Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
the market at Porlock, no longer ago than last Saturday night. Madam,
amend me if I am wrong.”
“No longer, indeed, indeed, sir. Sometimes it seems a twelvemonth, and
sometimes it seems an hour.”
“Cite his name,” said the Counsellor, with his eyes still rolling
inwards.
“Master John Ridd, as I understand. Counsellor, we have heard of him
often; a worthy man and a peaceful one, who meddled not with our duties.
Now, if any of our boys have been rough, they shall answer it dearly.
And yet I can scarce believe it. For the folk about these parts are
apt to misconceive of our sufferings, and to have no feeling for us.
Counsellor, you are our record, and very stern against us; tell us how
this matter was.”
“Oh, Counsellor!” my mother cried; “Sir Counsellor, you will be fair: I
see it in your countenance. Only tell me who it was, and set me face to
face with him, and I will bless you, sir, and God shall bless you, and
my children.”
The square man with the long grey beard, quite unmoved by anything, drew
back to the door and spoke, and his voice was like a fall of stones in
the bottom of a mine.
“Few words will be enow for this. Four or five of our best-behaved and
most peaceful gentlemen went to the little market at Porlock with a lump
of money. They bought some household stores and comforts at a very high
price, and pricked upon the homeward road, away from vulgar revellers.
When they drew bridle to rest their horses, in the shelter of a
peat-rick, the night being dark and sudden, a robber of great size and
strength rode into the midst of them, thinking to kill or terrify. His
arrogance and hardihood at the first amazed them, but they would not
give up without a blow goods which were on trust with them. He had
smitten three of them senseless, for the power of his arm was terrible;
whereupon the last man tried to ward his blow with a pistol. Carver,
sir, it was, our brave and noble Carver, who saved the lives of
his brethren and his own; and glad enow they were to escape.
Notwithstanding, we hoped it might be only a flesh-wound, and not to
speed him in his sins.”
As this atrocious tale of lies turned up joint by joint before her, like
a “devil's coach-horse,” * mother was too much amazed to do any more than
look at him, as if the earth must open. But the only thing that opened
was the great brown eyes of the Counsellor, which rested on my mother's
face with a dew of sorrow, as he spoke of sins.
* The cock-tailed beetle has earned this name in the West of England.
She, unable to bear them, turned suddenly on Sir Ensor, and caught (as
she fancied) a smile on his lips, and a sense of quiet enjoyment.
“All the Doones are gentlemen,” answered the old man gravely, and
looking as if he had never smiled since he was a baby. “We are always
glad to explain, madam, any mistake which the rustic people may fall
upon about us; and we wish you clearly to conceive that we do not charge
your poor husband with any set purpose of robbery, neither will we bring
suit for any attainder of his property. Is it not so, Counsellor?”
“Without doubt his land is attainted; unless is mercy you forbear, sir.”
“Counsellor, we will forbear. Madam, we will forgive him. Like enough he
knew not right from wrong, at that time of night. The waters are strong
at Porlock, and even an honest man may use his staff unjustly in this
unchartered age of violence and rapine.”
The Doones to talk of rapine! Mother's head went round so that she
curtseyed to them both, scarcely knowing where she was, but calling to
mind her manners. All the time she felt a warmth, as if the right was
with her, and yet she could not see the way to spread it out before
them. With that, she dried her tears in haste and went into the cold
air, for fear of speaking mischief.
But when she was on the homeward road, and the sentinels had charge of
her, blinding her eyes, as if she were not blind enough with weeping,
some one came in haste behind her, and thrust a heavy leathern bag into
the limp weight of her hand.
“Captain sends you this,” he whispered; “take it to the little ones.”
But mother let it fall in a heap, as if it had been a blind worm; and
then for the first time crouched before God, that even the Doones should
pity her.
CHAPTER V
AN ILLEGAL SETTLEMENT
Good folk who dwell in a lawful land, if any such there be, may for want
of exploration, judge our neighbourhood harshly, unless the whole truth
is set before them. In bar of such prejudice, many of us ask leave to
explain how and why it was the robbers came to that head in the midst
of us. We would rather not have had it so, God knows as well as anybody;
but it grew upon us gently, in the following manner. Only let all who
read observe that here I enter many things which came to my knowledge in
later years.
In or about the year of our Lord 1640, when all the troubles of England
were swelling to an outburst, great estates in the North country were
suddenly confiscated, through some feud of families and strong influence
at Court, and the owners were turned upon the world, and might think
themselves lucky to save their necks. These estates were in co-heirship,
joint tenancy I think they called it, although I know not the meaning,
only so that if either tenant died, the other living, all would come to
the live one in spite of any testament.
One of the joint owners was Sir Ensor Doone, a gentleman of brisk
intellect; and the other owner was his cousin, the Earl of Lorne and
Dykemont.
Lord Lorne was some years the elder of his cousin, Ensor Doone, and was
making suit to gain severance of the cumbersome joint tenancy by any
fair apportionment, when suddenly this blow fell on them by wiles and
woman's meddling; and instead of dividing the land, they were divided
from it.
