hanging her head so that I could see only her forehead and eyelashes;
'if you please, my name is Lorna Doone; and I thought you must have
known it.'

Then I stood up and touched her hand, and tried to make her look at me;
but she only turned away the more. Young and harmless as she was, her
name alone made guilt of her. Nevertheless I could not help looking at
her tenderly, and the more when her blushes turned into tears, and her
tears to long, low sobs.

'Don't cry,' I said, 'whatever you do. I am sure you have never done any
harm. I will give you all my fish Lorna, and catch some more for mother;
only don't be angry with me.'

She flung her little soft arms up in the passion of her tears, and
looked at me so piteously, that what did I do but kiss her. It seemed to
be a very odd thing, when I came to think of it, because I hated kissing
so, as all honest boys must do. But she touched my heart with a sudden
delight, like a cowslip-blossom (although there were none to be seen
yet), and the sweetest flowers of spring.

She gave me no encouragement, as my mother in her place would have done;
nay, she even wiped her lips (which methought was rather rude of her),
and drew away, and smoothed her dress, as if I had used a freedom. Then
I felt my cheeks grow burning red, and I gazed at my legs and was
sorry. For although she was not at all a proud child (at any rate in her
countenance), yet I knew that she was by birth a thousand years in front
of me. They might have taken and framed me, or (which would be more to
the purpose) my sisters, until it was time for us to die, and then have
trained our children after us, for many generations; yet never could we
have gotten that look upon our faces which Lorna Doone had naturally, as
if she had been born to it.

Here was I, a yeoman's boy, a yeoman every inch of me, even where I was
naked; and there was she, a lady born, and thoroughly aware of it, and
dressed by people of rank and taste, who took pride in her beauty and
set it to advantage. For though her hair was fallen down by reason of
her wildness, and some of her frock was touched with wet where she had
tended me so, behold her dress was pretty enough for the queen of all
the angels. The colours were bright and rich indeed, and the substance
very sumptuous, yet simple and free from tinsel stuff, and matching most
harmoniously. All from her waist to her neck was white, plaited in close
like a curtain, and the dark soft weeping of her hair, and the shadowy
light of her eyes (like a wood rayed through with sunset), made it seem
yet whiter, as if it were done on purpose. As for the rest, she knew
what it was a great deal better than I did, for I never could look far
away from her eyes when they were opened upon me.

Now, seeing how I heeded her, and feeling that I had kissed her,
although she was such a little girl, eight years old or thereabouts, she
turned to the stream in a bashful manner, and began to watch the water,
and rubbed one leg against the other.

I, for my part, being vexed at her behaviour to me, took up all my
things to go, and made a fuss about it; to let her know I was going.
But she did not call me back at all, as I had made sure she would do;
moreover, I knew that to try the descent was almost certain death to
me, and it looked as dark as pitch; and so at the mouth I turned round
again, and came back to her, and said, 'Lorna.'

'Oh, I thought you were gone,' she answered; 'why did you ever come
here? Do you know what they would do to us, if they found you here with
me?'

'Beat us, I dare say, very hard; or me, at least. They could never beat
you.'

'No. They would kill us both outright, and bury us here by the water;
and the water often tells me that I must come to that.'

'But what should they kill me for?'

'Because you have found the way up here, and they never could believe
it. Now, please to go; oh, please to go. They will kill us both in
a moment. Yes, I like you very much'--for I was teasing her to say
it--'very much indeed, and I will call you John Ridd, if you like; only
please to go, John. And when your feet are well, you know, you can come
and tell me how they are.'

'But I tell you, Lorna, I like you very much indeed--nearly as much as
Annie, and a great deal more than Lizzie. And I never saw any one like
you, and I must come back again to-morrow, and so must you, to see me;
and I will bring you such lots of things--there are apples still, and
a thrush I caught with only one leg broken, and our dog has just had
puppies--'

'Oh, dear, they won't let me have a dog. There is not a dog in the
valley. They say they are such noisy things--'

'Only put your hand in mine--what little things they are, Lorna! And I
will bring you the loveliest dog; I will show you just how long he is.'

