TALES FROM
THE TELLING-HOUSE
[Illustration:
TALES FROM THE
TELLING-HOUSE
BY
R. D. BLACKMORE
AUTHOR OF “LORNA DOONE,” ETC.
1. SLAIN BY THE DOONES
2. FRIDA; OR, THE LOVER’S LEAP
3. GEORGE BOWRING
4. CROCKER’S HOLE
LONDON
SAMPSON LOW, MARSTON & COMPANY
LIMITED
St. Dunstan’s House
1896
]
PREFACE.
Sometimes of a night, when the spirit of a dream flits away for a waltz
with the shadow of a pen, over dreary moors and dark waters, I behold
an old man, with a keen profile, under a parson’s shovel hat, riding
a tall chestnut horse up the western slope of Exmoor, followed by his
little grandson upon a shaggy and stuggy pony.
In the hazy folds of lower hills, some four or five miles behind them,
may be seen the ancient Parsonage, where the lawn is a russet sponge of
moss, and a stream tinkles under the dining-room floor, and the pious
rook, poised on the pulpit of his nest, reads a hoarse sermon to the
chimney-pots below. There is the home not of rooks alone, and parson,
and dogs that are scouring the moor; but also of the patches of hurry
we can see, and the bevies of bleating haste, converging by force of
men and dogs towards the final _rendezvous_, the autumnal muster of the
clans of wool.
For now the shrill piping of the northwest wind, and the browning
of furze and heather, and a scollop of snow upon Oare-oak Hill,
announce that the roving of soft green height, and the browsing of
sunny hollow, must be changed for the durance of hurdled quads, and
the monotonous munch of turnips. The joy of a scurry from the shadow
of a cloud, the glory of a rally with a hundred heads in line, the
pleasure of polishing a coign of rock, the bliss of beholding flat
nose, brown eyes, and fringy forehead, approaching round a corner for
a sheepish talk, these and every other jollity of freedom--what is
now become of them? Gone! Like a midsummer dream, or the vision of a
blue sky, pastured--to match the green hill--with white forms floating
peacefully; a sky, where no dog can be, much less a man, only the
fleeces of the gentle flock of heaven. Lackadaisy, and well-a-day! How
many of you will be woolly ghosts like them, before you are two months
older!
My grandfather knows what fine mutton is, though his grandson indites
of it by memory alone. “Ha, ha!” shouts the happier age, amid the
bleating turmoil, the yelping of dogs, and the sprawling of shepherds;
“John Fry, put your eye on that wether, the one with his J. B. upside
down, we’ll have a cut out of him on Sunday week, please God. Why, you
stupid fellow, you don’t even know a B yet! That is Farmer Passmore’s
mark you have got hold of. Two stomachs to a B; will you never
understand? Just look at what you’re doing! Here come James Bowden’s
and he has got a lot of ours! _Shep_ is getting stupid, and deaf as a
post. _Watch_ is worth ten of him. Good dog, good dog! You won’t let
your master be cheated. How many of ours, John Fry? Quick now! You can
tell, if you can’t read; and I can read quicker than I can tell.”
“Dree score, and vower Maister; ‘cardin’ to my rackonin’. Dree score
and zax it waz as us toorned out, zeventh of June, God knows it waz.
Wan us killed, long of harvest-taime; and wan tummled into bog-hole,
across yanner to Mole’s Chimmers.”
“But,” says the little chap on the shaggy pony, “John Fry, where are
the four that ought to have R. D. B. on them? You promised me, on the
blade of your knife, before I went to school again, that my two lambs
should have their children marked the same as they were.”
John turns redder than his own sheep’s-redding. He knows that he has
been caught out in a thumping lie, and although that happens to him
almost every day, his conscience has a pure complexion still. “’Twaz
along of the rains as wasshed ’un out.” In vain has he scratched his
head for a finer lie.
“Grandfather, you know that I had two lambs, and you let me put
R. D. B. on them with both my hands, after the shearing-time last year,
and I got six shillings for their wool the next time, and I gave it to
a boy who thrashed a boy that bullied me. And Aunt Mary Anne wrote to
tell me at school that my two lambs had increased two each, all of them
sheep; and there was sure to be a lot of money soon for me. And so I
went and promised it right and left, and how can I go back to school,
and be called a liar? You call this the _Telling-house_, because
people come here to tell their own sheep from their neighbours’, when
they fetch them home again. But I should say it was because they tell
such stories here. And if that is the reason, I know who can tell the
biggest ones.”
With the pride of a conscious author, he blushes, that rogue of a John
Fry blushes, wherever he has shaved within the last three weeks of his
false life.
“Never mind, my boy; story-telling never answers in the end,” says my
Grandfather--oh how could he thus foresee my fate? “Be sure you always
speak the truth.”
That advice have I followed always. And if I lost my four sheep then,
through the plagiarism of that bad fellow, by hook or crook I have
fetched four more out of the wilderness of the past; and I only wish
they were better mutton, for the pleasure of old friends who like a
simple English joint.
R.D.B.
_Old Christmas Day, 1896_
CONTENTS.
PAGE
SLAIN BY THE DOONES:
I. AFTER A STORMY LIFE, 1
II. BY A QUIET RIVER, 12
III. WISE COUNSEL, 22
IV. A COTTAGE HOSPITAL, 33
V. MISTAKEN AIMS, 43
VI. OVER THE BRIDGE, 55
FRIDA; OR, THE LOVER’S LEAP, 69
GEORGE BOWRING, 135
CROCKER’S HOLE, 203
SLAIN BY THE DOONES.
CHAPTER I.
AFTER A STORMY LIFE.