The nobleman was still well-to-do, though crippled in his expenditure;
but as for the cousin, he was left a beggar, with many to beg from him.
He thought that the other had wronged him, and that all the trouble of
law befell through his unjust petition. Many friends advised him to make
interest at Court; for having done no harm whatever, and being a good
Catholic, which Lord Lorne was not, he would be sure to find hearing
there, and probably some favour. But he, like a very hot-brained man,
although he had long been married to the daughter of his cousin (whom he
liked none the more for that), would have nothing to say to any attempt
at making a patch of it, but drove away with his wife and sons, and the
relics of his money, swearing hard at everybody. In this he may have
been quite wrong; probably, perhaps, he was so; but I am not convinced
at all but what most of us would have done the same.
Some say that, in the bitterness of that wrong and outrage, he slew a
gentleman of the Court, whom he supposed to have borne a hand in the
plundering of his fortunes. Others say that he bearded King Charles the
First himself, in a manner beyond forgiveness. One thing, at any rate,
is sure--Sir Ensor was attainted, and made a felon outlaw, through some
violent deed ensuing upon his dispossession.
He had searched in many quarters for somebody to help him, and with
good warrant for hoping it, inasmuch as he, in lucky days, had been
open-handed and cousinly to all who begged advice of him. But now
all these provided him with plenty of good advice indeed, and great
assurance of feeling, but not a movement of leg, or lip, or purse-string
in his favour. All good people of either persuasion, royalty or
commonalty, knowing his kitchen-range to be cold, no longer would play
turnspit. And this, it may be, seared his heart more than loss of land
and fame.
In great despair at last, he resolved to settle in some outlandish part,
where none could be found to know him; and so, in an evil day for us,
he came to the West of England. Not that our part of the world is at all
outlandish, according to my view of it (for I never found a better one),
but that it was known to be rugged, and large, and desolate. And here,
when he had discovered a place which seemed almost to be made for
him, so withdrawn, so self-defended, and uneasy of access, some of the
country-folk around brought him little offerings--a side of bacon, a
keg of cider, hung mutton, or a brisket of venison; so that for a little
while he was very honest. But when the newness of his coming began to
wear away, and our good folk were apt to think that even a gentleman
ought to work or pay other men for doing it, and many farmers were grown
weary of manners without discourse to them, and all cried out to one
another how unfair it was that owning such a fertile valley young men
would not spade or plough by reason of noble lineage--then the young
Doones growing up took things they would not ask for.
And here let me, as a solid man, owner of five hundred acres (whether
fenced or otherwise, and that is my own business), churchwarden also of
this parish (until I go to the churchyard), and proud to be called the
parson's friend--for a better man I never knew with tobacco and strong
waters, nor one who could read the lessons so well and he has been at
Blundell's too--once for all let me declare, that I am a thorough-going
Church-and-State man, and Royalist, without any mistake about it. And
this I lay down, because some people judging a sausage by the skin,
may take in evil part my little glosses of style and glibness, and the
mottled nature of my remarks and cracks now and then on the frying-pan.
I assure them I am good inside, and not a bit of rue in me; only queer
knots, as of marjoram, and a stupid manner of bursting.
There was not more than a dozen of them, counting a few retainers who
still held by Sir Ensor; but soon they grew and multiplied in a manner
surprising to think of. Whether it was the venison, which we call a
strengthening victual, or whether it was the Exmoor mutton, or the keen
soft air of the moorlands, anyhow the Doones increased much faster than
their honesty. At first they had brought some ladies with them, of good
repute with charity; and then, as time went on, they added to their
stock by carrying. They carried off many good farmers' daughters, who
were sadly displeased at first; but took to them kindly after awhile,
and made a new home in their babies. For women, as it seems to me, like
strong men more than weak ones, feeling that they need some staunchness,
something to hold fast by.
And of all the men in our country, although we are of a thick-set breed,
you scarce could find one in three-score fit to be placed among the
Doones, without looking no more than a tailor. Like enough, we could
meet them man for man (if we chose all around the crown and the skirts
of Exmoor), and show them what a cross-buttock means, because we are
so stuggy; but in regard of stature, comeliness, and bearing, no woman
would look twice at us. Not but what I myself, John Ridd, and one or two
I know of--but it becomes me best not to talk of that, although my hair
is gray.
Perhaps their den might well have been stormed, and themselves driven
out of the forest, if honest people had only agreed to begin with them
at once when first they took to plundering. But having respect for
their good birth, and pity for their misfortunes, and perhaps a little
admiration at the justice of God, that robbed men now were robbers,
the squires, and farmers, and shepherds, at first did nothing more than
grumble gently, or even make a laugh of it, each in the case of others.
After awhile they found the matter gone too far for laughter, as
violence and deadly outrage stained the hand of robbery, until every
woman clutched her child, and every man turned pale at the very name of