'Hush!' A shout came down the valley, and all my heart was trembling,
like water after sunset, and Lorna's face was altered from pleasant play
to terror. She shrank to me, and looked up at me, with such a power of
weakness, that I at once made up my mind to save her or to die with her.
A tingle went through all my bones, and I only longed for my carbine.
The little girl took courage from me, and put her cheek quite close to
mine.

'Come with me down the waterfall. I can carry you easily; and mother
will take care of you.'

'No, no,' she cried, as I took her up: 'I will tell you what to do. They
are only looking for me. You see that hole, that hole there?'

She pointed to a little niche in the rock which verged the meadow, about
fifty yards away from us. In the fading of the twilight I could just
descry it.

'Yes, I see it; but they will see me crossing the grass to get there.'

'Look! look!' She could hardly speak. 'There is a way out from the top
of it; they would kill me if I told it. Oh, here they come, I can see
them.'

The little maid turned as white as the snow which hung on the rocks
above her, and she looked at the water and then at me, and she cried,
'Oh dear! oh dear!' And then she began to sob aloud, being so young and
unready. But I drew her behind the withy-bushes, and close down to the
water, where it was quiet and shelving deep, ere it came to the lip of
the chasm. Here they could not see either of us from the upper valley,
and might have sought a long time for us, even when they came quite
near, if the trees had been clad with their summer clothes. Luckily I
had picked up my fish and taken my three-pronged fork away.

Crouching in that hollow nest, as children get together in ever so
little compass, I saw a dozen fierce men come down, on the other side of
the water, not bearing any fire-arms, but looking lax and jovial, as if
they were come from riding and a dinner taken hungrily. 'Queen, queen!'
they were shouting, here and there, and now and then: 'where the pest is
our little queen gone?'

'They always call me "queen," and I am to be queen by-and-by,' Lorna
whispered to me, with her soft cheek on my rough one, and her little
heart beating against me: 'oh, they are crossing by the timber there,
and then they are sure to see us.'

'Stop,' said I; 'now I see what to do. I must get into the water, and
you must go to sleep.'

'To be sure, yes, away in the meadow there. But how bitter cold it will
be for you!'

She saw in a moment the way to do it, sooner than I could tell her; and
there was no time to lose.

'Now mind you never come again,' she whispered over her shoulder, as she
crept away with a childish twist hiding her white front from me; 'only I
shall come sometimes--oh, here they are, Madonna!'

Daring scarce to peep, I crept into the water, and lay down bodily
in it, with my head between two blocks of stone, and some flood-drift
combing over me. The dusk was deepening between the hills, and a white
mist lay on the river; but I, being in the channel of it, could see
every ripple, and twig, and rush, and glazing of twilight above it, as
bright as in a picture; so that to my ignorance there seemed no chance
at all but what the men must find me. For all this time they were
shouting and swearing, and keeping such a hullabaloo, that the rocks all
round the valley rang, and my heart quaked, so (what with this and
the cold) that the water began to gurgle round me, and to lap upon the
pebbles.

Neither in truth did I try to stop it, being now so desperate, between
the fear and the wretchedness; till I caught a glimpse of the little
maid, whose beauty and whose kindliness had made me yearn to be with
her. And then I knew that for her sake I was bound to be brave and hide
myself. She was lying beneath a rock, thirty or forty yards from me,
feigning to be fast asleep, with her dress spread beautifully, and her
hair drawn over her.

Presently one of the great rough men came round a corner upon her; and
there he stopped and gazed awhile at her fairness and her innocence.
Then he caught her up in his arms, and kissed her so that I heard him;
and if I had only brought my gun, I would have tried to shoot him.

'Here our queen is! Here's the queen, here's the captain's daughter!'
he shouted to his comrades; 'fast asleep, by God, and hearty! Now I have
first claim to her; and no one else shall touch the child. Back to the
bottle, all of you!'

