It was only right in Jeremy Stickles,
and of the simplest common sense, that he would not
tell, before our girls, what the result of his journey
was. But he led me aside in the course of the
evening, and told me all about it; saying that I knew,
as well as he did, that it was not woman’s business.
This I took, as it was meant, for a gentle caution
that Lorna (whom he had not seen as yet) must not
be informed of any of his doings. Herein I quite
agreed with him; not only for his furtherance, but
because I always think that women, of whatever mind,
are best when least they meddle with the things that
appertain to men.
Master Stickles complained that the
weather had been against him bitterly, closing all
the roads around him; even as it had done with us.
It had taken him eight days, he said, to get from Exeter
to Plymouth; whither he found that most of the troops
had been drafted off from Exeter. When all were
told, there was but a battalion of one of the King’s
horse regiments, and two companies of foot soldiers;
and their commanders had orders, later than the date
of Jeremy’s commission, on no account to quit
the southern coast, and march inland. Therefore,
although they would gladly have come for a brush with
the celebrated Doones, it was more than they durst
attempt, in the face of their instructions. However,
they spared him a single trooper, as a companion of
the road, and to prove to the justices of the county,
and the lord lieutenant, that he had their approval.
To these authorities Master Stickles
now was forced to address himself, although he would
rather have had one trooper than a score from the
very best trained bands. For these trained bands
had afforded very good soldiers, in the time of the
civil wars, and for some years afterwards; but now
their discipline was gone; and the younger generation
had seen no real fighting. Each would have his
own opinion, and would want to argue it; and if he
were not allowed, he went about his duty in such a
temper as to prove that his own way was the best.
Neither was this the worst of it;
for Jeremy made no doubt but what (if he could only
get the militia to turn out in force) he might manage,
with the help of his own men, to force the stronghold
of the enemy; but the truth was that the officers,
knowing how hard it would be to collect their men
at that time of the year, and in that state of the
weather, began with one accord to make every possible
excuse. And especially they pressed this point,
that Bagworthy was not in their county; the Devonshire
people affirming vehemently that it lay in the shire
of Somerset, and the Somersetshire folk averring,
even with imprecations, that it lay in Devonshire.
Now I believe the truth to be that the boundary of
the two counties, as well as of Oare and Brendon parishes,
is defined by the Bagworthy river; so that the disputants
on both sides were both right and wrong.
Upon this, Master Stickles suggested,
and as I thought very sensibly, that the two counties
should unite, and equally contribute to the extirpation
of this pest, which shamed and injured them both alike.
But hence arose another difficulty; for the men of
Devon said they would march when Somerset had taken
the field; and the sons of Somerset replied that indeed
they were quite ready, but what were their cousins
of Devonshire doing? And so it came to pass that
the King’s Commissioner returned without any
army whatever; but with promise of two hundred men
when the roads should be more passable. And meanwhile,
what were we to do, abandoned as we were to the mercies
of the Doones, with only our own hands to help us?
And herein I grieved at my own folly, in having let
Tom Faggus go, whose wit and courage would have been
worth at least half a dozen men to us. Upon this
matter I held long council with my good friend Stickles;
telling him all about Lorna’s presence, and what
I knew of her history. He agreed with me that
we could not hope to escape an attack from the outlaws,
and the more especially now that they knew himself
to be returned to us. Also he praised me for my
forethought in having threshed out all our corn, and
hidden the produce in such a manner that they were
not likely to find it. Furthermore, he recommended
that all the entrances to the house should at once
be strengthened, and a watch must be maintained at
night; and he thought it wiser that I should go (late
as it was) to Lynmouth, if a horse could pass the
valley, and fetch every one of his mounted troopers,
who might now be quartered there. Also if any
men of courage, though capable only of handling a
pitchfork, could be found in the neighbourhood, I was
to try to summon them. But our district is so
thinly peopled, that I had little faith in this; however
my errand was given me, and I set forth upon it; for
John Fry was afraid of the waters.
