Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
When the little boy came back with the bluebells, which he had managed
to find--as children always do find flowers, when older eyes see
none--the only sign of his father left was a dark brown bubble, upon a
newly formed patch of blackness. But to the center of its pulpy gorge
the greedy slough was heaving, and sullenly grinding its weltering jaws
among the flags and the sedges.
With pain, and ache, both of mind and body, and shame at my own fury, I
heavily mounted my horse again, and, looked down at the innocent Ensie.
Would this playful, loving child grow up like his cruel father, and end
a godless life of hatred with a death of violence? He lifted his noble
forehead towards me, as if to answer, “Nay, I will not”: but the words
he spoke were these:--
“Don,”--for he could never say “John”--“oh, Don, I am so glad that nasty
naughty man is gone away. Take me home, Don. Take me home.”
It has been said of the wicked, “not even their own children love them.”
And I could easily believe that Carver Doone's cold-hearted ways had
scared from him even his favorite child. No man would I call truly
wicked, unless his heart be cold.
It hurt me, more than I can tell, even through all other grief, to take
into my arms the child of the man just slain by me. The feeling was a
foolish one, and a wrong one, as the thing has been--for I would fain
have saved that man, after he was conquered--nevertheless my arms went
coldly round that little fellow; neither would they have gone at all,
if there had been any help for it. But I could not leave him there, till
some one else might fetch him; on account of the cruel slough, and the
ravens which had come hovering over the dead horse; neither could I,
with my wound, tie him on my horse and walk.
For now I had spent a great deal of blood, and was rather faint and
weary. And it was lucky for me that Kickums had lost spirit, like his
master, and went home as mildly as a lamb. For, when we came towards the
farm, I seemed to be riding in a dream almost; and the voices both of
man and women (who had hurried forth upon my track), as they met me,
seemed to wander from a distant muffling cloud. Only the thought of
Lorna's death, like a heavy knell, was tolling in the belfry of my
brain.
When we came to the stable door, I rather fell from my horse than got
off; and John Fry, with a look of wonder took Kickum's head, and led
him in. Into the old farmhouse I tottered, like a weanling child, with
mother in her common clothes, helping me along, yet fearing, except by
stealth, to look at me.
“I have killed him,” was all I said; “even as he killed Lorna. Now let
me see my wife, mother. She belongs to me none the less, though dead.”
“You cannot see her now, dear John,” said Ruth Huckaback, coming
forward; since no one else had the courage. “Annie is with her now,
John.”
“What has that to do with it? Let me see my dead one; and pray myself to
die.”
All the women fell away, and whispered, and looked at me, with side
glances, and some sobbing; for my face was hard as flint. Ruth alone
stood by me, and dropped her eyes, and trembled. Then one little hand
of hers stole into my great shaking palm, and the other was laid on
my tattered coat: yet with her clothes she shunned my blood, while she
whispered gently,--
“John, she is not your dead one. She may even be your living one yet,
your wife, your home, and your happiness. But you must not see her now.”
“Is there any chance for her? For me, I mean; for me, I mean?”
“God in heaven knows, dear John. But the sight of you, and in this sad
plight, would be certain death to her. Now come first, and be healed
yourself.”
I obeyed her, like a child, whispering only as I went, for none but
myself knew her goodness--“Almighty God will bless you, darling, for the
good you are doing now.”
Tenfold, ay and a thousandfold, I prayed and I believed it, when I came
to know the truth. If it had not been for this little maid, Lorna must
have died at once, as in my arms she lay for dead, from the dastard and
murderous cruelty. But the moment I left her Ruth came forward and took
the command of every one, in right of her firmness and readiness.
She made them bear her home at once upon the door of the pulpit, with
the cushion under the drooping head. With her own little hands she cut
off, as tenderly as a pear is peeled, the bridal-dress, so steeped and
stained, and then with her dainty transparent fingers (no larger than a
pencil) she probed the vile wound in the side, and fetched the reeking
bullet forth; and then with the coldest water stanched the flowing of
the life-blood. All this while my darling lay insensible, and white as
death; and needed nothing but her maiden shroud.
But Ruth still sponged the poor side and forehead, and watched the long
eyelashes flat upon the marble cheek; and laid her pure face on the
faint heart, and bade them fetch her Spanish wine. Then she parted the
pearly teeth (feebly clenched on the hovering breath), and poured in
wine from a christening spoon, and raised the graceful neck and breast,
and stroked the delicate throat, and waited; and then poured in a little
more.
Annie all the while looked on with horror and amazement, counting
herself no second-rate nurse, and this as against all theory. But the
quiet lifting of Ruth's hand, and one glance from her dark bright eyes,
told Annie just to stand away, and not intercept the air so. And at the
very moment when all the rest had settled that Ruth was a simple idiot,
but could not harm the dead much, a little flutter in the throat,
followed by a short low sigh, made them pause, and look and hope.