To hear people talking about North Devon, and the savage part called
Exmoor, you might almost think that there never was any place in the
world so beautiful, or any living men so wonderful. It is not my
intention to make little of them, for they would be the last to permit
it; neither do I feel ill will against them for the pangs they allowed
me to suffer; for I dare say they could not help themselves, being
so slow-blooded, and hard to stir even by their own egrimonies. But
when I look back upon the things that happened, and were for a full
generation of mankind accepted as the will of God, I say, that the
people who endured them must have been born to be ruled by the devil.
And in thinking thus I am not alone; for the very best judges of that
day stopped short of that end of the world, because the law would not
go any further. Nevertheless, every word is true of what I am going
to tell, and the stoutest writer of history cannot make less of it by
denial.
My father was Sylvester Ford of Quantock, in the county of Somerset,
a gentleman of large estate as well as ancient lineage. Also of high
courage and resolution not to be beaten, as he proved in his many
rides with Prince Rupert, and woe that I should say it! in his most
sad death. To this he was not looking forward much, though turned of
threescore years and five; and his only child and loving daughter,
Sylvia, which is myself, had never dreamed of losing him. For he
was exceeding fond of me, little as I deserved it, except by loving
him with all my heart and thinking nobody like him. And he without
anything to go upon, except that he was my father, held, as I have
often heard, as good an opinion of me.
Upon the triumph of that hard fanatic, the Brewer, who came to a
timely end by the justice of high Heaven--my father, being disgusted
with England as well as banished from her, and despoiled of all his
property, took service on the Continent, and wandered there for many
years, until the replacement of the throne. Thereupon he expected, as
many others did, to get his estates restored to him, and perhaps to be
held in high esteem at court, as he had a right to be. But this did
not so come to pass. Excellent words were granted him, and promise of
tenfold restitution; on the faith of which he returned to Paris, and
married a young Italian lady of good birth and high qualities, but with
nothing more to come to her. Then, to his great disappointment, he
found himself left to live upon air--which, however distinguished, is
not sufficient--and love, which, being fed so easily, expects all who
lodge with it to live upon itself.
My father was full of strong loyalty; and the king (in his value of
that sentiment) showed faith that it would support him. His majesty
took both my father’s hands, having learned that hearty style in
France, and welcomed him with most gracious warmth, and promised him
more than he could desire. But time went on, and the bright words
faded, like a rose set bravely in a noble vase, without any nurture
under it.
Another man had been long established in our hereditaments by the
Commonwealth; and he would not quit them of his own accord, having a
sense of obligation to himself. Nevertheless, he went so far as to
offer my father a share of the land, if some honest lawyers, whom he
quoted, could find proper means for arranging it. But my father said:
“If I cannot have my rights, I will have my wrongs. No mixture of the
two for me.” And so, for the last few years of his life, being now
very poor and a widower, he took refuge in an outlandish place, a house
and small property in the heart of Exmoor, which had come to the Fords
on the spindle side, and had been overlooked when their patrimony was
confiscated by the Brewer. Of him I would speak with no contempt,
because he was ever as good as his word.
In the course of time, we had grown used to live according to our
fortunes. And I verily believe that we were quite content, and
repined but little at our lost importance. For my father was a very
simple-minded man, who had seen so much of uproarious life, and the
falsehood of friends, and small glitter of great folk, that he was glad
to fall back upon his own good will. Moreover he had his books, and me;
and as he always spoke out his thoughts, he seldom grudged to thank the
Lord for having left both of these to him. I felt a little jealous of
his books now and then, as a very poor scholar might be; but reason is
the proper guide for women, and we are quick enough in discerning it,
without having to borrow it from books.
At any rate now we were living in a wood, and trees were the only
creatures near us, to the best of our belief and wish. Few might say
in what part of the wood we lived, unless they saw the smoke ascending
from our single chimney; so thick were the trees, and the land they
stood on so full of sudden rise and fall. But a little river called the
Lynn makes a crooked border to it, and being for its size as noisy a
water as any in the world perhaps, can be heard all through the trees
and leaves to the very top of the Warren Wood. In the summer all this
was sweet and pleasant; but lonely and dreary and shuddersome, when the
twigs bore drops instead of leaves, and the ground would not stand to
the foot, and the play of light and shadow fell, like the lopping of a
tree, into one great lump.
Now there was a young man about this time, and not so very distant from
our place--as distances are counted there--who managed to make himself
acquainted with us, although we lived so privately. To me it was a
marvel, both why and how he did it; seeing what little we had to offer,
and how much we desired to live alone. But Mrs. Pring told me to look
in the glass, if I wanted to know the reason; and while I was blushing
with anger at that, being only just turned eighteen years, and thinking
of nobody but my father, she asked if I had never heard the famous
rhymes made by the wise woman at Tarr-steps:
“Three fair maids live upon Exymoor,
The rocks, and the woods, and the dairy-door.
The son of a baron shall woo all three,
But barren of them all shall the young man be.”
Of the countless things I could never understand, one of the very
strangest was how Deborah Pring, our only domestic, living in the
lonely depths of this great wood, and seeming to see nobody but
ourselves, in spite of all that contrived to know as much of the doings
of the neighbourhood as if she went to market twice a week. But my
father cared little for any such stuff; coming from a better part of
the world, and having been mixed with mighty issues and making of great
kingdoms, he never said what he thought of these little combings of
petty pie crust, because it was not worth his while. And yet he seemed
to take a kindly liking to the young De Wichehalse; not as a youth
of birth only, but as one driven astray perhaps by harsh and austere
influence. For his father, the baron, was a godly man,--which is much
to the credit of anyone, growing rarer and rarer, as it does,--and
there should be no rasp against such men, if they would only bear in
mind that in their time they had been young, and were not quite so
perfect then. But lo! I am writing as if I knew a great deal more than
I could know until the harrow passed over me.