Knowing how fiercely the floods were
out, I resolved to travel the higher road, by Cosgate
and through Countisbury; therefore I swam my horse
through the Lynn, at the ford below our house (where
sometimes you may step across), and thence galloped
up and along the hills. I could see all the inland
valleys ribbon’d with broad waters; and in every
winding crook, the banks of snow that fed them; while
on my right the turbid sea was flaked with April showers.
But when I descended the hill towards Lynmouth, I
feared that my journey was all in vain.
For the East Lynn (which is our river)
was ramping and roaring frightfully, lashing whole
trunks of trees on the rocks, and rending them, and
grinding them. And into it rushed, from the opposite
side, a torrent even madder; upsetting what it came
to aid; shattering wave with boiling billow, and scattering
wrath with fury. It was certain death to attempt
the passage: and the little wooden footbridge
had been carried away long ago. And the men I
was seeking must be, of course, on the other side
of this deluge, for on my side there was not a single
house.
I followed the bank of the flood to
the beach, some two or three hundred yards below;
and there had the luck to see Will Watcombe on the
opposite side, caulking an old boat. Though I
could not make him hear a word, from the deafening
roar of the torrent, I got him to understand at last
that I wanted to cross over. Upon this he fetched
another man, and the two of them launched a boat;
and paddling well out to sea, fetched round the mouth
of the frantic river. The other man proved to
be Stickles’s chief mate; and so he went back
and fetched his comrades, bringing their weapons,
but leaving their horses behind. As it happened
there were but four of them; however, to have even
these was a help; and I started again at full speed
for my home; for the men must follow afoot, and cross
our river high up on the moorland.
This took them a long way round, and
the track was rather bad to find, and the sky already
darkening; so that I arrived at Plover’s Barrows
more than two hours before them. But they had
done a sagacious thing, which was well worth the delay;
for by hoisting their flag upon the hill, they fetched
the two watchmen from the Foreland, and added them
to their number.
It was lucky that I came home so soon;
for I found the house in a great commotion, and all
the women trembling. When I asked what the matter
was, Lorna, who seemed the most self-possessed, answered
that it was all her fault, for she alone had frightened
them. And this in the following manner.
She had stolen out to the garden towards dusk, to watch
some favourite hyacinths just pushing up, like a baby’s
teeth, and just attracting the fatal notice of a great
house-snail at night-time. Lorna at last had
discovered the glutton, and was bearing him off in
triumph to the tribunal of the ducks, when she descried
two glittering eyes glaring at her steadfastly, from
the elder-bush beyond the stream. The elder was
smoothing its wrinkled leaves, being at least two months
behind time; and among them this calm cruel face appeared;
and she knew it was the face of Carver Doone.
The maiden, although so used to terror
(as she told me once before), lost all presence of
mind hereat, and could neither shriek nor fly, but
only gaze, as if bewitched. Then Carver Doone,
with his deadly smile, gloating upon her horror, lifted
his long gun, and pointed full at Lorna’s heart.
In vain she strove to turn away; fright had stricken
her stiff as stone. With the inborn love of life,
she tried to cover the vital part wherein the winged
death must lodge — for she knew Carver’s
certain aim — but her hands hung numbed, and
heavy; in nothing but her eyes was life.
With no sign of pity in his face,
no quiver of relenting, but a well-pleased grin at
all the charming palsy of his victim, Carver Doone
lowered, inch by inch, the muzzle of his gun.
When it pointed to the ground, between her delicate
arched insteps, he pulled the trigger, and the bullet
flung the mould all over her. It was a refinement
of bullying, for which I swore to God that night,
upon my knees, in secret, that I would smite down
Carver Doone or else he should smite me down.
Base beast! what largest humanity, or what dreams of
divinity, could make a man put up with this?
My darling (the loveliest, and most
harmless, in the world of maidens), fell away on a
bank of grass, and wept at her own cowardice; and
trembled, and wondered where I was; and what I would
think of this. Good God! What could I think
of it? She over-rated my slow nature, to admit
the question.
