Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER XLIX

  MAIDEN SENTINELS ARE BEST

  It was not likely that the outlaws would attack out premises until sometime after the moon was risen; because it would be too dangerous tocross the flooded valleys in the darkness of the night. And but for thisconsideration, I must have striven harder against the stealthyapproach of slumber. But even so, it was very foolish to abandon watch,especially in such as I, who sleep like any dormouse. Moreover, I hadchosen the very worst place in the world for such employment, with agoodly chance of awakening in a bed of solid fire.

  And so it might have been, nay, it must have been, but for Lorna'svigilance. Her light hand upon my arm awoke me, not too readily; andleaping up, I seized my club, and prepared to knock down somebody.

  'Who's that?' I cried; 'stand back, I say, and let me have fair chanceat you.'

  'Are you going to knock me down, dear John?' replied the voice I lovedso well; 'I am sure I should never get up again, after one blow fromyou, John.'

  'My darling, is it you?' I cried; 'and breaking all your orders? Comeback into the house at once: and nothing on your head, dear!'

  'How could I sleep, while at any moment you might be killed beneath mywindow? And now is the time of real danger; for men can see to travel.'

  I saw at once the truth of this. The moon was high and clearly lightingall the watered valleys. To sleep any longer might be death, not only tomyself, but all.

  'The man on guard at the back of the house is fast asleep,' shecontinued; 'Gwenny, who let me out, and came with me, has heard himsnoring for two hours. I think the women ought to be the watch, becausethey have had no travelling. Where do you suppose little Gwenny is?'

  'Surely not gone to Glen Doone?' I was not sure, however: for I couldbelieve almost anything of the Cornish maiden's hardihood.

  'No,' replied Lorna, 'although she wanted even to do that. But of courseI would not hear of it, on account of the swollen waters. But she isperched on yonder tree, which commands the Barrow valley. She says thatthey are almost sure to cross the streamlet there; and now it is so wideand large, that she can trace it in the moonlight, half a mile beyondher. If they cross, she is sure to see them, and in good time to let usknow.'

  'What a shame,' I cried, 'that the men should sleep, and the maidensbe the soldiers! I will sit in that tree myself, and send little Gwennyback to you. Go to bed, my best and dearest; I will take good care notto sleep again.'

  'Please not to send me away, dear John,' she answered very mournfully;'you and I have been together through perils worse than this. I shallonly be more timid, and more miserable, indoors.'

  'I cannot let you stay here,' I said; 'it is altogether impossible. Doyou suppose that I can fight, with you among the bullets, Lorna? If thisis the way you mean to take it, we had better go both to the apple-room,and lock ourselves in, and hide under the tiles, and let them burn allthe rest of the premises.'

  At this idea Lorna laughed, as I could see by the moonlight; and thenshe said,--

  'You are right, John. I should only do more harm than good: and of allthings I hate fighting most, and disobedience next to it. Therefore Iwill go indoors, although I cannot go to bed. But promise me one thing,dearest John. You will keep yourself out of the way, now won't you, asmuch as you can, for my sake?'

  'Of that you may be quite certain, Lorna. I will shoot them all throughthe hay-ricks.'

  'That is right, dear,' she answered, never doubting but what I could doit; 'and then they cannot see you, you know. But don't think of climbingthat tree, John; it is a great deal too dangerous. It is all very wellfor Gwenny; she has no bones to break.'

  'None worth breaking, you mean, I suppose. Very well; I will not climbthe tree, for I should defeat my own purpose, I fear; being such aconspicuous object. Now go indoors, darling, without more words. Themore you linger, the more I shall keep you.'

  She laughed her own bright laugh at this, and only said, 'God keep you,love!' and then away she tripped across the yard, with the step I lovedto watch so. And thereupon I shouldered arms, and resolved to tramp tillmorning. For I was vexed at my own neglect, and that Lorna should haveto right it.

  But before I had been long on duty, making the round of the ricks andstables, and hailing Gwenny now and then from the bottom of her tree,a short wide figure stole towards me, in and out the shadows, and I sawthat it was no other than the little maid herself, and that she boresome tidings.

