 Preface 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 Ruzana Taranta. Lorna Dune by R.D. Blackmore. Preface. This work is called a romance because the incidents, characters, time, and scenery are alike romantic. And in shaping this old tale, the writer neither dares nor desires to claim for it the dignity or comber it with the difficulty of an historic novel. And yet he thinks that the outlines are filled in more carefully and the situations, however simple, more warmly colored and quickened than a reader would expect to find in what is called a legend. And he knows that any son of Exmor, jancing on this volume, cannot fail to bring to mind the nurse-tals of his childhood. The savage deeds of the outlaw's dunes in the depth of bag-worthy forest. The beauty of the hapless maid brought up in the midst of them. The plain John Redd's Herculean power and, memory's too congenial food, the exploits of Tom Fagus, March 1869. End of Preface. Chapter 1 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 Rizana Taranta. Lorna Dune by R. D. Blackmore. Chapter 1. Elements of Education. If anybody cares to read a simple tale, told simply. I, John Redd of the parish of Orr, in the county of Somerset, Yeoman and Churchwarden, have seen and had a share in some doings of this neighborhood, which I will try to set down in order, God sparing my life in memory. And they who light upon this book should bear in mind, not only, that I write for the clearing of our parish from ill-fame and calamity, but also a thing which will, I trial, appear too often in it, to wit, that I am nothing more than a plain, unlettered man, not read in foreign languages, as a gentleman might be, nor gifted with long words, even in my known tongue. Save what I may have won from the Bible, or Master William Shakespeare, whom, in the face of common opinion, I do value highly. In short, I am an ignoramus, but pretty well for Yeoman. My father, being of good substance, at least as we reckon in Exmore, and seized in his own right from many generations of one, and that the best and largest of the three farms into which our parish is divided, or rather the cultured part thereof, he, John Ridd the Elder, Church Warden and Overseer, being a great admirer of learning, and well able to write his name, sent me, his only son, to be schooled at Tiverton in the county of Devon. For the chief boast of that ancient town, next to its woolen staple, is a worthy grammar school, the largest in the west of England, founded and handsomely endowed in the year 1604 by Master Peter Blundell of that same place, Clothier. Here, by the time I was twelve years old, I had risen into the upper school, and could make bold with utropus and Caesar by aid of an English version, and as much as six lines of Ovid, some even said that I might, before manhood, rise almost to the third form, being of a persevering nature, albeit by full consent of all, except my mother, thick-headed. But that would have been, as I now perceive, an ambition beyond a farmer's son, for there is but one form above it, and that made of masterful scholars, entitled rightly, monitors. So it came to pass, by the grace of God, that I was called away from learning, while sitting at the desk of the junior first in the upper school, and beginning the Greek verb fero. My eldest grandson makes bold to say that I never could have learned fero, ten pages further on being all he himself could manage, with plenty of stripes to help him. I know that he'll have more head than I, there never will he have such body, and I'm thankful to have stopped the times with a meek and wholesome headpiece. But if you doubt of my having been there, because now I know so little, go and see my name, John Ridd, graven on that very form. Forsooth, from the time I was strong enough to open a knife and to spell my name, I began to grave it in the oak. First of the block were upon I sate, and then of the desk in front of it, according as I was promoted from one to the other of them. And there my grandson reads it now, at this present time of writing, and hath fought a boy for scoffing at it. John Ridd, his name, and done again in winkies, a mischievous but cheerful device in which we took great pleasure. This is the manner of a winky, which I here set down, lest child of mine, or grandchild, dare to make one on my premises. If he does, I shall know the market once, and score it well upon him. The scholar obtains, by prayer or price, a handful of salt-peter, and then, with the knife, wherewith he should rather be trying to mend his pens. What does he do, but scoop a hole where the desk is some three inches thick? This hole should be left with the middle exalted, and the circumfere dug more deeply. Then, let him fill it with salt-peter, all save a little space in the midst where the boss of the wood is. Upon that boss, and it would be better if a splinter of timber rise upward. He sticks the end of his candler tallow, or rat's tall, as we called it, kindled and burning smoothly, and on, as he reads by that light his lesson, lifting his eyes now and then it may be, the fire of candle lays hold of the peter, with a spluttering noise and a leaping. Then, should the pupil seize his pen, and regardless of the nib, stir bravely, and he will see a glow, as of burning mountains, and a rich smoke, and sparks going merrily. Nor will it cease if he stir wisely, and there be a good store of peter, until the wood is devoured through, like the sinking of a well-shaft. Now, well may it go with the head of a boy, intent upon his primer, who betides to sit there under, but, above all things, have good care to exercise this art before the master strides up to his desk in the early gray of the morning. Other customs no less worthy abide in the school of Blundow, such as the singeing of night-caps, but though they have a pleasant savor, and refreshing to think of, I may not stop to note them, unless it be that goodly one at the incoming of a flood. The schoolhouse stands beside a stream, not very large, called Lohmann, which flows into the Broad River of Acts about a mile below. This Lohmann stream, although it be not fond of brawling violence in the manner of our Lynn, yet it is want to flood into a mighty head of waters when the storms of rain provoke it, and most of all, when its little comate called the Taunton Brook, where I have plucked the very best grasses that ever man put salt on, it comes foaming down like a great rune-horse, and rears at the leap of the hedge-rose. Then are the gray stone walls of Blundow on every side encompassed, the valleys spread over with looping waters, and it is a hard thing for the day-boys to get home to their suppers. And in that time Old Cop, the porter, so called, because he hath copper boots to keep the wet from his stomach, and a nose of copper also, in rite of other waters. His place is to stand at the gate, attending to the flood-boards, grooved into one another, and so to watch the torrents rise and not be washed away. If it please God, he may help it. But longer the flood hath attained this height, and while it is only waxing, certain boys of deputy will watch at the stoop of the drain-holes, and be apt to look outside the walls when Cop is taking cordial. And in the very front of the gate, just without the archway, where the ground is paved most handsomely, you may see, in copy letters, done a great P.B. of white pebbles. Now it is the custom, and the law, that when the invading waters, either flexing along the wall from below the road bridge, or pouring sharply across the meadows from a cut called Owen's Ditch, and I myself have seen it come both ways. Upon the very instant when the waxing element lips, though it be but a single pebble of the founder's letters, it is in the license of any boy, so ever small and undoctrined, to rush into the great school rooms where a score of masters sit heavily, and scream at the top of his voice, P.B. Then with a yell the boys leap up a break away from their standing. They toss their caps to the black-beamed roof, and happily the very books after them. And the great boys vex no more the small ones, and the small boys stick up to the great ones. One with another, hard they go, to see the gain of the waters, and the tribulation of cop, and are prone to kick the day-boys out with words of scanty compliment. Then the masters look at one another, having no class to look to, and, boys being no more left to watch, and a matter they put their mouths up, with a spirited bang they close their books and make invitation, the one to the other for pipes and foreign cordials, recommending the chance at the time and the comfort away from cold water. But lo, I am dwelling on little things, and the pigeon's eggs of the infancy, forgetting the bitter and heavy life gone over me since then. If I am neither a hard man nor a very close one, God knows I have had no lack of rubbing and pounding to make stone of me. Yet I cannot somehow believe that we ought to hate one another, to live far asunder, and block the mouth each of his little den, as do the wild beasts of the wood and the hairy outrangs now brought over each with a chain upon him. Let that matter be as it will. It is beyond me to unfold, and may have, of my grandson's grandson, all I know is that wheat is better than when I begin to sow it. Lawn Adoom by R. D. Blackmore Chapter 2 An Important Item Now the cause of my leaving Tivitum school and the way of it were as follows. On the 29th day of November, in the year of our Lord's 1673, the very day when I was twelve years old and had spent all my substance and sweetmeats, with which I may treat the little boys to the large boys ran in and took them, we came out of school at five o'clock, as the rule is upon Tuesdays. According to custom, we drove the day boys in brave route down the causeway from the school porch even to the gate where cop has his dwelling in duty. Little it wrecked us, and helped them less, that they were our founded citizens and happily his own grand-nephews, for he left no direct descendants. Neither did we much inquire what their lineage was, for it had long been fixed among us, who were of the house and chambers, that these same day boys were all cats, as we had discovered to call it, because they paid no groat for their schooling, and brought their own commons with them. In consumption of these we would help them, for our fair and whole fed appetite, and while we ate their rituals, we allowed them freely to talk to us. Nevertheless, we could not feel when all the rituals were gone, but that these boys required kicking from the premises of Blundle. And some of them were shopkeepers' sons, young grocers, felmongers and polterers, and these to their credit seemed to know how righteous it was to kick them, but others were of high family, as any need be endeavored. Carousers and bouchiers and bastards, and some of these would turn sometimes, and strike the boy that kicked them, but to do them justice, even these knew that they must be kicked for not paying. After these charity boys were gone, as incontumely we called them, if you break my bag on my headset one, how will I feed dents to my? And after a old cop with crying a vine had jammed the double gates in under the scruff stone archway, whereupon a Latin verse is done in brass of small quality. Some of us who were not hungry and cared not for the supper bell, having sulked much parliament and dumps at my only charges, not that I ever bore much wealth, but because I had been thrifting it for this time of my birth. We were leaning quite at dusk against the iron bars of the gate, some six or it may be seven of us, small boys all, and not conspicuous in the closing of the daylight, and the fog that came that even tied. Else cop would have rated us up the green, for he was cheery to the little boys when his wife had taken their money. There was plenty of room for all of us, for the gate will hold nine boys close packed, unless they be fed