 7. Hard it is to climb. So many a winter night went by in a hopeful and pleasant manner, with the hissing of the bright round bullets cast into the water, and the spluttering of the great red apples which Annie was roasting for me. We always managed our evening's work in the chimney of the back kitchen, with those room to set chairs and table in spite of the fire burning. On the right hand side was a mighty oven, where Betty threatened to bake us, and on the left long sides of bacon made up of favoured pigs and growing very brown and comely. Annie knew the names of all, and ran up to the wood-smoke every now and then when a gentle memory moved her, and asked them how they were getting on, and when they would like to be eaten. Then she came back with foolish tears at thinking of that necessity, and I, being soft in a different way, would make up my mind against bacon. But, Lord bless you, it was no good. Whenever it came to breakfast time, after three hours upon the moors, I regularly forgot the pigs, but paid good heed to the rashes. Four hours is a hungry county if such there be in England, a place, I mean, where men must eat, and are quick to discharge the duty. The air of the moors is so shrewd and wholesome, staring at man's recollection of the good things which have betided him, and waiting his hope of something still better in the future, that by the time he sits down to a cloth, his heart and stomach are tuned too well to say nay to one another. Just everybody knows, in our part of the world at least, how pleasant and soft the fall of the land is round about plover's barrow's farm. All above it is strong dark mountain, spread with heath, and desolate, but near our house the valley's cove, and open warmth and shelter. Here are trees, and bright green grass, and orchards full of contentment, and a man may scarce a spider-brook, although he hears it everywhere. And indeed a stout good piece of it comes through our farm-yard, and swells sometimes to a rush of waves when the clouds are on the hill-tops. But all below, where the valley bends and the lind stream comes along with it, pretty meadows slope their breast and the sun spreads on the water. And nearly all of this is ours, till you come to Nicola Snow's land. But about two miles below our farm, the bag-worthy water runs into the lind and makes a real river of it. Then it hurries away with strength and a force of wilful waters under the foot of a bare-faced hill, and so to rocks and woods again where the stream is covered over in dark, heavy pools delay it. There are plenty of fish all down this way, and the farther you go the larger they get, having deeper grounds to feed in. And sometimes in the summer months, when mother could spare me off the farm, I came down here with Annie to help because it was so lonely, and caught well-nigh a basketful of little chart and minnows with a hawk and a bit of worm on it, or a fernweb, or a blow-fly hung from a hazel pole-stick. For of all the things I learnt at Blundles, only two abode with me, and one of these was the knack of fishing, and the other the art of swimming. And indeed they have a very rude manner of teaching children to swim there, for the big boys take the little boys and put them through a certain process which they grimly call sheep-washing. In the third meadow from the gate of the school going up the river, there is a fine pool in the lowman where the taunton brook comes in, and they call it the taunton pool. The water runs down with a strong sharp stickle, and then has a sudden elbow in it where the small brook trickles in, and on that side the bank is steep, four or maybe five feet high, overhanging loamily, but on the other side it is flat, pebbly, and fit to land upon. Now the large boys take the small boys, crying sadly for mercy, and thinking may help of their mothers, with hands laid well at the back of their necks, they bring them up to the crest of the bank upon the eastern side, and make them strip their clothes off. Then the little boys, falling on their naked knees, blubber upwards piteously, but the large boys know what is good for them and will not be untreated. So they cast them down, one after other into the splash of the water, and watch them go to the bottom first, and then come up and fight for it with a blowing and a bubbling. It is a very fair sight to watch when you know there is little danger, because, although the pool is deep, the current is sure to wash the boy up on the stones where the end of the depth is. As for me, they had no need to throw me more than once, because I jumped with my own accord, thinking small things of the lowman after the violent lynn. Nevertheless I learned to swim there as all the other boys did, for the greatest point in learning that is to find that you must do it. I loved the water naturally, and could not long be out of it, but even the boys who hated it most came to swim in some fashion or other, after they had been flung for a year or two into the taunton pool. But now, although my sister Annie came to keep me company, and was not to be pided for me by the tricks of the lynn stream, because I put her on my back and carried her across wherever she could not leap it, or tuck up her things and take the stones, yet so it happened that neither of us had been up to bag-worthy water. We knew that it brought a good stream down as full of fish as of pebbles, and we thought it must be very pretty to make her way where no way was, nor even a bullet came down to drink. But whether we were afraid or not, I am sure I cannot tell, because it is so long ago, but I think that had something to do with it. For bag-worthy water ran out of Dune Valley, a mile or so from the mouth of it, but when it was turned fourteen years old, and had put into good small clothes, buckled at the knee, and strong blue-wasted hosin knitted by my mother, it happened to me without choice, I may say, to explore the bag-worthy water, and it came about in this wise. My mother had long been ailing, and not well able to eat much, and there is nothing that frightens us so much as for people who have no love of their victuals. Now I chanced to remember that once at the time of the holidays, I had brought dear mother from Tiverton, a jar of pickled loaches, caught by myself in the Lomond River, and baked in the kitchen oven with vinegar, a few leaves of bay, and about a dozen peppercorns. And mother had said that in all her life she had never tasted anything fit to be compared with them. Whether she said so good a thing out of compliment to my skill in catching the fish and cooking them, or whether she really meant it, is more than I can tell, though I quite believed the latter, and so would most people who tasted them. At any rate, I now resolve to get some loaches for her, and do them in the self-save manner, just to make her eat a bit. There are many people, even now, who have not come to the right knowledge what a loach is, and where he lives, and how to catch and pickle him. And I will not tell them all about it, because if I did, very likely there would be no loaches left ten or twenty years after the appearance of this book. A pickled minnow is very good if he catch him in a stickle with the scarlet fingers upon him, but I count him no more than the ropes in beer compared with the loach done properly. Being resolved to catch some loaches, whatever trouble it cost me, I set forth without a word to any one. In the forenoon of St. Valentine's Day, 1675 to 6, I think it must have been. Any should not come with me, because the water was too cold, for the winter had been long, and snow lay here and there in patches in the hollow of the banks like a lady's gloves forgotten. And yet the spring was breaking forth, as it always does in Devonshire when the turn of the days is over, and though there was little to see of it, the air was full of feeling. It puzzles me now that I remember all these young impressions, so because I took no heed of them at the time, whatever. And yet they come upon me bright when nothing else is evident in the gray fog of experience. I am like an old man gazing at the outside of his spectacles and seeing, as he rubs the dust, the image of his grandson playing at Bo Peep with him. But let me be of any age I never could forget that day and how bitter cold the water was. For I doffed my shoes and hoes and put them in a bag about my neck, and left my little coat at home and tied my shirt sleeves back to my shoulders. Then I took a three-pronged fork, firmly bound to a rod with cord and a piece of canvas kachif with a lump of bread inside it, and so went into the pebbly water, trying to think how warm it was. For more than a mile all down the Linn stream, scarcely a stone I left unturned being thoroughly skilled in the tricks of the loach and knowing how he hides himself. For being gray-spotted and clear to see through, and something like a cuttlefish only more substantial, he will stay quite still where a streak of weed is in the rapid water, hoping to be overlooked, not caring even to work his tail. Then, being disturbed, he flips away like a whalebone from the finger and hires to a shelf of stone and lies with his sharp head poked in under it. Or sometimes he bellies him into the mud and only shows his back ridge. And that is the time to spear him nicely, holding the fork very gingerly, and allowing for the bent of it which comes to pass, I know not how, at the tickle of air and water. Or if your loach should not be abroad when first you come to look for him, but keeping snug in his little home, then you may see him come forth amazed at the quivering of the shingles and awe himself and look at you, and then dart upstream like a little grey streak, and then you must try to mark him in and follow it very daintily. So after that, in a sandy place, you steal up behind his tail to him so that he cannot set eyes on you for his head is upstream always, and there you see him abiding still, clear and mild and affable. Then as he looks so innocent, you make full sure to prog him well in spite of the rye of the water and the sun-making elbows to everything and the trembling of your fingers. But when you gird at him lovingly, and have as good as gotten him, lo, in the go-by of the river he is gone as a shadow goes, and only a little cloud of mud curls away from the points of the