Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
perhaps for some excuse to stop longer, and Annie was beginning to fear
lest mother should come after her, or Eliza be at the window, or Betty
up in pigs' house, suddenly there came up to them, as if from the very
heart of the earth, that long, low, hollow, mysterious sound which I
spoke of in winter.
The young man started in his saddle, let the horn fall on the
horse-steps, and gazed all around in wonder; while as for Annie, she
turned like a ghost, and tried to slam the door, but failed through the
violence of her trembling; (for never till now had any one heard it so
close at hand as you might say) or in the mere fall of the twilight. And
by this time there was no man, at least in our parish, but knew--for the
Parson himself had told us so--that it was the devil groaning because
the Doones were too many for him.
Marwood de Whichehalse was not so alarmed but what he saw a fine
opportunity. He leaped from his horse, and laid hold of dear Annie in a
highly comforting manner; and she never would tell us about it (being
so shy and modest), whether in breathing his comfort to her he tried
to take some from her pure lips. I hope he did not, because that to me
would seem not the deed of a gentleman, and he was of good old family.
At this very moment, who should come into the end of the passage upon
them but the heavy writer of these doings I, John Ridd myself, and
walking the faster, it may be, on account of the noise I mentioned. I
entered the house with some wrath upon me at seeing the gazehounds in
the yard; for it seems a cruel thing to me to harass the birds in the
breeding-time. And to my amazement there I saw Squire Marwood among the
milk-pans with his arm around our Annie's waist, and Annie all blushing
and coaxing him off, for she was not come to scold yet.
Perhaps I was wrong; God knows, and if I was, no doubt I shall pay for
it; but I gave him the flat of my hand on his head, and down he went in
the thick of the milk-pans. He would have had my fist, I doubt, but for
having been at school with me; and after that it is like enough he would
never have spoken another word. As it was, he lay stunned, with the
cream running on him; while I took poor Annie up and carried her in to
mother, who had heard the noise and was frightened.
Concerning this matter I asked no more, but held myself ready to bear it
out in any form convenient, feeling that I had done my duty, and
cared not for the consequence; only for several days dear Annie seemed
frightened rather than grateful. But the oddest result of it was that
Eliza, who had so despised me, and made very rude verses about me, now
came trying to sit on my knee, and kiss me, and give me the best of the
pan. However, I would not allow it, because I hate sudden changes.
Another thing also astonished me--namely, a beautiful letter from
Marwood de Whichehalse himself (sent by a groom soon afterwards), in
which he apologised to me, as if I had been his equal, for his rudeness
to my sister, which was not intended in the least, but came of their
common alarm at the moment, and his desire to comfort her. Also he
begged permission to come and see me, as an old schoolfellow, and set
everything straight between us, as should be among honest Blundellites.
All this was so different to my idea of fighting out a quarrel, when
once it is upon a man, that I knew not what to make of it, but bowed to
higher breeding. Only one thing I resolved upon, that come when he would
he should not see Annie. And to do my sister justice, she had no desire
to see him.
However, I am too easy, there is no doubt of that, being very quick to
forgive a man, and very slow to suspect, unless he hath once lied to
me. Moreover, as to Annie, it had always seemed to me (much against my
wishes) that some shrewd love of a waiting sort was between her and Tom
Faggus: and though Tom had made his fortune now, and everybody
respected him, of course he was not to be compared, in that point of
respectability, with those people who hanged the robbers when fortune
turned against them.
So young Squire Marwood came again, as though I had never smitten
him, and spoke of it in as light a way as if we were still at school
together. It was not in my nature, of course, to keep any anger against
him; and I knew what a condescension it was for him to visit us. And
it is a very grievous thing, which touches small landowners, to see an
ancient family day by day decaying: and when we heard that Ley Barton
itself, and all the Manor of Lynton were under a heavy mortgage debt to
John Lovering of Weare-Gifford, there was not much, in our little way,
that we would not gladly do or suffer for the benefit of De Whichehalse.
Meanwhile the work of the farm was toward, and every day gave us
more ado to dispose of what itself was doing. For after the long dry
skeltering wind of March and part of April, there had been a fortnight
of soft wet; and when the sun came forth again, hill and valley, wood
and meadow, could not make enough of him. Many a spring have I seen
since then, but never yet two springs alike, and never one so beautiful.
Or was it that my love came forth and touched the world with beauty?
The spring was in our valley now; creeping first for shelter shyly in
the pause of the blustering wind. There the lambs came bleating to her,
and the orchis lifted up, and the thin dead leaves of clover lay for the
new ones to spring through. There the stiffest things that sleep, the
stubby oak, and the saplin'd beech, dropped their brown defiance to her,
and prepared for a soft reply.
While her over-eager children (who had started forth to meet her,
through the frost and shower of sleet), catkin'd hazel, gold-gloved
withy, youthful elder, and old woodbine, with all the tribe of good
hedge-climbers (who must hasten while haste they may)--was there one of
them that did not claim the merit of coming first?
