Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
depend upon his decision. However, I would not grieve Annie again by
making light of her husband; and so when he came in to dinner, the
matter was laid before him.
Now this man never confessed himself surprised, under any circumstances;
his knowledge of life being so profound, and his charity universal. And
in the present case he vowed that he had suspected it all along, and
could have thrown light upon Lorna's history, if we had seen fit to
apply to him. Upon further inquiry I found that this light was a very
dim one, flowing only from the fact that he had stopped her mother's
coach, at the village of Bolham, on the Bampton Road, the day before I
saw them. Finding only women therein, and these in a sad condition, Tom
with his usual chivalry (as he had no scent of the necklace) allowed
them to pass; with nothing more than a pleasant exchange of courtesies,
and a testimonial forced upon him, in the shape of a bottle of Burgundy
wine. This the poor countess handed him; and he twisted the cork out
with his teeth, and drank her health with his hat off.
“A lady she was, and a true one; and I am a pretty good judge,” said
Tom: “ah, I do like a high lady!”
Our Annie looked rather queer at this, having no pretensions to be one:
but she conquered herself, and said, “Yes, Tom; and many of them liked
you.”
With this, Tom went on the brag at once, being but a shallow fellow, and
not of settled principles, though steadier than he used to be; until I
felt myself almost bound to fetch him back a little; for of all things
I do hate brag the most, as any reader of this tale must by this time
know. Therefore I said to Squire Faggus, “Come back from your highway
days. You have married the daughter of an honest man; and such talk
is not fit for her. If you were right in robbing people, I am right
in robbing you. I could bind you to your own mantelpiece, as you know
thoroughly well, Tom; and drive away with your own horses, and all your
goods behind them, but for the sense of honesty. And should I not do as
fine a thing as any you did on the highway? If everything is of public
right, how does this chair belong to you? Clever as you are, Tom Faggus,
you are nothing but a fool to mix your felony with your farmership. Drop
the one, or drop the other; you cannot maintain them both.”
As I finished very sternly a speech which had exhausted me more than ten
rounds of wrestling--but I was carried away by the truth, as sometimes
happens to all of us--Tom had not a word to say; albeit his mind was
so much more nimble and rapid than ever mine was. He leaned against the
mantelpiece (a newly-invented affair in his house) as if I had corded
him to it, even as I spoke of doing. And he laid one hand on his breast
in a way which made Annie creep softly to him, and look at me not like a
sister.
“You have done me good, John,” he said at last, and the hand he gave me
was trembling: “there is no other man on God's earth would have dared
to speak to me as you have done. From no other would I have taken it.
Nevertheless every word is true; and I shall dwell on it when you are
gone. If you never did good in your life before, John, my brother, you
have done it now.”
He turned away, in bitter pain, that none might see his trouble; and
Annie, going along with him, looked as if I had killed our mother. For
my part, I was so upset, for fear of having gone too far, that without
a word to either of them, but a message on the title-page of King
James his Prayer-book, I saddled Kickums, and was off, and glad of the
moorland air again.
CHAPTER LXI
THEREFORE HE SEEKS COMFORT
It was for poor Annie's sake that I had spoken my mind to her husband so
freely, and even harshly. For we all knew she would break her heart, if
Tom took to evil ways again. And the right mode of preventing this
was, not to coax, and flatter, and make a hero of him (which he did for
himself, quite sufficiently), but to set before him the folly of the
thing, and the ruin to his own interests. They would both be vexed with
me, of course, for having left them so hastily, and especially just
before dinner-time; but that would soon wear off; and most likely they
would come to see mother, and tell her that I was hard to manage, and
they could feel for her about it.
Now with a certain yearning, I know not what, for softness, and for one
who could understand me--for simple as a child though being, I found
few to do that last, at any rate in my love-time--I relied upon Kickum's
strength to take me round by Dulverton. It would make the journey some
eight miles longer, but what was that to a brisk young horse, even with
my weight upon him?
And having left Squire Faggus and Annie much sooner than had been
intended, I had plenty of time before me, and too much, ere a prospect
of dinner. Therefore I struck to the right, across the hills, for
Dulverton.
Pretty Ruth was in the main street of the town, with a basket in her
hand, going home from the market.
“Why, Cousin Ruth, you are grown,” I exclaimed; “I do believe you are,
Ruth. And you were almost too tall, already.”
At this the little thing was so pleased, that she smiled through her
blushes beautifully, and must needs come to shake hands with me; though
I signed to her not to do it, because of my horse's temper. But scarcely
was her hand in mine, when Kickums turned like an eel upon her, and
caught her by the left arm with his teeth, so that she screamed with
agony. I saw the white of his vicious eye, and struck him there with all
my force, with my left hand over her right arm, and he never used that
eye again; none the less he kept his hold on her. Then I smote him again
on the jaw, and caught the little maid up by her right hand, and laid
her on the saddle in front of me; while the horse being giddy and
staggered with blows, and foiled of his spite, ran backward. Ruth's wits
were gone; and she lay before me, in such a helpless and senseless way
that I could have killed vile Kickums. I struck the spurs into him past
the rowels, and away he went at full gallop; while I had enough to do to
hold on, with the little girl lying in front of me. But I called to the
men who were flocking around, to send up a surgeon, as quick as could
be, to Master Reuben Huckaback's.
