Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
“Tush!” he replied: “I know you too well, to look for meanness in you.
If from pure goodwill, John Ridd, and anxiety to relieve you, I made no
condition precedent, you are not the man to take advantage, as a lawyer
might. I do not even want your promise. As sure as I hold this glass,
and drink your health and love in another drop (forced on me by pathetic
words), so surely will you be bound to me, until I do release you. Tush!
I know men well by this time: a mere look of trust from one is worth
another's ten thousand oaths.”
“Jeremy, you are right,” I answered; “at least as regards the issue.
Although perhaps you were not right in leading me into a bargain like
this, without my own consent or knowledge. But supposing that we should
both be shot in this grand attack on the valley (for I mean to go
with you now, heart and soul), is Lorna to remain untold of that which
changes all her life?”
“Both shot!” cried Jeremy Stickles: “my goodness, boy, talk not like
that! And those Doones are cursed good shots too. Nay, nay, the yellows
shall go in front; we attack on the Somerset side, I think. I from a
hill will reconnoitre, as behoves a general, you shall stick behind a
tree, if we can only find one big enough to hide you. You and I to be
shot, John Ridd, with all this inferior food for powder anxious to be
devoured?”
I laughed, for I knew his cool hardihood, and never-flinching courage;
and sooth to say no coward would have dared to talk like that.
“But when one comes to think of it,” he continued, smiling at himself;
“some provision should be made for even that unpleasant chance. I will
leave the whole in writing, with orders to be opened, etc., etc.--Now no
more of that, my boy; a cigarro after schnapps, and go to meet my yellow
boys.”
His “yellow boys,” as he called the Somersetshire trained bands, were
even now coming down the valley from the London Road, as every one since
I went up to town, grandly entitled the lane to the moors. There was one
good point about these men, that having no discipline at all, they made
pretence to none whatever. Nay, rather they ridiculed the thing, as
below men of any spirit. On the other hand, Master Stickles's troopers
looked down on these native fellows from a height which I hope they may
never tumble, for it would break the necks of all of them.
Now these fine natives came along, singing, for their very lives, a song
the like of which set down here would oust my book from modest
people, and make everybody say, “this man never can have loved Lorna.”
Therefore, the less of that the better; only I thought, “what a
difference from the goodly psalms of the ale house!”
Having finished their canticle, which contained more mirth than melody,
they drew themselves up, in a sort of way supposed by them to be
military, each man with heel and elbow struck into those of his
neighbour, and saluted the King's Commissioner. “Why, where are your
officers?” asked Master Stickles; “how is it that you have no officers?”
Upon this there arose a general grin, and a knowing look passed along
their faces, even up to the man by the gatepost. “Are you going to tell
me, or not,” said Jeremy, “what is become of your officers?”
“Plaise zur,” said one little fellow at last, being nodded at by the
rest to speak, in right of his known eloquence; “hus tould Harfizers, as
a wor no nade of un, now King's man hiszell wor coom, a puppose vor to
command us laike.”
“And do you mean to say, you villains,” cried Jeremy, scarce knowing
whether to laugh, or to swear, or what to do; “that your officers took
their dismissal thus, and let you come on without them?”
“What could 'em do?” asked the little man, with reason certainly on his
side: “hus zent 'em about their business, and they was glad enough to
goo.”
“Well!” said poor Jeremy, turning to me; “a pretty state of things,
John! Threescore cobblers, and farming men, plasterers, tailors, and
kettles-to-mend; and not a man to keep order among them, except my
blessed self, John! And I trow there is not one among them could hit all
in-door flying. The Doones will make riddles of all of us.”
However, he had better hopes when the sons of Devon appeared, as
they did in about an hour's time; fine fellows, and eager to prove
themselves. These had not discarded their officers, but marched in good
obedience to them, and were quite prepared to fight the men of Somerset
(if need be) in addition to the Doones. And there was scarcely a man
among them but could have trounced three of the yellow men, and would
have done it gladly too, in honour of the red facings.
“Do you mean to suppose, Master Jeremy Stickles,” said I, looking on
with amazement, beholding also all our maidens at the upstair windows
wondering; “that we, my mother a widow woman, and I a young man of small
estate, can keep and support all these precious fellows, both yellow
ones, and red ones, until they have taken the Doone Glen?”
“God forbid it, my son!” he replied, laying a finger upon his lip:
“Nay, nay, I am not of the shabby order, when I have the strings of
government. Kill your sheep at famine prices, and knead your bread at
a figure expressing the rigours of last winter. Let Annie make out the
bill every day, and I at night will double it. You may take my word for
it, Master John, this spring-harvest shall bring you in three times
as much as last autumn's did. If they cheated you in town, my lad, you
shall have your change in the country. Take thy bill, and write down
quickly.”
However this did not meet my views of what an honest man should do; and
I went to consult my mother about it, as all the accounts would be made
in her name.