No one, however, need be surprised at the favour this young man
obtained with all who came into his converse. Handsome, and beautiful
as he was, so that bold maids longed to kiss him, it was the sadness
in his eyes, and the gentle sense of doom therein, together with a
laughing scorn of it, that made him come home to our nature, in a way
that it feels but cannot talk of. And he seemed to be of the past
somehow, although so young and bright and brave; of the time when
greater things were done, and men would die for women. That he should
woo three maids in vain, to me was a stupid old woman’s tale.
“Sylvia,” my father said to me, when I was not even thinking of
him, “no more converse must we hold with that son of the Baron de
Wichehalse. I have ordered Pring to keep the door; and Mistress Pring,
who hath the stronger tongue, to come up if he attempted to dispute;
the while I go away to catch our supper.”
He was bearing a fishing rod made by himself, and a basket strapped
over his shoulders.
“But why, father? Why should such a change be? How hath the young
gentleman displeased thee?” I put my face into his beard as I spoke,
that I might not appear too curious.
“Is it so?” he answered, “then high time is it. No more shall he enter
this”--_house_ he would have said, but being so truthful changed it
into--“hut. I was pleased with the youth. He is gentle and kind; but
weak--my dear child, remember that. Why are we in this hut, my dear?
and thou, the heiress of the best land in the world, now picking up
sticks in the wilderness? Because the man who should do us right is
weak, and wavering, and careth but for pleasure. So is this young
Marwood de Wichehalse. He rideth with the Doones. I knew it not, but
now that I know, it is enough.”
My father was of tall stature and fine presence, and his beard shone
like a cascade of silver. It was not the manner of the young as yet
to argue with their elders, and though I might have been a little
fluttered by the comely gallant’s lofty talk and gaze of daring
melancholy, I said good-bye to him in my heart, as I kissed my noble
father. Shall I ever cease to thank the Lord that I proved myself a
good daughter then?
CHAPTER II.
BY A QUIET RIVER.
Living as we did all by ourselves, and five or six miles away from
the Robbers’ Valley, we had felt little fear of the Doones hitherto,
because we had nothing for them to steal except a few books, the sight
of which would only make them swear and ride away. But now that I
was full-grown, and beginning to be accounted comely, my father was
sometimes uneasy in his mind, as he told Deborah, and she told me; for
the outlaws showed interest in such matters, even to the extent of
carrying off young women who had won reputation thus. Therefore he left
Thomas Pring at home, with the doors well-barred, and two duck guns
loaded, and ordered me not to quit the house until he should return
with a creel of trout for supper. Only our little boy Dick Hutchings
was to go with him, to help when his fly caught in the bushes.
My father set off in the highest spirits, as anglers always seem to
do, to balance the state in which they shall return; and I knew not,
neither did anyone else, what a bold stroke he was resolved upon. When
it was too late, we found out that, hearing so much of that strange
race, he desired to know more about them, scorning the idea that men
of birth could ever behave like savages, and forgetting that they had
received no chance of being tamed, as rough spirits are by the lessons
of the battlefield. No gentleman would ever dream of attacking an
unarmed man, he thought; least of all one whose hair was white. And so
he resolved to fish the brook which ran away from their stronghold,
believing that he might see some of them, and hoping for a peaceful
interview.
We waited and waited for his pleasant face, and long, deliberate step
upon the steep, and cheerful shout for his Sylvia, to come and ease
down his basket, and say--“Well done, father!” But the shadows of the
trees grew darker, and the song of the gray-bird died out among them,
and the silent wings of the owl swept by, and all the mysterious sounds
of night in the depth of forest loneliness, and the glimmer of a star
through the leaves here and there, to tell us that there still was
light in heaven--but of an earthly father not a sign; only pain, and
long sighs, and deep sinking of the heart.
But why should I dwell upon this? All women, being of a gentle and
loving kind,--unless they forego their nature,--know better than I at
this first trial knew, the misery often sent to us. I could not believe
it, and went about in a dreary haze of wonder, getting into dark
places, when all was dark, and expecting to be called out again and
asked what had made such a fool of me. And so the long night went at
last, and no comfort came in the morning. But I heard a great crying,
sometime the next day, and ran back from the wood to learn what it
meant, for there I had been searching up and down, not knowing whither
I went or why. And lo, it was little Dick Hutchings at our door, and
Deborah Pring held him by the coat-flap, and was beating him with one
of my father’s sticks.
“I tell ’ee, they Doo-uns has done for ’un,” the boy was roaring
betwixt his sobs; “dree on ’em, dree on ’em, and he’ve a killed one.
The squire be layin’ as dead as a sto-un.”
Mrs. Pring smacked him on the mouth, for she saw that I had heard it.
What followed I know not, for down I fell, and the sense of life went
from me.
There was little chance of finding Thomas Pring, or any other man to
help us, for neighbours were none, and Thomas was gone everywhere he
could think of to look for them. Was I likely to wait for night again,
and then talk for hours about it? I recovered my strength when the sun
went low; and who was Deborah Pring, to stop me? She would have come,
but I would not have it; and the strength of my grief took command of
her.
Little Dick Hutchings whistled now, I remember that he whistled, as he
went through the wood in front of me. Who had given him the breeches on
his legs and the hat upon his shallow pate? And the poor little coward
had skiddered away, and slept in a furze rick, till famine drove him
home. But now he was set up again by gorging for an hour, and chattered
as if he had done a great thing.
