Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
only gaze, as if bewitched. Then Carver Doone, with his deadly smile,
gloating upon her horror, lifted his long gun, and pointed full at
Lorna's heart. In vain she strove to turn away; fright had stricken her
stiff as stone. With the inborn love of life, she tried to cover the
vital part wherein the winged death must lodge--for she knew Carver's
certain aim--but her hands hung numbed, and heavy; in nothing but her
eyes was life.
With no sign of pity in his face, no quiver of relenting, but a
well-pleased grin at all the charming palsy of his victim, Carver Doone
lowered, inch by inch, the muzzle of his gun. When it pointed to the
ground, between her delicate arched insteps, he pulled the trigger,
and the bullet flung the mould all over her. It was a refinement of
bullying, for which I swore to God that night, upon my knees, in secret,
that I would smite down Carver Doone or else he should smite me down.
Base beast! what largest humanity, or what dreams of divinity, could
make a man put up with this?
My darling (the loveliest, and most harmless, in the world of maidens),
fell away on a bank of grass, and wept at her own cowardice; and
trembled, and wondered where I was; and what I would think of this. Good
God! What could I think of it? She over-rated my slow nature, to admit
the question.
While she leaned there, quite unable yet to save herself, Carver came
to the brink of the flood, which alone was between them; and then he
stroked his jet-black beard, and waited for Lorna to begin. Very likely,
he thought that she would thank him for his kindness to her. But she was
now recovering the power of her nimble limbs; and ready to be off like
hope, and wonder at her own cowardice.
“I have spared you this time,” he said, in his deep calm voice, “only
because it suits my plans; and I never yield to temper. But unless you
come back to-morrow, pure, and with all you took away, and teach me
to destroy that fool, who has destroyed himself for you, your death is
here, your death is here, where it has long been waiting.”
Although his gun was empty, he struck the breech of it with his finger;
and then he turned away, not deigning even once to look back again; and
Lorna saw his giant figure striding across the meadow-land, as if the
Ridds were nobodies, and he the proper owner. Both mother and I were
greatly hurt at hearing of this insolence: for we had owned that meadow,
from the time of the great Alfred; and even when that good king lay in
the Isle of Athelney, he had a Ridd along with him.
Now I spoke to Lorna gently, seeing how much she had been tried; and
I praised her for her courage, in not having run away, when she was so
unable; and my darling was pleased with this, and smiled upon me for
saying it; though she knew right well that, in this matter, my judgment
was not impartial. But you may take this as a general rule, that a woman
likes praise from the man whom she loves, and cannot stop always to
balance it.
Now expecting a sharp attack that night--when Jeremy Stickles the more
expected, after the words of Carver, which seemed to be meant to mislead
us--we prepared a great quantity of knuckles of pork, and a ham in full
cut, and a fillet of hung mutton. For we would almost surrender rather
than keep our garrison hungry. And all our men were exceedingly brave;
and counted their rounds of the house in half-pints.
Before the maidens went to bed, Lorna made a remark which seemed to me a
very clever one, and then I wondered how on earth it had never occurred
to me before. But first she had done a thing which I could not in the
least approve of: for she had gone up to my mother, and thrown herself
into her arms, and begged to be allowed to return to Glen Doone.
“My child, are you unhappy here?” mother asked her, very gently, for she
had begun to regard her now as a daughter of her own.
“Oh, no! Too happy, by far too happy, Mrs. Ridd. I never knew rest or
peace before, or met with real kindness. But I cannot be so ungrateful,
I cannot be so wicked, as to bring you all into deadly peril, for
my sake alone. Let me go: you must not pay this great price for my
happiness.”
“Dear child, we are paying no price at all,” replied my mother,
embracing her; “we are not threatened for your sake only. Ask John,
he will tell you. He knows every bit about politics, and this is a
political matter.”
Dear mother was rather proud in her heart, as well as terribly
frightened, at the importance now accruing to Plover's Barrows farm;
and she often declared that it would be as famous in history as the Rye
House, or the Meal-tub, or even the great black box, in which she was a
firm believer: and even my knowledge of politics could not move her upon
that matter. “Such things had happened before,” she would say, shaking
her head with its wisdom, “and why might they not happen again? Women
would be women, and men would be men, to the end of the chapter; and if
she had been in Lucy Water's place, she would keep it quiet, as she
had done”; and then she would look round, for fear, lest either of her
daughters had heard her; “but now, can you give me any reason, why it
may not have been so? You are so fearfully positive, John: just as men
always are.” “No,” I used to say; “I can give you no reason, why it may
not have been so, mother. But the question is, if it was so, or not;
rather than what it might have been. And, I think, it is pretty good
proof against it, that what nine men of every ten in England would
only too gladly believe, if true, is nevertheless kept dark from them.”
“There you are again, John,” mother would reply, “all about men, and not
a single word about women. If you had any argument at all, you would own
that marriage is a question upon which women are the best judges.” “Oh!”
