to finish with, before the Scheidam and hot
water. And having changed his wet things first, he seemed to be in fair
appetite, and praised Annie's cooking mightily, with a kind of noise
like a smack of his lips, and a rubbing of his hands together, whenever
he could spare them.

He had gotten John Fry's best small_clothes on, for he said he was not
good enough to go into my father's (which mother kept to look at), nor
man enough to fill them. And in truth my mother was very glad that he
refused, when I offered them. But John was over_proud to have it in his
power to say that such a famous man had ever dwelt in any clothes of
his; and afterwards he made show of them. For Mr. Faggus's glory, then,
though not so great as now it is, was spreading very fast indeed all
about our neighbourhood, and even as far as Bridgewater.

Tom Faggus was a jovial soul, if ever there has been one, not making
bones of little things, nor caring to seek evil. There was about him
such a love of genuine human nature, that if a traveller said a good
thing, he would give him back his purse again. It is true that he took
people's money more by force than fraud; and the law (being used to the
inverse method) was bitterly moved against him, although he could quote
precedent. These things I do not understand; having seen so much of
robbery (some legal, some illegal), that I scarcely know, as here we
say, one crow's foot from the other. It is beyond me and above me, to
discuss these subjects; and in truth I love the law right well, when it
doth support me, and when I can lay it down to my liking, with prejudice
to nobody. Loyal, too, to the King am I, as behoves churchwarden; and
ready to make the best of him, as he generally requires. But after
all, I could not see (until I grew much older, and came to have some
property) why Tom Faggus, working hard, was called a robber and felon of
great; while the King, doing nothing at all (as became his dignity), was
liege_lord, and paramount owner; with everybody to thank him kindly for
accepting tribute.

For the present, however, I learned nothing more as to what our cousin's
profession was; only that mother seemed frightened, and whispered to
him now and then not to talk of something, because of the children being
there; whereupon he always nodded with a sage expression, and applied
himself to hollands.

'Now let us go and see Winnie, Jack,' he said to me after supper; 'for
the most part I feed her before myself; but she was so hot from the
way you drove her. Now she must be grieving for me, and I never let her
grieve long.'

I was too glad to go with him, and Annie came slyly after us. The filly
was walking to and fro on the naked floor of the stable (for he would
not let her have any straw, until he should make a bed for her), and
without so much as a headstall on, for he would not have her fastened.
'Do you take my mare for a dog?' he had said when John Fry brought him a
halter. And now she ran to him like a child, and her great eyes shone at
the lanthorn.

'Hit me, Jack, and see what she will do. I will not let her hurt thee.'
He was rubbing her ears all the time he spoke, and she was leaning
against him. Then I made believe to strike him, and in a moment she
caught me by the waistband, and lifted me clean from the ground, and was
casting me down to trample upon me, when he stopped her suddenly.

'What think you of that, boy? Have you horse or dog that would do that
for you? Ay, and more than that she will do. If I were to whistle,
by_and_by, in the tone that tells my danger, she would break this
stable_door down, and rush into the room to me. Nothing will keep her
from me then, stone_wall or church_tower. Ah, Winnie, Winnie, you little
witch, we shall die together.'

Then he turned away with a joke, and began to feed her nicely, for she
was very dainty. Not a husk of oat would she touch that had been under
the breath of another horse, however hungry she might be. And with her
oats he mixed some powder, fetching it from his saddle_bags. What this
was I could not guess, neither would he tell me, but laughed and called
it 'star_shavings.' He watched her eat every morsel of it, with two or
three drinks of pure water, ministered between whiles; and then he made
her bed in a form I had never seen before, and so we said 'Good_night'
to her.

Afterwards by the fireside he kept us very merry, sitting in the great
chimney_corner, and making us play games with him. And all the while he
was smoking tobacco in a manner I never had seen before, not using any
pipe for it, but having it rolled in little sticks about as long as my
finger, blunt at one end and sharp at the other. The sharp end he would
put in his mouth, and lay a brand of wood to the other, and then draw
a white cloud of curling smoke, and we never tired of watching him. I
wanted him to let me do it, but he said, 'No, my son; it is not meant
for boys.' Then Annie put up her lips and asked, with both hands on his
knees (for she had taken to him wonderfully), 'Is it meant for girls
then cousin Tom?' But she had better not have asked, for he gave it her
to try, and she shut both eyes, and sucked at it. One breath, however,
was quite enough, for it made her cough so violently that Lizzie and
I must thump her back until she was almost crying. To atone for that,
cousin Tom set to, and told us whole pages of stories, not about his own
doings at all, but strangely enough they seemed to concern almost every
one else we had ever heard of. Without halting once for a word or a
deed, his tales flowed onward as freely and brightly as the flames of
the wood up the chimney, and with no smaller variety. For he spoke with
the voices of twenty people, giving each person the proper manner, and
the proper place to speak from; so that Annie and Lizzie ran all about,
and searched the clock and the linen_press. And he changed his face
every moment so, and with such power of mimicry that without so much as
a smile of his own, he made even mother laugh so that she broke her new
tenpenny waistband; and as for us children, we rolled on the floor, and
Betty Muxworthy roared in the wash_up.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 12

A MAN JUSTLY POPULAR

Now although Mr. Faggus was so clever, and generous, and celebrated,
I know not whether, upon the whole, we were rather proud of him as a
member of our family, or inclined to be ashamed of him. And indeed I
think that the sway of the balance hung upon the company we were in. For
instance, with the boys at Brendon__for there is no village at Oare__I
was exceeding proud to talk of him, and would freely brag of my Cousin
Tom. But with the rich parsons of the neighbourhood, or the justices
(who came round now and then, and were glad to ride up to a warm
farm_house), or even the well_to_do tradesmen of Porlock__in a word, any
settled power, which was afraid of losing things__with all of them we
were very shy of claiming our kinship to that great outlaw.

And sure, I should pity, as well as condemn him though our ways in the
world were so different, knowing as I do his story; which knowledge,
methinks, would often lead us to let alone God's prerogative__judgment,
and hold by man's privilege__pity. Not that I would find excuse for
Tom's downright dishonesty, which was beyond doubt a disgrace to him,
and no credit to his kinsfolk; only that it came about without his
meaning any harm or seeing how he took to wrong; yet gradually knowing
it. And now, to save any further trouble, and to meet those who
disparage him (without allowance for the time or the crosses laid upon
him), I will tell the history of him, just as if he were not my cousin,
and hoping to be heeded. And I defy any man to say that a word of this
is either false, or in any way coloured by family. Much cause he had
to be harsh with the world; and yet all acknowledged him very pleasant,
when a man gave up his money. And often and often he paid the toll for
the carriage coming after him, because he had emptied their pockets, and
would not add inconvenience. By trade he had been a blacksmith, in the
town of Northmolton, in Devonshire, a rough rude place at the end of
Exmoor, so that many people marvelled if such a man was bred there. Not
only could he read and write, but he had solid substance; a piece of
land worth a hundred pounds, and right of common for two hundred sheep,
and a score and a half of beasts, lifting up or lying down. And being
left an orphan (with all these cares upon him) he began to work right
early, and made such a fame at the shoeing of horses, that the farriers
of Barum were like to lose their custom. And indeed he won a golden
Jacobus for the best_shod nag in the north of Devon, and some say that
he never was forgiven.

As to that, I know no more, except that men are jealous. But whether
it were that, or not, he fell into bitter trouble within a month of his
victory; when his trade was growing upon him, and his sweetheart ready
to marry him. For he loved a maid of Southmolton (a currier's daughter
I think she was, and her name was Betsy Paramore), and her father had
given consent; and Tom Faggus, wishing to look his best, and be clean of
course, had a tailor at work upstairs for him, who had come all the way
from Exeter. And Betsy's things were ready too__for which they accused
him afterwards, as if he could help that__when suddenly, like a
thunderbolt, a lawyer's writ fell upon him.

This was the beginning of a law_suit with Sir Robert Bampfylde, a
gentleman of the neighbourhood, who tried to oust him from his common,
and drove his cattle and harassed them. And by that suit of law poor Tom
was ruined altogether, for Sir Robert could pay for much swearing; and
then all his goods and his farm were sold up, and even his smithery
taken. But he saddled his horse, before they could catch him, and rode
away to Southmolton, looking more like a madman than a good farrier,
as the people said who saw him. But when he arrived there, instead of
comfort, they showed him the face of the door alone; for the news of his
loss was before him, and Master Paramore was a sound, prudent man, and
a high member of the town council. It is said that they even gave him
notice to pay for Betsy's wedding_clothes, now that he was too poor to
marry her. This may be false, and indeed I doubt it; in the first place,
because Southmolton is a busy place for talking; and in the next, that
I do not think the action would have lain at law, especially as the
maid lost nothing, but used it all for her wedding next month with Dick
Vellacott, of Mockham.

All this was very sore upon Tom; and he took it to heart so grievously,
that he said, as a better man might have said, being loose of mind and
property, 'The world hath preyed on me like a wolf. God help me now to
prey on the world.'

And in sooth it did seem, for a while, as if Providence were with him;
for he took rare toll on the highway, and his name was soon as good as
gold anywhere this side of Bristowe. He studied his business by night
and by day, with three horses all in hard work, until he had made a fine
reputation; and then it was competent to him to rest, and he had plenty
left for charity. And I ought to say for society too, for he truly
loved high society, treating squires and noblemen (who much affected his
company) to the very best fare of the hostel. And they say that once
the King's Justitiaries, being upon circuit, accepted his invitation,
declaring merrily that if never true bill had been found against him,
mine host should now be qualified to draw one. And so the landlords did;
and he always paid them handsomely, so that all of them were kind to
him, and contended for his visits. Let it be known in any township that
Mr. Faggus was taking his leisure at the inn, and straightway all the
men flocked thither to drink his health without outlay, and all the
women to admire him; while the children were set at the cross_roads to
give warning of any officers. One of his earliest meetings was with Sir
Robert Bampfylde himself, who was riding along the Barum road with only
one serving_man after him. Tom Faggus put a pistol to his head, being
then obliged to be violent, through want of reputation; while the
serving_man pretended to be along way round the corner. Then the baronet
pulled out his purse, quite trembling in the hurry of his politeness.
Tom took the purse, and his ring, and time_piece, and then handed them
back with a very low bow, saying that it was against all usage for him
to rob a robber. Then he turned to the unfaithful knave, and trounced
him right well for his cowardice, and stripped him of all his property.

But now Mr. Faggus kept only one horse, lest the Government should steal
them; and that one was the young mare Winnie. How he came by her he
never would tell, but I think that she was presented to him by a certain
Colonel, a lover of sport, and very clever in horseflesh, whose life Tom
had saved from some gamblers. When I have added that Faggus as yet
had never been guilty of bloodshed (for his eyes, and the click of
his pistol at first, and now his high reputation made all his wishes
respected), and that he never robbed a poor man, neither insulted a
woman, but was very good to the Church, and of hot patriotic opinions,
and full of jest and jollity, I have said as much as is fair for him,
and shown why he was so popular. Everybody cursed the Doones, who lived
apart disdainfully. But all good people liked Mr. Faggus__when he had
not robbed them__and many a poor sick man or woman blessed him for other
people's money; and all the hostlers, stable_boys, and tapsters entirely
worshipped him.

I have been rather long, and perhaps tedious, in my account of him, lest
at any time hereafter his character should be misunderstood, and his
good name disparaged; whereas he was my second cousin, and the lover of
my__But let that bide. 'Tis a melancholy story.

He came again about three months afterwards, in the beginning of the
spring_time, and brought me a beautiful new carbine, having learned my
love of such things, and my great desire to shoot straight. But mother
would not let me have the gun, until he averred upon his honour that he
had bought it honestly. And so he had, no doubt, so far as it is honest
to buy with money acquired rampantly. Scarce could I stop to make my
bullets in the mould which came along with it, but must be off to the
Quarry Hill, and new target I had made there. And he taught me then
how to ride bright Winnie, who was grown since I had seen her, but
remembered me most kindly. After making much of Annie, who had a
wondrous liking for him__and he said he was her godfather, but God knows
how he could have been, unless they confirmed him precociously__away he
went, and young Winnie's sides shone like a cherry by candlelight.

Now I feel that of those boyish days I have little more to tell, because
everything went quietly, as the world for the most part does with us. I
began to work at the farm in earnest, and tried to help my mother, and
when I remembered Lorna Doone, it seemed no more than the thought of a
dream, which I could hardly call to mind. Now who cares to know how many
bushels of wheat we grew to the acre, or how the cattle milched till we
ate them, or what the turn of the seasons was? But my stupid self seemed
like to be the biggest of all the cattle; for having much to look after
the sheep, and being always in kind appetite, I grew four inches longer
in every year of my farming, and a matter of two inches wider; until
there was no man of my size to be seen elsewhere upon Exmoor. Let that
pass: what odds to any how tall or wide I be? There is no Doone's door
at Plover's Barrows and if there were I could never go through it. They
vexed me so much about my size, long before I had completed it, girding
at me with paltry jokes whose wit was good only to stay at home, that
I grew shame_faced about the matter, and feared to encounter a
looking_glass. But mother was very proud, and said she never could have
too much of me.

The worst of all to make me ashamed of bearing my head so high__a thing
I saw no way to help, for I never could hang my chin down, and my back
was like a gatepost whenever I tried to bend it__the worst of all was
our little Eliza, who never could come to a size herself, though she had
the wine from the Sacrament at Easter and Allhallowmas, only to be small
and skinny, sharp, and clever crookedly. Not that her body was out of
the straight (being too small for that perhaps), but that her wit was
full of corners, jagged, and strange, and uncomfortable. You never could
tell what she might say next; and I like not that kind of women. Now God
forgive me for talking so of my own father's daughter, and so much the
more by reason that my father could not help it. The right way is
to face the matter, and then be sorry for every one. My mother fell
grievously on a slide, which John Fry had made nigh the apple_room door,
and hidden with straw from the stable, to cover his own great idleness.
My father laid John's nose on the ice, and kept him warm in spite of it;
but it was too late for Eliza. She was born next day with more mind than
body__the worst thing that can befall a man.

But Annie, my other sister, was now a fine fair girl, beautiful to
behold. I could look at her by the fireside, for an hour together, when
I was not too sleepy, and think of my dear father. And she would do the
same thing by me, only wait the between of the blazes. Her hair was done
up in a knot behind, but some would fall over her shoulders; and the
dancing of the light was sweet to see through a man's eyelashes. There
never was a face that showed the light or the shadow of feeling, as if
the heart were sun to it, more than our dear Annie's did. To look at her
carefully, you might think that she was not dwelling on anything; and
then she would know you were looking at her, and those eyes would tell
all about it. God knows that I try to be simple enough, to keep to His
meaning in me, and not make the worst of His children. Yet often have I
been put to shame, and ready to bite my tongue off, after speaking amiss
of anybody, and letting out my littleness, when suddenly mine eyes have
met the pure soft gaze of Annie.

As for the Doones, they were thriving still, and no one to come against
them; except indeed by word of mouth, to which they lent no heed
whatever. Complaints were made from time to time, both in high and low
quarters (as the rank might be of the people robbed), and once or twice
in the highest of all, to wit, the King himself. But His Majesty made
a good joke about it (not meaning any harm, I doubt), and was so much
pleased with himself thereupon, that he quite forgave the mischief.
Moreover, the main authorities were a long way off; and the Chancellor
had no cattle on Exmoor; and as for my lord the Chief Justice, some
rogue had taken his silver spoons; whereupon his lordship swore that
never another man would he hang until he had that one by the neck.
Therefore the Doones went on as they listed, and none saw fit to meddle
with them. For the only man who would have dared to come to close
quarters with them, that is to say Tom Faggus, himself was a quarry for
the law, if ever it should be unhooded. Moreover, he had transferred his
business to the neighbourhood of Wantage, in the county of Berks, where
he found the climate drier, also good downs and commons excellent for
galloping, and richer yeomen than ours be, and better roads to rob them
on.

Some folk, who had wiser attended to their own affairs, said that I
(being sizeable now, and able to shoot not badly) ought to do something
against those Doones, and show what I was made of. But for a time I was
very bashful, shaking when called upon suddenly, and blushing as deep as
a maiden; for my strength was not come upon me, and mayhap I had grown
in front of it. And again, though I loved my father still, and would
fire at a word about him, I saw not how it would do him good for me to
harm his injurers. Some races are of revengeful kind, and will for years
pursue their wrong, and sacrifice this world and the next for a
moment's foul satisfaction, but methinks this comes of some black blood,
perverted and never purified. And I doubt but men of true English birth
are stouter than so to be twisted, though some of the women may take
that turn, if their own life runs unkindly.

Let that pass__I am never good at talking of things beyond me. All I
know is, that if I had met the Doone who had killed my father, I would
gladly have thrashed him black and blue, supposing I were able; but
would never have fired a gun at him, unless he began that game with me,
or fell upon more of my family, or were violent among women. And to
do them justice, my mother and Annie were equally kind and gentle, but
Eliza would flame and grow white with contempt, and not trust herself to
speak to us.

Now a strange thing came to pass that winter, when I was twenty_one
years old, a very strange thing, which affrighted the rest, and made me
feel uncomfortable. Not that there was anything in it, to do harm to any
one, only that none could explain it, except by attributing it to the
devil. The weather was very mild and open, and scarcely any snow fell;
at any rate, none lay on the ground, even for an hour, in the highest
part of Exmoor; a thing which I knew not before nor since, as long as
I can remember. But the nights were wonderfully dark, as though with no
stars in the heaven; and all day long the mists were rolling upon
the hills and down them, as if the whole land were a wash_house. The
moorland was full of snipes and teal, and curlews flying and crying, and
lapwings flapping heavily, and ravens hovering round dead sheep; yet no
redshanks nor dottrell, and scarce any golden plovers (of which we have
great store generally) but vast lonely birds, that cried at night, and
moved the whole air with their pinions; yet no man ever saw them. It was
dismal as well as dangerous now for any man to go fowling (which of late
I loved much in the winter) because the fog would come down so thick
that the pan of the gun was reeking, and the fowl out of sight ere the
powder kindled, and then the sound of the piece was so dead, that the
shooter feared harm, and glanced over his shoulder. But the danger of
course was far less in this than in losing of the track, and falling
into the mires, or over the brim of a precipice.

Nevertheless, I must needs go out, being young and very stupid, and
feared of being afraid; a fear which a wise man has long cast by, having
learned of the manifold dangers which ever and ever encompass us. And
beside this folly and wildness of youth, perchance there was something,
I know not what, of the joy we have in uncertainty. Mother, in fear
of my missing home__though for that matter, I could smell supper, when
hungry, through a hundred land_yards of fog__my dear mother, who thought
of me ten times for one thought about herself, gave orders to ring the
great sheep_bell, which hung above the pigeon_cote, every ten minutes of
the day, and the sound came through the plaits of fog, and I was vexed
about it, like the letters of a copy_book. It reminded me, too, of
Blundell's bell, and the grief to go into school again.

But during those two months of fog (for we had it all the winter), the
saddest and the heaviest thing was to stand beside the sea. To be upon
the beach yourself, and see the long waves coming in; to know that they
are long waves, but only see a piece of them; and to hear them lifting
roundly, swelling over smooth green rocks, plashing down in the hollow
corners, but bearing on all the same as ever, soft and sleek and
sorrowful, till their little noise is over.

One old man who lived at Lynmouth, seeking to be buried there, having
been more than half over the world, though shy to speak about it, and
fain to come home to his birthplace, this old Will Watcombe (who dwelt
by the water) said that our strange winter arose from a thing he called
the 'Gulf_stream', rushing up Channel suddenly. He said it was hot
water, almost fit for a man to shave with, and it threw all our cold
water out, and ruined the fish and the spawning_time, and a cold spring
would come after it. I was fond of going to Lynmouth on Sunday to hear
this old man talk, for sometimes he would discourse with me, when nobody
else could move him. He told me that this powerful flood set in upon our
west so hard sometimes once in ten years, and sometimes not for fifty,
and the Lord only knew the sense of it; but that when it came, therewith
came warmth and clouds, and fog, and moisture, and nuts, and fruit, and
even shells; and all the tides were thrown abroad. As for nuts he winked
awhile, and chewed a piece of tobacco; yet did I not comprehend him.
Only afterwards I heard that nuts with liquid kernels came, travelling
on the Gulf stream; for never before was known so much foreign cordial
landed upon our coast, floating ashore by mistake in the fog, and (what
with the tossing and the mist) too much astray to learn its duty.

Folk, who are ever too prone to talk, said that Will Watcombe himself
knew better than anybody else about this drift of the Gulf_stream,
and the places where it would come ashore, and the caves that took the
in_draught. But De Whichehalse, our great magistrate, certified that
there was no proof of unlawful importation; neither good cause to
suspect it, at a time of Christian charity. And we knew that it was a
foul thing for some quarrymen to say that night after night they had
been digging a new cellar at Ley Manor to hold the little marks of
respect found in the caverns at high_water weed. Let that be, it is none
of my business to speak evil of dignities; duly we common people joked
of the 'Gulp_stream,' as we called it.

But the thing which astonished and frightened us so, was not, I do
assure you, the landing of foreign spirits, nor the loom of a lugger at
twilight in the gloom of the winter moonrise. That which made as crouch
in by the fire, or draw the bed_clothes over us, and try to think of
something else, was a strange mysterious sound.

At grey of night, when the sun was gone, and no red in the west
remained, neither were stars forthcoming, suddenly a wailing voice rose
along the valleys, and a sound in the air, as of people running. It
mattered not whether you stood on the moor, or crouched behind rocks
away from it, or down among reedy places; all as one the sound would
come, now from the heart of the earth beneath, now overhead bearing
down on you. And then there was rushing of something by, and melancholy
laughter, and the hair of a man would stand on end before he could
reason properly.

God, in His mercy, knows that I am stupid enough for any man, and very
slow of impression, nor ever could bring myself to believe that our
Father would let the evil one get the upper hand of us. But when I had
heard that sound three times, in the lonely gloom of the evening fog,
and the cold that followed the lines of air, I was loath to go abroad by
night, even so far as the stables, and loved the light of a candle more,
and the glow of a fire with company.