rankly, whereof is little danger. And now we were looking out on the road, and wishing we could get there, hoping moreover to see a good string of packhorses come by with troopers to protect them. For the day boys had brought us word that some intending their way to the town had lain that morning at Sanford Peverall, and must be in at nightfall, because Mr. Faggis was after them. Now Mr. Faggis was my first cousin and an honour to the family, being a North Malton man of great renown on the highway from Barron town even to London. Therefore of course I hoped that he would catch the packman, and the boys were asking my opinion as of an oracle about it. A certain boy leaning up against me would not allow my elbow room, and struck me very sadly in the stomach part, though his own was full of my parliament, and this I felt so unkindly that I smote him straight away in the face without tallying to consider it, or weighing the question Julie. Upon this he put his head down and presented it so vehemently at the middle of my waistcoat that for a minute or more my breath seemed drop as it were from my pockets, and my life seemed to stop from great want of ease. Before I came to myself again, it had been settled for us that we should move to the ironing box, as the Triangle of Turf is called where the two causeways coming from the school porch and the Hall porch meet, and our fights were mainly celebrated. Only we must wait until the convoy of horses have passed, and then make a ring by candlelight, and the other boys would like it. But suddenly there came round the post where the letters of our founder are, not from the way of Taunton, but from the side of Lomond Bridge, a very small stringed horses, only two indeed, counting for one the pony, and a red-faced man on a big an egg. Crazy worshipful masters, he said, being feared of the gateway, can he tell where our John Rid be? Hara be is fair, John Rid? Answered the sharp little chap, making a game of John Fry's language. Zoan up, then, says John Fry, poking his whip through the bars at us. Zoan up and put an out. The other little chaps pointed at me, and some began to hello. But I knew what I was about. Oh, John, John, I cried. What's the use of your coming now, and pegging over the moors, too? And it's so cool cold for her. The holidays don't begin till Wednesday fortnight, John, to think if you're not knowing that. John Fry leaned forward in the saddle, and turned his eyes away from me, and there was a noise in his throat, like a snail crawling on a window pane. Oh, us gnaws that woollen up from my stagion. But can every old man gnaw that, without go to school like you doth? Your mother have kept all the apples up, and all Betty turned to the black puddin's, and none dare set trap for a blackbird. All for thee, lay out every bit of it now for thee. He checked himself suddenly, and frightened me. I knew that John Fry's way so well. And father, and father, oh, how is father? I pushed the boys right and left, as I said it. John is father up in town. He used to come for me, and leave nobody else to do it. They there will be at the crooked post, other side of the telling-house. Her couldn't lay vows, by reason of the Christmas back-and-coming on, and some of the side are welted. The telling-houses on the moor are rude cots, where the shepherds meet to tell their sheep at the end of the pasturing season. He looked at the nag's ears as I said it, and, being up to John Fry's ways, I knew that it was a lie. And my heart fell like a lump of lead, and I leaned back on the stay of the gate, and longed no more to fight anybody. A sort of dull power hung over me, like the cloud of a brooding tempest, and I feared to be told anything. I did not even care to stroke the nose of my pony Peggy, although she pushed it in through the rails, wear a square of broad elatysis, and sniffed at me, and began to crock gently after my fingers. But whatever lives or dies, business must be attended to, and the principal business of bud-christians is, beyond all controversy, to fight with one another. Come up, Jack, said one of the boys, lifting me under the chin. He hit you, and you hit him, you know. Pay your debts before you go, said a monitor, striding up to me after hearing how the honour lay. Vid, you must go through with it. Fight for the sake of the junior first, cried the little fellow in my ear, the clever one, the head of our class, who had mocked John Fry, and knew all about the aorists, and tried to make me know it, but I never went more than three places up, and then it was an accident, and I came down after dinner. The boys were urgent for me to fight, though my stomach was not up for it. And being very slow of wit, which is not chargeable on me, I looked from one to other of them, seeking any cure for it. Not that I was afraid of fighting, for now I had been three years at Blundles, and fortune, all that time, afight at least once every week, till the boys began to know me. Only that the load on my heart was not as sprightly as of the hay-field. It is a very sad thing to dwell on, but even now, in my time of wisdom, I doubt it is a fond thing to imagine, and a motherly to insist upon. The boys can do without fighting, unless they be very good boys, and afraid of one another. Nay, I said, with my back against the wrought eye in the stay of the gate, which was socketed into the cop's house-front, and I will not fight thee now, Robin Snow, but wait till I come back again. Take cowards, blow Jack Ridd, then, quite half a dozen little boys, shoving Bob Snow forward to do it. Because they all knew well enough, having striven with me ere now, and proved to be their master, they knew, I say, that without great charge I would never accept that, contumely. But I took little heed of them, looking in dull wonderment at John Fry, and Smiler, and the Blunderbuss, and Peggy. John Fry was scratching his head, I could see, and getting blue in the face, by the light of the cop's parlour window, and going to and fro upon Smiler, as if he were hard-set with it. And all the time he was looking briskly from my eyes to the fist I was clenching, and me thought he tried to wink at me in a covert manner, and then Peggy whisked her tail. Shall I fight, John? I said at last. I would, and you had not come, John. Christ will be done, I is indeed a better fight, John. He answered in a whisper, through the gridiron of the gate, ne'er be a day of fighting of or thee, best way to begin good team-like. Will the gentleman let me in, to see as thee hast fair play, lad? He looked out from down at the colour of his cowskin boots, and the mire upon the horses, for the sloughs were exceedingly mucky. Peggy, indeed, my sole pony, being right with weight, was not crusted much over the shoulders, but Smiler, a youngest sledder, had been well in over his withers, and none would have deemed him a pie-bold, save of red mire and black mire. The great blunder-bus, moreover, was choked with a dollop of slough-cake, and John Fry's sad-coloured Sunday hat was endued with a plume of mawish-weed. All this I saw while he was dismounting, heavily and wearily lifting his leg from the saddle-cock, as if with a sore crick in his back. By this time the question of fighting was gone quite out of our discretion, the sundry of the elder boys, grave and reverence in yours, who had taken no small pleasure in teaching our hands to fight, to ward, to parry, to feign encounter, to lunge in the manner of sore play, and the weaker child to drop on one knee when no cunning offence might baffle the onset. These great masters of the art, far like the C.S. Little ones practice it than themselves engage, six or seven of them had come running down— six or seven of them had come running down the rounded causeway, having heard that there had arisen a snug little mill at the gate. Now whether that word hath origin in a Greek term meaning conflict, as the best red boys are severated, or whether it is nothing more than a figure of similitude from the beating arms of the mill, such as I have seen in counties and in books, but folk make bread with wind. It is not for a man devoid of scholarship to determine enough that they who made the ring entitled hath seen a mill, while we who must be thumped inside it tried to rejoice in their presentry till it turned upon the stomach. Moreover, I felt upon me now a certain responsibility, a dutiful need to maintain in the presence of John Fry, the manliness of the Ridd family and the honour of Exmore. Although in the three years of my schooling I had fought more than three school battles and be due with blood to every plant of grass towards the middle of the ironing box. And this success I owed at first to no skill of my own until I came to know better for up to twenty or thirty-fives I struck as nature guided me, no wiser than a father long legs in the heat of a lengthhorn. But I had conquered, partly through my native strength and the Exmore toughness in me and still more that I could not see had gotten my belly full. But now I was like to have that and more for my heart was down to begin with and then Robert Snell was a bigger boy than I had ever encountered and as thick in the skull and hard in the brain as even I could claim to be. I had never told my mother about these frequent drivings because she was soft hearted. Neither had I told my father because he had not seen it. Therefore, beholding me still an innocent looking child with fair curls on my forehead and no store of bad language. John Fry thought this very first fight that ever had befallen me and so when they let him in at the gate with a message to the headmasters as one of the monitors told Cop and Peggy and Smiler were tied to the railings till I should be through my business. John comes up to me with the tears in his eyes and says don't you go for to do it Jan don't need to do it for good now but I told him that now it was much too late to cry off so he said the Lord be with thee, Jan and turn thy thumb knuckle inwards it was not a very large piece of ground in the angle of the cause-boys but quite big enough to fight upon especially for Christians who loved to be cheap by jowl at it the great boys stood in a circle around being gifted with strong privilege and the little boys had to leave to lie flat and look through the legs of the great boys but while we were yet preparing and the candles hissed in the fog-cloud old Phoebe of more than four score years whose room was over the hall-port came hobbling out as she always did to mar the joy of conflict no one ever heeded her neither did she expect it but the evil was that two senior boys must always lose the first round of the fight by having to lead her home again I marvel how Robin Snell felt very likely he thought nothing of it always having been a boy of a hectoring and unruly sort but I felt my heart go up and down as the boys came round to strip me and greatly fearing to be beaten I blew hot upon my knuckles then pulled I off my little cut jerkin and laid it down on my head cap and over that my waistcoat and a boy was proud to take care of them Thomas Hooper was his name and I remember how he looked at me my mother had made that little cut jerkin in the quiet winter evenings and taken pride to loop it up in a fashionable wedding and I was loathed to spoil it with blood and good fill-birds were in the pocket then up to me came Robin Snell mayor of Exeter thrice since that and he stood very square and looking at me and I lagged not long to look at him round his waist he had a good chief busking up his small clothes and on his feet light pumpkin shoes and all his upper raiment top and he danced about in a way that he had never seen before and he danced about in a way that made my head swim on my shoulders and he stood some inches over me but I, being muddled with much doubt about John Fry and his errand was only stripped of my jerkin and waistcoat and not comfortable to begin come now shake hands quite a big boy