 CHAPTER 18 WITCHERY LEADS TO WITCHCRAFT Although well nigh the end of March, the wind blew wild and piercing as I went on foot that afternoon to Mother Meldrum's dwelling. It was safer not to take a horse lest, if anything vexed her, she should put a spell upon him, as had been done to Farmer Snow's stable by the wise woman of Simon's Bath. The sun was low on the edge of the hills by the time I entered the valley, for I could not leave home till the cattle were tended, and the distance was seven miles or more. The shadows of rocks fell far and deep, and the brown dead fern was fluttering, and brambles with their bare leaves hanging, swayed their tatters to and fro with a red look on them. In patches underneath the crags a few wild goats were browsing, then they tossed their horns and fled, and leaped on ledges and stared at me. Moreover the sound of the sea came up, and went the length of the valley, and there it lapped on a butt of rocks and murmured like a shell. Seeing things one with another, and feeling all the lonesomeness, and having no stick with me, I was much inclined to go briskly back and come at a better season. And when I beheld a tall gray shape of something or another moving at the lower end of the valley where the shade was, it gave me such a stroke of fear, after many others, that my thumb, which lay in Mother's Bible, brought in my big pocket for the sake of safety, shook so much that it came out, and I could not get it in again. This serves me right, I said to myself, for tampering with Beelzebub, o that I had listened to parson. And thereupon I struck aside, not liking to run away quite, as some people might call it, but seeking to look like a wonderer who was come to see the valley and had seen almost enough of it. Herein I should have succeeded, and gone home, and then been angry at my want of courage, but that, on the very turn and bending of my footsteps, the woman in the distance lifted up her staff to me, so that I was bound to stop. And now, being brought face to face by the will of God, as one might say, with anything that might come of it, I kept myself quite straight and stiff, and thrust away all white feather, trusting in my Bible still, hoping that it would protect me, though I had disobeyed it. But upon that remembrance my conscience took me by the leg, so that I could not go forward. All this while the fearful woman was coming near and more near to me, and I was glad to sit down on a rock because my knees were shaking so. I tried to think of many things, but none of them would come to me, and I could not take my eyes away, though I prayed God to be near me. But when she was come so nigh to me that I could describe her features, there was something in her countenance that made me not dislike her. She looked as if she had been visited by many troubles, and had felt them one by one, yet held enough of kindly nature still to grieve for others. Long white hair, on either side, was falling down below her chin, and through her wrinkles clear bright eyes seemed to spread themselves upon me. Though I had plenty of time to think, I was taken by surprise no less, and unable to say anything, yet eager to hear the silence broken, and longing for a noise or two. Thou art not come to me, she said, looking through my simple face, as if it were but glass, to be struck for bone-shave, nor to be blessed for barn-gun. Give me forth thy hand, John Rid, and tell why thou art come to me. But I was so much amazed at her knowing my name and all about me that I feared to place my hand in her power, or even my tongue by speaking. Have no fear of me, my son, I have no gift to harm thee, and if I had it should be idle. Now, if thou hast any wit, tell me why I love thee. I never had any wit, mother, I answered in our Devonshire way, and never set eyes on thee before to the furthest of my knowledge. And yet I know thee as well, John, as if thou weren't my grandson. Remember you, the old oar oak, and the bog at the head of Exy, and the child who would have died there but for thy strength and courage, and most of all thy kindness? That was my granddaughter, John, and all I have on earth to love. Now that she came to speak of it, with the place in that so clearly, I remembered all about it, a thing that happened last August, and thought how stupid I must have been not to learn more of the little girl who had fallen into the lack pit with a basket full of wartelberries, and who might have been gulfed if her little dog had not spied me in the distance. I carried her on my back to mother, and then we dressed her all anew and took her where she ordered us. But she did not tell us who she was, nor anything more than her Christian name, and that she was eight years old, and fond of fried batatas. And we did not seek to ask her more as our manner is with visitors. But thinking of this little story and seeing how she looked at me, I lost my fear of mother Meldrum and began to like her, partly because I had helped her grandchild, and partly that if she were so wise no need would have been for me to save the little thing from drowning. Therefore I stood up and said, though scarcely yet established in my power against hers, Good mother, the shoe she lost was in the mire and not with us, and we could not match it, although we gave her a pair of sister Lizzie's. My son, what care I for her shoe? How simple thou art and foolish, according to the thoughts of some. Now tell me, for thou canst not lie, what has brought thee to me? Being so ashamed and bashful I was half inclined to tell her a lie until she said that I could not do it, and then I knew that I could not. I am come to know, I said, looking at a rock the while to keep my voice from shaking, when I may go to see Lorna Dune. No more could I say, though my mind was charged to ask fifty other questions, but although I looked away it was plain that I had asked enough. I felt that the wise woman gazed at me in wrath as well as sorrow, and then I grew angry that anyone should seem to make light of Lorna. John Ridd said the woman, observing this for now I faced her bravely. Of whom art thou speaking? Is it a child of the men who slew your father? I cannot tell, mother, how should I know, and what is that to thee? It is something to thy mother, John, and something to thy self, I trial, and nothing worse could be fall thee. I waited for her to speak again, but she had spoken so sadly that it took my breath away. John Ridd, if thou hast any value for thy body or thy soul, thy mother or thy father's name, have not to do with any Dune. She gazed at me in earnest so, and raised her voice in saying it until the whole valley, curving like a great bell, echoed, Dune, that it seemed to me my heart was gone for every one and every thing. If it were God's will for me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come out of the rocks and I would try to believe it. But no sign came, and I turned to the woman, and long that she had been a man. You poor thing with bones and blades, pales of water and door keys, what know you about the destiny of a maiden such as Lorna? Chill-blanes you may treat and bone-shave, ringworm and the scaldings, even scabby sheet may limp the better for your striking. John the Baptist and his cousins, with the wool and hissup, are for mares and ailing dogs and fowls that have the jaundice. Look at me now, Mother Meldrum, am I like a fool? Thou art, my son, alas that it were any other. Now behold the end of that, John Rid, mark the end of it. She pointed to the castle-rock, whereupon a narrow shelf betwixt us and the coming stars a bitter fight was raging. A fine, fat sheep with an honest face had clumped up very carefully to browse on a bit of juicy grass, now the dew of the land was upon it. To him, from an upper crag, a lean black goat came hurrying with leaps and skirmish of the horns and an angry noise in his nostrils. The goat had grazed the place before, to the utmost of his liking, cropping in and out with jerks as their manner is of feeding. Nevertheless he fell on the sheep with fury and great malice. The simple weather was much inclined to retire from the contest, but looked around in vain for any way to peace and comfort. His enemy stood between him and the last leap he had taken. There was nothing left him but to fight, or be hurled into the sea five hundred feet below. Lie down, lie down, I shouted to him, as if he were a dog, for I had seen a battle like this before and knew that the sheep had no chance of life except from his greater weight in the difficulty of moving him. Lie down, lie down, John Redd, cried mother Meldrum, mocking me but without a sign of smiling. The poor sheep turned upon my voice and looked at me so piteously that I could look no longer, but ran with all my speed to try and save him from the combat. He saw that I could not be in time, for the goat was bucking to leap at him, and so the good weather stooped his forehead with the harmless horns curling aside of it, and the goat flung his heels up and rushed at him with quick sharp jumps and tricks of movement, and the points of his long horns always foremost, and his little scut cocked like a gun hammer. As I ran up to steep the rock I could not see what they were doing, but the sheep must have fought very bravely at last and yielded his ground quite slowly, and I hoped almost to save them. But just as my head topped the platform of rock I saw him flung from it backward with a sad low moan and a gurgle. His body made quite a short noise in the air like a bucket thrown down a well-shaft, and I could not tell when it struck the water except by the echo among the rocks. So Roth was I with the goat at the moment, being somewhat scant of breath and unable to consider, that I caught him by the right hind leg before he could turn from his victory and hurled him after the sheep to learn how he liked his own compulsion. CHAPTER XIX of Lorna Doon. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michelle Harris. Lorna Doon by R. D. Blackmore. CHAPTER XIX Another Dangerous Interview Although I left the Deaness at once, having little heart for further questions of the wise woman, and being afraid to visit her house under the devil's cheese-ring, to which she kindly invited me, and although I ran most part of the way it was very late for farmhouse time upon a Sunday evening before I was back at Plover's Barrows. My mother had great desire to know all about the matter, but I could not reconcile it with my respect so to frighten her. Therefore I tried to sleep it off, keeping my own counsel, and when that proved of no avail I strove to work it away, it might be, by heavy outdoor labor and weariness and good feeding. These indeed had some effect and helped to pass a week or two with more pain of hand than heart to me. But when the weather changed in earnest and the frost was gone and the southwest wind blew softly and the lambs were at play with the daisies, it was more than I could do to keep from thought of Lorna. For now the fields were spread with growth and the waters clad with sunshine, and light and shadow, step by step, wandered over the fursy cleaves. All the sides of the hilly wood were gathered in and out with green, silver-gray, or russet points, according to the several manner of the trees beginning. And if one stood beneath an elm, with any heart to look at it, low all the ground was strewn with flakes, too small to know their meaning, and all the sprays above were rasped and trembling with a redness. And so I stopped beneath the tree and carved L.D. upon it, and wandered at the buds of thought that seemed to swell inside me. The upshot of it all was this, that as no Lorna came to me, except in dreams or fancy, and as my life was not worth living without constant sign of her, forth I must again to find her and say more than a man can tell. Therefore without waiting longer for the moving of the spring, whilst I was in grand attire, so far as I had gotten it, and thinking my appearance good, although with doubts about it, being forced to dress in the hay-tallet, round the corner of the wood-stack went I very knowingly, for Lizzie's eyes were wondrous sharp, and then I was sure of meeting none who would care or dare to speak of me. It lay upon my conscience often that I had not made dear Annie's secret to this history, although in all things I could trust her and she loved me like a lamb. Many and many a time I tried, and more than once began the thing, but there came a dryness in my throat, and a knocking under the roof of my mouth, and a longing to put it off again, as perhaps might be the wisest, and then I would remember too that I had no right to speak of Lorna as if she were common property. This time I longed to take my gun, and was half resolved to do so, because it seemed so hard a thing to be shot at, and have no chance of shooting. But when I came to remember the steepness and the slippery nature of the waterslide, there seemed but little likelihood of keeping dry the powder. Therefore I was armed with nothing but a good stout holly-staff, seasoned well for many a winter in our back-kitchen chimney. Although my heart was leaping high with the prospect of some adventure, and the fear of meeting Lorna, I could not but be gladdened by the softness of the weather, and the welcome way of everything. There was that power all round, that power and that goodness which make us come as it were outside our bodily selves to share them. Over and beside us breathes the joy of hope and promise, underfoot our troubles past, in the distance bowering newness tempts us ever forward. We quicken with largesse of life, and spring with vivid mystery. And in good sooth I had to spring, and no mystery about it, ere ever I got to the top of the rift leading into dune glade, for the stream was rushing down in strength and raving at every corner, a mort of rain having fallen last night, and no wind come to wipe it. However I reached the head, air-dark, with more difficulty than danger, and sat in a place which comforted my back and legs desirably. Hereupon I grew so happy at being on dry land again, and come to look for Lorna, with pretty trees around me, that what did I do but fall asleep with the holly-stick in front of me, and my best coat sunk in a bed of moss with water and wood-soral. May-hap I had not done so, nor yet enjoyed the spring so much, if so be I had not taken three parts of a gallon of cider at home at Plover's Barrows, because of the lowness and sinking ever since I met Mother Meldrum. There was a little runnel going softly down beside me, falling from the upper rock by the means of moss and grass, as if it feared to make a noise and had a mother sleeping. Now and then it seemed to stop, in fear of its own dropping, and wait for some orders, and the blades of grass that straightened to it turned their points a little way, and offered their allegiance to wind instead of water. Yet before their carcaled edges bent more than a driven saw, down the water came again with heavy drops and pats of running, and bright anger at neglect. This was very pleasant to me, now and then, to gaze at, blinking as the water blinked, and falling back to sleep again. Suddenly my sleep was broken by a shade cast over me. Between me and the low sunlight Lorna Doon was standing. "'Master Ridd, are you mad?' she said, and took my hand to move me. "'Not mad, but half asleep,' I answered, feigning not to notice her, that so she might keep hold of me. "'Come away, come away, if you care for your life, the patrol will be here directly. Be quick, Master Ridd, let me hide thee.' "'I will not stir a step,' said I, though being in the greatest fright that might be well imagined, unless you call me John. "'Well, John, then, Master John Ridd, be quick, if you have any to care for you.' "'I have many that care for me,' I said, just to let her know, and I will follow you, Mistress Lorna, albeit without any hurry, unless there be peril to more than me.' Without another word she led me, though with many timid glances towards the upper valley, to and into her little bower, where the inlet through the rock was. I am almost sure that I spoke before, though I cannot now go seek for it, and my memory is but a worn-out tub, of a certain deep and perilous pit in which I was like to drown myself through hurry and fright of boyhood. And even then I wondered greatly, and was vexed with Lorna, for sending me in that heedless manner into such an entrance. But now it was clear that she had been right, and the fault mine own entirely, for the entrance to the pit was only to be found by seeking it. Inside the niche of native stone the plainest thing of all to see, at any rate by daylight, was the stairway hewn from rock, and leading up the mountain, by means of which I had escaped, as before related. To the right side of this was the mouth of the pit, still looking very formidable, though Lorna laughed at my fear of it, for she drew her water vents. But on the left was a narrow crevice, very difficult to espy, and having a sweep of gray ivy-laid like a slouching beaver over it. A man here, coming from the brightness of the outer air, with eyes dazed by the twilight, would never think of seeing this and following it to its meaning. Lorna raised the screen for me, that I had much adieu to pass on account of bulk and stature. Instead of being proud of my size, as it seemed to me she ought to be, Lorna laughed so quietly that I was ready to knock my head or elbows against anything and say no more about it. However, I got through at last without a word of compliment, and broke into the pleasant room, the lone retreat of Lorna. The chamber was of unhewn rock, round as near as might be, eighteen or twenty feet across, and gay with rich variety of fern and moss and lichen. The fern was in its winter still, or coiling for the spring tide, but moss was in abundant life, some feathering and some gobleted, and some with fringe of red to it. Overhead there was no ceiling but the sky itself, flaked with little clouds of apral whitely wandering over it. The floor was made of soft, low grass, mixed with moss and primroses, and in a niche of shelter moved the delicate wood sorrel. Here and there, around the sides, were chairs of living stone, as some Latin writer says, whose name has quite escaped me, and in the midst a tiny spring arose with crystal beads in it and a soft voice as of a laughing dream and dimples like a sleeping babe. Then, after going round a little, with surprise of daylight, the water overwelled the edge and softly went through lines of light to shadows and an untold born. While I was gazing at all these things with wonder and some sadness, Lorna turned upon me lightly, as her manner was, and said, Where are the new-laid eggs, Master Ridd, or hath blue hens ceased laying? I did not altogether like the way in which she said it, with a sort of dialect, as if my speech could be laughed at. Here be some, I answered, speaking as if in spite of her. I would have brought thee twice as many, but that I feared to crush them in the narrow ways, Mistress Lorna. And so I laid her out two dozen upon the moss of the rock ledge, unwinding the wisps of hay from each as it came safe out of my pocket. Lorna looked with growing wonder as I added one to one, and when I had placed them side by side and bidden her now to tell them, to my amazement, what did she do but burst into a flood of tears? What have I done? I asked, with shame, scarce daring even to look at her, because her grief was not like Annie's, a thing that could be coaxed away, and left a joy in going. Oh, what have I done to vex you so? It is nothing done by you, Master Ridd, she answered very proudly, as if not I did could matter. It is only something that comes upon me with the scent of the pure, true clover hay. Moreover, you have been too kind, and I am not used to kindness. Some sort of awkwardness was on me at her words and weeping, as if I would like to say something, but feared to make things worse perhaps than they were already. Therefore I abstained from speech as I would in my own pain, and as it happened this was the way to make her tell me more about it. Not that I was curious beyond what pity urged me and the strange affairs around her, and now I gazed upon the floor, lest I should seem to watch her, but none the less for that I knew all that she was doing. Lorna went a little way, as if she would not think of me nor care for one so careless, and all my heart gave a sudden jump to go like a mad thing after her, until she turned of her own accord, and with a little sigh came back to me. Her eyes were soft with trouble's shadow, and the proud lift of her neck was gone, and beauty's vanity borne down by a woman's want of sustenance. "'Master Ridge,' she said, in the softest voice that ever flowed between two lips, have I done ought to offend you? Hereupon it went hard with me not to catch her up and kiss her in the manner in which she was looking. Only it smote me suddenly that this would be a low advantage of her trust and helplessness. She seemed to know what I would be at, and to doubt very greatly about it, whether as a child of old she might permit the usage. All sorts of things went through my head, as I made myself look away from her, for fear of being tempted beyond what I could bear. And the upshot of it was that I said within my heart and through it, John rid beyond thy very best manners with this lonely maiden. Lorna liked me all the better for my good forbearance, because she did not love me yet, and had not thought about it, at least so far as I knew. And though her eyes were so beautyous, so very soft and kindly, there was, to my apprehension, some great power in them, as if she would not have a thing unless her judgment leaped with it. But now her judgment leaped with me, because I had behaved so well, and being of quick urgent nature, such as I delight in, for the change from my own slowness, she, without any let or hindrance, sitting over against me, now raising and now dropping fringe over those sweet eyes that were the roadlights of her tongue, Lorna told me all about everything I wished to know, every little thing she knew, except indeed that point of points how Master Ridd stood with her. Although it wearied me no wit, it might be wearisome for folk who cannot look at Lorna to hear the story all in speech, exactly as she told it, therefore let me put it