fork. A long way down that limpid water, chill and bright as an iceberg, went my little self that day on man's choice errand, destruction. All the young fish seemed to know that I was one who had taken out God's certificate and meant to have the value of it. Every one of them was aware that we desolate more than replenish the earth. For a cow might come and look into the water and put her yellow lips down. A kingfisher like a blue arrow might shoot through the dark alleys over the channel, or sit on a dipping witty bow with his beak sunk into his breast-feathers. Even an otter might float downstream, larkening himself to a log of wood with his flat head flush with the water-top and his oily eyes peering quietly, and yet no panic would seize other life as it does when a sample of man comes. Now, let not any one suppose that I thought of these things when I was young, for I knew not the way to do it. And proud enough in truth I was at the universal fear I spread in all those lonely places, where I myself must have been afraid if anything had come up to me. It is all very pretty to see the trees big with their hopes of another year, though dumb as yet on the subject, and the water's murmuring gaity, and the banks spread out with comfort. But a boy takes none of this to heart unless he be meant for a poet, which God can never charge upon me, and he would leave her have a good apple, or even a bad one if he stole it. When I had travelled two miles or so, conquered now and then with cold, and coming out to rub my legs into a lively friction, only fishing here and there because of the tumbling water, suddenly, in an open space, where meadows spread about it, I found a good stream flowing softly into the body of our brook. And it brought, so far as I could guess, by the sweep of it under my knee-cups, a larger power of clear water than the lin itself had. Only it came more quietly down, not being troubled with stairs and steps as the fortune of the lin is, but gliding smoothly and forcibly as if upon some set purpose. Hereupon I drew up and thought, and reason was much inside me because the water was bitter cold and my little toys were aching. So on the bank I rubbed them well with a sprout of young sting nettle, and having skipped about a while, was kindly inclined to eat a bit. Now all the turn of all my life hung upon that moment. But as I sat there munching a crust of Betty Muck's worthy sweet-brown bread and a bit of cold bacon along with it, and kicking my little red heels against the dry loam to keep them warm, I knew no more than fished under the fork what was going on over me. It seemed a sad business to go back now until any there were no loaches, and yet it was a frightful thing, knowing what I did of it, to venture where no grown man durced up the bag-worthy water. And pleased to recollect that I was only a boy in those days, fond enough of anything new, but not like a man to meet it. However, as I ate more and more, my spirit arose within me, and I thought of what my father had been, and how he had told me a hundred times never to be a coward. And then I grew warm, and my little heart was ashamed of its pitter-pattering, and I said to myself, Now, if father looks, he shall see that I obey him. So I put my bag round my back again, and buckled my breeches far up from the knee, expecting deeper water, and crossing the linn went stoutly up under the branches which hang so dark on the bag-worthy river. I found it strongly over-woven, turned and torn with thicket wood, but not so rocky as the linn and more inclined to go evenly. There were bars of chaffed stakes stretched from the sides half-way across the current, and light outriders of pithy weed, and blades of last year's water-grass trembling in the quiet places, like a spider's threads on the transparent stillness with a tint of olive moving it. And here and there the sun came in, as if his light was sifted, making dance upon the waves and shadowing the pebbles. Here, although I frighted often by the deep dark places and feeling that every step I took might never be taken backward, on the whole I had very calmly sport of loaches, trout, and minnows, forking some and tickling some, and driving others to shallow nooks whence I could bail them ashore. Now if you have ever been fishing, you will not wonder that I was led on, forgetting all about danger and taking no heed at the time, but shouting in a childish way whenever I called a wacker, as we called a big fish, a tibiton, and in sooth there were very fine loaches here, having more lie and hybrid than in the rough, lint stream. They're not quite so large as in the lowmen, where I have even taken them to the weight of half a pound. But in answer to all my shouts, there was never any sound at all except of a rocky echo, or a scared bird hustling away, or the sudden dive of a water-wall, and the place grew thicker and thicker, and the covert grew darker above me, until I thought that the fishers might have a good chance of eating me instead of my eating the fishers. For now the day was falling fast behind the brown of the hilltops, and the trees being void of leaf and hard seemed giants ready to beat me, and every moment as the sky was clearing up for a white frost, the cold of the water got worse and worse until I was fit to cry with it. And so, in a sorry plight, I came to an opening in the bushes, where a great black pool lay in front of me, whitened with snow, as I thought, at the sides, till I saw it was only foam frost. Now, though I could swim with great ease and comfort, and feared no depth of water when I could fairly come to it, yet I had no desire to go overhead in ears into this great pool, being so cramped and weary, and cold enough in all conscience, though wet only up to the middle, not counting my arms and shoulders. And the look of this black pit was enough to stop one from diving into it, even on a hot summer's day with sunshine on the water, I mean if sun ever shone there. As it was, I shuddered and drew back, not alone at the pool itself and the black air that was about it, but also at the whirling menor, and whispering of white threads upon it in stripy circles round and round, and the centre still as jet. But soon I saw the reason of the stir and depth of that great pit, as well as of the roaring sound which long had made me wonder. For skirting round one side with very little comfort because the rocks were high and steep, and the ledge at the foot so narrow, I came to a sudden sight in marvel, such as I never dreamed of. For low I stood at the foot of a long pale slide of water coming smoothly to me without any break or hindrance for a hundred yards or more, and fenced on either side with cliff, sheer and straight and shining. The water neither ran nor fell, nor leaped with any spouting, but made one even slope of it, as if it had been combed or planed, and looking like a plank of dill lay down a deep black staircase. However, there was no side rail, nor any place to walk upon, only the channel of fathom wide and the perpendicular walls of crag shutting out the evening. The look of this place had a sad effect, scaring me very greatly and making me feel that I would give something only to be at home again, with any cooking my supper, and our dog watch sniffing upward. But nothing would come of wishing that I had long found out, and had only made one the less inclined to work without white feather. So I laid the case before me in a little council, not for lost of time, but only that I wanted rest and to see things truly. Then says I to myself, John Ridd, these trees and pools and lonesome rocks and the setting of the sunlight are making a gruesome coward of thee. Shall I go back to my mother so, and be called her fearless boy? Nevertheless, I am free to own that it was not any fine sense of shame which settled my decision, for indeed there was nearly as much danger in going back as in going on, and perhaps even more of labour, the journey being so round about. But that which saved me from turning back was a strange, inquisitive desire, very unbecoming in a boy of little years. In a word, I would risk a great deal to know what made the water come down like that, and what there was at the top of it. Therefore, seeing hard strife before me, I girt up my breeches anew, with each buckle one whole tighter, for the sodden straps are stretching and giving, and may have my legs were growing smaller from the coldness of it. Then I bestowed my fish around my neck more tightly, and not stopping to look much for fear of fear, crawled along over the fork of the rocks where the water had scooped the stone out, and shunning luster ledge from whence it rose like the mane of a white horse into the broad black pool. Softly I let my feet into the dip and rush of the torrent. And here I had reckoned without my host, although as I thought so clever, and it was much but that I went down into the great black pool, and had never been heard of more, and this must have been the end of me, except for my trusty loach fork. For the green wave came down like great bottles upon me, and my legs were gone off in a moment, and I had not time to cry out with wonder, only to think of my mother and Annie, and knock my head very sadly, which made it go round so that the brains were no good even if I had any. But all in a moment, before I knew ought, except that I must die out of the way with a roar of water upon me, my fork, prays God, stuck fast in the rock, and I was born up upon it. I felt nothing except that here was another matter to begin upon, and it might be worthwhile, or again it might not, to have another fight for it. But presently the dash of the water upon my face revived me, and my mind grew used to the roar of it, and me seemed I had been worse off than this, when first flung into the loam. Therefore I gathered my legs back slowly as if they were fished to be landed, stopping whenever the water flew too strongly off my shin bones and coming along without sticking out to let the waves get hold of me. And in this manner I won afooting, leaning well forward like a draught horse, and balancing on my strength as it were with the ashen stake set behind me. Then I said to myself, John Rid, the sooner you get yourself out by the way you came, the better it will be for you. But to my great dismay and affright, I saw that