  'Ten on 'em crossed the watter down yonner,' said Gwenny, putting herhand to her mouth, and seeming to regard it as good news rather thanotherwise: 'be arl craping up by hedgerow now. I could shutt dree on 'emfrom the bar of the gate, if so be I had your goon, young man.'

  'There is no time to lose, Gwenny. Run to the house and fetch MasterStickles, and all the men; while I stay here, and watch the rick-yard.'

  Perhaps I was wrong in heeding the ricks at such a time as that;especially as only the clover was of much importance. But it seemedto me like a sort of triumph that they should be even able to boast ofhaving fired our mow-yard. Therefore I stood in a nick of the clover,whence we had cut some trusses, with my club in hand, and gun close by.

  The robbers rode into our yard as coolly as if they had been invited,having lifted the gate from the hinges first on account of its beingfastened. Then they actually opened our stable-doors, and turned ourhonest horses out, and put their own rogues in the place of them. Atthis my breath was quite taken away; for we think so much of our horses.By this time I could see our troopers, waiting in the shadow of thehouse, round the corner from where the Doones were, and expecting theorder to fire. But Jeremy Stickles very wisely kept them in readiness,until the enemy should advance upon them.

  'Two of you lazy fellows go,' it was the deep voice of Carver Doone,'and make us a light, to cut their throats by. Only one thing, onceagain. If any man touches Lorna, I will stab him where he stands. Shebelongs to me. There are two other young damsels here, whom you may takeaway if you please. And the mother, I hear, is still comely. Now for ourrights. We have borne too long the insolence of these yokels. Kill everyman, and every child, and burn the cursed place down.'

  As he spoke thus blasphemously, I set my gun against his breast; andby the light buckled from his belt, I saw the little 'sight' of brassgleaming alike upon either side, and the sleek round barrel glimmering.The aim was sure as death itself. If I only drew the trigger (whichwent very lighily) Carver Doone would breathe no more. And yet--will youbelieve me?--I could not pull the trigger. Would to God that I had doneso!

  For I never had taken human life, neither done bodily harm to man;beyond the little bruises, and the trifling aches and pains, whichfollow a good and honest bout in the wrestling ring. Therefore Idropped my carbine, and grasped again my club, which seemed a morestraight-forward implement.

  Presently two young men came towards me, bearing brands of resined hemp,kindled from Carver's lamp. The foremost of them set his torch to therick within a yard of me, and smoke concealing me from him. I struckhim with a back-handed blow on the elbow, as he bent it; and I heard thebone of his arm break, as clearly as ever I heard a twig snap. With aroar of pain he fell on the ground, and his torch dropped there, andsinged him. The other man stood amazed at this, not having yet gainedsight of me; till I caught his firebrand from his hand, and struck itinto his countenance. With that he leaped at me; but I caught him, in amanner learned from early wrestling, and snapped his collar-bone, as Ilaid him upon the top of his comrade.

  This little success so encouraged me, that I was half inclined toadvance, and challenge Carver Doone to meet me; but I bore in mind thathe would be apt to shoot me without ceremony; and what is the utmost ofhuman strength against the power of powder? Moreover, I remembered mypromise to sweet Lorna; and who would be left to defend her, if therogues got rid of me?

  While I was hesitating thus (for I always continue to hesitate, exceptin actual conflict), a blaze of fire lit up the house, and brown smokehung around it. Six of our men had let go at the Doones, by
JeremyStickles' order, as the villains came swaggering down in the moonlightready for rape or murder. Two of them fell, and the rest hung back, tothink at their leisure what this was. They were not used to this sort ofthing: it was neither just nor courteous.

  Being unable any longer to contain myself, as I thought of Lorna'sexcitement at all this noise of firing, I came across the yard,expecting whether they would shoot at me. However, no one shot at me;and I went up to Carver Doone, whom I knew by his size in the moonlight,and I took him by the beard, and said, 'Do you call yourself a man?'