jumping in joy of the spectacle a third form and nearly six feet high shake hands you little devils keep your pluck up and show good sport and lord love the better man of you Robin took me by the hand and gazed at me disdainfully then smote me painfully in the face so I could get my fence up what be bout glad? cried John Fry hudden again jam will he well done then our jam boy for I had replied to Robin now with all the weight and cadence of a pentham emerald caesura a thing the name of which I know but could never make head nor tail of it and the strife began in a serious style and the boys looking on were not cheated although I could not collect their shouts when the blows were vinging upon me it was no great loss for John Fry told me afterwards that their oaths went up like a furnace fire but to these we paid no heed or hap being in the thick of swinging and devoid of judgement all I know is I came to my corner when the round was over with very hard pumps in my chest and a great desire to fall away time is up! cried Ted monitor ear ever I got my breath again and when I feigned would have lingered a while on the knee of the boy that held me John Fry had come up and the other boys were laughing because he wanted a stable land-thorn and threatened to tell my mother time is up! cried another boy more headlong than head monitor if we count three before the come of thee frack thou art and must go to the women I felt it hard upon me he began to count one, two, three but before the three was out of his mouth I was facing my foe with both hands up and my breath going rough and hot and resolved to wait the turn of it for I had found seat on the knee of a boy's age and skill to tutor me who knew how much the end very often differs from the beginning a rare ripe scholar he was and now he has rooted up the Germans in the matter of criticism sure the clever boys and men have most love towards the stupid ones finished him off Bob quite a big boy and that I noticed especially because I thought it unkind of him after eating of my toffee as he had that afternoon finish him off neck and crop he deserves it for sticking up to a man like you but I was not so to be finished off though feeling in my knuckles now as if it were a blueness and a sense of chill-blame nothing held except my legs and they were good to help me so this bout, or round if you please, was fought unwearily by me with gentle recollection of what my tutor the clever boy had told me and some resolved to earn his praise before I came back to his knee again and never, I think, in all my life sounded sweeter words in my ears except when my love loved me then when my second and backer who had made himself part of my doings now and would have wept to see me beaten said, famously done Jack, famously only keep your wind up Jack and you go right through him meanwhile John Fry was prowling about asking the boys what they thought of it and whether I was like to be killed because of my mother's trouble but finding now that I had fought in three scorefights already he came up to me woefully in the quickness of my breathing while I sat on the knee of my second with a piece of sponges-correling to ease me of my bloodshed and he says in my ears as if he were clapping spurs into a horse never thee, knackunderjant o' never come nay Hexmore no more with that it was all up with me a simmering buzz in my heavy brain and a light came through my and a light came through my eyeplaces at once I set both fists again and my heart stuck to me like cobbled wax either Robin Snell should kill me or I would conquer Robin Snell so I went in again with my courage up and Bob smiling for victory and I hated him for smiling he let me with his left hand and I gave him my right between his eyes and he blinked and was not pleased with it I feared him not and spared him not neither spared myself my breath came again and my heart stood cool and my eyes struck fire no longer only I knew that I would die sooner than shame my birthplace how the rest of it was I know not only that I had the end of it and helped to put Robin in bed End of Chapter 2 Chapter 3 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 Shirley Anderson Lorna Dune by R. D. Blackmore Chapter 3 The Warpath of the Dunes From Tiverton Town to the Town of All is a very long and painful road and in good truth the traveller must make his way as the saying is for the way is still unmade at least on this side of Tiverton although there is less danger now than in the time of my schooling for now a good horse may go there without much cost of leaping but when I was a boy the spurs would fail when needed most by reason of the slough cake It is to the credit of this age and our advance upon fatherly ways that we have now laid down rods and even stump-oaks here and there so that a man in good daylight need not sink if he be quite sober There is nothing I have driven at more than doing my duty wayward and over x-more but in those days when I came from school and good times they were too full of a warmth and fine-hearth comfort which are now dying out It was a sad and sorry business to find where lay the highway We are taking now to mark it off with a fence on either side at least when a town is handy but to me this seems of a high pretense and a sort of landmark and channel for robbers though well enough near London where they have earned a racecourse We left the town of the two fords which they say is the meaning of it very early in the morning after lying one day to rest as was demanded by the nags sore of foot and founded On my part too I was glad to rest having aches all over me and very heavy bruises and be lodged at the sign of the White Horse Inn in the street called Gold Street opposite where the souls are of John and Joan Greenway set up in gold letters because we must take the homeward way at Cockro of the morning though still John Fry was dry with me of the reason of his coming and only told lies about father and could not keep them agreeable for the best, as all boys will especially after a victory and I thought perhaps father had sent for me because he had a good harvest and the rats were bad in the corn chamber It was high noon before we got to Dulverton that day near to which town the river X and it's big brother Barl have union My mother had an uncle living there but we were not to visit his house this time at which I was somewhat astonished for we needs must stop for at least two hours to bait our horses thorough well before coming to the black bog way The bogs are very good in frost except where the hot springs rise but as yet there had been no frost this year safe just enough to make the black birds big in the morning in a hearty black frost they look small until the snow falls over them The road from Bampton to Dulverton had not been very delicate yet nothing to complain of much indeed than the hawks of a horse except in the rotten places The day was inclined to be mild and foggy and both nags sweated freely but Peggy carrying little weight for my wardrobe was upon Smiler and John Fry grumbling always we could easily keep in front as far as you may hear a laugh John had been rather bitter with me which me thought was a mark of ill taste at coming home for the holidays and yet I made allowance for John because he had never been to school and never would have chance to eat fry upon condition of spelling it therefore I rode on thinking that he was hard set like a saw for his dinner and would soften after tooth work and yet at his most hungry times when his mind was far gone upon bacon certs he seemed to check himself and look at me as if he were sorry for little things coming over great but now at Dulverton we dined upon the rarest and choicest rituals that ever I did taste even now at my time of life to think of it gives me appetite as once in a while to think of my first love makes me love all goodness hot mutton pastry was a thing I had often heard of from very wealthy boys and men who made a dessert of dinner and to hear them talk of it made my lips smack and my ribs come inwards and now John Fry strode into the hostel with the air and grace of a short legged man shouted as loud as if he were calling sheep upon Exmoor hot mutton pastry for two travellers and number five in five minutes dishing up in the tin with the grave same as I had it last Tuesday of course it did not come in five minutes nor yet in ten or twenty but that made it all the better when it came to the real presence and the smell of it was enough to make an empty man thank God for the room there was inside him it is in the manner of all good boys to be careless and apparel and take no pride in adornment good luck if I see a boy make do about the fit of his crumpler and the creasing of his breeches and desire to be shod for the comeliness rather than for use I cannot escape the mark that God took thought to make a girl of him not so when they grow older and caught the regard of the maidens then made the bravery pass from the inside to the outside of them and no bigger fools are they even then than their fathers were before them but God forbid any man to be a fool to love and be loved as I have been else would he have prevented it when the mutton pasty was done and Peggy and Smiler had died well also out I went to wash at the pump being a lover of soap and water at all risk except of my dinner and John Fye who cared very little to wash saved Sabbath days in his own soap and who had kept me from the pump by threatening loss of the dish out he came in a satisfied manner with a piece of quill in his hand to lean against the doorpost and listen to the horses feeding and have his teeth ready for supper then a lady's maid came out and the sun was on her face and she turned round to go back again but put a better face upon it and gave a trip in hitched address lest the hostels should laugh that she was losing her complexion with the long Italian glass in her fingers very daintily she came up to the pump in the middle of the yard where I was running the water off all my head and shoulders and arms and some of my breast even and though I had glimpsed her through the sprinkle it gave me quite a turn to see her child as I was in my open aspect but she looked at me no witter bashed making a baby of me no doubt as a woman of thirty will do even with a very big boy when they catch him on a havoc and she said to me in a brazen manner as if I had been nobody while I was shrinking behind the pump and craving to get my shirt on good little boy come here there to me find heaven how blue your eyes are and your skin like snow but some naughty man has beaten it black oh little boy let me feel it ah how then it must have hurt you then now and you shall love me all this time she was touching my breast here and there very lightly with her delicate brown fingers and I understood from her voice and manner that she was not of this country but a foreigner by extraction and then I was not so shy of her because I could talk better English than she and yet I longed for my jerkin I'd like not to be rude to her if you please madam I must go John Fry is waiting by the tapster's door and Peggy neighing to me if you please we must get home tonight and father will be waiting for me this side of the telling house there there you shall go little dear and perhaps I will go after you I have taken much love of you but the baroness is hard to me how far you call it now to the bank of the sea at wash, wash at watch it likely you mean madam oh a very long way and the road is soft as the road to all oh ah oh ah I shall remember that is the place where my little boy live and someday I will come seek for him now to make the pump flow my dear and give me the good water the baroness will not touch unless the nebula be formed outside the glass I did not know what she meant by that yet I pumped for her very heartily and marveled to see her for fifty times throw the water away in the trough as if it was not good enough at