Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
mile in ten thousand of the exhaustless ocean has ever felt the plunge
of hook, or combing of the haul-nets; lo, we crawl, in flocks together
upon the hot ground that stings us, even as the black grubs crowd upon
the harried nettle! Surely we are too much given to follow the tracks of
each other.
However, for a moralist, I never set up, and never shall, while common
sense abides with me. Such a man must be very wretched in this pure
dearth of morality; like a fisherman where no fish be; and most of us
have enough to do to attend to our own morals. Enough that I resolved
to go; and as Lorna could not come with me, it was even worse than
stopping. Nearly everybody vowed that I was a great fool indeed, to
neglect so rudely--which was the proper word, they said--the pushing
of my fortunes. But I answered that to push was rude, and I left it to
people who had no room; and thought that my fortune must be heavy, if it
would not move without pushing.
Lorna cried when I came away (which gave me great satisfaction), and she
sent a whole trunkful of things for mother and Annie, and even Lizzie.
And she seemed to think, though she said it not, that I made my own
occasion for going, and might have stayed on till the winter. Whereas
I knew well that my mother would think (and every one on the farm the
same) that here I had been in London, lagging, and taking my pleasure,
and looking at shops, upon pretence of King's business, and leaving the
harvest to reap itself, not to mention the spending of money; while all
the time there was nothing whatever, except my own love of adventure
and sport, to keep me from coming home again. But I knew that my coat
of arms, and title, would turn every bit of this grumbling into fine
admiration.
And so it fell out, to a greater extent than even I desired; for all
the parishes round about united in a sumptuous dinner, at the Mother
Melldrum inn--for now that good lady was dead, and her name and face
set on a sign-post--to which I was invited, so that it was as good as a
summons. And if my health was no better next day, it was not from want
of good wishes, any more than from stint of the liquor.
It is needless to say that the real gentry for a long time treated my
new honours with contempt and ridicule; but gradually as they found that
I was not such a fool as to claim any equality with them, but went about
my farm-work, and threw another man at wrestling, and touched my hat to
the magistrates, just the same as ever; some gentlemen of the highest
blood--of which we think a great deal more than of gold, around our
neighbourhood--actually expressed a desire to make my acquaintance.
And when, in a manner quite straightforward, and wholly free from
bitterness, I thanked them for this (which appeared to me the highest
honour yet offered me), but declined to go into their company because it
would make me uncomfortable, and themselves as well, in a different
way, they did what nearly all Englishmen do, when a thing is right and
sensible. They shook hands with me; and said that they could not deny
but that there was reason in my view of the matter. And although they
themselves must be the losers--which was a handsome thing to say--they
would wait until I was a little older and more aware of my own value.
Now this reminds me how it is that an English gentleman is so far in
front of foreign noblemen and princes. I have seen at times, a little,
both of one and of the other, and making more than due allowance for
the difficulties of language, and the difference of training, upon the
whole, the balance is in favour of our people. And this, because we have
two weights, solid and (even in scale of manners) outweighing all light
complaisance; to wit, the inborn love of justice, and the power of
abiding.
Yet some people may be surprised that men with any love of justice,
whether inborn or otherwise, could continue to abide the arrogance, and
rapacity, and tyranny of the Doones.
For now as the winter passed, the Doones were not keeping themselves at
home, as in honour they were bound to do. Twenty sheep a week, and one
fat ox, and two stout red deer (for wholesome change of diet), as well
as threescore bushels of flour, and two hogsheads and a half of cider,
and a hundredweight of candles, not to mention other things of almost
every variety which they got by insisting upon it--surely these might
have sufficed to keep the people in their place, with no outburst of
wantonness. Nevertheless, it was not so; they had made complaint about
something--too much ewe-mutton, I think it was--and in spite of all the
pledges given, they had ridden forth, and carried away two maidens of
our neighbourhood.
Now these two maidens were known, because they had served the beer at
an ale-house; and many men who had looked at them, over a pint or quart
vessel (especially as they were comely girls), thought that it was very
hard for them to go in that way, and perhaps themselves unwilling. And
their mother (although she had taken some money, which the Doones were
always full of) declared that it was a robbery; and though it increased
for a while the custom, that must soon fall off again. And who would
have her two girls now, clever as they were and good?
Before we had finished meditating upon this loose outrage--for so I
at least would call it, though people accustomed to the law may take a
different view of it--we had news of a thing far worse, which turned the
hearts of our women sick. This I will tell in most careful language, so
as to give offence to none, if skill of words may help it.*
* The following story is strictly true; and true it is that
the country-people rose, to a man, at this dastard cruelty,
and did what the Government failed to do.--Ed. L.D.
