 Chapter 51 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. Lorna Doon by R.D. Blackmore Chapter 51. The Visit from the Counselor Now, while I was riding home that evening with a tender conscience about Ruth, although not a wounded one, I guessed but little that all my thoughts were needed much for my own affairs. So, however, it proved to be, for as I came in soon after dark, my sister Eliza met me at the corner of the cheese room, and she said, Don't go in there, John, pointing to mother's room, until I have had a talk with you. In the name of Moses, I inquired, having picked up that phrase at Delverton, What are you at about me now? There is no peace for a quiet fellow. It is nothing we are at, she answered, Neither may you make light of it. It is something very important about Mistress Lorna Doon. Let us have it at once, I cried. I can bear anything about Lorna except that she does not care for me. It has nothing to do with that, John, and I am quite sure that you never need fear anything of that sort. She perfectly worries me sometimes, although her voice is so soft and sweet about your endless perfections. Bless her little heart, I said. The subject is inexhaustible. No doubt, replied Lizzie in the driest manner, especially to your sisters. However, this is no time to joke. I fear you will get the worst of it, John. Do you know a man of about Guenny's shape, nearly as broad as he is long, but about six times the size of Guenny, and with a length of snow-white hair and a thickness also, as the corpses were last winter? He never can comb it, that is quite certain, with any comb yet invented. Then you go and offer your services. There are few things you cannot scarify. I know the man from your description, though I have never seen him. Now, where is my Lorna? Your Lorna is with Annie having a good cry, I believe, and Annie too glad to second her. She knows that this great man is here, and knows that he wants to see her, but she begged to defer the interview until dear John's return. What a nasty way you have of telling the very commonest pieces of news, I said, on purpose to pay her out. What man will ever fancy you, you unlucky little snapper? Now, no more nursery talk for me. I will go and settle this business. You'd better go and dress your dolls, if you can give them clothes unpoisoned. Hereupon Lizzie burst into a perfect roar of tears, feeling that she had the worst of it, and I took her up and begged her pardon, though she scarcely deserved it, for she knew that I was out of luck, and she might have spared her satire. I was almost sure that the man who was come must be the counsellor himself, of whom I felt much keener fear than of his son, Carver, and knowing that his visit boded ill to me and Lorna, I went and sought my dear, and led her with a heavy heart from the maiden's room to Mother's, to meet our dreadful visitor. Mother was standing by the door, making curtsies now and then, and listening to along her rang about the rights of state and land, which the counsellor, having found that she was the owner of her property and knew nothing of her title to it, was encouraged to deliver it. My dear Mother stood gazing at him, spellbound by his eloquence, and only hoping that he would stop. He was shaking his hair upon his shoulders, in the power of his words, and his wrath at some little thing which he declared to be quite illegal. Then I ventured to show myself in the flesh before him, although he feigned not to see me, but he adverged with zeal to Lorna, holding out both hands at once. My darling child, my dearest niece, how wonderfully well you look! Mistress Ridd, I give you credit. This is the country of good things. I never would have believed our queen would have looked so royal. Surely, of all virtues, hospitality is the finest and the most romantic. Dearest Lorna, kiss your uncle, it is quite a privilege. Perhaps it is to you, sir, said Lorna, who could never quite check her sense of oddity, but I fear that you have smoked tobacco, which spoils reciprocity. You are right, my child, how keen your scent is. It is always so with us. Your grandfather was noted for his olfactory powers. Ah, great loss, dear Mrs. Ridd, a terrible loss to this neighbourhood. As one of our great writers says, I think it must be Milton. We ne'er shall look upon his like again. With your good leave, sir, I broke in. Master Milton could never have written so sweet and simple a line as that. It is one of the great Shakespeare. Woe is me for my neglect, said the councillor, bowing airily. This must be your son, Mistress Ridd, the great John, the wrestler, and one who meddles with the muses. Ah, since I was young, how everything has changed, madam, except indeed the beauty of women, which seems to me to increase every year. Here the old villain bowed to my mother, and she blushed and made another curtsy, and really did look very nice. Now, though I have quoted the poets and this as your son informs me, for which I tender my best thanks and must amend my reading, I can hardly be wrong in assuming that this young armadier must be the too attractive sinusure to our poor little maiden, and for my part she is welcome to him. I have never been one of those who dwell upon distinctions of rank and birth and such like, as if they were in the heart of nature and must be eternal. In early youth I may have thought so, and been full of that little pride, but now I have long accounted it one of the first axioms of political economy. You are following me, Mistress Ridd? Well, sir, I am doing my best, but I cannot quite keep up with you. Never mind, madam, I will be slower, but your son's intelligence is so quick. I see, sir, you thought that mine must be, but no, it all comes from his father, sir. His father was that quick and clever. Ah, I can well suppose it, madam, and a credit he is to both of you. Now, to return to our mutton's, a figure which you will appreciate, I may now be regarded, I think, as this young lady's legal guardian, although I have not had the honour of being formally appointed such. Her father was the eldest son of Sir Ensardoun, and I happened to be the second son, and as young maidens cannot be baronets, I suppose I am, sir, councillor. Is it so, Mistress Ridd, according to your theory of genealogy? I am sure I don't know, sir, my mother answered carefully. I know not anything of that name, sir, except in the Gospel of Matthew, but I see not why it should be otherwise. Good madam, I may look upon that as your sanction and approval, and the College of Heralds shall hear of it, and in return, as Lawner's guardian, I give my full and ready consent to her marriage with your son, madam. Oh, how good of you, sir, how kind! Well, I always did say that the learnedest people were almost always the best and kindest and the most simple-hearted. Madam, that is a great sentiment. What a goodly couple they will be, and if we can add him to our strength. Oh no, sir, oh no, cried mother, you really must not think of it. He has always been brought up so honest. Hmm, that makes a difference. A decided disqualification for domestic life among the dunes. But surely he might get over these prejudices, madam. Oh no, sir, he never can, he never can indeed. When he was only that high, sir, he could not steal even an apple when some wicked boys tried to mislead him. Ah, replied the councillor, shaking his white-head gravely. Then I greatly fear that his case is quite incurable. I have known such cases. Violent prejudice, bread entirely of education, and anti-economical to the last degree. And when it is so, it is desperate. No man, after imbibing ideas of that sort, can in any way be useful. Oh yes, sir, John is very useful. He can do as much work as three other men, and you should see him load a sled, sir. I was speaking, madam, of higher usefulness. Power of the brain and heart. The main thing for us upon earth is to take a large view of things. But while we talk of the heart, what is my niece Lorna doing that she does not come and thank me for my perhaps too prompt concession to her youthful fancies? Ah, if I had wanted thanks, I would have been more stubborn. Lorna, being challenged thus, came up and looked at her uncle with her noble eyes fixed full upon his, which beneath his white eyebrows glistened, like dormer windows piled with snow. For what am I to thank you, uncle? My dear niece, I have told you for removing the heaviest obstacle, which to a mind so well regulated could possibly have existed between your dutiful self and the object of your affections. Well, uncle, I should be very grateful if I thought that you did so from love of me, or if I did not know that you have something yet concealed from me. And my consent, said the councillor, is the more meritorious, the more liberal, frank and candid in the face of an existing fact, and a very clearly established one, which might have appeared to weaker minds in the light of an impediment. But to my lofty view of matrimony seems quite a recommendation. What fact do you mean, sir? Is it one that I ought to know? In my opinion, it is goodness. It forms, to my mind, so fine a basis for the invariable harmony of the matrimonial state. To be brief, as I always endeavour to be, without becoming obscure, you too, young people, are what a gifted youth, one can never be too thankful for it. You will have the rare advantage of commencing married life with a subject of common interest to discuss, whenever you weary of, well, say of one another, if you can now, by any means, conceive such a possibility, and perfect justice meted out, a mutual goodwill resulting from the sense of reciprocity. I do not understand you, sir. Why can you not say what you mean at once? My dear child, I prolong your suspense. Curiosity is the most powerful of all feminine instincts, and therefore the most delightful, when not prematurely satisfied. However, if you must have my strong realities, here they are. Your father slew dear John's father, and dear John's father slew yours. Having said thus much, the councillor leaned back upon his chair and shaded his calm, white-bearded eyes from the rays of our tallow candles. He was a man who liked to look rather than to be looked at. But Lorna came to me for aid, and I went up to Lorna, and Mother looked at both of us. Then, feeling that I must speak first as no one would begin it, I took my darling round the waist and led her up to the councillor, while she tried to bear it bravely, yet must lean on me, or did. Now, sir councillor Doon, I said, with Lorna squeezing both my hands, I never yet knew how, considering that she was walking all