While she leaned there, quite unable
yet to save herself, Carver came to the brink of the
flood, which alone was between them; and then he stroked
his jet-black beard, and waited for Lorna to begin.
Very likely, he thought that she would thank him for
his kindness to her. But she was now recovering
the power of her nimble limbs; and ready to be off
like hope, and wonder at her own cowardice.
‘I have spared you this time,’
he said, in his deep calm voice, ’only because
it suits my plans; and I never yield to temper.
But unless you come back to-morrow, pure, and with
all you took away, and teach me to destroy that fool,
who has destroyed himself for you, your death is here,
your death is here, where it has long been waiting.’
Although his gun was empty, he struck
the breech of it with his finger; and then he turned
away, not deigning even once to look back again; and
Lorna saw his giant figure striding across the meadow-land,
as if the Ridds were nobodies, and he the proper owner.
Both mother and I were greatly hurt at hearing of
this insolence: for we had owned that meadow,
from the time of the great Alfred; and even when that
good king lay in the Isle of Athelney, he had a Ridd
along with him.
Now I spoke to Lorna gently, seeing
how much she had been tried; and I praised her for
her courage, in not having run away, when she was so
unable; and my darling was pleased with this, and smiled
upon me for saying it; though she knew right well
that, in this matter, my judgment was not impartial.
But you may take this as a general rule, that a woman
likes praise from the man whom she loves, and cannot
stop always to balance it.
Now expecting a sharp attack that
night — when Jeremy Stickles the more expected,
after the words of Carver, which seemed to be meant
to mislead us — we prepared a great quantity
of knuckles of pork, and a ham in full cut, and a
fillet of hung mutton. For we would almost surrender
rather than keep our garrison hungry. And all
our men were exceedingly brave; and counted their
rounds of the house in half-pints.
Before the maidens went to bed, Lorna
made a remark which seemed to me a very clever one,
and then I wondered how on earth it had never occurred
to me before. But first she had done a thing which
I could not in the least approve of: for she
had gone up to my mother, and thrown herself into
her arms, and begged to be allowed to return to Glen
Doone.
‘My child, are you unhappy here?’
mother asked her, very gently, for she had begun to
regard her now as a daughter of her own.
’Oh, no! Too happy, by
far too happy, Mrs. Ridd. I never knew rest or
peace before, or met with real kindness. But I
cannot be so ungrateful, I cannot be so wicked, as
to bring you all into deadly peril, for my sake alone.
Let me go: you must not pay this great price for
my happiness.’
‘Dear child, we are paying no
price at all,’ replied my mother, embracing
her; ’we are not threatened for your sake only.
Ask John, he will tell you. He knows every bit
about politics, and this is a political matter.’
Dear mother was rather proud in her
heart, as well as terribly frightened, at the importance
now accruing to Plover’s Barrows farm; and she
often declared that it would be as famous in history
as the Rye House, or the Meal-tub, or even the great
black box, in which she was a firm believer:
and even my knowledge of politics could not move her
upon that matter. ‘Such things had happened
before,’ she would say, shaking her head with
its wisdom, ’and why might they not happen again?
Women would be women, and men would be men, to the
end of the chapter; and if she had been in Lucy Water’s
place, she would keep it quiet, as she had done’;
and then she would look round, for fear, lest either
of her daughters had heard her; ’but now, can
you give me any reason, why it may not have been so?
You are so fearfully positive, John: just as men
always are.’ ‘No,’ I used to
say; ’I can give you no reason, why it may not
have been so, mother. But the question is, if
it was so, or not; rather than what it might have
been. And, I think, it is pretty good proof against
it, that what nine men of every ten in England would
only too gladly believe, if true, is nevertheless kept
dark from them.’ ‘There you are again,
John,’ mother would reply, ’all about men,
and not a single word about women. If you had
any argument at all, you would own that marriage is
a question upon which women are the best judges.’
