Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
head bent down, he told me to stand up, and look at him.
“I have seen thee before, young man,” he said; “thy form is not one to be
forgotten. Where was it? Thou art most likely to know.”
“May it please Your Most Gracious Majesty the King,” I answered, finding
my voice in a manner which surprised myself; “it was in the Royal
Chapel.”
Now I meant no harm whatever by this. I ought to have said the
“Ante-chapel,” but I could not remember the word, and feared to keep the
King looking at me.
“I am well-pleased,” said His Majesty, with a smile which almost made
his dark and stubborn face look pleasant, “to find that our greatest
subject, greatest I mean in the bodily form, is also a good Catholic.
Thou needest not say otherwise. The time shall be, and that right soon,
when men shall be proud of the one true faith.” Here he stopped, having
gone rather far! but the gleam of his heavy eyes was such that I durst
not contradict.
“This is that great Johann Reed,” said Her Majesty, coming forward,
because the King was in meditation; “for whom I have so much heard, from
the dear, dear Lorna. Ah, she is not of this black countree, she is of
the breet Italie.”
I have tried to write it, as she said it: but it wants a better scholar
to express her mode of speech.
“Now, John Ridd,” said the King, recovering from his thoughts about the
true Church, and thinking that his wife was not to take the lead upon
me; “thou hast done great service to the realm, and to religion. It was
good to save Earl Brandir, a loyal and Catholic nobleman; but it was
great service to catch two of the vilest bloodhounds ever laid on by
heretics. And to make them shoot one another: it was rare; it was rare,
my lad. Now ask us anything in reason; thou canst carry any honours, on
thy club, like Hercules. What is thy chief ambition, lad?”
“Well,” said I, after thinking a little, and meaning to make the most
of it, for so the Queen's eyes conveyed to me; “my mother always used to
think that having been schooled at Tiverton, with thirty marks a year to
pay, I was worthy of a coat of arms. And that is what she longs for.”
“A good lad! A very good lad,” said the King, and he looked at the
Queen, as if almost in joke; “but what is thy condition in life?”
“I am a freeholder,” I answered, in my confusion, “ever since the time
of King Alfred. A Ridd was with him in the isle of Athelney, and we hold
our farm by gift from him; or at least people say so. We have had three
very good harvests running, and might support a coat of arms; but for
myself I want it not.”
“Thou shalt have a coat, my lad,” said the King, smiling at his own
humour; “but it must be a large one to fit thee. And more than that
shalt thou have, John Ridd, being of such loyal breed, and having done
such service.”
And while I wondered what he meant, he called to some of the people in
waiting at the farther end of the room, and they brought him a little
sword, such as Annie would skewer a turkey with. Then he signified to me
to kneel, which I did (after dusting the board, for the sake of my
best breeches), and then he gave me a little tap very nicely upon my
shoulder, before I knew what he was up to; and said, “Arise, Sir John
Ridd!”
This astonished and amazed me to such extent of loss of mind, that when
I got up I looked about, and thought what the Snowes would think of it.
And I said to the King, without forms of speech,--
“Sir, I am very much obliged. But what be I to do with it?”
CHAPTER LXIX
NOT TO BE PUT UP WITH
The coat of arms, devised for me by the Royal heralds, was of great
size, and rich colours, and full of bright imaginings. They did me the
honour to consult me first, and to take no notice of my advice. For I
begged that there might be a good-sized cow on it, so as to stamp our
pats of butter before they went to market: also a horse on the other
side, and a flock snowed up at the bottom. But the gentlemen would not
hear of this; and to find something more appropriate, they inquired
strictly into the annals of our family. I told them, of course, all
about King Alfred; upon which they settled that one quarter should be,
three cakes on a bar, with a lion regardant, done upon a field of gold.
Also I told them that very likely there had been a Ridd in the battle
fought, not very far from Plover's Barrows, by the Earl of Devon against
the Danes, when Hubba their chief was killed, and the sacred standard
taken. As some of the Danes are said to be buried, even upon land
of ours, and we call their graves (if such they be) even to this day
“barrows,” the heralds quite agreed with me that a Ridd might have been
there, or thereabouts; and if he was there, he was almost certain to
have done his best, being in sight of hearth and home; and it was plain
that he must have had good legs to be at the same time both there and in
Athelney; and good legs are an argument for good arms; and supposing
a man of this sort to have done his utmost (as the manner of the Ridds
is), it was next to certain that he himself must have captured the
standard. Moreover, the name of our farm was pure proof; a plover being
a wild bird, just the same as a raven is. Upon this chain of reasoning,
and without any weak misgivings, they charged my growing escutcheon with
a black raven on a ground of red. And the next thing which I mentioned
possessing absolute certainty, to wit, that a pig with two heads had
been born upon our farm, not more than two hundred years agone (although
he died within a week), my third quarter was made at once, by a
two-headed boar with noble tusks, sable upon silver. All this was very
fierce and fine; and so I pressed for a peaceful corner in the lower
dexter, and obtained a wheat-sheaf set upright, gold upon a field of
green.