He set her dainty little form upon his great square shoulder, and her
narrow feet in one broad hand; and so in triumph marched away, with the
purple velvet of her skirt ruffling in his long black beard, and the
silken length of her hair fetched out, like a cloud by the wind behind
her. This way of her going vexed me so, that I leaped upright in the
water, and must have been spied by some of them, but for their haste to
the wine-bottle. Of their little queen they took small notice, being in
this urgency; although they had thought to find her drowned; but trooped
away after one another with kindly challenge to gambling, so far as I
could make them out; and I kept sharp watch, I assure you.

Going up that darkened glen, little Lorna, riding still the largest and
most fierce of them, turned and put up a hand to me, and I put up a hand
to her, in the thick of the mist and the willows.

She was gone, my little dear (though tall of her age and healthy); and
when I got over my thriftless fright, I longed to have more to say to
her. Her voice to me was so different from all I had ever heard before,
as might be a sweet silver bell intoned to the small chords of a harp.
But I had no time to think about this, if I hoped to have any supper.

I crept into a bush for warmth, and rubbed my shivering legs on
bark, and longed for mother's fagot. Then as daylight sank below the
forget-me-not of stars, with a sorrow to be quit, I knew that now must
be my time to get away, if there were any.

Therefore, wringing my sodden breaches, I managed to crawl from the bank
to the niche in the cliff which Lorna had shown me.

Through the dusk I had trouble to see the mouth, at even the five
land-yards of distance; nevertheless, I entered well, and held on by
some dead fern-stems, and did hope that no one would shoot me.

But while I was hugging myself like this, with a boyish manner of
reasoning, my joy was like to have ended in sad grief both to myself
and my mother, and haply to all honest folk who shall love to read
this history. For hearing a noise in front of me, and like a coward not
knowing where, but afraid to turn round or think of it, I felt myself
going down some deep passage into a pit of darkness. It was no good to
catch the sides, the whole thing seemed to go with me. Then, without
knowing how, I was leaning over a night of water.

This water was of black radiance, as are certain diamonds, spanned
across with vaults of rock, and carrying no image, neither showing marge
nor end, but centred (at it might be) with a bottomless indrawal.

With that chill and dread upon me, and the sheer rock all around, and
the faint light heaving wavily on the silence of this gulf, I must have
lost my wits and gone to the bottom, if there were any.

But suddenly a robin sang (as they will do after dark, towards spring)
in the brown fern and ivy behind me. I took it for our little Annie's
voice (for she could call any robin), and gathering quick warm comfort,
sprang up the steep way towards the starlight. Climbing back, as the
stones glid down, I heard the cold greedy wave go japping, like a blind
black dog, into the distance of arches and hollow depths of darkness.

CHAPTER IX

THERE IS NO PLACE LIKE HOME

I can assure you, and tell no lie (as John Fry always used to say, when
telling his very largest), that I scrambled back to the mouth of that
pit as if the evil one had been after me. And sorely I repented now of
all my boyish folly, or madness it might well be termed, in venturing,
with none to help, and nothing to compel me, into that accursed valley.
Once let me get out, thinks I, and if ever I get in again, without being
cast in by neck and by crop, I will give our new-born donkey leave to
set up for my schoolmaster.

How I kept that resolution we shall see hereafter. It is enough for me
now to tell how I escaped from the den that night. First I sat down
in the little opening which Lorna had pointed out to me, and wondered
whether she had meant, as bitterly occurred to me, that I should run
down into the pit, and be drowned, and give no more trouble. But in less
than half a minute I was ashamed of that idea, and remembered how she
was vexed to think that even a loach should lose his life. And then
I said to myself, 'Now surely she would value me more than a thousand
loaches; and what she said must be quite true about the way out of this
horrible place.'

Therefore I began to search with the utmost care and diligence, although
my teeth were chattering, and all my bones beginning to ache with the
chilliness and the wetness. Before very long the moon appeared, over the
edge of the mountain, and among the trees at the top of it; and then I
espied rough steps, and rocky, made as if with a sledge-hammer, narrow,
steep, and far asunder, scooped here and there in the side of the
entrance, and then round a bulge of the cliff, like the marks upon a
great brown loaf, where a hungry child has picked at it. And higher
up, where the light of the moon shone broader upon the precipice, there
seemed to be a rude broken track, like the shadow of a crooked stick
thrown upon a house-wall.