There she stayed and held her revel, as soon as the fear of frost was
gone; all the air was a fount of freshness, and the earth of gladness,
and the laughing waters prattled of the kindness of the sun.
But all this made it much harder for us, plying the hoe and rake, to
keep the fields with room upon them for the corn to tiller. The winter
wheat was well enough, being sturdy and strong-sided; but the spring
wheat and the barley and the oats were overrun by ill weeds growing
faster. Therefore, as the old saying is,--
“Farmer, that thy wife may thrive,
Let not burr and burdock wive;
And if thou wouldst keep thy son,
See that bine and gith have none.”
So we were compelled to go down the field and up it, striking in and out
with care where the green blades hung together, so that each had space
to move in and to spread its roots abroad. And I do assure you now,
though you may not believe me, it was harder work to keep John Fry, Bill
Dadds, and Jem Slocomb all in a line and all moving nimbly to the tune
of my own tool, than it was to set out in the morning alone, and hoe
half an acre by dinner-time. For, instead of keeping the good ash
moving, they would for ever be finding something to look at or to speak
of, or at any rate, to stop with; blaming the shape of their tools
perhaps, or talking about other people's affairs; or, what was most
irksome of all to me, taking advantage as married men, and whispering
jokes of no excellence about my having, or having not, or being ashamed
of a sweetheart. And this went so far at last that I was forced to take
two of them and knock their heads together; after which they worked with
a better will.
When we met together in the evening round the kitchen chimney-place,
after the men had had their supper and their heavy boots were gone, my
mother and Eliza would do their very utmost to learn what I was thinking
of. Not that we kept any fire now, after the crock was emptied; but that
we loved to see the ashes cooling, and to be together. At these times
Annie would never ask me any crafty questions (as Eliza did), but would
sit with her hair untwined, and one hand underneath her chin, sometimes
looking softly at me, as much as to say that she knew it all and I was
no worse off than she. But strange to say my mother dreamed not, even
for an instant, that it was possible for Annie to be thinking of such
a thing. She was so very good and quiet, and careful of the linen, and
clever about the cookery and fowls and bacon-curing, that people used
to laugh, and say she would never look at a bachelor until her mother
ordered her. But I (perhaps from my own condition and the sense of what
it was) felt no certainty about this, and even had another opinion, as
was said before.
Often I was much inclined to speak to her about it, and put her on her
guard against the approaches of Tom Faggus; but I could not find how to
begin, and feared to make a breach between us; knowing that if her
mind was set, no words of mine would alter it; although they needs must
grieve her deeply. Moreover, I felt that, in this case, a certain
homely Devonshire proverb would come home to me; that one, I mean, which
records that the crock was calling the kettle smutty. Not, of course,
that I compared my innocent maid to a highwayman; but that Annie might
think her worse, and would be too apt to do so, if indeed she loved Tom
Faggus. And our Cousin Tom, by this time, was living a quiet and godly
life; having retired almost from the trade (except when he needed
excitement, or came across public officers), and having won the esteem
of all whose purses were in his power.
Perhaps it is needless for me to say that all this time while my month
was running--or rather crawling, for never month went so slow as
that with me--neither weed, nor seed, nor cattle, nor my own mother's
anxiety, nor any care for my sister, kept me from looking once every
day, and even twice on a Sunday, for any sign of Lorna. For my heart was
ever weary; in the budding valleys, and by the crystal waters, looking
at the lambs in fold, or the heifers on the mill, labouring in trickled
furrows, or among the beaded blades; halting fresh to see the sun lift
over the golden-vapoured ridge; or doffing hat, from sweat of brow, to
watch him sink in the low gray sea; be it as it would of day, of work,
or night, or slumber, it was a weary heart I bore, and fear was on the
brink of it.
All the beauty of the spring went for happy men to think of; all the
increase of the year was for other eyes to mark. Not a sign of any
sunrise for me from my fount of life, not a breath to stir the dead
leaves fallen on my heart's Spring.
CHAPTER XXIII
A ROYAL INVITATION
Although I had, for the most part, so very stout an appetite, that none
but mother saw any need of encouraging me to eat, I could only manage
one true good meal in a day, at the time I speak of. Mother was in
despair at this, and tempted me with the whole of the rack, and even
talked of sending to Porlock for a druggist who came there twice in
a week; and Annie spent all her time in cooking, and even Lizzie sang
songs to me; for she could sing very sweetly. But my conscience told me
that Betty Muxworthy had some reason upon her side.
“Latt the young ozebird aloun, zay I. Makk zuch ado about un, wi'
hogs'-puddens, and hock-bits, and lambs'-mate, and whaten bradd indade,
and brewers' ale avore dinner-time, and her not to zit wi' no winder
aupen--draive me mad 'e doo, the ov'ee, zuch a passel of voouls. Do 'un
good to starve a bit; and takk zome on's wackedness out ov un.”
But mother did not see it so; and she even sent for Nicholas Snowe
to bring his three daughters with him, and have ale and cake in the
parlour, and advise about what the bees were doing, and when a swarm