no choice was left me now, except that I must climb somehow up that hill of water, or else be washed down into the pool and whirl around it till it drowned me. For there was no chance of fetching back by the way I had gone down into it. And further up was a hedge of rock on either side of the waterway, rising a hundred yards in height, and for all I could tell, five hundred, with no place to set afoot in. Having said the Lord's prayer, which was all I knew, and made a very bad job of it, I grasped the good loach-stick under a knot, and stetted me with my left hand, and so with a sigh of despair began my course up the fearful torrent way. To me it seemed half a mile at least of sliding water above me, but in truth it was little more than a fair long as I came to know afterwards. It would have been a hard ascent, even without the slippery slime and the force of the river over it, and I had scanty hope indeed of ever winning the summit. Nevertheless my terror left me, now I was face to face with it, and had to meet the worst, and I set myself to do my best, with a vigour and a sort of hardness which did not then surprise me, but have done so ever since. The water was only six inches deep, or from that to nine at the utmost, and all the way up I could see my feet looking white in the gloom of the hollow, and here and there I found a resting place to hold on by the cliff and pant a while. And gradually as I went on a warmth of courage breathed in me, to think that perhaps no other had dared to try that past before me, and to wonder what my mother would say to it. And then came thought of my father also, and the pain of my feet abated. How I went carefully, step by step, keeping my arms in front of me, and never daring to straighten my knees is more than I can tell clearly, or even like now to think of, because it makes me dream of it. Only I must acknowledge that the greatest danger of all was just where I saw no jeopardy, but ran up a patch of black oozeweed in a very boastful manner, being now not far from the summit. Here I fell very piteously, and was like to have broken my kneecap, and the torrent got hold of my other leg while I was indulging the bruised one. And then a vile knotting of cramp disabled me, and for a while I could only roar to my mouth as full of water and all of my body was sliding. But the fright of that brought me to again, and my elbow caught in a rock hole, and so I managed to start again with the help of more humility. Now, being in the most dreadful fright because I was so near the top and hope was beating within me, I laboured hard with both legs and arms, going like a mill and grunting. At last the rush of forked water, where first it came over the lips of the fall, drove me into the middle, and I stuck a while with my toe balls and the slippery links of the pop-weed, and the world was green and glittery, and I durst not look behind me. Then I made up my mind to die at last, for so my legs would ache no more, and my breath not pain my heart so. Only it did seem such a pity after fighting so long to give in, and the light was coming upon me, and again I fought towards it. Then suddenly I felt fresh air, and fell into it headlong. End of Chapter 7 Read by Landy in Sydney, Australia, August 2008 CHAPTER 8 A BOY AND A GIRL When I came to myself again, my hands were full of young grass and mold, and a little girl kneeling at my side was rubbing my forehead tenderly with a dock-leaf and a handkerchief. Oh, I am so glad she whispered softly as I opened my eyes and looked at her. Now you will try to be better, won't you? I had never heard so sweet a sound as came from between her bright red lips, while there she knelt and gazed at me. Neither had I ever seen anything so beautiful as the large dark eyes intent upon me, full of pity and wonder. And then, my nature being slow, and perhaps, for that matter heavy, I wandered with my hazy eyes down the black shower of her hair as to my jaded gaze it seemed, and where it fell on the turf, among it, like an early star, was the first primrose of the season. And since that day I think of her, through all the rough storms of my life, when I see an early primrose. Perhaps she liked my countenance, and indeed I know she did because she said so afterwards, although at the time she was too young to know what made her take to me. Not that I had any beauty, or ever pretended to have any, only a solid healthy face which many girls have laughed at. Thereupon I sat upright, with my little trident still in one hand, and was much afraid to speak to her, being conscious of my country brogue, lest she should cease to like me. But she clapped her hands and made a trifling dance around my back, and came to me on the other side, as if I were a great plaything. What is your name, she said, as if she had every right to ask me? And how did you come here, and what are these wet things in this great bag? You had better let them alone, I said, they are loaches for my mother, but I will give you some if you like. Hear me how much you think of them, why they are only fish. But how your feet are bleeding, oh I must tie them up for you, and no shoes nor stockings. Is your mother very poor, poor boy? No, I said, being vexed at this. We are rich enough to buy all this great meadow if we chose, and here my shoes and stockings be. Why, they are quite as wet as your feet, and I cannot bear to see your feet. Oh, please, let me manage them, I will do it very softly. Oh, I don't think much of that, I replied, I shall put some goose-grease to them. But how you are looking at me? I never saw anyone like you before. My name is John Ridd, what is your name? Lorna Dune, she answered in a low voice, as if afraid of it, and hanging her head so that I could see only her forehead and eyelashes. If you please, my name is Lorna Dune, and I thought you must have known it. Then I stood up and touched her hand, and tried to make her look at me, but she only turned away the moor. Young and harmless as she was, her name alone made guilt of her. Nevertheless I could not help looking at her tenderly, and the moor when her blushes turned into tears, and her tears to long, low sobs. Don't cry, I said, whatever you do. I am sure you have never done any harm. I will give you all my fish, Lorna, and catch some more for mother, only don't be angry with me. She flung her little soft arms up in the passion of her tears, and looked at me so piteously that what did I do but kiss her? It seemed to be a very odd thing when I came to think of it, because I hated kissing so, as all honest boys must do. But she touched my heart with a sudden delight, like a cow-slip blossom, although there were none to be seen yet, the sweetest flowers of spring. She gave me no encouragement, as my mother in her place would have done. Nay, she even wiped her lips, which me thought was rather rude of her, and drew away, and smoothed her dress as if I had used a freedom. Then I felt my cheeks grow burning red, and I gazed at my legs and was sorry. For although she was not at all a proud child, at any rate in her countenance, yet I knew that she was by birth a thousand years in front of me. They might have taken and framed me, or which would be more to the purpose, my sisters, until it was time for us to die, and then have trained our children after us for many generations, yet never could we have gotten that look upon our faces, which Lorna Dune had naturally, as if she had been born to it. Here was I, a yeoman's boy, a yeoman every inch of me, even where I was naked, and there was she, a lady born and thoroughly aware of it, and dressed by people of rank and taste who took pride in her beauty and set it to advantage. For though her hair was fallen down by reason of her wildness, and some of her frock was touched with wet where she had tended me so, behold her dress was pretty enough for the queen of all the angels. The colors were bright and rich indeed, and the substance very sumptuous, yet simple and free from tinsel stuff, and matching most harmoniously. All from her waist to her neck was white, plaited in close like a curtain, and the dark, soft weeping of her hair and the shadowy light of her eyes, like a wood raided through with sunset, made it seem yet whiter as if it were done on purpose. As for the rest, she knew what it was a great deal better than I did, for I never could look far away from her eyes when they were opened upon me. Now seeing how I heeded her and feeling that I had kissed her, although she was such a little girl, eight years old or thereabouts, she turned to the stream in a bashful manner and began to watch the water and rubbed one leg against the other. I, for my part, being vexed at her behavior to me, took up all my things to go and made a fuss about it to let her know I was going. But she did not call me back at all, as I had made sure she would do. Moreover, I knew that to try the descent was almost certain death to me, and it looked as dark as pitch, and so at the mouth I turned around again and came back to her and said, Lorna. Oh, I thought you were gone, she answered. Why did you ever come here? Do you know what they would do to us if they found you here with me? Beat us, I daresay, very hard, or me at least, they could never beat you. No, they would kill us both outright and barious here by the water, and the water often tells me that I must come to that. But what should they kill me for? Because you have found the way up here, and they never could believe it. Now please to go, oh, please to go, they will kill us both in a moment. Yes, I like you very much, for I was teasing her to say it, very much indeed, and I will call you, John Ridd, if you like, only pleased to go, John, and when your feet are well, you know you can come and tell me how they are. But I tell you, Lorna, I like you very much indeed, nearly as much as Annie, and a great deal more than Lizzie, and I never saw anyone like you, and I must come back again tomorrow, and so must you to see me, and I will bring you such lots of things, there are apples still, and a thrush I caught with only one leg broken, and our dog has just had puppies. Oh dear, they won't let me have a dog, there is not a dog in the valley. They say they are such noisy things. Only put your hand in mine, what little things they are, Lorna, and I will bring you the