Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
was the least part of her goodness, and that I would thank him for his
opinion when I had requested it.
“Bravo, our John Ridd!” he answered; “fools will be fools till the end
of the chapter; and I might be as big a one, if I were in thy shoes,
John. Nevertheless, in the name of God, don't let that helpless child go
about with a thing worth half the county on her.”
“She is worth all the county herself,” said I, “and all England put
together; but she has nothing worth half a rick of hay upon her; for the
ring I gave her cost only,”--and here I stopped, for mother was looking,
and I never would tell her how much it had cost me; though she had tried
fifty times to find out.
“Tush, the ring!” Tom Faggus cried, with a contempt that moved me: “I
would never have stopped a man for that. But the necklace, you great
oaf, the necklace is worth all your farm put together, and your Uncle
Ben's fortune to the back of it; ay, and all the town of Dulverton.”
“What,” said I, “that common glass thing, which she has had from her
childhood!”
“Glass indeed! They are the finest brilliants ever I set eyes on; and I
have handled a good many.”
“Surely,” cried mother, now flushing as red as Tom's own cheeks with
excitement, “you must be wrong, or the young mistress would herself have
known it.”
I was greatly pleased with my mother, for calling Lorna “the young
mistress”; it was not done for the sake of her diamonds, whether they
were glass or not; but because she felt as I had done, that Tom Faggus,
a man of no birth whatever, was speaking beyond his mark, in calling a
lady like Lorna a helpless child; as well as in his general tone, which
displayed no deference. He might have been used to the quality, in the
way of stopping their coaches, or roystering at hotels with them; but he
never had met a high lady before, in equality, and upon virtue; and we
both felt that he ought to have known it, and to have thanked us for the
opportunity, in a word, to have behaved a great deal more humbly than he
had even tried to do.
“Trust me,” answered Tom, in his loftiest manner, which Annie said
was “so noble,” but which seemed to me rather flashy, “trust me, good
mother, and simple John, for knowing brilliants, when I see them. I
would have stopped an eight-horse coach, with four carabined out-riders,
for such a booty as that. But alas, those days are over; those were days
worth living in. Ah, I never shall know the like again. How fine it was
by moonlight!”
“Master Faggus,” began my mother, with a manner of some dignity, such
as she could sometimes use, by right of her integrity, and thorough
kindness to every one, “this is not the tone in which you have hitherto
spoken to me about your former pursuits and life, I fear that the
spirits”--but here she stopped, because the spirits were her own, and
Tom was our visitor,--“what I mean, Master Faggus, is this: you have
won my daughter's heart somehow; and you won my consent to the matter
through your honest sorrow, and manly undertaking to lead a different
life, and touch no property but your own. Annie is my eldest daughter,
and the child of a most upright man. I love her best of all on earth,
next to my boy John here”--here mother gave me a mighty squeeze, to be
sure that she would have me at least--“and I will not risk my Annie's
life with a man who yearns for the highway.”
Having made this very long speech (for her), mother came home upon my
shoulder, and wept so that (but for heeding her) I would have taken Tom
by the nose, and thrown him, and Winnie after him, over our farm-yard
gate. For I am violent when roused; and freely hereby acknowledge it;
though even my enemies will own that it takes a great deal to rouse me.
But I do consider the grief and tears (when justly caused) of my dearest
friends, to be a great deal to rouse me.
CHAPTER XLVII
JEREMY IN DANGER
Nothing very long abides, as the greatest of all writers (in whose
extent I am for ever lost in raptured wonder, and yet for ever quite at
home, as if his heart were mine, although his brains so different), in a
word as Mr. William Shakespeare, in every one of his works insists, with
a humoured melancholy. And if my journey to London led to nothing else
of advancement, it took me a hundred years in front of what I might else
have been, by the most simple accident.
Two women were scolding one another across the road, very violently,
both from upstair windows; and I in my hurry for quiet life, and not
knowing what might come down upon me, quickened my step for the nearest
corner. But suddenly something fell on my head; and at first I was
afraid to look, especially as it weighed heavily. But hearing no
breakage of ware, and only the other scold laughing heartily, I turned
me about and espied a book, which one had cast at the other, hoping to
break her window. So I took the book, and tendered it at the door of the
house from which it had fallen; but the watchman came along just then,
and the man at the door declared that it never came from their house,
and begged me to say no more. This I promised readily, never wishing to
make mischief; and I said, “Good sir, now take the book; I will go on
to my business.” But he answered that he would do no such thing; for
the book alone, being hurled so hard, would convict his people of a lewd
assault; and he begged me, if I would do a good turn, to put the book
under my coat and go. And so I did: in part at least. For I did not put
the book under my coat, but went along with it openly, looking for any
to challenge it. Now this book, so acquired, has been not only the
joy of my younger days, and main delight of my manhood, but also the
comfort, and even the hope, of my now declining years. In a word, it is
next to my Bible to me, and written in equal English; and if you espy
any goodness whatever in my own loose style of writing, you must not
thank me, John Ridd, for it, but the writer who holds the champion's
belt in wit, as I once did in wrestling.