Herein was small encouragement; and at first I was minded to lie down
and die; but it seemed to come amiss to me. God has His time for all
of us; but He seems to advertise us when He does not mean to do it.
Moreover, I saw a movement of lights at the head of the valley, as if
lanthorns were coming after me, and the nimbleness given thereon to my
heels was in front of all meditation.

Straightway I set foot in the lowest stirrup (as I might almost call
it), and clung to the rock with my nails, and worked to make a jump into
the second stirrup. And I compassed that too, with the aid of my stick;
although, to tell you the truth, I was not at that time of life so agile
as boys of smaller frame are, for my size was growing beyond my years,
and the muscles not keeping time with it, and the joints of my bones not
closely hinged, with staring at one another. But the third step-hole was
the hardest of all, and the rock swelled out on me over my breast, and
there seemed to be no attempting it, until I espied a good stout rope
hanging in a groove of shadow, and just managed to reach the end of it.

How I clomb up, and across the clearing, and found my way home through
the Bagworthy forest, is more than I can remember now, for I took all
the rest of it then as a dream, by reason of perfect weariness. And
indeed it was quite beyond my hopes to tell so much as I have told, for
at first beginning to set it down, it was all like a mist before me.
Nevertheless, some parts grew clearer, as one by one I remembered them,
having taken a little soft cordial, because the memory frightens me.

For the toil of the water, and danger of labouring up the long cascade
or rapids, and then the surprise of the fair young maid, and terror of
the murderers, and desperation of getting away--all these are much to
me even now, when I am a stout churchwarden, and sit by the side of my
fire, after going through many far worse adventures, which I will tell,
God willing. Only the labour of writing is such (especially so as to
construe, and challenge a reader on parts of speech, and hope to be even
with him); that by this pipe which I hold in my hand I ever expect to be
beaten, as in the days when old Doctor Twiggs, if I made a bad stroke
in my exercise, shouted aloud with a sour joy, 'John Ridd, sirrah, down
with your small-clothes!'

Let that be as it may, I deserved a good beating that night, after
making such a fool of myself, and grinding good fustian to pieces. But
when I got home, all the supper was in, and the men sitting at the white
table, and mother and Annie and Lizzie near by, all eager, and offering
to begin (except, indeed, my mother, who was looking out at the
doorway), and by the fire was Betty Muxworthy, scolding, and cooking,
and tasting her work, all in a breath, as a man would say. I looked
through the door from the dark by the wood-stack, and was half of a mind
to stay out like a dog, for fear of the rating and reckoning; but the
way my dear mother was looking about and the browning of the sausages
got the better of me.

But nobody could get out of me where I had been all the day and evening;
although they worried me never so much, and longed to shake me to
pieces, especially Betty Muxworthy, who never could learn to let well
alone. Not that they made me tell any lies, although it would have
served them right almost for intruding on other people's business; but
that I just held my tongue, and ate my supper rarely, and let them try
their taunts and jibes, and drove them almost wild after supper, by
smiling exceeding knowingly. And indeed I could have told them things,
as I hinted once or twice; and then poor Betty and our little Lizzie
were so mad with eagerness, that between them I went into the fire,
being thoroughly overcome with laughter and my own importance.

Now what the working of my mind was (if, indeed it worked at all, and
did not rather follow suit of body) it is not in my power to say; only
that the result of my adventure in the Doone Glen was to make me dream
a good deal of nights, which I had never done much before, and to drive
me, with tenfold zeal and purpose, to the practice of bullet-shooting.
Not that I ever expected to shoot the Doone family, one by one, or even
desired to do so, for my nature is not revengeful; but that it seemed
to be somehow my business to understand the gun, as a thing I must be at
home with.