loveliest dog, I will show you just how long he is. Hush, a shout came down the valley, and all my heart was trembling like water after sunset, and Lorna's face was altered from pleasant play to terror. She shrank to me, and looked up at me with such a power of weakness that I at once made up my mind to save her or to die with her. A tingle went through all my bones, and I only longed for my carbine. The little girl took courage from me, and put her cheek quite close to mine. Come with me down the waterfall, I can carry you easily, and mother will take care of you. No, no, she cried as I took her up. I will tell you what to do, they are only looking for me. You see that hole, that hole there? She pointed to a little niche in the rock which verged the meadow, about 50 yards away from us. In the fading of the twilight, I could just describe it. Yes, I see it, but they will see me crossing the grass to get there. Look, look, she could hardly speak. There is a way out from the top of it. They would kill me if I told it. Oh, here they come, I can see them. The little maid turned as white as the snow which hung on the rocks above her, and she looked at the water, and then at me, and she cried, oh dear, oh dear. And then she began to sob aloud, being so young and unready. But I drew her behind the withy bushes and close down to the water, where it was quiet and shelving deep, ere it came to the lip of the chasm. Here they could not see either of us from the upper valley, and might have sought a long time for us, even when they came quite near, if the trees had been clad with their summer clothes. Luckily, I had picked up my fish and taken my three-pronged fork away. Crouching in that hollow nest, as children get together in ever-so-little compass, I saw a dozen fierce men come down on the other side of the water, not bearing any firearms, but looking lax and jovial as if they were come from riding and a dinner taken hungrily. Queen, queen, they were shouting here and there and now and then, where the pest is our little queen gone? They always call me queen, and I am to be queen by and by. Lorna whispered to me with her soft cheek on my rough one and her little heart beating against me. Oh, they are crossing by the timber there, and then they are sure to see us. Stop, said I, now I see what to do. I must get into the water and you must go to sleep. To be sure, yes, away in the meadow there, but how bitter cold it will be for you. She saw in a moment the way to do it, sooner than I could tell her and there was no time to lose. Now, mind you, never come again. She whispered over her shoulder as she crept away with a childish twist hiding her white front for me. Only I shall come sometimes. Oh, here they are, Madonna. Daring scarce to peep, I crept into the water and lay down bodily in it, with my head between two blocks of stone and some flood-drift combing over me. The dusk was deepening between the hills and a white mist lay on the river, but I, being in the channel of it, could see every ripple and twig and rush and glazing of twilight above it, as bright as in a picture, so that to my ignorance they're seeing no chance at all but what the men must find me. For all this time they were shouting and swearing and keeping such a hullabaloo that the rocks all round the valley rang and my heart quaked so, what with this and the cold, that the water began to gurgle round me and to lap upon the pebbles. Neither in truth did I try to stop it, being now so desperate between the fear and the wretchedness, till I caught a glimpse of the little maid whose beauty and whose kindliness had made me yearn to be with her. And then I knew that for her sake I was bound to be brave and hide myself. She was lying beneath a rock, 30 or 40 yards from me, feigning to be fast asleep, with her dress spread beautifully and her hair drawn over her. Presently one of the great rough men came round a corner upon her and there he stopped and gazed a while at her fairness and her innocence. Then he caught her up in his arms and kissed her so that I heard him and if I had only brought my gun I would have tried to shoot him. Here our queen is, here's the queen, here's the captain's daughter, he shouted to his comrades, fast asleep by God and hearty. Now I have first claimed to her and no one else shall touch the child. Back to the bottle, all of you. He set her dainty little form upon his great square shoulder and her narrow feet in one broad hand and so in triumph marched away with the purple velvet of her skirt ruffling in his long black beard and the silken length of her hair fetched out like a cloud by the wind behind her. This way of her going vexed me so that I leaped upright in the water and must have been spied by some of them but for their haste to the wine-bottle. Of their little queen they took small notice being in this urgency, although they had thought to find her drowned but trooped away after one another with kindly challenge to gambling so far as I could make them out and I kept sharp watch, I assure you. Going up that darkened glen, little Lorna, riding still the largest and most fierce of them, turned and put up a hand to me and I put up a hand to her in the thick of the mist and the willows. She was gone, my little dear, though tall of her age and healthy, and when I got over my thriftless fright I longed to have more to say to her. Her voice to me was so different from all I had ever heard before as might be a sweet silver bell intoned to the small cords of a harp but I had no time to think about this if I hoped to have any supper. I crept into a bush for warmth and rubbed my shivering legs on bark and longed for mother's faggot. Then as daylight sank below the forget-me-not of stars with a sorrow to be quit I knew that now must be my time to get away if there were any. Therefore, ringing my sodden breeches, I managed to crawl from the bank to the niche in the cliff which Lorna had shown me. Through the dusk I had trouble to see the mouth at even the five land yards of distance. Nevertheless, I entered well and held on by some dead fern stems and did hope that no one would shoot me. But while I was hugging myself like this with a boyish manner of reasoning, my joy was like to have ended in sad grief both to myself and my mother and happily to all honest folk who shall love to read this history. For hearing a noise in front of me and like a coward not knowing where but afraid to turn round or think of it I felt myself going down some deep passage into a pit of darkness. It was no good to catch the sides the whole thing seemed to go with me. Then without knowing how I was leaning over a night of water. This water was of black radiance as our certain diamonds spanned across with bolts of rock and carrying no image neither showing marge nor end but centered as it might be with a bottomless endrawl. With that chill and dread upon me and the sheer rock all around and the faint light heaving wavily on the silence of this gulf I must have lost my wits and gone to the bottom if there were any. But suddenly a robin sang as they will do after dark towards spring in the brown fern and ivy behind me. I took it for our little Annie's voice for she could call any robin and gathering quick warm comfort sprang up the steep way towards the starlight. Climbing back as the stones glid down I heard the cold, greedy wave go japping like a blind black dog into the distance of arches and hollow depths of darkness. End of chapter eight recording by Michelle Harris. Chapter nine 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 nine. There is no place like home. I can assure you and tell no lie as John Frye always used to say when telling his very largest that I scrambled back to the mouth of that pit as if the evil one had been after me. And sorely I repented now of all my boyish folly or madness that might well be termed in venturing with none to help and nothing to compel me into that accursed valley. Once let me get out, thinks I, and if ever I get in again without being cast in by neck and by crop I will give our newborn donkey leave to set up for my school master. How I kept that resolution we shall see here after. It is enough for me now to tell how I escaped from the den that night. First I sat down in the little opening which Lorna had pointed out to me and wondered whether she had meant as bitterly occurred to me that I should run down into the pit and be drowned and give no more trouble. But in less than half a minute I was ashamed of that idea and remembered how she was vexed to think that even a loach should lose his life. And then I said to myself, now surely she would value me more than a thousand loaches and what she said must be quite true about the way out of this horrible place. Therefore I began to search with the utmost care and diligence although my teeth were chattering and all my bones beginning to ache with the chilliness and the wetness. Before very long the moon appeared over the edge of the mountain and among the trees at the top of it. And then I aspired rough steps and rocky made as if with a sledgehammer, narrow, steep, and far asunder, scooped here and there in the side of the entrance and then round a bulge of the cliff like the marks upon a great brown loaf where a hungry child has picked at it. And higher up where the light of the moon shone broader upon the precipice there seemed to be a rude broken track like the shadow of a crooked stick thrown upon a house wall. Herein was small encouragement and at first I was minded to lie down and die but it seemed to come amiss to me. God has his time for all of us but he seems to advertise us when he does not mean to do it. Moreover I saw a movement of lights at the head of the valley as if land thorns were coming after me and the nimbleness given thereon to my heels was in front of all meditation. Straightway I set foot in the lowest stirrup as I might almost call it and clung to the rock with my nails and worked to make a jump into the second stirrup and I compassed that too with the aid of my stick although to tell you the truth I was not at that time of life as so agile as boys of smaller frame are for my size was growing beyond my years and the muscles not keeping time with it and the joints of my bones not closely hinged with staring at one another. But the third step-hole