There must have been miles of rough walking through woods, and tangles,
and craggy and black boggy hollows, until we arrived at a wide open
space where two streams ran into one another.
“Thic be Oare watter,” said the boy, “and t’other over yonner be
Badgery. Squire be dead up there; plaise, Miss Sillie, ’ee can goo
vorrard and vaind ’un.”
He would go no further; but I crossed the brook, and followed the
Badgery stream, without knowing, or caring to know, where I was. The
banks, and the bushes, and the rushing water went by me until I came
upon--but though the Lord hath made us to endure such things, he hath
not compelled us to enlarge upon them.
In the course of the night kind people came, under the guidance of
Thomas Pring, and they made a pair of wattles such as farmers use for
sheep, and carried home father and daughter, one sobbing and groaning
with a broken heart, and the other that should never so much as sigh
again. Troubles have fallen upon me since, as the will of the Lord is
always; but none that I ever felt like that, and for months everything
was the same to me.
But inasmuch as it has been said by those who should know better,
that my father in some way provoked his merciless end by those vile
barbarians, I will put into plainest form, without any other change,
except from outlandish words, the tale received from Dick Hutchings,
the boy, who had seen and heard almost everything while crouching in
the water and huddled up inside a bush.
“Squire had catched a tidy few, and he seemed well pleased with
himself, and then we came to a sort of a hollow place where one brook
floweth into the other. Here he was a-casting of his fly, most careful,
for if there was ever a trout on the feed, it was like to be a big one,
and lucky for me I was keeping round the corner when a kingfisher bird
flew along like a string-bolt, and there were three great men coming
round a fuzz-bush, and looking at squire, and he back to them. Down
goes I, you may say sure enough, with all of me in the water but my
face, and that stuck into a wutts-clump, and my teeth making holes in
my naked knees, because of the way they were shaking.
“‘Ho, fellow!’ one of them called out to squire, as if he was no better
than father is, ‘who give thee leave to fish in our river?’
“‘Open moor,’ says squire, ‘and belongeth to the king, if it belongeth
to anybody. Any of you gentlemen hold his majesty’s warrant to forbid
an old officer of his?’
“That seemed to put them in a dreadful rage, for to talk of a warrant
was unpleasant to them.
“‘Good fellow, thou mayest spin spider’s webs, or jib up and down like
a gnat,’ said one, ‘but such tricks are not lawful upon land of ours.
Therefore render up thy spoil.’
“Squire walked up from the pebbles at that, and he stood before the
three of them, as tall as any of them. And he said, ‘You be young men,
but I am old. Nevertheless, I will not be robbed by three, or by thirty
of you. If you be cowards enough, come on.’
“Two of them held off, and I heard them say, ‘Let him alone, he is a
brave old cock.’ For you never seed anyone look more braver, and his
heart was up with righteousness. But the other, who seemed to be the
oldest of the three, shouted out something, and put his leg across, and
made at the squire with a long blue thing that shone in the sun, like
a looking-glass. And the squire, instead of turning round to run away
as he should have, led at him with the thick end of the fishing rod, to
which he had bound an old knife of Mother Pring’s for to stick it in
the grass, while he put his flies on. And I heard the old knife strike
the man in his breast, and down he goes dead as a door-nail. And before
I could look again almost, another man ran a long blade into squire,
and there he was lying as straight as a lath, with the end of his white
beard as red as a rose. At that I was so scared that I couldn’t look no
more, and the water came bubbling into my mouth, and I thought I was at
home along of mother.
“By and by, I came back to myself with my face full of scratches in
a bush, and the sun was going low, and the place all as quiet as
Cheriton church. But the noise of the water told me where I was; and I
got up, and ran for the life of me, till I came to the goyal. And then
I got into a fuzz-rick, and slept all night, for I durstn’t go home to
tell Mother Pring. But I just took a look before I began to run, and
the Doone that was killed was gone away, but the squire lay along with
his arms stretched out, as quiet as a sheep before they hang him up to
drain.”
CHAPTER III.
WISE COUNSEL.
Some pious people seem not to care how many of their dearest hearts
the Lord in heaven takes from them. How well I remember that in later
life, I met a beautiful young widow, who had loved her husband with
her one love, and was left with twin babies by him. I feared to speak,
for I had known him well, and thought her the tenderest of the tender,
and my eyes were full of tears for her. But she looked at me with some
surprise, and said: “You loved my Bob, I know,” for he was a cousin of
my own, and as good a man as ever lived, “but, Sylvia, you must not
commit the sin of grieving for him.”
It may be so, in a better world, if people are allowed to die there;
but as long as we are here, how can we help being as the Lord has made
us? The sin, as it seems to me, would be to feel or fancy ourselves
case-hardened against the will of our Maker, which so often is--that
we should grieve. Without a thought how that might be, I did the
natural thing, and cried about the death of my dear father until I was
like to follow him. But a strange thing happened in a month or so of
time, which according to Deborah saved my life, by compelling other
thoughts to come. My father had been buried in a small churchyard, with
nobody living near it, and the church itself was falling down, through
scarcity of money on the moor. The Warren, as our wood was called, lay
somewhere in the parish of Brendon, a straggling country, with a little
village somewhere, and a blacksmith’s shop and an ale house, but no
church that anyone knew of, till you came to a place called Cheriton.
And there was a little church all by itself, not easy to find, though
it had four bells, which nobody dared to ring, for fear of his head
and the burden above it. But a boy would go up the first Sunday of each
month, and strike the liveliest of them with a poker from the smithy.