the time or something like it. You know right well, sir councillor, that so hence a Doon gave approval. I cannot tell what made me think of it, but so it came upon me. Approval to what, good rustic John, to the slaughter so reciprocal? No, sir, not to that, even if it ever happened which I do not believe. But to the love betwixt me and Lorna, which your story shall not break without more evidence than your word, and even so shall never break if Lorna thinks as I do. The maiden gave me a little touch as much as to say, You are right, darling. Give it to him again like that. However, I held my peace well knowing that too many words do mischief. Then Mother looked at me with wonder, being herself too amazed to speak, and the councillor looked with great wrath in his eyes, which he tried to keep from burning. How say you then, John Ridd? He cried, stretching out one hand like Elijah. Is this a thing of the sort you love? Is this what you are used to? So please, your worship, I answered, no kind of violence can surprise us, since first came Doon's upon Exmoor. Up to that time, none heard of harm, except of taking a purse, maybe, or cutting a strange sheep's throat. And the poor folk who did this were hanged with some benefit of clergy. But ever since the Doon's came first, we are used to anything. Thou, valet, cried the councillor, with the colour of his eyes quite changed with the sparkles of his fury. Is this the way we are to deal with such a low-bred clod as thou? To question the doings of our people and to talk of clergy? What, dream you not that we could have clergy in of the right sort too, if only we cared to have them? Tush, am I to spend my time arguing with a plow-tailed bob? If your worship will hearken to me, I answered very modestly, not wishing to speak harshly with Lorna looking up at me. There are many things that might be said without any kind of argument, which I would never wish to try with one of your worship's learning. And in the first place, it seems to me that if our fathers hated one another bitterly, yet neither won the victory, only mutual discomforture, surely that is but a reason why we should be wiser than they, and make it up in this generation by goodwill and loving. Oh John, you wiser than your father, mother broke upon me here, not but what you might be as wise when you come to be old enough. Young people of the present age, said the councillor severely, have no right feeling of any sort upon the simplest matter. Lorna Dune, stand forth from contact with that air of parasite, and state in your own maleficulous voice whether you regard this slaughter as a pleasant trifle. You know without any words of mine, she answered very softly, yet not withdrawing from my hand, that although I have been seasoned well to every kind of outrage among my gentle relatives, I have not yet so purely lost all sense of right and wrong as to receive what you have said as lightly as you declared it. You think it a happy basis for our future concord. I do not quite think that, my uncle, neither do I quite believe that a word of it is true. In our happy valley, nine-tenths of what is said is false, and you were always won't to argue that true and false are but a blind turned upon a pivot. Without any failure of respect for your character, good uncle, I decline politely to believe a word of what you have told me, and even if it were proved to me, all I can say is this. If my John will have me, I am his for ever. This long speech was too much for her. She had overrated her strength about it, and the sustenance of irony. So at last she fell into my arms, which had long been waiting for her, and there she lay with no other sound except a gurgling in her throat. You old villain, cried my mother, shaking her fist at the counsellor, while I could do nothing else but hold and bend across my darling and whisper to deaf ears. What is the good of the quality, if this is all that comes of it? Out of the way, you know the words that make the deadly mischief, but not the ways that heal them. Give me that bottle, if hands you have. What is the use of counsellors? I saw that my dear mother was carried away, and indeed I myself was something like it, with the pale face upon my bosom and the heaving of the heart, and the heat and cold door threw me as my darling breathed or lay. Meanwhile, the counsellor stood back and seemed a little sorry, although of course it was not in his powers to be at all ashamed of himself. My sweet love, my darling child, our mother went on to launder, in a way that I shall never forget, though I live to be a hundred. Pretty pet, not a word of it is true, upon that old liar's oath, and if every word were true, poor chick, you should have our John all the more for it. You and John were made by God and meant for one another, whatever falls between you. Little lamb, look up and speak. Here is your own John and I, and the devil take the counsellor. I was amazed at mother's words, being so unlike her, while I loved her all the more because she forgot herself so. In another moment in ran Annie, I and Lizzie also, knowing by some mystic sense, which I have often noticed, but never could explain, that something was a stir, belonging to the world of women, yet foreign to the eyes of men. And now the counsellor, being well-born, although such a heartless miscreant, beckoned to me to come away, which I, being smothered with women, was only too glad to do, as soon as my own love would let go of me. That is the worst of them, said the old man, when I had led him into our kitchen with an apology at every step and given him hot snaps and water, and a cigarro of brave Tom Fagus. You never can say much there in the way of reasoning, however gently meant and put, but what these women will fly out. It is wiser to put a wild bird in a cage and expect him to sit and look at you, and chirp without a feathered rumble, than it is to expect a woman to answer reason reasonably. Saying this, he looked at his puff of smoke as if it contained more reason. I am sure I do not know, sir, I answered, according to a phrase, which has always been my favourite on account of its general truth. Moreover, he was now our guest and had right to be treated accordingly. I am, as you see, not acquainted with the ways of women, except my mother and sisters. Except not even them, my son, said the councillor, now having finished his glass without much consultation about it, if you once understand your mother and sisters, why you understand the lot of them. He made a twist in his cloud of smoke and dashed his finger through it so that I could not follow his meaning, and in manners, liked not to press him. Now, of this business, John, he said, after getting to the bottom of the second glass and having a trifle or so to eat and praising our chimney corner, taking you on the whole, you know, you are wonderfully good people, and instead of giving me up to the soldiers as you might have done, you are doing your best to make me drunk. Not at all, sir, I answered, not at all, your worship. Let me mix you another glass. We rarely have a great gentleman by the side of our embers and oven. I only beg your pardon, sir, that my sister Annie, who knows where to find all the good pans and the lard, could not wait upon you this evening, and I fear they have done it with dripping instead and in a pan with the bottom burned, but old Betty quite loses her head sometimes by dint of over-scolding. My son, replied the counselor, standing across the front of the fire to prove his strict sobriety, I meant to come down upon you tonight, but you have turned the tables upon me, not through any skill on your part, nor through any paltry weakness as to love, and all that stuff, which boys and girls spin tops at or knock dolls' noses together, but through your simple way of taking me as a man to be believed, combined with the comforts of this place and the choice tobacco and cordials, I have not enjoyed an evening so much God bless me if I know when. Your worship, said I, makes me more proud than I well know what to do with, of all the things that please and lead us into happy sleep at night, the first and chiefest is to think that we have pleased a visitor. Then, John, thou hast deserved good sleep, for I am not pleased easily, but although our family is not so high now as it hath been, I have enough of the gentleman left to be pleased when good people try me. My father, Sir Ensel, was better than I in this great element of birth, and my son, Carver, is far worse. Aetis parentum, what is it, my boy? I hear that you've been at a grammar school, so I have your worship and at a very good one, but I only got far enough to make more tale than head of Latin. Let that pass, said the councillor, John, thou art all the wiser, and the old man shook his hoary locks as if Latin had been his ruin. I looked at him, sadly, and wondered whether it might have so ruined me, but for God's mercy, in stopping it. End of Chapter 51 Recording by Rachel Linton, Bristol, UK Chapter 52 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. Lorna Doon by R. D. Blackmore Chapter 52 The Way to Make the Cream Rise That night, the Reverend councillor, not being in such state of mind as ought to go alone, kindly took our best old bedstead, carved in panels well enough with the woman of Samaria. I set him up, both straight and heavy, so that he need but close both eyes and keep his mouth just open, and in the morning he was thankful for all that he could remember. I, for my part, scarcely knew whether he really had begun to feel goodwill towards us and to see that nothing else could be of any use to him, or whether he was merely acting, so as to deceive us. And it had struck me several times that he had made a great deal more of the spirit he had taken than the quantity would warrant, with a man so wise and solid. Neither did I quite understand a little story which Lorna told me, how that in the night awaking she had heard, or seemed to hear, a sound of feeling in her room, as if there had been someone groping carefully among the things within her drawers or wardrobe closet. But the noise had ceased at once, she said, when she sat up in bed and listened, and knowing how many mice we had, she took courage and fell asleep again. After breakfast the counsellor, who looked no-wit the worse for schnapps, but even more grave and venerable, followed our Annie into the dairy to see how we managed the clotted cream of which he had eaten a basin full. And thereupon they talked a little, and Annie thought him a final gentleman, and a very just one, for he had nobly condemned the people who