was the hardest of all and the rock swelled out on me over my breast and there seemed to be no attempting it until I aspired a good stout rope hanging in a groove of shadow and just managed to reach the end of it. How I clung up and across the clearing and found my way home through the bag-worthy forest is more than I can remember now for I took all the rest of it then as a dream by reason of perfect weariness and indeed it was quite beyond my hopes to tell so much as I have told for at first beginning to set it down it was all like a mist before me. Nevertheless some parts grew clear as one by one I remembered them having taken a little soft cordial because the memory frightens me. For the toil of the water and danger of laboring up the long cascade or rapids and then the surprise of the fair young maid and terror of the murderers and desperation of getting away all these things are much to me even now when I am a stout churchwarden and sit by the side of my fire after going through many far worse adventures which I will tell God willing. Only the labor of writing is such especially so as to construe and challenge a reader on parts of speech and hope to be even with him that by this pipe which I hold in my hand I ever expect to be beaten as in the days when old doctor twigs if I made a bad stroke in my exercise shouted aloud with a sour joy John Ridd sirrah down with your small clothes. Let that be as it may I deserved a good beating that night after making such a fool of myself and grinding good fustion to pieces but when I got home all the supper was in and the men sitting at the white table and mother and Annie and Lizzie nearby all eager and offering to begin except indeed my mother who was looking out at the doorway and by the fire was Betty Muxworthy scolding and cooking and tasting her work all in a breath as a man would say I look through the door from the dark by the wood stack and was half of a mind to stay out like a dog for fear of the raiding and reckoning but the way my dear mother was looking about and the browning of the sausages got the better of me but nobody could get out of me where I had been all the day and evening although they worried me never so much and long to shake me to pieces especially Betty Muxworthy who never could learn to let well alone not that they made me tell any lies although it would have served them right almost for intruding on other people's business but that I just held my tongue and ate my supper rarely and let them try their taunts and jibes and drove them almost wild after supper by smiling exceedingly knowingly and indeed I could have told them things as I hinted once or twice and then poor Betty and our little Lizzie were so mad with eagerness that between them I went into the fire being thoroughly overcome with laughter and my own importance now what the working of my mind was if indeed it worked at all and did not rather follow suit of body it is not in my power to say only that the result of my adventure in the Dune Glen was to make me dream a good deal of nights which I had never done much before and to drive me with tenfold zeal and purpose to the practice of bullet shooting not that I ever expected to shoot the Dune family one by one or even desired to do so for my nature is not revengeful but that it seemed to be somehow my business to understand the gun as a thing I must be at home with I could hit the barn door now capitalally well with the Spanish matchlock and even with John Fry's blunderbus at ten good land yard's distance without any rest for my fusel and what was very wrong of me though I did not see it then I kept John Fry there to praise my shots from dinner time often until the gray dusk while he all the time should have been at work spring plowing up on the farm and for that matter so should I have been or at any rate driving the horses but John was by no means loath to be there instead of holding the plow tail and indeed one of our old sayings is for pleasure's sake I would lie for wet then had ten lumps of gold for each one of my sweat again which is not a bad proverb though unthrifty and unlike the Scotsman's God makes the wheat grow greener while farmer be at his dinner and no Devonshire man or summer set either and I belong to both of them ever thinks of working harder than God likes to see him nevertheless I worked hard at the gun and by the time that I had sent all the church roof gutters so far as I honestly could cut them through the red pine door I began to long for a better tool that would make less noise and throw straighter but the sheep shearing came in the hay season next and then the harvest of small corn in the digging of the root called batata a new but good thing in our neighborhood which our folks have made into taties and then the sweating of the apples and the turning of the cider press and the stacking of the firewood and netting of the woodcocks and the sprinkles to be minded in the garden and by the hedge rows where blackbirds hop to the molehills in the white october mornings and gray birds come to look for snails at the time when the sun is rising it is wonderful how time runs away when all these things and a great many others come in to load him down the hill and prevent him from stopping to look about and I for my part can never conceive how people who live in towns and cities where neither lambs nor birds are except in some shop windows nor growing corn nor meadow grass nor even so much as a stick to cut or a style to climb and sit down upon how these poor folk get through their lives without being utterly weary of them and dying from pure indolence as a thing God only knows if his mercy allows him to think of it how the year went by I know not only that I was abroad all day shooting or fishing or minding the farm or riding after some stray beast or away by the seaside below Glenthorne wondering at the great waters and resolving to go for a sailor for in those days I had a firm belief as many other strong boys have of being born for a seaman and indeed I had been in a boat nearly twice but the second time mother found it out and came and drew me back again and after that she cried so badly that I was forced to give my word to her to go no more without telling her but Betty Muxworthy spoke her mind quite in a different way about it the while she was ringing my hosin and clattering to the drying horse sailor East Fay, A. and Xarvan Wright there can't cave out to the water here where I must go vortivating and zame as a girt to a squalopon and Mux up till I be wore out I be with the very satay's breeches how will an ever bay to board ship with the water zinging out underin and coming up splash when the wind blow lot and go mrs lot and go say I for one and old Davey washes clout foreign and this discourse of Betty's tended more than my mother's prayers I fear to keep me from going for I hated Betty in those days his children always hate across servant and often get fond of the false one but Betty like many active women was false by her crossness only thinking it just for the moment perhaps and rushing away with the bucket ready to stick to it like a clenched nail of beaten the wrong way with argument but melting over it if you left her stinging soap left along in a basin spreads all abroad without bubbling but all this is beyond the children and beyond me to for that matter even now in ripe experience for I never did know what women mean and never shall accept when they tell me if that be in their power now let that question pass for although I am now in a place of some authority I have observed that no one ever listens to me when I attempt to lay down the law but all are waiting with open ears until I do enforce it and so me thinks he who reads a history cares not much for the wisdom or folly of the writer knowing well the former is far less than his own and the latter vastly greater but hurries to know what the people did and how they got got on about it and this I can tell if anyone can having been myself in the thick of it the fright I had taken that night in Glen Dune satisfied me for a long time thereafter and I took good care not to venture even in the fields and woods of the outer farm without John Fry for company John was greatly surprised and pleased at the value I now set upon him until what betwixt the desire to vaunt and the longing to talk things over I gradually laid bare to him nearly all that had befallen me except indeed about Lorna whom a sort of shame kept me from mentioning not that I did not think of her and wish very often to see her again but of course I was only a boy as yet and therefore inclined to despise young girls as being unable to do anything and only meant to listen to orders and when I got along with the other boys that was how we always spoke of them if we deign to speak at all as beings of a lower order only good enough to run errands for us and to nurse boy babies and yet my sister Annie was in truth a great deal more to me than all the boys of the parish and of Brendan and Countess Berry put together although at the time I never dreamed it and would have laughed if told so Annie was a pleasing face and very gentle manner almost like a lady some people said but without any errors whatever only trying to give satisfaction and if she failed she would go and weep without letting anyone know it believing the fault to be all her own when mostly it was of others but if she succeeded in pleasing you it was beautiful to see her smile and stroke her soft chin and a way of her own which she always used when taking note how to do the right thing again for you and then her cheeks had a bright clear pink and her eyes were as blue as the sky in spring and she stood as upright as a young apple tree and no one could help but smile at her and pat her brown curls approvingly whereupon she always curtsied for she never tried to look away when honest people gazed at her and even in the courtyard she would come and help to take your saddle and tell without you asking her what there was for dinner and afterwards she grew up to be a very calmly maiden tall and with a well-built neck and very fair white shoulders under a bright cloud of curling hair alas poor Annie like most of the gentle maidens but Tush I am not come to that yet and for the present she seemed to me little to look at after the beauty of