Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
shut the door: “have we a rebel in the congregation?” For the parson was
growing short-sighted now, and knew not Sam Fry at that distance.
“No,” replied Sam, not a whit abashed by the staring of all the parish;
“no rebel, parson; but a man who mislaiketh popery and murder. That
there prai-er be a prai-er for the dead.”
“Nay,” cried the parson, now recognising and knowing him to be our
John's first cousin, “you do not mean to say, Sam, that His Gracious
Majesty is dead!”
“Dead as a sto-un: poisoned by they Papishers.” And Sam rubbed his hands
with enjoyment, at the effect he had produced.
“Remember where you are, Sam,” said Parson Bowden solemnly; “when did
this most sad thing happen? The King is the head of the Church, Sam Fry;
when did he leave her?”
“Day afore yesterday. Twelve o'clock. Warn't us quick to hear of 'un?”
“Can't be,” said the minister: “the tidings can never have come so
soon. Anyhow, he will want it all the more. Let us pray for His Gracious
Majesty.”
And with that he proceeded as usual; but nobody cried “Amen,” for fear
of being entangled with Popery. But after giving forth his text, our
parson said a few words out of book, about the many virtues of His
Majesty, and self-denial, and devotion, comparing his pious mirth to the
dancing of the patriarch David before the ark of the covenant; and he
added, with some severity, that if his flock would not join their pastor
(who was much more likely to judge aright) in praying for the King, the
least they could do on returning home was to pray that the King might
not be dead, as his enemies had asserted.
Now when the service was over, we killed the King, and we brought him to
life, at least fifty times in the churchyard: and Sam Fry was mounted on
a high gravestone, to tell every one all he knew of it. But he knew no
more than he had told us in the church, as before repeated: upon which
we were much disappointed with him, and inclined to disbelieve him;
until he happily remembered that His Majesty had died in great pain,
with blue spots on his breast and black spots all across his back, and
these in the form of a cross, by reason of Papists having poisoned him.
When Sam called this to his remembrance (or to his imagination) he was
overwhelmed, at once, with so many invitations to dinner, that he scarce
knew which of them to accept; but decided in our favour.
Grieving much for the loss of the King, however greatly it might be (as
the parson had declared it was, while telling us to pray against it) for
the royal benefit, I resolved to ride to Porlock myself, directly after
dinner, and make sure whether he were dead, or not. For it was not by
any means hard to suppose that Sam Fry, being John's first cousin, might
have inherited either from grandfather or grandmother some of those
gifts which had made our John so famous for mendacity. At Porlock I
found that it was too true; and the women of the town were in great
distress, for the King had always been popular with them: the men, on
the other hand, were forecasting what would be likely to ensue.
And I myself was of this number, riding sadly home again; although bound
to the King as churchwarden now; which dignity, next to the parson's in
rank, is with us (as it ought to be in every good parish) hereditary.
For who can stick to the church like the man whose father stuck to it
before him; and who knows all the little ins, and great outs, which must
in these troublous times come across?
But though appointed at last, by virtue of being best farmer in the
parish (as well as by vice of mismanagement on the part of my mother,
and Nicholas Snowe, who had thoroughly mixed up everything, being too
quick-headed); yet, while I dwelled with pride upon the fact that I
stood in the King's shoes, as the manager and promoter of the Church of
England, and I knew that we must miss His Majesty (whose arms were above
the Commandments), as the leader of our thoughts in church, and handsome
upon a guinea; nevertheless I kept on thinking how his death would act
on me.
And here I saw it, many ways. In the first place, troubles must break
out; and we had eight-and-twenty ricks; counting grain, and straw, and
hay. Moreover, mother was growing weak about riots, and shooting, and
burning; and she gathered the bed-clothes around her ears every night,
when her feet were tucked up; and prayed not to awake until morning. In
the next place, much rebellion (though we would not own it; in either
sense of the verb, to “own”) was whispering, and plucking skirts, and
making signs, among us. And the terror of the Doones helped greatly;
as a fruitful tree of lawlessness, and a good excuse for everybody.
And after this--or rather before it, and first of all indeed (if I must
state the true order)--arose upon me the thought of Lorna, and how these
things would affect her fate.
And indeed I must admit that it had occurred to me sometimes, or been
suggested by others, that the Lady Lorna had not behaved altogether
kindly, since her departure from among us. For although in those days
the post (as we call the service of letter-carrying, which now comes
within twenty miles of us) did not extend to our part of the world, yet
it might have been possible to procure for hire a man who would ride
post, if Lorna feared to trust the pack-horses, or the troopers, who
went to and fro. Yet no message whatever had reached us; neither any
token even of her safety in London. As to this last, however, we had no
misgivings, having learned from the orderlies, more than once, that
the wealth, and beauty, and adventures of young Lady Lorna Dugal were
greatly talked of, both at court and among the common people.