shortly to the best of my remembrance. Nay, pardon me, whosoever thou art, for seeming fickle and rude to thee, I have tried to do as first proposed, to tell the tale in my own words, as of another's fortune, but lo I was beset at once with many heavy obstacles, which grew as I went onward until I knew not where I was, and mingled past and present, and two of these difficulties only were enough to stop me, the one that I must coldly speak without the force of pity, the other that I, off and on, confused myself with Lorna, as might be well expected. Or let her tell the story, with her own sweet voice and manner, and if you find it wearisome, seek in yourselves the weariness. CHAPTER XX of Lorna Dune. This is a LibriVox recording. All LibriVox recordings are in the public domain. For more information or to volunteer, please visit LibriVox.org. Recording by Michelle Harris. Lorna Dune by R. D. Blackmore. CHAPTER XX. Lorna Begins Her Story. I cannot go through all my thoughts so as to make them clear to you, nor have I ever dwelt on things to shape a story of them. I know not where the beginning was, nor where the middle ought to be, nor even how at the present time I feel or think or ought to think. If I look for help to those around me who should tell me right and wrong, being older and much wiser, I meet sometimes with laughter and at other times with anger. There are but two in the world who ever listen and try to help me. One of them is my grandfather, and the other is a man of wisdom whom we call the counselor. My grandfather, Sir Ensor Dune, is very old and harsh of manner, except indeed to me. He seems to know what is right and wrong, but not to want to think of it. The counselor, on the other hand, though full of life and subtleties, treats my questions as of play and not gravely worth his while to answer unless he can make wit of them. And among the women there are none with whom I can hold converse, since my aunt Sabina died, who took such pains to teach me. She was a lady of high repute and lofty ways and learning, but grieved and harassed more and more by the coarseness and the violence and the ignorance around her. In vain she strove, from year to year, to make the young men harken, to teach them what became their birth, and give them sense of honor. It was her favorite word, poor thing, and they called her old aunt honor. Very often she used to say that I was her only comfort, and I am sure she was my only one, and when she died it was more to me than if I had lost a mother. For I have no remembrance now of father or of mother, although they say that my father was the eldest son of Sir Ensor Dune, and the bravest and the best of them. And so they call me heiress to this little realm of violence, and in sorry sport sometimes I am their princess or their queen. Many people living here, as I am forced to do, would perhaps be very happy, and perhaps I ought to be so. We have a beauteous valley, sheltered from the cold of winter and power of the summer sun, untroubled also by the storms and mist that veil the mountains, although I must acknowledge that it is apt to rain too often. The grass, moreover, is so fresh and the brooks so bright and lively, and flowers of so many hues come after one another that no one need be dull if only left alone with them. And so in the early days, perhaps, when morning breathes around me and the sun is going upward and light is playing everywhere, I am not so far beside them all as to live in shadow. But when the evening gathers down and the sky is spread with sadness and the day has spent itself, then a cloud of lonely trouble falls, like night upon me. I cannot see the things I quest for of a world beyond me. I cannot join the peace and quiet of the depth above me. Neither have I any pleasure in the brightness of the stars. What I want to know is something none of them can tell me. What am I, and why set here, and when shall I be with them? I see that you are surprised a little at this, my curiosity. Perhaps such questions never spring in any wholesome spirit, but they are in the depths of mine, and I cannot be quit of them. Meantime, all around me is violence and robbery, course delight and savage pain, reckless joke and hopeless death. Is it any wonder that I cannot sink with these, that I cannot so forget my soul as to live the life of brutes and die the death more horrible because it dreams of waking? There is none to lead me forward. There is none to teach me right. Young as I am, I live beneath a curse that lasts forever. Here, Lorna broke down for a while and cried so very piteously that, doubting of my knowledge and of any power to comfort, I did my best to hold my peace and tried to look very cheerful. Then thinking that might be bad manners, I went to wipe her eyes for her. Mr. Rid, she began again. I am both ashamed and vexed at my own childish folly. But you, who have a mother who thinks, you say, so much of you, and sisters in a quiet home, you cannot tell, it is not likely, what a lonely nature is. How it leaps in mirth sometimes, with only heaven touching it, and how it falls away desponding when the dreary weight creeps on. It does not happen many times that I give way like this, more shame now to do so when I ought to entertain you. Sometimes I am so full of anger that I dare not trust a speech at things they cannot hide from me, and perhaps you would be much surprised that reckless men would care so much to elude a young girl's knowledge. They used to boast to Aunt Sabina of pillage and of cruelty, on purpose to enrage her, but they never boast to me. It even makes me smile sometimes to see how awkwardly they come and offer for temptation to me, shining packets half-concealed of ornaments and finery, of rings or chains or jewels, lately belonging to other people. But when I try to search the past to get a sense of what befell me ere my own perception formed, to feel back for the lines of childhood as a trace of gossamer, then I only know that not lives longer than God wills it. So may after sin go by, for we are children always, as the counselor has told me. So may we, beyond the clouds, seek this infancy of life and never find its memory. But I am talking now of things which never come across me when any work is toward. It might have been a good thing for me to have had a father to beat these rovings out of me, or a mother to make a home and teach me how to manage it. For being left with none, I think, and nothing ever comes of it. Nothing I mean which I can grasp and have with any surety. Nothing but faint images and wonderment and wandering. But often, when I am neither searching back into remembrance nor asking of my parents, but occupied by trifles, something like a sign or message or a token of some meaning seems to glance upon me, whether from the rustling wind or sound of distant music or the singing of a bird, like the sun on snow it strikes me with a pain of pleasure. And often, when I wake at night and listen to the silence or wonder far from people in the grayness of the evening or stand and look at quiet water having shadows over it, some vague image seems to hover on the skirt of vision, ever changing place and outline, ever flitting as I follow. This so moves and hurries me in the eagerness and longing that strayed away all my chances lost, and memory, scared like a wild bird, flies. Or am I as a child, perhaps, chasing a flown cajling, who, among the branches free, plays and peeps at the offered cage, as a home not to be urged on him, and means to take his time of coming if he comes at all? Often too I wonder at the odds of fortune, which made me, helpless as I am, and fond of peace and reading, the eras of this mad domain, the sanctuary of unholiness. It is not likely that I shall have much power of authority, and yet the counselor creeps up to be my lord of the treasury, and his son aspires to my hand as of a royal alliance. Well, honor among thieves, they say, and mine is the first honor, although among decent folk perhaps honesty is better. We should not be so quiet here, and safe from interruption, that I have begged one privilege rather than commanded it. This was that the lower end, just this narrowing of the valley, where it is most hard to come at, might be looked upon as mine, except for purposes of guard. Therefore none beside the sentries ever trespass on me here, unless it be my grandfather, or the counselor, or carver. By your face, Master Red, I see that you have heard of carver dune. For strength, and courage, and resource, he bears the first repute among us, as might well be expected from the son of the counselor. But he differs from his father in being very hot and savage, and quite free from argument. The counselor, who is my uncle, gives his son the best advice, commending all the virtues with eloquence and wisdom, yet himself abstaining from them accurately and impartially. You must be tired of this story, and the time I take to think, and the weakness of my telling. But my life from day to day shows so little variance. Among the riders there is none whose safe return I watch for. I mean none more than other. And indeed there seems no risk, all are now so feared of us. Neither of the old men is there whom I can revere or love, except alone my grandfather, whom I love with trembling. Neither of the women any whom I like to deal with, unless it be a little maiden whom I saved from starving. A little Cornish girl she is, and shaped in Western manner, not so very much less in width than if you take her lengthwise. Her father seems to have been a minor, a Cornish man, as she declares, of more than average excellence, and better than any two men to be found in Devonshire, or any four in Somerset. Very few things can have been beyond his power of performance, and yet he left his daughter to starve upon a peat-rick. She does not know how this was done, and looks upon it as a mystery, the meaning of which will someday be clear, and redown to her father's honor. His name was Simon Carfax, and he came as the captain of a gang from one of the Cornish stannery's, Gwennie Carfax, my young maid, well remembers how her father was brought up from Cornwall. Her mother had been buried just a week or so before, and he was sad about it, and had been off his work, and was ready for another job. Then people came to him by night, and said that he must want to change, and everybody lost their wives, and work was the way to mend it. So what with grief, and overthought, and the inside of a square bottle, Gwennie says they brought him off to become a mighty captain, and choose the country round. The last you saw of him was this, that he went down a ladder somewhere on the wiles of Exmore, leaving her with bread and cheese and his traveling hat to see to, and from that day to this he never came above the ground again, so far as we can hear of. But Gwennie, holding to his hat, and having eaten the bread and cheese when he came no more to help her, dwelt three days near the mouth of the hole, and then it was closed over the while that she was sleeping. With weakness and with want of food she lost herself to stressfully, and went away for miles or more, and lay upon a peat-rick to die before the ravens. That