Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
But when she was come so nigh to me that I could descry her features,
there was something in her countenance that made me not dislike her. She
looked as if she had been visited by many troubles, and had felt them
one by one, yet held enough of kindly nature still to grieve for others.
Long white hair, on either side, was falling down below her chin; and
through her wrinkles clear bright eyes seemed to spread themselves upon
me. Though I had plenty of time to think, I was taken by surprise no
less, and unable to say anything; yet eager to hear the silence broken,
and longing for a noise or two.
“Thou art not come to me,” she said, looking through my simple face, as
if it were but glass, “to be struck for bone-shave, nor to be blessed
for barn-gun. Give me forth thy hand, John Ridd; and tell why thou art
come to me.”
But I was so much amazed at her knowing my name and all about me, that I
feared to place my hand in her power, or even my tongue by speaking.
“Have no fear of me, my son; I have no gift to harm thee; and if I had,
it should be idle. Now, if thou hast any wit, tell me why I love thee.”
“I never had any wit, mother,” I answered in our Devonshire way; “and
never set eyes on thee before, to the furthest of my knowledge.”
“And yet I know thee as well, John, as if thou wert my grandson.
Remember you the old Oare oak, and the bog at the head of Exe, and the
child who would have died there, but for thy strength and courage, and
most of all thy kindness? That was my granddaughter, John; and all I
have on earth to love.”
Now that she came to speak of it, with the place and that, so clearly, I
remembered all about it (a thing that happened last August), and thought
how stupid I must have been not to learn more of the little girl who had
fallen into the black pit, with a basketful of whortleberries, and
who might have been gulfed if her little dog had not spied me in the
distance. I carried her on my back to mother; and then we dressed her
all anew, and took her where she ordered us; but she did not tell us
who she was, nor anything more than her Christian name, and that she was
eight years old, and fond of fried batatas. And we did not seek to ask
her more; as our manner is with visitors.
But thinking of this little story, and seeing how she looked at me, I
lost my fear of Mother Melldrum, and began to like her; partly because I
had helped her grandchild, and partly that if she were so wise, no need
would have been for me to save the little thing from drowning. Therefore
I stood up and said, though scarcely yet established in my power against
hers,--
“Good mother, the shoe she lost was in the mire, and not with us. And we
could not match it, although we gave her a pair of sister Lizzie's.”
“My son, what care I for her shoe? How simple thou art, and foolish!
according to the thoughts of some. Now tell me, for thou canst not lie,
what has brought thee to me.”
Being so ashamed and bashful, I was half-inclined to tell her a lie,
until she said that I could not do it; and then I knew that I could not.
“I am come to know,” I said, looking at a rock the while, to keep my
voice from shaking, “when I may go to see Lorna Doone.”
No more could I say, though my mind was charged to ask fifty other
questions. But although I looked away, it was plain that I had asked
enough. I felt that the wise woman gazed at me in wrath as well as
sorrow; and then I grew angry that any one should seem to make light of
Lorna.
“John Ridd,” said the woman, observing this (for now I faced her
bravely), “of whom art thou speaking? Is it a child of the men who slew
your father?”
“I cannot tell, mother. How should I know? And what is that to thee?”
“It is something to thy mother, John, and something to thyself, I trow;
and nothing worse could befall thee.”
I waited for her to speak again, because she had spoken so sadly that it
took my breath away.
“John Ridd, if thou hast any value for thy body or thy soul, thy mother,
or thy father's name, have nought to do with any Doone.”
She gazed at me in earnest so, and raised her voice in saying it, until
the whole valley, curving like a great bell echoed “Doone,” that it
seemed to me my heart was gone for every one and everything. If it were
God's will for me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come out of the
rocks, and I would try to believe it. But no sign came, and I turned to
the woman, and longed that she had been a man.
“You poor thing, with bones and blades, pails of water, and door-keys,
what know you about the destiny of a maiden such as Lorna? Chilblains
you may treat, and bone-shave, ringworm, and the scaldings; even scabby
sheep may limp the better for your strikings. John the Baptist and his
cousins, with the wool and hyssop, are for mares, and ailing dogs, and
fowls that have the jaundice. Look at me now, Mother Melldrum, am I like
a fool?”
“That thou art, my son. Alas that it were any other! Now behold the end
of that; John Ridd, mark the end of it.”
She pointed to the castle-rock, where upon a narrow shelf, betwixt us
and the coming stars, a bitter fight was raging. A fine fat sheep, with
an honest face, had clomb up very carefully to browse on a bit of juicy
grass, now the dew of the land was upon it. To him, from an upper crag,
a lean black goat came hurrying, with leaps, and skirmish of the horns,
and an angry noise in his nostrils. The goat had grazed the place
before, to the utmost of his liking, cropping in and out with jerks, as
their manner is of feeding. Nevertheless he fell on the sheep with fury
and great malice.
The simple wether was much inclined to retire from the contest, but
looked around in vain for any way to peace and comfort. His enemy stood
between him and the last leap he had taken; there was nothing left him
but to fight, or be hurled into the sea, five hundred feet below.