  For a moment he was so astonished that he could not answer. None hadever dared, I suppose, to look at him in that way; and he saw that hehad met his equal, or perhaps his master. And then he tried a pistol atme, but I was too quick for him.

  'Now, Carver Doone, take warning,' I said to him, very soberly; 'youhave shown yourself a fool by your contempt of me. I may not be yourmatch in craft; but I am in manhood. You are a despicable villain. Lielow in your native muck.'

  And with that word, I laid him flat upon his back in our straw-yard, bya trick of the inner heel, which he could not have resisted (though hisstrength had been twice as great as mine), unless he were a wrestler.Seeing him down the others ran, though one of them made a shot at me,and some of them got their horses, before our men came up; and some wentaway without them. And among these last was Captain Carver who arose,while I was feeling myself (for I had a little wound), and strode awaywith a train of curses enough to poison the light of the moon.

  We gained six very good horses, by this attempted rapine, as well astwo young prisoners, whom I had smitten by the clover-rick. And twodead Doones were left behind, whom (as we buried them in the churchyard,without any service over them), I for my part was most thankful thatI had not killed. For to have the life of a fellow-man laid upon one'sconscience--deserved he his death, or deserved it not--is to my sense ofright and wrong the heaviest of all burdens; and the one that wears mostdeeply inwards, with the dwelling of the mind on this view and on thatof it.

  I was inclined to pursue the enemy and try to capture more of them; butJeremy Stickles would not allow it, for he said that all the advantagewould be upon their side, if we went hurrying after them, with only themoon to guide us. And who could tell but what there might be anotherband of them, ready to fall upon the house, and burn it, and seize thewomen, if we left them unprotected? When he put the case thus, I wasglad enough to abide by his decision. And one thing was quite certain,that the Doones had never before received so rude a shock, and soviolent a blow to their supremacy, since first they had built up theirpower, and become the Lords of Exmoor. I knew that Carver Doone wouldgnash those mighty teeth of his, and curse the men around him, forthe blunder (which was in truth his own) of over-confidence andcarelessness. And at the same time, all the rest would feel that such athing had never happened, while old Sir Ensor was alive; and that it wascaused by nothing short of gross mismanagement.

  I scarcely know who made the greatest fuss about my little wound,mother, or Annie, or Lorna. I was heartily ashamed to be so treated likea milksop; but most unluckily it had been impossible to hide it. For theball had cut along my temple, just above the eyebrow; and being fired sonear at hand, the powder too had scarred me. Therefore it seemed a greatdeal worse than it really was; and the sponging, and the plastering,and the sobbing, and the moaning, made me quite ashamed to look MasterStickles in the face.

  However, at last I persuaded them that I had no intention of giving upthe ghost that night; and then they all fell to, and thanked God with anemphasis quite unknown in church. And hereupon Master Stickles said, inhis free and easy manner (for no one courted his observation), that Iwas the luckiest of all mortals in having a mother, and a sister, anda sweetheart, to make much of me. For his part, he said, he was just aswell off in not having any to care for him. For now he might go and getshot, or stabbed, or knocked on the head, at his pleasure, without anyone being offended. I made bold, upon this, to ask him what was becomeof his wife; for I had heard him speak of having one. He said that heneither knew nor cared; and perhaps I should be like him some day.That Lorna should hear such sentiments was very grievous to me. But shelooked at me with a smile, which proved her contempt for all suchideas; and lest anything still more unfit might be said, I dismissed thequestion.

  But Master Stickles told me afterwards, when there was no one with us,to have no faith in any woman, whatever she might seem to be. For heassured me that now he possessed very large experience, for so smalla matter; being thoroughly acquainted with women of every class, fromladies of the highest blood, to Bonarobas, and peasants' wives: and thatthey all might be divided into three heads and no more; that is tosay as follows. First, the very hot and passionate, who were onlycontemptible; second, the cold and indifferent, who were simply odious;and third, the mixture of the other two, who had the bad qualities ofboth. As for reason, none of them had it; it was like a sealed book tothem, which if they ever tried to open, they began at the back of thecover.

