Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor
it is to smoke good tobacco well, and watch the setting of the moon; and
if this should only be over the sea, the result is irresistible.
Master Huckaback showed no especial signs of joy at my return; but
received me with a little grunt, which appeared to me to mean, “Ah, I
thought he would hardly be fool enough to go.” I told him how sorry I
was for having in some way offended him; and he answered that I did well
to grieve for one at least of my offences. To this I made no reply, as
behoves a man dealing with cross and fractious people; and presently he
became better-tempered, and sent little Ruth for a bottle of wine. She
gave me a beautiful smile of thanks for my forbearance as she passed;
and I knew by her manner that she would bring the best bottle in all the
cellar.
As I had but little time to spare (although the days were long and
light) we were forced to take our wine with promptitude and rapidity;
and whether this loosened my uncle's tongue, or whether he meant
beforehand to speak, is now almost uncertain. But true it is that he
brought his chair very near to mine, after three or four glasses, and
sent Ruth away upon some errand which seemed of small importance. At
this I was vexed, for the room always looked so different without her.
“Come, Jack,” he said, “here's your health, young fellow, and a good and
obedient wife to you. Not that your wife will ever obey you though; you
are much too easy-tempered. Even a bitter and stormy woman might live
in peace with you, Jack. But never you give her the chance to try. Marry
some sweet little thing, if you can. If not, don't marry any. Ah, we
have the maid to suit you, my lad, in this old town of Dulverton.”
“Have you so, sir? But perhaps the maid might have no desire to suit
me.”
“That you may take my word she has. The colour of this wine will prove
it. The little sly hussy has been to the cobwebbed arch of the cellar,
where she has no right to go, for any one under a magistrate. However,
I am glad to see it, and we will not spare it, John. After my time,
somebody, whoever marries little Ruth, will find some rare wines there,
I trow, and perhaps not know the difference.”
Thinking of this the old man sighed, and expected me to sigh after him.
But a sigh is not (like a yawn) infectious; and we are all more prone
to be sent to sleep than to sorrow by one another. Not but what a sigh
sometimes may make us think of sighing.
“Well, sir,” cried I, in my sprightliest manner, which rouses up most
people, “here's to your health and dear little Ruth's: and may you live
to knock off the cobwebs from every bottle in under the arch. Uncle
Reuben, your life and health, sir?”
With that I took my glass thoughtfully, for it was wondrous good; and
Uncle Ben was pleased to see me dwelling pleasantly on the subject with
parenthesis, and self-commune, and oral judgment unpronounced, though
smacking of fine decision. “_Curia vult advisari_,” as the lawyers say;
which means, “Let us have another glass, and then we can think about
it.”
“Come now, John,” said Uncle Ben, laying his wrinkled hand on my knee,
when he saw that none could heed us, “I know that you have a sneaking
fondness for my grandchild Ruth. Don't interrupt me now; you have; and
to deny it will only provoke me.”
“I do like Ruth, sir,” I said boldly, for fear of misunderstanding; “but
I do not love her.”
“Very well; that makes no difference. Liking may very soon be loving (as
some people call it) when the maid has money to help her.”
“But if there be, as there is in my case--”
“Once for all, John, not a word. I do not attempt to lead you into any
engagement with little Ruth; neither will I blame you (though I may be
disappointed) if no such engagement should ever be. But whether you will
have my grandchild, or whether you will not--and such a chance is
rarely offered to a fellow of your standing”--Uncle Ben despised all
farmers--“in any case I have at least resolved to let you know my
secret; and for two good reasons. The first is that it wears me out
to dwell upon it, all alone, and the second is that I can trust you to
fulfil a promise. Moreover, you are my next of kin, except among
the womankind; and you are just the man I want, to help me in my
enterprise.”
“And I will help you, sir,” I answered, fearing some conspiracy, “in
anything that is true, and loyal, and according to the laws of the
realm.”
“Ha, ha!” cried the old man, laughing until his eyes ran over, and
spreading out his skinny hands upon his shining breeches, “thou hast
gone the same fools' track as the rest; even as spy Stickles went, and
all his precious troopers. Landing of arms at Glenthorne, and Lynmouth,
wagons escorted across the moor, sounds of metal and booming noises!
Ah, but we managed it cleverly, to cheat even those so near to
us. Disaffection at Taunton, signs of insurrection at Dulverton,
revolutionary tanner at Dunster! We set it all abroad, right well. And
not even you to suspect our work; though we thought at one time that you
watched us. Now who, do you suppose, is at the bottom of all this Exmoor
insurgency, all this western rebellion--not that I say there is none,
mind--but who is at the bottom of it?”
“Either Mother Melldrum,” said I, being now a little angry, “or else old
Nick himself.”
“Nay, old Uncle Reuben!” Saying this, Master Huckaback cast back his
coat, and stood up, and made the most of himself.
“Well!” cried I, being now quite come to the limits of my intellect,
“then, after all, Captain Stickles was right in calling you a rebel,
sir!”
“Of course he was; could so keen a man be wrong about an old fool like
me? But come, and see our rebellion, John. I will trust you now with
everything. I will take no oath from you; only your word to keep
silence; and most of all from your mother.”