I would groan in my spirit, and go; leaving my dearest mother quite
sure, that now at last she must have convinced me. But if mother had
known that Jeremy Stickles was working against the black box, and its
issue, I doubt whether he would have fared so well, even though he was
a visitor. However, she knew that something was doing and something of
importance; and she trusted in God for the rest of it. Only she used to
tell me, very seriously, of an evening, “The very least they can give
you, dear John, is a coat of arms. Be sure you take nothing less, dear;
and the farm can well support it.”
But lo! I have left Lorna ever so long, anxious to consult me upon
political matters. She came to me, and her eyes alone asked a hundred
questions, which I rather had answered upon her lips than troubled her
pretty ears with them. Therefore I told her nothing at all, save that
the attack (if any should be) would not be made on her account; and that
if she should hear, by any chance, a trifle of a noise in the night, she
was to wrap the clothes around her, and shut her beautiful eyes again.
On no account, whatever she did, was she to go to the window. She liked
my expression about her eyes, and promised to do the very best she could
and then she crept so very close, that I needs must have her closer; and
with her head on my breast she asked,--
“Can't you keep out of this fight, John?”
“My own one,” I answered, gazing through the long black lashes, at the
depths of radiant love; “I believe there will be nothing: but what there
is I must see out.”
“Shall I tell you what I think, John? It is only a fancy of mine, and
perhaps it is not worth telling.”
“Let us have it, dear, by all means. You know so much about their ways.”
“What I believe is this, John. You know how high the rivers are, higher
than ever they were before, and twice as high, you have told me. I
believe that Glen Doone is flooded, and all the houses under water.”
“You little witch,” I answered; “what a fool I must be not to think
of it! Of course it is: it must be. The torrent from all the Bagworthy
forest, and all the valleys above it, and the great drifts in the glen
itself, never could have outlet down my famous waterslide. The valley
must be under water twenty feet at least. Well, if ever there was a
fool, I am he, for not having thought of it.”
“I remember once before,” said Lorna, reckoning on her fingers, “when
there was heavy rain, all through the autumn and winter, five or it may
be six years ago, the river came down with such a rush that the
water was two feet deep in our rooms, and we all had to camp by the
cliff-edge. But you think that the floods are higher now, I believe I
heard you say, John.”
“I don't think about it, my treasure,” I answered; “you may trust me for
understanding floods, after our work at Tiverton. And I know that the
deluge in all our valleys is such that no living man can remember,
neither will ever behold again. Consider three months of snow, snow,
snow, and a fortnight of rain on the top of it, and all to be drained
in a few days away! And great barricades of ice still in the rivers
blocking them up, and ponding them. You may take my word for it,
Mistress Lorna, that your pretty bower is six feet deep.”
“Well, my bower has served its time”, said Lorna, blushing as she
remembered all that had happened there; “and my bower now is here, John.
But I am so sorry to think of all the poor women flooded out of their
houses and sheltering in the snowdrifts. However, there is one good of
it: they cannot send many men against us, with all this trouble upon
them.”
“You are right,” I replied; “how clever you are! and that is why there
were only three to cut off Master Stickles. And now we shall beat them,
I make no doubt, even if they come at all. And I defy them to fire the
house: the thatch is too wet for burning.”
We sent all the women to bed quite early, except Gwenny Carfax and our
old Betty. These two we allowed to stay up, because they might be useful
to us, if they could keep from quarreling. For my part, I had little
fear, after what Lorna had told me, as to the result of the combat. It
was not likely that the Doones could bring more than eight or ten men
against us, while their homes were in such danger: and to meet these
we had eight good men, including Jeremy, and myself, all well armed and
resolute, besides our three farm-servants, and the parish-clerk, and the
shoemaker. These five could not be trusted much for any valiant conduct,
although they spoke very confidently over their cans of cider. Neither
were their weapons fitted for much execution, unless it were at close
quarters, which they would be likely to avoid. Bill Dadds had a sickle,
Jem Slocombe a flail, the cobbler had borrowed the constable's staff
(for the constable would not attend, because there was no warrant), and
the parish clerk had brought his pitch-pipe, which was enough to break
any man's head. But John Fry, of course, had his blunderbuss, loaded
with tin-tacks and marbles, and more likely to kill the man who
discharged it than any other person: but we knew that John had it only
for show, and to describe its qualities.
Now it was my great desire, and my chiefest hope, to come across Carver
Doone that night, and settle the score between us; not by any shot
in the dark, but by a conflict man to man. As yet, since I came to
full-grown power, I had never met any one whom I could not play teetotum
with: but now at last I had found a man whose strength was not to be
laughed at. I could guess it in his face, I could tell it in his arms, I
could see it in his stride and gait, which more than all the rest betray
the substance of a man. And being so well used to wrestling, and to
judge antagonists, I felt that here (if anywhere) I had found my match.
Therefore I was not content to abide within the house, or go the rounds
with the troopers; but betook myself to the rick yard, knowing that the