spoke against Tom Faggis. Your honour must plainly understand, said Annie, being now alone with him, and spreading out her light-quick hands over the pans, like butterflies, that they are brought in here to cool after being set in the basin-holes, with the wood-ash under them, which I showed you in the back kitchen, and they must have very little heat, not enough to simmer even, only just to make the bubbles rise, and the scum upon the top set thick. And after that it clots as firm, oh, as firm as my two hands be. Have you ever heard, asked the counsellor, who enjoyed this talk with Annie, that if you pass across the top, without breaking the surface, a string of beads, or polished glass, or anything of that kind, the cream will set three times a solid and enthrice the quantity? No, sir, I have never heard that, said Annie, staring with all her simple eyes. What a thing it is to read books and grow learned! But it is very easy to try it. I will get my coral necklace. It will not be witchcraft will it, sir? Certainly not, the old man replied. I will make the experiment myself, and you may trust me not to be hurt, my dear. But coral will not do my child, neither will anything coloured. The beads must be of plain common glass, but the brighter they are, the better. Then I know the very thing, cried Annie, as bright as bright can be and without any colour in it, except in the sun or candlelight. Dearest Lorna has the very thing, a necklace of some old glass beads, or I think they called them jewels. She will be too glad to lend it to us. I will go for it in a moment. My dear, it cannot be half so bright as your own pretty eyes, but remember one thing, Annie. You must not say what it is for, or even that I am going to use it, or anything at all about it, else the charm will be broken. Bring it here without a word, if you know where she keeps it. To be sure I do, she answered. John used to keep it for her, but she took it away from him last week, and she wore it when, I mean, when somebody was here. And he said it was very valuable, and spoke with great learning about it, and called it by some particular name, which I forget at this moment. But valuable or not, we cannot hurt it, can we, sir, by passing it over the cream pan? Hurt it, cried the councillor. Nay, we shall do it, good my dear. It will help to raise the cream, and you may take my word for it, young maiden. None can do good in this world without in turn receiving it. Pronouncing this great sentiment, he looked so grand and benevolent that Annie, as she said afterwards, could scarce forebear from kissing him, yet feared to take the liberty. Therefore she only ran away to fetch my lawn as necklace. Now, as luck would have it, whether good luck or otherwise, you must not judge too hastily, my darling had taken it into her head only a day or two before that I was far too valuable to be trusted with her necklace. Now that she had some idea of its price and quality, she had begun to fear that someone, perhaps even Squire Faggis, in whom her faith was illiberal, might form designs against my health to win the ball ball from me. So, with many pretty copesings, she had led me to give it up, which except for her own sake I was glad enough to do, misliking a charge of such importance. Therefore Annie found it sparkling in the little secret hole near the head of Lawner's bed which she herself had recommended for its safer custody, and without a word to anyone she brought it down and danced it in the air before the counselor, for him to admire its lustre. Oh, that old thing! said the gentleman in a tone of some contempt. I remember that old thing well enough. However, if I want of a better, no doubt it will answer our purpose. Three times three I pass it over. Crinklem, Crankham, Grass and Clover. What are you feared of, you silly child? Good sir, it is perfect. Witchcraft, I'm sure of that because it rhymes. Oh, what would Mother say to me? Shall I ever go to heaven again? Oh, I see the cream already. To be sure you do. But you must not look, or the whole charm will be broken and the devil will fly away with a pan and drown every cow you have got in it. Oh, sir, it is too horrible. How could you lead me to such a sin? Away with thee, Witch of Endor. For the door began to creak and a broom appeared suddenly in the opening with our Betty, no doubt, behind it. But Annie, in the greatest terror, slammed the door and bolted it and then turned again to the counselor. Yet, looking at his face, had not the courage to reproach him. For his eyes rolled like two blazing barrels and his white shagged brows were knit across them and his forehead scowled in black furrows so that Annie said that if she ever saw the devil, she saw him then and no mistake. Whether the old man wished to scare her or whether he was trying not to laugh is more than I can tell you. Now, he said, in a deep stern whisper, not a word of this to a living soul, neither must you nor any other enter this place for three hours at least. By that time the charm will have done its work. The pan will be creamed to the bottom and you will bless me for a secret which will make your fortune. Put the bulb all under this paniken which none must lift for a day and a night. Have no fear, my simple wench, not a breath of harm shall come to you if you obey my orders. Oh, that I will, sir, that I will, if you will only tell me what to do. Go to your room without so much as a single word to anyone. Bolt yourself in and for three hours now read the Lord's Prayer backwards. Poor Annie was only too glad to escape upon these conditions and the counselor kissed her upon the forehead and told her not to make her eyes red because they were much too sweet and pretty. She dropped them at this with a sob and a curtsy and ran away to her bedroom. But as for reading the Lord's Prayer backwards that was much beyond her and she had not done three words quite right before the three hours expired. Meanwhile the counselor was gone. He bade our mother adieu with so much dignity of bearing and such warmth of gratitude and the highbred courtesy of the old school now fast disappearing that when he was gone dear mother fell back in the chair which she had used last night as if it would teach her the graces and for more than an hour she may believe not to know what there was for dinner. Oh, the wickedness of the world. Oh, the lies that are told of people or rather I mean the falsehoods because a man is better born and has better manners. Why, Lorna, how is it that you never speak about your charming uncle? Did you notice, Lizzie, how his silver hair was waving upon his velvet collar and how white his hands were in every nail like an acorn when he pink like shellfish or at least like shells and the way he bowed and dropped his eyes from his pure respect for me and then that he would not even speak on account of his emotion but pressed my hand in silence. Oh, Lizzie, you have read me beautiful things about Sir Gallyhead and the rest but nothing to equal Sir Counselor. You had better marry him, Madam, said I, coming in very sternly though I knew I ought not to say it. He can repay your adoration. He has stolen a hundred thousand pounds. John, cried my mother, you are mad. And yet she turned as pale as death for women are so quick at turning and she inkled what it was. Of course I am, mother, mad about the marvels of Sir Gallyhead. He has gone off with my launder's necklace. Fifty farms like ours can never make it good to launder. Hereupon ensued grim silence. Mother looked at Lizzie's face for she could not look at me and Lizzie looked at me to know and as for me I could have stamped almost on the heart of anyone. It was not the value of the necklace I am not so lower hanged as that nor was it even the damned folly shunned by every one of us. It was the thought of launder's sorrow for her ancient plaything and even more my fury at the breach of hospitality. But launder came up to me softly as a woman should always come and she laid one hand upon my shoulder and she only looked at me. She even seemed to fear to look and dropped her eyes and sighed at me. Without a word I knew by that how I must have looked like Satan and the evil spirit left my heart when she had made me think of it. Darling John did you want me to think that you cared for my money more than for me? I led her away from the rest of them being desirous of explaining things when I saw the depth of her nature opened like an everlasting well to me but she would not let me say a word or do anything by ourselves as it were. She said your duty is to your mother this blow is on her and not on me. I saw that she was right though how she knew it is beyond me and I asked her just to go in front and bring my mother round a little for I must let my passion pass. It may drop its weapons quickly but it cannot come and go before a man has time to think. Then Lorna went up to my mother who was still in the chair of elegance and she took her by both hands and said dearest mother I shall fret so if I see you fretting and to fret will kill me mother they have always told me so. Poor mother bent on Lorna's shoulder without thought of attitude and lay her cheek on Lorna's breast and sobbed till Lizzie was jealous and came with two pocket handkerchiefs. As for me my heart was lighter if they would only dry their eyes and come round by dinnertime then it had been since the day on which Tom Faggis discovered the value of that blessed and cursed necklace. None could say that I wanted Lorna for her money now and perhaps the dunes would let me have her now that her property was gone. But who should tell of Annie's grief the poor little thing would have staked her life upon finding the trinket in all its beauty lying under the panic in. She proudly challenged me to lift it which I had done long air that of course if only I would take the risk of the spell for my incredulity. I told her not to talk of spells until she could spell a word backwards and then to look into the pan where the charmed cream should be. She would not acknowledge that the cream was the same as all the rest was and indeed it was not quite the same for the points of poor Lorna's diamonds had made a few star rays across the rich firm crust of yellow. But when we raised the panic in and there was nothing under it poor Annie fell against the wall which had been whitened lately and her face put all the white to scorn. My love who was as fond of her as if she'd known her for fifty years here upon ran up and caught her and abused all diamonds. I will dwell no more upon Annie's grief because we felt it all so much but I could