last the water suited her with the likeness of fog outside the glass and the gleam of a crystal underneath it and then she made a curtsy to me in a sort of mocking manner holding the long glass by the foot not to take the cloud off and then she wanted to kiss me but I was out of breath and have always been shy of that work except when I come to offer it and so I ducked under the pump handle and she knocked her chin on the knob of it and the hostilers came out and asked whether they would do as well upon this she retreated up the yard with a certain dark dignity and a foreign way of walking which stopped them at once from going farther because it was so different from the fashion one with another they hung back where half a cartload of hay was and they looked to be sure that she would not turn round and then each one laughed at the rest of them now up to the end of Delverton town on the northward side of it where the two new pigsties be the all folk and the watch it folk must trudge on together until we come to a broken cross where a murdered man lies buried Peggy and Smiler went up the hill as if nothing could be too much for them after the beans they had eaten and suddenly turning a corn of trees we happened upon a great coach and six horses laboring very heavily John Fry rode on with his hat in his hand as became him towards the quality but I was amazed at that degree that I left my cap on my head and drew bridle without knowing it for in the front seat of the coach which was half way open being of the city make and the day in want of air say to the foreign lady who had met me at the pump and offered to salute me by her side was a little girl dark-haired and very wonderful with a wealthy softness on her as if she must have her own way I could not look at her for two glances and she did not look at me for one being such a little child and busy with the hedges but in the honourable place say to handsome lady very warmly dressed and sweetly delicate of colour and close to her was a lively child two or maybe three years old bearing a white cockade in his hat and staring at all and everybody now he saw Peggy and took such a liking to her that the lady his mother if so she were was forced to look at my pony in me and to tell the truth although I am not one of those who adore the high folk she looked at us very kindly and with a sweetness rarely found milk the cows for us then I took off my cap to the beautiful lady without asking where for and she put up her hand and kissed it to me thinking perhaps that I looked like a gentle and good little boy for folk have always called me innocent though God knows I was never that but now the foreign lady or ladies made as it might be who had been busy with the little dark eyes turned upon all this going on and looked me straight in the face I was about to salute her at a distance indeed and not with the nicety she had offered me but strange to say she stared at my eyes as if she had never seen me before neither wished to see me again at this I was so startled such things being out of my knowledge that I startled Peggy also with the muscle of my legs and she being fresh from stable and the Maya scraped off with a cast coupe broke away so suddenly that I could do no more than turn round and lower my cap now five months old to the beautiful lady soon I overtook John Fry and asked him all about them and how it was that we had missed their starting from the hostel but John would never talk much till after a gallon of cider and all that I could win out of him was that they were murdering Papishas or the devil as they came from and a good thing for me and a providence that I was gone down to Douglas in town to buy sweet stuff for Annie else my stupid head would have gone astray with their great outcoming we saw no more of them after that but turned into the sideway and soon had the fill of our hands and eyes to look to our own going for the road got worse and worse until there was none at all and perhaps the purest thing it could do was to be ashamed to show itself but we pushed on as best we might with doubt of reaching home any time except by special grace of God the fog came down upon the moors as thick as ever I saw it and there was no sound of any sort nor a breath of wind to guide us the little stubby trees that stand out here and there, like bushes with a wooden leg to them were drizzled with a mess of wet and hung their points with dropping wherever the butt end of a hedgerow came up from the hollow ground like the withers of a horse holes of a splash were pocked and pimpled in the yellow sand of conies but soon it was too dark to see that or anything else I may say except the creases in the dusk where prison light crept up to the rallies after a while even that was gone and no other comfort left us except to see our horses' heads jogging to their footsteps and the dark ground pass below us lighter where the wet was and then the splash foot after foot more clever than we can do it and the orderly jerk of the tail and the smell of water horses John Fry was bowing forward with sleep upon his saddle and now I could no longer see the fizzle of wet upon his beard for he had a very brave one of a bright red colour and trimmed into a whale-oil nut because he was newly married although that comb of hair had been a subject of some wonder to me where the eye in God's good time should have the like of that handsomely set with shining beads small above and large below from the weeping of heaven but still I could see the jog of his hat a Sunday hat with a top to it and some of his shoulder bowed out in the mist so that one could say hold up John when Smiler put his foot in Mercy of God where be us now? said John Fry, waking suddenly a sword to have passed hold hash, Jan zine it on the road, have ye no indeed John nor old Ash nor my knowing nor heard nothing save thee snoring what a voodoo must be then, Jan and me sell no better harken that, harken we drew up our horses and listened through the thickness of the air and with our hands laid to our ears at first there was nothing to hear except the panting the horses and the trickle of the eaving drops from our head covers and clothing and the soft sounds of the lonely night that made us feel and try not to think then there came a mellow noise very low and mornsome not a sound to be afraid of but to long to know the meaning with the soft rise of the hair three times it came and went again as if the shaking of a thread might pass away into the distance and then I touched John Fry to know that there was something near me don't ye be a fool, John vain music as ever I hear God bless the man as made undo it have they hanged one of the dunes then, John never talk like a thickie hang a dune, God in earth the king would hang pretty quick if her did then who is it in the change, John I felt my spirit rise as I asked for now I had crossed X more so often as to hope that the people sometimes deserved it and think that it might be a lesson to the roaks who unjustly loved the mutton they were never born to but of course they were born to hanging when they set themselves so high it be norbody, said John but of course they were born to hanging when they set themselves so high it be norbody, said John for us to make a fuss about belong to the other side of the moor and come stealing our shape to our side read Jim Hannaford his name thank God for him to be hanged, lad and good zest to his soul for quaking so so the sound of the quiet swinging led us very modestly as it came and went on the wind loud and low pretty regularly even as far as the foot of the gibbet where the four crossways are vainest job this ear cried John looking up to be sure of it because there were so many here be my own nick on the post read Jim too and no doubt of him he do hang so handsome like and his ribs up like a horse almost God bless them as discovered the way to make a rogue so useful good night to thee, Jim mellad and not break their dreams of the quaking John Fry shook his bridal arm and smote upon smile and merrily as he dropped into the homeward track from the guiding of the body but I was sorry for read Jim and wanted to know more about him and whether he might not have avoided this miserable end and what his wife and children thought of it if indeed he had any but John would talk no more about it and perhaps he was moved with a lonesome feeling as the quaking sound came after us who'd thee tongue lad he said sharply us be nay the doon track now to mail from Dunkery Beacon Hill the highest point of Hexmore so happen they be abroad to nate us must crawl on our belly places boy I knew at once what he meant those bloody doons are bag worthy the awe of all Devon and Somerset outlaws, traitors, murderers my little legs began to tremble to and fro upon Peggy's sides as I heard the dead robber and chains behind us and thought of the live ones still in front but John I whispered warily sidling close to his saddle-bow dear John you don't think they will see us in such a fog as this never God made a fog as could stop their icing he whispered an answer fearfully hear us be by the olo ground Zobalad goes over now if thee wish to see thy mother for I was inclined in the manner of boys to make a run of the danger and cross the doon track at full speed to rush for it and be done with it but even then I wondered why he talked of my mother so and said not a word of father we will come to a long deep goyle as they call it on Exmoor a word whose fountain and origin I have nothing to do with only I know that when little boys laughed at me at Tiverton for talking about a goyle the big boy clouded them on the head and said that it was in Homer and meant the hollow of the hand and another time a Welchman told me that it must be something like the thing they call a pant in those parts still I know what it means well enough to wit, a long trough among wild hills falling towards the plain country rounded at the bottom perhaps and stiff, more than steep at the sides of it whether it be straight or crooked makes no difference to it we rode very carefully down our side and through the soft grasses at the bottom and all the while we listened as if the air was a speaking trumpet then gladly we breasted our nags to the rise and were coming to the comb of it when I heard something and caught John's arm and he bent his hand to the shape of his ear it was the sound of horses feet knocking up through splashy ground as if the bottom sucked them then a grunting of weary men and the lifting noise of stirrups and sometimes the clang of iron mixed with the weasy croning of leather and the blowing of hairy nostrils God's sake Jack, slip round her belly and let her go where she will as John Fry whispered so I did for he was off-smiler by this time but our two pads were too fag to go far and began to nose about and crop sniffing more than they need have done I crept to John's side very softly with a bridle on my arm let go, bradle, let go, lad please, God, they take them for porous ponies or they'll send a bullet through us I saw what he meant and let go of the bridle for now the mist was rolling off and I thought to myself for now the mist was rolling off and we were against the skyline to the dark cavalcade below us John lay on the ground by a barrow of heather where a little gallant was and I crept up to him, afraid of the noise I made in dragging my legs along and the creak of my cord breaches John bleated like a sheep to cover it a sheep very cold and trembling then just as the foremost horseman passed scarce twenty yards below us a puff of wind came up the glen and the fog rolled off before it and suddenly a strong red light cast by the cloud-weight downwards spread like fingers over the moorland opened the alleys of darkness and hung on the steel of the riders Dunkery beacon, whispered John so close into my ear that I felt his lips and teeth a shake didn't fire it now except to show the dunes way home again since the