Dear mother thought that if the King paid only half again as much as
other people would have to pay, it would be perhaps the proper thing;
the half being due for loyalty: and here she quoted an ancient saying,--
“The King and his staff.
Be a man and a half;”
which, according to her judgment, ruled beyond dispute the law of the
present question. To argue with her after that (which she brought up
with such triumph) would have been worse than useless. Therefore I just
told Annie to make the bills at a third below the current market prices;
so that the upshot would be fair. She promised me honestly that she
would; but with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes, which she must have
caught from Tom Faggus. It always has appeared to me that stern and
downright honesty upon money matters is a thing not understood of women;
be they as good as good can be.
The yellows and the reds together numbered a hundred and twenty men,
most of whom slept in our barns and stacks; and besides these we had
fifteen troopers of the regular army. You may suppose that all the
country was turned upside down about it; and the folk who came to see
them drill--by no means a needless exercise--were a greater plague
than the soldiers. The officers too of the Devonshire hand were such a
torment to us, that we almost wished their men had dismissed them, as
the Somerset troop had done with theirs. For we could not keep them out
of our house, being all young men of good family, and therefore not to
be met with bars. And having now three lovely maidens (for even Lizzie
might be called so, when she cared to please), mother and I were at
wit's ends, on account of those blessed officers. I never got a wink of
sleep; they came whistling under the window so; and directly I went out
to chase them, there was nothing but a cat to see.
Therefore all of us were right glad (except perhaps Farmer Snowe, from
whom we had bought some victuals at rare price), when Jeremy Stickles
gave orders to march, and we began to try to do it. A good deal of
boasting went overhead, as our men defiled along the lane; and the thick
broad patins of pennywort jutted out between the stones, ready to
heal their bruises. The parish choir came part of the way, and the
singing-loft from Countisbury; and they kept our soldiers' spirits up
with some of the most pugnacious Psalms. Parson Bowden marched ahead,
leading all our van and file, as against the Papists; and promising
to go with us, till we came to bullet distance. Therefore we marched
bravely on, and children came to look at us. And I wondered where Uncle
Reuben was, who ought to have led the culverins (whereof we had no less
than three), if Stickles could only have found him; and then I thought
of little Ruth; and without any fault on my part, my heart went down
within me.
The culverins were laid on bark; and all our horses pulling them, and
looking round every now and then, with their ears curved up like a
squirrel'd nut, and their noses tossing anxiously, to know what sort
of plough it was man had been pleased to put behind them--man, whose
endless whims and wildness they could never understand, any more than
they could satisfy. However, they pulled their very best--as all our
horses always do--and the culverins went up the hill, without smack
of whip, or swearing. It had been arranged, very justly, no doubt, and
quite in keeping with the spirit of the Constitution, but as it proved
not too wisely, that either body of men should act in its own county
only. So when we reached the top of the hill, the sons of Devon marched
on, and across the track leading into Doone-gate, so as to fetch round
the western side, and attack with their culverin from the cliffs, whence
the sentry had challenged me on the night of my passing the entrance.
Meanwhile the yellow lads were to stay upon the eastern highland, whence
Uncle Reuben and myself had reconnoitred so long ago; and whence I had
leaped into the valley at the time of the great snow-drifts. And here
they were not to show themselves; but keep their culverin in the woods,
until their cousins of Devon appeared on the opposite parapet of the
glen.
The third culverin was entrusted to the fifteen troopers; who, with ten
picked soldiers from either trained hand, making in all five-and-thirty
men, were to assault the Doone-gate itself, while the outlaws were
placed between two fires from the eastern cliff and the western. And
with this force went Jeremy Stickles, and with it went myself, as
knowing more about the passage than any other stranger did. Therefore,
if I have put it clearly, as I strive to do, you will see that the
Doones must repulse at once three simultaneous attacks, from an army
numbering in the whole one hundred and thirty-five men, not including
the Devonshire officers; fifty men on each side, I mean, and thirty-five
at the head of the valley.
The tactics of this grand campaign appeared to me so clever, and
beautifully ordered, that I commended Colonel Stickles, as everybody
now called him, for his great ability and mastery of the art of war. He
admitted that he deserved high praise; but said that he was not by any
means equally certain of success, so large a proportion of his forces
being only a raw militia, brave enough no doubt for anything, when they
saw their way to it; but knowing little of gunnery, and wholly unused
to be shot at. Whereas all the Doones were practised marksmen, being
compelled when lads (like the Balearic slingers) to strike down their
meals before tasting them. And then Colonel Stickles asked me, whether I
myself could stand fire; he knew that I was not a coward, but this was
a different question. I told him that I had been shot at, once or twice
before; but nevertheless disliked it, as much as almost anything. Upon
that he said that I would do; for that when a man got over the first
blush of diffidence, he soon began to look upon it as a puff of destiny.
I wish I could only tell what happened, in the battle of that day,
especially as nearly all the people round these parts, who never saw