The moment I brought my right arm to bear, the vicious horse had no
chance with me; and if ever a horse was well paid for spite, Kickums
had his change that day. The bridle would almost have held a whale and
I drew on it so that his lower jaw was well-nigh broken from him; while
with both spurs I tore his flanks, and he learned a little lesson.
There are times when a man is more vicious than any horse may vie with.
Therefore by the time we had reached Uncle Reuben's house at the top of
the hill, the bad horse was only too happy to stop; every string of his
body was trembling, and his head hanging down with impotence. I leaped
from his back at once, and carried the maiden into her own sweet room.
Now Cousin Ruth was recovering softly from her fright and faintness; and
the volley of the wind from galloping so had made her little ears quite
pink, and shaken her locks all round her. But any one who might wish
to see a comely sight and a moving one, need only have looked at Ruth
Huckaback, when she learned (and imagined yet more than it was) the
manner of her little ride with me. Her hair was of a hazel-brown, and
full of waving readiness; and with no concealment of the trick, she
spread it over her eyes and face. Being so delighted with her, and so
glad to see her safe, I kissed her through the thick of it, as a cousin
has a right to do; yea, and ought to do, with gravity.
“Darling,” I said; “he has bitten you dreadfully: show me your poor arm,
dear.”
She pulled up her sleeve in the simplest manner, rather to look at it
herself, than to show me where the wound was. Her sleeve was of dark
blue Taunton staple; and her white arm shone, coming out of it, as round
and plump and velvety, as a stalk of asparagus, newly fetched out of the
ground. But above the curved soft elbow, where no room was for one cross
word (according to our proverb),* three sad gashes, edged with crimson,
spoiled the flow of the pearly flesh. My presence of mind was lost
altogether; and I raised the poor sore arm to my lips, both to stop the
bleeding and to take the venom out, having heard how wise it was, and
thinking of my mother. But Ruth, to my great amazement, drew away from
me in bitter haste, as if I had been inserting instead of extracting
poison. For the bite of a horse is most venomous; especially when he
sheds his teeth; and far more to be feared than the bite of a dog, or
even of a cat. And in my haste I had forgotten that Ruth might not know
a word about this, and might doubt about my meaning, and the warmth
of my osculation. But knowing her danger, I durst not heed her
childishness, or her feelings.
* “A maid with an elbow sharp, or knee,
Hath cross words two, out of every three.”
“Don't be a fool, Cousin Ruth,” I said, catching her so that she could
not move; “the poison is soaking into you. Do you think that I do it for
pleasure?”
The spread of shame on her face was such, when she saw her own
misunderstanding, that I was ashamed to look at her; and occupied myself
with drawing all the risk of glanders forth from the white limb, hanging
helpless now, and left entirely to my will. Before I was quite sure of
having wholly exhausted suction, and when I had made the holes in her
arm look like the gills of a lamprey, in came the doctor, partly drunk,
and in haste to get through his business.
“Ha, ha! I see,” he cried; “bite of a horse, they tell me. Very
poisonous; must be burned away. Sally, the iron in the fire. If you have
a fire, this weather.”
“Crave your pardon, good sir,” I said; for poor little Ruth was fainting
again at his savage orders: “but my cousin's arm shall not be burned; it
is a great deal too pretty, and I have sucked all the poison out. Look,
sir, how clean and fresh it is.”
“Bless my heart! And so it is! No need at all for cauterising. The
epidermis will close over, and the cutis and the pellis. John Ridd, you
ought to have studied medicine, with your healing powers. Half my virtue
lies in touch. A clean and wholesome body, sir; I have taught you the
Latin grammar. I leave you in excellent hands, my dear, and they wait
for me at shovel-board. Bread and water poultice cold, to be renewed,
_tribus horis_. John Ridd, I was at school with you, and you beat me very
lamentably, when I tried to fight with you. You remember me not? It is
likely enough: I am forced to take strong waters, John, from infirmity
of the liver. Attend to my directions; and I will call again in the
morning.”
And in that melancholy plight, caring nothing for business, went one
of the cleverest fellows ever known at Tiverton. He could write Latin
verses a great deal faster than I could ever write English prose, and
nothing seemed too great for him. We thought that he would go to Oxford
and astonish every one, and write in the style of Buchanan; but he fell
all abroad very lamentably; and now, when I met him again, was come down
to push-pin and shovel-board, with a wager of spirits pending.
When Master Huckaback came home, he looked at me very sulkily; not only
because of my refusal to become a slave to the gold-digging, but also
because he regarded me as the cause of a savage broil between Simon
Carfax and the men who had cheated him as to his Gwenny. However, when
Uncle Ben saw Ruth, and knew what had befallen her, and she with tears
in her eyes declared that she owed her life to Cousin Ridd, the old man