not help telling her if she wanted a witch to seek Good Mother Meldrum a legitimate performer. That same night Master Jeremy Stickles of whose absence the counselor must have known came back with all equipment ready for the grand attack. Now the dunes knew quite as well as we did that this attack was threatening and that but for the wonderful weather it would have been made long ago. Therefore we or at least our people for I was doubtful about going were sure to meet with a good resistance and due preparation. It was very strange to hear and see and quite impossible to account for that now some hundreds of country people who feared to whisper so much as a word against the dunes a year ago and would sooner have thought of attacking a church in service time than Glenn Dune now sharpened their old cutleresses and laid pitchforks on the grindstone and bragged at every village cross as if each would kill ten dunes himself neither care to wipe his hands afterwards and this fierce bravery and tall contempt had been growing ever since the news of the attack upon our premises had taken good people by surprise at least as concerned the issue. Jeremy Stickles laughed heartily about Annie's new manner of charming the cream but he looked very grave at the loss of the jewels so soon as he knew their value my son he exclaimed this is very heavy it will go ill with all of you to make good this loss as I fear that you will have to do what cried I with my blood running cold we make good the loss master Stickles every farthing we have in the world and the labour of our lives to boot will never make good the tenth of it it would cut me to the heart he answered laying his hand on mine to hear of such a deadly blow to you and your good mother and this farm how long john has it been in your family for at least six hundred years I said with a foolish pride that was only too like to end in groans and some people say by a royal grant in the time of the great king alfred at any rate a rid was with him throughout all his hiding time we've always held by the king and the crown surely none will turn us out unless we're guilty of treason my son replied jeremy very gently so that I could love him for it not a word to your good mother of this unlucky matter keep it to yourself my boy and try to think but little of it after all I may be wrong at any rate least said best mended but jeremy dear jeremy how can I bear to leave it so do you suppose that I can sleep and eat my food and go about and look at other people as if nothing at all had happened and all the time habit on my mind that not an acre of all the land nor even our old sheepdog belongs to us of right at all it is more than I can do jeremy let me talk and know the worst of it very well replied master stickles seeing that both the doors were closed I thought that nothing could move you john or I never would have told you likely enough I'm quite wrong and god send that I be so but what I guessed at some time back seems more than a guess now that you've told me about these wondrous jewels now will you keep as close as death every word I tell you by the honor of a man I will until you yourself release me that is quite enough john from you I want no oath which according to my experience tempts a man to lie the more by making it more important I know you now too well to swear you though I have the power now my lad what I have to say will scare your mind in one way and ease it in another I think that you have been hard-pressed I can read you like a book john by something which that old villain said before he stole the necklace you've tried not to dwell upon it you have even tried to make light of it for the sake of the women but on the whole it has grieved you more than even this dusted robbery it would have done so Jeremy stickles if I could once have believed it and even without much belief it is so against our manners that it makes me miserable only think of loving launder only think of kissing her and then remembering that her father had destroyed the life of mine only think said master stickles imitating my very voice of launder loving you john of launder kissing you john and all the while saying to herself this man's father murdered mine now look at it in launder's way as well as in your own way how one-sided all men are I may look at it in fifty ways and yet no good will come of it Jeremy I confess to you that I tried to make the best of it partly to baffle the counsellor and partly because my darling needed my help and bore it so and behaved to me so nobly but to you in secret I am not ashamed to say that a woman may look over this easier than a man may because her nature is larger of my son when she truly loves although her mind be smaller now if I can ease you from this secret burden will you bear with strength and courage the other which I plant on you I will do my best said I no man can do more said he and so began his story end of chapter 52 recording by Rachel Linton Bristol UK chapter 53 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 53 Jeremy finds out something you know my son said Jeremy Stickles with a good pull at his pipe because he was going to talk so much and putting his legs well along the settle it has been my duty for a wearer your time that I care to think of and which would have been unbearable except for your great kindness to search this neighborhood narrowly and learn everything about everybody now the neighborhood itself is queer and people have different ways of thinking from what we are used to in London for instance now among your folk when any piece of news is told or any man's conduct spoken of the very first question that arises in your mind is this was this action kind and good long after that you say to yourselves does the law enjoin or forbid this thing now here is your fundamental error for among all truly civilized people the foremost of all questions is how stands the law here in and if the law approve no need for any further questioning that this is so you may take my word for I know the law pretty thoroughly very well I need not say anymore about that for I have shown that you are all quite wrong I only speak of this savage tendency because it explains so many things which have puzzled me among you and most of all your kindness to men whom you never saw before which is an utterly illegal thing it also explains your toleration of these outlaw dunes so long if your views of law had been correct and law an element of your lives these robbers could never have been indulged for so many years amongst you but you must have abated the nuisance now stickles I cried this is too bad he was delivering himself so grandly why you yourself have been amongst us as the balance and scepter and sword of law for nigh upon a twelve month and have you abated the nuisance or even cared to do it until they began to shoot at you my son he replied your argument is quite beside the purpose and only tends to prove more clearly that which I have said of you however if you wish to hear my story no more interruptions I may not have a chance to tell you perhaps for weeks or I know not when if once those yellows and reds arrive and be blessed to them the Lubbers well it may be six months ago or it may be seven at any rate a good while before that cursed frost began the mere name of which sends a shiver down every bone of my body when I was riding one afternoon from dolverton to watch it dolverton to watch it I cried now what does that remind me of I am sure I remember something remember this john if anything that another word from thee and thou hast no more of mine well I was a little weary perhaps having been plagued at dolverton with the grossness of the people for they would tell me nothing at all about their fellow townsmen your worthy uncle huckaback except that he was a godfaring man and they only wished I was like him I blessed myself for a stupid fool in thinking to have pumped them for by this time I might have known that through your western homeliness every man in his own country is something more than a prophet and I felt of course that I had done more harm than good by questioning in as much as every soul in the place would run straight way and inform him that the king's man from the other side of the forest had been sifting out his ways and works ah I cried for I could not help it you begin to understand at last that we are not quite such a set of oaths as you at first believed us I was riding on from dolverton he resumed with great severity yet threatening me no more which checked me more than 50 threats and it was late in the afternoon and I was growing weary the road if road it could be called turned suddenly down from the higher land to the very brink of the sea and rounding a little jet of cliff I met the roar of the breakers my horse was scared and leaped aside for a northerly wind was piping and driving hunks of foam across as children scatter snowballs but he only sank to his fetlocks in the dry sand piled with popweed and I tried to make him face the waves and then I looked about me watch at town was not to be seen on account of a little for land a mile or more upon my course and standing to the right of me there was room enough below the cliffs which are nothing there to yours john for horse and man to get along although the tide was running high with a northerly northerly gale to back it but close at hand and in the corner drawn above the yellow sands and long eyebrows of iraq weed as snug a little house blinked on me as ever I saw or wish to see you know that I am not luxurious neither in any way given to the common lusts of the flesh john my father never allowed his hair to grow a fourth part of an inch in length and he was a thoroughly godly man and I try to follow in his footsteps whenever I think about it nevertheless I do assure you that my view of that little house and the way the lights were twinkling so different from the cold and darkness of the rolling sea moved the ancient adam in me if he could be found to move I love not a house with too many windows being out of house and doors some three quarters of my time when I get inside a house I like to feel the difference air and light are good for people who have any lack of them and if a man once talks about them is enough to prove his need of them but as you well know john rid the horse who has been at work all day with the sunshine in his eyes sleeps better in dark stables and needs no moon to help him seeing therefore that this same in had four windows and no more I thought to myself how snug it was and how beautiful I could sleep there and so I made the old