night as they went up and throwed the watchman atop it Why, what be about, lad? God's sake for I could keep still no longer but wriggled away from his arm and along the little gullet still going flat on my breast and thighs until I was under a grey patch of stone with a fringe of dry fern around it there I lay scarce twenty feet above the heads of the riders and I feared to draw my breath though prone to do it with wonder for now the beacon was rushing up in a fiery storm to heaven and the form of its flame came and went in the folds all around it was hung with red deep in twisted columns and then a great beard of fire streamed throughout the darkness the sullen hills were flanked with light and the valleys chimed with shadow and all the somberest moors between awoke and furrowed anger but most of all the flinging fire leaped into the rocky mouth of the glen below me where the horsemen's past in silence scarcely daining to look round heavy men and large of stature reckless how they bore their guns or how they saved their horses with leather and jerkins and long boots and iron plates on breast and head plunder heaped behind their saddles and flag and slung in front of them I counted more than thirty paths like clouds upon red sunset some had carcasses of sheep swinging with their skins on other had deer and one had a child flung across his saddle-bow whether the child were dead or alive or when I could tell only it hung head downwards there and must take the chance of it they had got the child, a very young one for the sake of the dress no doubt which they could not stop to pull off from it for the dress shone bright where the fire struck it as if with gold and jewels I longed in my heart to know most sadly what they would do with the little thing and whether they would eat it it touched me so to see that child a prayer among those vultures that in my foolish rage and burning I stood up and shouted to them leaping on a rock and raving out of all possession two of them turned round and one set his carbine at me but the other said it was but a pixie and bait him to keep his powder little they knew and less thought I that the pixie then before them would dance their castle down one day John Fry who in the spring of fight had brought himself down from Smiler's side as if he were dipped in oil that to me all risk being over cross and stiff and aching sorely from his wet couch of Heather small thank to thee Janet as my new wife Bain to Wither and who be you to support of her and her son if she have one Zav thee rightive why was to chuck thee down in the doon-track Zim thee'll come to an sooner or later if this be the sample of thee and that was all he had to say instead of thanking God for if ever born man was in a fright and ready to thank God for anything the name of that man was John Fry not more than five minutes ago however I answered nothing at all except to be ashamed of myself and soon we found Peggy in Smiler & Company well embarked on the Homewood Road and vituling where the grass was good right glad they were to see us again not for the pleasure of carrying but because a horse like a woman lacks and is better without self-reliance my father never came to meet us at either side of the Telling House neither at the Crooked Post nor even at the Home Linnae although the dogs kept such a noise that he must have heard us Home side of the Linnae and under the Ash & Hedge Row where father taught me to catch black birds and all at once my heart went down and all my breast was hollow there was not even a lantern light on the peg against the cow's house and nobody said hold your noise to the dogs the horse shouted hear our jackers I looked at the posts of the gate in the dark because they were tall like father and then at the door in the harness room where he used to smoke his pipe and sing then I thought he had guests perhaps people lost upon the moors whom he could not leave unkindly even for his son's sake and yet about that I was jealous and ready to be vexed with him when he should begin to make much of me a pipe which I had brought him from Tiverton and said to myself he shall not have it until tomorrow morning woe is me, I cannot tell how I knew I know not now only that I slunk away without a tear or thought of weeping and hid me in a saw-pit there the timber overhead come like streaks across me and all I wanted was to lack and none to tell me anything by and by a noise came down as of women's weeping and there my mother and sister were choking and holding together although they were my dearest loves I could not bear to look at them until they seemed to want my help and put their hands before their eyes End of Chapter 3 Recording by Shirley Anderson Recording by Michelle Harris Lorna Dune by R. D. Blackmore Chapter 4 A Very Rash Visit My dear father had been killed by the dunes of Bagworthy while riding home from Poorlock Market on the Saturday evening with him were six brother farmers all of them very sober for father would have no company with any man who went beyond half a gallon of beer or a single gallon of cider the robbers had no grudge against him for he had never flouted them neither made over much of outcry because they robbed other people for he was a man of such strict honesty and do perish feeling that he knew it to be every man's own business to defend himself and his goods unless he belonged to our parish and then we must look after him these seven good farmers were jogging along helping one another in the troubles of the road and singing goodly hymns and songs to keep their courage moving when suddenly a horseman stopped in the starlight full across them by dress and arms they knew him well and by his size and stature shown against the glimmer of the evening star and though he seemed one man to seven it was in truth one man to one of the six who had been singing songs and psalms about the power of their own regeneration such psalms as went the round in those days of the public houses there was not one but pulled out his money and sang small beer to a dune but father had been used to think that any man who was comfortable inside his own coat and waistcoat deserved to have no other set unless he would strike a blow for them and so while his gossips doft their hats and shook with what was left of them the staff above his head and rode at the dune robber with a trick of his horse the wild man escaped a sudden onset although it must have amazed him sadly that any durst resist him then when smiler was carried away with the dash and the weight of my father not being brought up to battle nor used to turn save in the plow harness the outlaw whistled upon his thumb and plundered the rest of the yeoman but father drawing at the smiler's head to try to come back and help them was in the midst of a dozen men who seemed to come out of a turf rick some on horse and some of foot nevertheless he smote lustily so far as he could see and being of great size and strength and his blood well up they had no easy job with him with the play of his wrist he cracked three or four crowns being always famous at single stick until the rest drew their horses away and he thought that he was master and would tell his wife about it but a man beyond the range of staff was crouching by the peat stack with a long gun set to his shoulder and he got poor father against the sky and I cannot tell the rest of it only they knew that smiler came home with blood upon his withers and father was found in the morning dead on the moor with his ivy twisted cudgel lying broken under him now whether this were an honest fight God judge betwixt the dunes in me it was more of woe than wonder being such days of violence that mother knew herself a widow and her children fatherless of children there were only three none of us fit to be useful yet only to comfort mother by making her to work for us I, John Redd, was the eldest and felt it a heavy thing on me next came sister Annie with about two years between us and then the little Eliza now before I got home and found my sad loss and no boy ever loved his father more than I loved mine mother had done a most wondrous thing which made all the neighbors say that she must be mad at least upon the Monday morning while her husband lay unburied she cast a white hood over her hair and gathered a black cloak round her and taking counsel of no one set off on foot for the dune gate in the early afternoon she came to the hollow and barren entrance where in truth there was no gate only darkness to go through if I get on with this story I shall have to tell of it by and by as I saw it afterwards and will not dwell there now enough that no gun was fired at her only her eyes were covered over and somebody led her by the hand without any wish to hurt her a very rough and headstrong road was all that she remembered for she could not think as she wished to do with the cold iron pushed against her at the end of this road they delivered her eyes and she could scarce believe them for she stood at the head of a deep green valley carved from out the mountains in a perfect oval with a fence of sheer rock standing round it a black wooded hill swept up to the skyline by her side a little river glided out from underneath with a soft dark babble unawares of daylight then growing brighter lapsed away and fell into the valley then as it ran down the meadow alders stood on either marge and grass was blading out upon it and yellow tufts of rushes gathered looking at the hurry but further down on either bank white houses built of stone square and roughly cornered set as if the brook were meant to be the street between them only one room high they were and not placed opposite each other but in and out as skittles are only that the first of all which proved to be the captains was a sort of double house or rather two houses joined together by a plank bridge over the river fourteen cots my mother counted all very much of a pattern and nothing to choose between them unless it were the captains deep in the quiet valley there away from noise and violence and brawl saved that of the rivulet any man would have deemed them homes of simple mind and innocence yet not a single house stood there but was the home of murder two men led my mother down a steep and glittery stairway like the ladder of a haymow and thence from the break of the falling water as far as the house of the captain and there at the door they left her trembling strong as she was to speak her mind now after all what right had she a common farmers widow to take it amiss that men of birth thought fit to kill her husband and the dunes were a very high birth as all we clods of ex more knew and we had enough of good teaching now let any man say the contrary to feel that all we had belonged of right to those above us therefore my mother was half ashamed that she could not help complaining but after a while as she said remembrance of her husband came and the way he used to stand by her side and put his strong arm round her and how he liked his bacon fried and praised her kindly for it and so the tears were in her eyes and nothing should gain say them a tall old man sir in sardoon came out with a bill hook in his hand hedger's gloves going up his arms as if he were no better than a laborer at ditch work only in his mouth and eyes his gate and most of all his voice even a child could know and feel that here was no ditch laborer good cause he has found since then perhaps to wish that he had been one with his white locks moving upon his coat he stopped and looked down at my mother and she could not help herself but curtsy under the fixed black gazing good woman you are none of us who has brought you hither young men must be young but I have had too much of this work and he scowled at my mother for her comeliness and yet looked under his eyelids as if he liked her for it but as for her in her depth of love grief it struck scorn upon her womanhood and in the flash she spoke what you mean I know not