Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
see us little ones practise it than themselves engage, six or seven of
them came running down the rounded causeway, having heard that there
had arisen “a snug little mill” at the gate. Now whether that word
hath origin in a Greek term meaning a conflict, as the best-read boys
asseverated, or whether it is nothing more than a figure of similitude,
from the beating arms of a mill, such as I have seen in counties where
are no waterbrooks, but folk make bread with wind--it is not for a man
devoid of scholarship to determine. Enough that they who made the ring
intituled the scene a “mill,” while we who must be thumped inside it
tried to rejoice in their pleasantry, till it turned upon the stomach.
Moreover, I felt upon me now a certain responsibility, a dutiful need to
maintain, in the presence of John Fry, the manliness of the Ridd family,
and the honour of Exmoor. Hitherto none had worsted me, although in the
three years of my schooling, I had fought more than threescore battles,
and bedewed with blood every plant of grass towards the middle of the
Ironing-box. And this success I owed at first to no skill of my own;
until I came to know better; for up to twenty or thirty fights, I struck
as nature guided me, no wiser than a father-long-legs in the heat of a
lanthorn; but I had conquered, partly through my native strength, and
the Exmoor toughness in me, and still more that I could not see when I
had gotten my bellyful. But now I was like to have that and more; for
my heart was down, to begin with; and then Robert Snell was a bigger boy
than I had ever encountered, and as thick in the skull and hard in the
brain as even I could claim to be.
I had never told my mother a word about these frequent strivings,
because she was soft-hearted; neither had I told by father, because
he had not seen it. Therefore, beholding me still an innocent-looking
child, with fair curls on my forehead, and no store of bad language,
John Fry thought this was the very first fight that ever had befallen
me; and so when they let him at the gate, “with a message to the
headmaster,” as one of the monitors told Cop, and Peggy and Smiler were
tied to the railings, till I should be through my business, John comes
up to me with the tears in his eyes, and says, “Doon't thee goo for to
do it, Jan; doon't thee do it, for gude now.” But I told him that now it
was much too late to cry off; so he said, “The Lord be with thee, Jan,
and turn thy thumb-knuckle inwards.”
It was not a very large piece of ground in the angle of the causeways,
but quite big enough to fight upon, especially for Christians, who loved
to be cheek by jowl at it. The great boys stood in a circle around,
being gifted with strong privilege, and the little boys had leave to lie
flat and look through the legs of the great boys. But while we were yet
preparing, and the candles hissed in the fog-cloud, old Phoebe, of more
than fourscore years, whose room was over the hall-porch, came hobbling
out, as she always did, to mar the joy of the conflict. No one ever
heeded her, neither did she expect it; but the evil was that two senior
boys must always lose the first round of the fight, by having to lead
her home again.
I marvel how Robin Snell felt. Very likely he thought nothing of it,
always having been a boy of a hectoring and unruly sort. But I felt my
heart go up and down as the boys came round to strip me; and greatly
fearing to be beaten, I blew hot upon my knuckles. Then pulled I off
my little cut jerkin, and laid it down on my head cap, and over that my
waistcoat, and a boy was proud to take care of them. Thomas Hooper was
his name, and I remember how he looked at me. My mother had made that
little cut jerkin, in the quiet winter evenings. And taken pride to loop
it up in a fashionable way, and I was loth to soil it with blood, and
good filberds were in the pocket. Then up to me came Robin Snell (mayor
of Exeter thrice since that), and he stood very square, and looking
at me, and I lacked not long to look at him. Round his waist he had a
kerchief busking up his small-clothes, and on his feet light pumpkin
shoes, and all his upper raiment off. And he danced about in a way that
made my head swim on my shoulders, and he stood some inches over me. But
I, being muddled with much doubt about John Fry and his errand, was only
stripped of my jerkin and waistcoat, and not comfortable to begin.
“Come now, shake hands,” cried a big boy, jumping in joy of the
spectacle, a third-former nearly six feet high; “shake hands, you little
devils. Keep your pluck up, and show good sport, and Lord love the
better man of you.”
Robin took me by the hand, and gazed at me disdainfully, and then smote
me painfully in the face, ere I could get my fence up.
“Whutt be 'bout, lad?” cried John Fry; “hutt un again, Jan, wull 'e?
Well done then, our Jan boy.”
For I had replied to Robin now, with all the weight and cadence of
penthemimeral caesura (a thing, the name of which I know, but could
never make head nor tail of it), and the strife began in a serious
style, and the boys looking on were not cheated. Although I could not
collect their shouts when the blows were ringing upon me, it was no
great loss; for John Fry told me afterwards that their oaths went up
like a furnace fire. But to these we paid no heed or hap, being in the
thick of swinging, and devoid of judgment. All I know is, I came to my
corner, when the round was over, with very hard pumps in my chest, and a
great desire to fall away.
“Time is up,” cried head-monitor, ere ever I got my breath again; and
when I fain would have lingered awhile on the knee of the boy that held
me. John Fry had come up, and the boys were laughing because he wanted a
stable lanthorn, and threatened to tell my mother.