horse draw hand which he was only too glad to do and we climb above the spring tide mark and over a little piece of turf and struck the door of the hostel reed someone came and peeped at me through the lattice overhead which was full of bull's eyes and then the bolt was drawn back and a woman met me very courteously a dark and foreign looking woman very hot of blood I doubt but not altogether a bad one and she waited for me to speak first which an English woman would not have done can I rest here for the night I asked with a lift of my hat to her for she was no provincial dame who would stare at me for the courtesy my horse is weary from the sloths and myself but little better beside that we both are famished yes sir you can rest and welcome but of food I fear there is but little unless of the common order our fishers would have drawn the nets but the waves were violent however we have what you call it I never can remember it is so hard to say the flesh of the hog salted bacon said I what can be better and half dozen of eggs with it and a quart of fresh drawn ale you make me rage with hunger madam is it cruelty or hospitality ah good she replied with a merry smile full of southern sunshine you are not of the men round here you can think and you can laugh and most of all I can eat good madam in that way I shall astonish you even more than by my intellect she laughed aloud and swung her shoulders as your natives cannot do and then she called a little maid to lead my horse to stable however I preferred to see that matter done myself and told her to send the little maid for the frying pan in the egg box whether it were my natural wit and elegance of manner or whether it were my london freedom and knowledge of the world or which is perhaps the most probable because the least pleasing supposition my ready and permanent appetite and appreciation of garlic I leave you to decide john but perhaps all three combined to recommend me to the graces of my charming hostess when I say charming I mean of course by manners and by intelligence and most of all by cooking for as regards external charms most fleeting and fallacious hers had ceased to cause distress for I cannot say how many years she said that it was the climate for even upon that subject she requested my opinion and I answered if there be a change let madam blame the seasons however not to dwell too much upon our little pleasantries for I always get on with these foreign women better than with your malls and pegs I became not inquisitive but reasonably desirous to know by what strange hap or hazard a clever and a handsome woman as she must have been someday a woman moreover with great contempt for the rustic minds around her could have settled here in this lonely inn with only the waves for company and a borish husband who slaved all day and turning a potter's wheel at watch it and what was the meaning of the emblem set above her doorway a very unattractive cat sitting in a ruined tree however I had not very long to strain my curiosity for when she found out who I was and how I held the king's commission and might be called an officer her desire to tell me all was more than equal to mine of hearing it many and many a day she had longed for someone both skillful and trustworthy most of all for someone bearing warrant from a court of justice but the magistrates of the neighborhood would have nothing to say to her declaring that she was a crackbrained woman and a wicked and even a foreign one with many grimaces she assured me that never by her own free will would she have lived so many years in that hateful country where the sky for half the year was fog and rain for nearly the other half it was so the very night when first her evil fortune brought her there and so no doubt it would be long after it had killed her and if I wish to know the reason of her being there she would tell me in a few words which I will repeat as briefly by birth she was an Italian from the mountains of Apulia who had gone to Rome to seek her fortunes after being badly treated in some love affair her christian name was Benita as for her surname that could make no difference to anyone being a quick and active girl and resolved to work down her troubles she found employment in a large hotel and rising gradually began to send money to her parents and here she might have thriven well and married well under sunny skies and been a happy woman but that some black day sent thither a rich and noble English family eager to behold the pope it was not however their fervent longing for the holy father which had brought them to st. Peter's roof but rather their own bad luck in making their home too hot to hold them for although in the main good catholics and pleasant receivers of anything one of their number had given offense by the folly of trying to think for himself some bitter feud had been among them benita knew not how it was and the sister of the nobleman who had died quite lately was married to the rival claimant whom they all detested it was something about dividing land benita knew not what it was but this benita did know that they were all great people and rich and very liberal so that when they offered to take her to attend to the children and to speak the language for them and to comfort the lady she was only too glad to go little foreseeing the end of it moreover she loved the children so from their pretty ways and that and the things they gave her and the style of their dresses that it would have broken her heart almost never to see the dears again and so in a very evil hour she accepted the service of the noble Englishman and sent her father an old shoe filled to the tongue with money and trusted herself to fortune but even before she went she knew that it could not turn out well for the laurel leaf which she threw on the fire would not crackle even once and the horn of the goat came wrong in the twist and the heel of her foot was shining this made her sigh at the starting time and after that what could you hope for however at first all things went well my lord was as gay as gay could be and never would come inside the carriage when a decent horse could be got to ride he would gallop in front at a reckless pace without a weapon of any kind delighted with the pure blue air and throwing his heart around him benita had never seen any man so admirable and so childish as innocent as an infant and not only contented but noisily happy with anything only other people must share his joy and the shadow of sorrow scattered it though it were were but the shade of poverty here benita wept a little and i liked her nonetheless and believed her 10 times more in virtue of a tear or two and so they traveled through northern italy and throughout the south of france making their way anyhow sometimes in coaches sometimes in carts sometimes upon muleback sometimes even a foot and weary but always as happy as could be the children laughed and grew and throwed especially the young lady the elder of the two and benita began to think that omens must not be relied upon but suddenly her faith in omens was confirmed forever my lord who was quite a young man still and laughed at english arrogance wrote on in front of his wife and friends to catch the first of a famous view on the french side of the pier and e hills he kissed his hand to his wife and said that he would save her the trouble of coming for those two were so one in one that they could make each other know whatever he or she had felt and so my lord went round the corner with a fine young horse leaping up at the steps they waited for him long and long but he never came again and within a week his mangled body lay in a little chapel yard and if the priests only said a quarter of the prayers they took the money for god knows they can have no throats left only a relaxation my lady dwelled for six months more it is a melancholy tale what true tale is not so scarcely able to believe that all her fright was not a dream she would not wear a peace or shape of any mourning clothes she would not have a person cry or any sorrow among us she simply disbelieved the thing entrusted god to write it the protestants who have no faith cannot understand this feeling enough that so it was and so my lady went to heaven for when the snow came down in autumn on the roots of the pyrenees and the chapel yard was white with it many people told the lady that it was time for her to go and the strongest plea of all was this that now she bore another hope of repeating her husband's virtues so at the end of october when wolves came down to the farmlands the little english family went home towards their england they landed somewhere on the devonshire coast ten or eleven years ago and stayed some days at exeter and set out thence in a hired coach without any proper attendance for watch it in the north of somerset for the lady owned a quiet mansion in the neighborhood of that town and her one desire was to find refuge there and to meet her lord who was sure to come she said when he heard of his new infant therefore with only two serving men and two maids including benita the party set forth from exeter and lay the first night at bambton on the following morn they started bravely with earnest hope of arriving at their journey's end by daylight but the roads were soft and very deep and the sloths were out in places and the heavy coach broke down in the axle and needed mending at dolverton and so they lost three hours or more and would have been wiser to sleep there but her lady ship would not hear of it she must be home that night she said and her husband would be waiting how could she keep him waiting now after such a long long time therefore although it was afternoon and the year now come to december the horses were put to again and the heavy coach went up the hill with the lady and her two children and benita sitting inside of it the other maid and two serving men each man with a great blunder bus mounted upon the outside and upon the horses three exeter postillions much had been said at dolverton and even back at bambton about some great freebooters to whom all ex more owed suit and service and paid them very punctually both the serving men were scared even over their ale by this but the lady only said drive on i know a little of highway men they never rob a lady through the fog and through the muck the coach went on as best it might sometimes foundered in a sloth with half of the horses splashing it and sometimes knuckled up on a bank and straining across the middle while all the horses kicked at it however they went on till dark as well as might be expected but when