There were many stories about it, of course, all over the breadth of the
moorland. But those who had heard it most often declared that it must be
the wail of a woman's voice, and the rustle of robes fleeing horribly,
and fiends in the fog going after her. To that, however, I paid no heed,
when anybody was with me; only we drew more close together, and barred
the doors at sunset.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 13

MASTER HUCKABACK COMES IN

Mr. Reuben Huckaback, whom many good folk in Dulverton will remember
long after my time, was my mother's uncle, being indeed her mother's
brother. He owned the very best shop in the town, and did a fine
trade in soft ware, especially when the pack_horses came safely in at
Christmas_time. And we being now his only kindred (except indeed his
granddaughter, little Ruth Huckaback, of whom no one took any heed),
mother beheld it a Christian duty to keep as well as could be with him,
both for love of a nice old man, and for the sake of her children. And
truly, the Dulverton people said that he was the richest man in their
town, and could buy up half the county armigers; 'ay, and if it came to
that, they would like to see any man, at Bampton, or at Wivelscombe,
and you might say almost Taunton, who could put down golden Jacobus and
Carolus against him.

Now this old gentleman__so they called him, according to his money;
and I have seen many worse ones, more violent and less wealthy__he must
needs come away that time to spend the New Year_tide with us; not that
he wanted to do it (for he hated country_life), but because my mother
pressing, as mothers will do to a good bag of gold, had wrung a promise
from him; and the only boast of his life was that never yet had he
broken his word, at least since he opened business.

Now it pleased God that Christmas_time (in spite of all the fogs) to
send safe home to Dulverton, and what was more, with their loads quite
safe, a goodly string of packhorses. Nearly half of their charge was
for Uncle Reuben, and he knew how to make the most of it. Then having
balanced his debits and credits, and set the writs running against
defaulters, as behoves a good Christian at Christmas_tide, he saddled
his horse, and rode off towards Oare, with a good stout coat upon him,
and leaving Ruth and his head man plenty to do, and little to eat, until
they should see him again.

It had been settled between us that we should expect him soon after noon
on the last day of December. For the Doones being lazy and fond of bed,
as the manner is of dishonest folk, the surest way to escape them was
to travel before they were up and about, to_wit, in the forenoon of
the day. But herein we reckoned without our host: for being in high
festivity, as became good Papists, the robbers were too lazy, it seems,
to take the trouble of going to bed; and forth they rode on the Old
Year_morning, not with any view of business, but purely in search of
mischief.

We had put off our dinner till one o'clock (which to me was a sad
foregoing), and there was to be a brave supper at six of the clock, upon
New Year's_eve; and the singers to come with their lanthorns, and do
it outside the parlour_window, and then have hot cup till their heads
should go round, after making away with the victuals. For although there
was nobody now in our family to be churchwarden of Oare, it was well
admitted that we were the people entitled alone to that dignity; and
though Nicholas Snowe was in office by name, he managed it only by
mother's advice; and a pretty mess he made of it, so that every one
longed for a Ridd again, soon as ever I should be old enough. This
Nicholas Snowe was to come in the evening, with his three tall comely
daughters, strapping girls, and well skilled in the dairy; and the
story was all over the parish, on a stupid conceit of John Fry's, that
I should have been in love with all three, if there had been but one of
them. These Snowes were to come, and come they did, partly because Mr.
Huckaback liked to see fine young maidens, and partly because none but
Nicholas Snowe could smoke a pipe now all around our parts, except of
the very high people, whom we durst never invite. And Uncle Ben, as we
all knew well, was a great hand at his pipe, and would sit for hours
over it, in our warm chimney_corner, and never want to say a word,
unless it were inside him; only he liked to have somebody there over
against him smoking.

Now when I came in, before one o'clock, after seeing to the cattle__for
the day was thicker than ever, and we must keep the cattle close at
home, if we wished to see any more of them__I fully expected to find
Uncle Ben sitting in the fireplace, lifting one cover and then another,
as his favourite manner was, and making sweet mouths over them; for he
loved our bacon rarely, and they had no good leeks at Dulverton; and
he was a man who always would see his business done himself. But there
instead of my finding him with his quaint dry face pulled out at me,
and then shut up sharp not to be cheated__who should run out but Betty
Muxworthy, and poke me with a saucepan lid.

'Get out of that now, Betty,' I said in my politest manner, for really
Betty was now become a great domestic evil. She would have her own
way so, and of all things the most distressful was for a man to try to
reason.

'Zider_press,' cried Betty again, for she thought it a fine joke to call
me that, because of my size, and my hatred of it; 'here be a rare get
up, anyhow.'

'A rare good dinner, you mean, Betty. Well, and I have a rare good
appetite.' With that I wanted to go and smell it, and not to stop for
Betty.

'Troost thee for thiccy, Jan Ridd. But thee must keep it bit langer, I
reckon. Her baint coom, Maister Ziderpress. Whatt'e mak of that now?'

'Do you mean to say that Uncle Ben has not arrived yet, Betty?'

'Raived! I knaws nout about that, whuther a hath of noo. Only I tell 'e,
her baint coom. Rackon them Dooneses hath gat 'un.'

And Betty, who hated Uncle Ben, because he never gave her a groat,
and she was not allowed to dine with him, I am sorry to say that
Betty Muxworthy grinned all across, and poked me again with the greasy
saucepan cover. But I misliking so to be treated, strode through the
kitchen indignantly, for Betty behaved to me even now, as if I were only
Eliza.

'Oh, Johnny, Johnny,' my mother cried, running out of the grand
show_parlour, where the case of stuffed birds was, and peacock_feathers,
and the white hare killed by grandfather; 'I am so glad you are come at
last. There is something sadly amiss, Johnny.'

Mother had upon her wrists something very wonderful, of the nature of
fal_lal as we say, and for which she had an inborn turn, being of good
draper family, and polished above the yeomanry. Nevertheless I could
never bear it, partly because I felt it to be out of place in our good
farm_house, partly because I hate frippery, partly because it seemed to
me to have nothing to do with father, and partly because I never could
tell the reason of my hating it. And yet the poor soul had put them on,
not to show her hands off (which were above her station) but simply
for her children's sake, because Uncle Ben had given them. But another
thing, I never could bear for man or woman to call me, 'Johnny,'
'Jack,' or 'John,' I cared not which; and that was honest enough, and no
smallness of me there, I say.

'Well, mother, what is the matter, then?'

'I am sure you need not be angry, Johnny. I only hope it is nothing to
grieve about, instead of being angry. You are very sweet_tempered, I
know, John Ridd, and perhaps a little too sweet at times'__here she
meant the Snowe girls, and I hanged my head__'but what would you say if
the people there'__she never would call them 'Doones'__'had gotten your
poor Uncle Reuben, horse, and Sunday coat, and all?'

'Why, mother, I should be sorry for them. He would set up a shop by the
river_side, and come away with all their money.'

'That all you have to say, John! And my dinner done to a very turn, and
the supper all fit to go down, and no worry, only to eat and be done
with it! And all the new plates come from Watchett, with the Watchett
blue upon them, at the risk of the lives of everybody, and the capias
from good Aunt Jane for stuffing a curlew with onion before he begins to
get cold, and make a woodcock of him, and the way to turn the flap over
in the inside of a roasting pig__'

'Well, mother dear, I am very sorry. But let us have our dinner. You
know we promised not to wait for him after one o'clock; and you only
make us hungry. Everything will be spoiled, mother, and what a pity to
think of! After that I will go to seek for him in the thick of the fog,
like a needle in a hay_band. That is to say, unless you think'__for she
looked very grave about it__'unless you really think, mother, that I
ought to go without dinner.'

'Oh no, John, I never thought that, thank God! Bless Him for my
children's appetites; and what is Uncle Ben to them?'

So we made a very good dinner indeed, though wishing that he could have
some of it, and wondering how much to leave for him; and then, as no
sound of his horse had been heard, I set out with my gun to look for
him.

I followed the track on the side of the hill, from the farm_yard, where
the sledd_marks are__for we have no wheels upon Exmoor yet, nor ever
shall, I suppose; though a dunder_headed man tried it last winter, and
broke his axle piteously, and was nigh to break his neck__and after
that I went all along on the ridge of the rabbit_cleve, with the brook
running thin in the bottom; and then down to the Lynn stream and leaped
it, and so up the hill and the moor beyond. The fog hung close all
around me then, when I turned the crest of the highland, and the gorse
both before and behind me looked like a man crouching down in ambush.
But still there was a good cloud of daylight, being scarce three of the
clock yet, and when a lead of red deer came across, I could tell them
from sheep even now. I was half inclined to shoot at them, for the
children did love venison; but they drooped their heads so, and looked
so faithful, that it seemed hard measure to do it. If one of them had
bolted away, no doubt I had let go at him.

After that I kept on the track, trudging very stoutly, for nigh upon
three miles, and my beard (now beginning to grow at some length) was
full of great drops and prickly, whereat I was very proud. I had not so
much as a dog with me, and the place was unkind and lonesome, and the
rolling clouds very desolate; and now if a wild sheep ran across he was
scared at me as an enemy; and I for my part could not tell the meaning
of the marks on him. We called all this part Gibbet_moor, not being in
our parish; but though there were gibbets enough upon it, most part
of the bodies was gone for the value of the chains, they said, and the
teaching of young chirurgeons. But of all this I had little fear, being
no more a schoolboy now, but a youth well_acquaint with Exmoor, and
the wise art of the sign_posts, whereby a man, who barred the road, now
opens it up both ways with his finger_bones, so far as rogues allow him.
My carbine was loaded and freshly primed, and I knew myself to be
even now a match in strength for any two men of the size around our
neighbourhood, except in the Glen Doone. 'Girt Jan Ridd,' I was called
already, and folk grew feared to wrestle with me; though I was tired of
hearing about it, and often longed to be smaller. And most of all upon
Sundays, when I had to make way up our little church, and the maidens
tittered at me.

The soft white mist came thicker around me, as the evening fell; and the
peat ricks here and there, and the furze_hucks of the summer_time, were
all out of shape in the twist of it. By_and_by, I began to doubt where
I was, or how come there, not having seen a gibbet lately; and then I
heard the draught of the wind up a hollow place with rocks to it; and
for the first time fear broke out (like cold sweat) upon me. And yet I
knew what a fool I was, to fear nothing but a sound! But when I stopped
to listen, there was no sound, more than a beating noise, and that was
all inside me. Therefore I went on again, making company of myself, and
keeping my gun quite ready.

Now when I came to an unknown place, where a stone was set up endwise,
with a faint red cross upon it, and a polish from some conflict, I
gathered my courage to stop and think, having sped on the way too hotly.
Against that stone I set my gun, trying my spirit to leave it so,
but keeping with half a hand for it; and then what to do next was the
wonder. As for finding Uncle Ben that was his own business, or at any
rate his executor's; first I had to find myself, and plentifully would
thank God to find myself at home again, for the sake of all our family.

The volumes of the mist came rolling at me (like great logs of wood,
pillowed out with sleepiness), and between them there was nothing more
than waiting for the next one. Then everything went out of sight, and
glad was I of the stone behind me, and view of mine own shoes. Then a
distant noise went by me, as of many horses galloping, and in my fright
I set my gun and said, 'God send something to shoot at.' Yet nothing
came, and my gun fell back, without my will to lower it.

But presently, while I was thinking 'What a fool I am!' arose as if from
below my feet, so that the great stone trembled, that long, lamenting
lonesome sound, as of an evil spirit not knowing what to do with it. For
the moment I stood like a root, without either hand or foot to help me,
and the hair of my head began to crawl, lifting my hat, as a snail lifts
his house; and my heart like a shuttle went to and fro. But finding
no harm to come of it, neither visible form approaching, I wiped my
forehead, and hoped for the best, and resolved to run every step of the
way, till I drew our own latch behind me.

Yet here again I was disappointed, for no sooner was I come to the
cross_ways by the black pool in the hole, but I heard through the patter
of my own feet a rough low sound very close in the fog, as of a hobbled
sheep a_coughing. I listened, and feared, and yet listened again, though
I wanted not to hear it. For being in haste of the homeward road, and
all my heart having heels to it, loath I was to stop in the dusk for the
sake of an aged wether. Yet partly my love of all animals, and partly
my fear of the farmer's disgrace, compelled me to go to the succour, and
the noise was coming nearer. A dry short wheezing sound it was, barred
with coughs and want of breath; but thus I made the meaning of it.

'Lord have mercy upon me! O Lord, upon my soul have mercy! An if I
cheated Sam Hicks last week, Lord knowest how well he deserved it, and
lied in every stocking's mouth__oh Lord, where be I a_going?'

These words, with many jogs between them, came to me through the
darkness, and then a long groan and a choking. I made towards the sound,
as nigh as ever I could guess, and presently was met, point_blank, by
the head of a mountain_pony. Upon its back lay a man bound down, with
his feet on the neck and his head to the tail, and his arms falling
down like stirrups. The wild little nag was scared of its life by the
unaccustomed burden, and had been tossing and rolling hard, in desire to
get ease of it.

Before the little horse could turn, I caught him, jaded as he was, by
his wet and grizzled forelock, and he saw that it was vain to struggle,
but strove to bite me none the less, until I smote him upon the nose.

'Good and worthy sir,' I said to the man who was riding so roughly;
'fear nothing; no harm shall come to thee.'

'Help, good friend, whoever thou art,' he gasped, but could not look at
me, because his neck was jerked so; 'God hath sent thee, and not to rob
me, because it is done already.'

'What, Uncle Ben!' I cried, letting go the horse in amazement, that
the richest man in Dulverton__'Uncle Ben here in this plight! What, Mr.
Reuben Huckaback!'

'An honest hosier and draper, serge and longcloth warehouseman'__he
groaned from rib to rib__'at the sign of the Gartered Kitten in the
loyal town of Dulverton. For God's sake, let me down, good fellow, from
this accursed marrow_bone; and a groat of good money will I pay thee,
safe in my house to Dulverton; but take notice that the horse is mine,
no less than the nag they robbed from me.'

'What, Uncle Ben, dost thou not know me, thy dutiful nephew John Ridd?'

Not to make a long story of it, I cut the thongs that bound him, and
set him astride on the little horse; but he was too weak to stay so.
Therefore I mounted him on my back, turning the horse into horse_steps,
and leading the pony by the cords which I fastened around his nose, set
out for Plover's Barrows.

Uncle Ben went fast asleep on my back, being jaded and shaken beyond his
strength, for a man of three_score and five; and as soon he felt assured
of safety he would talk no more. And to tell the truth he snored so
loudly, that I could almost believe that fearful noise in the fog every
night came all the way from Dulverton.

Now as soon as ever I brought him in, we set him up in the
chimney_corner, comfortable and handsome; and it was no little delight
to me to get him off my back; for, like his own fortune, Uncle Ben was
of a good round figure. He gave his long coat a shake or two, and he
stamped about in the kitchen, until he was sure of his whereabouts, and
then he fell asleep again until supper should be ready.

'He shall marry Ruth,' he said by_and_by to himself, and not to me; 'he
shall marry Ruth for this, and have my little savings, soon as they be
worth the having. Very little as yet, very little indeed; and ever so
much gone to_day along of them rascal robbers.'

My mother made a dreadful stir, of course, about Uncle Ben being in such
a plight as this; so I left him to her care and Annie's, and soon they
fed him rarely, while I went out to see to the comfort of the captured
pony. And in truth he was worth the catching, and served us very well
afterwards, though Uncle Ben was inclined to claim him for his business
at Dulverton, where they have carts and that like. 'But,' I said, 'you
shall have him, sir, and welcome, if you will only ride him home as
first I found you riding him.' And with that he dropped it.

A very strange old man he was, short in his manner, though long of body,
glad to do the contrary things to what any one expected of him, and
always looking sharp at people, as if he feared to be cheated. This
surprised me much at first, because it showed his ignorance of what we
farmers are__an upright race, as you may find, scarcely ever cheating
indeed, except upon market_day, and even then no more than may be helped
by reason of buyers expecting it. Now our simple ways were a puzzle to
him, as I told him very often; but he only laughed, and rubbed his mouth
with the back of his dry shining hand, and I think he shortly began to
languish for want of some one to higgle with. I had a great mind to give
him the pony, because he thought himself cheated in that case; only he
would conclude that I did it with some view to a legacy.

Of course, the Doones, and nobody else, had robbed good Uncle Reuben;
and then they grew sportive, and took his horse, an especially sober
nag, and bound the master upon the wild one, for a little change as they
told him. For two or three hours they had fine enjoyment chasing him
through the fog, and making much sport of his groanings; and then
waxing hungry, they went their way, and left him to opportunity. Now
Mr. Huckaback growing able to walk in a few days' time, became thereupon
impatient, and could not be brought to understand why he should have
been robbed at all.

'I have never deserved it,' he said to himself, not knowing much of
Providence, except with a small p to it; 'I have never deserved it, and
will not stand it in the name of our lord the King, not I!' At other
times he would burst forth thus: 'Three_score years and five have I
lived an honest and laborious life, yet never was I robbed before. And
now to be robbed in my old age, to be robbed for the first time now!'

Thereupon of course we would tell him how truly thankful he ought to be
for never having been robbed before, in spite of living so long in this
world, and that he was taking a very ungrateful, not to say ungracious,
view, in thus repining, and feeling aggrieved; when anyone else would
have knelt and thanked God for enjoying so long an immunity. But say
what we would, it was all as one. Uncle Ben stuck fast to it, that he
had nothing to thank God for.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 14

A MOTION WHICH ENDS IN A MULL

Instead of minding his New_Year pudding, Master Huckaback carried on so
about his mighty grievance, that at last we began to think there must be
something in it, after all; especially as he assured us that choice and
costly presents for the young people of our household were among the
goods divested. But mother told him her children had plenty, and wanted
no gold and silver, and little Eliza spoke up and said, 'You can give us
the pretty things, Uncle Ben, when we come in the summer to see you.'

Our mother reproved Eliza for this, although it was the heel of her
own foot; and then to satisfy our uncle, she promised to call Farmer
Nicholas Snowe, to be of our council that evening, 'And if the young
maidens would kindly come, without taking thought to smoothe themselves,
why it would be all the merrier, and who knew but what Uncle Huckaback
might bless the day of his robbery, etc., etc.__and thorough good honest
girls they were, fit helpmates either for shop or farm.' All of which
was meant for me; but I stuck to my platter and answered not.

In the evening Farmer Snowe came up, leading his daughters after him,
like fillies trimmed for a fair; and Uncle Ben, who had not seen them on
the night of his mishap (because word had been sent to stop them), was
mightily pleased and very pleasant, according to his town bred ways.
The damsels had seen good company, and soon got over their fear of his
wealth, and played him a number of merry pranks, which made our mother
quite jealous for Annie, who was always shy and diffident. However, when
the hot cup was done, and before the mulled wine was ready, we packed
all the maidens in the parlour and turned the key upon them; and then we
drew near to the kitchen fire to hear Uncle Ben's proposal. Farmer Snowe
sat up in the corner, caring little to bear about anything, but smoking
slowly, and nodding backward like a sheep_dog dreaming. Mother was in
the settle, of course, knitting hard, as usual; and Uncle Ben took to
a three_legged stool, as if all but that had been thieved from him.
Howsoever, he kept his breath from speech, giving privilege, as was due,
to mother.

'Master Snowe, you are well assured,' said mother, colouring like the
furze as it took the flame and fell over, 'that our kinsman here hath
received rough harm on his peaceful journey from Dulverton. The times
are bad, as we all know well, and there is no sign of bettering them,
and if I could see our Lord the King I might say things to move him!
nevertheless, I have had so much of my own account to vex for__'

'You are flying out of the subject, Sarah,' said Uncle Ben, seeing tears
in her eyes, and tired of that matter.

'Zettle the pralimbinaries,' spoke Farmer Snowe, on appeal from us,
'virst zettle the pralimbinaries; and then us knows what be drivin' at.'

'Preliminaries be damned, sir,' cried Uncle Ben, losing his temper.
'What preliminaries were there when I was robbed; I should like to know?
Robbed in this parish as I can prove, to the eternal disgrace of Oare
and the scandal of all England. And I hold this parish to answer for it,
sir; this parish shall make it good, being a nest of foul thieves as it
is; ay, farmers, and yeomen, and all of you. I will beggar every man
in this parish, if they be not beggars already, ay, and sell your old
church up before your eyes, but what I will have back my tarlatan,
time_piece, saddle, and dove_tailed nag.'

Mother looked at me, and I looked at Farmer Snowe, and we all were sorry
for Master Huckaback, putting our hands up one to another, that nobody
should browbeat him; because we all knew what our parish was, and none
the worse for strong language, however rich the man might be. But Uncle
Ben took it in a different way. He thought that we all were afraid of
him, and that Oare parish was but as Moab or Edom, for him to cast his
shoe over.

'Nephew Jack,' he cried, looking at me when I was thinking what to say,
and finding only emptiness, 'you are a heavy lout, sir; a bumpkin, a
clodhopper; and I shall leave you nothing, unless it be my boots to
grease.'

'Well, uncle,' I made answer, 'I will grease your boots all the same for
that, so long as you be our guest, sir.'

Now, that answer, made without a thought, stood me for two thousand
pounds, as you shall see, by_and_by, perhaps.

'As for the parish,' my mother cried, being too hard set to contain
herself, 'the parish can defend itself, and we may leave it to do so.
But our Jack is not like that, sir; and I will not have him spoken of.
Leave him indeed! Who wants you to do more than to leave him alone, sir;
as he might have done you the other night; and as no one else would
have dared to do. And after that, to think so meanly of me, and of my
children!'

'Hoity, toity, Sarah! Your children, I suppose, are the same as other
people's.'

'That they are not; and never will be; and you ought to know it, Uncle
Reuben, if any one in the world ought. Other people's children!'

'Well, well!' Uncle Reuben answered, 'I know very little of children;
except my little Ruth, and she is nothing wonderful.'

'I never said that my children were wonderful Uncle Ben; nor did I ever
think it. But as for being good__'

Here mother fetched out her handkerchief, being overcome by our
goodness; and I told her, with my hand to my mouth, not to notice him;
though he might be worth ten thousand times ten thousand pounds.

But Farmer Snowe came forward now, for he had some sense sometimes; and
he thought it was high time for him to say a word for the parish.

'Maister Huckaback,' he began, pointing with his pipe at him, the end
that was done in sealing_wax, 'tooching of what you was plaized to zay
'bout this here parish, and no oother, mind me no oother parish but
thees, I use the vreedom, zur, for to tell 'e, that thee be a laiar.'

Then Farmer Nicholas Snowe folded his arms across with the bowl of his
pipe on the upper one, and gave me a nod, and then one to mother, to
testify how he had done his duty, and recked not what might come of it.
However, he got little thanks from us; for the parish was nothing at all
to my mother, compared with her children's interests; and I thought it
hard that an uncle of mine, and an old man too, should be called a liar,
by a visitor at our fireplace. For we, in our rude part of the world,
counted it one of the worst disgraces that could befall a man, to
receive the lie from any one. But Uncle Ben, as it seems was used to
it, in the way of trade, just as people of fashion are, by a style of
courtesy.

