Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
soft brown hair. It had been my duty, as well as my true interest (for
Uncle Ben was more and more testy, as he went on gold-digging), to ride
thither, now and again, to inquire what the doctor thought of her. Not
that her wounds were long in healing, but that people can scarcely
be too careful and too inquisitive, after a great horse-bite. And she
always let me look at the arm, as I had been first doctor; and she held
it up in a graceful manner, curving at the elbow, and with a sweep of
white roundness going to a wrist the size of my thumb or so, and
without any thimble-top standing forth, such as even our Annie had. But
gradually all I could see, above the elbow, where the bite had been,
was very clear, transparent skin, with very firm sweet flesh below, and
three little blue marks as far asunder as the prongs of a toasting-fork,
and no deeper than where a twig has chafed the peel of a waxen apple.
And then I used to say in fun, as the children do, “Shall I kiss it, to
make it well, dear?”
Now Ruth looked very grave indeed, upon hearing of this my enterprise;
and crying, said she could almost cry, for the sake of my dear mother.
Did I know the risks and chances, not of the battlefield alone, but
of the havoc afterwards; the swearing away of innocent lives, and the
hurdle, and the hanging? And if I would please not to laugh (which was
so unkind of me), had I never heard of imprisonments, and torturing with
the cruel boot, and selling into slavery, where the sun and the lash
outvied one another in cutting a man to pieces? I replied that of all
these things I had heard, and would take especial care to steer me free
of all of them. My duty was all that I wished to do; and none could harm
me for doing that. And I begged my cousin to give me good-speed, instead
of talking dolefully. Upon this she changed her manner wholly, becoming
so lively and cheerful that I was convinced of her indifference, and
surprised even more than gratified.
“Go and earn your spurs, Cousin Ridd,” she said: “you are strong enough
for anything. Which side is to have the benefit of your doughty arm?”
“Have I not told you, Ruth,” I answered, not being fond of this kind of
talk, more suitable for Lizzie, “that I do not mean to join either side,
that is to say, until--”
“Until, as the common proverb goes, you know which way the cat will
jump. Oh, John Ridd! Oh, John Ridd!”
“Nothing of the sort,” said I: “what a hurry you are in! I am for the
King of course.”
“But not enough to fight for him. Only enough to vote, I suppose, or
drink his health, or shout for him.”
“I can't make you out to-day, Cousin Ruth; you are nearly as bad as
Lizzie. You do not say any bitter things, but you seem to mean them.”
“No, cousin, think not so of me. It is far more likely that I say them,
without meaning them.”
“Anyhow, it is not like you. And I know not what I can have done in any
way, to vex you.”
“Dear me, nothing, Cousin Ridd; you never do anything to vex me.”
“Then I hope I shall do something now, Ruth, when I say good-bye. God
knows if we ever shall meet again, Ruth: but I hope we may.”
“To be sure we shall,” she answered in her brightest manner. “Try not
to look wretched, John: you are as happy as a Maypole.”
“And you as a rose in May,” I said; “and pretty nearly as pretty. Give
my love to Uncle Ben; and I trust him to keep on the winning side.”
“Of that you need have no misgivings. Never yet has he failed of it.
Now, Cousin Ridd, why go you not? You hurried me so at breakfast time?”
“My only reason for waiting, Ruth, is that you have not kissed me, as
you are almost bound to do, for the last time perhaps of seeing me.”
“Oh, if that is all, just fetch the stool; and I will do my best,
cousin.”
“I pray you be not so vexatious; you always used to do it nicely,
without any stool, Ruth.”
“Ah, but you are grown since then, and become a famous man, John Ridd,
and a member of the nobility. Go your way, and win your spurs. I want no
lip-service.”
Being at the end of my wits, I did even as she ordered me. At least I
had no spurs to win, because there were big ones on my boots, paid for
in the Easter bill, and made by a famous saddler, so as never to clog
with marsh-weed, but prick as hard as any horse, in reason, could
desire. And Kickums never wanted spurs; but always went tail-foremost,
if anybody offered them for his consideration.
CHAPTER LXIV
SLAUGHTER IN THE MARSHES
We rattled away at a merry pace, out of the town of Dulverton; my horse
being gaily fed, and myself quite fit again for going. Of course I was
puzzled about Cousin Ruth; for her behaviour was not at all such as I
had expected; and indeed I had hoped for a far more loving and moving
farewell than I got from her. But I said to myself, “It is useless ever
to count upon what a woman will do; and I think that I must have vexed
her, almost as much as she vexed me. And now to see what comes of
it.” So I put my horse across the moorland; and he threw his chest out
bravely.
Now if I tried to set down at length all the things that happened to me,
upon this adventure, every in and out, and up and down, and to and fro,
that occupied me, together with the things I saw, and the things I heard
of, however much the wiser people might applaud my narrative, it is
likely enough that idle readers might exclaim, “What ails this man?
Knows he not that men of parts and of real understanding, have told
us all we care to hear of that miserable business. Let him keep to his
farm, and his bacon, and his wrestling, and constant feeding.”
