Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
up in a knot behind, but some would fall over her shoulders; and the
dancing of the light was sweet to see through a man's eyelashes. There
never was a face that showed the light or the shadow of feeling, as if
the heart were sun to it, more than our dear Annie's did. To look at her
carefully, you might think that she was not dwelling on anything; and
then she would know you were looking at her, and those eyes would tell
all about it. God knows that I try to be simple enough, to keep to His
meaning in me, and not make the worst of His children. Yet often have I
been put to shame, and ready to bite my tongue off, after speaking amiss
of anybody, and letting out my littleness, when suddenly mine eyes have
met the pure soft gaze of Annie.
As for the Doones, they were thriving still, and no one to come against
them; except indeed by word of mouth, to which they lent no heed
whatever. Complaints were made from time to time, both in high and low
quarters (as the rank might be of the people robbed), and once or twice
in the highest of all, to wit, the King himself. But His Majesty made
a good joke about it (not meaning any harm, I doubt), and was so much
pleased with himself thereupon, that he quite forgave the mischief.
Moreover, the main authorities were a long way off; and the Chancellor
had no cattle on Exmoor; and as for my lord the Chief Justice, some
rogue had taken his silver spoons; whereupon his lordship swore that
never another man would he hang until he had that one by the neck.
Therefore the Doones went on as they listed, and none saw fit to meddle
with them. For the only man who would have dared to come to close
quarters with them, that is to say Tom Faggus, himself was a quarry for
the law, if ever it should be unhooded. Moreover, he had transferred his
business to the neighbourhood of Wantage, in the county of Berks, where
he found the climate drier, also good downs and commons excellent for
galloping, and richer yeomen than ours be, and better roads to rob them
on.
Some folk, who had wiser attended to their own affairs, said that I
(being sizeable now, and able to shoot not badly) ought to do something
against those Doones, and show what I was made of. But for a time I was
very bashful, shaking when called upon suddenly, and blushing as deep as
a maiden; for my strength was not come upon me, and mayhap I had grown
in front of it. And again, though I loved my father still, and would
fire at a word about him, I saw not how it would do him good for me to
harm his injurers. Some races are of revengeful kind, and will for years
pursue their wrong, and sacrifice this world and the next for a
moment's foul satisfaction, but methinks this comes of some black blood,
perverted and never purified. And I doubt but men of true English birth
are stouter than so to be twisted, though some of the women may take
that turn, if their own life runs unkindly.
Let that pass--I am never good at talking of things beyond me. All I
know is, that if I had met the Doone who had killed my father, I would
gladly have thrashed him black and blue, supposing I were able; but
would never have fired a gun at him, unless he began that game with me,
or fell upon more of my family, or were violent among women. And to
do them justice, my mother and Annie were equally kind and gentle, but
Eliza would flame and grow white with contempt, and not trust herself to
speak to us.
Now a strange thing came to pass that winter, when I was twenty-one
years old, a very strange thing, which affrighted the rest, and made me
feel uncomfortable. Not that there was anything in it, to do harm to any
one, only that none could explain it, except by attributing it to the
devil. The weather was very mild and open, and scarcely any snow fell;
at any rate, none lay on the ground, even for an hour, in the highest
part of Exmoor; a thing which I knew not before nor since, as long as
I can remember. But the nights were wonderfully dark, as though with no
stars in the heaven; and all day long the mists were rolling upon
the hills and down them, as if the whole land were a wash-house. The
moorland was full of snipes and teal, and curlews flying and crying, and
lapwings flapping heavily, and ravens hovering round dead sheep; yet no
redshanks nor dottrell, and scarce any golden plovers (of which we have
great store generally) but vast lonely birds, that cried at night, and
moved the whole air with their pinions; yet no man ever saw them. It was
dismal as well as dangerous now for any man to go fowling (which of late
I loved much in the winter) because the fog would come down so thick
that the pan of the gun was reeking, and the fowl out of sight ere the
powder kindled, and then the sound of the piece was so dead, that the
shooter feared harm, and glanced over his shoulder. But the danger of
course was far less in this than in losing of the track, and falling
into the mires, or over the brim of a precipice.
Nevertheless, I must needs go out, being young and very stupid, and
feared of being afraid; a fear which a wise man has long cast by, having
learned of the manifold dangers which ever and ever encompass us. And
beside this folly and wildness of youth, perchance there was something,
I know not what, of the joy we have in uncertainty. Mother, in fear
of my missing home--though for that matter, I could smell supper, when
hungry, through a hundred land-yards of fog--my dear mother, who thought
of me ten times for one thought about herself, gave orders to ring the
great sheep-bell, which hung above the pigeon-cote, every ten minutes of
the day, and the sound came through the plaits of fog, and I was vexed
about it, like the letters of a copy-book. It reminded me, too, of
Blundell's bell, and the grief to go into school again.