traitors cutthroats cowards I am here to ask for my husband she could not say anymore because her heart was now too much for her coming hard in her throat and mouth but she opened up her eyes at him madam said Sir Insurdoom being born a gentleman although a very bad one I crave pardon of you my eyes are old or I might have known now if we have your husband prisoner he shall go free without ransoms because I have insulted you Sir said my mother being suddenly taken away with sorrow because of his gracious manner pleased to let me cry a bit he stood away and seemed to know that women want no help for that and by the way she cried he knew that they had killed her husband then having felt of grief himself he was not angry with her but left her to begin again Loth would I be said mother sobbing with her new red handkerchief and looking at the pattern of it Loth indeed Sir Insurdoom to accuse anyone unfairly but I have lost the very best husband God ever gave to a woman and I knew him when he was to your belt and I not up to your knee sir and never an unkind word he spoke and speaking all the herbs he left to me and all the bacon curing and when it was best to kill a pig and how to treat the maidens not that I would ever wish oh John it seems so strange to me and last week you were everything here mother burst out crying again not loudly but turning quietly because she knew that no one now would ever care to wipe the tears and fifty or a hundred things of weekly and daily happening came across my mother so that her spirit fell like slackening lime this matter must be seen to it shall be seen to at once the old man answered moved a little in spite of all his knowledge madam if any wrong has been done trust the honor of a dune I will redress it to my utmost come inside and rest yourself while I ask about it what was your good husband's name and when and where fell this map deary me said mother as he said a chair for her very polite but she would not sit upon it Saturday morning I was a wife sir and Saturday night I was a widow and my children fatherless my husband's name was John Rids her as everybody knows and there was not a finer or better man in Somerset or Devin he was coming home from poorlock market and a new gown for me on the cropper oh John how good you were to me of that she began to think again and not to believe her sorrow except as a dream from the evil one because it was too bad upon her and perhaps she would awake in a minute and her husband would have the laugh of her and so she wiped her eyes and smiled and looked for something madam this is a serious thing sir in Sardun said graciously and showing grave concern my boys are a little wild they know and yet I cannot think that they would willingly harm anyone and yet and yet you do look wronged send counselor to me he shouted from the door of his house and down the valley went the call send counselor to captain counselor doon came in ere yet my mother was herself again and if any sight could astonish her when all her sense of right and wrong was gone astray with the force of things on the side of the counselor a square belt man of enormous strength but a foot below the doon stature which I shall describe hereafter he carried a long gray beard descending to the leather of his belt great eyebrows overhung his face like ivy on a pollard oak and under them two large brown eyes as of an owl when muting and he had a power of hiding his eyes or showing them bright like a blazing fire he stood there with his beaver off and mother tried to look at him but he seemed not to describe her counselor said sir insert doon standing back in his height from him here is a lady of good repute oh no sir only a woman allow me madam by your good leave here is a lady counselor of great repute in this part of the country who charges the doons with having unjustly slain her husband murdered him cried my mother if ever there was a murder oh sir oh sir you know it the perfect rights and truth of the case is all I wish to know said the old man very loftily and justice shall be done madam oh I pray you pray you sirs make no matter of business of it god from heaven look on me put the case said the counselor the case is this replied sir insert holding one hand up to mother this lady's worthy husband was slain it seems upon his return from the market at poorlock no longer ago than last Saturday night madam amend me if I am wrong no longer indeed indeed sir sometimes it seems a twelve month and sometimes it seems an hour cite his name said the counselor with his eyes still rolling inwards master john rid as I understand counselor we have heard of him often a worthy man and a peaceful one who meddled not with our duties now if any of our boys have been rough they shall answer it dearly and yet I can scarce believe it for the folk about these parts are apt to misconceive of our sufferings and to have no feeling for us counselor you are our record and very stern against us tell us how this matter was oh counselor my mother cried sir counselor you will be fair I see it in your countenance only tell me who it was and set me face to face with him and I will bless you sir and God shall bless you and my children the square man with the long gray beard quite unmoved by anything drew back to the door and spoke and his voice was like a fall of stones in the bottom of a mine few words will be a now for this four or five of our best behaved and most peaceful gentlemen went to the little market at poorlock with a lump of money they bought some household stores and comforts at a very high price and pricked upon the homeward road away from vulgar revelers when they drew bridle to rest their horses in the shelter of a peatrick the night being dark and sudden a robber of great size his strength rode into the midst of them thinking to kill or terrify his arrogance and hardy hood at the first amazed them but they would not give up without a blow goods which were on trust with them he had smitten three of them senseless for the power of his arm was terrible whereupon the last man tried to ward his blow with a pistol carver sir it was our brave and noble carver who saved the lives alone and glad and now they were to escape not withstanding we hoped it might be only a flesh wound and not to speed him in his sins as this atrocious tale of lies turned up joint by joint before her like a devil's coach horse mother was too much amazed to do any more than look at him as if the earth must open but the only thing that opened was the great brown eyes of the counselor which my mother's face with a do of sorrow as he spoke of sins author's note on devil's coach horse the cocktail beetle has earned this name in the west of england she unable to bear them turned suddenly on sir and soar and caught as she fancied a smile on his lips and a sense of quiet enjoyment all the dunes are gentlemen answered the old man gravely and looking as if he had never smiled since he was a baby we are always glad to explain madam any mistake which the rustic people may fall upon about us and we wish you clearly to conceive that we do not charge your poor husband with any set purpose of robbery neither will we bring suit for any attender of his property is it not so counselor without doubt his land is a tainted unless is you forbear sir counselor we will forbear madam we will forgive him like enough he knew not right from wrong at that time of night the waters are strong at poor lock and even an honest man may use his staff unjustly in this uncharted age of violence and rapping the dunes to talk of rapping mother's head went round so that she curtsy to them both scarcely knowing where she was the calling to mind her manners all the time she felt a warmth as if the right was with her and yet she could not see the way to spread it out before them with that she dried her tears in haste and went into the cold air for fear of speaking mischief but when she was on the homeward road and the sentinels had charge of her blinding her eyes as if she were not blind enough she then haste behind her and thrust a heavy leather bag into the limp weight of her hand captain send you this he whispered take it to the little ones but mother let it fall in a heap as if it had been a blind worm and then for the first time crouched before God that even the dunes should pity her end of chapter four recording by Michelle Harris chapter five by 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 five an illegal settlement good folk who dwell in a lawful land if any such there be may for want of exploration neighborhood harshly unless the whole truth is set before them in bar of such prejudice many of us ask leave to explain how and why it was the robbers came to that head in the midst of us we would rather not have had it so God knows as well as anybody but it grew upon us gently in the following manner only let all who read observe that here I enter many things which came to my knowledge in later years in or about the year of our lord sixteen forty when all the troubles of England were swelling to an outburst great estates in the north country were suddenly confiscated through some feud of families and strong influence at court and the owners were turned upon the world and might think themselves lucky to save their necks these estates were in co-airship joint tenancy I think they called it although I know not the meaning only so that if either tenant died the other living all would come to the live one in spite of any testament one of the joint owners was Sir Inser Dune a gentleman of brisk intellect and the other owner was his cousin the Earl of Lorne and Dijkmont Lord Lorne was some years the elder of his cousin Inser Dune and was making suit to gain severance with him joint tenancy by any fair apportionment when suddenly this blow fell on them by wiles and women's meddling and instead of dividing the land they were divided from it the nobleman was still well to do though crippled in his expenditure but as for the cousin he was left a beggar with many to beg from him he thought that the other had wronged him and that all the trouble of law befell through his unjust petition many friends advised him to make interest at court for having done no harm whatever and being a good Catholic which Lord Lorne was not he would be sure to find hearing there and probably some favor but he, like a very hot brained man although he had long been married to the daughter of his cousin whom he liked none the more for that would have nothing to say to any attempt at making a patch of it but drove away with his wife and sons money swearing hard at everybody in this way he may have been quite wrong probably perhaps he was so but I'm not convinced at all but what most of us would have done the same some say that in the bitterness of that wrong and outrage he slew a gentleman of the court whom he is supposed to have borne a hand in the plundering of his fortunes others say that he bearded King Charles I himself in a manner beyond forgiveness one thing at any rate is sure Sir Ensor was attainted and made a felon outlaw through some violent deed ensuing upon his dispossession he had searched in many quarters for somebody to help him and with good warrant for hoping it in as much as he in lucky days had been open handed and cousinly to all who begged advice of him but now all these provided him with plenty of good advice indeed and great assurance of feeling but not a movement of leg or lip or purse string in his favor all good people of either persuasion, royalty or commonality knowing his kitchen range to be cold no longer would play turn spit and this it may be seared his heart more than the loss of land and fame in great despair at last he resolved to settle in some outlandish part where none could be found to know him and so in an evil day for us he came to the west of England not that our part of the world is at all outlandish according to my view of it for I never found a better one but that