Mistress Margery Badcock, a healthy and upright young woman, with a
good rich colour, and one of the finest hen-roosts anywhere round our
neighbourhood, was nursing her child about six of the clock, and
looking out for her husband. Now this child was too old to be nursed, as
everybody told her; for he could run, say two yards alone, and perhaps
four or five, by holding to handles. And he had a way of looking round,
and spreading his legs, and laughing, with his brave little body well
fetched up, after a desperate journey to the end of the table, which
his mother said nothing could equal. Nevertheless, he would come to
be nursed, as regular as a clock, almost; and, inasmuch as he was
the first, both father and mother made much of him; for God only knew
whether they could ever compass such another one.
Christopher Badcock was a tenant farmer, in the parish of Martinhoe,
renting some fifty acres of land, with a right of common attached to
them; and at this particular time, being now the month of February,
and fine open weather, he was hard at work ploughing and preparing for
spring corn. Therefore his wife was not surprised although the dusk
was falling, that farmer Christopher should be at work in “blind man's
holiday,” as we call it.
But she was surprised, nay astonished, when by the light of the kitchen
fire (brightened up for her husband), she saw six or seven great armed
men burst into the room upon her; and she screamed so that the maid in
the back kitchen heard her, but was afraid to come to help. Two of the
strongest and fiercest men at once seized poor young Margery; and though
she fought for her child and home, she was but an infant herself in
their hands. In spite of tears, and shrieks, and struggles, they tore
the babe from the mother's arms, and cast it on the lime ash floor; then
they bore her away to their horses (for by this time she was senseless),
and telling the others to sack the house, rode off with their prize to
the valley. And from the description of one of those two, who carried
off the poor woman, I knew beyond all doubt that it was Carver Doone
himself.
The other Doones being left behind, and grieved perhaps in some
respects, set to with a will to scour the house, and to bring away all
that was good to eat. And being a little vexed herein (for the Badcocks
were not a rich couple) and finding no more than bacon, and eggs, and
cheese, and little items, and nothing to drink but water; in a word,
their taste being offended, they came back, to the kitchen, and stamped;
and there was the baby lying.
By evil luck, this child began to squeal about his mother, having been
petted hitherto, and wont to get all he wanted, by raising his voice but
a little. Now the mark of the floor was upon his head, as the maid (who
had stolen to look at him, when the rough men were swearing upstairs)
gave evidence. And she put a dish-cloth under his head, and kissed him,
and ran away again. Her name was Honour Jose, and she meant what was
right by her master and mistress; but could not help being frightened.
And many women have blamed her, as I think unduly, for her mode of
forsaking baby so. If it had been her own baby, instinct rather than
reason might have had the day with her; but the child being born of her
mistress, she wished him good luck, and left him, as the fierce men came
downstairs. And being alarmed by their power of language (because they
had found no silver), she crept away in a breathless hurry, and afraid
how her breath might come back to her. For oftentime she had hiccoughs.
While this good maid was in the oven, by side of back-kitchen fireplace,
with a faggot of wood drawn over her, and lying so that her own heart
beat worse than if she were baking; the men (as I said before) came
downstairs, and stamped around the baby.
“Rowland, is the bacon good?” one of them asked with an oath or two; “it
is too bad of Carver to go off with the only prize, and leave us in a
starving cottage; and not enough to eat for two of us. Fetch down the
staves of the rack, my boy. What was farmer to have for supper?”
“Naught but an onion or two, and a loaf and a rasher of rusty bacon.
These poor devils live so badly, they are not worth robbing.”
“No game! Then let us have a game of loriot with the baby! It will
be the best thing that could befall a lusty infant heretic. Ride a
cock-horse to Banbury Cross. Bye, bye, baby Bunting; toss him up, and
let me see if my wrist be steady.”
The cruelty of this man is a thing it makes me sick to speak of; enough
that when the poor baby fell (without attempt at cry or scream, thinking
it part of his usual play, when they tossed him up, to come down again),
the maid in the oven of the back-kitchen, not being any door between,
heard them say as follows,--
“If any man asketh who killed thee,
Say 'twas the Doones of Bagworthy.'*
* Always pronounced “Badgery.”
Now I think that when we heard this story, and poor Kit Badcock came all
around, in a sort of half-crazy manner, not looking up at any one,
but dropping his eyes, and asking whether we thought he had been
well-treated, and seeming void of regard for life, if this were all the
style of it; then having known him a lusty man, and a fine singer in an
ale-house, and much inclined to lay down the law, as show a high hand
about women, I really think that it moved us more than if he had gone
about ranting, and raving, and vowing revenge upon every one.
CHAPTER LXX
COMPELLED TO VOLUNTEER
There had been some trouble in our own home during the previous autumn,
while yet I was in London. For certain noted fugitives from the army
of King Monmouth (which he himself had deserted, in a low and currish
manner), having failed to obtain free shipment from the coast near
Watersmouth, had returned into the wilds of Exmoor, trusting to
lurk, and be comforted among the common people. Neither were they