And then a brave parson, who feared nothing but his duty, would make
his way in, with a small flock at his heels, and read the Psalms of the
day, and preach concerning the difficulty of doing better. And it was
accounted to the credit of the Doones that they never came near him,
for he had no money.
The Fords had been excellent Catholics always; but Thomas and Deborah
Pring, who managed everything while I was overcome, said that the
church, being now so old, must have belonged to us, and therefor might
be considered holy. The parson also said that it would do, for he was
not a man of hot persuasions. And so my dear father lay there, without
a stone, or a word to tell who he was, and the grass began to grow.
Here I was sitting one afternoon in May, and the earth was beginning to
look lively; when a shadow from the west fell over me, and a large,
broad man stood behind it. If I had been at all like myself, a thing of
that kind would have frightened me; but now the strings of my system
seemed to have nothing like a jerk in them, for I cared not whither I
went, nor how I looked, nor whether I went anywhere.
“Child! poor child!” It was a deep, soft voice of distant yet large
benevolence. “Almost a woman, and a comely one, for those who think of
such matters. Such a child I might have owned, if Heaven had been kind
to me.”
Low as I was of heart and spirit, I could not help looking up at him;
for Mother Pring’s voice, though her meaning was so good, sounded
like a cackle in comparison to this. But when I looked up, such
encouragement came from a great benign and steadfast gaze that I turned
away my eyes, as I felt them overflow. But he said not a word, for his
pity was too deep, and I thanked him in my heart for that.
“Pardon me if I am wrong,” I said, with my eyes on the white flowers
I had brought and arranged as my father would have liked them; “but
perhaps you are the clergyman of this old church.” For I had lain
senseless and moaning on the ground when my father was carried away to
be buried.
“How often am I taken for a clerk in holy orders! And in better times I
might have been of that sacred vocation, though so unworthy. But I am a
member of the older church, and to me all this is heresy.”
There was nothing of bigotry in our race, and we knew that we must put
up with all changes for the worst; yet it pleased me not a little that
so good a man should be also a sound Catholic.
“There are few of us left, and we are persecuted. Sad calumnies are
spread about us,” this venerable man proceeded, while I gazed on the
silver locks that fell upon his well-worn velvet coat. “But of such
things we take small heed, while we know that the Lord is with us.
Haply even you, young maiden, have listened to slander about us.”
I told him with some concern, although not caring much for such things
now, that I never had any chance of listening to tales about anybody,
and was yet without the honour of even knowing who he was.
“Few indeed care for that point now,” he answered, with a toss of his
glistening curls, and a lift of his broad white eyebrows. “Though there
has been a time when the noblest of this earth--but vanity, vanity, the
wise man saith. Yet some good I do in my quiet little way. There is a
peaceful company among these hills, respected by all who conceive them
aright. My child, perhaps you have heard of them?”
I replied sadly that I had not done so, but hoped that he would forgive
me as one unacquainted with that neighbourhood. But I knew that there
might be godly monks still in hiding, for the service of God in the
wilderness.
“So far as the name goes, we are not monastics,” he said, with a
sparkle in his deep-set eyes; “we are but a family of ancient lineage,
expelled from our home in these irreligious times. It is no longer
in our power to do all the good we would, and therefore we are much
undervalued. Perhaps you have heard of the Doones, my child?”
To me it was a wonder that he spoke of them thus, for his look was of
beautiful mildness, instead of any just condemnation. But his aspect
was as if he came from heaven; and I thought that he had a hard job
before him, if he were sent to conduct the Doones thither.
“I am not severe; I think well of mankind,” he went on, as I looked at
him meekly; “perhaps because I am one of them. You are very young, my
dear, and unable to form much opinion as yet. But let it be your rule
of life ever to keep an open mind.”
This advice impressed me much, though I could not see clearly what it
meant. But the sun was going beyond Exmoor now, and safe as I felt with
so good an old man, a long, lonely walk was before me. So I took up my
basket and rose to depart, saying, “Good-bye, sir; I am much in your
debt for your excellent advice and kindness.”
He looked at me most benevolently, and whatever may be said of him
hereafter, I shall always believe that he was a good man, overcome
perhaps by circumstances, yet trying to make the best of them. He
has now become a by-word as a hypocrite and a merciless self-seeker.
But many young people, who met him as I did, without possibility of
prejudice, hold a larger opinion of him. And surely young eyes are the
brightest.
“I will protect thee, my dear,” he said, looking capable in his
great width and wisdom of protecting all the host of heaven. “I have
protected a maiden even more beautiful than thou art. But now she hath
unwisely fled from us. Our young men are thoughtless, but they are not
violent, at least until they are sadly provoked. Your father was a
brave man, and much to be esteemed. My brother, the mildest man that
ever lived, hath ridden down hundreds of Roundheads with him. Therefore
thou shalt come to no harm. But he should not have fallen upon our
young men as if they were rabble of the Commonwealth.”
Upon these words I looked at him I know not how, so great was the
variance betwixt my ears and eyes. Then I tried to say something, but
nothing would come, so entire was my amazement.
“Such are the things we have ever to contend with,” he continued,
as if to himself, with a smile of compassion at my prejudice. “Nay,
I am not angry; I have seen so much of this. Right and wrong stand
fast, and cannot be changed by any facundity. But time is short, and
will soon be stirring. Have a backway from thy bedroom, child. I am
Councillor Doone; by birthright and in right of understanding, the
captain of that pious family, since the return of the good Sir Ensor
to the land where there are no lies. So long as we are not molested in
our peaceful valley, my will is law; and I have ordered that none shall
go near thee. But a mob of country louts are drilling in a farmyard
up the moorlands, to plunder and destroy us, if they can. We shall
make short work of them. But after that, our youths may be provoked
beyond control, and sally forth to make reprisal. They have their eyes
on thee, I know, and thy father hath assaulted us. An ornament to our
valley thou wouldst be; but I would reproach myself if the daughter of
my brother’s friend were discontented with our life. Therefore have
I come to warn thee, for there are troublous times in front. Have a
backway from thy bedroom, child, and slip out into the wood if a noise
comes in the night.”