But during those two months of fog (for we had it all the winter), the
saddest and the heaviest thing was to stand beside the sea. To be upon
the beach yourself, and see the long waves coming in; to know that they
are long waves, but only see a piece of them; and to hear them lifting
roundly, swelling over smooth green rocks, plashing down in the hollow
corners, but bearing on all the same as ever, soft and sleek and
sorrowful, till their little noise is over.
One old man who lived at Lynmouth, seeking to be buried there, having
been more than half over the world, though shy to speak about it, and
fain to come home to his birthplace, this old Will Watcombe (who dwelt
by the water) said that our strange winter arose from a thing he called
the “Gulf-stream”, rushing up Channel suddenly. He said it was hot
water, almost fit for a man to shave with, and it threw all our cold
water out, and ruined the fish and the spawning-time, and a cold spring
would come after it. I was fond of going to Lynmouth on Sunday to hear
this old man talk, for sometimes he would discourse with me, when nobody
else could move him. He told me that this powerful flood set in upon our
west so hard sometimes once in ten years, and sometimes not for fifty,
and the Lord only knew the sense of it; but that when it came, therewith
came warmth and clouds, and fog, and moisture, and nuts, and fruit, and
even shells; and all the tides were thrown abroad. As for nuts he winked
awhile, and chewed a piece of tobacco; yet did I not comprehend him.
Only afterwards I heard that nuts with liquid kernels came, travelling
on the Gulf stream; for never before was known so much foreign cordial
landed upon our coast, floating ashore by mistake in the fog, and (what
with the tossing and the mist) too much astray to learn its duty.
Folk, who are ever too prone to talk, said that Will Watcombe himself
knew better than anybody else about this drift of the Gulf-stream,
and the places where it would come ashore, and the caves that took the
in-draught. But De Whichehalse, our great magistrate, certified that
there was no proof of unlawful importation; neither good cause to
suspect it, at a time of Christian charity. And we knew that it was a
foul thing for some quarrymen to say that night after night they had
been digging a new cellar at Ley Manor to hold the little marks of
respect found in the caverns at high-water weed. Let that be, it is none
of my business to speak evil of dignities; duly we common people joked
of the “Gulp-stream,” as we called it.
But the thing which astonished and frightened us so, was not, I do
assure you, the landing of foreign spirits, nor the loom of a lugger at
twilight in the gloom of the winter moonrise. That which made us crouch
in by the fire, or draw the bed-clothes over us, and try to think of
something else, was a strange mysterious sound.
At grey of night, when the sun was gone, and no red in the west
remained, neither were stars forthcoming, suddenly a wailing voice rose
along the valleys, and a sound in the air, as of people running. It
mattered not whether you stood on the moor, or crouched behind rocks
away from it, or down among reedy places; all as one the sound would
come, now from the heart of the earth beneath, now overhead bearing
down on you. And then there was rushing of something by, and melancholy
laughter, and the hair of a man would stand on end before he could
reason properly.
God, in His mercy, knows that I am stupid enough for any man, and very
slow of impression, nor ever could bring myself to believe that our
Father would let the evil one get the upper hand of us. But when I had
heard that sound three times, in the lonely gloom of the evening fog,
and the cold that followed the lines of air, I was loath to go abroad by
night, even so far as the stables, and loved the light of a candle more,
and the glow of a fire with company.
There were many stories about it, of course, all over the breadth of the
moorland. But those who had heard it most often declared that it must be
the wail of a woman's voice, and the rustle of robes fleeing horribly,
and fiends in the fog going after her. To that, however, I paid no heed,
when anybody was with me; only we drew more close together, and barred
the doors at sunset.
CHAPTER XIII
MASTER HUCKABACK COMES IN
Mr. Reuben Huckaback, whom many good folk in Dulverton will remember
long after my time, was my mother's uncle, being indeed her mother's
brother. He owned the very best shop in the town, and did a fine
trade in soft ware, especially when the pack-horses came safely in at
Christmas-time. And we being now his only kindred (except indeed his
granddaughter, little Ruth Huckaback, of whom no one took any heed),
mother beheld it a Christian duty to keep as well as could be with him,
both for love of a nice old man, and for the sake of her children. And
truly, the Dulverton people said that he was the richest man in their
town, and could buy up half the county armigers; 'ay, and if it came to
that, they would like to see any man, at Bampton, or at Wivelscombe,
and you might say almost Taunton, who could put down golden Jacobus and
Carolus against him.
Now this old gentleman--so they called him, according to his money;
and I have seen many worse ones, more violent and less wealthy--he must
needs come away that time to spend the New Year-tide with us; not that
he wanted to do it (for he hated country-life), but because my mother
pressing, as mothers will do to a good bag of gold, had wrung a promise
from him; and the only boast of his life was that never yet had he
broken his word, at least since he opened business.
Now it pleased God that Christmas-time (in spite of all the fogs) to
send safe home to Dulverton, and what was more, with their loads quite
safe, a goodly string of packhorses. Nearly half of their charge was