Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
boot across the basin, and crushed it. “Not another drop shall they have
from you. Is Annie such a fool as that? And Lizzie, like a zany, at her
books! And killing her brother, between them!”
I was surprised to see Ruth excited; her character being so calm and
quiet. And I tried to soothe her with my feeble hand, as now she knelt
before me.
“Dear cousin, the doctor must know best. Annie says so, every day. What
has he been brought up for?”
“Brought up for slaying and murdering. Twenty doctors killed King
Charles, in spite of all the women. Will you leave it to me, John? I
have a little will of my own; and I am not afraid of doctors. Will you
leave it to me, dear John? I have saved your Lorna's life. And now I
will save yours; which is a far, far easier business.”
“You have saved my Lorna's life! What do you mean by talking so?”
“Only what I say, Cousin John. Though perhaps I overprize my work. But
at any rate she says so.”
“I do not understand,” I said, falling back with bewilderment; “all
women are such liars.”
“Have you ever known me tell a lie?” Ruth in great indignation--more
feigned, I doubt, than real--“your mother may tell a story, now and then
when she feels it right; and so may both your sisters. But so you cannot
do, John Ridd; and no more than you can I do it.”
If ever there was virtuous truth in the eyes of any woman, it was now
in Ruth Huckaback's: and my brain began very slowly to move, the heart
being almost torpid from perpetual loss of blood.
“I do not understand,” was all I could say for a very long time.
“Will you understand, if I show you Lorna? I have feared to do it, for
the sake of you both. But now Lorna is well enough, if you think that
you are, Cousin John. Surely you will understand, when you see your
wife.”
Following her, to the very utmost of my mind and heart, I felt that all
she said was truth; and yet I could not make it out. And in her last
few words there was such a power of sadness rising through the cover
of gaiety, that I said to myself, half in a dream, “Ruth is very
beautiful.”
Before I had time to listen much for the approach of footsteps, Ruth
came back, and behind her Lorna; coy as if of her bridegroom; and
hanging back with her beauty. Ruth banged the door, and ran away; and
Lorna stood before me.
But she did not stand for an instant, when she saw what I was like. At
the risk of all thick bandages, and upsetting a dozen medicine bottles,
and scattering leeches right and left, she managed to get into my arms,
although they could not hold her. She laid her panting warm young breast
on the place where they meant to bleed me, and she set my pale face up;
and she would not look at me, having greater faith in kissing.
I felt my life come back, and warm; I felt my trust in women flow; I
felt the joys of living now, and the power of doing it. It is not a
moment to describe; who feels can never tell of it. But the rush of
Lorna's tears, and the challenge of my bride's lips, and the throbbing
of my wife's heart (now at last at home on mine), made me feel that the
world was good, and not a thing to be weary of.
Little more have I to tell. The doctor was turned out at once; and
slowly came back my former strength, with a darling wife, and good
victuals. As for Lorna, she never tired of sitting and watching me eat
and eat. And such is her heart that she never tires of being with me
here and there, among the beautiful places, and talking with her arm
around me--so far at least as it can go, though half of mine may go
round her--of the many fears and troubles, dangers and discouragements,
and worst of all the bitter partings, which we used to have, somehow.
There is no need for my farming harder than becomes a man of weight.
Lorna has great stores of money, though we never draw it out, except for
some poor neighbor; unless I find her a sumptuous dress, out of her own
perquisites. And this she always looks upon as a wondrous gift from me;
and kisses me much when she puts it on, and walks like the noble woman
she is. And yet I may never behold it again; for she gets back to her
simple clothes, and I love her the better in them. I believe that she
gives half the grandeur away, and keeps the other half for the children.
As for poor Tom Faggus, every one knows his bitter adventures, when his
pardon was recalled, because of his journey to Sedgemoor. Not a child
in the country, I doubt, but knows far more than I do of Tom's most
desperate doings. The law had ruined him once, he said; and then he had
been too much for the law: and now that a quiet life was his object,
here the base thing came after him. And such was his dread of this
evil spirit, that being caught upon Barnstaple Bridge, with soldiers
at either end of it (yet doubtful about approaching him), he set his
strawberry mare, sweet Winnie, at the left-hand parapet, with a whisper
into her dove-coloured ear. Without a moment's doubt she leaped it, into
the foaming tide, and swam, and landed according to orders. Also his
flight from a public-house (where a trap was set for him, but Winnie
came and broke down the door, and put two men under, and trod on them,)
is as well known as any ballad. It was reported for awhile that poor Tom
had been caught at last, by means of his fondness for liquor, and was
hanged before Taunton Jail; but luckily we knew better. With a good
wife, and a wonderful horse, and all the country attached to him, he
kept the law at a wholesome distance, until it became too much for its
master; and a new king arose. Upon this, Tom sued his pardon afresh; and
Jeremy Stickles, who suited the times, was glad to help him in getting
it, as well as a compensation. Thereafter the good and respectable
Tom lived a godly (though not always sober) life; and brought up his
children to honesty, as the first of all qualifications.
My dear mother was as happy as possibly need be with us; having no
cause for jealousy, as others arose around her. And everybody was well
pleased, when Lizzy came in one day and tossed her bookshelf over, and
declared that she would have Captain Bloxham, and nobody should prevent
her. For that he alone, of all the men she had ever met with, knew good
writing when he saw it, and could spell a word when told. As he had now
succeeded to Captain Stickle's position (Stickles going up the tree),
and had the power of collecting, and of keeping, what he liked, there
was nothing to be said against it; and we hoped that he would pay her
out.
I sent little Ensie to Blundell's school, at my own cost and charges,
having changed his name, for fear of what anyone might do to him. I
called him Ensie Jones; and we got him a commission, and after many
scrapes of spirit, he did great things in the Low Countries. He looks
upon me as his father; and without my leave will not lay claim to the
heritage and title of the Doones, which clearly belong to him.
Ruth Huckaback is not married yet; although upon Uncle Reuben's death
she came into all his property; except, indeed, 2000 pounds, which Uncle
Ben, in his driest manner, bequeathed “to Sir John Ridd, the worshipful
knight, for greasing of the testator's boots.” And he left almost a
mint of money, not from the mine, but from the shop, and the good use of
usury. For the mine had brought in just what it cost, when the vein of
gold ended suddenly; leaving all concerned much older, and some, I fear,
much poorer; but no one utterly ruined, as is the case with most of
them. Ruth herself was his true mine, as upon death-bed he found. I know
a man even worthy of her: and though she is not very young, he loves
her, as I love Lorna. It is my firm conviction, that in the end he
will win her; and I do not mean to dance again, except at dear Ruth's
wedding; if the floor be strong enough.
Of Lorna, of my lifelong darling, of my more and more loved wife, I will
not talk; for it is not seemly that a man should exalt his pride. Year
by year her beauty grows, with the growth of goodness, kindness, and
true happiness--above all with loving. For change, she makes a joke of
this, and plays with it, and laughs at it; and then, when my slow nature
marvels, back she comes to the earnest thing. And if I wish to pay her
out for something very dreadful--as may happen once or twice, when we
become too gladsome--I bring her to forgotten sadness, and to me for
cure of it, by the two words “Lorna Doone.”