Therefore the old man only looked with pity at Farmer Nicholas; and
with a sort of sorrow too, reflecting how much he might have made in a
bargain with such a customer, so ignorant and hot_headed.

'Now let us bandy words no more,' said mother, very sweetly; 'nothing is
easier than sharp words, except to wish them unspoken; as I do many and
many's the time, when I think of my good husband. But now let us hear
from Uncle Reuben what he would have us do to remove this disgrace from
amongst us, and to satisfy him of his goods.'

'I care not for my goods, woman,' Master Huckaback answered grandly;
'although they were of large value, about them I say nothing. But what I
demand is this, the punishment of those scoundrels.'

'Zober, man, zober!' cried Farmer Nicholas; 'we be too naigh Badgery
'ood, to spake like that of they Dooneses.'

'Pack of cowards!' said Uncle Reuben, looking first at the door,
however; 'much chance I see of getting redress from the valour of this
Exmoor! And you, Master Snowe, the very man whom I looked to to raise
the country, and take the lead as churchwarden__why, my youngest shopman
would match his ell against you. Pack of cowards,' cried Uncle Ben,
rising and shaking his lappets at us; 'don't pretend to answer me. Shake
you all off, that I do__nothing more to do with you!'

We knew it useless to answer him, and conveyed our knowledge to one
another, without anything to vex him. However, when the mulled wine
was come, and a good deal of it gone (the season being Epiphany),
Uncle Reuben began to think that he might have been too hard with us.
Moreover, he was beginning now to respect Farmer Nicholas bravely,
because of the way he had smoked his pipes, and the little noise made
over them. And Lizzie and Annie were doing their best__for now we had
let the girls out__to wake more lightsome uproar; also young Faith Snowe
was toward to keep the old men's cups aflow, and hansel them to their
liking.

So at the close of our entertainment, when the girls were gone away
to fetch and light their lanthorns (over which they made rare noise,
blowing each the other's out for counting of the sparks to come), Master
Huckaback stood up, without much aid from the crock_saw, and looked at
mother and all of us.

'Let no one leave this place,' said he, 'until I have said what I
want to say; for saving of ill_will among us; and growth of cheer and
comfort. May be I have carried things too far, even to the bounds of
churlishness, and beyond the bounds of good manners. I will not unsay
one word I have said, having never yet done so in my life; but I would
alter the manner of it, and set it forth in this light. If you folks
upon Exmoor here are loath and wary at fighting, yet you are brave
at better stuff; the best and kindest I ever knew, in the matter of
feeding.'

Here he sat down with tears in his eyes, and called for a little mulled
bastard. All the maids, who were now come back, raced to get it for him,
but Annie of course was foremost. And herein ended the expedition, a
perilous and a great one, against the Doones of Bagworthy; an enterprise
over which we had all talked plainly more than was good for us. For my
part, I slept well that night, feeling myself at home again, now that
the fighting was put aside, and the fear of it turned to the comfort of
talking what we would have done.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 15

MASTER HUCKABACK FAILS OF WARRANT

On the following day Master Huckaback, with some show of mystery,
demanded from my mother an escort into a dangerous part of the world, to
which his business compelled him. My mother made answer to this that
he was kindly welcome to take our John Fry with him; at which the good
clothier laughed, and said that John was nothing like big enough, but
another John must serve his turn, not only for his size, but because if
he were carried away, no stone would be left unturned upon Exmoor, until
he should be brought back again. Hereupon my mother grew very pale, and
found fifty reasons against my going, each of them weightier than the
true one, as Eliza (who was jealous of me) managed to whisper to
Annie. On the other hand, I was quite resolved (directly the thing was
mentioned) to see Uncle Reuben through with it; and it added much to my
self_esteem to be the guard of so rich a man. Therefore I soon persuaded
mother, with her head upon my breast, to let me go and trust in God; and
after that I was greatly vexed to find that this dangerous enterprise
was nothing more than a visit to the Baron de Whichehalse, to lay
an information, and sue a warrant against the Doones, and a posse to
execute it.

Stupid as I always have been, and must ever be no doubt, I could well
have told Uncle Reuben that his journey was no wiser than that of
the men of Gotham; that he never would get from Hugh de Whichehalse a
warrant against the Doones; moreover, that if he did get one, his own
wig would be singed with it. But for divers reasons I held my peace,
partly from youth and modesty, partly from desire to see whatever please
God I should see, and partly from other causes.

We rode by way of Brendon town, Illford Bridge, and Babbrook, to avoid
the great hill above Lynmouth; and the day being fine and clear again, I
laughed in my sleeve at Uncle Reuben for all his fine precautions. When
we arrived at Ley Manor, we were shown very civilly into the hall, and
refreshed with good ale and collared head, and the back of a Christmas
pudding. I had never been under so fine a roof (unless it were of a
church) before; and it pleased me greatly to be so kindly entreated by
high_born folk. But Uncle Reuben was vexed a little at being set down
side by side with a man in a very small way of trade, who was come
upon some business there, and who made bold to drink his health after
finishing their horns of ale.

'Sir,' said Uncle Ben, looking at him, 'my health would fare much
better, if you would pay me three pounds and twelve shillings, which you
have owed me these five years back; and now we are met at the Justice's,
the opportunity is good, sir.'

After that, we were called to the Justice_room, where the Baron himself
was sitting with Colonel Harding, another Justiciary of the King's
peace, to help him. I had seen the Baron de Whichehalse before, and was
not at all afraid of him, having been at school with his son as he knew,
and it made him very kind to me. And indeed he was kind to everybody,
and all our people spoke well of him; and so much the more because we
knew that the house was in decadence. For the first De Whichehalse had
come from Holland, where he had been a great nobleman, some hundred and
fifty years agone. Being persecuted for his religion, when the Spanish
power was everything, he fled to England with all he could save, and
bought large estates in Devonshire. Since then his descendants had
intermarried with ancient county families, Cottwells, and Marwoods, and
Walronds, and Welses of Pylton, and Chichesters of Hall; and several of
the ladies brought them large increase of property. And so about fifty
years before the time of which I am writing, there were few names in the
West of England thought more of than De Whichehalse. But now they had
lost a great deal of land, and therefore of that which goes with land,
as surely as fame belongs to earth__I mean big reputation. How they had
lost it, none could tell; except that as the first descendants had
a manner of amassing, so the later ones were gifted with a power of
scattering. Whether this came of good Devonshire blood opening the
sluice of Low Country veins, is beyond both my province and my power to
inquire. Anyhow, all people loved this last strain of De Whichehalse far
more than the name had been liked a hundred years agone.

Hugh de Whichehalse, a white_haired man, of very noble presence, with
friendly blue eyes and a sweet smooth forehead, and aquiline nose
quite beautiful (as you might expect in a lady of birth), and thin lips
curving delicately, this gentleman rose as we entered the room; while
Colonel Harding turned on his chair, and struck one spur against the
other. I am sure that, without knowing aught of either, we must have
reverenced more of the two the one who showed respect to us. And yet
nine gentleman out of ten make this dull mistake when dealing with the
class below them!

Uncle Reuben made his very best scrape, and then walked up to the table,
trying to look as if he did not know himself to be wealthier than both
the gentlemen put together. Of course he was no stranger to them, any
more than I was; and, as it proved afterwards, Colonel Harding owed him
a lump of money, upon very good security. Of him Uncle Reuben took no
notice, but addressed himself to De Whichehalse.

The Baron smiled very gently, so soon as he learned the cause of this
visit, and then he replied quite reasonably.

'A warrant against the Doones, Master Huckaback. Which of the Doones, so
please you; and the Christian names, what be they?'

'My lord, I am not their godfather; and most like they never had any.
But we all know old Sir Ensor's name, so that may be no obstacle.'

'Sir Ensor Doone and his sons__so be it. How many sons, Master
Huckaback, and what is the name of each one?'

'How can I tell you, my lord, even if I had known them all as well as my
own shop_boys? Nevertheless there were seven of them, and that should be
no obstacle.'

'A warrant against Sir Ensor Doone, and seven sons of Sir Ensor Doone,
Christian names unknown, and doubted if they have any. So far so good
Master Huckaback. I have it all down in writing. Sir Ensor himself was
there, of course, as you have given in evidence__'

'No, no, my lord, I never said that: I never said__'

'If he can prove that he was not there, you may be indicted for perjury.
But as for those seven sons of his, of course you can swear that they
were his sons and not his nephews, or grandchildren, or even no Doones
at all?'

'My lord, I can swear that they were Doones. Moreover, I can pay for any
mistake I make. Therein need be no obstacle.'

'Oh, yes, he can pay; he can pay well enough,' said Colonel Harding
shortly.

'I am heartily glad to hear it,' replied the Baron pleasantly; 'for it
proves after all that this robbery (if robbery there has been) was not
so very ruinous. Sometimes people think they are robbed, and then it is
very sweet afterwards to find that they have not been so; for it adds
to their joy in their property. Now, are you quite convinced, good sir,
that these people (if there were any) stole, or took, or even borrowed
anything at all from you?'

'My lord, do you think that I was drunk?'

'Not for a moment, Master Huckaback. Although excuse might be made for
you at this time of the year. But how did you know that your visitors
were of this particular family?'

'Because it could be nobody else. Because, in spite of the fog__'

'Fog!' cried Colonel Harding sharply.

'Fog!' said the Baron, with emphasis. 'Ah, that explains the whole
affair. To be sure, now I remember, the weather has been too thick for a
man to see the head of his own horse. The Doones (if still there be any
Doones) could never have come abroad; that is as sure as simony. Master
Huckaback, for your good sake, I am heartily glad that this charge has
miscarried. I thoroughly understand it now. The fog explains the whole
of it.'

'Go back, my good fellow,' said Colonel Harding; 'and if the day is
clear enough, you will find all your things where you left them. I know,
from my own experience, what it is to be caught in an Exmoor fog.'

Uncle Reuben, by this time, was so put out, that he hardly knew what he
was saying.

'My lord, Sir Colonel, is this your justice! If I go to London myself
for it, the King shall know how his commission__how a man may be robbed,
and the justices prove that he ought to be hanged at back of it; that in
his good shire of Somerset__'

'Your pardon a moment, good sir,' De Whichehalse interrupted him; 'but I
was about (having heard your case) to mention what need be an obstacle,
and, I fear, would prove a fatal one, even if satisfactory proof were
afforded of a felony. The mal_feasance (if any) was laid in Somerset;
but we, two humble servants of His Majesty, are in commission of his
peace for the county of Devon only, and therefore could never deal with
it.'

'And why, in the name of God,' cried Uncle Reuben now carried at last
fairly beyond himself, 'why could you not say as much at first, and save
me all this waste of time and worry of my temper? Gentlemen, you are
all in league; all of you stick together. You think it fair sport for an
honest trader, who makes no shams as you do, to be robbed and wellnigh
murdered, so long as they who did it won the high birthright of felony.
If a poor sheep stealer, to save his children from dying of starvation,
had dared to look at a two_month lamb, he would swing on the Manor
gallows, and all of you cry "Good riddance!" But now, because good birth
and bad manners__' Here poor Uncle Ben, not being so strong as before
the Doones had played with him, began to foam at the mouth a little, and
his tongue went into the hollow where his short grey whiskers were.

I forget how we came out of it, only I was greatly shocked at bearding
of the gentry so, and mother scarce could see her way, when I told her
all about it. 'Depend upon it you were wrong, John,' was all I could get
out of her; though what had I done but listen, and touch my forelock,
when called upon. 'John, you may take my word for it, you have not done
as you should have done. Your father would have been shocked to think of
going to Baron de Whichehalse, and in his own house insulting him! And
yet it was very brave of you John. Just like you, all over. And (as none
of the men are here, dear John) I am proud of you for doing it.'

All throughout the homeward road, Uncle Ben had been very silent,
feeling much displeased with himself and still more so with other
people. But before he went to bed that night, he just said to me,
'Nephew Jack, you have not behaved so badly as the rest to me. And
because you have no gift of talking, I think that I may trust you.
Now, mark my words, this villain job shall not have ending here. I have
another card to play.'

'You mean, sir, I suppose, that you will go to the justices of this
shire, Squire Maunder, or Sir Richard Blewitt, or__'

'Oaf, I mean nothing of the sort; they would only make a laughing_stock,
as those Devonshire people did, of me. No, I will go to the King
himself, or a man who is bigger than the King, and to whom I have ready
access. I will not tell thee his name at present, only if thou art
brought before him, never wilt thou forget it.' That was true enough,
by the bye, as I discovered afterwards, for the man he meant was Judge
Jeffreys.

'And when are you likely to see him, sir?'

'Maybe in the spring, maybe not until summer, for I cannot go to London
on purpose, but when my business takes me there. Only remember my words,
Jack, and when you see the man I mean, look straight at him, and tell
no lie. He will make some of your zany squires shake in their shoes, I
reckon. Now, I have been in this lonely hole far longer than I intended,
by reason of this outrage; yet I will stay here one day more upon a
certain condition.'

'Upon what condition, Uncle Ben? I grieve that you find it so lonely. We
will have Farmer Nicholas up again, and the singers, and__'

'The fashionable milkmaids. I thank you, let me be. The wenches are too
loud for me. Your Nanny is enough. Nanny is a good child, and she shall
come and visit me.' Uncle Reuben would always call her 'Nanny'; he said
that 'Annie' was too fine and Frenchified for us. 'But my condition is
this, Jack__that you shall guide me to_morrow, without a word to any
one, to a place where I may well descry the dwelling of these scoundrel
Doones, and learn the best way to get at them, when the time shall come.
Can you do this for me? I will pay you well, boy.'

I promised very readily to do my best to serve him, but, of course,
would take no money for it, not being so poor as that came to.
Accordingly, on the day following, I managed to set the men at work on
the other side of the farm, especially that inquisitive and busybody
John Fry, who would pry out almost anything for the pleasure of telling
his wife; and then, with Uncle Reuben mounted on my ancient Peggy, I
made foot for the westward, directly after breakfast. Uncle Ben refused
to go unless I would take a loaded gun, and indeed it was always wise
to do so in those days of turbulence; and none the less because of late
more than usual of our sheep had left their skins behind them. This, as
I need hardly say, was not to be charged to the appetite of the Doones,
for they always said that they were not butchers (although upon that
subject might well be two opinions); and their practice was to make the
shepherds kill and skin, and quarter for them, and sometimes carry to
the Doone_gate the prime among the fatlings, for fear of any bruising,
which spoils the look at table. But the worst of it was that ignorant
folk, unaware of their fastidiousness, scored to them the sheep they
lost by lower_born marauders, and so were afraid to speak of it: and the
issue of this error was that a farmer, with five or six hundred sheep,
could never command, on his wedding_day, a prime saddle of mutton for
dinner.

To return now to my Uncle Ben__and indeed he would not let me go more
than three land_yards from him__there was very little said between us
along the lane and across the hill, although the day was pleasant. I
could see that he was half amiss with his mind about the business,
and not so full of security as an elderly man should keep himself.
Therefore, out I spake, and said,__

'Uncle Reuben, have no fear. I know every inch of the ground, sir; and
there is no danger nigh us.'

'Fear, boy! Who ever thought of fear? 'Tis the last thing would come
across me. Pretty things those primroses.'

At once I thought of Lorna Doone, the little maid of six years back, and
how my fancy went with her. Could Lorna ever think of me? Was I not a
lout gone by, only fit for loach_sticking? Had I ever seen a face fit to
think of near her? The sudden flash, the quickness, the bright desire to
know one's heart, and not withhold her own from it, the soft withdrawal
of rich eyes, the longing to love somebody, anybody, anything, not
imbrued with wickedness__

My uncle interrupted me, misliking so much silence now, with the
naked woods falling over us. For we were come to Bagworthy forest, the
blackest and the loneliest place of all that keep the sun out. Even
now, in winter_time, with most of the wood unriddled, and the rest of it
pinched brown, it hung around us like a cloak containing little comfort.
I kept quite close to Peggy's head, and Peggy kept quite close to me,
and pricked her ears at everything. However, we saw nothing there,
except a few old owls and hawks, and a magpie sitting all alone, until
we came to the bank of the hill, where the pony could not climb it.
Uncle Ben was very loath to get off, because the pony seemed company,
and he thought he could gallop away on her, if the worst came to
the worst, but I persuaded him that now he must go to the end of it.
Therefore he made Peggy fast, in a place where we could find her, and
speaking cheerfully as if there was nothing to be afraid of, he took his
staff, and I my gun, to climb the thick ascent.

There was now no path of any kind; which added to our courage all it
lessened of our comfort, because it proved that the robbers were not in
the habit of passing there. And we knew that we could not go astray,
so long as we breasted the hill before us; inasmuch as it formed the
rampart, or side_fence of Glen Doone. But in truth I used the right word
there for the manner of our ascent, for the ground came forth so steep
against us, and withal so woody, that to make any way we must throw
ourselves forward, and labour as at a breast_plough. Rough and loamy
rungs of oak_root bulged here and there above our heads; briers needs
must speak with us, using more of tooth than tongue; and sometimes bulks
of rugged stone, like great sheep, stood across us. At last, though very
loath to do it, I was forced to leave my gun behind, because I required
one hand to drag myself up the difficulty, and one to help Uncle Reuben.
And so at last we gained the top, and looked forth the edge of the
forest, where the ground was very stony and like the crest of a quarry;
and no more trees between us and the brink of cliff below, three hundred
yards below it might be, all strong slope and gliddery. And now far the
first time I was amazed at the appearance of the Doones's stronghold,
and understood its nature. For when I had been even in the valley, and
climbed the cliffs to escape from it, about seven years agone, I was no
more than a stripling boy, noting little, as boys do, except for their
present purpose, and even that soon done with. But now, what with
the fame of the Doones, and my own recollections, and Uncle Ben's
insistence, all my attention was called forth, and the end was simple
astonishment.

The chine of highland, whereon we stood, curved to the right and left
of us, keeping about the same elevation, and crowned with trees and
brushwood. At about half a mile in front of us, but looking as if we
could throw a stone to strike any man upon it, another crest just like
our own bowed around to meet it; but failed by reason of two narrow
clefts of which we could only see the brink. One of these clefts was the
Doone_gate, with a portcullis of rock above it, and the other was the
chasm by which I had once made entrance. Betwixt them, where the hills
fell back, as in a perfect oval, traversed by the winding water, lay a
bright green valley, rimmed with sheer black rock, and seeming to have
sunken bodily from the bleak rough heights above. It looked as if no
frost could enter neither wind go ruffling; only spring, and hope, and
comfort, breathe to one another. Even now the rays of sunshine dwelt and
fell back on one another, whenever the clouds lifted; and the pale blue
glimpse of the growing day seemed to find young encouragement.

But for all that, Uncle Reuben was none the worse nor better. He looked
down into Glen Doone first, and sniffed as if he were smelling it, like
a sample of goods from a wholesale house; and then he looked at the
hills over yonder, and then he stared at me.

'See what a pack of fools they be?'

'Of course I do, Uncle Ben. "All rogues are fools," was my first copy,
beginning of the alphabet.'

'Pack of stuff lad. Though true enough, and very good for young people.
But see you not how this great Doone valley may be taken in half an
hour?'

'Yes, to be sure I do, uncle; if they like to give it up, I mean.'

'Three culverins on yonder hill, and three on the top of this one, and
we have them under a pestle. Ah, I have seen the wars, my lad, from
Keinton up to Naseby; and I might have been a general now, if they had
taken my advice__'

But I was not attending to him, being drawn away on a sudden by a sight
which never struck the sharp eyes of our General. For I had long ago
descried that little opening in the cliff through which I made my exit,
as before related, on the other side of the valley. No bigger than a
rabbit_hole it seemed from where we stood; and yet of all the scene
before me, that (from my remembrance perhaps) had the most attraction.
Now gazing at it with full thought of all that it had cost me, I saw a
little figure come, and pause, and pass into it. Something very light
and white, nimble, smooth, and elegant, gone almost before I knew that
any one had been there. And yet my heart came to my ribs, and all my
blood was in my face, and pride within me fought with shame, and vanity
with self_contempt; for though seven years were gone, and I from my
boyhood come to manhood, and all must have forgotten me, and I had
half_forgotten; at that moment, once for all, I felt that I was face to
face with fate (however poor it might be), weal or woe, in Lorna Doone.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 16

LORNA GROWING FORMIDABLE

Having reconnoitred thus the position of the enemy, Master Huckaback, on
the homeward road, cross_examined me in a manner not at all desirable.
For he had noted my confusion and eager gaze at something unseen by
him in the valley, and thereupon he made up his mind to know everything
about it. In this, however, he partly failed; for although I was no hand
at fence, and would not tell him a falsehood, I managed so to hold my
peace that he put himself upon the wrong track, and continued thereon
with many vaunts of his shrewdness and experience, and some chuckles at
my simplicity. Thus much however, he learned aright, that I had been in
the Doone valley several years before, and might be brought upon strong
inducement to venture there again. But as to the mode of my getting in,
the things I saw, and my thoughts upon them, he not only failed to learn
the truth, but certified himself into an obstinacy of error, from which
no after_knowledge was able to deliver him. And this he did, not only
because I happened to say very little, but forasmuch as he disbelieved
half of the truth I told him, through his own too great sagacity.

Upon one point, however, he succeeded more easily than he expected,
viz. in making me promise to visit the place again, as soon as occasion
offered, and to hold my own counsel about it. But I could not help
smiling at one thing, that according to his point of view my own counsel
meant my own and Master Reuben Huckaback's.

Now he being gone, as he went next day, to his favourite town of
Dulverton, and leaving behind him shadowy promise of the mountains he
would do for me, my spirit began to burn and pant for something to go on
with; and nothing showed a braver hope of movement and adventure than a
lonely visit to Glen Doone, by way of the perilous passage discovered in
my boyhood. Therefore I waited for nothing more than the slow arrival of
new small_clothes made by a good tailor at Porlock, for I was wishful
to look my best; and when they were come and approved, I started,
regardless of the expense, and forgetting (like a fool) how badly they
would take the water.

