Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
ready for rape or murder. Two of them fell, and the rest hung back, to
think at their leisure what this was. They were not used to this sort of
thing: it was neither just nor courteous.
Being unable any longer to contain myself, as I thought of Lorna's
excitement at all this noise of firing, I came across the yard,
expecting whether they would shoot at me. However, no one shot at me;
and I went up to Carver Doone, whom I knew by his size in the moonlight,
and I took him by the beard, and said, “Do you call yourself a man?”
For a moment he was so astonished that he could not answer. None had
ever dared, I suppose, to look at him in that way; and he saw that he
had met his equal, or perhaps his master. And then he tried a pistol at
me, but I was too quick for him.
“Now, Carver Doone, take warning,” I said to him, very soberly; “you
have shown yourself a fool by your contempt of me. I may not be your
match in craft; but I am in manhood. You are a despicable villain. Lie
low in your native muck.”
And with that word, I laid him flat upon his back in our straw-yard, by
a trick of the inner heel, which he could not have resisted (though his
strength had been twice as great as mine), unless he were a wrestler.
Seeing him down the others ran, though one of them made a shot at me,
and some of them got their horses, before our men came up; and some went
away without them. And among these last was Captain Carver who arose,
while I was feeling myself (for I had a little wound), and strode away
with a train of curses enough to poison the light of the moon.
We gained six very good horses, by this attempted rapine, as well as
two young prisoners, whom I had smitten by the clover-rick. And two
dead Doones were left behind, whom (as we buried them in the churchyard,
without any service over them), I for my part was most thankful that
I had not killed. For to have the life of a fellow-man laid upon one's
conscience--deserved he his death, or deserved it not--is to my sense of
right and wrong the heaviest of all burdens; and the one that wears most
deeply inwards, with the dwelling of the mind on this view and on that
of it.
I was inclined to pursue the enemy and try to capture more of them; but
Jeremy Stickles would not allow it, for he said that all the advantage
would be upon their side, if we went hurrying after them, with only the
moon to guide us. And who could tell but what there might be another
band of them, ready to fall upon the house, and burn it, and seize the
women, if we left them unprotected? When he put the case thus, I was
glad enough to abide by his decision. And one thing was quite certain,
that the Doones had never before received so rude a shock, and so
violent a blow to their supremacy, since first they had built up their
power, and become the Lords of Exmoor. I knew that Carver Doone would
gnash those mighty teeth of his, and curse the men around him, for
the blunder (which was in truth his own) of over-confidence and
carelessness. And at the same time, all the rest would feel that such a
thing had never happened, while old Sir Ensor was alive; and that it was
caused by nothing short of gross mismanagement.
I scarcely know who made the greatest fuss about my little wound,
mother, or Annie, or Lorna. I was heartily ashamed to be so treated like
a milksop; but most unluckily it had been impossible to hide it. For the
ball had cut along my temple, just above the eyebrow; and being fired so
near at hand, the powder too had scarred me. Therefore it seemed a great
deal worse than it really was; and the sponging, and the plastering,
and the sobbing, and the moaning, made me quite ashamed to look Master
Stickles in the face.
However, at last I persuaded them that I had no intention of giving up
the ghost that night; and then they all fell to, and thanked God with an
emphasis quite unknown in church. And hereupon Master Stickles said, in
his free and easy manner (for no one courted his observation), that I
was the luckiest of all mortals in having a mother, and a sister, and
a sweetheart, to make much of me. For his part, he said, he was just as
well off in not having any to care for him. For now he might go and get
shot, or stabbed, or knocked on the head, at his pleasure, without any
one being offended. I made bold, upon this, to ask him what was become
of his wife; for I had heard him speak of having one. He said that he
neither knew nor cared; and perhaps I should be like him some day.
That Lorna should hear such sentiments was very grievous to me. But she
looked at me with a smile, which proved her contempt for all such
ideas; and lest anything still more unfit might be said, I dismissed the
question.
But Master Stickles told me afterwards, when there was no one with us,
to have no faith in any woman, whatever she might seem to be. For he
assured me that now he possessed very large experience, for so small
a matter; being thoroughly acquainted with women of every class, from
ladies of the highest blood, to Bonarobas, and peasants' wives: and that
they all might be divided into three heads and no more; that is to
say as follows. First, the very hot and passionate, who were only
contemptible; second, the cold and indifferent, who were simply odious;
and third, the mixture of the other two, who had the bad qualities of
both. As for reason, none of them had it; it was like a sealed book to
them, which if they ever tried to open, they began at the back of the
cover.
