Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
was urgent upon me) to eat my share of victuals, and cuff a man for
laziness, and see that a ploughshare made no leaps, and sleep of a night
without dreaming. And my mother half-believing, in her fondness and
affection, that what the parish said was true about a mad dog having
bitten me, and yet arguing that it must be false (because God would have
prevented him), my mother gave me little rest, when I was in the room
with her. Not that she worried me with questions, nor openly regarded
me with any unusual meaning, but that I knew she was watching slyly
whenever I took a spoon up; and every hour or so she managed to place a
pan of water by me, quite as if by accident, and sometimes even to spill
a little upon my shoe or coat-sleeve. But Betty Muxworthy was worst;
for, having no fear about my health, she made a villainous joke of it,
and used to rush into the kitchen, barking like a dog, and panting,
exclaiming that I had bitten her, and justice she would have on me, if
it cost her a twelvemonth's wages. And she always took care to do this
thing just when I had crossed my legs in the corner after supper, and
leaned my head against the oven, to begin to think of Lorna.
However, in all things there is comfort, if we do not look too hard
for it; and now I had much satisfaction, in my uncouth state, from
labouring, by the hour together, at the hedging and the ditching,
meeting the bitter wind face to face, feeling my strength increase, and
hoping that some one would be proud of it. In the rustling rush of
every gust, in the graceful bend of every tree, even in the “lords and
ladies,” clumped in the scoops of the hedgerow, and most of all in the
soft primrose, wrung by the wind, but stealing back, and smiling when
the wrath was passed--in all of these, and many others there was aching
ecstasy, delicious pang of Lorna.
But however cold the weather was, and however hard the wind blew, one
thing (more than all the rest) worried and perplexed me. This was, that
I could not settle, turn and twist as I might, how soon I ought to go
again upon a visit to Glen Doone. For I liked not at all the falseness
of it (albeit against murderers), the creeping out of sight, and hiding,
and feeling as a spy might. And even more than this. I feared how Lorna
might regard it; whether I might seem to her a prone and blunt intruder,
a country youth not skilled in manners, as among the quality, even when
they rob us. For I was not sure myself, but that it might be very bad
manners to go again too early without an invitation; and my hands and
face were chapped so badly by the bitter wind, that Lorna might count
them unsightly things, and wish to see no more of them.
However, I could not bring myself to consult any one upon this point, at
least in our own neighbourhood, nor even to speak of it near home. But
the east wind holding through the month, my hands and face growing worse
and worse, and it having occurred to me by this time that possibly Lorna
might have chaps, if she came abroad at all, and so might like to talk
about them and show her little hands to me, I resolved to take another
opinion, so far as might be upon this matter, without disclosing the
circumstances.
Now the wisest person in all our parts was reckoned to be a certain wise
woman, well known all over Exmoor by the name of Mother Melldrum. Her
real name was Maple Durham, as I learned long afterwards; and she came
of an ancient family, but neither of Devon nor Somerset. Nevertheless
she was quite at home with our proper modes of divination; and knowing
that we liked them best--as each man does his own religion--she would
always practise them for the people of the country. And all the while,
she would let us know that she kept a higher and nobler mode for those
who looked down upon this one, not having been bred and born to it.
Mother Melldrum had two houses, or rather she had none at all, but two
homes wherein to find her, according to the time of year. In summer she
lived in a pleasant cave, facing the cool side of the hill, far inland
near Hawkridge and close above Tarr-steps, a wonderful crossing of Barle
river, made (as everybody knows) by Satan, for a wager. But throughout
the winter, she found sea-air agreeable, and a place where things could
be had on credit, and more occasion of talking. Not but what she could
have credit (for every one was afraid of her) in the neighbourhood of
Tarr-steps; only there was no one handy owning things worth taking.
Therefore, at the fall of the leaf, when the woods grew damp and
irksome, the wise woman always set her face to the warmer cliffs of the
Channel; where shelter was, and dry fern bedding, and folk to be seen in
the distance, from a bank upon which the sun shone. And there, as I
knew from our John Fry (who had been to her about rheumatism, and sheep
possessed with an evil spirit, and warts on the hand of his son, young
John), any one who chose might find her, towards the close of a winter
day, gathering sticks and brown fern for fuel, and talking to herself
the while, in a hollow stretch behind the cliffs; which foreigners, who
come and go without seeing much of Exmoor, have called the Valley of
Rocks.
This valley, or goyal, as we term it, being small for a valley, lies to
the west of Linton, about a mile from the town perhaps, and away towards
Ley Manor. Our homefolk always call it the Danes, or the Denes, which is
no more, they tell me, than a hollow place, even as the word “den” is.