Lorna Dune end of chapter nine recording by Michelle Harris chapter ten of Lorna Dune this is a Liberox recording all Liberox recording are in the public domain for more information on the volunteer please visit liberox.org recording by Day Z 55 Lorna Dune by Aura D Blackmore chapter ten a brave rescue and a rough ride it happened upon a November evening when I was about fifteen years old and I'm growing my strength very rapidly my sister Annie being turned thirteen and a deal of rain having fallen and all the troughs and the yard being flooded and the bark from the wood wicks washed down the gutters and even our water shooting going brown that the ducks in the court made a terrible quacking instead of marching off to their pen one behind another there upon Annie and I ran out to see what might be the sense of it there were thirteen ducks and ten lily white as the fashion then of ducks was not I mean twenty three in all but ten white and three brown striped ones and without being nice about the color they all quacked very movingly they pushed their gold colored bills here and there yet dirty as gold as apt to be and they jumped on the triangles of their feet and sounded out of their nostrils and some of the over excited ones ran along low on the ground quacking grievously with their bills snapping and bending and the roof of their mouths exhibited and it began to cry dearly dearly meanie meanie dexie according to the burden of a tune they seem to have accepted as the national ducks anthem but instead of being soothed by it they only quacked three times at home ran around to we were getting and then they shook their tails together and look grave and went round around again now I am uncommonly fond of ducks both roasted and roasting and it is a fine sight to behold them walk parting one after another and their toes out like soldiers drilling and their little eyes cocked all ways at once and the way that they did with the bills and dabble and throw up their heads and enjoy something and didn't tell others about it therefore I knew at once by the way they were carrying on that there must be something other gone wholly amiss in the duck world sister Annie perceived it too but with a great equipment for she counted them like a good duck wife and could only tell thirteen of them when she knew there ought to be fourteen and so we began to search about and the ducks ran to lead us all right haven't come that far to fetch us and when we got down to the foot of the courtyard where the two great ash trees stand by the side of the little water we found good reason for the urgence and melancholy of the duck birds low the old white drake the father of all a bird of high manners and shivery always the last to help himself from the pan of barley meal and the first to show fight to a dog or cock intruding upon his family this fine fellow and pillar of the state was now in a sad predicament yet quacking very stoutly for the brook where with he had been familiar from his collo childhood and where in he was want for quest for water newts and tadpoles and cat is worms and other game this brook which afforded him very often scantily space to dabble in and sometimes starved the creses was now coming down in a great brown flood as if the banks never belong to it the foaming of it and the noise and the cresting of the corners and the up and down like a wave of the sea were enough to frighten any duck though breed upon stormy waters which our ducks have been there's always a hurdle six feet long and four and a half in depth swung by chain at either end from an oak laid across the channel and their use of this herders to keep our keen at milking time from strain away from their drinking for in truth they are very dainty and the fence strange cattle or farmer snows horses from coming along the bed of the brook unknown to steal our substance but now this herder which hung in the summer a foot above the trickle would have been dipped more than two feet deep but for the power against it for the turn came down so vehemently that the chains at full stretch were creaking and the hurdle buffered it almost flat and thatching so to say and the drift stuff was going seesaw with a silky splash on the dirty red comb of the waters but sadness to see was between two bars where fog was a rushes and flood would and while cellar we hollum and dead cross foot who but a vulnerable mellard jammed in by the joint of his shoulders speaking allowed as he rose and fell for stop not full of water unable to comprehend it with his tail washed away from him but often compelled to be salad being ducked very harshly against his will by the choking fall of the hurdle for a moment I could not help laughing because being born up high and dry by tumult of the turn he gave me a look from his one little eye having lost one in fight with a turkey cock a gaze of appealing sorrow and then a loud quack to second it but the quack came out of time I suppose for his throat got filled with water as the hurdle carried him back again and then there was scarcely the screw of his tail to be seen until he swung up again and left small doubt by the way he spluttered and fell the quack and hung down his poor crest but what he must drown in another minute and frogs triumph over his body and he was crying and wringing her hands and I was about to rush into the water although I like not the look of it but hoped to hold on by the hurdle when a man on horseback came suddenly around the corner of the great ash hedge on the other side of the stream and his horses feet were in the water oh there he cried get thee back boy the flood would carry thee down like a straw I would do it for ye and no trouble but that he leaned forward and spoke to his mare she was just of the tent of a strawberry a young thing very beautiful and she arched up her neck as misliking the job yet trusted him what attempted she entered the flood with her dainty four legs slopped forward and further in front of her and her delicate ears pricked forward and the size of her great eyes increasing but he kept her straight in a turbid rush by the pressure of his knee on her then she looked back and wondered at him as the force of the turn grew stronger but he bade her go on and on she went and it foamed up over her shoulders and she tossed up her lift and scorned it for now her courage was wakening then as the rush of it swept her away and she struck with her four feet down the stream he leaned from the saddle in a manner which I never could act on possible and caught her with old tongue of his left hand and sat him between his hoisters and smiled at his faint quack of gratitude in a moment all these were carried downstream and the rider lay flat on his horse and tossed the hurdle clear from him and made for the bend of smooth water they landed some 30 or 40 yards low in the midst of our kitchen garden where the winter cabbage was but though Annie and I crept in through the hedge and were full of our thanks in admiring him he would answer us never a word until he had spoken in full to the mare as if explained the whole to her sweetheart I know doubts could have leaped it he said as he patted her cheek being on the ground by this time and she was nudging up to him with the water patting off of her but I had a good reason when it did for making thee go through it she answered him kindly with her soft eyes and snouted him very lovingly and they understood one another then he took from his waistcoat two peppercorns and made the old Drake swallow them and tried him softly upon his legs where the leading gap in the hedge was old Tom stood up quite bravely and clapped his wings and shook off the wet from his tail feathers and then away into the courtyard and his family gathered around him and they all made a noise and their throats stood up and put their bills together to thank God for this great deliverance having taken all this trouble and watched the end of that adventure the gentleman turned round to us with a pleasant smile on his face as if he were lightly amused with himself and we came up and looked at him he was rather short about John Fry's height or maybe be a little taller but very strongly built in springing as his gait at every step showed plainly although his legs were bowed with much riding and he looked as if he lived on horseback to a boy like me he seemed very old being over 20 and well found in beard but he was not more than 4 and 20 fresh and ruddy looking with a short nose and keen blue eyes and a merry waggish jerk about him as if the world were not in earnest yet he had a sharp stern way like the crack of a pistol if anything missed like Tim and we knew for children to see such things that it was safer to trickle than buffet him well youngins what be gaping at he gave Andy a chuck on the chin and took me all in without winking your mare I said standing stoutly up being a tall boy now I never saw such a beauty sir will you let me have a ride of her think doubts could ride a lad she would have no burden but mine doubts could never ride her I'll be low to kill thee rider I cried with a braver scorn for she looked so kind and gentle there never was horse upon XO4 but I could tackle in half an hour only I never ride upon saddle take them leathers off of her he looked at me with a dry little whistle and thrust his hand into his breecher's pockets and so grand that I could not stand it and Andy laid hold of me in such a way that I was almost mad at her and he laughed and approved of her for doing so and the worst of all was he said nothing get away Andy will you do you think I'm a fool good sir only trust me with her and I will not override her for that I will go bail my son she is like it over thee override thee but the ground is soft to fall upon after all this rain now come on out into the young young man for the sake of your mother's cabbages and the mellow strawbill will be softer for thee since pride must have its fall I am thy mother's cousin boy and I'm going up the house Tom Fagus is my name as everybody knows and this is my young man Winnie what a fool I must have been not to know it at once Tom Fagus the great highway man in his young blood man the strawberry already her fame was noised abroad nearly as much as her masters and my longing to ride her grew tenfold but fear came in the back of it not that I had