Now, as nothing very long abides, it cannot be expected that a woman's
anger should last very long, if she be at all of the proper sort. And
my mother, being one of the very best, could not long retain her wrath
against the Squire Faggus especially when she came to reflect, upon
Annie's suggestion, how natural, and one might say, how inevitable
it was that a young man fond of adventure and change and winning good
profits by jeopardy, should not settle down without some regrets to a
fixed abode and a life of sameness, however safe and respectable.
And even as Annie put the case, Tom deserved the greater credit for
vanquishing so nobly these yearnings of his nature; and it seemed very
hard to upbraid him, considering how good his motives were; neither
could Annie understand how mother could reconcile it with her knowledge
of the Bible, and the one sheep that was lost, and the hundredth piece
of silver, and the man that went down to Jericho.
Whether Annie's logic was good and sound, I am sure I cannot tell; but
it seemed to me that she ought to have let the Jericho traveller alone,
inasmuch as he rather fell among Tom Fagusses, than resembled them.
However, her reasoning was too much for mother to hold out against; and
Tom was replaced, and more than that, being regarded now as an injured
man. But how my mother contrived to know, that because she had been too
hard upon Tom, he must be right about the necklace, is a point which I
never could clearly perceive, though no doubt she could explain it.
To prove herself right in the conclusion, she went herself to fetch
Lorna, that the trinket might be examined, before the day grew dark. My
darling came in, with a very quick glance and smile at my cigarro (for I
was having the third by this time, to keep things in amity); and I waved
it towards her, as much as to say, “you see that I can do it.” And then
mother led her up to the light, for Tom to examine her necklace.
On the shapely curve of her neck it hung, like dewdrops upon a white
hyacinth; and I was vexed that Tom should have the chance to see it
there. But even if she had read my thoughts, or outrun them with her
own, Lorna turned away, and softly took the jewels from the place which
so much adorned them. And as she turned away, they sparkled through
the rich dark waves of hair. Then she laid the glittering circlet in
my mother's hands; and Tom Faggus took it eagerly, and bore it to the
window.
“Don't you go out of sight,” I said; “you cannot resist such things as
those, if they be what you think them.”
“Jack, I shall have to trounce thee yet. I am now a man of honour, and
entitled to the duello. What will you take for it, Mistress Lorna? At a
hazard, say now.”
“I am not accustomed to sell things, sir,” replied Lorna, who did not
like him much, else she would have answered sportively, “What is it
worth, in your opinion?”
“Do you think it is worth five pounds, now?”
“Oh, no! I never had so much money as that in all my life. It is very
bright, and very pretty; but it cannot be worth five pounds, I am sure.”
“What a chance for a bargain! Oh, if it were not for Annie, I could make
my fortune.”
“But, sir, I would not sell it to you, not for twenty times five pounds.
My grandfather was so kind about it; and I think it belonged to my
mother.”
“There are twenty-five rose diamonds in it, and twenty-five large
brilliants that cannot be matched in London. How say you, Mistress
Lorna, to a hundred thousand pounds?”
My darling's eyes so flashed at this, brighter than any diamonds, that
I said to myself, “Well, all have faults; and now I have found out
Lorna's--she is fond of money!” And then I sighed rather heavily; for of
all faults this seems to me one of the worst in a woman. But even before
my sigh was finished, I had cause to condemn myself. For Lorna took the
necklace very quietly from the hands of Squire Faggus, who had not half
done with admiring it, and she went up to my mother with the sweetest
smile I ever saw.
“Dear kind mother, I am so glad,” she said in a whisper, coaxing mother
out of sight of all but me; “now you will have it, won't you, dear? And
I shall be so happy; for a thousandth part of your kindness to me no
jewels in the world can match.”
I cannot lay before you the grace with which she did it, all the air
of seeking favour, rather than conferring it, and the high-bred fear of
giving offence, which is of all fears the noblest. Mother knew not what
to say. Of course she would never dream of taking such a gift as that;
and yet she saw how sadly Lorna would be disappointed. Therefore, mother
did, from habit, what she almost always did, she called me to help her.
But knowing that my eyes were full--for anything noble moves me so,
quite as rashly as things pitiful--I pretended not to hear my mother,
but to see a wild cat in the dairy.
Therefore I cannot tell what mother said in reply to Lorna; for when I
came back, quite eager to let my love know how I worshipped her, and
how deeply I was ashamed of myself, for meanly wronging her in my heart,
behold Tom Faggus had gotten again the necklace which had such charms
for him, and was delivering all around (but especially to Annie, who was
wondering at his learning) a dissertation on precious stones, and his
sentiments about those in his hand. He said that the work was very
ancient, but undoubtedly very good; the cutting of every line was
true, and every angle was in its place. And this he said, made all the
difference in the lustre of the stone, and therefore in its value. For