“Lie down, lie down!” I shouted to him, as if he were a dog, for I had
seen a battle like this before, and knew that the sheep had no chance of
life except from his greater weight, and the difficulty of moving him.
“Lie down, lie down, John Ridd!” cried Mother Melldrum, mocking me, but
without a sign of smiling.
The poor sheep turned, upon my voice, and looked at me so piteously that
I could look no longer; but ran with all my speed to try and save him
from the combat. He saw that I could not be in time, for the goat was
bucking to leap at him, and so the good wether stooped his forehead,
with the harmless horns curling aside of it; and the goat flung his
heels up, and rushed at him, with quick sharp jumps and tricks of
movement, and the points of his long horns always foremost, and his
little scut cocked like a gun-hammer.
As I ran up the steep of the rock, I could not see what they were doing,
but the sheep must have fought very bravely at last, and yielded his
ground quite slowly, and I hoped almost to save him. But just as my head
topped the platform of rock, I saw him flung from it backward, with a
sad low moan and a gurgle. His body made quite a short noise in the air,
like a bucket thrown down a well shaft, and I could not tell when it
struck the water, except by the echo among the rocks. So wroth was I
with the goat at the moment (being somewhat scant of breath and unable
to consider), that I caught him by the right hind-leg, before he could
turn from his victory, and hurled him after the sheep, to learn how he
liked his own compulsion.
CHAPTER XIX
ANOTHER DANGEROUS INTERVIEW
Although I left the Denes at once, having little heart for further
questions of the wise woman, and being afraid to visit her house under
the Devil's Cheese-ring (to which she kindly invited me), and although
I ran most part of the way, it was very late for farm-house time upon
a Sunday evening before I was back at Plover's Barrows. My mother had
great desire to know all about the matter; but I could not reconcile it
with my respect so to frighten her. Therefore I tried to sleep it off,
keeping my own counsel; and when that proved of no avail, I strove to
work it away, it might be, by heavy outdoor labour, and weariness, and
good feeding. These indeed had some effect, and helped to pass a week or
two, with more pain of hand than heart to me.
But when the weather changed in earnest, and the frost was gone, and
the south-west wind blew softly, and the lambs were at play with the
daisies, it was more than I could do to keep from thought of Lorna.
For now the fields were spread with growth, and the waters clad with
sunshine, and light and shadow, step by step, wandered over the furzy
cleves. All the sides of the hilly wood were gathered in and out with
green, silver-grey, or russet points, according to the several manner of
the trees beginning. And if one stood beneath an elm, with any heart to
look at it, lo! all the ground was strewn with flakes (too small to know
their meaning), and all the sprays above were rasped and trembling with
a redness. And so I stopped beneath the tree, and carved L.D. upon it,
and wondered at the buds of thought that seemed to swell inside me.
The upshot of it all was this, that as no Lorna came to me, except in
dreams or fancy, and as my life was not worth living without constant
sign of her, forth I must again to find her, and say more than a man can
tell. Therefore, without waiting longer for the moving of the spring,
dressed I was in grand attire (so far as I had gotten it), and thinking
my appearance good, although with doubts about it (being forced to
dress in the hay-tallat), round the corner of the wood-stack went I very
knowingly--for Lizzie's eyes were wondrous sharp--and then I was sure of
meeting none who would care or dare to speak of me.
It lay upon my conscience often that I had not made dear Annie secret to
this history; although in all things I could trust her, and she loved me
like a lamb. Many and many a time I tried, and more than once began the
thing; but there came a dryness in my throat, and a knocking under the
roof of my mouth, and a longing to put it off again, as perhaps might be
the wisest. And then I would remember too that I had no right to speak
of Lorna as if she were common property.
This time I longed to take my gun, and was half resolved to do so;
because it seemed so hard a thing to be shot at and have no chance of
shooting; but when I came to remember the steepness and the slippery
nature of the waterslide, there seemed but little likelihood of keeping
dry the powder. Therefore I was armed with nothing but a good stout
holly staff, seasoned well for many a winter in our back-kitchen
chimney.
Although my heart was leaping high with the prospect of some adventure,
and the fear of meeting Lorna, I could not but be gladdened by the
softness of the weather, and the welcome way of everything. There was
that power all round, that power and that goodness, which make us come,
as it were, outside our bodily selves, to share them. Over and beside us
breathes the joy of hope and promise; under foot are troubles past; in
the distance bowering newness tempts us ever forward. We quicken with
largesse of life, and spring with vivid mystery.
And, in good sooth, I had to spring, and no mystery about it, ere ever I
got to the top of the rift leading into Doone-glade. For the stream was
rushing down in strength, and raving at every corner; a mort of rain
having fallen last night and no wind come to wipe it. However, I reached
the head ere dark with more difficulty than danger, and sat in a place
which comforted my back and legs desirably.
Hereupon I grew so happy at being on dry land again, and come to look