very day I chanced to return from Aunt Sabina's dying place, for she would not die in glendoon, she said, lest the angels feared to come for her, and so she was taken to a cottage in a lonely valley. I was allowed to visit her, for even we durst not refuse the wishes of the dying, and if a priest had been desired we should have made bold with him. Returning very sorrowful and caring now for nothing, I found this little stray thing lying, her arms upon her, and not a sign of life except the way that she was biting. Black root-stuff was in her mouth, and a piece of dirty sheep's wool, and at her feet an old eggshell of some bird of the moorland. I tried to raise her, but she was too square and heavy for me, and so I put food in her mouth, and left her to do right with it, and this she did in a little time, for the victuals were very choice and rare, being what I had taken over to tempt poor Aunt Sabina. Gweny ate them without delay, and then was ready to eat the basket and the ware that contained them. Gweny took me for an angel, though I am little like one, as you see, Master Ridd, and she followed me, expecting that I would open wings and fly when we came to any difficulty. I brought her home with me, so far as this can be a home, and she made herself my sole attendant, without so much as asking me. She has beaten two or three other girls, who used to wait upon me, until they are afraid to come near the house of my grandfather. She seems to have no kind of fear, even of our roughest men, and yet she looks with reverence and awe upon the counselor. As for the wickedness and theft and revelry around her, she says it is no concern of hers, and they know their own business best. By this way of regarding men, she has won upon our riders, so that she is almost free from all control of place and season, and is allowed to pass where none even of the youths may go. Being so wide and short and flat, she has none to pay her compliments, and, were there any, she would scorn them as not being cornish men. Sometimes she wanders far by moonlight on the moors and up the rivers, to give her father, as she says, another chance of finding her, and she comes back not a wit defeated or discouraged or depressed, but confident that he is only waiting for the proper time. Herein she sets me good example of a patience and contentment hard for me to imitate. Oftentimes I am vexed by things I cannot meddle with, yet which cannot be kept from me, that I am at the point of flying from this dreadful valley, and risking all that can be tied me in the unknown outer world. If it were not for my grandfather I would have done so long ago, but I cannot bear that he should die with no gentle hand to comfort him, and I fear to think of the conflict that must ensue for the government if there be a disputed succession. Ah, me, we are to be pitied greatly rather than condemned by people whose things we have taken from them, for I have read and seem almost to understand about it that there are places on the earth where gentle peace and love of home and knowledge of one's neighbors prevail and are, with reason, looked for as the usual state of things. Fair honest folk may go to work in the glory of the sunrise, with hope of coming home again quite safe in the quiet evening, and finding all their children, and even in the darkness they have no fear of lying down and dropping off to slumber, and hearken to the wind of night, not as to an enemy trying to find entrance, but a friend who comes to tell the value of their comfort. Of all this golden ease I hear, but never saw the like of it, and happily I shall never do so, being born to turbulence. Once indeed I had the offer of escape in Kinsman's aid and high place in the gay, bright world, and yet I was not tempted much, or at least dared not to trust it. And it ended very sadly, so dreadfully that I even shrink from telling you about it, for that one terror changed my life in a moment at a blow, from childhood and from thoughts of play and commune with the flowers and trees, to a sense of death and darkness, and a heavy weight of earth. Be content now, Master Ridd, ask me nothing more about it, so your sleep be sounder. But I, John Ridd, being young and new, and very fond of hearing things to make my blood to tingle, had no more of manners than to urge poor Lorna onwards, hoping perhaps in depth of heart that she might have to hold by me when the worst came to the worst of it. Therefore she went on again. Lorna ends her story. It is not a twelve-month yet, although it seems ten years ago since I blew the downy globe to learn the time of day, or set beneath my chin the veining of the varnished butter-cup, or fired the fox-glove cannonade, or made a captive of myself with dandelion fetters. For then I had not very much to trouble me in earnest and went about romancing gravely, playing at bow-peep with fear, looking for myself strong heroes of gray rock or fir-tree, adding to my own importance as the children love to do. As yet I had not truly learned the evil of our living, the scorn of law, the outrage, and the sorrow caused to others. It even was a point with all to hide the roughness from me, to show me but the gallant side and keep in shade the other. My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doon, had given strictest order as I discovered afterwards, that in my presence all should be seemly, kind, and vigilant. Nor was it very difficult to keep most part of the mischief from me, for no Doon ever robs at home, neither do they quarrel much, except at times of gambling. And though Sir Ensor Doon is now so old and growing feeble, his own way he will have still, and no one dare deny him. Even our fiercest and most mighty swordsmen, seared from all sense of right or wrong, yet have plentiful sense of fear when brought before that white-haired man. Not that he is rough with them, or querulous or rebukeful, but that he has a strange, soft smile and a gaze they cannot answer, and a knowledge deeper far than they have of themselves. Under his protection I am as safe from all those men, some of whom are but little akin to me, as if I slept beneath the roof of the King's Lord Justiciary. But now, at the time I speak of, one evening of last summer, a horrible thing befell, which took all play of childhood from me. The fifteenth day of last July was very hot and sultry, long after the time of sundown, and I was paying heat of it because of the old saying that if it rained then, rain will fall in forty days thereafter. I had been long by the water side at this lower end of the valley, plating a little crown of woodbine, crocketed with sprigs of heath, to please my grandfather, who likes to see me gay at supper time. Being proud of my tiara, which had cost some trouble, I set it on my head at once to save the chance of crushing, and carrying my gray hat ventured by a path not often trod, for I must be home at the supper time, or grandfather would be exceeding wrath, and the worst of his anger is that he never condescends to show it. Before, instead of the open mead, or the windings of the river, I made short cut through the ash trees covert which lies in the middle of our vale, with the water skirting or cleaving it. You have never been up so far as that, at least to the best of my knowledge, but you see it like a long gray spot from the top of the cliffs above us. Here I was not likely to meet any of our people, because the young ones are afraid of some ancient tale about it, and the old ones have no love of trees where gunshots are uncertain. It was more almost than dusk down below the tree leaves, and I was eager to go through and be again beyond it, for the gray dark hung around me, scarcely showing shadow, and the little light that glimmered seemed to come up from the ground, for the earth was strone with the winter spread and coil of last year's foliage, the lichen claws of chalky twigs, and the numberless decay which gives a light in its decaying. I, for my part, hastened shyly, ready to draw back and run from hair or rabbit or small field-mouse. At a sudden turn of the narrow path where it stopped again to the river, a man leaped out from behind a tree and stopped me and seized hold of me. I tried to shriek, but my voice was still. I could only hear my heart. Now, cousin Lorna, my good cousin, he said, with ease and calmness. My voice is very sweet, no doubt, from all that I can see of you, but I pray you keep it still, unless you would give to Dusty Death your very best cousin and trusty guardian, Alan Brandeer, of Locke Awe. You, my guardian, I said, for the idea was too ludicrous, and ludicrous things always strike me first, through some fault of nature. I have in truth that honor, madam, he answered with a sweeping bow, unless I err in taking you for Mistress Lorna Dune. You have not mistaken me, my name is Lorna Dune. He looked at me with gravity and was inclined to make some claim to closer consideration upon the score of kinship, but I shrunk back and only said, yes, my name is Lorna Dune. Then I am your faithful guardian, Alan Brandeer of Locke Awe, called Lord Alan Brandeer, son of a worthy peer of Scotland. Now will you confide in me? I confide in you, I cried, looking at him with amazement, why you are not older than I am. Yes I am, three years at least, you, my ward, are not sixteen. I, your worshipful guardian, am almost nineteen years of age. Upon hearing this I looked at him, for that seemed then a venerable age, but the more I looked the more I doubted, while he was dressed quite like a man. He led me in a courtly manner, stepping at his tallest to an open place beside the water, where the light came as in channel, and was made the most of by glancing waves and fair white stones. Now am I to your liking, cousin, he asked, when I had gazed at him until I was almost ashamed, except at such a stripling. Does my cousin Lorna judge kindly of her guardian and her nearest kinsman? In a word is our admiration mutual. Truly, I know not, I said, but you seem good-natured, and to have no harm in you. Do they trust you with a sword? For in my usage among men of stature and strong presence, this pretty youth, so tricked and slender, seemed nothing but a doll to me. Although he scared me in the wood, now that I saw him in good twilight, lo, he was but little greater than my little self, and so tassled and so ruffled with a mint of bravery, and a green coat barred with red, and a slim sword hanging under him, it was the utmost I could do to look at him half gravely. I fear that my presence hath scarce enough of ferocity about it, he gave a jerk to his sword as he spoke and clanked it on the brook stones. Yet do I assure you, cousin, that I am not without some prowess, and many a master of defense hath this good sword of mine disarmed. Now if the boldest and biggest robber in all this charming valley durst so much as breathe the scent of that flower coronal, which doth not adorn but is adorn, here he talks some nonsense, I would cleave him from head to foot ere ever he could fly or cry. Hush, I said, talk not so loudly, or thou mayest have to do both thyself and do them both in vain. For he was quite forgetting now, in his bravery before me, where