MAIDEN SENTINELS ARE BEST
[Illustration: 432.jpg Illustrated Capital]
It was not likely that the outlaws would attack out premises until some
time after the moon was risen; because it would be too dangerous to
cross the flooded valleys in the darkness of the night. And but for this
consideration, I must have striven harder against the stealthy
approach of slumber. But even so, it was very foolish to abandon watch,
especially in such as I, who sleep like any dormouse. Moreover, I had
chosen the very worst place in the world for such employment, with a
goodly chance of awakening in a bed of solid fire.
And so it might have been, nay, it must have been, but for Lorna's
vigilance. Her light hand upon my arm awoke me, not too readily; and
leaping 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 chance
at you.”
“Are you going to knock me down, dear John?” replied the voice I loved
so well; “I am sure I should never get up again, after one blow from
you, John.”
“My darling, is it you?” I cried; “and breaking all your orders? Come
back into the house at once: and nothing on your head, dear!”
“How could I sleep, while at any moment you might be killed beneath my
window? 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 lighting
all the watered valleys. To sleep any longer might be death, not only to
myself, but all.
[Illustration: 433.jpg The moon was high]
“The man on guard at the back of the house is fast asleep,” she
continued; “Gwenny, who let me out, and came with me, has heard him
snoring for two hours. I think the women ought to be the watch, because
they have had no travelling. Where do you suppose little Gwenny is?”
“Surely not gone to Glen Doone?” I was not sure, however: for I could
believe almost anything of the Cornish maiden's hardihood.
“No,” replied Lorna, “although she wanted even to do that. But of course
I would not hear of it, on account of the swollen waters. But she is
perched on yonder tree, which commands the Barrow valley. She says that
they are almost sure to cross the streamlet there; and now it is so wide
and large, that she can trace it in the moonlight, half a mile beyond
her. If they cross, she is sure to see them, and in good time to let us
know.”
“What a shame,” I cried, “that the men should sleep, and the maidens
be the soldiers! I will sit in that tree myself, and send little Gwenny
back to you. Go to bed, my best and dearest; I will take good care not
to 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 shall
only be more timid, and more miserable, indoors.”
“I cannot let you stay here,” I said; “it is altogether impossible. Do
you suppose that I can fight, with you among the bullets, Lorna? If this
is 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 all
the rest of the premises.”
At this idea Lorna laughed, as I could see by the moonlight; and then
she said,--
“You are right, John. I should only do more harm than good: and of all
things I hate fighting most, and disobedience next to it. Therefore I
will 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, as
much as you can, for my sake?”
“Of that you may be quite certain, Lorna. I will shoot them all through
the hay-ricks.”
“That is right, dear,” she answered, never doubting but what I could do
it; “and then they cannot see you, you know. But don't think of climbing
that tree, John; it is a great deal too dangerous. It is all very well
for Gwenny; she has no bones to break.”
“None worth breaking, you mean, I suppose. Very well; I will not climb
the tree, for I should defeat my own purpose, I fear; being such a
conspicuous object. Now go indoors, darling, without more words. The
more 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 loved
to watch so. And thereupon I shouldered arms, and resolved to tramp till
morning. For I was vexed at my own neglect, and that Lorna should have
to right it.
But before I had been long on duty, making the round of the ricks and
stables, 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 saw
that it was no other than the little maid herself, and that she bore
some tidings.
“Ten on 'em crossed the watter down yonner,” said Gwenny, putting her
hand to her mouth, and seeming to regard it as good news rather than
otherwise: “be arl craping up by hedgerow now. I could shutt dree on 'em
from 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 Master
Stickles, 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 seemed
to me like a sort of triumph that they should be even able to boast of
having 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 being
fastened. Then they actually opened our stable-doors, and turned our
honest horses out, and put their own rogues in the place of them. At
this 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 the
house, round the corner from where the Doones were, and expecting the
order 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, once
again. If any man touches Lorna, I will stab him where he stands. She
belongs to me. There are two other young damsels here, whom you may take
away if you please. And the mother, I hear, is still comely. Now for our
rights. We have borne too long the insolence of these yokels. Kill every
man, and every child, and burn the cursed place down.”
As he spoke thus blasphemously, I set my gun against his breast; and
by the light buckled from his belt, I saw the little “sight” of brass
gleaming alike upon either side, and the sleek round barrel glimmering.
The aim was sure as death itself. If I only drew the trigger (which
went very lightly) Carver Doone would breathe no more. And yet--will you
believe me?--I could not pull the trigger. Would to God that I had done
so!