However, let that pass, for I know very little about it; but the place
itself is a pretty one, though nothing to frighten anybody, unless he
hath lived in a gallipot. It is a green rough-sided hollow, bending
at the middle, touched with stone at either crest, and dotted here and
there with slabs in and out the brambles. On the right hand is an upward
crag, called by some the Castle, easy enough to scale, and giving great
view of the Channel. Facing this, from the inland side and the elbow of
the valley, a queer old pile of rock arises, bold behind one another,
and quite enough to affright a man, if it only were ten times larger.
This is called the Devil's Cheese-ring, or the Devil's Cheese-knife,
which mean the same thing, as our fathers were used to eat their cheese
from a scoop; and perhaps in old time the upmost rock (which has fallen
away since I knew it) was like to such an implement, if Satan eat cheese
untoasted.
But all the middle of this valley was a place to rest in; to sit and
think that troubles were not, if we would not make them. To know the sea
outside the hills, but never to behold it; only by the sound of waves to
pity sailors labouring. Then to watch the sheltered sun, coming warmly
round the turn, like a guest expected, full of gentle glow and gladness,
casting shadow far away as a thing to hug itself, and awakening life
from dew, and hope from every spreading bud. And then to fall asleep and
dream that the fern was all asparagus.
Alas, I was too young in those days much to care for creature comforts,
or to let pure palate have things that would improve it. Anything went
down with me, as it does with most of us. Too late we know the good from
bad; the knowledge is no pleasure then; being memory's medicine rather
than the wine of hope.
Now Mother Melldrum kept her winter in this vale of rocks, sheltering
from the wind and rain within the Devil's Cheese-ring, which added
greatly to her fame because all else, for miles around, were afraid to
go near it after dark, or even on a gloomy day. Under eaves of lichened
rock she had a winding passage, which none that ever I knew of durst
enter but herself. And to this place I went to seek her, in spite of all
misgivings, upon a Sunday in Lenten season, when the sheep were folded.
Our parson (as if he had known my intent) had preached a beautiful
sermon about the Witch of Endor, and the perils of them that meddle
wantonly with the unseen Powers; and therein he referred especially to
the strange noise in the neighbourhood, and upbraided us for want of
faith, and many other backslidings. We listened to him very earnestly,
for we like to hear from our betters about things that are beyond us,
and to be roused up now and then, like sheep with a good dog after them,
who can pull some wool without biting. Nevertheless we could not see how
our want of faith could have made that noise, especially at night time,
notwithstanding which we believed it, and hoped to do a little better.
And so we all came home from church; and most of the people dined with
us, as they always do on Sundays, because of the distance to go home,
with only words inside them. The parson, who always sat next to mother,
was afraid that he might have vexed us, and would not have the best
piece of meat, according to his custom. But soon we put him at his ease,
and showed him we were proud of him; and then he made no more to do, but
accepted the best of the sirloin.
CHAPTER XVIII
WITCHERY LEADS TO WITCHCRAFT
Although wellnigh the end of March, the wind blew wild and piercing,
as I went on foot that afternoon to Mother Melldrum's dwelling. It was
safer not to take a horse, lest (if anything vexed her) she should put
a spell upon him; as had been done to Farmer Snowe's stable by the wise
woman of Simonsbath.
The sun was low on the edge of the hills by the time I entered the
valley, for I could not leave home till the cattle were tended, and
the distance was seven miles or more. The shadows of rocks fell far and
deep, and the brown dead fern was fluttering, and brambles with their
sere leaves hanging, swayed their tatters to and fro, with a red look on
them. In patches underneath the crags, a few wild goats were browsing;
then they tossed their horns, and fled, and leaped on ledges, and stared
at me. Moreover, the sound of the sea came up, and went the length of
the valley, and there it lapped on a butt of rocks, and murmured like a
shell.
Taking things one with another, and feeling all the lonesomeness, and
having no stick with me, I was much inclined to go briskly back,
and come at a better season. And when I beheld a tall grey shape, of
something or another, moving at the lower end of the valley, where the
shade was, it gave me such a stroke of fear, after many others, that my
thumb which lay in mother's Bible (brought in my big pocket for the sake
of safety) shook so much that it came out, and I could not get it in
again. “This serves me right,” I said to myself, “for tampering with
Beelzebub. Oh that I had listened to parson!”
And thereupon I struck aside; not liking to run away quite, as some
people might call it; but seeking to look like a wanderer who was come
to see the valley, and had seen almost enough of it. Herein I should
have succeeded, and gone home, and then been angry at my want of
courage, but that on the very turn and bending of my footsteps, the
woman in the distance lifted up her staff to me, so that I was bound to
stop.
And now, being brought face to face, by the will of God (as one might
say) with anything that might come of it, I kept myself quite straight
and stiff, and thrust away all white feather, trusting in my Bible
still, hoping that it would protect me, though I had disobeyed it. But
upon that remembrance, my conscience took me by the leg, so that I could
not go forward.
All this while, the fearful woman was coming near and more near to me;
and I was glad to sit down on a rock because my knees were shaking so. I
tried to think of many things, but none of them would come to me; and I
could not take my eyes away, though I prayed God to be near me.