he stood and with whom he spoke, and how the summer lightning shone above the hills and down the hollow. And as I gazed on this slight fair youth, clearly one of high berth and breeding, albeit over boastful, a chill of fear crept over me, because he had no strength or substance, and would be no more than a pincushion before the great swords of the dunes. I pray you be not vexed with me, he answered in a softer voice, for I have traveled far and sorely for the sake of seeing you. I know right well among whom I am, and that their hospitality is more of the knife than the salt stand. Nevertheless I am safe enough, for my foot is the fleetest in Scotland. And what are these hills to me? Tush, I have seen some border forays among wilder spirits and craftier men than these be. Once I mined some years agon when I was quite a stripling lad. Worshipful guardian, I said, there is no time now for history. If thou art in no haste, I am, and cannot stay here idling. Only tell me how I am akin and under wardship to thee, and what purpose brings thee here. In order, cousin, all things in order, even with fair ladies. And I am thy uncle's son, my father is thy mother's brother, or at least thy grandmother's, unless I am deceived in that which I have guessed and no other man. For my father, being a leading lord in the councils of King Charles II, appointed me to learn the law, not for my livelihood, thank God, but because he felt the lack of it in affairs of state. But first your leave, young Mistress Lorna, I cannot lay down legal maxims without aid of smoke. He leaned against a willow-tree, and drawing from a gilded box a little dark thing like a stick, placed it between his lips, and then striking a flint on steel made fire and caught it upon touchwood. With this he kindled the tip of the stick, until it glowed with a ring of red, and then he breathed forth curls of smoke, blue and smelling on the air like spice. I had never seen this done before, though acquainted with tobacco pipes, and it made me laugh until I thought of the peril that must follow it. Cousin, have no fear, he said, this makes me all the safer. They will take me for a glow-worm, and thee for the flower it shines upon. But to return. Of law I learned, as you may suppose, but little, although I have capacities, but the thing was far too dull for me. All I care for is adventure, moving chance, and hot encounter. Therefore all of law I learned was how to live without it. Nevertheless, for amusement's sake, as I must needs be at my desk an hour or so in the afternoon, I took to the sporting branch of the law, the pitfalls and the ambiscades, and of all the traps to be laid therein, pedigrees are the rarest. There is scarce a man worth a cross of butter, but what you may find a hole in his shield within four generations. And so I struck our own escutcheon, and it sounded hollow. There is a point, but he'd not that, enough that being curious now I followed up the quarry, and I am come to this at last. We, even we, the lords of Locke-Awe, have an outlaw for our cousin, and I would we had more if they be like you. Sir, I answered, being amused by his manner, which was new to me, for the dunes are much in earnest. Surely you count it no disgrace to be of kin to sir insur dune and all his honest family. If it be so, it is in truth the very highest honor, and would heal ten holes in our escutcheon. What noble family but springs from a captain among robbers. Trade alone can spoil our blood. Robbery purifies it. The robbery of one age is the chivalry of the next. We may start anew, and vie with even the nobility of France, if we can once enroll but half the dunes upon our lineage. I like not to hear you speak of the dunes as if they were no more than that, I exclaimed, being now unreasonable. But will you tell me, once for all, sir, how you are my guardian? That I will do. You are my ward, because you were my father's ward under the Scottish law, and now my father being so death I have succeeded to that right, at least in my own opinion, under which claim I am here to neglect my trust no longer, but to lead you away from scenes and deeds which, though of good repute and comely, are not the best for young gentle women. There, spoke I not like a guardian. After that can you mistrust me? But, said I, good cousin Allen, if I may so call you, it is not meat for young gentle women to go away with young gentle men, though fifty times they are guardians. But if you will only come with me and explain your tale to my grandfather, he will listen to you quietly and take no advantage of you. I thank you much, kind Mistress Lorna, to lead the goose into the fox's den. But setting by all thought of danger, I have other reasons against it. Now, come with your faithful guardian, child. I will pledge my honor against all harm and to bear you safe to London. By the law of the realm I am now entitled to the custody of your fair person and of all your chattels. But sir, all that you have learned of law is how to live without it. Fairly met, fair cousin mine, your wit will do me credit after a little sharpening, and there is none to do that better than your aunt, my mother. Although she knows not of my coming, she is longing to receive you. Come, and in a few months' time you shall set the mode at court instead of pining here and weaving coronals of daisies. I turned aside and thought a little. Although he seemed so light of mind and gay in dress and manner, I could not doubt his honesty, and saw, beneath his jaunty air, true metal and ripe bravery. Scarce had I thought of his project twice until he spoke of my aunt, his mother, but then the form of my dearest friend, my sweet aunt Sabina, seemed to come and bid me listen, for this was what she prayed for. Moreover, I felt, though not as now, that dune glen was no place for me or any proud young maiden. But while I thought the yellow lightning spread behind a bulk of clouds, three times ere the flash was done, far off and void of thunder, and from the pile of cloud before it, cut as from black paper and lit to depths of blackness by the blaze behind it, a form as of an aged man, sitting in a chair, loose mantled, seemed to lift a hand and warned. This minded me of my grandfather and all the care I owed him. Moreover, now the storm was rising and I began to grow afraid, for of all things awful to me, thunder is the dreadfulest. I doth so growl like a lion coming, and then so roll and roar and rumble out of a thickening darkness, then crack like the last trump overhead through cloven air and terror, that all my heart lies low and quivers like a weed in water. I listened now for the distant rolling of the great black storm and heard it, and was hurried by it. But the youth before me waved his rolled tobacco at it, and drawled in his daintiest tone and manner. The sky is having a smoke, I see, and dropping sparks and grumbling. I should have thought these X-more hills too small to gather thunder. I cannot go. I will not go with you, Lord Alan Brandeer, I answered, being vexed a little by those words of his. You are not grave enough for me. You are not old enough for me. My Aunt Sabina would not have wished it. Or would I leave my grandfather without his full permission? I thank you much for coming, sir, but be gone at once by the way you came, and pray, how did you come, sir? Fair cousin, you will grieve for this. You will mourn when you cannot mend it. I would my mother had been here. Soon would she have persuaded you. And yet, he added, with the smile of his accustomed gaity, it would have been an uncle thing, as we say in Scotland, for her ladyship to have waited upon you, as her graceless son has done, and hopes to do again ere long. Down the cliffs I came, and up them I must make way back again. Now adieu, fair cousin Lorna, I see you are in haste tonight, but I am right proud of my guardianship. Give me just one flower for token. Here he kissed his hand to me, and I threw him a truss of woodbine. Adieu, fair cousin, trust me well. I will soon be here again. That thou never shalt, sir, cried a voice as loud as a cauldron, and Carver Dune had Allen Brandeer as a spider hath a fly. The boy made a little shriek at first, with a sudden shock and a terror. Then he looked, me thought, ashamed of himself, and set his face to fight for it. Very bravely he strove and struggled to free one arm and grasp his sword, but as well might an infant buried alive attempt to lift his gravestone. Carver Dune, with his great arms wrapped around the slim, gay body, smiled, as I saw by the flash from heaven, at the poor young face turned up to him. Then as a nurse bears off a child who is loath to go to bed, he lifted the youth from his feet and bore him away into the darkness. I was young then. I am older now, older by ten years in thought, although it is not a twelve month since. If that black deed were done again, I could follow and could combat it, could throw weak arms on the murderer, and strive to be murdered also. I am now at home with violence, and no dark death surprises me. But being as I was that night, the horror overcame me, the crash of thunder overhead, the last despairing look, the death-piece framed with blaze of lightning. My young heart was so affrighted that I could not gasp. My breath went for me, and I knew not where I was, or who, or what, only that I lay and cowered under great trees full of thunder, and could neither count nor moan nor have my feet to help me. Yet hearkening as a cower does, through the brushing of the wind and echo of far noises, I heard a sharp sound as of iron, and a fall of heavy wood. No unmanly shriek came with it, neither cry for mercy. Carver-Dune knows what it was, and so did Alan Brandeer. Here Lorna could tell no more, being overcome with weeping. Only through her tears she whispered, as a thing too bad to tell, that she had seen that giant Carver, in a few days afterwards, smoking a little round-brown stick like those of her poor cousin. I could not press her any more with questions or for clearness, although I longed very much to know whether she had spoken of it to her grandfather or the counselor. But she was now in such condition, both of mind and body, from the force of her own fear multiplied by telling it, that I did nothing more than coax her, at a distance, humbly, and so that she could see that someone was at least afraid of her. Thus, although I knew not women in those days as now I do, and never shall know much of it, this, I say, so brought her round, that all her fear was now for me, and how to get me safely off without mischance to any one. And sooth to say, in spite of longing just to see if Master Carver could have served me such a trick, as it grew towards the dusk I was not pleased to be there, for it seemed a lawless place, and some of Lorna's fright stayed with me as I talked it away from her. CHAPTER XXII. A LONG SPRING MONTH. After hearing that tale from Lorna I went home in sorry spirits, having added fear for her and misery about to all my other ailments, and was it not quite certain now that she, being owned full cousin to a peer and lord of Scotland, although he was a dead one, must have not to do with me a yeoman's son, and bound