Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
cheery manner. Receiving no reply, she entered; and I (who could scarce
keep up with her, poor Kickums being weary) leaped from his back, and
followed. There I found her sniffing gently, but with great emotion, at
the body of Tom Faggus. A corpse poor Tom appeared to be, if ever
there was one in this world; and I turned away, and felt unable to keep
altogether from weeping. But the mare either could not understand, or
else would not believe it. She reached her long neck forth, and felt him
with her under lip, passing it over his skin as softly as a mother would
do to an infant; and then she looked up at me again; as much as to say,
“he is all right.”
Upon this I took courage, and handled poor Tom, which being young I had
feared at first to do. He groaned very feebly, as I raised him up; and
there was the wound, a great savage one (whether from pike-thrust or
musket-ball), gaping and welling in his right side, from which a piece
seemed to be torn away. I bound it up with some of my linen, so far as I
knew how; just to stanch the flow of blood, until we could get a doctor.
Then I gave him a little weak brandy and water, which he drank with the
greatest eagerness, and made sign to me for more of it. But not knowing
how far it was right to give cordial under the circumstances, I handed
him unmixed water that time; thinking that he was too far gone to
perceive the difference. But herein I wrong Tom Faggus; for he shook his
head and frowned at me. Even at the door of death, he would not drink
what Adam drank, by whom came death into the world. So I gave him a
little more eau-de-vie, and he took it most submissively.
After that he seemed better, and a little colour came into his cheeks;
and he looked at Winnie and knew her; and would have her nose in his
clammy hand, though I thought it not good for either of them. With the
stay of my arm he sat upright, and faintly looked about him; as if at
the end of a violent dream, too much for his power of mind. Then he
managed to whisper, “Is Winnie hurt?”
“As sound as a roach,” I answered. “Then so am I,” said he: “put me upon
her back, John; she and I die together.”
Surprised as I was at this fatalism (for so it appeared to me), of which
he had often shown symptoms before (but I took them for mere levity),
now I knew not what to do; for it seemed to me a murderous thing to set
such a man on horseback; where he must surely bleed to death, even if he
could keep the saddle. But he told me, with many breaks and pauses,
that unless I obeyed his orders, he would tear off all my bandages, and
accept no further aid from me.
While I was yet hesitating, a storm of horse at full gallop went by,
tearing, swearing, bearing away all the country before them. Only a
little pollard hedge kept us from their blood-shot eyes. “Now is the
time,” said my cousin Tom, so far as I could make out his words; “on
their heels, I am safe, John, if I have only Winnie under me. Winnie and
I die together.”
Seeing this strong bent of his mind, stronger than any pains of death,
I even did what his feeble eyes sometimes implored, and sometimes
commanded. With a strong sash, from his own hot neck, bound and twisted,
tight as wax, around his damaged waist, I set him upon Winnie's back,
and placed his trembling feet in stirrups, with a band from one to
another, under the good mare's body; so that no swerve could throw him
out: and then I said, “Lean forward, Tom; it will stop your hurt from
bleeding.” He leaned almost on the neck of the mare, which, as I knew,
must close the wound; and the light of his eyes was quite different,
and the pain of his forehead unstrung itself, as if he felt the undulous
readiness of her volatile paces under him.
“God bless you, John; I am safe,” he whispered, fearing to open his
lungs much: “who can come near my Winnie mare? A mile of her gallop
is ten years of life. Look out for yourself, John Ridd.” He sucked his
lips, and the mare went off, as easy and swift as a swallow.
“Well,” thought I, as I looked at Kickums, ignobly cropping up a bit
of grass, “I have done a very good thing, no doubt, and ought to be
thankful to God for the chance. But as for getting away unharmed, with
all these scoundrels about me, and only a foundered horse to trust
in--good and spiteful as he is--upon the whole, I begin to think that I
have made a fool of myself, according to my habit. No wonder Tom said,
'Look out for yourself!' I shall look out from a prison window, or
perhaps even out of a halter. And then, what will Lorna think of me?”
Being in this wistful mood, I resolved to abide awhile, even where fate
had thrown me; for my horse required good rest no doubt, and was taking
it even while he cropped, with his hind legs far away stretched out, and
his forelegs gathered under him, and his muzzle on the mole-hills; so
that he had five supportings from his mother earth. Moreover, the linhay
itself was full of very ancient cow dung; than which there is no balmier
and more maiden soporific. Hence I resolved, upon the whole, though
grieving about breakfast, to light a pipe, and go to sleep; or at least
until the hot sun should arouse the flies.
I may have slept three hours, or four, or it might be even five--for I
never counted time, while sleeping--when a shaking more rude than the
old landlady's, brought me back to the world again. I looked up, with a
mighty yawn; and saw twenty, or so, of foot-soldiers.
“This linhay is not yours,” I said, when they had quite aroused me, with
tongue, and hand, and even sword-prick: “what business have you here,
good fellows?”
“Business bad for you,” said one, “and will lead you to the gallows.”
“Do you wish to know the way out again?” I asked, very quietly, as being
no braggadocio.
