Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
for Uncle Reuben, and he knew how to make the most of it. Then having
balanced his debits and credits, and set the writs running against
defaulters, as behoves a good Christian at Christmas-tide, he saddled
his horse, and rode off towards Oare, with a good stout coat upon him,
and leaving Ruth and his head man plenty to do, and little to eat, until
they should see him again.
It had been settled between us that we should expect him soon after noon
on the last day of December. For the Doones being lazy and fond of bed,
as the manner is of dishonest folk, the surest way to escape them was
to travel before they were up and about, to-wit, in the forenoon of
the day. But herein we reckoned without our host: for being in high
festivity, as became good Papists, the robbers were too lazy, it seems,
to take the trouble of going to bed; and forth they rode on the Old
Year-morning, not with any view of business, but purely in search of
mischief.
We had put off our dinner till one o'clock (which to me was a sad
foregoing), and there was to be a brave supper at six of the clock, upon
New Year's-eve; and the singers to come with their lanthorns, and do
it outside the parlour-window, and then have hot cup till their heads
should go round, after making away with the victuals. For although there
was nobody now in our family to be churchwarden of Oare, it was well
admitted that we were the people entitled alone to that dignity; and
though Nicholas Snowe was in office by name, he managed it only by
mother's advice; and a pretty mess he made of it, so that every one
longed for a Ridd again, soon as ever I should be old enough. This
Nicholas Snowe was to come in the evening, with his three tall comely
daughters, strapping girls, and well skilled in the dairy; and the
story was all over the parish, on a stupid conceit of John Fry's, that
I should have been in love with all three, if there had been but one of
them. These Snowes were to come, and come they did, partly because Mr.
Huckaback liked to see fine young maidens, and partly because none but
Nicholas Snowe could smoke a pipe now all around our parts, except of
the very high people, whom we durst never invite. And Uncle Ben, as we
all knew well, was a great hand at his pipe, and would sit for hours
over it, in our warm chimney-corner, and never want to say a word,
unless it were inside him; only he liked to have somebody there over
against him smoking.
Now when I came in, before one o'clock, after seeing to the cattle--for
the day was thicker than ever, and we must keep the cattle close at
home, if we wished to see any more of them--I fully expected to find
Uncle Ben sitting in the fireplace, lifting one cover and then another,
as his favourite manner was, and making sweet mouths over them; for he
loved our bacon rarely, and they had no good leeks at Dulverton; and
he was a man who always would see his business done himself. But there
instead of my finding him with his quaint dry face pulled out at me,
and then shut up sharp not to be cheated--who should run out but Betty
Muxworthy, and poke me with a saucepan lid.
“Get out of that now, Betty,” I said in my politest manner, for really
Betty was now become a great domestic evil. She would have her own
way so, and of all things the most distressful was for a man to try to
reason.
“Zider-press,” cried Betty again, for she thought it a fine joke to call
me that, because of my size, and my hatred of it; “here be a rare get
up, anyhow.”
“A rare good dinner, you mean, Betty. Well, and I have a rare good
appetite.” With that I wanted to go and smell it, and not to stop for
Betty.
“Troost thee for thiccy, Jan Ridd. But thee must keep it bit langer, I
reckon. Her baint coom, Maister Ziderpress. Whatt'e mak of that now?”
“Do you mean to say that Uncle Ben has not arrived yet, Betty?”
“Raived! I knaws nout about that, whuther a hath of noo. Only I tell 'e,
her baint coom. Rackon them Dooneses hath gat 'un.”
And Betty, who hated Uncle Ben, because he never gave her a groat,
and she was not allowed to dine with him, I am sorry to say that
Betty Muxworthy grinned all across, and poked me again with the greasy
saucepan cover. But I misliking so to be treated, strode through the
kitchen indignantly, for Betty behaved to me even now, as if I were only
Eliza.
“Oh, Johnny, Johnny,” my mother cried, running out of the grand
show-parlour, where the case of stuffed birds was, and peacock-feathers,
and the white hare killed by grandfather; “I am so glad you are come at
last. There is something sadly amiss, Johnny.”
Mother had upon her wrists something very wonderful, of the nature of
fal-lal as we say, and for which she had an inborn turn, being of good
draper family, and polished above the yeomanry. Nevertheless I could
never bear it, partly because I felt it to be out of place in our good
farm-house, partly because I hate frippery, partly because it seemed to
me to have nothing to do with father, and partly because I never could
tell the reason of my hating it. And yet the poor soul had put them on,
not to show her hands off (which were above her station) but simply
for her children's sake, because Uncle Ben had given them. But another
thing, I never could bear for man or woman to call me, “Johnny,”
“Jack,” or “John,” I cared not which; and that was honest enough, and no
smallness of me there, I say.
“Well, mother, what is the matter, then?”
“I am sure you need not be angry, Johnny. I only hope it is nothing to
grieve about, instead of being angry. You are very sweet-tempered, I
know, John Ridd, and perhaps a little too sweet at times”--here she
meant the Snowe girls, and I hanged my head--“but what would you say if
the people there”--she never would call them “Doones”--“had gotten your
poor Uncle Reuben, horse, and Sunday coat, and all?”