Before I could thank him, he strode away, with a step of no small
dignity, and as he raised his pointed hat, the western light showed
nothing fairer or more venerable than the long wave of his silver
locks.
CHAPTER IV.
A COTTAGE HOSPITAL.
Master Pring was not much of a man to talk. But for power of thought he
was considered equal to any pair of other men, and superior of course
to all womankind. Moreover, he had seen a good deal of fighting, not
among outlaws, but fine soldiers well skilled in the proper style of
it. So that it was impossible for him to think very highly of the
Doones. Gentlemen they might be, he said, and therefore by nature well
qualified to fight. But where could they have learned any discipline,
any tactics, any knowledge of formation, or even any skill of sword or
firearms? “Tush, there was his own son, Bob, now serving under Captain
Purvis, as fine a young trooper as ever drew sword, and perhaps on his
way at this very moment, under orders from the Lord Lieutenant, to rid
the country of that pestilent race. Ah, ha! We soon shall see!”
And in truth we did see him, even sooner than his own dear mother had
expected, and long before his father wanted him, though he loved him so
much in his absence. For I heard a deep voice in the kitchen one night
(before I was prepared for such things, by making a backway out of my
bedroom), and thinking it best to know the worst, went out to ask what
was doing there.
A young man was sitting upon the table, accounting too little of our
house, yet showing no great readiness to boast, only to let us know
who he was. He had a fine head of curly hair, and spoke with a firm
conviction that there was much inside it. “Father, you have possessed
small opportunity of seeing how we do things now. Mother is not to be
blamed for thinking that we are in front of what used to be. What do
we care how the country lies? We have heared all this stuff up at Oare.
If there are bogs, we shall timber them. If there are rocks, we shall
blow them up. If there are caves, we shall fire down them. The moment
we get our guns into position----”
“Hush, Bob, hush! Here is your master’s daughter. Not the interlopers
you put up with; but your real master, on whose property you were born.
Is that the position for your guns?”
Being thus rebuked by his father, who was a very faithful-minded
man, Robert Pring shuffled his long boots down, and made me a low
salutation. But, having paid little attention to the things other
people were full of, I left the young man to convince his parents, and
he soon was successful with his mother.
Two, or it may have been three days after this, a great noise arose in
the morning. I was dusting my father’s books, which lay open just as
he had left them. There was “Barker’s Delight” and “Isaac Walton,”
and the “Secrets of Angling by J. D.” and some notes of his own about
making of flies; also fish hooks made of Spanish steel, and long hairs
pulled from the tail of a gray horse, with spindles and bits of quill
for plaiting them. So proud and so pleased had he been with these
trifles, after the clamour and clash of life, that tears came into my
eyes once more, as I thought of his tranquil and amiable ways.
“’Tis a wrong thing altogether to my mind,” cried Deborah Pring,
running in to me. “They Doones was established afore we come, and why
not let them bide upon their own land? They treated poor master amiss,
beyond denial; and never will I forgive them for it. All the same, he
was catching what belonged to them; meaning for the best no doubt,
because he was so righteous. And having such courage he killed one,
or perhaps two; though I never could have thought so much of that old
knife. But ever since that, they have been good, Miss Sillie, never
even coming anigh us; and I don’t believe half of the tales about them.”
All this was new to me; for if anybody had cried shame and death upon
that wicked horde, it was Deborah Pring, who was talking to me thus! I
looked at her with wonder, suspecting for the moment that the venerable
Councillor--who was clever enough to make a cow forget her calf--might
have paid her a visit while I was away. But very soon the reason of the
change appeared.
“Who hath taken command of the attack?” she asked, as if no one would
believe the answer; “not Captain Purvis, as ought to have been, nor
even Captain Dallas of Devon, but Spy Stickles by royal warrant, the
man that hath been up to Oare so long! And my son Robert, who hath come
down to help to train them, and understandeth cannon guns----”
“Captain Purvis? I seem to know that name very well. I have often heard
it from my father. And your son under him! Why, Deborah, what are you
hiding from me?”
Now good Mrs. Pring was beginning to forget, or rather had never
borne properly in mind, that I was the head of the household now, and
entitled to know everything, and to be asked about it. But people who
desire to have this done should insist upon it at the outset, which I
had not been in proper state to do. So that she made quite a grievance
of it, when I would not be treated as a helpless child. However, I soon
put a stop to that, and discovered to my surprise much more than could
be imagined.
And before I could say even half of what I thought, a great noise
arose in the hollow of the hills, and came along the valleys, like the
blowing of a wind that had picked up the roaring of mankind upon its
way. Perhaps greater noise had never arisen upon the moor; and the
cattle, and the quiet sheep, and even the wild deer came bounding from
unsheltered places into any offering of branches, or of other heling
from the turbulence of men. And then a gray fog rolled down the valley,
and Deborah said it was cannon-smoke, following the river course; but
to me it seemed only the usual thickness of the air, when the clouds
hang low. Thomas Pring was gone, as behooved an ancient warrior, to see
how his successors did things, and the boy Dick Hutchings had begged
leave to sit in a tree and watch the smoke. Deborah and I were left
alone, and a long and anxious day we had.
