Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
(if they would only dry their eyes, and come round by dinnertime) than
it had been since the day on which Tom Faggus discovered the value of
that blessed and cursed necklace. None could say that I wanted Lorna for
her money now. And perhaps the Doones would let me have her; now that
her property was gone.
But who shall tell of Annie's grief? The poor little thing would have
staked her life upon finding the trinket, in all its beauty, lying under
the pannikin. She proudly challenged me to lift it--which I had done,
long ere that, of course--if only I would take the risk of the spell for
my incredulity. I told her not to talk of spells, until she could spell
a word backwards; and then to look into the pan where the charmed cream
should be. She would not acknowledge that the cream was the same as all
the rest was: and indeed it was not quite the same, for the points of
poor Lorna's diamonds had made a few star-rays across the rich firm
crust of yellow.
But when we raised the pannikin, and there was nothing under it, poor
Annie fell against the wall, which had been whitened lately; and her
face put all the white to scorn. My love, who was as fond of her, as if
she had known her for fifty years, hereupon ran up and caught her, and
abused all diamonds. I will dwell no more upon Annie's grief, because we
felt it all so much. But I could not help telling her, if she wanted a
witch, to seek good Mother Melldrum, a legitimate performer.
That same night Master Jeremy Stickles (of whose absence the Counsellor
must have known) came back, with all equipment ready for the grand
attack. Now the Doones knew, quite as well as we did, that this attack
was threatening; and that but for the wonderful weather it would have
been made long ago. Therefore we, or at least our people (for I was
doubtful about going), were sure to meet with a good resistance, and due
preparation.
It was very strange to hear and see, and quite impossible to account
for, that now some hundreds of country people (who feared to whisper
so much as a word against the Doones a year ago, and would sooner have
thought of attacking a church, in service time, than Glen Doone) now
sharpened their old cutlasses, and laid pitch-forks on the grindstone,
and bragged at every village cross, as if each would kill ten Doones
himself, neither care to wipe his hands afterwards. And this fierce
bravery, and tall contempt, had been growing ever since the news of the
attack upon our premises had taken good people by surprise; at least as
concerned the issue.
Jeremy Stickles laughed heartily about Annie's new manner of charming
the cream; but he looked very grave at the loss of the jewels, so soon
as he knew their value.
“My son,” he exclaimed, “this is very heavy. It will go ill with all of
you to make good this loss, as I fear that you will have to do.”
“What!” cried I, with my blood running cold. “We make good the loss,
Master Stickles! Every farthing we have in the world, and the labour of
our lives to boot, will never make good the tenth of it.”
“It would cut me to the heart,” he answered, laying his hand on mine,
“to hear of such a deadly blow to you and your good mother. And this
farm; how long, John, has it been in your family?”
“For at least six hundred years,” I said, with a foolish pride that was
only too like to end in groans; “and some people say, by a Royal grant,
in the time of the great King Alfred. At any rate, a Ridd was with him
throughout all his hiding-time. We have always held by the King and
crown: surely none will turn us out, unless we are guilty of treason?”
“My son,” replied Jeremy very gently, so that I could love him for
it, “not a word to your good mother of this unlucky matter. Keep it to
yourself, my boy, and try to think but little of it. After all, I may be
wrong: at any rate, least said best mended.”
“But Jeremy, dear Jeremy, how can I bear to leave it so? Do you suppose
that I can sleep, and eat my food, and go about, and look at other
people, as if nothing at all had happened? And all the time have it on
my mind, that not an acre of all the land, nor even our old sheep-dog,
belongs to us, of right at all! It is more than I can do, Jeremy. Let me
talk, and know the worst of it.”
“Very well,” replied Master Stickles, seeing that both the doors were
closed; “I thought that nothing could move you, John; or I never would
have told you. Likely enough I am quite wrong; and God send that I be
so. But what I guessed at some time back seems more than a guess, now
that you have told me about these wondrous jewels. Now will you keep, as
close as death, every word I tell you?”
“By the honour of a man, I will. Until you yourself release me.”
“That is quite enough, John. From you I want no oath; which, according
to my experience, tempts a man to lie the more, by making it more
important. I know you now too well to swear you, though I have the
power. Now, my lad, what I have to say will scare your mind in one way,
and ease it in another. I think that you have been hard pressed--I can
read you like a book, John--by something which that old villain said,
before he stole the necklace. You have tried not to dwell upon it; you
have even tried to make light of it for the sake of the women: but on
the whole it has grieved you more than even this dastard robbery.”
“It would have done so, Jeremy Stickles, if I could once have believed
it. And even without much belief, it is so against our manners, that it
makes me miserable. Only think of loving Lorna, only think of kissing
her; and then remembering that her father had destroyed the life of
mine!”
“Only think,” said Master Stickles, imitating my very voice, “of Lorna
loving you, John, of Lorna kissing you, John; and all the while saying
to herself, 'this man's father murdered mine.' Now look at it in Lorna's
way as well as in your own way. How one-sided all men are!”