Now riding sadly homewards, in the sunset of the early spring, I was
more than ever touched with sorrow, and a sense of being, as it were,
abandoned. And the weather growing quite beautiful, and so mild that the
trees were budding, and the cattle full of happiness, I could not but
think of the difference between the world of to-day and the world of
this day twelvemonth. Then all was howling desolation, all the earth
blocked up with snow, and all the air with barbs of ice as small
as splintered needles, yet glittering, in and out, like stars, and
gathering so upon a man (if long he stayed among them) that they began
to weigh him down to sleepiness and frozen death. Not a sign of life
was moving, nor was any change of view; unless the wild wind struck the
crest of some cold drift, and bowed it.
Now, on the other hand, all was good. The open palm of spring was laid
upon the yielding of the hills; and each particular valley seemed to be
the glove for a finger. And although the sun was low, and dipping in the
western clouds, the gray light of the sea came up, and took, and taking,
told the special tone of everything. All this lay upon my heart, without
a word of thinking, spreading light and shadow there, and the soft
delight of sadness. Nevertheless, I would it were the savage snow around
me, and the piping of the restless winds, and the death of everything.
For in those days I had Lorna.
Then I thought of promise fair; such as glowed around me, where the
red rocks held the sun, when he was departed; and the distant crags
endeavoured to retain his memory. But as evening spread across them,
shading with a silent fold, all the colour stole away; all remembrance
waned and died.
“So it has been with love,” I thought, “and with simple truth and
warmth. The maid has chosen the glittering stars, instead of the plain
daylight.”
Nevertheless I would not give in, although in deep despondency
(especially when I passed the place where my dear father had fought in
vain), and I tried to see things right and then judge aright about them.
This, however, was more easy to attempt than to achieve; and by the time
I came down the hill, I was none the wiser. Only I could tell my mother
that the King was dead for sure; and she would have tried to cry, but
for thought of her mourning.
There was not a moment for lamenting. All the mourning must be ready (if
we cared to beat the Snowes) in eight-and-forty hours: and, although
it was Sunday night, mother now feeling sure of the thing, sat up with
Lizzie, cutting patterns, and stitching things on brown paper, and
snipping, and laying the fashions down, and requesting all opinions, yet
when given, scorning them; insomuch that I grew weary even of tobacco
(which had comforted me since Lorna), and prayed her to go on until the
King should be alive again.
The thought of that so flurried her--for she never yet could see a
joke--that she laid her scissors on the table and said, “The Lord
forbid, John! after what I have cut up!”
“It would be just like him,” I answered, with a knowing smile: “Mother,
you had better stop. Patterns may do very well; but don't cut up any
more good stuff.”
“Well, good lack, I am a fool! Three tables pegged with needles! The
Lord in His mercy keep His Majesty, if ever He hath gotten him!”
By this device we went to bed; and not another stitch was struck until
the troopers had office-tidings that the King was truly dead. Hence the
Snowes beat us by a day; and both old Betty and Lizzie laid the blame
upon me, as usual.
Almost before we had put off the mourning, which as loyal subjects we
kept for the King three months and a week; rumours of disturbances, of
plottings, and of outbreak began to stir among us. We heard of fighting
in Scotland, and buying of ships on the continent, and of arms in Dorset
and Somerset; and we kept our beacon in readiness to give signals of a
landing; or rather the soldiers did. For we, having trustworthy reports
that the King had been to high mass himself in the Abbey of Westminster,
making all the bishops go with him, and all the guards in London, and
then tortured all the Protestants who dared to wait outside, moreover
had received from the Pope a flower grown in the Virgin Mary's garden,
and warranted to last for ever, we of the moderate party, hearing all
this and ten times as much, and having no love for this sour James,
such as we had for the lively Charles, were ready to wait for what might
happen, rather than care about stopping it. Therefore we listened to
rumours gladly, and shook our heads with gravity, and predicted, every
man something, but scarce any two the same. Nevertheless, in our part,
things went on as usual, until the middle of June was nigh. We ploughed
the ground, and sowed the corn, and tended the cattle, and heeded every
one his neighbour's business, as carefully as heretofore; and the only
thing that moved us much was that Annie had a baby. This being a very
fine child with blue eyes, and christened “John” in compliment to me,
and with me for his godfather, it is natural to suppose that I thought
a good deal about him; and when mother or Lizzie would ask me, all of a
sudden, and treacherously, when the fire flared up at supper-time (for
we always kept a little wood just alight in summer-time, and enough to
make the pot boil), then when they would say to me, “John, what are
you thinking of? At a word, speak!” I would always answer, “Little John
Faggus”; and so they made no more of me.
But when I was down, on Saturday the thirteenth of June, at the
blacksmith's forge by Brendon town, where the Lynn-stream runs so close
that he dips his horseshoes in it, and where the news is apt to come
first of all to our neighbourhood (except upon a Sunday), while we were
talking of the hay-crop, and of a great sheep-stealer, round the corner
came a man upon a piebald horse looking flagged and weary. But seeing
half a dozen of us, young, and brisk, and hearty, he made a flourish
with his horse, and waved a blue flag vehemently, shouting with great
glory,--