I could hit the barn-door now capitally well with the Spanish
match-lock, and even with John Fry's blunderbuss, at ten good land-yards
distance, without any rest for my fusil. And what was very wrong of me,
though I did not see it then, I kept John Fry there, to praise my shots,
from dinner-time often until the grey dusk, while he all the time should
have been at work spring-ploughing upon the farm. And for that matter so
should I have been, or at any rate driving the horses; but John was
by no means loath to be there, instead of holding the plough-tail. And
indeed, one of our old sayings is,--

For pleasure's sake I would liefer wet, Than ha' ten lumps of gold for
each one of my sweat.

And again, which is not a bad proverb, though unthrifty and unlike a
Scotsman's,--

God makes the wheat grow greener, While farmer be at his dinner.

And no Devonshire man, or Somerset either (and I belong to both of
them), ever thinks of working harder than God likes to see him.

Nevertheless, I worked hard at the gun, and by the time that I had
sent all the church-roof gutters, so far as I honestly could cut them,
through the red pine-door, I began to long for a better tool that would
make less noise and throw straighter. But the sheep-shearing came and
the hay-season next, and then the harvest of small corn, and the digging
of the root called 'batata' (a new but good thing in our neighbourhood,
which our folk have made into 'taties'), and then the sweating of the
apples, and the turning of the cider-press, and the stacking of the
firewood, and netting of the woodcocks, and the springles to be
minded in the garden and by the hedgerows, where blackbirds hop to the
molehills in the white October mornings, and grey birds come to look for
snails at the time when the sun is rising.

It is wonderful how time runs away, when all these things and a great
many others come in to load him down the hill and prevent him from
stopping to look about. And I for my part can never conceive how people
who live in towns and cities, where neither lambs nor birds are (except
in some shop windows), nor growing corn, nor meadow-grass, nor even so
much as a stick to cut or a stile to climb and sit down upon--how these
poor folk get through their lives without being utterly weary of them,
and dying from pure indolence, is a thing God only knows, if His mercy
allows Him to think of it.

How the year went by I know not, only that I was abroad all day,
shooting, or fishing, or minding the farm, or riding after some stray
beast, or away by the seaside below Glenthorne, wondering at the great
waters, and resolving to go for a sailor. For in those days I had a firm
belief, as many other strong boys have, of being born for a seaman. And
indeed I had been in a boat nearly twice; but the second time mother
found it out, and came and drew me back again; and after that she cried
so badly, that I was forced to give my word to her to go no more without
telling her.

But Betty Muxworthy spoke her mind quite in a different way about it,
the while she was wringing my hosen, and clattering to the drying-horse.

'Zailor, ees fai! ay and zarve un raight. Her can't kape out o' the
watter here, whur a' must goo vor to vaind un, zame as a gurt to-ad
squalloping, and mux up till I be wore out, I be, wi' the very saight of
's braiches. How wil un ever baide aboard zhip, wi' the watter zinging
out under un, and comin' up splash when the wind blow. Latt un goo,
missus, latt un goo, zay I for wan, and old Davy wash his clouts for
un.'

And this discourse of Betty's tended more than my mother's prayers,
I fear, to keep me from going. For I hated Betty in those days, as
children always hate a cross servant, and often get fond of a false
one. But Betty, like many active women, was false by her crossness only;
thinking it just for the moment perhaps, and rushing away with a bucket;
ready to stick to it, like a clenched nail, if beaten the wrong way with
argument; but melting over it, if you left her, as stinging soap, left
along in a basin, spreads all abroad without bubbling.

But all this is beyond the children, and beyond me too for that matter,
even now in ripe experience; for I never did know what women mean, and
never shall except when they tell me, if that be in their power. Now let
that question pass. For although I am now in a place of some authority,
I have observed that no one ever listens to me, when I attempt to lay
down the law; but all are waiting with open ears until I do enforce it.
And so methinks he who reads a history cares not much for the wisdom or
folly of the writer (knowing well that the former is far less than his
own, and the latter vastly greater), but hurries to know what the people
did, and how they got on about it. And this I can tell, if any one can,
having been myself in the thick of it.