‘Oh!’ I would groan in my spirit, and
go; leaving my dearest mother quite sure, that now
at last she must have convinced me. But if mother
had known that Jeremy Stickles was working against
the black box, and its issue, I doubt whether he would
have fared so well, even though he was a visitor.
However, she knew that something was doing and something
of importance; and she trusted in God for the rest
of it. Only she used te tell me, very seriously,
of an evening, ’The very least they can give
you, dear John, is a coat of arms. Be sure you
take nothing less, dear; and the farm can well support
it.’
But lo! I have left Lorna ever
so long, anxious to consult me upon political matters.
She came to me, and her eyes alone asked a hundred
questions, which I rather had answered upon her lips
than troubled her pretty ears with them. Therefore
I told her nothing at all, save that the attack (if
any should be) would not be made on her account; and
that if she should hear, by any chance, a trifle of
a noise in the night, she was to wrap the clothes
around her, and shut her beautiful eyes again.
On no account, whatever she did, was she to go to the
window. She liked my expression about her eyes,
and promised to do the very best she could and then
she crept so very close, that I needs must have her
closer; and with her head on my breast she asked, —
‘Can’t you keep out of this fight, John?’
‘My own one,’ I answered,
gazing through the long black lashes, at the depths
of radiant love; ’I believe there will be nothing:
but what there is I must see out.’
’Shall I tell you what I think,
John? It is only a fancy of mine, and perhaps
it is not worth telling.’
‘Let us have it, dear, by all
means. You know so much about their ways.’
’What I believe is this, John.
You know how high the rivers are, higher than ever
they were before, and twice as high, you have told
me. I believe that Glen Doone is flooded, and
all the houses under water.’
‘You little witch,’ I
answered; ’what a fool I must be not to think
of it! Of course it is: it must be.
The torrent from all the Bagworthy forest, and all
the valleys above it, and the great drifts in the glen
itself, never could have outlet down my famous waterslide.
The valley must be under water twenty feet at least.
Well, if ever there was a fool, I am he, for not having
thought of it.’
‘I remember once before,’
said Lorna, reckoning on her fingers, ’when
there was heavy rain, all through the autumn and winter,
five or it may be six years ago, the river came down
with such a rush that the water was two feet deep
in our rooms, and we all had to camp by the cliff-edge.
But you think that the floods are higher now, I believe
I heard you say, John.’
‘I don’t think about it,
my treasure,’ I answered; ’you may trust
me for understanding floods, after our work at Tiverton.
And I know that the deluge in all our valleys is such
that no living man can remember, neither will ever
behold again. Consider three months of snow, snow,
snow, and a fortnight of rain on the top of it, and
all to be drained in a few days away! And great
barricades of ice still in the rivers blocking them
up, and ponding them. You may take my word for
it, Mistress Lorna, that your pretty bower is six
feet deep.’
‘Well, my bower has served its
time’, said Lorna, blushing as she remembered
all that had happened there; ’and my bower now
is here, John. But I am so sorry to think of
all the poor women flooded out of their houses and
sheltering in the snowdrifts. However, there is
one good of it: they cannot send many men against
us, with all this trouble upon them.’
‘You are right,’ I replied;
’how clever you are! and that is why there were
only three to cut off Master Stickles. And now
we shall beat them, I make no doubt, even if they
come at all. And I defy them to fire the house:
the thatch is too wet for burning.’
We sent all the women to bed quite
early, except Gwenny Carfax and our old Betty.
These two we allowed to stay up, because they might
be useful to us, if they could keep from quarreling.