What with urging of the tailor, and my own misgivings, the time was now
come round again to the high_day of St. Valentine, when all our maids
were full of lovers, and all the lads looked foolish. And none of them
more sheepish or innocent than I myself, albeit twenty_one years old,
and not afraid of men much, but terrified of women, at least, if they
were comely. And what of all things scared me most was the thought of
my own size, and knowledge of my strength, which came like knots upon
me daily. In honest truth I tell this thing, (which often since hath
puzzled me, when I came to mix with men more), I was to that degree
ashamed of my thickness and my stature, in the presence of a woman,
that I would not put a trunk of wood on the fire in the kitchen, but
let Annie scold me well, with a smile to follow, and with her own plump
hands lift up a little log, and fuel it. Many a time I longed to be no
bigger than John Fry was; whom now (when insolent) I took with my left
hand by the waist_stuff, and set him on my hat, and gave him little
chance to tread it; until he spoke of his family, and requested to come
down again.

Now taking for good omen this, that I was a seven_year Valentine, though
much too big for a Cupidon, I chose a seven_foot staff of ash, and fixed
a loach_fork in it, to look as I had looked before; and leaving word
upon matters of business, out of the back door I went, and so through
the little orchard, and down the brawling Lynn_brook. Not being now
so much afraid, I struck across the thicket land between the meeting
waters, and came upon the Bagworthy stream near the great black
whirlpool. Nothing amazed me so much as to find how shallow the stream
now looked to me, although the pool was still as black and greedy as it
used to be. And still the great rocky slide was dark and difficult to
climb; though the water, which once had taken my knees, was satisfied
now with my ankles. After some labour, I reached the top; and halted to
look about me well, before trusting to broad daylight.

The winter (as I said before) had been a very mild one; and now the
spring was toward so that bank and bush were touched with it. The valley
into which I gazed was fair with early promise, having shelter from the
wind and taking all the sunshine. The willow_bushes over the stream
hung as if they were angling with tasseled floats of gold and silver,
bursting like a bean_pod. Between them came the water laughing, like
a maid at her own dancing, and spread with that young blue which never
lives beyond the April. And on either bank, the meadow ruffled as
the breeze came by, opening (through new tuft, of green) daisy_bud or
celandine, or a shy glimpse now and then of the love_lorn primrose.

Though I am so blank of wit, or perhaps for that same reason, these
little things come and dwell with me, and I am happy about them, and
long for nothing better. I feel with every blade of grass, as if it had
a history; and make a child of every bud as though it knew and loved me.
And being so, they seem to tell me of my own delusions, how I am no more
than they, except in self_importance.

While I was forgetting much of many things that harm one, and letting of
my thoughts go wild to sounds and sights of nature, a sweeter note than
thrush or ouzel ever wooed a mate in, floated on the valley breeze at
the quiet turn of sundown. The words were of an ancient song, fit to
laugh or cry at.

Love, an if there be one, Come my love to be, My love is for the one
Loving unto me.

Not for me the show, love, Of a gilded bliss; Only thou must know, love,
What my value is.

If in all the earth, love, Thou hast none but me, This shall be my
worth, love: To be cheap to thee.

But, if so thou ever Strivest to be free, 'Twill be my endeavour To be
dear to thee.

So shall I have plea, love, Is thy heart andbreath Clinging still to
thee, love, In the doom of death.

All this I took in with great eagerness, not for the sake of the meaning
(which is no doubt an allegory), but for the power and richness, and
softness of the singing, which seemed to me better than we ever had even
in Oare church. But all the time I kept myself in a black niche of the
rock, where the fall of the water began, lest the sweet singer (espying
me) should be alarmed, and flee away. But presently I ventured to look
forth where a bush was; and then I beheld the loveliest sight__one
glimpse of which was enough to make me kneel in the coldest water.

By the side of the stream she was coming to me, even among the
primroses, as if she loved them all; and every flower looked the
brighter, as her eyes were on them, I could not see what her face was,
my heart so awoke and trembled; only that her hair was flowing from
a wreath of white violets, and the grace of her coming was like the
appearance of the first wind_flower. The pale gleam over the western
cliffs threw a shadow of light behind her, as if the sun were lingering.
Never do I see that light from the closing of the west, even in these my
aged days, without thinking of her. Ah me, if it comes to that, what do
I see of earth or heaven, without thinking of her?

The tremulous thrill of her song was hanging on her open lips; and she
glanced around, as if the birds were accustomed to make answer. To me it
was a thing of terror to behold such beauty, and feel myself the while
to be so very low and common. But scarcely knowing what I did, as if
a rope were drawing me, I came from the dark mouth of the chasm; and
stood, afraid to look at her.

She was turning to fly, not knowing me, and frightened, perhaps, at
my stature, when I fell on the grass (as I fell before her seven years
agone that day), and I just said, 'Lorna Doone!'

She knew me at once, from my manner and ways, and a smile broke through
her trembling, as sunshine comes through aspen_leaves; and being so
clever, she saw, of course, that she needed not to fear me.

'Oh, indeed,' she cried, with a feint of anger (because she had shown
her cowardice, and yet in her heart she was laughing); 'oh, if you
please, who are you, sir, and how do you know my name?'

'I am John Ridd,' I answered; 'the boy who gave you those beautiful
fish, when you were only a little thing, seven years ago to_day.'

'Yes, the poor boy who was frightened so, and obliged to hide here in
the water.'

'And do you remember how kind you were, and saved my life by your
quickness, and went away riding upon a great man's shoulder, as if you
had never seen me, and yet looked back through the willow_trees?'

'Oh, yes, I remember everything; because it was so rare to see any
except__I mean because I happen to remember. But you seem not to
remember, sir, how perilous this place is.'

For she had kept her eyes upon me; large eyes of a softness, a
brightness, and a dignity which made me feel as if I must for ever love
and yet for ever know myself unworthy. Unless themselves should fill
with love, which is the spring of all things. And so I could not answer
her, but was overcome with thinking and feeling and confusion. Neither
could I look again; only waited for the melody which made every word
like a poem to me, the melody of her voice. But she had not the least
idea of what was going on with me, any more than I myself had.

'I think, Master Ridd, you cannot know,' she said, with her eyes taken
from me, 'what the dangers of this place are, and the nature of the
people.'

'Yes, I know enough of that; and I am frightened greatly, all the time,
when I do not look at you.'

She was too young to answer me in the style some maidens would have
used; the manner, I mean, which now we call from a foreign word
'coquettish.' And more than that, she was trembling from real fear of
violence, lest strong hands might be laid on me, and a miserable end
of it. And to tell the truth, I grew afraid; perhaps from a kind of
sympathy, and because I knew that evil comes more readily than good to
us.

Therefore, without more ado, or taking any advantage__although I would
have been glad at heart, if needs had been, to kiss her (without any
thought of rudeness)__it struck me that I had better go, and have no
more to say to her until next time of coming. So would she look the more
for me and think the more about me, and not grow weary of my words and
the want of change there is in me. For, of course, I knew what a churl I
was compared to her birth and appearance; but meanwhile I might improve
myself and learn a musical instrument. 'The wind hath a draw after
flying straw' is a saying we have in Devonshire, made, peradventure, by
somebody who had seen the ways of women.

'Mistress Lorna, I will depart'__mark you, I thought that a powerful
word__'in fear of causing disquiet. If any rogue shot me it would grieve
you; I make bold to say it, and it would be the death of mother. Few
mothers have such a son as me. Try to think of me now and then, and I
will bring you some new_laid eggs, for our young blue hen is beginning.'

'I thank you heartily,' said Lorna; 'but you need not come to see me.
You can put them in my little bower, where I am almost always__I mean
whither daily I repair to read and to be away from them.'

'Only show me where it is. Thrice a day I will come and stop__'

'Nay, Master Ridd, I would never show thee__never, because of
peril__only that so happens it thou hast found the way already.'

And she smiled with a light that made me care to cry out for no other
way, except to her dear heart. But only to myself I cried for anything
at all, having enough of man in me to be bashful with young maidens. So
I touched her white hand softly when she gave it to me, and (fancying
that she had sighed) was touched at heart about it, and resolved to
yield her all my goods, although my mother was living; and then grew
angry with myself (for a mile or more of walking) to think she would
condescend so; and then, for the rest of the homeward road, was mad with
every man in the world who would dare to think of having her.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 17

JOHN IS CLEARLY BEWITCHED

To forget one's luck of life, to forget the cark of care and withering
of young fingers; not to feel, or not be moved by, all the change of
thought and heart, from large young heat to the sinewy lines and dry
bones of old age__this is what I have to do ere ever I can make you
know (even as a dream is known) how I loved my Lorna. I myself can never
know; never can conceive, or treat it as a thing of reason, never can
behold myself dwelling in the midst of it, and think that this was I;
neither can I wander far from perpetual thought of it. Perhaps I have
two farrows of pigs ready for the chapman; perhaps I have ten stones
of wool waiting for the factor. It is all the same. I look at both, and
what I say to myself is this: 'Which would Lorna choose of them?' Of
course, I am a fool for this; any man may call me so, and I will not
quarrel with him, unless he guess my secret. Of course, I fetch my wit,
if it be worth the fetching, back again to business. But there my heart
is and must be; and all who like to try can cheat me, except upon parish
matters.

That week I could do little more than dream and dream and rove about,
seeking by perpetual change to find the way back to myself. I cared
not for the people round me, neither took delight in victuals; but made
believe to eat and drink and blushed at any questions. And being called
the master now, head_farmer, and chief yeoman, it irked me much that any
one should take advantage of me; yet everybody did so as soon as ever it
was known that my wits were gone moon_raking. For that was the way
they looked at it, not being able to comprehend the greatness and the
loftiness. Neither do I blame them much; for the wisest thing is to
laugh at people when we cannot understand them. I, for my part, took no
notice; but in my heart despised them as beings of a lesser nature, who
never had seen Lorna. Yet I was vexed, and rubbed myself, when John Fry
spread all over the farm, and even at the shoeing forge, that a mad dog
had come and bitten me, from the other side of Mallond.

This seems little to me now; and so it might to any one; but, at the
time, it worked me up to a fever of indignity. To make a mad dog of
Lorna, to compare all my imaginings (which were strange, I do assure
you__the faculty not being apt to work), to count the raising of my soul
no more than hydrophobia! All this acted on me so, that I gave John Fry
the soundest threshing that ever a sheaf of good corn deserved, or a
bundle of tares was blessed with. Afterwards he went home, too tired
to tell his wife the meaning of it; but it proved of service to both of
them, and an example for their children.

Now the climate of this country is__so far as I can make of it__to throw
no man into extremes; and if he throw himself so far, to pluck him
back by change of weather and the need of looking after things. Lest we
should be like the Southerns, for whom the sky does everything, and men
sit under a wall and watch both food and fruit come beckoning. Their sky
is a mother to them; but ours a good stepmother to us__fearing to
hurt by indulgence, and knowing that severity and change of mood are
wholesome.

The spring being now too forward, a check to it was needful; and in the
early part of March there came a change of weather. All the young growth
was arrested by a dry wind from the east, which made both face
and fingers burn when a man was doing ditching. The lilacs and the
woodbines, just crowding forth in little tufts, close kernelling their
blossom, were ruffled back, like a sleeve turned up, and nicked with
brown at the corners. In the hedges any man, unless his eyes were very
dull, could see the mischief doing. The russet of the young elm_bloom
was fain to be in its scale again; but having pushed forth, there must
be, and turn to a tawny colour. The hangers of the hazel, too, having
shed their dust to make the nuts, did not spread their little combs and
dry them, as they ought to do; but shrivelled at the base and fell, as
if a knife had cut them. And more than all to notice was (at least about
the hedges) the shuddering of everything and the shivering sound among
them toward the feeble sun; such as we make to a poor fireplace when
several doors are open. Sometimes I put my face to warm against the
soft, rough maple_stem, which feels like the foot of a red deer; but the
pitiless east wind came through all, and took and shook the caved
hedge aback till its knees were knocking together, and nothing could
be shelter. Then would any one having blood, and trying to keep at home
with it, run to a sturdy tree and hope to eat his food behind it, and
look for a little sun to come and warm his feet in the shelter. And if
it did he might strike his breast, and try to think he was warmer.

But when a man came home at night, after long day's labour, knowing
that the days increased, and so his care should multiply; still he found
enough of light to show him what the day had done against him in
his garden. Every ridge of new_turned earth looked like an old man's
muscles, honeycombed, and standing out void of spring, and powdery.
Every plant that had rejoiced in passing such a winter now was cowering,
turned away, unfit to meet the consequence. Flowing sap had stopped its
course; fluted lines showed want of food, and if you pinched the topmost
spray, there was no rebound or firmness.

We think a good deal, in a quiet way, when people ask us about them__of
some fine, upstanding pear_trees, grafted by my grandfather, who had
been very greatly respected. And he got those grafts by sheltering a
poor Italian soldier, in the time of James the First, a man who never
could do enough to show his grateful memories. How he came to our place
is a very difficult story, which I never understood rightly, having
heard it from my mother. At any rate, there the pear_trees were, and
there they are to this very day; and I wish every one could taste their
fruit, old as they are, and rugged.

Now these fine trees had taken advantage of the west winds, and the
moisture, and the promise of the spring time, so as to fill the tips of
the spray_wood and the rowels all up the branches with a crowd of eager
blossom. Not that they were yet in bloom, nor even showing whiteness,
only that some of the cones were opening at the side of the cap which
pinched them; and there you might count perhaps, a dozen nobs, like very
little buttons, but grooved, and lined, and huddling close, to make room
for one another. And among these buds were gray_green blades, scarce
bigger than a hair almost, yet curving so as if their purpose was to
shield the blossom.

Other of the spur_points, standing on the older wood where the sap was
not so eager, had not burst their tunic yet, but were flayed and flaked
with light, casting off the husk of brown in three_cornered patches, as
I have seen a Scotchman's plaid, or as his legs shows through it. These
buds, at a distance, looked as if the sky had been raining cream upon
them.

Now all this fair delight to the eyes, and good promise to the palate,
was marred and baffled by the wind and cutting of the night_frosts. The
opening cones were struck with brown, in between the button buds, and
on the scapes that shielded them; while the foot part of the cover hung
like rags, peeled back, and quivering. And there the little stalk of
each, which might have been a pear, God willing, had a ring around its
base, and sought a chance to drop and die. The others which had not
opened comb, but only prepared to do it, were a little better off, but
still very brown and unkid, and shrivelling in doubt of health, and
neither peart nor lusty.

Now this I have not told because I know the way to do it, for that I do
not, neither yet have seen a man who did know. It is wonderful how
we look at things, and never think to notice them; and I am as bad as
anybody, unless the thing to be observed is a dog, or a horse, or a
maiden. And the last of those three I look at, somehow, without knowing
that I take notice, and greatly afraid to do it, only I knew afterwards
(when the time of life was in me), not indeed, what the maiden was like,
but how she differed from others.

Yet I have spoken about the spring, and the failure of fair promise,
because I took it to my heart as token of what would come to me in the
budding of my years and hope. And even then, being much possessed, and
full of a foolish melancholy, I felt a sad delight at being doomed to
blight and loneliness; not but that I managed still (when mother
was urgent upon me) to eat my share of victuals, and cuff a man for
laziness, and see that a ploughshare made no leaps, and sleep of a night
without dreaming. And my mother half_believing, in her fondness and
affection, that what the parish said was true about a mad dog having
bitten me, and yet arguing that it must be false (because God would have
prevented him), my mother gave me little rest, when I was in the room
with her. Not that she worried me with questions, nor openly regarded
me with any unusual meaning, but that I knew she was watching slyly
whenever I took a spoon up; and every hour or so she managed to place a
pan of water by me, quite as if by accident, and sometimes even to spill
a little upon my shoe or coat_sleeve. But Betty Muxworthy was worst;
for, having no fear about my health, she made a villainous joke of it,
and used to rush into the kitchen, barking like a dog, and panting,
exclaiming that I had bitten her, and justice she would have on me, if
it cost her a twelvemonth's wages. And she always took care to do this
thing just when I had crossed my legs in the corner after supper, and
leaned my head against the oven, to begin to think of Lorna.

However, in all things there is comfort, if we do not look too hard
for it; and now I had much satisfaction, in my uncouth state, from
labouring, by the hour together, at the hedging and the ditching,
meeting the bitter wind face to face, feeling my strength increase, and
hoping that some one would be proud of it. In the rustling rush of
every gust, in the graceful bend of every tree, even in the 'lords and
ladies,' clumped in the scoops of the hedgerow, and most of all in the
soft primrose, wrung by the wind, but stealing back, and smiling when
the wrath was passed__in all of these, and many others there was aching
ecstasy, delicious pang of Lorna.

But however cold the weather was, and however hard the wind blew, one
thing (more than all the rest) worried and perplexed me. This was, that
I could not settle, turn and twist as I might, how soon I ought to go
again upon a visit to Glen Doone. For I liked not at all the falseness
of it (albeit against murderers), the creeping out of sight, and hiding,
and feeling as a spy might. And even more than this. I feared how Lorna
might regard it; whether I might seem to her a prone and blunt intruder,
a country youth not skilled in manners, as among the quality, even when
they rob us. For I was not sure myself, but that it might be very bad
manners to go again too early without an invitation; and my hands and
face were chapped so badly by the bitter wind, that Lorna might count
them unsightly things, and wish to see no more of them.

However, I could not bring myself to consult any one upon this point, at
least in our own neighbourhood, nor even to speak of it near home. But
the east wind holding through the month, my hands and face growing worse
and worse, and it having occurred to me by this time that possibly Lorna
might have chaps, if she came abroad at all, and so might like to talk
about them and show her little hands to me, I resolved to take another
opinion, so far as might be upon this matter, without disclosing the
circumstances.

Now the wisest person in all our parts was reckoned to be a certain wise
woman, well known all over Exmoor by the name of Mother Melldrum. Her
real name was Maple Durham, as I learned long afterwards; and she came
of an ancient family, but neither of Devon nor Somerset. Nevertheless
she was quite at home with our proper modes of divination; and knowing
that we liked them best__as each man does his own religion__she would
always practise them for the people of the country. And all the while,
she would let us know that she kept a higher and nobler mode for those
who looked down upon this one, not having been bred and born to it.

Mother Melldrum had two houses, or rather she had none at all, but two
homes wherein to find her, according to the time of year. In summer she
lived in a pleasant cave, facing the cool side of the hill, far inland
near Hawkridge and close above Tarr_steps, a wonderful crossing of Barle
river, made (as everybody knows) by Satan, for a wager. But throughout
the winter, she found sea_air agreeable, and a place where things could
be had on credit, and more occasion of talking. Not but what she could
have credit (for every one was afraid of her) in the neighbourhood of
Tarr_steps; only there was no one handy owning things worth taking.

Therefore, at the fall of the leaf, when the woods grew damp and
irksome, the wise woman always set her face to the warmer cliffs of the
Channel; where shelter was, and dry fern bedding, and folk to be seen in
the distance, from a bank upon which the sun shone. And there, as I
knew from our John Fry (who had been to her about rheumatism, and sheep
possessed with an evil spirit, and warts on the hand of his son, young
John), any one who chose might find her, towards the close of a winter
day, gathering sticks and brown fern for fuel, and talking to herself
the while, in a hollow stretch behind the cliffs; which foreigners, who
come and go without seeing much of Exmoor, have called the Valley of
Rocks.

This valley, or goyal, as we term it, being small for a valley, lies to
the west of Linton, about a mile from the town perhaps, and away towards
Ley Manor. Our homefolk always call it the Danes, or the Denes, which is
no more, they tell me, than a hollow place, even as the word 'den' is.
However, let that pass, for I know very little about it; but the place
itself is a pretty one, though nothing to frighten anybody, unless he
hath lived in a gallipot. It is a green rough_sided hollow, bending
at the middle, touched with stone at either crest, and dotted here and
there with slabs in and out the brambles. On the right hand is an upward
crag, called by some the Castle, easy enough to scale, and giving great
view of the Channel. Facing this, from the inland side and the elbow of
the valley, a queer old pile of rock arises, bold behind one another,
and quite enough to affright a man, if it only were ten times larger.
This is called the Devil's Cheese_ring, or the Devil's Cheese_knife,
which mean the same thing, as our fathers were used to eat their cheese
from a scoop; and perhaps in old time the upmost rock (which has fallen
away since I knew it) was like to such an implement, if Satan eat cheese
untoasted.

But all the middle of this valley was a place to rest in; to sit and
think that troubles were not, if we would not make them. To know the sea
outside the hills, but never to behold it; only by the sound of waves to
pity sailors labouring. Then to watch the sheltered sun, coming warmly
round the turn, like a guest expected, full of gentle glow and gladness,
casting shadow far away as a thing to hug itself, and awakening life
from dew, and hope from every spreading bud. And then to fall asleep and
dream that the fern was all asparagus.

Alas, I was too young in those days much to care for creature comforts,
or to let pure palate have things that would improve it. Anything went
down with me, as it does with most of us. Too late we know the good from
bad; the knowledge is no pleasure then; being memory's medicine rather
than the wine of hope.

Now Mother Melldrum kept her winter in this vale of rocks, sheltering
from the wind and rain within the Devil's Cheese_ring, which added
greatly to her fame because all else, for miles around, were afraid to
go near it after dark, or even on a gloomy day. Under eaves of lichened
rock she had a winding passage, which none that ever I knew of durst
enter but herself. And to this place I went to seek her, in spite of all
misgivings, upon a Sunday in Lenten season, when the sheep were folded.

Our parson (as if he had known my intent) had preached a beautiful
sermon about the Witch of Endor, and the perils of them that meddle
wantonly with the unseen Powers; and therein he referred especially to
the strange noise in the neighbourhood, and upbraided us for want of
faith, and many other backslidings. We listened to him very earnestly,
for we like to hear from our betters about things that are beyond us,
and to be roused up now and then, like sheep with a good dog after them,
who can pull some wool without biting. Nevertheless we could not see how
our want of faith could have made that noise, especially at night time,
notwithstanding which we believed it, and hoped to do a little better.

And so we all came home from church; and most of the people dined with
us, as they always do on Sundays, because of the distance to go home,
with only words inside them. The parson, who always sat next to mother,
was afraid that he might have vexed us, and would not have the best
piece of meat, according to his custom. But soon we put him at his ease,
and showed him we were proud of him; and then he made no more to do, but
accepted the best of the sirloin.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 18

WITCHERY LEADS TO WITCHCRAFT

Although wellnigh the end of March, the wind blew wild and piercing,
as I went on foot that afternoon to Mother Melldrum's dwelling. It was
safer not to take a horse, lest (if anything vexed her) she should put
a spell upon him; as had been done to Farmer Snowe's stable by the wise
woman of Simonsbath.