“Why, mother, I should be sorry for them. He would set up a shop by the
river-side, and come away with all their money.”
“That all you have to say, John! And my dinner done to a very turn, and
the supper all fit to go down, and no worry, only to eat and be done
with it! And all the new plates come from Watchett, with the Watchett
blue upon them, at the risk of the lives of everybody, and the capias
from good Aunt Jane for stuffing a curlew with onion before he begins to
get cold, and make a woodcock of him, and the way to turn the flap over
in the inside of a roasting pig--”
“Well, mother dear, I am very sorry. But let us have our dinner. You
know we promised not to wait for him after one o'clock; and you only
make us hungry. Everything will be spoiled, mother, and what a pity to
think of! After that I will go to seek for him in the thick of the fog,
like a needle in a hay-band. That is to say, unless you think”--for she
looked very grave about it--“unless you really think, mother, that I
ought to go without dinner.”
“Oh no, John, I never thought that, thank God! Bless Him for my
children's appetites; and what is Uncle Ben to them?”
So we made a very good dinner indeed, though wishing that he could have
some of it, and wondering how much to leave for him; and then, as no
sound of his horse had been heard, I set out with my gun to look for
him.
I followed the track on the side of the hill, from the farm-yard, where
the sledd-marks are--for we have no wheels upon Exmoor yet, nor ever
shall, I suppose; though a dunder-headed man tried it last winter, and
broke his axle piteously, and was nigh to break his neck--and after
that I went all along on the ridge of the rabbit-cleve, with the brook
running thin in the bottom; and then down to the Lynn stream and leaped
it, and so up the hill and the moor beyond. The fog hung close all
around me then, when I turned the crest of the highland, and the gorse
both before and behind me looked like a man crouching down in ambush.
But still there was a good cloud of daylight, being scarce three of the
clock yet, and when a lead of red deer came across, I could tell them
from sheep even now. I was half inclined to shoot at them, for the
children did love venison; but they drooped their heads so, and looked
so faithful, that it seemed hard measure to do it. If one of them had
bolted away, no doubt I had let go at him.
After that I kept on the track, trudging very stoutly, for nigh upon
three miles, and my beard (now beginning to grow at some length) was
full of great drops and prickly, whereat I was very proud. I had not so
much as a dog with me, and the place was unkind and lonesome, and the
rolling clouds very desolate; and now if a wild sheep ran across he was
scared at me as an enemy; and I for my part could not tell the meaning
of the marks on him. We called all this part Gibbet-moor, not being in
our parish; but though there were gibbets enough upon it, most part
of the bodies was gone for the value of the chains, they said, and the
teaching of young chirurgeons. But of all this I had little fear, being
no more a schoolboy now, but a youth well-acquaint with Exmoor, and
the wise art of the sign-posts, whereby a man, who barred the road, now
opens it up both ways with his finger-bones, so far as rogues allow him.
My carbine was loaded and freshly primed, and I knew myself to be
even now a match in strength for any two men of the size around our
neighbourhood, except in the Glen Doone. “Girt Jan Ridd,” I was called
already, and folk grew feared to wrestle with me; though I was tired of
hearing about it, and often longed to be smaller. And most of all upon
Sundays, when I had to make way up our little church, and the maidens
tittered at me.
The soft white mist came thicker around me, as the evening fell; and the
peat ricks here and there, and the furze-hucks of the summer-time, were
all out of shape in the twist of it. By-and-by, I began to doubt where
I was, or how come there, not having seen a gibbet lately; and then I
heard the draught of the wind up a hollow place with rocks to it; and
for the first time fear broke out (like cold sweat) upon me. And yet I
knew what a fool I was, to fear nothing but a sound! But when I stopped
to listen, there was no sound, more than a beating noise, and that was
all inside me. Therefore I went on again, making company of myself, and
keeping my gun quite ready.
Now when I came to an unknown place, where a stone was set up endwise,
with a faint red cross upon it, and a polish from some conflict, I
gathered my courage to stop and think, having sped on the way too hotly.
Against that stone I set my gun, trying my spirit to leave it so,
but keeping with half a hand for it; and then what to do next was the
wonder. As for finding Uncle Ben that was his own business, or at any
rate his executor's; first I had to find myself, and plentifully would
thank God to find myself at home again, for the sake of all our family.
The volumes of the mist came rolling at me (like great logs of wood,
pillowed out with sleepiness), and between them there was nothing more
than waiting for the next one. Then everything went out of sight, and
glad was I of the stone behind me, and view of mine own shoes. Then a
distant noise went by me, as of many horses galloping, and in my fright
I set my gun and said, “God send something to shoot at.” Yet nothing
came, and my gun fell back, without my will to lower it.
But presently, while I was thinking “What a fool I am!” arose as if from
below my feet, so that the great stone trembled, that long, lamenting
lonesome sound, as of an evil spirit not knowing what to do with it. For
the moment I stood like a root, without either hand or foot to help me,
and the hair of my head began to crawl, lifting my hat, as a snail lifts
his house; and my heart like a shuttle went to and fro. But finding