For I never had taken human life, neither done bodily harm to man;
beyond the little bruises, and the trifling aches and pains, which
follow a good and honest bout in the wrestling ring. Therefore I
dropped my carbine, and grasped again my club, which seemed a more
straight-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 the
rick within a yard of me, and smoke concealing me from him. I struck
him with a back-handed blow on the elbow, as he bent it; and I heard the
bone of his arm break, as clearly as ever I heard a twig snap. With a
roar of pain he fell on the ground, and his torch dropped there, and
singed him. The other man stood amazed at this, not having yet gained
sight of me; till I caught his firebrand from his hand, and struck it
into his countenance. With that he leaped at me; but I caught him, in a
manner learned from early wrestling, and snapped his collar-bone, as I
laid him upon the top of his comrade.
This little success so encouraged me, that I was half inclined to
advance, and challenge Carver Doone to meet me; but I bore in mind that
he would be apt to shoot me without ceremony; and what is the utmost of
human strength against the power of powder? Moreover, I remembered my
promise to sweet Lorna; and who would be left to defend her, if the
rogues got rid of me?
While I was hesitating thus (for I always continue to hesitate, except
in actual conflict), a blaze of fire lit up the house, and brown smoke
hung around it. Six of our men had let go at the Doones, by Jeremy
Stickles' order, as the villains came swaggering down in the moonlight
ready for rape or murder. Two of them fell, and the rest hung back, to
think at their leisure what this was. They were not used to this sort of
thing: it was neither just nor courteous.
Being unable any longer to contain myself, as I thought of Lorna's
excitement 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?”
[Illustration: 437.jpg I took him by the beard]
For a moment he was so astonished that he could not answer. None had
ever dared, I suppose, to look at him in that way; and he saw that he
had met his equal, or perhaps his master. And then he tried a pistol at
me, but I was too quick for him.
“Now, Carver Doone, take warning,” I said to him, very soberly; “you
have shown yourself a fool by your contempt of me. I may not be your
match in craft; but I am in manhood. You are a despicable villain. Lie
low in your native muck.”
And with that word, I laid him flat upon his back in our straw-yard, by
a trick of the inner heel, which he could not have resisted (though his
strength 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 went
away without them. And among these last was Captain Carver who arose,
while I was feeling myself (for I had a little wound), and strode away
with a train of curses enough to poison the light of the moon.
We gained six very good horses, by this attempted rapine, as well as
two young prisoners, whom I had smitten by the clover-rick. And two
dead Doones were left behind, whom (as we buried them in the churchyard,
without any service over them), I for my part was most thankful that
I had not killed. For to have the life of a fellow-man laid upon one's
conscience--deserved he his death, or deserved it not--is to my sense of
right and wrong the heaviest of all burdens; and the one that wears most
deeply inwards, with the dwelling of the mind on this view and on that
of it.
I was inclined to pursue the enemy and try to capture more of them; but
Jeremy Stickles would not allow it, for he said that all the advantage
would be upon their side, if we went hurrying after them, with only the
moon to guide us. And who could tell but what there might be another
band of them, ready to fall upon the house, and burn it, and seize the
women, if we left them unprotected? When he put the case thus, I was
glad enough to abide by his decision. And one thing was quite certain,
that the Doones had never before received so rude a shock, and so
violent a blow to their supremacy, since first they had built up their
power, and become the Lords of Exmoor. I knew that Carver Doone would
gnash those mighty teeth of his, and curse the men around him, for
the blunder (which was in truth his own) of over-confidence and
carelessness. And at the same time, all the rest would feel that such a
thing had never happened, while old Sir Ensor was alive; and that it was
caused 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 like
a milksop; but most unluckily it had been impossible to hide it. For the
ball had cut along my temple, just above the eyebrow; and being fired so
near at hand, the powder too had scarred me. Therefore it seemed a great
deal worse than it really was; and the sponging, and the plastering,
and the sobbing, and the moaning, made me quite ashamed to look Master
Stickles in the face.
However, at last I persuaded them that I had no intention of giving up
the ghost that night; and then they all fell to, and thanked God with an
emphasis quite unknown in church. And hereupon Master Stickles said, in
his free and easy manner (for no one courted his observation), that I
was the luckiest of all mortals in having a mother, and a sister, and
a sweetheart, to make much of me. For his part, he said, he was just as
well off in not having any to care for him. For now he might go and get
shot, or stabbed, or knocked on the head, at his pleasure, without any
one being offended. I made bold, upon this, to ask him what was become
of his wife; for I had heard him speak of having one. He said that he
neither knew nor cared; and perhaps I should be like him some day.