The sun was low on the edge of the hills by the time I entered the
valley, for I could not leave home till the cattle were tended, and
the distance was seven miles or more. The shadows of rocks fell far and
deep, and the brown dead fern was fluttering, and brambles with their
sere leaves hanging, swayed their tatters to and fro, with a red look on
them. In patches underneath the crags, a few wild goats were browsing;
then they tossed their horns, and fled, and leaped on ledges, and stared
at me. Moreover, the sound of the sea came up, and went the length of
the valley, and there it lapped on a butt of rocks, and murmured like a
shell.

Taking things one with another, and feeling all the lonesomeness, and
having no stick with me, I was much inclined to go briskly back,
and come at a better season. And when I beheld a tall grey shape, of
something or another, moving at the lower end of the valley, where the
shade was, it gave me such a stroke of fear, after many others, that my
thumb which lay in mother's Bible (brought in my big pocket for the sake
of safety) shook so much that it came out, and I could not get it in
again. 'This serves me right,' I said to myself, 'for tampering with
Beelzebub. Oh that I had listened to parson!'

And thereupon I struck aside; not liking to run away quite, as some
people might call it; but seeking to look like a wanderer who was come
to see the valley, and had seen almost enough of it. Herein I should
have succeeded, and gone home, and then been angry at my want of
courage, but that on the very turn and bending of my footsteps, the
woman in the distance lifted up her staff to me, so that I was bound to
stop.

And now, being brought face to face, by the will of God (as one might
say) with anything that might come of it, I kept myself quite straight
and stiff, and thrust away all white feather, trusting in my Bible
still, hoping that it would protect me, though I had disobeyed it. But
upon that remembrance, my conscience took me by the leg, so that I could
not go forward.

All this while, the fearful woman was coming near and more near to me;
and I was glad to sit down on a rock because my knees were shaking so. I
tried to think of many things, but none of them would come to me; and I
could not take my eyes away, though I prayed God to be near me.

But when she was come so nigh to me that I could descry her features,
there was something in her countenance that made me not dislike her. She
looked as if she had been visited by many troubles, and had felt them
one by one, yet held enough of kindly nature still to grieve for others.
Long white hair, on either side, was falling down below her chin; and
through her wrinkles clear bright eyes seemed to spread themselves upon
me. Though I had plenty of time to think, I was taken by surprise no
less, and unable to say anything; yet eager to hear the silence broken,
and longing for a noise or two.

'Thou art not come to me,' she said, looking through my simple face, as
if it were but glass, 'to be struck for bone_shave, nor to be blessed
for barn_gun. Give me forth thy hand, John Ridd; and tell why thou art
come to me.'

But I was so much amazed at her knowing my name and all about me, that I
feared to place my hand in her power, or even my tongue by speaking.

'Have no fear of me, my son; I have no gift to harm thee; and if I had,
it should be idle. Now, if thou hast any wit, tell me why I love thee.'

'I never had any wit, mother,' I answered in our Devonshire way; 'and
never set eyes on thee before, to the furthest of my knowledge.'

'And yet I know thee as well, John, as if thou wert my grandson.
Remember you the old Oare oak, and the bog at the head of Exe, and the
child who would have died there, but for thy strength and courage, and
most of all thy kindness? That was my granddaughter, John; and all I
have on earth to love.'

Now that she came to speak of it, with the place and that, so clearly, I
remembered all about it (a thing that happened last August), and thought
how stupid I must have been not to learn more of the little girl who had
fallen into the black pit, with a basketful of whortleberries, and
who might have been gulfed if her little dog had not spied me in the
distance. I carried her on my back to mother; and then we dressed her
all anew, and took her where she ordered us; but she did not tell us
who she was, nor anything more than her Christian name, and that she was
eight years old, and fond of fried batatas. And we did not seek to ask
her more; as our manner is with visitors.

But thinking of this little story, and seeing how she looked at me, I
lost my fear of Mother Melldrum, and began to like her; partly because I
had helped her grandchild, and partly that if she were so wise, no need
would have been for me to save the little thing from drowning. Therefore
I stood up and said, though scarcely yet established in my power against
hers,__

'Good mother, the shoe she lost was in the mire, and not with us. And we
could not match it, although we gave her a pair of sister Lizzie's.'

'My son, what care I for her shoe? How simple thou art, and foolish!
according to the thoughts of some. Now tell me, for thou canst not lie,
what has brought thee to me.'

Being so ashamed and bashful, I was half_inclined to tell her a lie,
until she said that I could not do it; and then I knew that I could not.

'I am come to know,' I said, looking at a rock the while, to keep my
voice from shaking, 'when I may go to see Lorna Doone.'

No more could I say, though my mind was charged to ask fifty other
questions. But although I looked away, it was plain that I had asked
enough. I felt that the wise woman gazed at me in wrath as well as
sorrow; and then I grew angry that any one should seem to make light of
Lorna.

'John Ridd,' said the woman, observing this (for now I faced her
bravely), 'of whom art thou speaking? Is it a child of the men who slew
your father?'

'I cannot tell, mother. How should I know? And what is that to thee?'

'It is something to thy mother, John, and something to thyself, I trow;
and nothing worse could befall thee.'

I waited for her to speak again, because she had spoken so sadly that it
took my breath away.

'John Ridd, if thou hast any value for thy body or thy soul, thy mother,
or thy father's name, have nought to do with any Doone.'

She gazed at me in earnest so, and raised her voice in saying it, until
the whole valley, curving like a great bell echoed 'Doone,' that it
seemed to me my heart was gone for every one and everything. If it were
God's will for me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come out of the
rocks, and I would try to believe it. But no sign came, and I turned to
the woman, and longed that she had been a man.

'You poor thing, with bones and blades, pails of water, and door_keys,
what know you about the destiny of a maiden such as Lorna? Chilblains
you may treat, and bone_shave, ringworm, and the scaldings; even scabby
sheep may limp the better for your strikings. John the Baptist and his
cousins, with the wool and hyssop, are for mares, and ailing dogs, and
fowls that have the jaundice. Look at me now, Mother Melldrum, am I like
a fool?'

'That thou art, my son. Alas that it were any other! Now behold the end
of that; John Ridd, mark the end of it.'

She pointed to the castle_rock, where upon a narrow shelf, betwixt us
and the coming stars, a bitter fight was raging. A fine fat sheep, with
an honest face, had clomb up very carefully to browse on a bit of juicy
grass, now the dew of the land was upon it. To him, from an upper crag,
a lean black goat came hurrying, with leaps, and skirmish of the horns,
and an angry noise in his nostrils. The goat had grazed the place
before, to the utmost of his liking, cropping in and out with jerks, as
their manner is of feeding. Nevertheless he fell on the sheep with fury
and great malice.

The simple wether was much inclined to retire from the contest, but
looked around in vain for any way to peace and comfort. His enemy stood
between him and the last leap he had taken; there was nothing left him
but to fight, or be hurled into the sea, five hundred feet below.

'Lie down, lie down!' I shouted to him, as if he were a dog, for I had
seen a battle like this before, and knew that the sheep had no chance of
life except from his greater weight, and the difficulty of moving him.

'Lie down, lie down, John Ridd!' cried Mother Melldrum, mocking me, but
without a sign of smiling.

The poor sheep turned, upon my voice, and looked at me so piteously that
I could look no longer; but ran with all my speed to try and save him
from the combat. He saw that I could not be in time, for the goat was
bucking to leap at him, and so the good wether stooped his forehead,
with the harmless horns curling aside of it; and the goat flung his
heels up, and rushed at him, with quick sharp jumps and tricks of
movement, and the points of his long horns always foremost, and his
little scut cocked like a gun_hammer.

As I ran up the steep of the rock, I could not see what they were doing,
but the sheep must have fought very bravely at last, and yielded his
ground quite slowly, and I hoped almost to save him. But just as my head
topped the platform of rock, I saw him flung from it backward, with a
sad low moan and a gurgle. His body made quite a short noise in the air,
like a bucket thrown down a well shaft, and I could not tell when it
struck the water, except by the echo among the rocks. So wroth was I
with the goat at the moment (being somewhat scant of breath and unable
to consider), that I caught him by the right hind_leg, before he could
turn from his victory, and hurled him after the sheep, to learn how he
liked his own compulsion.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 19

ANOTHER DANGEROUS INTERVIEW

Although I left the Denes at once, having little heart for further
questions of the wise woman, and being afraid to visit her house under
the Devil's Cheese_ring (to which she kindly invited me), and although
I ran most part of the way, it was very late for farm_house time upon
a Sunday evening before I was back at Plover's Barrows. My mother had
great desire to know all about the matter; but I could not reconcile it
with my respect so to frighten her. Therefore I tried to sleep it off,
keeping my own counsel; and when that proved of no avail, I strove to
work it away, it might be, by heavy outdoor labour, and weariness, and
good feeding. These indeed had some effect, and helped to pass a week or
two, with more pain of hand than heart to me.

But when the weather changed in earnest, and the frost was gone, and
the south_west wind blew softly, and the lambs were at play with the
daisies, it was more than I could do to keep from thought of Lorna.
For now the fields were spread with growth, and the waters clad with
sunshine, and light and shadow, step by step, wandered over the furzy
cleves. All the sides of the hilly wood were gathered in and out with
green, silver_grey, or russet points, according to the several manner of
the trees beginning. And if one stood beneath an elm, with any heart to
look at it, lo! all the ground was strewn with flakes (too small to know
their meaning), and all the sprays above were rasped and trembling with
a redness. And so I stopped beneath the tree, and carved L.D. upon it,
and wondered at the buds of thought that seemed to swell inside me.

The upshot of it all was this, that as no Lorna came to me, except in
dreams or fancy, and as my life was not worth living without constant
sign of her, forth I must again to find her, and say more than a man can
tell. Therefore, without waiting longer for the moving of the spring,
dressed I was in grand attire (so far as I had gotten it), and thinking
my appearance good, although with doubts about it (being forced to
dress in the hay_tallat), round the corner of the wood_stack went I very
knowingly__for Lizzie's eyes were wondrous sharp__and then I was sure of
meeting none who would care or dare to speak of me.

It lay upon my conscience often that I had not made dear Annie secret to
this history; although in all things I could trust her, and she loved me
like a lamb. Many and many a time I tried, and more than once began the
thing; but there came a dryness in my throat, and a knocking under the
roof of my mouth, and a longing to put it off again, as perhaps might be
the wisest. And then I would remember too that I had no right to speak
of Lorna as if she were common property.

This time I longed to take my gun, and was half resolved to do so;
because it seemed so hard a thing to be shot at and have no chance of
shooting; but when I came to remember the steepness and the slippery
nature of the waterslide, there seemed but little likelihood of keeping
dry the powder. Therefore I was armed with nothing but a good stout
holly staff, seasoned well for many a winter in our back_kitchen
chimney.

Although my heart was leaping high with the prospect of some adventure,
and the fear of meeting Lorna, I could not but be gladdened by the
softness of the weather, and the welcome way of everything. There was
that power all round, that power and that goodness, which make us come,
as it were, outside our bodily selves, to share them. Over and beside us
breathes the joy of hope and promise; under foot are troubles past; in
the distance bowering newness tempts us ever forward. We quicken with
largesse of life, and spring with vivid mystery.

And, in good sooth, I had to spring, and no mystery about it, ere ever I
got to the top of the rift leading into Doone_glade. For the stream was
rushing down in strength, and raving at every corner; a mort of rain
having fallen last night and no wind come to wipe it. However, I reached
the head ere dark with more difficulty than danger, and sat in a place
which comforted my back and legs desirably.

Hereupon I grew so happy at being on dry land again, and come to look
for Lorna, with pretty trees around me, that what did I do but fall
asleep with the holly_stick in front of me, and my best coat sunk in a
bed of moss, with water and wood_sorrel. Mayhap I had not done so, nor
yet enjoyed the spring so much, if so be I had not taken three parts of
a gallon of cider at home, at Plover's Barrows, because of the lowness
and sinking ever since I met Mother Melldrum.

There was a little runnel going softly down beside me, falling from the
upper rock by the means of moss and grass, as if it feared to make a
noise, and had a mother sleeping. Now and then it seemed to stop, in
fear of its own dropping, and wait for some orders; and the blades of
grass that straightened to it turned their points a little way, and
offered their allegiance to wind instead of water. Yet before their
carkled edges bent more than a driven saw, down the water came again
with heavy drops and pats of running, and bright anger at neglect.

This was very pleasant to me, now and then, to gaze at, blinking as the
water blinked, and falling back to sleep again. Suddenly my sleep was
broken by a shade cast over me; between me and the low sunlight Lorna
Doone was standing.

'Master Ridd, are you mad?' she said, and took my hand to move me.

'Not mad, but half asleep,' I answered, feigning not to notice her, that
so she might keep hold of me.

'Come away, come away, if you care for life. The patrol will be here
directly. Be quick, Master Ridd, let me hide thee.'

'I will not stir a step,' said I, though being in the greatest fright
that might be well imagined,' unless you call me "John."'

'Well, John, then__Master John Ridd, be quick, if you have any to care
for you.'

'I have many that care for me,' I said, just to let her know; 'and I
will follow you, Mistress Lorna, albeit without any hurry, unless there
be peril to more than me.'

Without another word she led me, though with many timid glances towards
the upper valley, to, and into, her little bower, where the inlet
through the rock was. I am almost sure that I spoke before (though I
cannot now go seek for it, and my memory is but a worn_out tub) of
a certain deep and perilous pit, in which I was like to drown myself
through hurry and fright of boyhood. And even then I wondered greatly,
and was vexed with Lorna for sending me in that heedless manner into
such an entrance. But now it was clear that she had been right and the
fault mine own entirely; for the entrance to the pit was only to be
found by seeking it. Inside the niche of native stone, the plainest
thing of all to see, at any rate by day light, was the stairway hewn
from rock, and leading up the mountain, by means of which I had escaped,
as before related. To the right side of this was the mouth of the pit,
still looking very formidable; though Lorna laughed at my fear of it,
for she drew her water thence. But on the left was a narrow crevice,
very difficult to espy, and having a sweep of grey ivy laid, like a
slouching beaver, over it. A man here coming from the brightness of the
outer air, with eyes dazed by the twilight, would never think of seeing
this and following it to its meaning.

Lorna raised the screen for me, but I had much ado to pass, on account
of bulk and stature. Instead of being proud of my size (as it seemed to
me she ought to be) Lorna laughed so quietly that I was ready to knock
my head or elbows against anything, and say no more about it. However,
I got through at last without a word of compliment, and broke into the
pleasant room, the lone retreat of Lorna.

The chamber was of unhewn rock, round, as near as might be, eighteen
or twenty feet across, and gay with rich variety of fern and moss
and lichen. The fern was in its winter still, or coiling for the
spring_tide; but moss was in abundant life, some feathering, and some
gobleted, and some with fringe of red to it. Overhead there was no
ceiling but the sky itself, flaked with little clouds of April whitely
wandering over it. The floor was made of soft low grass, mixed with moss
and primroses; and in a niche of shelter moved the delicate wood_sorrel.
Here and there, around the sides, were 'chairs of living stone,' as some
Latin writer says, whose name has quite escaped me; and in the midst a
tiny spring arose, with crystal beads in it, and a soft voice as of
a laughing dream, and dimples like a sleeping babe. Then, after going
round a little, with surprise of daylight, the water overwelled the
edge, and softly went through lines of light to shadows and an untold
bourne.

While I was gazing at all these things with wonder and some sadness,
Lorna turned upon me lightly (as her manner was) and said,__

'Where are the new_laid eggs, Master Ridd? Or hath blue hen ceased
laying?'

I did not altogether like the way in which she said it with a sort of
dialect, as if my speech could be laughed at.

'Here be some,' I answered, speaking as if in spite of her. 'I would
have brought thee twice as many, but that I feared to crush them in the
narrow ways, Mistress Lorna.'

And so I laid her out two dozen upon the moss of the rock_ledge,
unwinding the wisp of hay from each as it came safe out of my pocket.
Lorna looked with growing wonder, as I added one to one; and when I
had placed them side by side, and bidden her now to tell them, to my
amazement what did she do but burst into a flood of tears.

'What have I done?' I asked, with shame, scarce daring even to look
at her, because her grief was not like Annie's__a thing that could be
coaxed away, and left a joy in going__'oh, what have I done to vex you
so?'

'It is nothing done by you, Master Ridd,' she answered, very proudly, as
if nought I did could matter; 'it is only something that comes upon me
with the scent of the pure true clover_hay. Moreover, you have been too
kind; and I am not used to kindness.'

Some sort of awkwardness was on me, at her words and weeping, as if I
would like to say something, but feared to make things worse perhaps
than they were already. Therefore I abstained from speech, as I would
in my own pain. And as it happened, this was the way to make her tell me
more about it. Not that I was curious, beyond what pity urged me and
the strange affairs around her; and now I gazed upon the floor, lest I
should seem to watch her; but none the less for that I knew all that she
was doing.

Lorna went a little way, as if she would not think of me nor care for
one so careless; and all my heart gave a sudden jump, to go like a mad
thing after her; until she turned of her own accord, and with a little
sigh came back to me. Her eyes were soft with trouble's shadow, and
the proud lift of her neck was gone, and beauty's vanity borne down by
woman's want of sustenance.

'Master Ridd,' she said in the softest voice that ever flowed between
two lips, 'have I done aught to offend you?'

Hereupon it went hard with me, not to catch her up and kiss her, in the
manner in which she was looking; only it smote me suddenly that this
would be a low advantage of her trust and helplessness. She seemed to
know what I would be at, and to doubt very greatly about it, whether
as a child of old she might permit the usage. All sorts of things went
through my head, as I made myself look away from her, for fear of being
tempted beyond what I could bear. And the upshot of it was that I said,
within my heart and through it, 'John Ridd, be on thy very best manners
with this lonely maiden.'

Lorna liked me all the better for my good forbearance; because she did
not love me yet, and had not thought about it; at least so far as I
knew. And though her eyes were so beauteous, so very soft and kindly,
there was (to my apprehension) some great power in them, as if she would
not have a thing, unless her judgment leaped with it.

But now her judgment leaped with me, because I had behaved so well; and
being of quick urgent nature__such as I delight in, for the change
from mine own slowness__she, without any let or hindrance, sitting over
against me, now raising and now dropping fringe over those sweet
eyes that were the road_lights of her tongue, Lorna told me all about
everything I wished to know, every little thing she knew, except indeed
that point of points, how Master Ridd stood with her.

Although it wearied me no whit, it might be wearisome for folk who
cannot look at Lorna, to hear the story all in speech, exactly as she
told it; therefore let me put it shortly, to the best of my remembrance.

Nay, pardon me, whosoever thou art, for seeming fickle and rude to thee;
I have tried to do as first proposed, to tell the tale in my own words,
as of another's fortune. But, lo! I was beset at once with many heavy
obstacles, which grew as I went onward, until I knew not where I was,
and mingled past and present. And two of these difficulties only were
enough to stop me; the one that I must coldly speak without the force of
pity, the other that I, off and on, confused myself with Lorna, as might
be well expected.

Therefore let her tell the story, with her own sweet voice and manner;
and if ye find it wearisome, seek in yourselves the weariness.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition  Chapter 20

LORNA BEGINS HER STORY

'I cannot go through all my thoughts so as to make them clear to you,
nor have I ever dwelt on things, to shape a story of them. I know not
where the beginning was, nor where the middle ought to be, nor even how
at the present time I feel, or think, or ought to think. If I look for
help to those around me, who should tell me right and wrong (being older
and much wiser), I meet sometimes with laughter, and at other times with
anger.

'There are but two in the world who ever listen and try to help me; one
of them is my grandfather, and the other is a man of wisdom, whom we
call the Counsellor. My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doone, is very old and
harsh of manner (except indeed to me); he seems to know what is right
and wrong, but not to want to think of it. The Counsellor, on the other
hand, though full of life and subtleties, treats my questions as of
play, and not gravely worth his while to answer, unless he can make wit
of them.

'And among the women there are none with whom I can hold converse, since
my Aunt Sabina died, who took such pains to teach me. She was a lady of
high repute and lofty ways, and learning, but grieved and harassed more
and more by the coarseness, and the violence, and the ignorance around
her. In vain she strove, from year to year, to make the young men
hearken, to teach them what became their birth, and give them sense of
honour. It was her favourite word, poor thing! and they called her "Old
Aunt Honour." Very often she used to say that I was her only comfort,
and I am sure she was my only one; and when she died it was more to me
than if I had lost a mother.

'For I have no remembrance now of father or of mother, although they say
that my father was the eldest son of Sir Ensor Doone, and the bravest
and the best of them. And so they call me heiress to this little realm
of violence; and in sorry sport sometimes, I am their Princess or their
Queen.

'Many people living here, as I am forced to do, would perhaps be
very happy, and perhaps I ought to be so. We have a beauteous valley,
sheltered from the cold of winter and power of the summer sun,
untroubled also by the storms and mists that veil the mountains;
although I must acknowledge that it is apt to rain too often. The grass
moreover is so fresh, and the brook so bright and lively, and flowers
of so many hues come after one another that no one need be dull, if only
left alone with them.

'And so in the early days perhaps, when morning breathes around me, and
the sun is going upward, and light is playing everywhere, I am not so
far beside them all as to live in shadow. But when the evening gathers
down, and the sky is spread with sadness, and the day has spent itself;
then a cloud of lonely trouble falls, like night, upon me. I cannot see
the things I quest for of a world beyond me; I cannot join the peace
and quiet of the depth above me; neither have I any pleasure in the
brightness of the stars.

'What I want to know is something none of them can tell me__what am
I, and why set here, and when shall I be with them? I see that you are
surprised a little at this my curiosity. Perhaps such questions never
spring in any wholesome spirit. But they are in the depths of mine, and
I cannot be quit of them.

'Meantime, all around me is violence and robbery, coarse delight and
savage pain, reckless joke and hopeless death. Is it any wonder that I
cannot sink with these, that I cannot so forget my soul, as to live the
life of brutes, and die the death more horrible because it dreams of
waking? There is none to lead me forward, there is none to teach me
right; young as I am, I live beneath a curse that lasts for ever.'

Here Lorna broke down for awhile, and cried so very piteously, that
doubting of my knowledge, and of any power to comfort, I did my best to
hold my peace, and tried to look very cheerful. Then thinking that might
be bad manners, I went to wipe her eyes for her.

'Master Ridd,' she began again, 'I am both ashamed and vexed at my own
childish folly. But you, who have a mother, who thinks (you say) so
much of you, and sisters, and a quiet home; you cannot tell (it is not
likely) what a lonely nature is. How it leaps in mirth sometimes, with
only heaven touching it; and how it falls away desponding, when the
dreary weight creeps on.