the smallest fear of what the man could do to me by fair play and horse trickery but that the glory of sitting upon her seemed to be too great for me especially as there were rumors abroad that she was not a man after all but a witch however she looked like a filly all over and wonderfully beautiful with her supple stride and soft slope of shoulder and glossy coat beaded with water and prominent eyes full of dark-siled fire whether this came from an eastern blood of the Arabs newly imported and whether the cream color mixed with our bay led to that bright strawberry tint is certainly more than I can decide being chiefly acquainted with farm horses and these come of any color and form you never can count what they will be and I'm lucky to get four legs to them Mr. Fagas gave his mare wink and she walked to mural-ly after him a bright young thing flowing over with light yet dropping her soul to a high one and led by love to anything as the manner is of females when they know what is what is the best for them then when he trod lightly upon the straw because it has soft muck under it and her delicacy came back again up for a still boy be ya Tom Fagas stopped and the mare stopped there and they looked at me provokingly is she able to leap sir there is good takeoff on this side of the brook Mr. Fagas laughed very quietly turning around to win it so that she might enter into it and she for her part seemed to know exactly where to fun lay good tumble off you mean boy well they can be the small harm to thee I'm akin to the family know the substance of their skulls let me get up I said waxing rough for reasons I cannot tell you because they are too manifold take off your saddlebags things I will try not to squeeze the ribs in unless she plays nonsense with me then Mr. Fagas was up on his meadow at this proud speech of mine and John Fry was running up all the while and billed dads and half a dozen Tom Fagas gave one glance around and then dropped all regard for me the high repute of his mare was at stake and what was my life compared to it through my defiance in stupid ways here was I in a duel and my legs not come to the strength yet in my arms as limp as a herring something of this occurred to him even in his wrath for me for he spoke very softly to the Philly who now could scarce subdued herself but she drew in her nostrils and breathed to his breath and did all she could do to answer him not too hard my dear he said and let him gently down on the mixing there'll be quite enough then he turned the saddle off and I was up in a moment she began at first so easily and prickled her ears so lovingly and minced about as if pleased to find so light a weight upon her that I thought she knew I could ride a little in fear to show any capers gee woo Polly cried I for all the men were now looking on being then at the leaving off time gee wooly Polly and show what thou be made of was that I plugged my heels into her and Billy Dawes flung his head up nevertheless she outraged not though her eyes were frightening Annie and John Fry took a pic to keep himself safe but she curbed to and for her strong forearms rising like springs and gather waiting and quivering grievously and beginning to sweat about it then a master gave a shrieeel clear whistle when her ears were bent forward to him and I felt her form beneath me gathering up like well-boned and her hind legs coming under me and I knew that I was in for it first she reared upright in the air and struck me full on her nose with her comb till I bled worse than Robert Snail made me and then down for four feet deep in the straw and her hind feet going to heaven finding me stick to her still like wax for my matter was up as hers was away she flew with me slipper than ever I went before all sense I throw she drove full head at the core wall oh Jack slip on screen Annie then she turned like light when I thought to crush her and ground my left knee against it Max me I cried for my bridges were broken and short words went the furthest if you kill me you shall die with me then she took the court yard gate at a leap knocking my words between my teeth and then right over a quick set hedge as if the sky was a breath to her and a wave for the watermelons while lay on her neck like a child at the breast and wish I had never been born straight away all in the front of the wind and scattering clouds around her all I knew of the speed we made was the frightful flash of her shoulders and her mane like trees in the tempest I felt the earth under us rushing away and the air left far behind us and my breath came and went and I prayed to God and was sorry to be so late of it all the long swift while without power or thought I clung to her crest and shoulders and dug my nails into her crests and my toes into her flank part and was proud of holding on so long though she were being beaten then in her fury and feeling me still she rushed at another device for it and leaped a wide water trough sideways across two and four till no breath was left in me the hazel boss took me too hard in the face and the tall dog breathers got hold of me and the ache of my back was like crimping a fish till I longed to give up thoroughly beaten and lie there and die in the crests for there came a shrill whistle from up the home hill where the people had hurried to watch us and the mare stopped as if a bullet then set off for home with the speed of a swallow and going as smoothly and silently I never had dreamed of such delicate motion fluent and graceful and envious soft as the breeze fitting over the flowers but swift as the summer lightning I sat up again but my strength was all spent and no time left to recover it and though she rose at our gate like a bird I tumbled off into the mixing end of chapter 10 recording by daisy 55 chapter 11 of launa dune this is a liver rocks recording all liver rocks recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liver rocks dot org recording by daisy 55 launa dune by aura d blackmore chapter 11 tom deserves his supper well done lad mr fager said good natively for all were now gather around me as I rose from the ground somewhat torturing and mirror and crescent falling but otherwise none the worse haven't fallen upon my head which is of uncommon substance nevertheless john fry was laughing so that I longed to clout his ears for him not at all bad work my boy we may teach you to ride by and by I see though not to see you stick on so long I should have stuck on much longer sir if her sides had not been wet she was very or she was so slippery boy da art right she had given many of the slip vex not jack that I laugh at thee she is like a sweetheart to me and better than any of them did be it would have gone to my head if da has conquered none but I can ride my winning there foul shame to thee then thom phagus cried mother coming up suddenly and speaking so that all were maize haven't never seen her raffle to put my boy my boy across her as if she is if his life or no more than dying the only son of his father an honest man and a quiet man not a roaster and drunken robber and man would have taken nine mad horse and then flung them both into horse party and what's more I have it done now if I have his head is injured oh my boy my boy what could I do without thee put up the other arm Johnny all the time mother was scolding so she was feeling me and wiping me while phagus tried to look greatly ashamed having sense of the ways of women oh only look at his jacket mother cried Annie and a shin on his worth gone from his small clothes what care for his clothes that goose take that and he down on a bit and mother gave Annie a slap which sent her swinging up against mr phagus and he caught her and kissed and protected her and she looked at him very nicely with great tears and her soft blue eyes oh fee upon thee fee upon thee cried mother being yet more vexed with him because she had beaten Annie after all we have done for thee and save thy worthless neck and to try to kill my son for me nevermore shall horse of thine enter stable here since these be thy returns to me small thanks to you John Fry I say and you Bill dads and you Jim Slocum and all the rest of you coward lot much you care for your master's son afraid of that ugly beast yourselves and you put a boy just breached upon him well Mrs what could us do begin John jam woulda go not with her Jim and how was us Jen indeed master John if you please to a lad of his years in statue and now Tom figures be off if you please and thank yourself lucky to go and if ever that horse comes into our yard I'll hamstring him myself if none of my cowards dare do it everybody looked at my mother to hear her talk like that knowing how quiet she was day by day and how pleasant to be cheated and the men begin to shoulder their shovels both so as to be away from her and to go and tell their wives of it when it too was looking at her being pointed at so much and wondering if she had done a mess and then she came to me and trembled and stooped her head and asked my pardon if she had been too proud with me when he shall stop here tonight said I for Tom Pagas still said never word all the while but began to buckle his things on for he knew that women are to be met with war as the cannonballs were at the siege of Tillerton castle mother I tell you when he shall stop else I will go away with her I never knew what it was till now to ride a horse worth riding young man said Tom Pagas still preparing sternly to depart you know more about a horse than any man on Xmore your mother may be proud of you but she need having had no fear as if I Tom Pagas your father cousin and the only thing I am proud of would ever have let you mount my mare which Dukes and Prince have vainly sought except for the courage in your eyes and look of your father about you I knew you could ride when I saw you and really you have conquered but women don't understand us goodbye John I am proud of you and I hope to have done you pleasure and indeed I came full of some courtly tales that would have made your hair stand up but though not a crust have I tasted this since this time yesterday haven't given my meat to a widow I will go and starve on the moor far sooner than eat the best supper that ever was cooked in a place that has forgotten me with that he fetched a heavy sigh as if it had been for my father