“Time is up,” cried another boy, more headlong than head-monitor. “If we
count three before the come of thee, thwacked thou art, and must go
to the women.” I felt it hard upon me. He began to count, one, too,
three--but before the “three” was out of his mouth, I was facing my foe,
with both hands up, and my breath going rough and hot, and resolved to
wait the turn of it. For I had found seat on the knee of a boy sage and
skilled to tutor me, who knew how much the end very often differs from
the beginning. A rare ripe scholar he was; and now he hath routed up the
Germans in the matter of criticism. Sure the clever boys and men have
most love towards the stupid ones.
“Finish him off, Bob,” cried a big boy, and that I noticed especially,
because I thought it unkind of him, after eating of my toffee as he
had that afternoon; “finish him off, neck and crop; he deserves it for
sticking up to a man like you.”
But I was not so to be finished off, though feeling in my knuckles now
as if it were a blueness and a sense of chilblain. Nothing held except
my legs, and they were good to help me. So this bout, or round, if you
please, was foughten warily by me, with gentle recollection of what my
tutor, the clever boy, had told me, and some resolve to earn his praise
before I came back to his knee again. And never, I think, in all my
life, sounded sweeter words in my ears (except when my love loved me)
than when my second and backer, who had made himself part of my doings
now, and would have wept to see me beaten, said,--
“Famously done, Jack, famously! Only keep your wind up, Jack, and you'll
go right through him!”
Meanwhile John Fry was prowling about, asking the boys what they thought
of it, and whether I was like to be killed, because of my mother's
trouble. But finding now that I had foughten three-score fights already,
he came up to me woefully, in the quickness of my breathing, while I sat
on the knee of my second, with a piece of spongious coralline to ease
me of my bloodshed, and he says in my ears, as if he was clapping spurs
into a horse,--
“Never thee knack under, Jan, or never coom naigh Hexmoor no more.”
With that it was all up with me. A simmering buzzed in my heavy brain,
and a light came through my eyeplaces. At once I set both fists again,
and my heart stuck to me like cobbler's wax. Either Robin Snell should
kill me, or I would conquer Robin Snell. So I went in again with my
courage up, and Bob came smiling for victory, and I hated him for
smiling. He let at me with his left hand, and I gave him my right
between his eyes, and he blinked, and was not pleased with it. I feared
him not, and spared him not, neither spared myself. My breath came
again, and my heart stood cool, and my eyes struck fire no longer. Only
I knew that I would die sooner than shame my birthplace. How the rest
of it was I know not; only that I had the end of it, and helped to put
Robin in bed.
CHAPTER III
THE WAR-PATH OF THE DOONES
From Tiverton town to the town of Oare is a very long and painful road,
and in good truth the traveller must make his way, as the saying is; for
the way is still unmade, at least, on this side of Dulverton, although
there is less danger now than in the time of my schooling; for now a
good horse may go there without much cost of leaping, but when I was
a boy the spurs would fail, when needed most, by reason of the
slough-cake. It is to the credit of this age, and our advance upon
fatherly ways, that now we have laid down rods and fagots, and even
stump-oaks here and there, so that a man in good daylight need not sink,
if he be quite sober. There is nothing I have striven at more than doing
my duty, way-warden over Exmoor.
But in those days, when I came from school (and good times they were,
too, full of a warmth and fine hearth-comfort, which now are dying out),
it was a sad and sorry business to find where lay the highway. We are
taking now to mark it off with a fence on either side, at least, when
a town is handy; but to me this seems of a high pretence, and a sort of
landmark, and channel for robbers, though well enough near London, where
they have earned a race-course.
We left the town of the two fords, which they say is the meaning of it,
very early in the morning, after lying one day to rest, as was demanded
by the nags, sore of foot and foundered. For my part, too, I was glad to
rest, having aches all over me, and very heavy bruises; and we lodged
at the sign of the White Horse Inn, in the street called Gold Street,
opposite where the souls are of John and Joan Greenway, set up in
gold letters, because we must take the homeward way at cockcrow of the
morning. Though still John Fry was dry with me of the reason of his
coming, and only told lies about father, and could not keep them
agreeable, I hoped for the best, as all boys will, especially after a
victory. And I thought, perhaps father had sent for me because he had a
good harvest, and the rats were bad in the corn-chamber.
It was high noon before we were got to Dulverton that day, near to which
town the river Exe and its big brother Barle have union. My mother had
an uncle living there, but we were not to visit his house this time, at
which I was somewhat astonished, since we needs must stop for at least
two hours, to bait our horses thorough well, before coming to the black
bogway. The bogs are very good in frost, except where the hot-springs
rise; but as yet there had been no frost this year, save just enough
to make the blackbirds look big in the morning. In a hearty black-frost
they look small, until the snow falls over them.
The road from Bampton to Dulverton had not been very delicate, yet
nothing to complain of much--no deeper, indeed, than the hocks of a
horse, except in the rotten places. The day was inclined to be mild and
foggy, and both nags sweated freely; but Peggy carrying little weight
(for my wardrobe was upon Smiler, and John Fry grumbling always), we