to be the father of more yeoman? I had been very sorry when first I heard about that poor young Popinjay, and would gladly have fought hard for him, but now it struck me that after all he had no right to be there, prowling, as it were, for Lorna, without any invitation, and we farmers love not trespass. Still if I had seen the thing I must have tried to save him. Moreover I was greatly vexed with my own hesitation, stupidity, or shyness, or whatever else it was, which had held me back from saying, ere she told her story, what was in my heart, to say, Vidi Lissette, that I must die unless she let me love her. Not that I was fool enough to think that she would answer me according to my liking, or begin to care about me for a long time yet, if indeed she ever should, which I hardly dared to hope. But that I had heard from men more skillful in the matter, that it is wise to be in time, that so the maids may begin to think, when they know that they are thought of. And to tell the truth I had bitter fears, on account of her wondrous beauty, lest some young fellow of higher birth and finer parts and finish might steal in before poor me and cut me out altogether, thinking of which I used to double my great fist, without knowing it, and keep it in my pocket ready. But the worst of all was this, that in my great dismay and anguish to see Lorna weeping so, I had promised not to cause her any further trouble from anxiety and fear of harm. And this, being brought to practice, meant that I was not to show myself within the precincts of Glen Dune, for at least another month, unless indeed, as I contrived to edge into the agreement, anything should happen to increase her present trouble and every day's uneasiness. In that case she was to throw a dark mantle, or covering of some sort, over a large white stone which hung within the entrance to her retreat, I mean the outer entrance, and which, though unseen from the valley itself, was, as I had observed, conspicuous from the height where I stood with Uncle Rubin. Now coming home so sad and weary, yet trying to console myself with the thought that love or leapeth rank, and must still be Lord of all, I found a shameful thing going on which made me very angry. For it needs must happen that young Marwood de Wichahulse, only son of the Baron, riding home that very evening, from chasing of the Exmor Bustards, with his hounds and serving men, should take the shortcut through our farmyard, and being dry from his exercise, should come and ask for drink. And it needs must happen also that there should be none to give it to him but my sister Annie. I more than suspect that he had heard some report of our Annie's comeliness, and had a mind to satisfy himself upon the subject. Now as he took the large oxhorn of our quarantine apple cider, which we always keep apart from the rest, being too good except for the quality, he let his fingers dwell on Annie's by some sort of accident, while he lifted his beaver gallantly, and gazed on her face in the light from the west. Then what did Annie do, as she herself told me afterwards, that make her very best curtsy to him, being pleased that he was pleased with her, while she thought what a fine young man he was, and so much breeding about him. And in truth he was a dark, handsome fellow, hasty, reckless and changeable, with a look of sad destiny in his black eyes that would make any woman pity him. What he was thinking of our Annie is not for me to say, although I may think that you could not have found another such maiden on Exmor, except, of course, my Lorna. Though young Squire Marwood was so thirsty, he spent much time over his cider, or at any rate over the oxhorn, and he made many bows to Annie, and drank health to all the family, and spoke of me as if I had been his very best friend at Blundells, whereas he knew well enough all the time that we had not to say to one another, he being three years older and therefore, of course, disdaining me. But while he was casting about, perhaps, for some excuse to stop longer, and Annie was beginning to fear lest mother should come after her, or Eliza be at the window, or Betty up in Pig's house, suddenly there came up to them as if from the very heart of the earth that long, low, hollow, mysterious sound which I spoke of in winter. The young man started in his saddle, let the horn fall on the horse-steps, and gazed all around in wonder, while as for Annie she turned like a ghost, and tried to slam the door, but failed through the violence of her trembling. For never till now had anyone heard it so close at hand, as you might say, or in the mere fall of the twilight, and by this time there was no man, at least in our parish, but new, for the person himself had told us so, that it was the devil groaning because the dunes were too many for him. Our wood, de Wichita-Halls, was not so alarmed but what he saw a fine opportunity. He leaped from his horse and laid hold of dear Annie in a highly comforting manner, and she never would tell us about it, being so shy and modest, whether in breathing his comfort to her he tried to take some from her pure lips. I hope he did not, because that to me would seem not the deed of a gentleman, and he was of good old family. At this very moment who should come in to the end of the passage upon them but the heavy rider of these doings, I, John Redd, myself, and walking the faster it may be on account of the noise I mentioned. I entered the house with some wrath upon me at seeing the gazehounds in the yard, for it seems a cruel thing to me to harass the birds in the breeding-time. And to my amazement there I saw Squire Marwood among the milk-pans with his arm around our Annie's waist, and Annie all blushing and coaxing him off, for she was not come to scold yet. Perhaps I was wrong, God knows, and if I was no doubt I shall pay for it, but I gave him the flat of my hand on his head, and down he went in the thick of the milk-pans. He would have had my fist, I doubt, but for having been at school with me, and after that it is like enough he would never have spoken another word. As it was he lay stunned, with the cream running on him, while I took poor Annie up and carried her into mother, who had heard the noise and was frightened. Concerning this matter I asked no more, but held myself ready to bear it out in any form convenient, feeling that I had done my duty and cared not for the consequence. Only for several days dear Annie seemed frightened rather than grateful, but the oddest result of it was that Eliza, who had so despised me and made very rude verses about me, now came trying to sit on my knee and kiss me and give me the best of the pan, however I would not allow it because I hate sudden changes. Another thing also astonished me, namely a beautiful letter from Marwood de Wichahalls himself, sent by a groom soon afterwards, in which he apologized to me as if I had been his equal for his rudeness to my sister, which was not intended in the least, but came of their common alarm at the moment and his desire to comfort her. Also he begged permission to come and see me as an old school fellow and set everything straight between us as should be among honest blunderlights. All this was so different to my idea of fighting out a quarrel when once it is upon a man that I knew not what to make of it, but bowed to higher breeding. Only one thing I resolved upon that come when he would he should not see Annie, and to do my sister justice she had no desire to see him. However I am too easy, there is no doubt of that, being very quick to forgive a man and very slow to suspect, unless he hath once lied to me. Moreover as to Annie it had always seemed to me, much against my wishes, that some shrewd love of a waiting sort was between her and Tom Fagas, and though Tom had made his fortune now and everybody respected him, of course he was not to be compared in that point of respectability with those people who hanged the robbers when fortune turned against them. So young Squire Marwood came again as though I had never smitten him and spoke of it in as light away as if we were still at school together. It was not in my nature, of course, to keep any anger against him, and I knew what a condescension it was for him to visit us. And it is a very grievous thing, which touches small landowners, to see an ancient family day by day decaying, and when we heard that lay Barton itself and all the manner of Linton were under a heavy mortgage debt to John Lovering of Ware Gifford, there was not much in our little way that we would not gladly do or suffer for the benefit of de Wichelhals. Meanwhile the work of the farm was toward and every day gave us more adieu to dispose of what itself was doing. For after the long dry, skeltering wind of March and part of April, there had been a fortnight of soft wet, and when the sun came forth again, hill and valley, wood and meadow, could not make enough of him. Many a spring have I seen since then, but never yet two springs alike, and never one so beautiful, or was it that my love came forth and touched the world with beauty. The spring was in our valley now, creeping first for shelter shyly in the paws of the blustering wind. There the lambs came bleeding to her, and the orcas lifted up, and the thin dead leaves of clover lay for the new ones to spring through. There the stiffest things at sleep, the stubby oak and the sapland beach, dropped their brown defiance to her and prepared for a soft reply. While her over-eager children, who had started forth to meet her through the frost and shower of sleet, cat-kinned hazel, gold-glove withy, youthful elder and old woodbine, with all the tribe of good hedge-climbers, who must hasten while haste they may, was there one of them that did not claim the merit of coming first? There she stayed and held her revel, as soon as the fear of frost was gone, all the air was a fount of freshness, and the earth of gladness, and the laughing waters prattled of the kindness of the sun. But all this made it much harder for us, plying the hoe and rake, to keep the fields with room upon them for the corn to tiller. The winter-wheat was well enough, being sturdy and strong-sided, but the spring-wheat and the barley and the oats were overrun by ill-weeds growing faster. Therefore, as the old saying is, Farmer that thy wife may thrive, let not burr and burdock wive, And if thou wouldest keep thy son, See that bine and gith have none. So we were compelled to go down the field and up it, striking in and out with care, where the green blades hung together, so that each had space to move in and to spread its roots abroad. And I do assure you now, though you may not believe me, it was harder work to keep John Fry, Bill Dads, and Jem Slokom all in a line and all moving nimbly to the tune of my own tool than it was to set out in the morning alone and hoe half an acre by dinnertime. For instead of keeping the good ash moving, they would forever be finding something to look at or to speak of or at any rate to stop with, blaming the shape of their tools perhaps, or talking about other people's affairs, or what was most irksome of all to me, taking advantage as married men and whispering jokes of no excellence