they came all thanking god to the pitch and slope of the sea bank leading on towards watchet town and where my horse had shied so there the little boy jumped up and clapped his hands at the water and there as benita said they met their fate and could not fly it although it was past the dusk of day the silver light from the sea flowed in and showed the cliffs and the gray sand line and the drifts of rec and rackweed it showed them also a troop of horsemen waiting under a rock hard by and ready to dash upon them the postillions lashed towards the sea and the horses strove in the depth of sand and the serving men cocked their blunder buses and cowered away behind them but the lady stood up in the carriage bravely and neither screamed nor spoke but hid her son behind her meanwhile the drivers drove into the sea till the leading horses were swimming but before the waves came into the coach a score of fierce men were rounded they cursed the postillions for mad cowards and cut the traces and seized the wheel horses all wild with dismay in the wet in the dark then while the carriage was healing over and well nigh upset in the water the lady exclaimed i know that man he is our ancient enemy and benita foreseeing that all their boxes would be turned inside out or carried away snatched the most valuable of the jewels a magnificent necklace of diamonds and cast it over the little girl's head and buried it under her traveling cloak hoping to save it then a great wave crested with foam rolled in and the coach was thrown on its side and the sea rushed in at the top and the windows upon shrieking and clashing and fainting away what followed benita knew not as one might well suppose herself being stunned by a blow on the head beside being pulsed with terror see i have the mark now she said where the jam of the door came down on me but when she recovered her senses she found herself lying upon the sand the robbers were out of sight and one of the serving men was bathing her forehead with seawater for this she rated him well having taken having taken already too much of that article and then she arose and ran to her mistress who was sitting upright on a little rock with her dead boy's face to her bosom sometimes gazing upon him and sometimes questing round for the other one although there were torches and links around and she looked at her child by the light of them no one dared to approach the lady or speak or try to help her each man whispered his fellow to go but each hung back himself and muttered that it was too awful to meddle with and there she would have sat all night with the fine little fellow stone dead in her arms and her tearless eyes dwelling upon him and her heart but not her mind thinking only that the Italian women stole up softly to her side and whispered it is the will of god so it always seems to be where all the words the mother answered and then she fell on benita's neck and the men were ashamed to be near her weeping and a sailor lay down and bellowed surely these men are the best before the light of the morning came along the tide to watch it my lady had met her husband they took her into the town that night but not to her own castle and so the power of womanhood which is itself maternity came over swiftly upon her the lady whom all people loved though at certain times particular lies and watch it little churchyard with sun and air at her right hand and a little babe of sex unknown sleeping on her bosom this is a miserable tale said jeremy stickles brightly hand me over the schnapps my boy what fools we are to spoil our eyes for other people's troubles enough of our own to keep them clean although we were all chimney sweeps there is nothing like good hollands when a man becomes too sensitive restore the action of the glands that is my rule after weeping let me make you another john you are quite low spirited but although master jeremy carried on so as became his manhood and laughed at the sailor's bellowing bless his heart i knew as well that tears were in his brave keen eyes as if i had dared to look for them or to show mine own and what was the lady's name i asked and what became of the little girl and why did the woman stay there well cry jeremy stickles only too glad to be cheerful again talk of a woman after that as we used to say at school who dragged whom how many times in what manner round the wall of what but to begin last first my john as becomes a woman benita stayed in that blessed place because she could not get away from it the dunes if dunes indeed they were about which you of course know best took every stiver out of the carriage wet or dry they took it and benita could never get her wages for the whole affair is in chancery and they have appointed a receiver who said i knowing something of london and sorry for benita's chance so the poor thing was compelled to drop all thought of apulia and settle down on the brink of x more where you get all its evils without the good to balance them she married a man who turned a wheel for making the blue watch it wear partly because he could give her a house and partly because he proved himself a good soul towards my lady there they are and have three children and there you may go and visit them i understand all that jeremy though you do tell things too quickly and i would rather have john fries style for he leaves one time for his words to melt now for my second question what became of the little maid you great oaf cry jeremy stickles you are rather more likely to know i should think than anyone else in all the kingdoms if i knew i should not ask you jeremy stickles do try to be neither conceited nor thickheaded i will when you are neither answered master jeremy but you occupy all the room john no one else can get in with you there very well then let me out take me down in both ways if ever you were taken down you must have your double joints ready now and yet in other ways you will be as proud and set up as lucifer as certain sure as i stand here that little maid is lorna dune end of chapter 53 recording by michelle harris chapter 54 of lorna dune this is a liber vox recording all liber vox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit liber vox.org recording by michelle harris lorna dune by rd blackmore chapter 54 mutual discomforture it must not be supposed that i was altogether so thickheaded as jeremy would have made me out but it is part of my character that i like other people to think me slow and to labor hard to enlighten me while all the time i can say to myself this man is shallower than i am it is pleasant to see his shoals come up while he is sounding mind so not that i would so behave god forbid with anybody be it man or woman who in simple heart approached me with no gauge of intellect but when the upper hand is taken upon the faith of one's patience by a man of even smaller wits not that jeremy was that neither could he have lived to be thought so why it naturally happens that we knuckle under with an ounce of indignation jeremy's tale would have moved me greatly both with sorrow and anger even without my guests at first and now my firm belief that the child of those unlucky parents was indeed my lorna and as i thought of the ladies troubles and her faith in providence and her cruel childless death and then imagined how my darling would be overcome to hear it you may well believe that my quick replies to jeremy's tickles banter were but as the flourish of a drum to cover the sounds of pain for when he described the heavy coach and the persons in and upon it and the breaking down at delverton and the place of their destination as well as the time and the weather and the season of the year my heart began to burn within me and my mind replaced the pictures first of the foreign ladies made by the pomp caressing me and then of the coach struggling up the hill and the beautiful dame and the fine little boy with the white cockade in his hat but most of all the little girl dark haired and very lovely and having even in those days the rich soft look of lorna but when he spoke of the necklace thrown over the head of the little maiden and of her disappearance before my eyes arose at once the flashing of the beacon fire the lonely moors in brown with the light the tramp of the outlaw cavalcade and the helpless child head downward lying across the robber saddle bow then i remembered my own mad shout of boyish indignation and marveled at the strange long way by which the events of life come round and while i thought of my own return and childish childish attempt to hide myself from sorrow in the saw pit and the agony of my mother's tears it did not fail to strike me as a thing of omen that the self same day should be both to my darling and myself the blackest and most miserable of all youthful days the king's commissioner thought it wise for some good reason of his own to conceal for me for the present the name of the poor lady supposed to be lorna's mother and knowing that i could easily now discover it without him i let that question abide awhile indeed i was half afraid to hear it remembering that the nobler and the wealthier she proved to be the smaller was my chance of winning such a wife for plain john rid not that she would give me up that i never dreamed of but that others would interfere or indeed i myself might find it only honest to relinquish her that last thought was a dreadful blow and took my breath away from me jeremy stickles was quite decided and of course the discovery being his he had a right to be so that not a word of all these things must be imparted to lorna herself or even to my mother or anyone whatever keep it tight as wax my lad he cried with a wink of great expression this belongs to me mind and the credit a and the premium and the right of discount are altogether mind it would have taken you 50 years to put two and two together so as i did like a clap of thunder ah god has given some men brains and others have good farms and money and a certain skill in the lower beasts each must use his special talent you work your farm i work my brains in the end my lad i shall beat you then jeremy what a fool you must be if you cudgel your brains to make money of this to open the barn door to me and show me all your threshing not a wit my son quite the opposite two men always thresh better than one and here i have you bound to use your flail one two with mine and yet in strictest honor bound not to bushel up till i tell you but said i being much amused by a londoners brave yet uncertain use of simplest rural metaphors for he had wholly forgotten the winnowing surely if i bushel up even when you tell me