it was known to be rugged and large and desolate and here when he had discovered a place which seemed almost to be made for him so withdrawn so self defended and uneasy of access some of the country folk around brought him little offerings a side of bacon, a keg of cider hung mutton or a brisket of venison so that for a while he was very honest but when the newness of his coming began to wear away and our good folk were apt to think that even a gentleman ought to work or pay other men for doing it and many farmers were grown weary of manners without discourse to them and all cried out to one another how unfair it was for owning such a fertile valley young men would not spade or plow by reason of noble lineage then the young dunes growing up took things they would not ask for and here let me as a solid man owner of five hundred acres whether fenced or otherwise and that is my own business church warden also of this parish until I go to the churchyard and proud to be called the parson's friend for a better man I never knew with tobacco and strong waters nor one who could read the lessons so well and he has been at blendels too once for all let me declare that I am a thoroughgoing church and state man and royalist without any mistake about it and this I lay down because some people judging a sausage by the skin may take in evil part my little glosses of style and glibness and the modeled nature of my remarks and cracks on the man on the frying pan I assure them that I am good inside and not a bit of rue in me only queer knots as of marjoram and a stupid manner of bursting there was not more than a dozen of them counting a few retainers who still held by sir sir insore but soon they grew and multiplied in a manner surprising to think of whether it was the venison which we call a strengthening vitual or whether it was the ex more mutton or the keen soft air of the morlands anyhow the dunes increased much faster than their honesty at first they had brought some ladies with them of good repute with charity and then as time went on they added to their stock by carrying they carried off many good farmers daughters who were sadly displeased at first but took to them kindly after a while and made a new home in their babies for women as it seems to me like strong men more than weak ones feeling that they need some staunchness something to hold fast by and of all the men in our country although we are of a thick set breed you scarce could find one in three score fit to be placed among the dunes without looking no more than a tailor like enough we could meet them man for man if we chose all around the crown in the skirts of ex more and show them what a cross but a means because we are so stuggy but in regard of stature calmliness and bearing no woman would look twice at us not but what I myself John rid and one or two I know of but it becomes me best not to talk of that although my hair is gray perhaps their den might well have been stormed and themselves driven out of the forest if honest people had only agreed to begin with them at once they took to plundering but having respect for their good birth and pity for their misfortunes and perhaps a little admiration at the justice of God that robbed men now were robbers the squires and farmers and shepherds at first did nothing more than grumble gently or even make a laugh of it each in the case of others after a while they found the matter gone too far for laughter as violence and deadly outrage of robbery until every woman clutched her child and every man turned pale at the very name of Dune for the sons and grandsons of Sir Ensor grew up in foul liberty and haughtiness and hatred to utter scorn of God and man and brutality towards dumb animals there was only one good thing about them if indeed it were good to wit their faith to one another and truth to their wild irony which only made them feared the more so certain was the revenge they reeked upon any who dared to strike a Dune one night some ten years ere I was born when they were sacking a rich man's house not very far from mine head a shot was fired at them in the dark of which they took little notice and only one of them knew that any harm was done but when they were well on the homeward road not having slain either man or woman or even burned a house down one of their number fell from his saddle and died without so much as a groan the youth had been struck but would not complain and perhaps took little heed of the wound while he was bleeding inwardly his brothers and cousins laid him softly on a bank of Wardleberries and just rode back to the lonely hamlet where he had taken his death wound no man nor woman was left in the morning nor house for any to dwell in only a child with its reason gone this vile deed was done beyond all doubt this affair made prudent people find more reason to let them alone and to meddle with them and now they had so entrenched themselves and waxed so strong in number that nothing less than a troop of soldiers could wisely enter their premises and even so it might turn out ill as perchance we shall see by and by for not to mention the strength of the place which I shall describe in its proper order when I come to visit it there was not one among them but was a mighty man straight and tall and wide and fit to lift four hundred weight if son or grandson of old doon or one of the northern retainers failed at the age of twenty while standing on his naked feet to touch with his forehead a lintel of sirenser's door and to fill the door frame with his shoulders from side post even to side post he was led away to the narrow pass which made their valley so desperate and thrust from the crown with ignominy to get his own living honestly now the measure of that doorway is or rather was I ought to say six feet and one inch lengthwise and two feet all but two inches taken in the ways in the clear yet I not only have heard but know being so closely mixed with them that no descendant of old sirenser, neither relative of his except indeed the counselor who was kept by them for his wisdom and no more than two of their following ever failed of that test and relapsed to the difficult ways of honesty not that I think anything great of a standard the like of that for if they had set me that door frame at the age of twenty it is like enough that I should have walked away with it on my shoulders though I was not come to my full strength then only I am speaking now of the average size of our neighborhood and the dunes were far beyond that moreover they were taught to shoot with a heavy carbine so delicately and wisely that even a boy could pass a ball through a rabbit's head at the distance of four score yards some people may think not of this being in practice with longer shots from the tongue than from the shoulder nevertheless to do as above is to my ignorance very good work if you can be sure to do it not one word do I believe of robin hood splitting peeled wands at seven score yards and such like whoever wrote such stories knew not how slippery a peeled wand is even if one could hit it and how it gives to the onset now let him stick one in the ground and take his bow and arrow at it ten yards away or even five now after all this which I have written and all the rest which a reader will see being quicker of mind than I am who leave more than half behind me like a man sewing wheat with his dinner laid in the ditch to near his dog it is much but what you will understand the dunes far better than I did or do even to this moment therefore none will doubt when I tell them that our good justiciaries feared to make an adieu or hold any public inquiry about my dear father's death they would all have had to ride home that night and who could say what might be tied them least said soonest mended because less chance of breaking so we buried him quietly all except my mother indeed for she could not keep silence in the sloping little church yard of ore as meek a place as need be with the lin brook down below it there is not much of company there for anybody's tombstone because the parish spreads so far in woods and moors without dwelling house if we bury one man in three years or even a woman or child we talk about it for three months and say it must be our turn next and scarcely grow accustomed to it until another goes Annie was not allowed to come because she cried so terribly but she ran to the window and saw it all, moving there like a little calf so frightened and so left alone as for Eliza she came with me one on each side of mother and not a tear was in her eyes but sudden starts of wonder and a new thing to be looked at unwillingly yet curiously poor little thing she was very clever and not a family thank God for the same but none the more for that guest she what it is to lose a father end of chapter 5 recording by Michelle Harris chapter 6 of Lorna Doon this is a LibriVox recording all LibriVox recordings are in the public domain for more information or to volunteer please visit LibriVox.org recording by Michelle Harris Lorna Doon by R.D. Blackmore Chapter 6 Necessary Practice About the rest of all that winter I remember very little, being only a young boy then, and missing my father most out of doors, as when it came to the bird-catching or the tracking of hairs in the snow or the training of a sheep-dog. Oftentimes I looked at his gun, an ancient piece found in the sea, a little below Glenthorne, of which he was mighty proud, although it was only a matchlock, and I thought of the times I had held the fuse, while he got his aim at a rabbit, and once even at a red deer rubbing among the hazels. But nothing came of my looking at it, so far as I remember, save foolish tears of my own perhaps, till John Fry took it down one day from the hooks where father's hand had laid it, and it hurt me to see how John handled it, as if he had no memory. What a job for he, as her had not got this eat, that Nate, as her kuma, crass them dunes. Rackenvarmer Jan Udoshonam the way to kingdom come, stead of gooin' her zeal zoezy, and I might have been gooin' to market now, stead of layin' banked up over Janor. Maester Jan, thee can see the grave, if thee look a-laying this here goon burial. By now what be blubberin' at, wish I had never told thee? John Fry, I am not blubbering. You make a great mistake, John, you are thinking of little Annie. I cough sometimes in the winter weather, and father gives me licorice. I mean he used to. Now let me have the gun, John. Thee have the goon, Jan, thee isn't fit to putt unto thy shoulder. What a weight her be for sure. Me not hold it, John, that shows how much you know about it. Get out of the way, John. You are opposite the mouth of it, and likely it is loaded. John Fry jumped in a livelier manner than when he was doing day work, and I rested the mouth on a cross-rack piece, and felt a warm sort of surety that I could hit the door over opposite, or at least the cobwall alongside of it, and do no harm in the orchard. But John would not give me link or fuse, and on the whole I was glad of it, though carrying on as boys do, because I had heard my father say that the Spanish gun kicked like a horse, and because the load in it came from his hand and I did not like to undo it. But I never found it kick very hard, and firmly set to the shoulder unless it was badly loaded. In truth the thickness of the metal was enough almost to astonish one, and what our people said about it may have been true enough, although most of them are such liars, at least I mean they make mistakes, as all mankind must do. Perchance it was no mistake at all to say that this ancient gun had belonged to a noble Spaniard, the captain of a fine large ship in the invincible Armada, which we of England managed to conquer, with God and the weather helping us a hundred years ago or more, I can't say, to a month or so. After a little while, when John had fired away at a rat the charge I held so sacred, it came to me as a natural thing to practice