'It does not happen many times that I give way like this; more shame
now to do so, when I ought to entertain you. Sometimes I am so full of
anger, that I dare not trust to speech, at things they cannot hide from
me; and perhaps you would be much surprised that reckless men would care
so much to elude a young girl's knowledge. They used to boast to Aunt
Sabina of pillage and of cruelty, on purpose to enrage her; but they
never boast to me. It even makes me smile sometimes to see how
awkwardly they come and offer for temptation to me shining packets,
half concealed, of ornaments and finery, of rings, or chains, or jewels,
lately belonging to other people.

'But when I try to search the past, to get a sense of what befell me ere
my own perception formed; to feel back for the lines of childhood, as
a trace of gossamer, then I only know that nought lives longer than God
wills it. So may after sin go by, for we are children always, as the
Counsellor has told me; so may we, beyond the clouds, seek this infancy
of life, and never find its memory.

'But I am talking now of things which never come across me when any work
is toward. It might have been a good thing for me to have had a father
to beat these rovings out of me; or a mother to make a home, and teach
me how to manage it. For, being left with none__I think; and nothing
ever comes of it. Nothing, I mean, which I can grasp and have with any
surety; nothing but faint images, and wonderment, and wandering. But
often, when I am neither searching back into remembrance, nor asking of
my parents, but occupied by trifles, something like a sign, or message,
or a token of some meaning, seems to glance upon me. Whether from the
rustling wind, or sound of distant music, or the singing of a bird, like
the sun on snow it strikes me with a pain of pleasure.

'And often when I wake at night, and listen to the silence, or wander
far from people in the grayness of the evening, or stand and look at
quiet water having shadows over it, some vague image seems to hover on
the skirt of vision, ever changing place and outline, ever flitting as I
follow. This so moves and hurries me, in the eagerness and longing, that
straightway all my chance is lost; and memory, scared like a wild bird,
flies. Or am I as a child perhaps, chasing a flown cageling, who among
the branches free plays and peeps at the offered cage (as a home not to
be urged on him), and means to take his time of coming, if he comes at
all?

'Often too I wonder at the odds of fortune, which made me (helpless as
I am, and fond of peace and reading) the heiress of this mad domain, the
sanctuary of unholiness. It is not likely that I shall have much power
of authority; and yet the Counsellor creeps up to be my Lord of the
Treasury; and his son aspires to my hand, as of a Royal alliance. Well,
"honour among thieves," they say; and mine is the first honour: although
among decent folk perhaps, honesty is better.

'We should not be so quiet here, and safe from interruption but that I
have begged one privilege rather than commanded it. This was that the
lower end, just this narrowing of the valley, where it is most hard to
come at, might be looked upon as mine, except for purposes of guard.
Therefore none beside the sentries ever trespass on me here, unless it
be my grandfather, or the Counsellor or Carver.

'By your face, Master Ridd, I see that you have heard of Carver Doone.
For strength and courage and resource he bears the first repute among
us, as might well be expected from the son of the Counsellor. But he
differs from his father, in being very hot and savage, and quite free
from argument. The Counsellor, who is my uncle, gives his son the best
advice; commending all the virtues, with eloquence and wisdom; yet
himself abstaining from them accurately and impartially.

'You must be tired of this story, and the time I take to think, and
the weakness of my telling; but my life from day to day shows so little
variance. Among the riders there is none whose safe return I watch
for__I mean none more than other__and indeed there seems no risk, all
are now so feared of us. Neither of the old men is there whom I
can revere or love (except alone my grandfather, whom I love with
trembling): neither of the women any whom I like to deal with, unless it
be a little maiden whom I saved from starving.

'A little Cornish girl she is, and shaped in western manner, not so very
much less in width than if you take her lengthwise. Her father seems to
have been a miner, a Cornishman (as she declares) of more than average
excellence, and better than any two men to be found in Devonshire, or
any four in Somerset. Very few things can have been beyond his power of
performance, and yet he left his daughter to starve upon a peat_rick.
She does not know how this was done, and looks upon it as a mystery,
the meaning of which will some day be clear, and redound to her father's
honour. His name was Simon Carfax, and he came as the captain of a gang
from one of the Cornish stannaries. Gwenny Carfax, my young maid, well
remembers how her father was brought up from Cornwall. Her mother had
been buried, just a week or so before; and he was sad about it, and had
been off his work, and was ready for another job. Then people came to
him by night, and said that he must want a change, and everybody lost
their wives, and work was the way to mend it. So what with grief,
and over_thought, and the inside of a square bottle, Gwenny says they
brought him off, to become a mighty captain, and choose the country
round. The last she saw of him was this, that he went down a ladder
somewhere on the wilds of Exmoor, leaving her with bread and cheese, and
his travelling_hat to see to. And from that day to this he never came
above the ground again; so far as we can hear of.

'But Gwenny, holding to his hat, and having eaten the bread and cheese
(when he came no more to help her), dwelt three days near the mouth of
the hole; and then it was closed over, the while that she was sleeping.
With weakness and with want of food, she lost herself distressfully, and
went away for miles or more, and lay upon a peat_rick, to die before the
ravens.

'That very day I chanced to return from Aunt Sabina's dying_place; for
she would not die in Glen Doone, she said, lest the angels feared to
come for her; and so she was taken to a cottage in a lonely valley. I
was allowed to visit her, for even we durst not refuse the wishes of the
dying; and if a priest had been desired, we should have made bold with
him. Returning very sorrowful, and caring now for nothing, I found this
little stray thing lying, her arms upon her, and not a sign of life,
except the way that she was biting. Black root_stuff was in her mouth,
and a piece of dirty sheep's wool, and at her feet an old egg_shell of
some bird of the moorland.

'I tried to raise her, but she was too square and heavy for me; and so
I put food in her mouth, and left her to do right with it. And this she
did in a little time; for the victuals were very choice and rare, being
what I had taken over to tempt poor Aunt Sabina. Gwenny ate them without
delay, and then was ready to eat the basket and the ware that contained
them.

'Gwenny took me for an angel__though I am little like one, as you see,
Master Ridd; and she followed me, expecting that I would open wings and
fly when we came to any difficulty. I brought her home with me, so far
as this can be a home, and she made herself my sole attendant, without
so much as asking me. She has beaten two or three other girls, who used
to wait upon me, until they are afraid to come near the house of my
grandfather. She seems to have no kind of fear even of our roughest men;
and yet she looks with reverence and awe upon the Counsellor. As for the
wickedness, and theft, and revelry around her, she says it is no concern
of hers, and they know their own business best. By this way of regarding
men she has won upon our riders, so that she is almost free from all
control of place and season, and is allowed to pass where none even of
the youths may go. Being so wide, and short, and flat, she has none to
pay her compliments; and, were there any, she would scorn them, as not
being Cornishmen. Sometimes she wanders far, by moonlight, on the moors
and up the rivers, to give her father (as she says) another chance of
finding her, and she comes back not a wit defeated, or discouraged, or
depressed, but confident that he is only waiting for the proper time.

'Herein she sets me good example of a patience and contentment hard for
me to imitate. Oftentimes I am vexed by things I cannot meddle with, yet
which cannot be kept from me, that I am at the point of flying from this
dreadful valley, and risking all that can betide me in the unknown outer
world. If it were not for my grandfather, I would have done so long ago;
but I cannot bear that he should die with no gentle hand to comfort him;
and I fear to think of the conflict that must ensue for the government,
if there be a disputed succession.

'Ah me! We are to be pitied greatly, rather than condemned, by people
whose things we have taken from them; for I have read, and seem almost
to understand about it, that there are places on the earth where gentle
peace, and love of home, and knowledge of one's neighbours prevail, and
are, with reason, looked for as the usual state of things. There honest
folk may go to work in the glory of the sunrise, with hope of coming
home again quite safe in the quiet evening, and finding all their
children; and even in the darkness they have no fear of lying down, and
dropping off to slumber, and hearken to the wind of night, not as to an
enemy trying to find entrance, but a friend who comes to tell the value
of their comfort.

'Of all this golden ease I hear, but never saw the like of it; and,
haply, I shall never do so, being born to turbulence. Once, indeed, I
had the offer of escape, and kinsman's aid, and high place in the gay,
bright world; and yet I was not tempted much, or, at least, dared not to
trust it. And it ended very sadly, so dreadfully that I even shrink from
telling you about it; for that one terror changed my life, in a moment,
at a blow, from childhood and from thoughts of play and commune with the
flowers and trees, to a sense of death and darkness, and a heavy weight
of earth. Be content now, Master Ridd ask me nothing more about it, so
your sleep be sounder.'

But I, John Ridd, being young and new, and very fond of hearing things
to make my blood to tingle, had no more of manners than to urge poor
Lorna onwards, hoping, perhaps, in depth of heart, that she might have
to hold by me, when the worst came to the worst of it. Therefore she
went on again.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 21

LORNA ENDS HER STORY

'It is not a twelvemonth yet, although it seems ten years agone, since
I blew the downy globe to learn the time of day, or set beneath my
chin the veinings of the varnished buttercup, or fired the fox_glove
cannonade, or made a captive of myself with dandelion fetters; for then
I had not very much to trouble me in earnest, but went about, romancing
gravely, playing at bo_peep with fear, making for myself strong heroes
of gray rock or fir_tree, adding to my own importance, as the children
love to do.

'As yet I had not truly learned the evil of our living, the scorn of
law, the outrage, and the sorrow caused to others. It even was a point
with all to hide the roughness from me, to show me but the gallant side,
and keep in shade the other. My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doone, had given
strictest order, as I discovered afterwards, that in my presence all
should be seemly, kind, and vigilant. Nor was it very difficult to
keep most part of the mischief from me, for no Doone ever robs at home,
neither do they quarrel much, except at times of gambling. And though
Sir Ensor Doone is now so old and growing feeble, his own way he will
have still, and no one dare deny him. Even our fiercest and most mighty
swordsmen, seared from all sense of right or wrong, yet have plentiful
sense of fear, when brought before that white_haired man. Not that he is
rough with them, or querulous, or rebukeful; but that he has a strange
soft smile, and a gaze they cannot answer, and a knowledge deeper far
than they have of themselves. Under his protection, I am as safe from
all those men (some of whom are but little akin to me) as if I slept
beneath the roof of the King's Lord Justiciary.

'But now, at the time I speak of, one evening of last summer, a horrible
thing befell, which took all play of childhood from me. The fifteenth
day of last July was very hot and sultry, long after the time of
sundown; and I was paying heed of it, because of the old saying that if
it rain then, rain will fall on forty days thereafter. I had been long
by the waterside at this lower end of the valley, plaiting a little
crown of woodbine crocketed with sprigs of heath__to please my
grandfather, who likes to see me gay at supper_time. Being proud of my
tiara, which had cost some trouble, I set it on my head at once, to save
the chance of crushing, and carrying my gray hat, ventured by a path not
often trod. For I must be home at the supper_time, or grandfather
would be exceeding wrath; and the worst of his anger is that he never
condescends to show it.

'Therefore, instead of the open mead, or the windings of the river, I
made short cut through the ash_trees covert which lies in the middle of
our vale, with the water skirting or cleaving it. You have never been
up so far as that__at least to the best of my knowledge__but you see it
like a long gray spot, from the top of the cliffs above us. Here I was
not likely to meet any of our people because the young ones are afraid
of some ancient tale about it, and the old ones have no love of trees
where gunshots are uncertain.

'It was more almost than dusk, down below the tree_leaves, and I was
eager to go through, and be again beyond it. For the gray dark hung
around me, scarcely showing shadow; and the little light that glimmered
seemed to come up from the ground. For the earth was strown with the
winter_spread and coil of last year's foliage, the lichened claws
of chalky twigs, and the numberless decay which gives a light in its
decaying. I, for my part, hastened shyly, ready to draw back and run
from hare, or rabbit, or small field_mouse.

'At a sudden turn of the narrow path, where it stopped again to the
river, a man leaped out from behind a tree, and stopped me, and seized
hold of me. I tried to shriek, but my voice was still; I could only hear
my heart.

'"Now, Cousin Lorna, my good cousin," he said, with ease and calmness;
"your voice is very sweet, no doubt, from all that I can see of you. But
I pray you keep it still, unless you would give to dusty death your very
best cousin and trusty guardian, Alan Brandir of Loch Awe."

'"You my guardian!" I said, for the idea was too ludicrous; and
ludicrous things always strike me first, through some fault of nature.

'"I have in truth that honour, madam," he answered, with a sweeping bow;
"unless I err in taking you for Mistress Lorna Doone."

'"You have not mistaken me. My name is Lorna Doone."

'He looked at me, with gravity, and was inclined to make some claim to
closer consideration upon the score of kinship; but I shrunk back, and
only said, "Yes, my name is Lorna Doone."

'"Then I am your faithful guardian, Alan Brandir of Loch Awe; called
Lord Alan Brandir, son of a worthy peer of Scotland. Now will you
confide in me?"

'"I confide in you!" I cried, looking at him with amazement; "why, you
are not older than I am!"

'"Yes I am, three years at least. You, my ward, are not sixteen. I, your
worshipful guardian, am almost nineteen years of age."

'Upon hearing this I looked at him, for that seemed then a venerable
age; but the more I looked the more I doubted, although he was dressed
quite like a man. He led me in a courtly manner, stepping at his tallest
to an open place beside the water; where the light came as in channel,
and was made the most of by glancing waves and fair white stones.

'"Now am I to your liking, cousin?" he asked, when I had gazed at him,
until I was almost ashamed, except at such a stripling. "Does my Cousin
Lorna judge kindly of her guardian, and her nearest kinsman? In a word,
is our admiration mutual?"

'"Truly I know not," I said; "but you seem good_natured, and to have no
harm in you. Do they trust you with a sword?"

'For in my usage among men of stature and strong presence, this pretty
youth, so tricked and slender, seemed nothing but a doll to me. Although
he scared me in the wood, now that I saw him in good twilight, lo! he
was but little greater than my little self; and so tasselled and so
ruffled with a mint of bravery, and a green coat barred with red, and
a slim sword hanging under him, it was the utmost I could do to look at
him half_gravely.

'"I fear that my presence hath scarce enough of ferocity about it,"
(he gave a jerk to his sword as he spoke, and clanked it on the
brook_stones); "yet do I assure you, cousin, that I am not without
some prowess; and many a master of defence hath this good sword of mine
disarmed. Now if the boldest and biggest robber in all this charming
valley durst so much as breathe the scent of that flower coronal, which
doth not adorn but is adorned"__here he talked some nonsense__"I would
cleave him from head to foot, ere ever he could fly or cry."

'"Hush!" I said; "talk not so loudly, or thou mayst have to do both
thyself, and do them both in vain."

'For he was quite forgetting now, in his bravery before me, where he
stood, and with whom he spoke, and how the summer lightning shone above
the hills and down the hollow. And as I gazed on this slight fair youth,
clearly one of high birth and breeding (albeit over_boastful), a chill
of fear crept over me; because he had no strength or substance, and
would be no more than a pin_cushion before the great swords of the
Doones.

'"I pray you be not vexed with me," he answered, in a softer voice;
"for I have travelled far and sorely, for the sake of seeing you. I know
right well among whom I am, and that their hospitality is more of the
knife than the salt_stand. Nevertheless I am safe enough, for my foot is
the fleetest in Scotland, and what are these hills to me? Tush! I have
seen some border forays among wilder spirits and craftier men than these
be. Once I mind some years agone, when I was quite a stripling lad__"

'"Worshipful guardian," I said, "there is no time now for history. If
thou art in no haste, I am, and cannot stay here idling. Only tell me
how I am akin and under wardship to thee, and what purpose brings thee
here."

'"In order, cousin__all things in order, even with fair ladies. First,
I am thy uncle's son, my father is thy mother's brother, or at least thy
grandmother's__unless I am deceived in that which I have guessed, and no
other man. For my father, being a leading lord in the councils of
King Charles the Second, appointed me to learn the law, not for my
livelihood, thank God, but because he felt the lack of it in affairs
of state. But first your leave, young Mistress Lorna; I cannot lay down
legal maxims, without aid of smoke."

'He leaned against a willow_tree, and drawing from a gilded box a little
dark thing like a stick, placed it between his lips, and then striking
a flint on steel made fire and caught it upon touchwood. With this he
kindled the tip of the stick, until it glowed with a ring of red, and
then he breathed forth curls of smoke, blue and smelling on the air
like spice. I had never seen this done before, though acquainted with
tobacco_pipes; and it made me laugh, until I thought of the peril that
must follow it.

'"Cousin, have no fear," he said; "this makes me all the safer; they
will take me for a glow_worm, and thee for the flower it shines upon.
But to return__of law I learned as you may suppose, but little; although
I have capacities. But the thing was far too dull for me. All I care for
is adventure, moving chance, and hot encounter; therefore all of law I
learned was how to live without it. Nevertheless, for amusement's sake,
as I must needs be at my desk an hour or so in the afternoon, I took to
the sporting branch of the law, the pitfalls, and the ambuscades; and
of all the traps to be laid therein, pedigrees are the rarest. There is
scarce a man worth a cross of butter, but what you may find a hole in
his shield within four generations. And so I struck our own escutcheon,
and it sounded hollow. There is a point__but heed not that; enough that
being curious now, I followed up the quarry, and I am come to this at
last__we, even we, the lords of Loch Awe, have an outlaw for our cousin,
and I would we had more, if they be like you."

'"Sir," I answered, being amused by his manner, which was new to me (for
the Doones are much in earnest), "surely you count it no disgrace to be
of kin to Sir Ensor Doone, and all his honest family!"

'"If it be so, it is in truth the very highest honour and would heal ten
holes in our escutcheon. What noble family but springs from a captain
among robbers? Trade alone can spoil our blood; robbery purifies it. The
robbery of one age is the chivalry of the next. We may start anew, and
vie with even the nobility of France, if we can once enrol but half the
Doones upon our lineage."

'"I like not to hear you speak of the Doones, as if they were no more
than that," I exclaimed, being now unreasonable; "but will you tell me,
once for all, sir, how you are my guardian?"

'"That I will do. You are my ward because you were my father's ward,
under the Scottish law; and now my father being so deaf, I have
succeeded to that right__at least in my own opinion__under which claim I
am here to neglect my trust no longer, but to lead you away from scenes
and deeds which (though of good repute and comely) are not the best for
young gentlewomen. There spoke I not like a guardian? After that can you
mistrust me?"

'"But," said I, "good Cousin Alan (if I may so call you), it is not
meet for young gentlewomen to go away with young gentlemen, though fifty
times their guardians. But if you will only come with me, and explain
your tale to my grandfather, he will listen to you quietly, and take no
advantage of you."

'"I thank you much, kind Mistress Lorna, to lead the goose into the
fox's den! But, setting by all thought of danger, I have other reasons
against it. Now, come with your faithful guardian, child. I will pledge
my honour against all harm, and to bear you safe to London. By the law
of the realm, I am now entitled to the custody of your fair person, and
of all your chattels."

'"But, sir, all that you have learned of law, is how to live without
it."

'"Fairly met, fair cousin mine! Your wit will do me credit, after a
little sharpening. And there is none to do that better than your aunt,
my mother. Although she knows not of my coming, she is longing to
receive you. Come, and in a few months' time you shall set the mode at
Court, instead of pining here, and weaving coronals of daisies."

'I turned aside, and thought a little. Although he seemed so light of
mind, and gay in dress and manner, I could not doubt his honesty; and
saw, beneath his jaunty air, true mettle and ripe bravery. Scarce had I
thought of his project twice, until he spoke of my aunt, his mother, but
then the form of my dearest friend, my sweet Aunt Sabina, seemed to come
and bid me listen, for this was what she prayed for. Moreover I felt
(though not as now) that Doone Glen was no place for me or any proud
young maiden. But while I thought, the yellow lightning spread behind a
bulk of clouds, three times ere the flash was done, far off and void of
thunder; and from the pile of cloud before it, cut as from black paper,
and lit to depths of blackness by the blaze behind it, a form as of an
aged man, sitting in a chair loose_mantled, seemed to lift a hand and
warn.

'This minded me of my grandfather, and all the care I owed him.
Moreover, now the storm was rising and I began to grow afraid; for of
all things awful to me thunder is the dreadfulest. It doth so growl,
like a lion coming, and then so roll, and roar, and rumble, out of a
thickening darkness, then crack like the last trump overhead through
cloven air and terror, that all my heart lies low and quivers, like a
weed in water. I listened now for the distant rolling of the great black
storm, and heard it, and was hurried by it. But the youth before me
waved his rolled tobacco at it, and drawled in his daintiest tone and
manner,__

'"The sky is having a smoke, I see, and dropping sparks, and grumbling.
I should have thought these Exmoor hills too small to gather thunder."

'"I cannot go, I will not go with you, Lord Alan Brandir," I answered,
being vexed a little by those words of his. "You are not grave enough
for me, you are not old enough for me. My Aunt Sabina would not
have wished it; nor would I leave my grandfather, without his full
permission. I thank you much for coming, sir; but be gone at once by the
way you came; and pray how did you come, sir?"

'"Fair cousin, you will grieve for this; you will mourn, when you cannot
mend it. I would my mother had been here, soon would she have persuaded
you. And yet," he added, with the smile of his accustomed gaiety, "it
would have been an unco thing, as we say in Scotland, for her ladyship
to have waited upon you, as her graceless son has done, and hopes to do
again ere long. Down the cliffs I came, and up them I must make way back
again. Now adieu, fair Cousin Lorna, I see you are in haste tonight;
but I am right proud of my guardianship. Give me just one flower for
token"__here he kissed his hand to me, and I threw him a truss of
woodbine__"adieu, fair cousin, trust me well, I will soon be here
again."

'"That thou never shalt, sir," cried a voice as loud as a culverin; and
Carver Doone had Alan Brandir as a spider hath a fly. The boy made a
little shriek at first, with the sudden shock and the terror; then he
looked, methought, ashamed of himself, and set his face to fight for
it. Very bravely he strove and struggled, to free one arm and grasp
his sword; but as well might an infant buried alive attempt to lift his
gravestone. Carver Doone, with his great arms wrapped around the slim
gay body, smiled (as I saw by the flash from heaven) at the poor young
face turned up to him; then (as a nurse bears off a child, who is loath
to go to bed), he lifted the youth from his feet, and bore him away into
the darkness.

'I was young then. I am older now; older by ten years, in thought,
although it is not a twelvemonth since. If that black deed were done
again, I could follow, and could combat it, could throw weak arms on
the murderer, and strive to be murdered also. I am now at home with
violence; and no dark death surprises me.