Fearing to meet with such rebuffs (which after my death would vex me), I
will try to set down only what is needful for my story, and the clearing
of my character, and the good name of our parish. But the manner in
which I was bandied about, by false information, from pillar to post, or
at other times driven quite out of my way by the presence of the King's
soldiers, may be known by the names of the following towns, to which
I was sent in succession, Bath, Frome, Wells, Wincanton, Glastonbury,
Shepton, Bradford, Axbridge, Somerton, and Bridgwater.
This last place I reached on a Sunday night, the fourth or fifth of
July, I think--or it might be the sixth, for that matter; inasmuch as I
had been too much worried to get the day of the month at church. Only I
know that my horse and myself were glad to come to a decent place, where
meat and corn could be had for money; and being quite weary of wandering
about, we hoped to rest there a little.
Of this, however, we found no chance, for the town was full of the good
Duke's soldiers; if men may be called so, the half of whom had never
been drilled, nor had fired a gun. And it was rumoured among them,
that the “popish army,” as they called it, was to be attacked that very
night, and with God's assistance beaten. However, by this time I had
been taught to pay little attention to rumours; and having sought vainly
for Tom Faggus among these poor rustic warriors, I took to my hostel;
and went to bed, being as weary as weary can be.
Falling asleep immediately, I took heed of nothing; although the town
was all alive, and lights had come glancing, as I lay down, and shouts
making echo all round my room. But all I did was to bolt the door; not
an inch would I budge, unless the house, and even my bed, were on fire.
And so for several hours I lay, in the depth of the deepest slumber,
without even a dream on its surface; until I was roused and awakened at
last by a pushing, and pulling, and pinching, and a plucking of hair out
by the roots. And at length, being able to open mine eyes, I saw the old
landlady, with a candle, heavily wondering at me.
“Can't you let me alone?” I grumbled. “I have paid for my bed, mistress;
and I won't get up for any one.”
“Would to God, young man,” she answered, shaking me as hard as ever,
“that the popish soldiers may sleep this night, only half as strong as
thou dost! Fie on thee, fie on thee! Get up, and go fight; we can hear
the battle already; and a man of thy size mought stop a cannon.”
“I would rather stop a-bed,” said I; “what have I to do with fighting? I
am for King James, if any.”
“Then thou mayest even stop a-bed,” the old woman muttered sulkily. “A
would never have laboured half an hour to awake a Papisher. But hearken
you one thing, young man; Zummerzett thou art, by thy brogue; or at
least by thy understanding of it; no Zummerzett maid will look at thee,
in spite of thy size and stature, unless thou strikest a blow this
night.”
“I lack no Zummerzett maid, mistress: I have a fairer than your brown
things; and for her alone would I strike a blow.”
At this the old woman gave me up, as being beyond correction: and
it vexed me a little that my great fame had not reached so far as
Bridgwater, when I thought that it went to Bristowe. But those people in
East Somerset know nothing about wrestling. Devon is the headquarters
of the art; and Devon is the county of my chief love. Howbeit, my vanity
was moved, by this slur upon it--for I had told her my name was John
Ridd, when I had a gallon of ale with her, ere ever I came upstairs; and
she had nodded, in such a manner, that I thought she knew both name
and fame--and here was I, not only shaken, pinched, and with many hairs
pulled out, in the midst of my first good sleep for a week, but also
abused, and taken amiss, and (which vexed me most of all) unknown.
Now there is nothing like vanity to keep a man awake at night, however
he be weary; and most of all, when he believes that he is doing
something great--this time, if never done before--yet other people will
not see, except what they may laugh at; and so be far above him, and
sleep themselves the happier. Therefore their sleep robs his own; for
all things play so, in and out (with the godly and ungodly ever moving
in a balance, as they have done in my time, almost every year or two),
all things have such nice reply of produce to the call for it, and such
a spread across the world, giving here and taking there, yet on the
whole pretty even, that haply sleep itself has but a certain stock,
and keeps in hand, and sells to flattered (which can pay) that which
flattened vanity cannot pay, and will not sue for.
Be that as it may, I was by this time wide awake, though much aggrieved
at feeling so, and through the open window heard the distant roll of
musketry, and the beating of drums, with a quick rub-a-dub, and the
“come round the corner” of trumpet-call. And perhaps Tom Faggus might be
there, and shot at any moment, and my dear Annie left a poor widow, and
my godson Jack an orphan, without a tooth to help him.
Therefore I reviled myself for all my heavy laziness; and partly through
good honest will, and partly through the stings of pride, and yet a
little perhaps by virtue of a young man's love of riot, up I arose, and
dressed myself, and woke Kickums (who was snoring), and set out to see
the worst of it. The sleepy hostler scratched his poll, and could not
tell me which way to take; what odds to him who was King, or Pope, so
long as he paid his way, and got a bit of bacon on Sunday? And would I
please to remember that I had roused him up at night, and the quality
always made a point of paying four times over for a man's loss of
his beauty-sleep. I replied that his loss of beauty-sleep was rather
improving to a man of so high complexion; and that I, being none of the
quality, must pay half-quality prices: and so I gave him double fee, as
became a good farmer; and he was glad to be quit of Kickums; as I saw by
the turn of his eye, while going out at the archway.
All this was done by lanthorn light, although the moon was high and