“I will give you my word,” I said, although liking not such pledges;
which make a man think before he speaks in ordinary company, against
his usual practices. However, I was now so curious, that I thought of
nothing else; and scarcely could believe at all that Uncle Ben was quite
right in his head.
“Take another glass of wine, my son,” he cried with a cheerful
countenance, which made him look more than ten years younger; “you shall
come into partnership with me: your strength will save us two horses,
and we always fear the horse work. Come and see our rebellion, my boy;
you are a made man from to-night.”
“But where am I to come and see it? Where am I to find it, sir?”
“Meet me,” he answered, yet closing his hands, and wrinkling with
doubt his forehead, “come alone, of course; and meet me at the Wizard's
Slough, at ten to-morrow morning.”
CHAPTER LVIII
MASTER HUCKABACK'S SECRET
Knowing Master Huckaback to be a man of his word, as well as one who
would have others so, I was careful to be in good time the next morning,
by the side of the Wizard's Slough. I am free to admit that the name of
the place bore a feeling of uneasiness, and a love of distance, in some
measure to my heart. But I did my best not to think of this; only I
thought it a wise precaution, and due for the sake of my mother and
Lorna, to load my gun with a dozen slugs made from the lead of the old
church-porch, laid by, long since, against witchcraft.
I am well aware that some people now begin to doubt about witchcraft; or
at any rate feign to do so; being desirous to disbelieve whatever they
are afraid of. This spirit is growing too common among us, and will end
(unless we put a stop to it!) in the destruction of all religion. And
as regards witchcraft, a man is bound either to believe in it, or to
disbelieve the Bible. For even in the New Testament, discarding many
things of the Old, such as sacrifices, and Sabbath, and fasting, and
other miseries, witchcraft is clearly spoken of as a thing that
must continue; that the Evil One be not utterly robbed of his vested
interests. Hence let no one tell me that witchcraft is done away with;
for I will meet him with St. Paul, than whom no better man, and few less
superstitious, can be found in all the Bible.
Feeling these things more in those days than I feel them now, I fetched
a goodish compass round, by the way of the cloven rocks, rather than
cross Black Barrow Down, in a reckless and unholy manner. There were
several spots, upon that Down, cursed and smitten, and blasted, as if
thunderbolts had fallen there, and Satan sat to keep them warm. At any
rate it was good (as every one acknowledged) not to wander there too
much; even with a doctor of divinity on one arm and of medicine upon the
other.
Therefore, I, being all alone, and on foot (as seemed the wisest),
preferred a course of roundabout; and starting about eight o'clock,
without mentioning my business, arrived at the mouth of the deep
descent, such as John Fry described it. Now this (though I have not
spoken of it) was not my first time of being there. For, although I
could not bring myself to spy upon Uncle Reuben, as John Fry had done,
yet I thought it no ill manners, after he had left our house, to have a
look at the famous place, where the malefactor came to life, at least
in John's opinion. At that time, however, I saw nothing except the great
ugly black morass, with the grisly reeds around it; and I did not care
to go very near it, much less to pry on the further side.
Now, on the other hand, I was bent to get at the very bottom of this
mystery (if there were any), having less fear of witch or wizard, with
a man of Uncle Reuben's wealth to take my part, and see me through. So
I rattled the ramrod down my gun, just to know if the charge were right,
after so much walking; and finding it full six inches deep, as I like to
have it, went boldly down the steep gorge of rock, with a firm resolve
to shoot any witch unless it were good Mother Melldrum. Nevertheless to
my surprise, all was quiet, and fair to look at, in the decline of
the narrow way, with great stalked ferns coming forth like trees, yet
hanging like cobwebs over one. And along one side, a little spring was
getting rid of its waters. Any man might stop and think; or he might
go on and think; and in either case, there was none to say that he was
making a fool of himself.
When I came to the foot of this ravine, and over against the great black
slough, there was no sign of Master Huckaback, nor of any other living
man, except myself, in the silence. Therefore, I sat in a niche of rock,
gazing at the slough, and pondering the old tradition about it.
They say that, in the ancient times, a mighty necromancer lived in the
wilderness of Exmoor. Here, by spell and incantation, he built himself
a strong high palace, eight-sided like a spider's web, and standing on
a central steep; so that neither man nor beast could cross the moors
without his knowledge. If he wished to rob and slay a traveller, or to
have wild ox, or stag for food, he had nothing more to do than sit at
one of his eight windows, and point his unholy book at him. Any moving
creature, at which that book was pointed, must obey the call, and come
from whatever distance, if sighted once by the wizard.
This was a bad condition of things, and all the country groaned under
it; and Exmoor (although the most honest place that a man could wish
to live in) was beginning to get a bad reputation, and all through that
vile wizard. No man durst even go to steal a sheep, or a pony, or so
much as a deer for dinner, lest he should be brought to book by a far
bigger rogue than he was. And this went on for many years; though they
prayed to God to abate it. But at last, when the wizard was getting fat
and haughty upon his high stomach, a mighty deliverance came to Exmoor,