and feebly got upon Winnie's back and she came to say farewell to me he lifted his hat to my mother with a glance of sorrow but never a word and to me he said open the gate cousin John if you please you have beaten her so that she cannot leap poor thing but before he was truly gone out of our yard my mother came softly after him with her afternoon apron across her eyes and one hand ready to offer him nevertheless he made as if he had not seen her though he let his horse go slowly stop cousin Tom my mother said I word with you before you go why bless my heart Tom Fager's cried with the form of his countering so changed that I there they thought another man must have leaped into his clothes do I see my cousin Sarah I thought everyone was ashamed of me and afraid to offer me shelter since I lost my best cousin John with come here used to say Tom come here when your word and my wife shall take good care of you yes dear John I used to answer I know she promised my mother so but people have taken the thing against me and so my cousin Sarah ah he was a good he was a man a man if you only heard how he answered me but let that go I am nothing now since the day I lost cousin Red and with that he began to push on again but mother would not have it so oh Tom that was a loss indeed and I am nothing either and you should try to allow me though I never found any one that did and mother began to cry though father had been dead so long and I looked over for stupid surprise having stopped from crying long ago I can tell you one that will cry Tom jumping off Winnie in a trice and looking kindly at mother I can allow for you cousin Sarah in everything but one I am in some ways a bad man myself but I know the value of a good one and if you gave me orders by God and he shook his fists towards back where the wood just heaving up black in the sundown hush Tom hush for God's sakes and mother meant me without pointing at me at least I thought she did for she ever had weaned me from thoughts of revenge and even from longings for judgment God knows best boy she used to say let us wait his time without wishing it and so to tell the truth I did partly through her teaching and partly through my own mouth temper and my knowledge that father after all was killed because he had thrashed them good night cousin Sarah good night cousin Jack cried Tom taken to the mayor again many a mile I have to ride and not a bit inside of me no food or shelter this side of Exford and the night will be blackest pitch I trove but it serves me right for indulging the lag being taken with his look so cousin Tom said mother and trying to get so that Annie and I could not hear her it would be a sad and unkind like thing for you to despise our dwelling house we cannot entertain you as the lordly ends on the road do and we have small change of this vitals but the men will go home being saturday and so you will have the fire side all to yourself and the children there are some few call-ups a red deer's flesh and a ham just down from the chimney and some dried salmon from Linnmouth weir and cold roast pig and some oysters and if none of those be to your liking we could roast two wood cocks in half an hour and Annie would make the toast for them and the good folk made some mistake last week going up the country and left a keg of old holland cordial in the coving of the wood rick haven't barred our smaller with our ask and leave I feel there is something unrighteous about it or what can a poor widow do John Fry would have taken it but for our Jack our Jack was a little too sharp for him hey that I was John Fry had got it like a billet under his apron going away in the gray of the morning as if the kindle his fireplace why John I said what a heaven long let me have one end of it thank you Jan no need for thyssey he answered turned his back to me wife wanted a log as will last all day to keep the cock a simmering and he banged his gate upon my knees to make me stop and rub them why John I said you got a log with round holes in the end of it who has been cutting gun wards just lift up the apron or I will but to return to Fagus he stopped to suck that night with us and took a little of everything a few oysters first and then dried salmon and then ham and eggs done in a small curled rashers and then a few collops of venison toasted and next to that a little cold roast pig and a woodcock on toast to finish with it before the shelling them and hot water and having changed his wet things first he seemed to be in fair appetite and praise annie's cooking mightily with a kind of noise like a smack of his lips and a rubbing of his hands together whenever he could spare them he had gotten John Fry's best small clothes on for he said he was not good enough to go into my father's which mother kept to look at nor man enough to fill them and in truth my mother was very glad that he refused when I offered them but John was over proud to have it in his power to say that such a famous man had ever dwelt in any clothes of his and afterwards he made show of them for Mr. Fagus glory then though not so great as now it is was spreading very fast indeed all about our neighborhood and even as far as bridge water Tom Fagus was a jovial soul if ever there has been one not making bones a little things not caring to seek evil there was about him such a love of genuine human nature that if a traveler said a good thing he would give him back his purse again it is true that he took people's money more by force than fraud and the law being used to the inverse method was bitterly moved against him although he could quote precedent these things I do not understand haven't seen so much a robbery some illegal some illegal that I scarcely know as here we say one crow's foot from the other it is beyond me and above me to discuss these subjects and in truth I love the law right well when a doth support me and when I can lay it down to my liking with prejudice to nobody loyal too to the king am I as be whose church warden and ready to make the best of him as he generally requires but after all I could not see until I grew much older and came to have some property why Tom Fagus working hard was called a robber and a selling of great while the king doing nothing at all as became his dignity was lie gig lord and paramount owner with everybody to thank him kindly for accepting tribute for the present however I learned nothing more as to what our cousin's profession was only that my mother seemed frightened and whispered to him now and then not to talk of something because of the children being there where pun he always nodded with a sage expression and applied himself to Harlins now let us go and see Winnie Jack he said to me after supper for the most part I feed her before myself but she was so hot from the way you drove her now she must be grieving for me and I never let her grieve long I was too glad to go with him and Annie came slightly behind us the filly was walking to and fro on the naked floor of the stable for he would not let her have any straw until he should make a bed for her and without so much as a head stall on it for he would not have her facet do you take my man for a dog he had said when John Fry brought him a harter and now she ran to him like a child and her great eyes shone at the land horn hit me Jack and see what she would do I would not let her hurt thee he was rubbing her ears all the time he spoke and she was leaning against him then I made believe to strike him and in the moment she caught me by the waistband and lifted me clean from the ground and was casting me down a trample upon me when he stopped her suddenly what you think of that boy have you horse a dog that would do that for you hey and more than she will do if I were to whistle by and by in the tone that tells my danger she would break this stable door down and rush into the room to me nothing would keep her from me then stone wall or church tower aww when he went and you little witch we shall die together then he turned away with a joke and began to feed her nicely for she was very dainty not a husk of oak which she touched that had been under the breath of another horse however hungry she might be and with her oats he mixed some powder fetching it from his saddlebags what this was I could not guess neither would he tell me but laughed and called it star shavings he watched her eat every morsel of it and with two or three drinks of pure water ministered between wines and then he made her bed in a phone I had never seen before and so we said good night to her afterwards by the fire side he kept us very merrily sitting in the great chimney corner and making us play games with him and all the while he was smoking tobacco in a manner I never have seen before not using any pipe for it but having it rolled in little sticks about as long as my finger blunt at one end and sharp at the other the sharp end he would put in his mouth and lay a brand of wood to the other and then draw a white cloud of curl and smoke and we never tired of watching him I wanted him to let me do it but he said no my son it is not meant for boys then Annie put up her lips and asked with both hands on his knees for she had taken to him wonderfully is it meant for girls then cousin time but she had better not have asked for he gave it to her to try and she shut both eyes and sucked at it one breath however was quite enough what made her calm so violently that Lizzie and I must thump her back until she was almost crying to a tone for that cousin Tom set to and told us whole pages of stories not about his own doings at all but strangely enough they seemed to concern almost everyone else we had ever heard of with our heart in ones for a word or a deed his tales flowed on what as freely and brightly as the flames of the wood up the chimney and with no smaller variety for he spoke with the voices of 20 people giving each person the proper manner and the proper place to speak from so that Annie and Lizzie ran all about and searched the clock and the linen press and he changed his face every moment so and with such power of mimicry that without so much as a smell on his own he made even mother laugh so that she broke her new 10 penny waistband and as for us children he rolled on the floor and Betty mucks worthy roared in the wash up end of chapter 11 recording by Daisy 55