For my part, I had little fear, after what Lorna had
told me, as to the result of the combat. It was
not likely that the Doones could bring more than eight
or ten men against us, while their homes were in such
danger: and to meet these we had eight good men,
including Jeremy, and myself, all well armed and resolute,
besides our three farm-servants, and the parish-clerk,
and the shoemaker. These five could not be trusted
much for any valiant conduct, although they spoke
very confidently over their cans of cider. Neither
were their weapons fitted for much execution, unless
it were at close quarters, which they would be likely
to avoid. Bill Dadds had a sickle, Jem Slocombe
a flail, the cobbler had borrowed the constable’s
staff (for the constable would not attend, because
there was no warrant), and the parish clerk had brought
his pitch-pipe, which was enough to break any man’s
head. But John Fry, of course, had his blunderbuss,
loaded with tin-tacks and marbles, and more likely
to kill the man who discharged it than any other person:
but we knew that John had it only for show, and to
describe its qualities.
Now it was my great desire, and my
chiefest hope, to come across Carver Doone that night,
and settle the score between us; not by any shot in
the dark, but by a conflict man to man. As yet,
since I came to full-grown power, I had never met
any one whom I could not play teetotum with:
but now at last I had found a man whose strength was
not to be laughed at. I could guess it in his
face, I could tell it in his arms, I could see it
in his stride and gait, which more than all the rest
betray the substance of a man. And being so well
used to wrestling, and to judge antagonists, I felt
that here (if anywhere) I had found my match.
Therefore I was not content to abide
within the house, or go the rounds with the troopers;
but betook myself to the rick yard, knowing that the
Doones were likely to begin their onset there.
For they had a pleasant custom, when they visited
farm-houses, of lighting themselves towards picking
up anything they wanted, or stabbing the inhabitants,
by first creating a blaze in the rick yard. And
though our ricks were all now of mere straw (except
indeed two of prime clover-hay), and although on the
top they were so wet that no firebrands might hurt
them; I was both unwilling to have them burned, and
fearful that they might kindle, if well roused up
with fire upon the windward side.
By the bye, these Doones had got the
worst of this pleasant trick one time. For happening
to fire the ricks of a lonely farm called Yeanworthy,
not far above Glenthorne, they approached the house
to get people’s goods, and to enjoy their terror.
The master of the farm was lately dead, and had left,
inside the clock-case, loaded, the great long gun,
wherewith he had used to sport at the ducks and the
geese on the shore. Now Widow Fisher took out
this gun, and not caring much what became of her (for
she had loved her husband dearly), she laid it upon
the window-sill, which looked upon the rick-yard; and
she backed up the butt with a chest of oak drawers,
and she opened the window a little back, and let the
muzzle out on the slope. Presently five or six
fine young Doones came dancing a reel (as their manner
was) betwixt her and the flaming rick. Upon which
she pulled the trigger with all the force of her thumb,
and a quarter of a pound of duck-shot went out with
a blaze on the dancers. You may suppose what
their dancing was, and their reeling how changed to
staggering, and their music none of the sweetest.
One of them fell into the rick, and was burned, and
buried in a ditch next day; but the others were set
upon their horses, and carried home on a path of blood.
And strange to say, they never avenged this very dreadful
injury; but having heard that a woman had fired this
desperate shot among them, they said that she ought
to be a Doone, and inquired how old she was.
Now I had not been so very long waiting
in our mow-yard, with my best gun ready, and a big
club by me, before a heaviness of sleep began to creep
upon me. The flow of water was in my ears, and
in my eyes a hazy spreading, and upon my brain a closure,
as a cobbler sews a vamp up. So I leaned back
in the clover-rick, and the dust of the seed and the
smell came round me, without any trouble; and I dozed
about Lorna, just once or twice, and what she had
said about new-mown hay; and then back went my head,
and my chin went up; and if ever a man was blest with
slumber, down it came upon me, and away went I into
it.
Now this was very vile of me, and
against all good resolutions, even such as I would
have sworn to an hour ago or less. But if you
had been in the water as I had, ay, and had long fight
with it, after a good day’s work, and then great
anxiety afterwards, and brain-work (which is not fair
for me), and upon that a stout supper, mayhap you would
not be so hard on my sleep; though you felt it your
duty to wake me.