“I may look at it in fifty ways, and yet no good will come of it.
Jeremy, I confess to you, that I tried to make the best of it; partly to
baffle the Counsellor, and partly because my darling needed my help, and
bore it so, and behaved to me so nobly. But to you in secret, I am not
ashamed to say that a woman may look over this easier than a man may.”
“Because her nature is larger, my son, when she truly loves; although
her mind be smaller. Now, if I can ease you from this secret burden,
will you bear, with strength and courage, the other which I plant on
you?”
“I will do my best,” said I.
“No man can do more,” said he and so began his story.
CHAPTER LIII
JEREMY FINDS OUT SOMETHING
“You know, my son,” said Jeremy Stickles, with a good pull at his pipe,
because he was going to talk so much, and putting his legs well along
the settle; “it has been my duty, for a wearier time than I care to
think of (and which would have been unbearable, except for your great
kindness), to search this neighbourhood narrowly, and learn everything
about everybody. Now the neighbourhood itself is queer; and people
have different ways of thinking from what we are used to in London. For
instance now, among your folk, when any piece of news is told, or any
man's conduct spoken of, the very first question that arises in your
mind is this--'Was this action kind and good?' Long after that, you say
to yourselves, 'does the law enjoin or forbid this thing?' Now here
is your fundamental error: for among all truly civilised people the
foremost of all questions is, 'how stands the law herein?' And if the
law approve, no need for any further questioning. That this is so, you
may take my word: for I know the law pretty thoroughly.
“Very well; I need not say any more about that, for I have shown that
you are all quite wrong. I only speak of this savage tendency, because
it explains so many things which have puzzled me among you, and most of
all your kindness to men whom you never saw before; which is an utterly
illegal thing. It also explains your toleration of these outlaw Doones
so long. If your views of law had been correct, and law an element of
your lives, these robbers could never have been indulged for so many
years amongst you: but you must have abated the nuisance.”
“Now, Stickles,” I cried, “this is too bad!” he was delivering himself
so grandly. “Why you yourself have been amongst us, as the balance, and
sceptre, and sword of law, for nigh upon a twelvemonth; and have you
abated the nuisance, or even cared to do it, until they began to shoot
at you?”
“My son,” he replied, “your argument is quite beside the purpose, and
only tends to prove more clearly that which I have said of you. However,
if you wish to hear my story, no more interruptions. I may not have a
chance to tell you, perhaps for weeks, or I know not when, if once those
yellows and reds arrive, and be blessed to them, the lubbers! Well,
it may be six months ago, or it may be seven, at any rate a good while
before that cursed frost began, the mere name of which sends a shiver
down every bone of my body, when I was riding one afternoon from
Dulverton to Watchett”--
“Dulverton to Watchett!” I cried. “Now what does that remind me of? I am
sure, I remember something--”
“Remember this, John, if anything--that another word from thee, and thou
hast no more of mine. Well, I was a little weary perhaps, having been
plagued at Dulverton with the grossness of the people. For they would
tell me nothing at all about their fellow-townsmen, your worthy Uncle
Huckaback, except that he was a God-fearing man, and they only wished
I was like him. I blessed myself for a stupid fool, in thinking to have
pumped them; for by this time I might have known that, through your
Western homeliness, every man in his own country is something more than
a prophet. And I felt, of course, that I had done more harm than good by
questioning; inasmuch as every soul in the place would run straightway
and inform him that the King's man from the other side of the forest had
been sifting out his ways and works.”
“Ah,” I cried, for I could not help it; “you begin to understand at
last, that we are not quite such a set of oafs, as you at first believed
us.”
“I was riding on from Dulverton,” he resumed, with great severity, yet
threatening me no more, which checked me more than fifty threats: “and
it was late in the afternoon, and I was growing weary. The road (if road
it could be called) turned suddenly down from the higher land to the
very brink of the sea; and rounding a little jut of cliff, I met the
roar of the breakers. My horse was scared, and leaped aside; for a
northerly wind was piping, and driving hunks of foam across, as children
scatter snow-balls. But he only sank to his fetlocks in the dry sand,
piled with pop-weed: and I tried to make him face the waves; and then I
looked about me.
“Watchett town was not to be seen, on account of a little foreland, a
mile or more upon my course, and standing to the right of me. There was
room enough below the cliffs (which are nothing there to yours, John),
for horse and man to get along, although the tide was running high with
a northerly gale to back it. But close at hand and in the corner, drawn
above the yellow sands and long eye-brows of rackweed, as snug a little
house blinked on me as ever I saw, or wished to see.
“You know that I am not luxurious, neither in any way given to the
common lusts of the flesh, John. My father never allowed his hair to
grow a fourth part of an inch in length, and he was a thoroughly godly
man; and I try to follow in his footsteps, whenever I think about it.
Nevertheless, I do assure you that my view of that little house and the