shooting with that great gun, instead of John Fry's blunder-bus, which looked like a bell with a stalk to it. Perhaps for a boy there is nothing better than a good windmill to shoot at, as I have seen them in flat countries, but we have no windmills upon the great moorland, yet here and there a few barn doors, where shelter is, and away up the hollows, and up those hollows you can shoot with the help of the sides to lead your aim, and there is a fair chance of hitting the door, if you lay your cheek to the barrel and try not to be afraid of it. Gradually I won such skill that I sent nearly all the lead gutter from the north porch of our little church through our best barn door, a thing which has often repented me since, especially as churchwarden, and made me pardon many bad boys, but father was not buried on that side of the church. But all this time, while I was roving over the hills, or about the farm, and even listening to John Fry, my mother, being so much older and feeling trouble longer, went about inside the house, or among the maids and fowls, not caring to talk to the best of them, except when she broke out sometimes about the good master they had lost, all in every one of us. But the fowls would take no notice of it, except a clock for Barley, and the maidens, though they had liked him well, were thinking of their sweethearts as the spring came on. Mother thought it wrong of them, selfish and ungrateful, and yet sometimes she was proud that none had such call as herself to grieve for him. Only Annie seemed to go softly in and out, and cry, with nobody along of her, chiefly in the corner where the bees are in the grindstone. But somehow she would never let anybody behold her, being set, as you may say, to think it over by herself, and season it with weeping. Many times I caught her, and many times she turned upon me, and then I could not look at her, but asked how long to dinnertime. Now in the depths of the winter months, such as we call December, father being dead and quiet in his grave a fortnight, it happened me to be out of powder for practice against his enemies. I had never fired a shot, without thinking, this for father's murderer. And John Frye said that I made such faces it was a wonder the gun went off, but though I could hardly hold the gun, unless with my back against a bar, it did me good to hear it go off, and hope to have hidden his enemies. Oh, mother, mother, I said that day, directly after dinner, while she was sitting looking at me, and almost ready to say, as now she did seven times in a week, how like your father you are growing, Jack, come here and kiss me. Oh, mother, if you only knew how much I want a shilling. Jack, you shall never want a shilling, while I am alive to give thee one, but what is it for, dear heart? To buy something over at Porlock, mother, perhaps I will tell you afterwards, if I tell not, it will be for your good and for the sake of the children. Perhaps the boy, one would think he was three score years of age at least, give me a little kiss, you, Jack, and you shall have the shilling. For I hated to kiss or be kissed in those days, and so all honest boys must do when God puts any strength in them, but now I wanted the powder so much that I went and kissed mother very shyly, looking round the corner first, forbidding not to see me. But mother gave me half a dozen, and only one shilling for all of them, and I could not find it in my heart to ask her for another, although I would have taken it. In very quick time I ran away with the shilling in my pocket, and got Peggy out on the Porlock Road without my mother knowing it. For mother was frightened of that road now, as if all the trees were murderers, and would never let me go alone so much as a hundred yards on it. And to tell the truth, I was touched with fear for many years about it. And even now, when I ride at dark there, a man by a Pete-Rick makes me shiver until I go and collar him. But this time I was very bold, having John Fry's blunderbuss, and keeping a sharp look out wherever any lurking place was. However, I saw only sheep and small red cattle and the commandeer of the forest until I was nigh to Porlock Town, and then rode straight to Mr. Pooks at the sign of the spit and gridiron. Mr. Pook was asleep, as it happened, not having much to do that day, and so I fastened Peggy by the handle of a warming pan, at which she had no better manners than to snort and blow her breath, and in I walked with a manful style bearing John Fry's blunderbuss. Now Timothy Pook was a peaceful man, glad to live without any enjoyment of mind at danger, and I was tall and large already, as most lads of a riper age. Mr. Pook, as soon as he opened his eyes, dropped suddenly under the counting board, and drew a great frying pan over his head, as if the dunes were come to rob him, as their custom was, mostly after the fair time. It made me feel rather hot and queer to be taken for a robber, and yet me thinks I was proud of it. Had Zook's master, Pook, said I, having learned fine words at Tiverton, do you suppose that I know not then the way to carry firearms? And it were the old Spanish matchlock in the lieu of this good flint engine, which may be born ten miles or more and never once go off, scarcely couldest thou seem more scared. I might point at the muzzle on, just so as I do now, even for an hour or more, and like enough it would never shoot thee, unless I pull the trigger hard, with a crock upon my finger, so you see, just so, Master Pook, only a trifle harder. God's sake, John Rid, God's sake, dear boy, cried Pook, knowing me by this time, don't ye, for good love now, don't ye show it to me, boy, as if I was to suck it, put them down for good now, and these shall have the very best of all is in the shop. Ho! I replied, with much contempt, and swinging round the gun, so that it fetched his hoop of candles down, all unkindled as they were. Ho! As if I had not attained to the handling of a gun yet. My hands are cold coming over the moors. Else would I go bail to point them out at you for an hour, sir, and no cause for uneasiness. But in spite of all assurances he showed himself desirous only to see the last of my gun and me. I dare say, villainous Salt Peter, as the great playwright calls it, was never so cheap before nor since. For my shilling Master Pook afforded me two great packages, over-large to go into my pockets, as well as a mighty chunk of lead, which I bound upon Peggy's withers. And as if all this had not been enough, he presented me with a roll of comforts for my sister Annie, whose gentle face and pretty manners won the love of everybody. There was still some daylight here and there as I rose the hill above Porlock, wondering whether my mother would be in a fright or would not know it. The two great packages of powder, slung behind my back, knocked so hard against one another that I feared they must either spill or blow up, and hurry me over Peggy's ears from the woolen cloth I rode upon. For father always liked a horse to have some wool upon his loins whenever he went far from home, and had to stand about where one pleased, hot and wet and painting. And father always said that saddles were meant for men full-grown and heavy and losing their activity, and no boy or young man on our farm durst ever get into a saddle, because they all knew that the Master would chuck them out pretty quickly. As for me, I had tried it once from a kind of curiosity, and I could not walk for two or three days the leather galled my knees so. But now, as Peggy bore me bravely, snorting every now and then into a cloud of air, for the night was growing frosty, presently the moon arose over the shoulder of a hill, and the pony and I were half glad to sear, and half afraid of the shadows she threw and the images all around us. I was ready at any moment to shoot at anybody, having great faith in my blunderbuss, but hoping not to prove it. And as I passed the narrow place where the dunes had killed my father, such a fear broke out upon me that I leaned upon the neck of Peggy, and shut my eyes and was cold all over. However, there was not a soul to be seen until we came home to the old farmyard, and there was my mother crying sadly and Betty Muxworthy scolding. "'Come along now,' I whispered to Annie the moment supper was over, and if you can hold your tongue, Annie, I will show you something.' She lifted herself on the bench so quickly and flushed so rich with pleasure that I was obliged to stare hard away and make Betty look beyond us. Betty thought I had something hid in the closet beyond the clock case, and she was the more convinced of it by reason of my denial. Not that Betty Muxworthy, or anyone else for that matter, ever found me in a falsehood, because I never told one, not even to my mother, or, which is still a stronger thing, not even to my sweetheart when I grew up to have one, but that Betty, being wronged in the matter of marriage a generation or two had gone, by a man who came hedging and ditching, had now no mercy, except to believe that men from cradle to grave are liars, and women fools to look at them. When Betty could find no crime of mine, she knocked me out of the way in a minute, as if I had been nobody, and then she began to coax Mistress Annie, as she always called her, and draw the soft hair down her hands and whisper into the little ears. Meanwhile, dear mother was falling asleep, having been troubled so much about me, and watch my father's pet dog was nodding closer and closer up into her lap. Now, Annie, will you come? I said, for I wanted her to hold the ladle for melting of the lead. Will you come at once, Annie, or must I go for Lizzie, and let her see the whole of it? Indeed, then, you won't do that, said Annie, Lizzie, to come before me, John, and she can't stir a pot of bruis, and scarce knows a tongue from a ham, John, and says it makes no difference because both are good to eat. Oh, Betty, what do you think of that, to come of all her book learning? Thank God he can't say that of me, Betty answered shortly, for she never cared about argument, except on her own side. Thank he, I says, every mornin' a most, never to lead me astray so. Men is desaven, and so is Galanies, but the most desaven of all is books, with their heads and tails, and the speckets in them, like a pig as have taken the mazes. Some folk pretend to laugh and cry over them. God forgive them for liars. It was part of Betty's obstinacy that she never would believe in reading or the possibility of it, but stoutly maintain to the very last that people first learned things by heart, and then pretended to make them out from patterns done upon paper, for the sake of astonishing, honest folk just as do the conjurers. And even to see the parson and clerk was not enough to convince her, all she said was, it made no odds, they were all the same as the rest of us. And now that she had been on the farm nigh upon forty years, and had nursed my father, and made his clothes, and all that he had to eat, and then put him in his coffin, she was come to such authority that it was not worth the wages of the best man on the place to say a word in answer to Betty, even if he would face the risk to have ten for one, or twenty. Annie was her love and joy. For Annie she would do anything, even so far as to try to smile when the little maid laughed and danced to her. And in truth I know not how it was, but everyone was taken with Annie at the very first time of seeing her. She had such pretty ways and manners, and such a look of kindness, and a sweet soft light in her long blue eyes full of trustful gladness. Everybody who looked at her seemed to grow the better for it, because she knew no evil, and then the turn she had for cooking you never would have expected it, and how it was her richest mirth to see that she had pleased you. I have been out on the world a vast deal as you will own hereafter, and yet have I never seen Annie's equal for making a weary man comfortable.