about my having or having not or being ashamed of a sweetheart. And this went so far at last that I was forced to take two of them and knock their heads together, after which they worked with a better will. When we met together in the evening round the kitchen chimney place after the men had had their supper and their heavy boots were gone, my mother and Eliza would do their very utmost to learn what I was thinking of. Not that we kept any fire now after the crock was emptied, but that we loved to see the ashes cooling and to be together. At these times Annie would never ask me any crafty questions, as Eliza did, but would sit with her hair untwined and one hand underneath her chin, sometimes looking softly at me, as much as to say that she knew it all and I was no worse off than she. But strange to say my mother dreamed not, even for an instant, that it was possible for Annie to be thinking of such a thing. She was so very good and quiet and careful of the linen and clever about the cookery and fowls and bacon curing that people used to laugh and say she would never look at a bachelor until her mother ordered her. But I, perhaps from my own condition and the sense of what it was, felt no certainty about this and even had another opinion, as was said before. Often I was much inclined to speak to her about it and put her on her guard against the approaches of Tom Faggis, but I could not find how to begin and fear to make a breach between us, knowing that if her mind was set no words of mine would alter it, although they needs must grieve her deeply. Moreover I felt that in this case a certain homely Devonshire proverb would come home to me, that one I mean which records that the crock was calling the kettle smuddy. Not of course that I compared my innocent maid to a highwayman, but that Annie might think her worse and would be too apt to do so if indeed she loved Tom Faggis. And our cousin Tom, by this time, was living a quiet and godly life, having retired almost from the trade, except when he needed excitement or came across public officers, and having won the esteem of all whose purses were in his power. Perhaps it is needless for me to say that all this time while my month was running, or rather crawling, for never month went so slow as that with me. Neither weed nor seed nor cattle nor my own mother's anxiety nor any care for my sister kept me from looking once every day and even twice on a Sunday for any sign of Lorna. For my heart was ever weary in the budding valleys and by the crystal waters, looking at the lambs in fold or the heifers on the mill, laboring in trickled furrows or among the beaded lades, halting fresh to see the sun lift over the golden-vapored ridge, or doffing hat from sweat of brow to watch him sink in the low-gray sea, be it as it would of day, of work, or night, or slumber, it was a weary heart, I bore, and fear was on the brink of it. All the beauty of the spring went for happy men to think of. All the increase of the year was for other eyes to mark, not a sign of any sunrise for me from my fount of life, not a breath to stir the dead leaves fallen on my heart's spring. CHAPTER XXIII A royal invitation Although I had for the most part so very stout an appetite that none but mothers, or any need of encouraging me to eat, I could only manage one true good meal in a day at the time I speak of. Mother was in despair at this and tempted me with the whole of the rack, and even talked of sending to Paulock for a druggist who came there twice in a week. And Annie spent all her time in cooking, and even Lizzie sang songs to me, for she could sing very sweetly. But my conscience told me that Betty Muxworthy had some reason upon her side. At the young Osborough Lonesay I make such a do-about with hogs, puddens, and hawk bits, and lambs mate, and rotten bread indeed, and bro'er's ale of o'er dinnertime, and her not to zit when no wind are open. Drive me maddy, do the ovee, such a pestle of oals, done good to starve a bit, and tack some on's wackiness out of him. But mother did not see it so, and she even sent for Nicholas Snow to bring his three daughters with him and have ale and cake in the parlour, and advise about what the bees were doing, and when a swarm might be looked for. Being vexed about this and having to stop at home nearly half the evening, I lost good manners so much as to ask him, even in our own house, what he meant by not mending the swing hurdle where the lind stream flows from our land into his, and which he is bound to maintain. But he looked at me in a superior manner and said, Business young man in business time! I had other reason for being vexed with Farmer Nicholas just now, namely that I had heard a rumour, after church one Sunday, when most of all we sorrow over the sins of one another, that Farmer Nicholas Snow had been seen to gaze tenderly at my mother during a passage of the sermon wherein the parson spoke well and warmly about the duty of Christian love. Now, putting one thing with another, about the bees and about some ducks and a bullock with a broken kneecap, I more than suspected that Farmer Nicholas was casting sheep's eyes at my mother, not only to save or further trouble in the matter of the hurdle, but to override me altogether upon the difficult question of damning. And I knew quite well that John Fry's wife never came to help at the washing without declaring that it was a sin for a well-looking woman like mother, with plenty to live on and only three children, to keep all the farmers for miles around so unsettled in their minds about her. Mother used to answer, Oh, fine Mistress Fry, be good enough to mind your own business. But we always saw that she smoothed her apron and did her hair up afterwards, and that Mistress Fry went home at night with a cold pig's foot or a bowl of dripping. Therefore, on that very night, as I could not well speak to mother about it without seeming undutiful, after lighting the three young ladies, for so in soothe they called themselves, all the way home with our stable lantern, I begged good leave of Farmer Nicholas who had hung some way behind us to say a word in private to him before he entered his own house. We all the pleasure in life, my son, he answered very graciously, thinking perhaps that I was prepared to speak concerning Sally. Now, Farmer Nicholas Snow, I said, scarce knowing how to begin it, you must promise not to be vexed with me for what I am going to say to you. Faxed with thee? No, no, my lad. I haven't known thee too long for that, and I've either with my best friend for thee. Never wronged his neighbours, never speck an unkind word, never had no meanness in him. Took a fancy to a nice young woman and never kept her in doubt about it, though there was not much to settle on her. Spack his mind like a man he did, and right happy were we are. Ah, well a day, ah, God knoweth best. I never shall see his light again, and he were the best judge of a dung heap anywhere in this county. Well, Master Snow, I answered him, it is very handsome of you to say so, and now I am going to be like my father. I am going to speak my mind. Right there, lad, right enough I reckon. Us has had enough of preliminary. Then what I want to say is this, I won't have anyone courting my mother. Quarting of thy mother, lad? cried Farmer Snow, with as much amazement as if the thing were impossible. Why, who ever has been doing of it? Yes, courting of my mother, sir, and you know best who comes doing it. Well, well, what would boys be up to next? Should have thought herself with a proper judge. No, thank ye, lad, no need of thy light. Know the way to my own door at last, and have a right to go there. And he shut me out without so much as offering me a drink of cider. The next afternoon when work was over I had seen to the horses, for now it was foolish to trust John Fry, because he had so many children and his wife had taken to scolding, and just as I was saying to myself that in five days more my month would be gone, and myself free to seek Lorna. A man came riding up from the Ford where the road goes through the Linn stream. As soon as I saw that it was not Tom Fagus, I went no further to meet him, counting that it must be some traveller bound for Brendan or Cheriton, and likely enough he would come and beg for a draft of milk or cider, and then on again after asking the way. But instead of that he stopped at our gate, and stood up from his saddle and hallowed as if he were somebody, and all the time he was flourishing a white thing in the air, like the bands our parson weareth. So I crossed the courtyard to speak with him. Service of the King, he saith, service of our Lord the King, come hither thou great yokel, at risk of fine and imprisonment. Although not pleased with this, I went to him, as became a loyal man, quite at my leisure, however, for there is no man born who can hurry me, though I hasten for any woman. Plover Barrow's Farm, said he, God only knows how tired I be. Is there anywhere in this cursed county a cursed place called Plover Barrow's Farm? For last twenty mile at least they told me to are only half a mile farther, or only just round corner. Now tell me that, and I feign would thwack thee if thou were not twice my size. Sir, I replied, you shall not have the trouble. This is Plover's Barrow's Farm, and you are kindly welcome. Sheep's kidneys is for supper, and the ale got bright from the tapping. But why do you think ill of us? We like not to be cursed so. Nay, I think no ill, he said. Sheep's kidneys is good, uncommon good, if they do them without burning. But I be so galled in the saddle ten days and never a company meal of it, and when they hear King's service cried, they give me the worst of everything, all the way down from London. I had a rogue of a fellow in front of me eating the fat of the land before me, and everyone bowing down to him. He could go three miles to my one, though he never changed his horse. He might have robbed me at any minute, if I had been worth the trouble. A red mare he rideth, strong in the loins, and pointed quite small in the head. I shall live to see him hanged yet. All this time he was riding across the straw of our courtyard, getting his weary legs out of the leathers, and almost afraid to stand yet. A coarse-grained hard-faced man he was some forty years of age or so, and of middle height and stature. He was dressed in a dark brown riding suit, none the better for ex-moor mud, but fitting him very differently from the fashion of our tailors. Across the holsters lay his cloak, made of some red skin, and shining from the sweating of the horse. As I looked down on his stiff bright headpiece, small quick eyes, and black needly beard, he seemed to despise me, too much as I thought, for a mere ignoramus and country bumpkin. Annie, have down the cut ham, I shouted, for my sister was come to the door by chance, or because of the sound of a horse in the road, and cut a few rashers of hung deer's meat. There is a gentleman come to sup, Annie, and fetch the hops out of the tap with a skewer that it may run more sparkling. I wish I may go to a place never meant for me, said my new friend, now wiping his mouth with the sleeve of his brown riding