i must take half measure so you shall my boy he answered if we can only cheat those confounded names of equity you shall take the beauty my son and the elegance and the love and all that and my boy i will take the money this he said in a way so dry and yet so richly unctuous that being gifted somehow by god with a kind of sense of queerness i fell back in my chair and laughed though the underside of my laugh was tears now jeremy howl if i refuse to keep this half as tight as wax you bound me to know such partnership before you told the story and i am not sure by any means of your right to do so afterwards tush he replied i know you too well to look for meanness in you if from pure goodwill john ridd and anxiety to relieve you i made no condition precedent you are not the man to take advantage as a lawyer might i do not even want your promise as sure as i hold this glass and drink your health and love in another drop forced on me by pathetic words so surely will you be bound to me until i do release you tush i know men well by this time a mere look of trust from one is worth another's 10 000 oaths jeremy you are right i answered at least as regards the issue although perhaps you were not right in leading me into a bargain like this without my own consent or knowledge but supposing that we should both be shot in this grand attack on the valley for i mean to go with you now hard and soul is lorna to remain untold of that which changes all her life both shot cried jeremy stickles my goodness boy talk not like that and those dunes are cursed good shots too nay nay the yellow shall go in front we attack on the summer set side i think i from a hill will reconnoiter as behoves a general you shall stick behind a tree if we can only find one big enough to hide you you and i to be shot john ridd with all this inferior food for powder anxious to be devoured i laughed for i knew his cool hearty hood and never flinching courage and soothed to say no coward would have dared to talk like that but when one comes to think of it he continued smiling at himself some provision should be made for even that unpleasant chance i will leave the hole in writing with orders to be opened etc etc now no more of that my boy a cigarro after schnapps and go to meet my yellow boys his yellow boys as he called the summer set shire train bands were even now coming down the valley from the london road as every one since i went up to town grandly entitled the lane to the moors there was one good point about these men that having no discipline at all they made pretense to none whatever nay rather they ridiculed the thing as below men of any spirit on the other hand master stickles troopers look down on these native fellows from a height which i hope they may never tumble for it would break the necks of all of them now these fine natives came along singing for their very lives a song the like of which sat down here would oust my book from modest people and make everybody say this man never can have loved lorna therefore the less of that the better only i thought what a difference from the goodly psalms of the ale house having finished their canticle which contain more mirth than melody they drew themselves up in a sort of way supposed by them to be military each man with heel and elbows stuck into those of his neighbor and saluted the king's commissioner why where are your officers asked master stickles how is it that you have no officers upon this there arose a general grin and a knowing look passed along their faces even up to the man by the gatepost are you going to tell me or not said jeremy what has become of your officers plays sir said one little fellow at last being nodded at by the rest to speak in right of his known eloquence has told harfizers as a were known aid of them now king's man his cell were calm a purpose for to command us like and you mean to say you villains cry jeremy scarce knowing whether to laugh or to swear or what to do that your officers took their dismissal thus and let you come on without them what could him do asked the little man with reason certainly on his side has zen them about their business and they was glad enough to go well said poor jeremy turning to me a pretty state of things john three score cobblers and farming men plasterers tailors and kettles to mend and not a man to keep order among them except my blessed self john and i trow there is not one among them could hit all indoor flying the dunes will make riddles of all of us however he had better hopes when the sons of devon appeared as they did in about an hour's time fine fellows and eager to prove themselves these had not discarded their officers but marched in good obedience to them and were quite prepared to fight the men of summer set of need be in addition to the dunes and there was scarcely a man among them that could have trounced three of the yellow men and would have done it gladly too in honor of the red facings do you mean to suppose master jeremy stickles said i looking on with amazement beholding also all our maidens at the upstairs windows wondering that we my mother a widow woman and i a young man of small estate can keep and support all these precious fellows both yellow ones and red ones until they have taken the dune glen god forbid it my son he replied laying a finger upon his lip nay nay i am not of the shabby order when i have the strings of government kill your sheep at famine prices and need your bread at a figure expressing the rigors of last winter let annie make out the bill every day and i at night will double it you may take my word for it master john this spring harvest shall bring you in three times as much as last autumn's did if they cheated you in town my lad you shall have your change in the country take thy bill and write down quickly however this did not meet my views of what an honest man should do and i went to consult my mother about it as all the accounts would be made in her name dear mother thought that if the king paid only half again as much as other people would have to pay it would be perhaps the proper thing the half being due for loyalty and here she quoted an ancient saying the king and his staff be a man and a half which according to her judgment ruled beyond dispute the law of the present question to argue with her after that which she brought up with such triumph would have been worse than useless therefore i just told annie to make the bills at a third below the current market prices so that the upshot would be fair she promised me honestly that she would but with a twinkle in her bright blue eyes which she must have caught from tom fagus it always has appeared to me that stern and downright honesty upon money matters is a thing not understood of women be they as good as good can be the yellows and the reds together numbered a hundred and twenty men most of whom slept in our barns and stacks and besides these we had fifteen troopers of the regular army you may suppose that all the country was turned upside down about it and the folk who came to see them drill by no means a needless exercise were a greater plague than the soldiers the officers too of the devonshire hand were such a torment to us that we almost wish their men had dismissed them as the summer set troop had done with theirs for we could not keep them out of our house being all young men of good family and therefore not to be met with bars and having now three lovely maidens for even lizzie might be called so when she cared to please mother and i were at wits ends on account of those blessed officers i never got a wink of sleep they came whistling under the window so and directly i went out to chase them there was nothing but a cat to see therefore all of us were right glad except perhaps farmer snow from whom we had bought some victuals at rare price when jeremy stickles gave orders to march and we began to try to do it a good deal of boasting went overhead as our men defiled along the lane and the thick broad patents of pennywort jut it out between the stones ready to heal their bruises the parish choir came part of the way and the singing loft from countess berry and they kept our soldiers spirits up with some of the most pugnacious psalms parson bowden marched ahead leading all our van and file as against the papers and promising to go with us till we came to bullet distance therefore we marched bravely on and children came to look at us and i wondered where uncle ruben was who ought to have led the culverines whereof we had no less than three if stickles could only have found him and then i thought of little rooth and without any fault on my part my heart went down within me the culverines were laid on bark and all our horses pulling them and looking round every now and then with their ears curved up like a squirreled nut and their noses tossing anxiously to know what sort of plow it was man had been pleased to put behind them man whose endless whims and wildness they could never understand any more than they could satisfy however they pulled their very best as all our horses always do and the culverines went up the hill without smack of whip or swearing it had been arranged very justly no doubt and quite in keeping with the spirit of the constitution but as it proved not too wisely that either body of men should act in its own county only so when we reached the top of the hill the sons of devon marched on and across the track leading into dune gate so as to fetch round the western side and attack with their culverine from the cliffs whence the sentry had challenged me on the night of my passing the entrance meanwhile the yellow lads were to stay upon the eastern highland whence uncle ruben and myself had reconnoitred so long ago and whence i had leaped into the valley at the time of the great snow drifts and here they were not to show themselves but keep their culverine in the woods until their cousins of devon appeared on the opposite parapet of the glen the third culverine was entrusted to the fifteen troopers who with ten picked soldiers from either trained hand making it all five and thirty men were to assault the dune gate itself while the outlaws were placed between two fires from the eastern cliff and the western and with this force went jeremy stickles and with it went myself as knowing more about the passage than any other stranger did therefore if i have put it clearly as i strive to do you will see that the dunes must repulse at once three simultaneous attacks from an army numbering in the whole 135 men not including the devonshire officers fifty men on each side i mean and 35 at the head of the