At last the wood-pigeons had stopped their cooing,--which they kept
up for hours, when the weather matched the light,--and there was not
a tree that could tell its own shadow, and we were contented with the
gentle sounds that come through a forest when it falls asleep, and
Deborah Pring, who had taken a motherly tendency toward me now, as if
to make up for my father, was sitting in the porch with my hands in
her lap, and telling me how to behave henceforth, as if the whole world
depended upon that, when we heard a swishing sound, as of branches
thrust aside, and then a low moan that went straight to my heart, as I
thought of my father when he took the blow of death.
“My son, my Bob, my eldest boy!” cried Mistress Pring, jumping up and
falling into my arms, like a pillow full of wire, for she insisted upon
her figure still. But before I could do anything to help her----
“Hit her on the back, ma’am; hit her hard upon the back. That is what
always brings mother round,” was shouted, as I might say, into my ear
by the young man whom she was lamenting.
“Shut thy trap, Braggadose. To whom art thou speaking? Pretty much thou
hast learned of war to come and give lessons to thy father! Mistress
Sylvia, it is for thee to speak. Nothing would satisfy this young
springal but to bring his beaten captain here, for the sake of mother’s
management. I told un that you would never take him in, for his father
have taken in you pretty well! Captain Purvis of the Somerset I know
not what--for the regiments now be all upside down. _Raggiments_ is the
proper name for them. Very like he be dead by this time, and better die
out of doors than in. Take un away, Bob. No hospital here!”
“Thomas Pring, who are you,” I said, for the sound of another low groan
came through me, “to give orders to your master’s daughter? If you
bring not the poor wounded gentleman in, you shall never come through
this door yourself.”
“Ha, old hunks, I told thee so!”
The young man who spoke raised his hat to me, and I saw that it had a
scarlet plume, such as Marwood de Wichehalse gloried in. “In with thee,
and stretch him that he may die straight. I am off to Southmolton for
Cutcliffe Lane, who can make a furze-fagot bloom again. My filly can
give a land-yard in a mile to Tom Faggus and his Winnie. But mind one
thing, all of you; it was none of us that shot the captain, but his
own good men. Farewell, Mistress Sylvia!” With these words he made me a
very low bow, and set off for his horse at the corner of the wood--as
reckless a gallant as ever broke hearts, and those of his own kin
foremost; yet himself so kind and loving.
CHAPTER V.
MISTAKEN AIMS.
Captain Purvis, now brought to the Warren in this very sad condition,
had not been shot by his own men, as the dashing Marwood de Wichehalse
said; neither was it quite true to say that he had been shot by anyone.
What happened to him was simply this: While behaving with the utmost
gallantry and encouraging the militia of Somerset, whose uniforms were
faced with yellow, he received in his chest a terrific blow from the
bottom of a bottle. This had been discharged from a culverin on the
opposite side of the valley by the brave but impetuous sons of Devon,
who wore the red facings, and had taken umbrage at a pure mistake on
the part of their excellent friends and neighbours, the loyal band of
Somerset. Either brigade had three culverins; and never having seen
such things before, as was natural with good farmers’ sons, they felt
it a compliment to themselves to be intrusted with such danger, and
resolved to make the most of it. However, when they tried to make them
go, with the help of a good many horses, upon places that had no roads
for war, and even no sort of road at all, the difficulty was beyond
them. But a very clever blacksmith near Malmesford, who had better,
as it proved, have stuck to the plough, persuaded them that he knew
all about it, and would bring their guns to bear, if they let him have
his way. So they took the long tubes from their carriages, and lashed
rollers of barked oak under them, and with very stout ropes, and great
power of swearing, dragged them into the proper place to overwhelm the
Doones.
Here they mounted their guns upon cider barrels, with allowance of roll
for recoil, and charged them to the very best of their knowledge,
and pointed them as nearly as they could guess at the dwellings of
the outlaws in the glen; three cannons on the north were of Somerset,
and the three on the south were of Devonshire; but these latter had
no balls of metal, only anything round they could pick up. Colonel
Stickles was in command, by virtue of his royal warrant, and his
plan was to make his chief assault in company with some chosen men,
including his host, young farmer Ridd, at the head of the valley
where the chief entrance was, while the trainbands pounded away on
either side. And perhaps this would have succeeded well, except for a
little mistake in firing, for which the enemy alone could be blamed
with justice. For while Captain Purvis was behind the line rallying
a few men who showed fear, and not expecting any combat yet, because
Devonshire was not ready, an elderly gentleman of great authority
appeared among the bombardiers. On his breast he wore a badge of
office, and in his hat a noble plume of the sea eagle, and he handed
his horse to a man in red clothes.
“Just in time,” he shouted; “and the Lord be thanked for that! By order
of His Majesty, I take supreme command. Ha, and high time, too, for it!
You idiots, where are you pointing your guns? What allowance have you
made for windage? Why, at that elevation, you’ll shoot yourselves. Up
with your muzzles, you yellow jackanapes! Down on your bellies! Hand me
the linstock! By the Lord, you don’t even know how to touch them off!”
The soldiers were abashed at his rebukes, and glad to lie down on their
breasts for fear of the powder on their yellow facings. And thus they
were shaken by three great roars, and wrapped in a cloud of streaky
smoke. When this had cleared off, and they stood up, lo! the houses of
the Doones were the same as before, but a great shriek arose on the
opposite bank, and two good horses lay on the ground; and the red men
were stamping about, and some crossing their arms, and some running for
their lives, and the bravest of them stooping over one another. Then as
Captain Purvis rushed up in great wrath, shouting: “What the devil do
you mean by this?” another great roar arose from across the valley, and
he was lying flat, and two other fine fellows were rolling in a furze
bush without knowledge of it. But of the general and his horse there
was no longer any token.