'But, being as I was that night, the horror overcame me. The crash of
thunder overhead, the last despairing look, the death_piece framed with
blaze of lightning__my young heart was so affrighted that I could not
gasp. My breath went from me, and I knew not where I was, or who, or
what. Only that I lay, and cowered, under great trees full of thunder;
and could neither count, nor moan, nor have my feet to help me.

'Yet hearkening, as a coward does, through the brushing of the wind,
and echo of far noises, I heard a sharp sound as of iron, and a fall
of heavy wood. No unmanly shriek came with it, neither cry for mercy.
Carver Doone knows what it was; and so did Alan Brandir.'

Here Lorna Doone could tell no more, being overcome with weeping. Only
through her tears she whispered, as a thing too bad to tell, that she
had seen that giant Carver, in a few days afterwards, smoking a little
round brown stick, like those of her poor cousin. I could not press her
any more with questions, or for clearness; although I longed very
much to know whether she had spoken of it to her grandfather or the
Counsellor. But she was now in such condition, both of mind and body,
from the force of her own fear multiplied by telling it, that I did
nothing more than coax her, at a distance humbly; and so that she could
see that some one was at least afraid of her. This (although I knew
not women in those days, as now I do, and never shall know much of it),
this, I say, so brought her round, that all her fear was now for me,
and how to get me safely off, without mischance to any one. And sooth to
say, in spite of longing just to see if Master Carver could have served
me such a trick__as it grew towards the dusk, I was not best pleased
to be there; for it seemed a lawless place, and some of Lorna's fright
stayed with me as I talked it away from her.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 22

After hearing that tale from Lorna, I went home in sorry spirits, having
added fear for her, and misery about, to all my other ailments. And was
it not quite certain now that she, being owned full cousin to a peer and
lord of Scotland (although he was a dead one), must have nought to do
with me, a yeoman's son, and bound to be the father of more yeomen? I
had been very sorry when first I heard about that poor young popinjay,
and would gladly have fought hard for him; but now it struck me that
after all he had no right to be there, prowling (as it were) for Lorna,
without any invitation: and we farmers love not trespass. Still, if I
had seen the thing, I must have tried to save him.

Moreover, I was greatly vexed with my own hesitation, stupidity, or
shyness, or whatever else it was, which had held me back from saying,
ere she told her story, what was in my heart to say, videlicet, that I
must die unless she let me love her. Not that I was fool enough to think
that she would answer me according to my liking, or begin to care about
me for a long time yet; if indeed she ever should, which I hardly dared
to hope. But that I had heard from men more skillful in the matter that
it is wise to be in time, that so the maids may begin to think, when
they know that they are thought of. And, to tell the truth, I had bitter
fears, on account of her wondrous beauty, lest some young fellow of
higher birth and finer parts, and finish, might steal in before poor me,
and cut me out altogether. Thinking of which, I used to double my great
fist, without knowing it, and keep it in my pocket ready.

But the worst of all was this, that in my great dismay and anguish
to see Lorna weeping so, I had promised not to cause her any further
trouble from anxiety and fear of harm. And this, being brought to
practice, meant that I was not to show myself within the precincts of
Glen Doone, for at least another month. Unless indeed (as I contrived to
edge into the agreement) anything should happen to increase her present
trouble and every day's uneasiness. In that case, she was to throw a
dark mantle, or covering of some sort, over a large white stone which
hung within the entrance to her retreat__I mean the outer entrance__and
which, though unseen from the valley itself, was (as I had observed)
conspicuous from the height where I stood with Uncle Reuben.

Now coming home so sad and weary, yet trying to console myself with the
thought that love o'erleapeth rank, and must still be lord of all, I
found a shameful thing going on, which made me very angry. For it needs
must happen that young Marwood de Whichehalse, only son of the Baron,
riding home that very evening, from chasing of the Exmoor bustards,
with his hounds and serving_men, should take the short cut through
our farmyard, and being dry from his exercise, should come and ask for
drink. And it needs must happen also that there should be none to give
it to him but my sister Annie. I more than suspect that he had heard
some report of our Annie's comeliness, and had a mind to satisfy
himself upon the subject. Now, as he took the large ox_horn of our
quarantine_apple cider (which we always keep apart from the rest, being
too good except for the quality), he let his fingers dwell on Annie's,
by some sort of accident, while he lifted his beaver gallantly, and
gazed on her face in the light from the west. Then what did Annie do (as
she herself told me afterwards) but make her very best curtsey to him,
being pleased that he was pleased with her, while she thought what a
fine young man he was and so much breeding about him! And in truth he
was a dark, handsome fellow, hasty, reckless, and changeable, with a
look of sad destiny in his black eyes that would make any woman pity
him. What he was thinking of our Annie is not for me to say, although I
may think that you could not have found another such maiden on Exmoor,
except (of course) my Lorna.

Though young Squire Marwood was so thirsty, he spent much time over his
cider, or at any rate over the ox_horn, and he made many bows to Annie,
and drank health to all the family, and spoke of me as if I had been his
very best friend at Blundell's; whereas he knew well enough all the time
that we had nought to say to one another; he being three years older,
and therefore of course disdaining me. But while he was casting about
perhaps for some excuse to stop longer, and Annie was beginning to fear
lest mother should come after her, or Eliza be at the window, or Betty
up in pigs' house, suddenly there came up to them, as if from the very
heart of the earth, that long, low, hollow, mysterious sound which I
spoke of in winter.

The young man started in his saddle, let the horn fall on the
horse_steps, and gazed all around in wonder; while as for Annie, she
turned like a ghost, and tried to slam the door, but failed through the
violence of her trembling; (for never till now had any one heard it so
close at hand as you might say) or in the mere fall of the twilight. And
by this time there was no man, at least in our parish, but knew__for the
Parson himself had told us so__that it was the devil groaning because
the Doones were too many for him.

Marwood de Whichehalse was not so alarmed but what he saw a fine
opportunity. He leaped from his horse, and laid hold of dear Annie in a
highly comforting manner; and she never would tell us about it (being
so shy and modest), whether in breathing his comfort to her he tried
to take some from her pure lips. I hope he did not, because that to me
would seem not the deed of a gentleman, and he was of good old family.

At this very moment, who should come into the end of the passage upon
them but the heavy writer of these doings I, John Ridd myself, and
walking the faster, it may be, on account of the noise I mentioned. I
entered the house with some wrath upon me at seeing the gazehounds in
the yard; for it seems a cruel thing to me to harass the birds in the
breeding_time. And to my amazement there I saw Squire Marwood among the
milk_pans with his arm around our Annie's waist, and Annie all blushing
and coaxing him off, for she was not come to scold yet.

Perhaps I was wrong; God knows, and if I was, no doubt I shall pay for
it; but I gave him the flat of my hand on his head, and down he went in
the thick of the milk_pans. He would have had my fist, I doubt, but for
having been at school with me; and after that it is like enough he would
never have spoken another word. As it was, he lay stunned, with the
cream running on him; while I took poor Annie up and carried her in to
mother, who had heard the noise and was frightened.

Concerning this matter I asked no more, but held myself ready to bear it
out in any form convenient, feeling that I had done my duty, and
cared not for the consequence; only for several days dear Annie seemed
frightened rather than grateful. But the oddest result of it was that
Eliza, who had so despised me, and made very rude verses about me, now
came trying to sit on my knee, and kiss me, and give me the best of the
pan. However, I would not allow it, because I hate sudden changes.

Another thing also astonished me__namely, a beautiful letter from
Marwood de Whichehalse himself (sent by a groom soon afterwards), in
which he apologised to me, as if I had been his equal, for his rudeness
to my sister, which was not intended in the least, but came of their
common alarm at the moment, and his desire to comfort her. Also he
begged permission to come and see me, as an old schoolfellow, and set
everything straight between us, as should be among honest Blundellites.

All this was so different to my idea of fighting out a quarrel, when
once it is upon a man, that I knew not what to make of it, but bowed to
higher breeding. Only one thing I resolved upon, that come when he would
he should not see Annie. And to do my sister justice, she had no desire
to see him.

However, I am too easy, there is no doubt of that, being very quick to
forgive a man, and very slow to suspect, unless he hath once lied to
me. Moreover, as to Annie, it had always seemed to me (much against my
wishes) that some shrewd love of a waiting sort was between her and Tom
Faggus: and though Tom had made his fortune now, and everybody
respected him, of course he was not to be compared, in that point of
respectability, with those people who hanged the robbers when fortune
turned against them.

So young Squire Marwood came again, as though I had never smitten
him, and spoke of it in as light a way as if we were still at school
together. It was not in my nature, of course, to keep any anger against
him; and I knew what a condescension it was for him to visit us. And
it is a very grievous thing, which touches small landowners, to see an
ancient family day by day decaying: and when we heard that Ley Barton
itself, and all the Manor of Lynton were under a heavy mortgage debt to
John Lovering of Weare_Gifford, there was not much, in our little way,
that we would not gladly do or suffer for the benefit of De Whichehalse.

Meanwhile the work of the farm was toward, and every day gave us
more ado to dispose of what itself was doing. For after the long dry
skeltering wind of March and part of April, there had been a fortnight
of soft wet; and when the sun came forth again, hill and valley, wood
and meadow, could not make enough of him. Many a spring have I seen
since then, but never yet two springs alike, and never one so beautiful.
Or was it that my love came forth and touched the world with beauty?

The spring was in our valley now; creeping first for shelter shyly in
the pause of the blustering wind. There the lambs came bleating to her,
and the orchis lifted up, and the thin dead leaves of clover lay for the
new ones to spring through. There the stiffest things that sleep, the
stubby oak, and the saplin'd beech, dropped their brown defiance to her,
and prepared for a soft reply.

While her over_eager children (who had started forth to meet her,
through the frost and shower of sleet), catkin'd hazel, gold_gloved
withy, youthful elder, and old woodbine, with all the tribe of good
hedge_climbers (who must hasten while haste they may)__was there one of
them that did not claim the merit of coming first?

There she stayed and held her revel, as soon as the fear of frost was
gone; all the air was a fount of freshness, and the earth of gladness,
and the laughing waters prattled of the kindness of the sun.

But all this made it much harder for us, plying the hoe and rake, to
keep the fields with room upon them for the corn to tiller. The winter
wheat was well enough, being sturdy and strong_sided; but the spring
wheat and the barley and the oats were overrun by ill weeds growing
faster. Therefore, as the old saying is,__

Farmer, that thy wife may thrive, Let not burr and burdock wive; And if
thou wouldst keep thy son, See that bine and gith have none.

So we were compelled to go down the field and up it, striking in and out
with care where the green blades hung together, so that each had space
to move in and to spread its roots abroad. And I do assure you now,
though you may not believe me, it was harder work to keep John Fry, Bill
Dadds, and Jem Slocomb all in a line and all moving nimbly to the tune
of my own tool, than it was to set out in the morning alone, and hoe
half an acre by dinner_time. For, instead of keeping the good ash
moving, they would for ever be finding something to look at or to speak
of, or at any rate, to stop with; blaming the shape of their tools
perhaps, or talking about other people's affairs; or, what was most
irksome of all to me, taking advantage as married men, and whispering
jokes of no excellence about my having, or having not, or being ashamed
of a sweetheart. And this went so far at last that I was forced to take
two of them and knock their heads together; after which they worked with
a better will.

When we met together in the evening round the kitchen chimney_place,
after the men had had their supper and their heavy boots were gone, my
mother and Eliza would do their very utmost to learn what I was thinking
of. Not that we kept any fire now, after the crock was emptied; but that
we loved to see the ashes cooling, and to be together. At these times
Annie would never ask me any crafty questions (as Eliza did), but would
sit with her hair untwined, and one hand underneath her chin, sometimes
looking softly at me, as much as to say that she knew it all and I was
no worse off than she. But strange to say my mother dreamed not, even
for an instant, that it was possible for Annie to be thinking of such
a thing. She was so very good and quiet, and careful of the linen, and
clever about the cookery and fowls and bacon_curing, that people used
to laugh, and say she would never look at a bachelor until her mother
ordered her. But I (perhaps from my own condition and the sense of what
it was) felt no certainty about this, and even had another opinion, as
was said before.

Often I was much inclined to speak to her about it, and put her on her
guard against the approaches of Tom Faggus; but I could not find how to
begin, and feared to make a breach between us; knowing that if her
mind was set, no words of mine would alter it; although they needs must
grieve her deeply. Moreover, I felt that, in this case, a certain
homely Devonshire proverb would come home to me; that one, I mean, which
records that the crock was calling the kettle smutty. Not, of course,
that I compared my innocent maid to a highwayman; but that Annie might
think her worse, and would be too apt to do so, if indeed she loved Tom
Faggus. And our Cousin Tom, by this time, was living a quiet and godly
life; having retired almost from the trade (except when he needed
excitement, or came across public officers), and having won the esteem
of all whose purses were in his power.

Perhaps it is needless for me to say that all this time while my month
was running__or rather crawling, for never month went so slow as
that with me__neither weed, nor seed, nor cattle, nor my own mother's
anxiety, nor any care for my sister, kept me from looking once every
day, and even twice on a Sunday, for any sign of Lorna. For my heart was
ever weary; in the budding valleys, and by the crystal waters, looking
at the lambs in fold, or the heifers on the mill, labouring in trickled
furrows, or among the beaded blades; halting fresh to see the sun lift
over the golden_vapoured ridge; or doffing hat, from sweat of brow, to
watch him sink in the low gray sea; be it as it would of day, of work,
or night, or slumber, it was a weary heart I bore, and fear was on the
brink of it.

All the beauty of the spring went for happy men to think of; all the
increase of the year was for other eyes to mark. Not a sign of any
sunrise for me from my fount of life, not a breath to stir the dead
leaves fallen on my heart's Spring.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 23

A ROYAL INVITATION

Although I had, for the most part, so very stout an appetite, that none
but mother saw any need of encouraging me to eat, I could only manage
one true good meal in a day, at the time I speak of. Mother was in
despair at this, and tempted me with the whole of the rack, and even
talked of sending to Porlock for a druggist who came there twice in
a week; and Annie spent all her time in cooking, and even Lizzie sang
songs to me; for she could sing very sweetly. But my conscience told me
that Betty Muxworthy had some reason upon her side.

'Latt the young ozebird aloun, zay I. Makk zuch ado about un, wi'
hogs'_puddens, and hock_bits, and lambs'_mate, and whaten bradd indade,
and brewers' ale avore dinner_time, and her not to zit wi' no winder
aupen__draive me mad 'e doo, the ov'ee, zuch a passel of voouls. Do 'un
good to starve a bit; and takk zome on's wackedness out ov un.'

But mother did not see it so; and she even sent for Nicholas Snowe
to bring his three daughters with him, and have ale and cake in the
parlour, and advise about what the bees were doing, and when a swarm
might be looked for. Being vexed about this and having to stop at home
nearly half the evening, I lost good manners so much as to ask him (even
in our own house!) what he meant by not mending the swing_hurdle where
the Lynn stream flows from our land into his, and which he is bound to
maintain. But he looked at me in a superior manner, and said, 'Business,
young man, in business time.'

I had other reason for being vexed with Farmer Nicholas just now, viz.
that I had heard a rumour, after church one Sunday__when most of all we
sorrow over the sins of one another__that Master Nicholas Snowe had
been seen to gaze tenderly at my mother, during a passage of the sermon,
wherein the parson spoke well and warmly about the duty of Christian
love. Now, putting one thing with another, about the bees, and about
some ducks, and a bullock with a broken knee_cap, I more than suspected
that Farmer Nicholas was casting sheep's eyes at my mother; not only to
save all further trouble in the matter of the hurdle, but to override me
altogether upon the difficult question of damming. And I knew quite well
that John Fry's wife never came to help at the washing without declaring
that it was a sin for a well_looking woman like mother, with plenty
to live on, and only three children, to keep all the farmers for miles
around so unsettled in their minds about her. Mother used to answer 'Oh
fie, Mistress Fry! be good enough to mind your own business.' But we
always saw that she smoothed her apron, and did her hair up afterwards,
and that Mistress Fry went home at night with a cold pig's foot or a
bowl of dripping.

Therefore, on that very night, as I could not well speak to mother
about it, without seeming undutiful, after lighting the three young
ladies__for so in sooth they called themselves__all the way home with
our stable_lanthorn, I begged good leave of Farmer Nicholas (who had
hung some way behind us) to say a word in private to him, before he
entered his own house.

'Wi' all the plaisure in laife, my zon,' he answered very graciously,
thinking perhaps that I was prepared to speak concerning Sally.

'Now, Farmer Nicholas Snowe,' I said, scarce knowing how to begin it,
'you must promise not to be vexed with me, for what I am going to say to
you.'

'Vaxed wi' thee! Noo, noo, my lad. I 'ave a knowed thee too long for
that. And thy veyther were my best friend, afore thee. Never wronged his
neighbours, never spak an unkind word, never had no maneness in him.
Tuk a vancy to a nice young 'ooman, and never kep her in doubt about it,
though there wadn't mooch to zettle on her. Spak his maind laike a man,
he did, and right happy he were wi' her. Ah, well a day! Ah, God knoweth
best. I never shall zee his laike again. And he were the best judge of a
dung_heap anywhere in this county.'

'Well, Master Snowe,' I answered him, 'it is very handsome of you to
say so. And now I am going to be like my father, I am going to speak my
mind.'

'Raight there, lad; raight enough, I reckon. Us has had enough of
pralimbinary.'

'Then what I want to say is this__I won't have any one courting my
mother.'

'Coortin' of thy mother, lad?' cried Farmer Snowe, with as much
amazement as if the thing were impossible; 'why, who ever hath been
dooin' of it?'

'Yes, courting of my mother, sir. And you know best who comes doing it.'

'Wull, wull! What will boys be up to next? Zhud a' thought herzelf wor
the proper judge. No thank 'ee, lad, no need of thy light. Know the wai
to my own door, at laste; and have a raight to goo there.' And he shut
me out without so much as offering me a drink of cider.

The next afternoon, when work was over, I had seen to the horses, for
now it was foolish to trust John Fry, because he had so many children,
and his wife had taken to scolding; and just as I was saying to myself
that in five days more my month would be done, and myself free to seek
Lorna, a man came riding up from the ford where the road goes through
the Lynn stream. As soon as I saw that it was not Tom Faggus, I went no
farther to meet him, counting that it must be some traveller bound
for Brendon or Cheriton, and likely enough he would come and beg for a
draught of milk or cider; and then on again, after asking the way.

But instead of that, he stopped at our gate, and stood up from his
saddle, and halloed as if he were somebody; and all the time he was
flourishing a white thing in the air, like the bands our parson weareth.
So I crossed the court_yard to speak with him.

'Service of the King!' he saith; 'service of our lord the King! Come
hither, thou great yokel, at risk of fine and imprisonment.'

Although not pleased with this, I went to him, as became a loyal man;
quite at my leisure, however, for there is no man born who can hurry me,
though I hasten for any woman.

'Plover Barrows farm!' said he; 'God only knows how tired I be. Is there
any where in this cursed county a cursed place called Plover Barrows
farm? For last twenty mile at least they told me 'twere only half a mile
farther, or only just round corner. Now tell me that, and I fain would
thwack thee if thou wert not thrice my size.'

'Sir,' I replied, 'you shall not have the trouble. This is Plover's
Barrows farm, and you are kindly welcome. Sheep's kidneys is for supper,
and the ale got bright from the tapping. But why do you think ill of us?
We like not to be cursed so.'

'Nay, I think no ill,' he said; 'sheep's kidneys is good, uncommon good,
if they do them without burning. But I be so galled in the saddle ten
days, and never a comely meal of it. And when they hear "King's service"
cried, they give me the worst of everything. All the way down from
London, I had a rogue of a fellow in front of me, eating the fat of
the land before me, and every one bowing down to him. He could go three
miles to my one though he never changed his horse. He might have robbed
me at any minute, if I had been worth the trouble. A red mare he rideth,
strong in the loins, and pointed quite small in the head. I shall live
to see him hanged yet.'

All this time he was riding across the straw of our courtyard, getting
his weary legs out of the leathers, and almost afraid to stand yet. A
coarse_grained, hard_faced man he was, some forty years of age or so,
and of middle height and stature. He was dressed in a dark brown riding
suit, none the better for Exmoor mud, but fitting him very differently
from the fashion of our tailors. Across the holsters lay his cloak,
made of some red skin, and shining from the sweating of the horse. As I
looked down on his stiff bright head_piece, small quick eyes and black
needly beard, he seemed to despise me (too much, as I thought) for a
mere ignoramus and country bumpkin.

'Annie, have down the cut ham,' I shouted, for my sister was come to the
door by chance, or because of the sound of a horse in the road, 'and
cut a few rashers of hung deer's meat. There is a gentleman come to sup,
Annie. And fetch the hops out of the tap with a skewer that it may run
more sparkling.'

'I wish I may go to a place never meant for me,' said my new friend, now
wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his brown riding coat, 'if ever I
fell among such good folk. You are the right sort, and no error therein.
All this shall go in your favour greatly, when I make deposition. At
least, I mean, if it be as good in the eating as in the hearing. 'Tis
a supper quite fit for Tom Faggus himself, the man who hath stolen
my victuals so. And that hung deer's meat, now is it of the red deer
running wild in these parts?'

'To be sure it is, sir,' I answered; 'where should we get any other?'

'Right, right, you are right, my son. I have heard that the flavour
is marvellous. Some of them came and scared me so, in the fog of the
morning, that I hungered for them ever since. Ha, ha, I saw their
haunches. But the young lady will not forget__art sure she will not
forget it?'

'You may trust her to forget nothing, sir, that may tempt a guest to his
comfort.'

'In faith, then, I will leave my horse in your hands, and be off for
it. Half the pleasure of the mouth is in the nose beforehand. But stay,
almost I forgot my business, in the hurry which thy tongue hath spread
through my lately despairing belly. Hungry I am, and sore of body, from
my heels right upward, and sorest in front of my doublet, yet may I not
rest nor bite barley_bread, until I have seen and touched John Ridd. God
grant that he be not far away; I must eat my saddle, if it be so.'

'Have no fear, good sir,' I answered; 'you have seen and touched John
Ridd. I am he, and not one likely to go beneath a bushel.'

'It would take a large bushel to hold thee, John Ridd. In the name of
the King, His Majesty, Charles the Second, these presents!'

He touched me with the white thing which I had first seen him waving,
and which I now beheld to be sheepskin, such as they call parchment.
It was tied across with cord, and fastened down in every corner
with unsightly dabs of wax. By order of the messenger (for I was
over_frightened now to think of doing anything), I broke enough of seals
to keep an Easter ghost from rising; and there I saw my name in large;
God grant such another shock may never befall me in my old age.