“We will show thee the way out,” said one, “and the way out of the
world,” said another: “but not the way to heaven,” said one chap, most
unlikely to know it: and thereupon they all fell wagging, like a bed of
clover leaves in the morning, at their own choice humour.
“Will you pile your arms outside,” I said, “and try a bit of fair play
with me?”
For I disliked these men sincerely, and was fain to teach them a lesson;
they were so unchristian in appearance, having faces of a coffee colour,
and dirty beards half over them. Moreover their dress was outrageous,
and their address still worse. However, I had wiser let them alone, as
will appear afterwards. These savage-looking fellows laughed at the idea
of my having any chance against some twenty of them: but I knew that
the place was in my favour; for my part of it had been fenced off (for
weaning a calf most likely), so that only two could come at me at once;
and I must be very much out of training, if I could not manage two of
them. Therefore I laid aside my carbine, and the two horse-pistols; and
they with many coarse jokes at me went a little way outside, and
set their weapons against the wall, and turned up their coat sleeves
jauntily; and then began to hesitate.
“Go you first, Bob,” I heard them say: “you are the biggest man of us;
and Dick the wrestler along of you. Us will back you up, boy.”
“I'll warrant I'll draw the badger,” said Bob; “and not a tooth will I
leave him. But mind, for the honour of Kirke's lambs, every man stands
me a glass of gin.” Then he, and another man, made a rush, and the
others came double-quick-march on their heels. But as Bob ran at me most
stupidly, not even knowing how to place his hands, I caught him with my
knuckles at the back of his neck, and with all the sway of my right arm
sent him over the heads of his comrades. Meanwhile Dick the wrestler had
grappled me, expecting to show off his art, of which indeed he had some
small knowledge; but being quite of the light-weights, in a second he
was flying after his companion Bob.
Now these two men were hurt so badly, the light one having knocked his
head against the lintel of the outer gate, that the rest had no desire
to encounter the like misfortune. So they hung back whispering; and
before they had made up their minds, I rushed into the midst of them.
The suddenness and the weight of my onset took them wholly by surprise;
and for once in their lives, perhaps, Kirke's lambs were worthy of their
name. Like a flock of sheep at a dog's attack they fell away, hustling
one another, and my only difficulty was not to tumble over them.
I had taken my carbine out with me, having a fondness for it; but the
two horse-pistols I left behind; and therefore felt good title to take
two from the magazine of the lambs. And with these, and my carbine, I
leaped upon Kickums, who was now quite glad of a gallop again; and I
bade adieu to that mongrel lot; yet they had the meanness to shoot at
me. Thanking God for my deliverance (inasmuch as those men would have
strung me up, from a pollard-ash without trial, as I heard them tell
one another, and saw the tree they had settled upon), I ventured to go
rather fast on my way, with doubt and uneasiness urging me. And now my
way was home again. Nobody could say but what I had done my duty, and
rescued Tom (if he could be rescued) from the mischief into which
his own perverseness and love of change (rather than deep religious
convictions, to which our Annie ascribed his outbreak) had led, or
seemed likely to lead him. And how proud would my mother be; and--ah
well, there was nobody else to be proud of me now.
But while thinking these things, and desiring my breakfast, beyond any
power of describing, and even beyond my remembrance, I fell into another
fold of lambs, from which there was no exit. These, like true crusaders,
met me, swaggering very heartily, and with their barrels of cider set,
like so many cannon, across the road, over against a small hostel.
“We have won the victory, my lord King, and we mean to enjoy it. Down
from thy horse, and have a stoup of cider, thou big rebel.”
“No rebel am I. My name is John Ridd. I belong to the side of the King:
and I want some breakfast.”
These fellows were truly hospitable; that much will I say for them.
Being accustomed to Arab ways, they could toss a grill, or fritter, or
the inner meaning of an egg, into any form they pleased, comely and
very good to eat; and it led me to think of Annie. So I made the rarest
breakfast any man might hope for, after all his troubles; and getting
on with these brown fellows better than could be expected, I craved
permission to light a pipe, if not disagreeable. Hearing this, they
roared at me, with a superior laughter, and asked me, whether or not,
I knew the tobacco-leaf from the chick-weed; and when I was forced to
answer no, not having gone into the subject, but being content with
anything brown, they clapped me on the back and swore they had never
seen any one like me. Upon the whole this pleased me much; for I do
not wish to be taken always as of the common pattern: and so we smoked
admirable tobacco--for they would not have any of mine, though very
courteous concerning it--and I was beginning to understand a little of
what they told me; when up came those confounded lambs, who had shown
more tail than head to me, in the linhay, as I mentioned.
Now these men upset everything. Having been among wrestlers so much as
my duty compelled me to be, and having learned the necessity of the rest
which follows the conflict, and the right of discussion which all people
have to pay their sixpence to enter; and how they obtrude this right,
and their wisdom, upon the man who has laboured, until he forgets all
the work he did, and begins to think that they did it; having some
knowledge of this sort of thing, and the flux of minds swimming in
liquor, I foresaw a brawl, as plainly as if it were Bear Street in
Barnstaple.
And a brawl there was, without any error, except of the men who hit