The fright I had taken that night in Glen Doone satisfied me for a long
time thereafter; and I took good care not to venture even in the fields
and woods of the outer farm, without John Fry for company. John was
greatly surprised and pleased at the value I now set upon him; until,
what betwixt the desire to vaunt and the longing to talk things over,
I gradually laid bare to him nearly all that had befallen me; except,
indeed, about Lorna, whom a sort of shame kept me from mentioning. Not
that I did not think of her, and wish very often to see her again; but
of course I was only a boy as yet, and therefore inclined to despise
young girls, as being unable to do anything, and only meant to listen to
orders. And when I got along with the other boys, that was how we always
spoke of them, if we deigned to speak at all, as beings of a lower
order, only good enough to run errands for us, and to nurse boy-babies.

And yet my sister Annie was in truth a great deal more to me than all
the boys of the parish, and of Brendon, and Countisbury, put together;
although at the time I never dreamed it, and would have laughed if told
so. Annie was of a pleasing face, and very gentle manner, almost like
a lady some people said; but without any airs whatever, only trying to
give satisfaction. And if she failed, she would go and weep, without
letting any one know it, believing the fault to be all her own, when
mostly it was of others. But if she succeeded in pleasing you, it was
beautiful to see her smile, and stroke her soft chin in a way of her
own, which she always used when taking note how to do the right thing
again for you. And then her cheeks had a bright clear pink, and her eyes
were as blue as the sky in spring, and she stood as upright as a young
apple-tree, and no one could help but smile at her, and pat her brown
curls approvingly; whereupon she always curtseyed. For she never tried
to look away when honest people gazed at her; and even in the court-yard
she would come and help to take your saddle, and tell (without your
asking her) what there was for dinner.

And afterwards she grew up to be a very comely maiden, tall, and with a
well-built neck, and very fair white shoulders, under a bright cloud
of curling hair. Alas! poor Annie, like most of the gentle maidens--but
tush, I am not come to that yet; and for the present she seemed to me
little to look at, after the beauty of Lorna Doone.

CHAPTER X

A BRAVE RESCUE AND A ROUGH RIDE

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XI

TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'What think you of that, boy? Have you horse or dog that would do that
for you? Ay, and more than that she will do. If I were to whistle,
by-and-by, in the tone that tells my danger, she would break this
stable-door down, and rush into the room to me. Nothing will keep her
from me then, stone-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.

CHAPTER XII

A MAN JUSTLY POPULAR

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XIII

MASTER HUCKABACK COMES IN

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XIV

A MOTION WHICH ENDS IN A MULL

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Pack of cowards!' said Uncle Reuben, looking first at the door,
however; 'much chance I see of getting redress from the valour of this
Exmoor! And you, Master Snowe, the very man whom I looked to to raise
the country, and take the lead as churchwarden--why, my youngest shopman
would match his ell against you. Pack of cowards,' cried Uncle Ben,
rising and shaking his lappets at us; 'don't pretend to answer me. Shake
you all off, that I do--nothing more to do with you!'

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

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

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

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

CHAPTER XV

MASTER HUCKABACK FAILS OF WARRANT

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

'Fog!' cried Colonel Harding sharply.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

There was now no path of any kind; which added to our courage all it
lessened of our comfort, because it proved that the robbers were not in
the habit of passing there. And we knew that we could not go astray,
so long as we breasted the hill before us; inasmuch as it formed the
rampart, or side-fence of Glen Doone. But in truth I used the right word
there for the manner of our ascent, for the ground came forth so steep
against us, and withal so woody, that to make any way we must throw
ourselves forward, and labour as at a breast-plough. Rough and loamy
rungs of oak-root bulged here and there above our heads; briers needs
must speak with us, using more of tooth than tongue; and sometimes bulks
of rugged stone, like great sheep, stood across us. At last, though very
loath to do it, I was forced to leave my gun behind, because I required
one hand to drag myself up the difficulty, and one to help Uncle Reuben.
And so at last we gained the top, and looked forth the edge of the
forest, where the ground was very stony and like the crest of a quarry;
and no more trees between us and the brink of cliff below, three hundred
yards below it might be, all strong slope and gliddery. And now for 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