Here I was inclined to pause, and admire the effect; for even De
Whichehalse could not show a bearing so magnificent. But the heralds
said that it looked a mere sign-board, without a good motto under it;
and the motto must have my name in it. They offered me first, “_Ridd
non ridendus_”; but I said, “for God's sake, gentlemen, let me forget my
Latin.” Then they proposed, “Ridd readeth riddles”: but I begged them
not to set down such a lie; for no Ridd ever had made, or made out, such
a thing as a riddle, since Exmoor itself began. Thirdly, they gave me,
“Ridd never be ridden,” and fearing to make any further objections, I
let them inscribe it in bronze upon blue. The heralds thought that the
King would pay for this noble achievement; but His Majesty, although
graciously pleased with their ingenuity, declined in the most decided
manner to pay a farthing towards it; and as I had now no money left, the
heralds became as blue as azure, and as red as gules; until Her Majesty
the Queen came forward very kindly, and said that if His Majesty gave
me a coat of arms, I was not to pay for it; therefore she herself did so
quite handsomely, and felt goodwill towards me in consequence.
Now being in a hurry--so far at least as it is in my nature to hurry--to
get to the end of this narrative, is it likely that I would have dwelled
so long upon my coat of arms, but for some good reason? And this good
reason is that Lorna took the greatest pride in it, and thought (or at
any rate said) that it quite threw into the shade, and eclipsed, all her
own ancient glories. And half in fun, and half in earnest, she called
me “Sir John” so continually, that at last I was almost angry with
her; until her eyes were bedewed with tears; and then I was angry with
myself.
Beginning to be short of money, and growing anxious about the farm,
longing also to show myself and my noble escutcheon to mother, I
took advantage of Lady Lorna's interest with the Queen, to obtain my
acquittance and full discharge from even nominal custody. It had been
intended to keep me in waiting, until the return of Lord Jeffreys, from
that awful circuit of shambles, through which his name is still used by
mothers to frighten their children into bed. And right glad was
I--for even London shrank with horror at the news--to escape a man
so bloodthirsty, savage, and even to his friends (among whom I was
reckoned) malignant.
Earl Brandir was greatly pleased with me, not only for having saved his
life, but for saving that which he valued more, the wealth laid by for
Lord Alan. And he introduced me to many great people, who quite kindly
encouraged me, and promised to help me in every way when they heard how
the King had spoken. As for the furrier, he could never have enough of
my society; and this worthy man, praying my commendation, demanded of me
one thing only--to speak of him as I found him. As I had found him many
a Sunday, furbishing up old furs for new, with a glaze to conceal the
moths' ravages, I begged him to reconsider the point, and not to demand
such accuracy. He said, “Well, well; all trades had tricks, especially
the trick of business; and I must take him--if I were his true
friend--according to his own description.” This I was glad enough to do;
because it saved so much trouble, and I had no money to spend with him.
But still he requested the use of my name; and I begged him to do the
best with it, as I never had kept a banker. And the “John Ridd cuffs,”
and the “Sir John mantles,” and the “Holly-staff capes,” he put into
his window, as the winter was coming on, ay and sold (for everybody was
burning with gossip about me), must have made this good man's fortune;
since the excess of price over value is the true test of success in
life.
To come away from all this stuff, which grieves a man in London--when
the brisk air of the autumn cleared its way to Ludgate Hill, and clever
'prentices ran out, and sniffed at it, and fed upon it (having little
else to eat); and when the horses from the country were a goodly sight
to see, with the rasp of winter bristles rising through and among the
soft summer-coat; and when the new straw began to come in, golden
with the harvest gloss, and smelling most divinely at those strange
livery-stables, where the nags are put quite tail to tail; and when
all the London folk themselves are asking about white frost (from
recollections of childhood); then, I say, such a yearning seized me for
moory crag, and for dewy blade, and even the grunting of our sheep (when
the sun goes down), that nothing but the new wisps of Samson could have
held me in London town.
Lorna was moved with equal longing towards the country and country ways;
and she spoke quite as much of the glistening dew as she did of the
smell of our oven. And here let me mention--although the two are quite
distinct and different--that both the dew and the bread of Exmoor may
be sought, whether high or low, but never found elsewhere. The dew is so
crisp, and pure, and pearly, and in such abundance; and the bread is so
sweet, so kind, and homely, you can eat a loaf, and then another.
Now while I was walking daily in and out great crowds of men (few of
whom had any freedom from the cares of money, and many of whom were
even morbid with a worse pest called “politics”), I could not be quit of
thinking how we jostle one another. God has made the earth quite large,
with a spread of land large enough for all to live on, without fighting.
Also a mighty spread of water, laying hands on sand and cliff with a
solemn voice in storm-time; and in the gentle weather moving men to
thoughts of equity. This, as well, is full of food; being two-thirds of
the world, and reserved for devouring knowledge; by the time the sons
of men have fed away the dry land. Yet before the land itself has
acknowledged touch of man, upon one in a hundred acres; and before one