coat. If ever I fell among such good folk, you are the right sort and no error therein. All this shall go down in your favour greatly when I make deposition. At least I mean, if it be as good in the eating as in the hearing. It is a supper quite fit for Tom Faggers himself, the man who hath stolen my vitals so, and that hung deer's meat. Now, is it of the red deer running wild in these parts? To be sure it is, sir, I answered. Where should we get any other? Right, right, you are right, my son. I have heard that the flavour is marvellous, some of them came and scared me so in the fog of the morning, that I hung good for them ever since. I saw their haunches, but the young lady will not forget, aren't sure she will not forget it. You may trust her to forget nothing, sir, that may tempt a guest to his comfort. In faith then I will leave my horse in your hands and be off for it. Half the pleasure of the mouth is in the nose beforehand, but stay, almost I forgot my business in the hurry which thy tongue hath spread through my lately despairing belly. Hungry I am and sore of body from my heels, right upwards and soreest, in front of my doublet. Yet may I not rest nor bite barley bread until I have seen and touched John Rid. God grant that he be not far away. I must eat my saddle if it be so. Have no fear, good sir, I answered. You have seen and touched John Rid. I am he, and not one likely to go beneath a bushel. It would take a large bushel to hold thee, John Rid. In the name of the King, his Majesty, Charles II, these presents. He touched me with the white thing which I had first seen him waving and which I now beheld, to be sheepskin, such as they call parchment. It was tied across with cord and fastened down in every corner with unsightly dabs of wax. By order of the messenger, for I was over-frightened now to think of doing anything, I broke enough of the seals to keep an Easter ghost from rising, and there I saw my name in large. God grant such another shock may never before me in my old age. Read, my son, read thou great fool, if indeed thou canst read, said the officer, to encourage me. There is nothing to kill thee, boy, and my supper will be spoiling. Stare not at me so, thou fool, thou big enough to eat me. Read, read, read. If you please, sir, what is your name, I asked, though why I asked him, I know not except from fear of witchcraft. Jeremy Stickles is my name, lad. Nothing more than a poor apparatus of the worshipful court of King's bench, and at this moment a starving one, and no supper for me unless you wilt read. Being compelled in this way, I read pretty nigh as follows, not that I give the whole of it, but only the gist and the emphasis. To our good subject, John Rid, etc., describing me ever so much better than I knew myself, by these presents, greeting, these are to require thee in the name of our Lord the King to appear in person before the right worshipful, the justices, of His Majesty's bench at Westminster, laying aside all thine own business and there to deliver such evidence as is within thy cognisance, touching certain matters whereby the peace of our said Lord the King and the well-being of his realm is, are, or otherwise may be, impeached, impugned, imperiled, or otherwise decremented, as witness these presents. And then there were four seals, and then a signature I could not make out only that it began with a J and ended with some other writing, done almost in a circle. Underneath was added in a different handwriting, Charges will be born, the matter is full urgent. The messenger watched me, while I read so much as I could read of it, and he seemed well pleased with my surprise because he had expected it. Then, not knowing what else to do, I looked again at the cover, and on the top of it I saw, ride, ride, ride, on his gracious Majesty's business, spur, and spare not. It may be supposed by all who know me that I was taken here upon, with such a giddiness in my head and noisiness in my ears, that I was forced to hold by the crook driven in below the thatch, the holding of the hayrakes. There was scarcely any sense left in me, only that the thing was come by power of Mother Meldrum, because I despised her warning, and had again sought launder. But the officer was grieved for me, and the danger to his supper. My son, be not afraid, he said, we are not going to skin thee. Only thou tell all the truth, and it shall be, but never mind, I will tell thee all about it, and how to come out harmless. If I find thy vitals good, and no delay in serving them. We do our best, sir, without bargain, said I, to please our visitors. But when my mother saw the parchment, for we could not keep it from her, she fell away into her favourite bed of stock ghillie-flowers, which she had been tending, and when we brought her round again, did nothing but exclaim against the wickedness of the age and people. It was useless to tell her, she knew what it was, and so should all the parish know, the king had heard that her son was how sober and quiet and diligent, and the strongest young man in England, and being himself such a reprobate, God forgive her for saying so, but he could never rest till he got poor Johnny, and made him as disilute as himself, and if he did that, he and Mother went off into a fit of crying, and Annie minded her face, while Lizzie saw that her gown was in comely order. But the character of the king improved when Master Jeremy Stickles, being really moved by the look of it and no bad man after all, laid it clearly before my mother that the king on his throne was unhappy, until he had seen John Rid, that the fame of John had gone so far, and his size, and all his virtues, that verily by the God who made him, the king was overcome with it. Then Mother lay back in her garden chair and smiled upon the whole of us, and most of all on Jeremy, looking only shyly on me and speaking through some break of tears, his majesty shall have my John, his majesty is very good, but only for a fortnight I want no titles for him, Johnny is enough for me, and Master John for the working men. Now though my mother was so willing that I should go to London expecting great promotion and high glory for me, I myself was deeply gone into the pit of sorrow, for what would Lorna think of me? Here was the long month just expired after worlds of waiting, there would be her lovely self peeping softly down the glen and fearing to encourage me, yet there would be nobody else, and what an insult to her. Dwelling upon this and seeing no chance of escape from it, I could not find one wink of sleep, though Jeremy Stickles, who slept close by, snored loud enough to spare me some, for I felt myself to be, as it were, in a place of some importance, in a situation of trust I may say, and bound not to depart from it, for who could tell what the king might have to say to me about the dunes, and I felt that they were at the bottom of this strange appearance, or what his majesty might think if after receiving a message from him, trusty under so many seals, I were to violate his faith in me as church warden's son, and falsely spread his words abroad. Perhaps I was not wise in building such a wall of scruples. Nevertheless all that was there and weighed upon me heavily, and at last I made up my mind to this, that even Lorna must not know the reason of my going, neither anything about it, but that she might know I was gone a long way from home, and perhaps be sorry for it. Now how was I to let her know even that much of the matter without breaking compact? Puzzling on this I fell asleep, after the proper time to get up, nor was I to be seen at breakfast time, and mother being quite strange to that was very uneasy about it, but Master Stickles assured her that the king's writ often had that effect, and the symptom was a good one. Now Master Stickles, when must we start, I asked him, as he lounged in the yard gazing at our turkey-pulse, picking and running in the sun to the tune of their father's gobble. Your horse was greatly fangred, sir, and is hardly fit for the road today, and Smilo was sledding yesterday all up the higher cleave, and none of the rest can carry me. In a few more years, replied the king's officer, contemplating me with much satisfaction, twill be a cruelty to any horse to put thee on his back, John. Master Stickles, by this time, was quite familiar with us, calling me Jack and Eliza and Lizzie, and what I like the least of all are pretty Annie, Nancy. That will be as God pleases, sir, I answered him rather sharply, and the horse that suffers will not be thine, but I wish to know when we must start upon our long travel to London Town. I perceive that the matter is of great dispatch and urgency. To be sure, so it is my son, but I see a yearling turkey there, him I mean with the hop in his walk, who, if I know water fowls, would roast well tomorrow. Thy mother must have preparation, it is no more than reasonable. Now, have that turkey killed tonight, for his fatness makes me long for him, and we will have him for dinner tomorrow with perhaps one of his brethren, and a few more collops of red-deer's flesh for supper, and then, on the Friday morning with the grace of God, we will set our faces to the road upon his Majesty's business. Nay, but good sir, I asked, with much trembling, so eager was I to see Lorna. If his Majesty's business will keep until Friday, may it not keep until Monday. We have a litter of sucking pigs, excellently choice and white. Six weeks old come Friday. There be too many for the sow, and one of them needeth roasting. Think you not it would be a pity to leave the women to carve it? My son Jack, replied Master Stickles, never was I in such quarters yet, and God forbid that I should be so unthankful to him as to hurry away, and now I think on it Friday is not a day upon which pious people love to commence on enterprise. I will choose the young pig to morrow at noon, at which time they are wont to gamble, and we will celebrate his birthday by carving him on Friday. After that we will gird our loins and set forth early on Saturday. Now, this was little better to me than if we'd set forth at once, Sunday being the very first day upon which it would be honourable for me to enter Glendon. But though I tried every possible means with Master Jeremy Stickles, offering him the choice of dinner for every beast that was on the farm, he durst not put off our departure later than the Saturday, and nothing else but love of us and of our hospitality would have so persuaded him to remain with us till then. Therefore now my only chance of seeing Lorna before I went lay in watching from the cliff and aspiring her, or a signal from her. This however I did in vain, until my eyes were weary and often would delude themselves with hope of what they ached for. But though I lay hidden behind the trees upon the crest of the stony fall and waited so quiet that the rabbits and squirrels played around me and even the keen-eyed weasel took me for a trunk of wood, it was all as one. No cast of colour changed the white stone, whose whiteness now was hateful to me, nor did wreath or skirt or maiden break the loneliness of the veil. End of Chapter 23, Recording by Rachel Linton, Bristol, UK