For hours, however, and days, she lay at the very verge of death,
kept alive by nothing but the care, the skill, the tenderness, and the
perpetual watchfulness of Ruth. Luckily Annie was not there very often,
so as to meddle; for kind and clever nurse as she was, she must have
done more harm than good. But my broken rib, which was set by a doctor,
who chanced to be at the wedding, was allotted to Annie's care; and
great inflammation ensuing, it was quite enough to content her. This
doctor had pronounced poor Lorna dead; wherefore Ruth refused most
firmly to have aught to do with him. She took the whole case on herself;
and with God's help she bore it through.
Now whether it were the light and brightness of my Lorna's nature; or
the freedom from anxiety--for she knew not of my hurt;--or, as some
people said, her birthright among wounds and violence, or her manner of
not drinking beer--I leave that doctor to determine who pronounced her
dead. But anyhow, one thing is certain; sure as stars of hope above us;
Lorna recovered, long ere I did.
For the grief was on me still of having lost my love and lover at the
moment she was mine. With the power of fate upon me, and the black
cauldron of the wizard's death boiling in my heated brain, I had
no faith in the tales they told. I believed that Lorna was in the
churchyard, while these rogues were lying to me. For with strength of
blood like mine, and power of heart behind it, a broken bone must burn
itself.
Mine went hard with fires of pain, being of such size and thickness; and
I was ashamed of him for breaking by reason of a pistol-ball, and the
mere hug of a man. And it fetched me down in conceit of strength; so
that I was careful afterwards.
All this was a lesson to me. All this made me very humble; illness being
a thing, as yet, altogether unknown to me. Not that I cried small, or
skulked, or feared the death which some foretold; shaking their heads
about mortification, and a green appearance. Only that I seemed quite
fit to go to heaven, and Lorna. For in my sick distracted mind (stirred
with many tossings), like the bead in the spread of frog-spawn carried
by the current, hung the black and central essence of my future life. A
life without Lorna; a tadpole life. All stupid head; and no body.
Many men may like such life; anchorites, fakirs, high-priests, and so
on; but to my mind, it is not the native thing God meant for us. My
dearest mother was a show, with crying and with fretting. The Doones,
as she thought, were born to destroy us. Scarce had she come to some
liveliness (though sprinkled with tears, every now and then) after her
great bereavement, and ten years' time to dwell on it--when lo, here was
her husband's son, the pet child of her own good John, murdered like his
father! Well, the ways of God were wonderful!
So they were, and so they are; and so they ever will be. Let us debate
them as we will, our ways are His, and much the same; only second-hand
from Him. And I expected something from Him, even in my worst of times,
knowing that I had done my best.
This is not edifying talk--as our Nonconformist parson says, when he can
get no more to drink--therefore let me only tell what became of Lorna.
One day, I was sitting in my bedroom, for I could not get downstairs,
and there was no one strong enough to carry me, even if I would have
allowed it.
Though it cost me sore trouble and weariness, I had put on all my Sunday
clothes, out of respect for the doctor, who was coming to bleed me again
(as he always did twice a week); and it struck me that he had seemed
hurt in his mind, because I wore my worst clothes to be bled in--for lie
in bed I would not, after six o'clock; and even that was great laziness.
I looked at my right hand, whose grasp had been like that of a
blacksmith's vice; and it seemed to myself impossible that this could
be John Ridd's. The great frame of the hand was there, as well as the
muscles, standing forth like the guttering of a candle, and the broad
blue veins, going up the back, and crossing every finger. But as
for colour, even Lorna's could scarcely have been whiter; and as for
strength, little Ensie Doone might have come and held it fast. I laughed
as I tried in vain to lift the basin set for bleeding me.
Then I thought of all the lovely things going on out-of-doors just now,
concerning which the drowsy song of the bees came to me. These must
be among the thyme, by the sound of their great content. Therefore the
roses must be in blossom, and the woodbine, and clove-gilly-flower; the
cherries on the wall must be turning red, the yellow Sally must be on
the brook, wheat must be callow with quavering bloom, and the early
meadows swathed with hay.
Yet here was I, a helpless creature quite unfit to stir among them,
gifted with no sight, no scent of all the changes that move our love,
and lead our hearts, from month to month, along the quiet path of life.
And what was worse, I had no hope of caring ever for them more.
Presently a little knock sounded through my gloomy room, and supposing
it to be the doctor, I tried to rise and make my bow. But to my surprise
it was little Ruth, who had never once come to visit me, since I
was placed under the doctor's hands. Ruth was dressed so gaily, with
rosettes, and flowers, and what not, that I was sorry for her bad
manners; and thought she was come to conquer me, now that Lorna was done
with.
Ruth ran towards me with sparkling eyes, being rather short of sight;
then suddenly she stopped, and I saw entire amazement in her face.
“Can you receive visitors, Cousin Ridd?--why, they never told me of
this!” she cried: “I knew that you were weak, dear John; but not that
you were dying. Whatever is that basin for?”
“I have no intention of dying, Ruth; and I like not to talk about it.
But that basin, if you must know, is for the doctor's purpose.”
“What, do you mean bleeding you? You poor weak cousin! Is it possible
that he does that still?”
“Twice a week for the last six weeks, dear. Nothing else has kept me
alive.”
“Nothing else has killed you, nearly. There!” and she set her little