Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
haply, I shall never do so, being born to turbulence. Once, indeed, I
had the offer of escape, and kinsman's aid, and high place in the gay,
bright world; and yet I was not tempted much, or, at least, dared not to
trust it. And it ended very sadly, so dreadfully that I even shrink from
telling you about it; for that one terror changed my life, in a moment,
at a blow, from childhood and from thoughts of play and commune with the
flowers and trees, to a sense of death and darkness, and a heavy weight
of earth. Be content now, Master Ridd ask me nothing more about it, so
your sleep be sounder.”
But I, John Ridd, being young and new, and very fond of hearing things
to make my blood to tingle, had no more of manners than to urge poor
Lorna onwards, hoping, perhaps, in depth of heart, that she might have
to hold by me, when the worst came to the worst of it. Therefore she
went on again.
CHAPTER XXI
LORNA ENDS HER STORY
“It is not a twelvemonth yet, although it seems ten years agone, since
I blew the downy globe to learn the time of day, or set beneath my
chin the veinings of the varnished buttercup, or fired the fox-glove
cannonade, or made a captive of myself with dandelion fetters; for then
I had not very much to trouble me in earnest, but went about, romancing
gravely, playing at bo-peep with fear, making for myself strong heroes
of gray rock or fir-tree, adding to my own importance, as the children
love to do.
“As yet I had not truly learned the evil of our living, the scorn of
law, the outrage, and the sorrow caused to others. It even was a point
with all to hide the roughness from me, to show me but the gallant side,
and keep in shade the other. My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doone, had given
strictest order, as I discovered afterwards, that in my presence all
should be seemly, kind, and vigilant. Nor was it very difficult to
keep most part of the mischief from me, for no Doone ever robs at home,
neither do they quarrel much, except at times of gambling. And though
Sir Ensor Doone is now so old and growing feeble, his own way he will
have still, and no one dare deny him. Even our fiercest and most mighty
swordsmen, seared from all sense of right or wrong, yet have plentiful
sense of fear, when brought before that white-haired man. Not that he is
rough with them, or querulous, or rebukeful; but that he has a strange
soft smile, and a gaze they cannot answer, and a knowledge deeper far
than they have of themselves. Under his protection, I am as safe from
all those men (some of whom are but little akin to me) as if I slept
beneath the roof of the King's Lord Justiciary.
“But now, at the time I speak of, one evening of last summer, a horrible
thing befell, which took all play of childhood from me. The fifteenth
day of last July was very hot and sultry, long after the time of
sundown; and I was paying heed of it, because of the old saying that if
it rain then, rain will fall on forty days thereafter. I had been long
by the waterside at this lower end of the valley, plaiting a little
crown of woodbine crocketed with sprigs of heath--to please my
grandfather, who likes to see me gay at supper-time. Being proud of my
tiara, which had cost some trouble, I set it on my head at once, to save
the chance of crushing, and carrying my gray hat, ventured by a path not
often trod. For I must be home at the supper-time, or grandfather
would be exceeding wrath; and the worst of his anger is that he never
condescends to show it.
“Therefore, instead of the open mead, or the windings of the river, I
made short cut through the ash-trees covert which lies in the middle of
our vale, with the water skirting or cleaving it. You have never been
up so far as that--at least to the best of my knowledge--but you see it
like a long gray spot, from the top of the cliffs above us. Here I was
not likely to meet any of our people because the young ones are afraid
of some ancient tale about it, and the old ones have no love of trees
where gunshots are uncertain.
“It was more almost than dusk, down below the tree-leaves, and I was
eager to go through, and be again beyond it. For the gray dark hung
around me, scarcely showing shadow; and the little light that glimmered
seemed to come up from the ground. For the earth was strown with the
winter-spread and coil of last year's foliage, the lichened claws
of chalky twigs, and the numberless decay which gives a light in its
decaying. I, for my part, hastened shyly, ready to draw back and run
from hare, or rabbit, or small field-mouse.
“At a sudden turn of the narrow path, where it stopped again to the
river, a man leaped out from behind a tree, and stopped me, and seized
hold of me. I tried to shriek, but my voice was still; I could only hear
my heart.
“'Now, Cousin Lorna, my good cousin,' he said, with ease and calmness;
'your voice is very sweet, no doubt, from all that I can see of you. But
I pray you keep it still, unless you would give to dusty death your very
best cousin and trusty guardian, Alan Brandir of Loch Awe.'
“'You my guardian!' I said, for the idea was too ludicrous; and
ludicrous things always strike me first, through some fault of nature.
“'I have in truth that honour, madam,' he answered, with a sweeping bow;
'unless I err in taking you for Mistress Lorna Doone.'
“'You have not mistaken me. My name is Lorna Doone.'
“He looked at me, with gravity, and was inclined to make some claim to
closer consideration upon the score of kinship; but I shrunk back, and
only said, 'Yes, my name is Lorna Doone.'
“'Then I am your faithful guardian, Alan Brandir of Loch Awe; called
Lord Alan Brandir, son of a worthy peer of Scotland. Now will you
confide in me?'
“'I confide in you!” I cried, looking at him with amazement; 'why, you
are not older than I am!'