Now I did not like to hear such things; and to me they appeared to be
insolent, as well as narrow-minded. For if you came to that, why might
not men, as well as women, be divided into the same three classes,
and be pronounced upon by women, as beings even more devoid than their
gentle judges of reason? Moreover, I knew, both from my own sense, and
from the greatest of all great poets, that there are, and always have
been, plenty of women, good, and gentle, warm-hearted, loving, and
lovable; very keen, moreover, at seeing the right, be it by reason, or
otherwise. And upon the whole, I prefer them much to the people of my
own sex, as goodness of heart is more important than to show good reason
for having it. And so I said to Jeremy,--
“You have been ill-treated, perhaps, Master Stickles, by some woman or
other?”
“Ah, that have I,” he replied with an oath; “and the last on earth who
should serve me so, the woman who was my wife. A woman whom I never
struck, never wronged in any way, never even let her know that I like
another better. And yet when I was at Berwick last, with the regiment
on guard there against those vile moss-troopers, what does that woman
do but fly in the face of all authority, and of my especial business, by
running away herself with the biggest of all moss-troopers? Not that I
cared a groat about her; and I wish the fool well rid of her: but the
insolence of the thing was such that everybody laughed at me; and back
I went to London, losing a far better and safer job than this; and all
through her. Come, let's have another onion.”
Master Stickles's view of the matter was so entirely unromantic, that I
scarcely wondered at Mistress Stickles for having run away from him to
an adventurous moss-trooper. For nine women out of ten must have some
kind of romance or other, to make their lives endurable; and when their
love has lost this attractive element, this soft dew-fog (if such
it be), the love itself is apt to languish; unless its bloom be well
replaced by the budding hopes of children. Now Master Stickles neither
had, nor wished to have, any children.
Without waiting for any warrant, only saying something about “captus in
flagrante delicto,”--if that be the way to spell it--Stickles sent our
prisoners off, bound and looking miserable, to the jail at Taunton. I
was desirous to let them go free, if they would promise amendment; but
although I had taken them, and surely therefore had every right to let
them go again, Master Stickles said, “Not so.” He assured me that it was
a matter of public polity; and of course, not knowing what he meant,
I could not contradict him; but thought that surely my private rights
ought to be respected. For if I throw a man in wrestling, I expect to
get his stakes; and if I take a man prisoner--why, he ought, in common
justice, to belong to me, and I have a good right to let him go, if I
think proper to do so. However, Master Stickles said that I was quite
benighted, and knew nothing of the Constitution; which was the very
thing I knew, beyond any man in our parish!
Nevertheless, it was not for me to contradict a commissioner; and
therefore I let my prisoners go, and wished them a happy deliverance.
Stickles replied, with a merry grin, that if ever they got it, it would
be a jail deliverance, and the bliss of dancing; and he laid his hand to
his throat in a manner which seemed to me most uncourteous. However, his
foresight proved too correct; for both those poor fellows were executed,
soon after the next assizes. Lorna had done her very best to earn
another chance for them; even going down on her knees to that common
Jeremy, and pleading with great tears for them. However, although much
moved by her, he vowed that he durst do nothing else. To set them free
was more than his own life was worth; for all the country knew, by this
time, that two captive Doones were roped to the cider-press at Plover's
Barrows. Annie bound the broken arm of the one whom I had knocked down
with the club, and I myself supported it; and then she washed and
rubbed with lard the face of the other poor fellow, which the torch had
injured; and I fetched back his collar-bone to the best of my ability.
For before any surgeon could arrive, they were off with a well-armed
escort. That day we were reinforced so strongly from the stations along
the coast, even as far as Minehead, that we not only feared no further
attack, but even talked of assaulting Glen Doone, without waiting
for the train-bands. However, I thought that it would be mean to take
advantage of the enemy in the thick of the floods and confusion; and
several of the others thought so too, and did not like fighting in
water. Therefore it was resolved to wait and keep a watch upon the
valley, and let the floods go down again.
CHAPTER L
A MERRY MEETING A SAD ONE
Now the business I had most at heart (as every one knows by this time)
was to marry Lorna as soon as might be, if she had no objection, and
then to work the farm so well, as to nourish all our family. And herein
I saw no difficulty; for Annie would soon be off our hands, and somebody
might come and take a fancy to little Lizzie (who was growing up very
nicely now, though not so fine as Annie); moreover, we were almost sure
to have great store of hay and corn after so much snow, if there be any
truth in the old saying,--
“A foot deep of rain
Will kill hay and grain;
But three feet of snow
Will make them come mo'.”
And although it was too true that we had lost a many cattle, yet even so
we had not lost money; for the few remaining fetched such prices as
were never known before. And though we grumbled with all our hearts,
and really believed, at one time, that starvation was upon us, I doubt
whether, on the whole, we were not the fatter, and the richer, and the
wiser for that winter. And I might have said the happier, except for the
sorrow which we felt at the failures among our neighbours. The Snowes
lost every sheep they had, and nine out of ten horned cattle; and poor
Jasper Kebby would have been forced to throw up the lease of his farm,