'Read, my son; read, thou great fool, if indeed thou canst read,' said
the officer to encourage me; 'there is nothing to kill thee, boy, and
my supper will be spoiling. Stare not at me so, thou fool; thou art big
enough to eat me; read, read, read.'

'If you please, sir, what is your name?' I asked; though why I asked him
I know not, except from fear of witchcraft.

'Jeremy Stickles is my name, lad, nothing more than a poor apparitor of
the worshipful Court of King's Bench. And at this moment a starving one,
and no supper for me unless thou wilt read.'

Being compelled in this way, I read pretty nigh as follows; not that I
give the whole of it, but only the gist and the emphasis,__

'To our good subject, John Ridd, etc.'__describing me ever so much
better than I knew myself__'by these presents, greeting. These are to
require thee, in the name of our lord the King, to appear in person
before the Right Worshipful, the Justices of His Majesty's Bench at
Westminster, laying aside all thine own business, and there to deliver
such evidence as is within thy cognisance, touching certain matters
whereby the peace of our said lord the King, and the well_being of this
realm, is, are, or otherwise may be impeached, impugned, imperilled, or
otherwise detrimented. As witness these presents.' And then there were
four seals, and then a signature I could not make out, only that it
began with a J, and ended with some other writing, done almost in a
circle. Underneath was added in a different handwriting 'Charges will be
borne. The matter is full urgent.'

The messenger watched me, while I read so much as I could read of it;
and he seemed well pleased with my surprise, because he had expected it.
Then, not knowing what else to do, I looked again at the cover, and
on the top of it I saw, 'Ride, Ride, Ride! On His Gracious Majesty's
business; spur and spare not.'

It may be supposed by all who know me, that I was taken hereupon with
such a giddiness in my head and noisiness in my ears, that I was forced
to hold by the crook driven in below the thatch for holding of the
hay_rakes. There was scarcely any sense left in me, only that the thing
was come by power of Mother Melldrum, because I despised her warning,
and had again sought Lorna. But the officer was grieved for me, and the
danger to his supper.

'My son, be not afraid,' he said; 'we are not going to skin thee. Only
thou tell all the truth, and it shall be__but never mind, I will tell
thee all about it, and how to come out harmless, if I find thy victuals
good, and no delay in serving them.'

'We do our best, sir, without bargain,' said I, 'to please our
visitors.'

But when my mother saw that parchment (for we could not keep it from
her) she fell away into her favourite bed of stock gilly_flowers, which
she had been tending; and when we brought her round again, did nothing
but exclaim against the wickedness of the age and people. 'It was
useless to tell her; she knew what it was, and so should all the parish
know. The King had heard what her son was, how sober, and quiet, and
diligent, and the strongest young man in England; and being himself such
a reprobate__God forgive her for saying so__he could never rest till
he got poor Johnny, and made him as dissolute as himself. And if he did
that'__here mother went off into a fit of crying; and Annie minded her
face, while Lizzie saw that her gown was in comely order.

But the character of the King improved, when Master Jeremy Stickles
(being really moved by the look of it, and no bad man after all) laid it
clearly before my mother that the King on his throne was unhappy, until
he had seen John Ridd. That the fame of John had gone so far, and his
size, and all his virtues__that verily by the God who made him, the King
was overcome with it.

Then mother lay back in her garden chair, and smiled upon the whole of
us, and most of all on Jeremy; looking only shyly on me, and speaking
through some break of tears. 'His Majesty shall have my John; His
Majesty is very good: but only for a fortnight. I want no titles for
him. Johnny is enough for me; and Master John for the working men.'

Now though my mother was so willing that I should go to London,
expecting great promotion and high glory for me, I myself was deeply
gone into the pit of sorrow. For what would Lorna think of me? Here was
the long month just expired, after worlds of waiting; there would be her
lovely self, peeping softly down the glen, and fearing to encourage me;
yet there would be nobody else, and what an insult to her! Dwelling upon
this, and seeing no chance of escape from it, I could not find one wink
of sleep; though Jeremy Stickles (who slept close by) snored loud enough
to spare me some. For I felt myself to be, as it were, in a place of
some importance; in a situation of trust, I may say; and bound not to
depart from it. For who could tell what the King might have to say to
me about the Doones__and I felt that they were at the bottom of this
strange appearance__or what His Majesty might think, if after receiving
a message from him (trusty under so many seals) I were to violate
his faith in me as a churchwarden's son, and falsely spread his words
abroad?

Perhaps I was not wise in building such a wall of scruples.
Nevertheless, all that was there, and weighed upon me heavily. And at
last I made up my mind to this, that even Lorna must not know the reason
of my going, neither anything about it; but that she might know I was
gone a long way from home, and perhaps be sorry for it. Now how was I to
let her know even that much of the matter, without breaking compact?

Puzzling on this, I fell asleep, after the proper time to get up; nor
was I to be seen at breakfast time; and mother (being quite strange to
that) was very uneasy about it. But Master Stickles assured her that the
King's writ often had that effect, and the symptom was a good one.

'Now, Master Stickles, when must we start?' I asked him, as he lounged
in the yard gazing at our turkey poults picking and running in the sun
to the tune of their father's gobble. 'Your horse was greatly foundered,
sir, and is hardly fit for the road to_day; and Smiler was sledding
yesterday all up the higher Cleve; and none of the rest can carry me.'

'In a few more years,' replied the King's officer, contemplating me with
much satisfaction; ''twill be a cruelty to any horse to put thee on his
back, John.'

Master Stickles, by this time, was quite familiar with us, calling
me 'Jack,' and Eliza 'Lizzie,' and what I liked the least of all, our
pretty Annie 'Nancy.'

'That will be as God pleases, sir,' I answered him, rather sharply; 'and
the horse that suffers will not be thine. But I wish to know when we
must start upon our long travel to London town. I perceive that the
matter is of great despatch and urgency.'

'To be sure, so it is, my son. But I see a yearling turkey there, him
I mean with the hop in his walk, who (if I know aught of fowls) would
roast well to_morrow. Thy mother must have preparation: it is no more
than reasonable. Now, have that turkey killed to_night (for his fatness
makes me long for him), and we will have him for dinner to_morrow, with,
perhaps, one of his brethren; and a few more collops of red deer's flesh
for supper, and then on the Friday morning, with the grace of God, we
will set our faces to the road, upon His Majesty's business.'

'Nay, but good sir,' I asked with some trembling, so eager was I to see
Lorna; 'if His Majesty's business will keep till Friday, may it not keep
until Monday? We have a litter of sucking_pigs, excellently choice and
white, six weeks old, come Friday. There be too many for the sow, and
one of them needeth roasting. Think you not it would be a pity to leave
the women to carve it?'

'My son Jack,' replied Master Stickles, 'never was I in such quarters
yet: and God forbid that I should be so unthankful to Him as to hurry
away. And now I think on it, Friday is not a day upon which pious people
love to commence an enterprise. I will choose the young pig to_morrow at
noon, at which time they are wont to gambol; and we will celebrate his
birthday by carving him on Friday. After that we will gird our loins,
and set forth early on Saturday.'

Now this was little better to me than if we had set forth at once.
Sunday being the very first day upon which it would be honourable for me
to enter Glen Doone. But though I tried every possible means with Master
Jeremy Stickles, offering him the choice for dinner of every beast
that was on the farm, he durst not put off our departure later than the
Saturday. And nothing else but love of us and of our hospitality would
have so persuaded him to remain with us till then. Therefore now my only
chance of seeing Lorna, before I went, lay in watching from the cliff
and espying her, or a signal from her.

This, however, I did in vain, until my eyes were weary and often would
delude themselves with hope of what they ached for. But though I lay
hidden behind the trees upon the crest of the stony fall, and waited
so quiet that the rabbits and squirrels played around me, and even the
keen_eyed weasel took me for a trunk of wood__it was all as one; no cast
of colour changed the white stone, whose whiteness now was hateful to
me; nor did wreath or skirt of maiden break the loneliness of the vale.



Lorna Doone by R. D. Blackmore Deluxe Edition Chapter 24

A SAFE PASS FOR KING'S MESSENGER

A journey to London seemed to us in those bygone days as hazardous and
dark an adventure as could be forced on any man. I mean, of course,
a poor man; for to a great nobleman, with ever so many outriders,
attendants, and retainers, the risk was not so great, unless the
highwaymen knew of their coming beforehand, and so combined against
them. To a poor man, however, the risk was not so much from those
gentlemen of the road as from the more ignoble footpads, and the
landlords of the lesser hostels, and the loose unguarded soldiers, over
and above the pitfalls and the quagmires of the way; so that it was hard
to settle, at the first outgoing whether a man were wise to pray more
for his neck or for his head.

But nowadays it is very different. Not that highway_men are scarce, in
this the reign of our good Queen Anne; for in truth they thrive as
well as ever, albeit they deserve it not, being less upright and
courteous__but that the roads are much improved, and the growing use
of stage_waggons (some of which will travel as much as forty miles in a
summer day) has turned our ancient ideas of distance almost upside down;
and I doubt whether God be pleased with our flying so fast away from
Him. However, that is not my business; nor does it lie in my mouth to
speak very strongly upon the subject, seeing how much I myself have done
towards making of roads upon Exmoor.

To return to my story (and, in truth, I lose that road too often), it
would have taken ten King's messengers to get me away from Plover's
Barrows without one goodbye to Lorna, but for my sense of the trust
and reliance which His Majesty had reposed in me. And now I felt most
bitterly how the very arrangements which seemed so wise, and indeed
ingenious, may by the force of events become our most fatal obstacles.
For lo! I was blocked entirely from going to see Lorna; whereas
we should have fixed it so that I as well might have the power of
signalling my necessity.

It was too late now to think of that; and so I made up my mind at last
to keep my honour on both sides, both to the King and to the maiden,
although I might lose everything except a heavy heart for it. And
indeed, more hearts than mine were heavy; for when it came to the tug of
parting, my mother was like, and so was Annie, to break down altogether.
But I bade them be of good cheer, and smiled in the briskest manner upon
them, and said that I should be back next week as one of His Majesty's
greatest captains, and told them not to fear me then. Upon which they
smiled at the idea of ever being afraid of me, whatever dress I might
have on; and so I kissed my hand once more, and rode away very bravely.
But bless your heart, I could no more have done so than flown all the
way to London if Jeremy Stickles had not been there.

And not to take too much credit to myself in this matter, I must confess
that when we were come to the turn in the road where the moor begins,
and whence you see the last of the yard, and the ricks and the poultry
round them and can (by knowing the place) obtain a glance of the kitchen
window under the walnut_tree, it went so hard with me just here that I
even made pretence of a stone in ancient Smiler's shoe, to dismount, and
to bend my head awhile. Then, knowing that those I had left behind would
be watching to see the last of me, and might have false hopes of my
coming back, I mounted again with all possible courage, and rode after
Jeremy Stickles.

Jeremy, seeing how much I was down, did his best to keep me up with
jokes, and tales, and light discourse, until, before we had ridden a
league, I began to long to see the things he was describing. The air,
the weather, and the thoughts of going to a wondrous place, added to
the fine company__at least so Jeremy said it was__of a man who knew all
London, made me feel that I should be ungracious not to laugh a little.
And being very simple then I laughed no more a little, but something
quite considerable (though free from consideration) at the strange
things Master Stickles told me, and his strange way of telling them.
And so we became very excellent friends, for he was much pleased with my
laughing.

Not wishing to thrust myself more forward than need be in this
narrative, I have scarcely thought it becoming or right to speak of my
own adornments. But now, what with the brave clothes I had on, and the
better ones still that were packed up in the bag behind the saddle,
it is almost beyond me to forbear saying that I must have looked very
pleasing. And many a time I wished, going along, that Lorna could only
be here and there, watching behind a furze_bush, looking at me, and
wondering how much my clothes had cost. For mother would have no
stint in the matter, but had assembled at our house, immediately upon
knowledge of what was to be about London, every man known to be a good
stitcher upon our side of Exmoor. And for three days they had
worked their best, without stint of beer or cider, according to the
constitution of each. The result, so they all declared, was such as to
create admiration, and defy competition in London. And to me it seemed
that they were quite right; though Jeremy Stickles turned up his nose,
and feigned to be deaf in the business.

Now be that matter as you please__for the point is not worth
arguing__certain it is that my appearance was better than it had been
before. For being in the best clothes, one tries to look and to act
(so far as may be) up to the quality of them. Not only for the fear of
soiling them, but that they enlarge a man's perception of his value. And
it strikes me that our sins arise, partly from disdain of others, but
mainly from contempt of self, both working the despite of God. But men
of mind may not be measured by such paltry rule as this.

By dinner_time we arrived at Porlock, and dined with my old friend,
Master Pooke, now growing rich and portly. For though we had plenty of
victuals with us we were not to begin upon them, until all chance of
victualling among our friends was left behind. And during that first day
we had no need to meddle with our store at all; for as had been settled
before we left home, we lay that night at Dunster in the house of
a worthy tanner, first cousin to my mother, who received us very
cordially, and undertook to return old Smiler to his stable at Plover's
Barrows, after one day's rest.

Thence we hired to Bridgwater; and from Bridgwater on to Bristowe,
breaking the journey between the two. But although the whole way was so
new to me, and such a perpetual source of conflict, that the remembrance
still abides with me, as if it were but yesterday, I must not be so long
in telling as it was in travelling, or you will wish me farther;
both because Lorna was nothing there, and also because a man in our
neighbourhood had done the whole of it since my time, and feigns to
think nothing of it. However, one thing, in common justice to a person
who has been traduced, I am bound to mention. And this is, that being
two of us, and myself of such magnitude, we never could have made our
journey without either fight or running, but for the free pass which
dear Annie, by some means (I know not what), had procured from Master
Faggus. And when I let it be known, by some hap, that I was the own
cousin of Tom Faggus, and honoured with his society, there was not
a house upon the road but was proud to entertain me, in spite of my
fellow_traveller, bearing the red badge of the King.

'I will keep this close, my son Jack,' he said, having stripped it off
with a carving_knife; 'your flag is the best to fly. The man who starved
me on the way down, the same shall feed me fat going home.'

Therefore we pursued our way, in excellent condition, having thriven
upon the credit of that very popular highwayman, and being surrounded
with regrets that he had left the profession, and sometimes begged to
intercede that he might help the road again. For all the landlords on
the road declared that now small ale was drunk, nor much of spirits
called for, because the farmers need not prime to meet only common
riders, neither were these worth the while to get drunk with afterwards.
Master Stickles himself undertook, as an officer of the King's Justices
to plead this case with Squire Faggus (as everybody called him now), and
to induce him, for the general good, to return to his proper ministry.

It was a long and weary journey, although the roads are wondrous good on
the farther side of Bristowe, and scarcely any man need be bogged, if he
keeps his eyes well open, save, perhaps, in Berkshire. In consequence
of the pass we had, and the vintner's knowledge of it, we only met
two public riders, one of whom made off straightway when he saw my
companion's pistols and the stout carbine I bore; and the other came to
a parley with us, and proved most kind and affable, when he knew
himself in the presence of the cousin of Squire Faggus. 'God save you,
gentlemen,' he cried, lifting his hat politely; 'many and many a happy
day I have worked this road with him. Such times will never be again.
But commend me to his love and prayers. King my name is, and King my
nature. Say that, and none will harm you.' And so he made off down the
hill, being a perfect gentleman, and a very good horse he was riding.

The night was falling very thick by the time we were come to Tyburn, and
here the King's officer decided that it would be wise to halt, because
the way was unsafe by night across the fields to Charing village. I for
my part was nothing loth, and preferred to see London by daylight.

And after all, it was not worth seeing, but a very hideous and dirty
place, not at all like Exmoor. Some of the shops were very fine, and
the signs above them finer still, so that I was never weary of standing
still to look at them. But in doing this there was no ease; for before
one could begin almost to make out the meaning of them, either some
of the wayfarers would bustle and scowl, and draw their swords, or the
owner, or his apprentice boys, would rush out and catch hold of me,
crying, 'Buy, buy, buy! What d'ye lack, what d'ye lack? Buy, buy, buy!'
At first I mistook the meaning of this__for so we pronounce the word
'boy' upon Exmoor__and I answered with some indignation, 'Sirrah, I am
no boy now, but a man of one_and_twenty years; and as for lacking, I
lack naught from thee, except what thou hast not__good manners.'

The only things that pleased me much, were the river Thames, and the
hall and church of Westminster, where there are brave things to be seen,
and braver still to think about. But whenever I wandered in the streets,
what with the noise the people made, the number of the coaches, the
running of the footmen, the swaggering of great courtiers, and the
thrusting aside of everybody, many and many a time I longed to be back
among the sheep again, for fear of losing temper. They were welcome to
the wall for me, as I took care to tell them, for I could stand without
the wall, which perhaps was more than they could do. Though I said this
with the best intention, meaning no discourtesy, some of them were vexed
at it; and one young lord, being flushed with drink, drew his sword and
made at me. But I struck it up with my holly stick, so that it flew on
the roof of a house, then I took him by the belt with one hand, and laid
him in the kennel. This caused some little disturbance; but none of the
rest saw fit to try how the matter might be with them.

Now this being the year of our Lord 1683, more than nine years and a
half since the death of my father, and the beginning of this history,
all London was in a great ferment about the dispute between the Court of
the King and the City. The King, or rather perhaps his party (for they
said that His Majesty cared for little except to have plenty of money
and spend it), was quite resolved to be supreme in the appointment of
the chief officers of the corporation. But the citizens maintained that
(under their charter) this right lay entirely with themselves; upon
which a writ was issued against them for forfeiture of their charter;
and the question was now being tried in the court of His Majesty's
bench.

This seemed to occupy all the attention of the judges, and my case
(which had appeared so urgent) was put off from time to time, while
the Court and the City contended. And so hot was the conflict and hate
between them, that a sheriff had been fined by the King in 100,000
pounds, and a former lord mayor had even been sentenced to the pillory,
because he would not swear falsely. Hence the courtiers and the citizens
scarce could meet in the streets with patience, or without railing and
frequent blows.

Now although I heard so much of this matter, for nothing else was talked
of, and it seeming to me more important even than the churchwardenship
of Oare, I could not for the life of me tell which side I should take
to. For all my sense of position, and of confidence reposed in me, and
of my father's opinions, lay heavily in one scale, while all my reason
and my heart went down plump against injustice, and seemed to win the
other scale. Even so my father had been, at the breaking out of the
civil war, when he was less than my age now, and even less skilled in
politics; and my mother told me after this, when she saw how I myself
was doubting, and vexed with myself for doing so, that my father used
to thank God often that he had not been called upon to take one side or
other, but might remain obscure and quiet. And yet he always considered
himself to be a good, sound Royalist.

But now as I stayed there, only desirous to be heard and to get away,
and scarcely even guessing yet what was wanted of me (for even Jeremy
Stickles knew not, or pretended not to know), things came to a dreadful
pass between the King and all the people who dared to have an opinion.
For about the middle of June, the judges gave their sentence, that the
City of London had forfeited its charter, and that its franchise should
be taken into the hands of the King. Scarcely was this judgment forth,
and all men hotly talking of it, when a far worse thing befell. News of
some great conspiracy was spread at every corner, and that a man in the
malting business had tried to take up the brewer's work, and lop the
King and the Duke of York. Everybody was shocked at this, for the King
himself was not disliked so much as his advisers; but everybody was more
than shocked, grieved indeed to the heart with pain, at hearing that
Lord William Russell and Mr. Algernon Sidney had been seized and sent to
the Tower of London, upon a charge of high treason.

Having no knowledge of these great men, nor of the matter how far it was
true, I had not very much to say about either of them or it; but this
silence was not shared (although the ignorance may have been) by the
hundreds of people around me. Such a commotion was astir, such universal
sense of wrong, and stern resolve to right it, that each man grasped his
fellow's hand, and led him into the vintner's. Even I, although at that
time given to excess in temperance, and afraid of the name of cordials,
was hard set (I do assure you) not to be drunk at intervals without
coarse discourtesy.

However, that (as Betty Muxworthy used to say, when argued down, and
ready to take the mop for it) is neither here nor there. I have naught
to do with great history and am sorry for those who have to write it;
because they are sure to have both friends and enemies in it, and cannot
act as they would towards them, without damage to their own consciences.

But as great events draw little ones, and the rattle of the churn
decides the uncertainty of the flies, so this movement of the town, and
eloquence, and passion had more than I guessed at the time, to do with
my own little fortunes. For in the first place it was fixed (perhaps
from down right contumely, because the citizens loved him so) that Lord
Russell should be tried neither at Westminster nor at Lincoln's Inn, but
at the Court of Old Bailey, within the precincts of the city. This kept
me hanging on much longer; because although the good nobleman was to be
tried by the Court of Common Pleas, yet the officers of King's Bench, to
whom I daily applied myself, were in counsel with their fellows, and put
me off from day to day.

Now I had heard of the law's delays, which the greatest of all great
poets (knowing much of the law himself, as indeed of everything) has
specially mentioned, when not expected, among the many ills of life. But
I never thought at my years to have such bitter experience of the evil;
and it seemed to me that if the lawyers failed to do their duty, they
ought to pay people for waiting upon them, instead of making them pay
for it. But here I was, now in the second month living at my own
charges in the house of a worthy fellmonger at the sign of the Seal and
Squirrel, abutting upon the Strand road which leads from Temple Bar
to Charing. Here I did very well indeed, having a mattress of good
skin_dressings, and plenty to eat every day of my life, but the butter
was something to cry 'but' thrice at (according to a conceit of our
school days), and the milk must have come from cows driven to water.
However, these evils were light compared with the heavy bill sent up to
me every Saturday afternoon; and knowing how my mother had pinched to
send me nobly to London, and had told me to spare for nothing, but live
bravely with the best of them, the tears very nearly came into my eyes,
as I thought, while I ate, of so robbing her.

At length, being quite at the end of my money, and seeing no other help
for it, I determined to listen to clerks no more, but force my way up to
the Justices, and insist upon being heard by them, or discharged from my
recognisance. For so they had termed the bond or deed which I had been
forced to execute, in the presence of a chief clerk or notary, the very
day after I came to London. And the purport of it was, that on pain of
a heavy fine or escheatment, I would hold myself ready and present, to
give evidence when called upon. Having delivered me up to sign this,
Jeremy Stickles was quit of me, and went upon other business, not but
what he was kind and good to me, when his time and pursuits allowed of
it.