That Lorna should hear such sentiments was very grievous to me. But she
looked at me with a smile, which proved her contempt for all such
ideas; and lest anything still more unfit might be said, I dismissed the
question.
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 he
assured me that now he possessed very large experience, for so small
a matter; being thoroughly acquainted with women of every class, from
ladies of the highest blood, to Bonarobas, and peasants' wives: and that
they all might be divided into three heads and no more; that is to
say as follows. First, the very hot and passionate, who were only
contemptible; second, the cold and indifferent, who were simply odious;
and third, the mixture of the other two, who had the bad qualities of
both. As for reason, none of them had it; it was like a sealed book to
them, which if they ever tried to open, they began at the back of the
cover.
Now I did not like to hear such things; and to me they appeared to be
insolent, as well as narrow-minded. For if you came to that, why might
not men, as well as women, be divided into the same three classes,
and be pronounced upon by women, as beings even more devoid than their
gentle judges of reason? Moreover, I knew, both from my own sense, and
from the greatest of all great poets, that there are, and always have
been, plenty of women, good, and gentle, warm-hearted, loving, and
lovable; very keen, moreover, at seeing the right, be it by reason, or
otherwise. And upon the whole, I prefer them much to the people of my
own sex, as goodness of heart is more important than to show good reason
for having it. And so I said to Jeremy,--
“You have been ill-treated, perhaps, Master Stickles, by some woman or
other?”
“Ah, that have I,” he replied with an oath; “and the last on earth who
should serve me so, the woman who was my wife. A woman whom I never
struck, never wronged in any way, never even let her know that I like
another better. And yet when I was at Berwick last, with the regiment
on guard there against those vile moss-troopers, what does that woman
do but fly in the face of all authority, and of my especial business, by
running away herself with the biggest of all moss-troopers? Not that I
cared a groat about her; and I wish the fool well rid of her: but the
insolence of the thing was such that everybody laughed at me; and back
I went to London, losing a far better and safer job than this; and all
through her. Come, let's have another onion.”
Master Stickles's view of the matter was so entirely unromantic, that I
scarcely wondered at Mistress Stickles for having run away from him to
an adventurous moss-trooper. For nine women out of ten must have some
kind of romance or other, to make their lives endurable; and when their
love has lost this attractive element, this soft dew-fog (if such
it be), the love itself is apt to languish; unless its bloom be well
replaced by the budding hopes of children. Now Master Stickles neither
had, nor wished to have, any children.
Without waiting for any warrant, only saying something about “captus in
flagrante delicto,”--if that be the way to spell it--Stickles sent our
prisoners off, bound and looking miserable, to the jail at Taunton. I
was desirous to let them go free, if they would promise amendment; but
although I had taken them, and surely therefore had every right to let
them go again, Master Stickles said, “Not so.” He assured me that it was
a matter of public polity; and of course, not knowing what he meant,
I could not contradict him; but thought that surely my private rights
ought to be respected. For if I throw a man in wrestling, I expect to
get his stakes; and if I take a man prisoner--why, he ought, in common
justice, to belong to me, and I have a good right to let him go, if I
think proper to do so. However, Master Stickles said that I was quite
benighted, and knew nothing of the Constitution; which was the very
thing I knew, beyond any man in our parish!
[Illustration: 440.jpg Annie bound the broken arm]
Nevertheless, it was not for me to contradict a commissioner; and
therefore I let my prisoners go, and wished them a happy deliverance.
Stickles replied, with a merry grin, that if ever they got it, it would
be a jail deliverance, and the bliss of dancing; and he laid his hand to
his throat in a manner which seemed to me most uncourteous. However, his
foresight proved too correct; for both those poor fellows were executed,
soon after the next assizes. Lorna had done her very best to earn
another chance for them; even going down on her knees to that common
Jeremy, and pleading with great tears for them. However, although much
moved by her, he vowed that he durst do nothing else. To set them free
was more than his own life was worth; for all the country knew, by this
time, that two captive Doones were roped to the cider-press at Plover's
Barrows. Annie bound the broken arm of the one whom I had knocked down
with the club, and I myself supported it; and then she washed and
rubbed with lard the face of the other poor fellow, which the torch had
injured; 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-armed
escort. That day we were reinforced so strongly from the stations along
the coast, even as far as Minehead, that we not only feared no further
attack, but even talked of assaulting Glen Doone, without waiting
for the train-bands. However, I thought that it would be mean to take
advantage of the enemy in the thick of the floods and confusion; and
several of the others thought so too, and did not like fighting in
water. Therefore it was resolved to wait and keep a watch upon the
valley, and let the floods go down again.
[Illustration: 441.jpg Tailpiece]