  Now I did not like to hear such things; and to me they appeared to beinsolent, as well as narrow-minded. For if you came to that, why mightnot men, as well as women, be divided into the same three classes,and be pronounced upon by women, as beings even more devoid than theirgentle judges of reason? Moreover, I knew, both from my own sense, andfrom the greatest of all great poets, that there are, and always havebeen, plenty of women, good, and gentle, warm-hearted, loving, andlovable; very keen, moreover, at seeing the right, be it by reason, orotherwise. And upon the whole, I prefer them much to the people of myown sex, as goodness of heart is more important than to show good reasonfor having it. And so I said to Jeremy,--

  'You have been ill-treated, perhaps, Master Stickles, by some woman orother?'

  'Ah, that have I,' he replied with an oath; 'and the last on earth whoshould serve me so, the woman who was my wife. A woman whom I neverstruck, never wronged in any way, never even let her know that I likeanother better. And yet when I was at Berwick last, with the regimenton guard there against those vile moss-troopers, what does that womando but fly in the face of all authority, and of my especial business, byrunning away herself with the biggest of all moss-troopers? Not that Icared a groat about her; and I wish the fool well rid of her: but theinsolence of the thing was such that everybody laughed at me; and backI went to London, losing a far better and safer job than this; and allthrough her. Come, let's have another onion.'

  Master Stickles's view of the matter was so entirely unromantic, that Iscarcely wondered at Mistress Stickles for having run away from him toan adventurous moss-trooper. For nine women out of ten must have somekind of romance or other, to make their lives endurable; and when theirlove has lost this attractive element, this soft dew-fog (if suchit be), the love itself is apt to languish; unless its bloom be wellreplaced by the budding hopes of children. Now Master Stickles neitherhad, nor wished to have, any children.

  Without waiting for any warrant, only saying something about 'captus inflagrante delicto,'--if that be the way to spell it--Stickles sent ourprisoners off, bound and looking miserable, to the jail at Taunton. Iwas desirous to let them go free, if they would promise amendment; butalthough I had taken them, and surely therefore had every right to letthem go again, Master Stickles said, 'Not so.' He assured me that it wasa matter of public polity; and of course, not knowing what he meant,I could not contradict him; but thought that surely my private rightsought to be respected. For if I throw a man in wrestling, I expect toget his stakes; and if I take a man prisoner--why, he ought, in commonjustice, to belong to me, and I have a good right to let him go, if Ithink proper to do so. However, Master Stickles said that I was quitebenighted, and knew nothing of the Constitution which was the verything I knew, beyond any man in our parish!

  Nevertheless, it was not for me to contradict a commissioner; andtherefore I let my prisoners go, and wished them a happy deliverance.Stickles replied, with a merry grin, that if ever they got it, it wouldbe a jail deliverance,
and the bliss of dancing; and he laid his hand tohis throat in a manner which seemed to me most uncourteous. However, hisforesight proved too correct; for both those poor fellows were executed,soon after the next assizes. Lorna had done her very best to earnanother chance for them; even going down on her knees to that commonJeremy, and pleading with great tears for them. However, although muchmoved by her, he vowed that he durst do nothing else. To set them freewas more than his own life was worth; for all the country knew, by thistime, that two captive Doones were roped to the cider-press at Plover'sBarrows. Annie bound the broken arm of the one whom I had knocked downwith the club, and I myself supported it; and then she washed andrubbed with lard the face of the other poor fellow, which the torch hadinjured; and I fetched back his collar-bone to the best of my ability.For before any surgeon could arrive, they were off with a well-armedescort. That day we were reinforced so strongly from the stations alongthe coast, even as far as Minehead, that we not only feared no furtherattack, but even talked of assaulting Glen Doone, without waitingfor the train-bands. However, I thought that it would be mean to takeadvantage of the enemy in the thick of the floods and confusion andseveral of the others thought so too, and did not like fighting inwater. Therefore it was resolved to wait and keep a watch upon thevalley, and let the floods go down again.