valley the tactics of this grand campaign appeared to me so clever and beautifully ordered that i commended colonel stickles as everybody now called him for his great ability and mastery of the art of war he admitted that he deserved high praise but said that he was not by any means equally certain of success so large a proportion of his forces being only a raw militia brave enough no doubt for anything when they saw their way to it but knowing little of gunnery and wholly unused to be shot at whereas all the dunes were practice marksmen being compelled when lads like the belleric slingers to strike down their meals before tasting them and then colonel stickles asked me whether i myself could stand fire he knew that i was not a coward but this was a different question i told him that i had been shot at once or twice before but nevertheless disliked it as much as almost anything upon that he said that i would do for that when a man got over the first blush of diffidence he soon began to look upon it as a puff of destiny i wish i could only tell what happened in the battle of that day especially as nearly all the people around these parts who never saw gunfire in it have gotten the tale so amiss and some of them will even stand in front of my own hearth and contradict me to the teeth although at the time they were not born nor their fathers put into breaches but in truth i cannot tell exactly even the part in which i helped how then can i be expected time by time to lay before you all the little ins and outs of places where i myself was not only i can contradict things which i know could not have been and what i plainly saw should not be controverted in my own house now we five and thirty men lay back a little way around the corner in the hollow of the track which leads to the strong dune gate our culverine was in amongst us loaded now to the muzzle and it was not comfortable to know that it might go off at any time although the you and rea were not calm according to arrangement some of us had horses there besides the horses who dragged the cannon and now we're sniffing at it and there were plenty of spectators to mind these horses for us as soon as we should charge and as much as all our friends and neighbors who had so keenly prepared for the battle now resolved to take no part but look on and praise the winners at last we heard the loud bang bang which proved that devon and summer set were pouring their indignation hot into the den of malifactors or at least so we supposed therefore at double quick march we advanced around the bend of the cliff which had hidden us hoping to find the gate undefended and to blow down all barriers with the fire of our cannon and indeed it seemed likely at first to be so for the wild and mountainous gorge of rock appeared to be all in pure loneliness except where the colored coats of our soldiers and their metal trappings shown with the sun behind them therefore we shouted a loud hurrah as for an easy victory but while the sound of our cheer rang back among the crags above us a shrill clear whistle cleft the air for a single moment and then a dozen carbines bellowed and all among us flew murderous lead several of our men rolled over but the rest rushed on like britain's jeremy and myself in front while we heard the horses plunging at the loaded gun behind us now my lads cried jeremy one dash and we are beyond them for he saw that the foe was overhead in the gallery of brushwood our men with a brave shout answered him for his courage was fine example and we leaped in under the feet of the foe before they could load their guns again but here when the foremost among us were passed an awful crash rang behind us with the shrieks of men and the den of metal and the horrible screaming of horses the trunk of the tree had been launched overhead and crashed into the very midst of us our cannon was under it so were two men and a horse with his poor back broken another horse vainly struggled to rise with his thigh bones smashed and protruding now i lost all presence of mind at this for i love both those good horses and shouting for any to follow me dashed headlong into the cavern some five or six men came after me the foremost of whom was jeremy when a storm of shot whistled and padded around me with a blaze of light and a thunderous roar on i leaped like a madman and pounced on one gunner and hurled him across his culverine but the others had fled and a heavy oak door fell too with a bang behind them so utterly where my sense is gone and not but strength remaining that i caught up the cannon with both hands and dashed it breach first at the doorway the solid oak burst with the blow and the gun stuck fast like a builder's put log but here i looked round in vain for anyone to come and follow up my success the scanty light showed me no figure moving through the length of the tunnel behind me only a heavy groan or two went to my heart and chilled it so i hurried back to seek jeremy fearing that he must be smitten down and so indeed i found him as well as three other poor fellows struck by the charge of the culverine which had passed so close beside me two of the four were as dead as stones and growing cold already but jeremy and the other could manage to groan just now and then so i turned my attention to them and thought no more of fighting having so many wounded men and so many dead among us we loitered at the cavern's mouth and looked at one another wishing only for somebody to come and take command of us but no one came and i was grieved so much about poor jeremy besides being wholly unused to any violence of bloodshed that i could only keep his head up and try to stop him from bleeding and he looked up at me pitifully being perhaps in a haze of thought as a calf looks at a butcher the shot had taken him in the mouth about that no doubt could be for two of his teeth were in his beard and one of his lips was wanting i laid his shattered face on my breast and nursed him as a woman might but he looked at me with a jerk at this and i saw that he wanted coolness while here we stayed quite out of danger for the fellows from the gallery could by no means shoot us even if they remained there and the oak and door whence the others fled was blocked up by the culverine a boy who had no business there being in fact our clerk's apprentice to the art of shoemaking came round the corner upon us in the manner which boys and only boys can use with grace and freedom that is to say with a sudden rush and a side long step and an impudence got the worst of it cried the boy better be off all of you zoomer set and devon evading and the dunes of drash them both mice the rid even the be drashed we few who yet remained of the force which was to have won the dune gate gazed at one another like so many fools and nothing more for we still had some faint hopes of winning the day and recovering our reputation by means of what the other men might have done without us and we could not understand at all how devon shire and summer set being embarked in the same cause should be fighting with one another finding nothing more to be done in the way of carrying on the war we laid poor master stickles and two more of the wounded upon the carriage of bark and hurdles where on our gun had lain and we rolled the gun into the river and harnessed the horses yet alive and put the others out of their pain and sadly winded homewards feeling ourselves to be thoroughly beaten yet ready to maintain that it was no fault of ours whatever and in this opinion the women joined being only too glad and thankful to see us home alive again now this enterprise having failed so i prefer not to dwell too long upon it only just to show the mischief which lay at the root of the failure and this mischief was the vile jealousy betwixt red and yellow uniform now i try to speak impartially belonging no more to summer set than i do to devon shire living upon the borders and born of either county the tale was told me by one side first and then quite to a different tune by the other and then by both together with very hot words of reviling and a desire to fight it out again and putting this with that the truth appears to be as follows the men of devon who bore red facings had a long way to go around the hills before they could get into due position on the western side of the dune glen and knowing that their cousins in yellow would claim the whole of the glory if allowed to be first with the firing these worthy fellows waited not to take good aim with their cannons seeing the others about to shoot but fettled it anyhow on the slope pointing in a general direction and trusting in god for aim worthiness laid the rope to the breach and fired now as providence ordained it the shot which was a casual mixture of anything considered hard for instance jug bottoms and knobs of doors the whole of this pernicious dose came scattering and shattering among the unfortunate yellow men upon the opposite cliff killing one and wounding two now what did the men of summer set do but instead of waiting for their friends to send round and beg pardon train their gun full mouth upon them and with a vicious meaning shoot not only this but they loudly cheered when they saw four or five red coats lie low for which savage feeling not even the remarks of the devonshire men concerning their coats could entirely excuse them now i need not tell the rest of it for the tale makes a man discontented enough that both sides waxed hotter and hotter with the fire of destruction and but that the gorge of the cliffs lay between very few would have lived to tell of it for our western blood becomes stiff and firm when churned with the sense of wrong in it at last the dunes who must have laughed at the thunder passing overhead recalling their men from the gallery issued out of guenny's gate which had been wholly overlooked and fell on the rear of the summer set men and slew four beside their canon then while the survivors ran away the outlaws took the hot culverine and rolled it down into their valley thus of the three guns set forth that morning only one ever came home again and that was the gun of the devonshire men who dragged it home themselves with the view of making a boast about it this was a melancholy end of our brave setting out and everybody blamed everyone else and several of us wanted to have the whole thing over again as then we must have righted it but upon one point all agreed by some reason not clear to me that the root of the evil was to be found in the way parson bowden went up the hill with his hat on and no cassock end of chapter 54 recording by michelle harris