“'Yes I am, three years at least. You, my ward, are not sixteen. I, your
worshipful guardian, am almost nineteen years of age.'
“Upon hearing this I looked at him, for that seemed then a venerable
age; but the more I looked the more I doubted, although he was dressed
quite like a man. He led me in a courtly manner, stepping at his tallest
to an open place beside the water; where the light came as in channel,
and was made the most of by glancing waves and fair white stones.
“'Now am I to your liking, cousin?' he asked, when I had gazed at him,
until I was almost ashamed, except at such a stripling. 'Does my Cousin
Lorna judge kindly of her guardian, and her nearest kinsman? In a word,
is our admiration mutual?'
“'Truly I know not,' I said; 'but you seem good-natured, and to have no
harm in you. Do they trust you with a sword?'
“For in my usage among men of stature and strong presence, this pretty
youth, so tricked and slender, seemed nothing but a doll to me. Although
he scared me in the wood, now that I saw him in good twilight, lo! he
was but little greater than my little self; and so tasselled and so
ruffled with a mint of bravery, and a green coat barred with red, and
a slim sword hanging under him, it was the utmost I could do to look at
him half-gravely.
“'I fear that my presence hath scarce enough of ferocity about it'
(he gave a jerk to his sword as he spoke, and clanked it on the
brook-stones); 'yet do I assure you, cousin, that I am not without
some prowess; and many a master of defence hath this good sword of mine
disarmed. Now if the boldest and biggest robber in all this charming
valley durst so much as breathe the scent of that flower coronal, which
doth not adorn but is adorned'--here he talked some nonsense--'I would
cleave him from head to foot, ere ever he could fly or cry.'
“'Hush!' I said; 'talk not so loudly, or thou mayst have to do both
thyself, and do them both in vain.'
“For he was quite forgetting now, in his bravery before me, where he
stood, and with whom he spoke, and how the summer lightning shone above
the hills and down the hollow. And as I gazed on this slight fair youth,
clearly one of high birth and breeding (albeit over-boastful), a chill
of fear crept over me; because he had no strength or substance, and
would be no more than a pin-cushion before the great swords of the
Doones.
“'I pray you be not vexed with me,' he answered, in a softer voice;
'for I have travelled far and sorely, for the sake of seeing you. I know
right well among whom I am, and that their hospitality is more of the
knife than the salt-stand. Nevertheless I am safe enough, for my foot is
the fleetest in Scotland, and what are these hills to me? Tush! I have
seen some border forays among wilder spirits and craftier men than these
be. Once I mind some years agone, when I was quite a stripling lad--'
“'Worshipful guardian,' I said, 'there is no time now for history. If
thou art in no haste, I am, and cannot stay here idling. Only tell me
how I am akin and under wardship to thee, and what purpose brings thee
here.'
“'In order, cousin--all things in order, even with fair ladies. First,
I am thy uncle's son, my father is thy mother's brother, or at least thy
grandmother's--unless I am deceived in that which I have guessed, and no
other man. For my father, being a leading lord in the councils of
King Charles the Second, appointed me to learn the law, not for my
livelihood, thank God, but because he felt the lack of it in affairs
of state. But first your leave, young Mistress Lorna; I cannot lay down
legal maxims, without aid of smoke.'
“He leaned against a willow-tree, and drawing from a gilded box a little
dark thing like a stick, placed it between his lips, and then striking
a flint on steel made fire and caught it upon touchwood. With this he
kindled the tip of the stick, until it glowed with a ring of red, and
then he breathed forth curls of smoke, blue and smelling on the air
like spice. I had never seen this done before, though acquainted with
tobacco-pipes; and it made me laugh, until I thought of the peril that
must follow it.
“'Cousin, have no fear,' he said; 'this makes me all the safer; they
will take me for a glow-worm, and thee for the flower it shines upon.
But to return--of law I learned as you may suppose, but little; although
I have capacities. But the thing was far too dull for me. All I care for
is adventure, moving chance, and hot encounter; therefore all of law I
learned was how to live without it. Nevertheless, for amusement's sake,
as I must needs be at my desk an hour or so in the afternoon, I took to
the sporting branch of the law, the pitfalls, and the ambuscades; and
of all the traps to be laid therein, pedigrees are the rarest. There is
scarce a man worth a cross of butter, but what you may find a hole in
his shield within four generations. And so I struck our own escutcheon,
and it sounded hollow. There is a point--but heed not that; enough that
being curious now, I followed up the quarry, and I am come to this at
last--we, even we, the lords of Loch Awe, have an outlaw for our cousin,
and I would we had more, if they be like you.'
“'Sir,' I answered, being amused by his manner, which was new to me (for
the Doones are much in earnest), 'surely you count it no disgrace to be
of kin to Sir Ensor Doone, and all his honest family!'
“'If it be so, it is in truth the very highest honour and would heal ten
holes in our escutcheon. What noble family but springs from a captain
among robbers? Trade alone can spoil our blood; robbery purifies it. The
robbery of one age is the chivalry of the next. We may start anew, and
vie with even the nobility of France, if we can once enrol but half the
Doones upon our lineage.'
“'I like not to hear you speak of the Doones, as if they were no more