This was the matter that lay so heavily on the breast of Captain
Purvis, sadly crushed as it was already by the spiteful stroke bitterly
intended for him. His own men had meant no harm whatever, unless to the
proper enemy; although they appear to have been deluded by a subtle
device of the Councillor, for which on the other hand none may blame
him. But those redfaced men, without any inquiry, turned the muzzles of
their guns upon Somerset, and the injustice rankled for a generation
between two equally honest counties. Happily they did not fight it out
through scarcity of ammunition, as well as their mutual desire to go
home and attend to their harvest business.
But Anthony Purvis, now our guest and patient, became very difficult
to manage; not only because of his three broken ribs, but the lowness
of the heart inside them. Dr. Cutcliffe Lane, a most cheerful man
from that cheerful town Southmolton, was able (with the help of
Providence) to make the bones grow again without much anger into their
own embraces. It is useless, however, for the body to pretend that it
is doing wonders on its own account, and rejoicing and holiday making,
when the thing that sits inside it and holds the whip, keeps down upon
the slouch and is out of sorts. And truly this was the case just now
with the soul of Captain Purvis. Deborah Pring did her very best, and
was in and out of his room every minute, and very often seemed to me
to run him down when he deserved it not; on purpose that I might be
started to run him up. But nothing of that sort told at all according
to her intention. I kept myself very much to myself; feeling that my
nature was too kind, and asking at some little questions of behaviour,
what sort of returns my dear father had obtained for supposing other
people as good as himself.
Moreover, it seemed an impossible thing that such a brave warrior, and
a rich man too--for his father, Sir Geoffrey, was in full possession
now of all the great property that belonged by right to us--that an
officer who should have been in command of this fine expedition, if he
had his dues, could be either the worse or the better of his wound,
according to his glimpses of a simple maid like me. It was useless for
Deborah Pring, or even Dr. Cutcliffe Lane himself, to go on as they
did about love at first sight, and the rising of the heart when the
ribs were broken, and a quantity of other stuff too foolish to repeat.
“I am neither a plaster nor a poultice,” I replied to myself, for I
would not be too cross to them--and beyond a little peep at him, every
afternoon, I kept out of the sight of Captain Purvis.
But these things made it very hard for me to be quite sure how to
conduct myself, without father and mother to help me, and with Mistress
Pring, who had always been such a landmark, becoming no more than a
vane for the wind to blow upon as it listed; or, perhaps, as she listed
to go with it. And remembering how she used to speak of the people who
had ousted us, I told her that I could not make it out. Things were
in this condition, and Captain Purvis, as it seemed to me, quite fit
to go and make war again upon some of His Majesty’s subjects, when a
thing, altogether out of reason, or even of civilisation, happened;
and people who live in lawful parts will accuse me of caring too
little for the truth. But even before that came about, something less
unreasonable--but still unexpected--befell me. To wit, I received
through Mistress Pring an offer of marriage, immediate and pressing,
from Captain Anthony Purvis! He must have been sadly confused by that
blow on his heart to think mine so tender, or that this was the way to
deal with it, though later explanations proved that Deborah, if she
had been just, would have taken the whole reproach upon herself. The
captain could scarcely have seen me, I believe more than half a dozen
times to speak of; and generally he had shut his eyes, gentle as they
were and beautiful; not only to make me feel less afraid, but to fill
me with pity for his weakness. Having no knowledge of mankind as yet,
I was touched to the brink of tears at first; until when the tray came
out of his room soon after one of these pitiful moments, it was plain
to the youngest comprehension that the sick man had left very little
upon a shoulder of Exmoor mutton, and nothing in a bowl of thick onion
sauce.
For that I would be the last to blame him, and being his hostess, I
was glad to find it so. But Deborah played a most double-minded part;
leading him to believe that now she was father and mother in one to me;
while to me she went on, as if I was most headstrong, and certain to go
against anything she said, though for her part she never said anything.
Nevertheless he made a great mistake, as men always do, about our ways;
and having some sense of what is right, I said, “Let me hear no more of
Captain Purvis.”
This forced him to leave us; which he might have done, for aught
I could see to the contrary, a full week before he departed. He
behaved very well when he said good-bye,--for I could not deny him
that occasion,--and, perhaps, if he had not assured me so much of
his everlasting gratitude, I should have felt surer of deserving it.
Perhaps I was a little disappointed also, that he expressed no anxiety
at leaving our cottage so much at the mercy of turbulent and triumphant
outlaws. But it was not for me to speak of that; and when I knew the
reason of his silence, it redounded tenfold to his credit. Nothing,
however, vexed me so much as what Deborah Pring said afterward: that he
could not help feeling in the sadness of his heart that I had behaved
in that manner to him just because his father was in possession of
our rightful home and property. I was not so small as that; and if he
truly did suppose it, there must have been some fault on my part, for
his nature was good to everybody, and perhaps all the better for not
descending through too many high generations.
There is nothing more strange than the way things work in the mind of a
woman, when left alone, to doubt about her own behaviour. With men it
can scarcely be so cruel; because they can always convince themselves
that they did their best; and if it fail, they can throw the fault upon
Providence, or bad luck, or something outside their own power. But we
seem always to be denied this happy style of thinking, and cannot
put aside what comes into our hearts more quickly, and has less stir
of outward things, to lead it away and to brighten it. So that I fell
into sad, low spirits; and the glory of the year began to wane, and the
forest grew more and more lonesome.
CHAPTER VI.
OVER THE BRIDGE.
The sound of the woods was with me now, both night and day, to dwell
upon. Exmoor in general is bare of trees, though it hath the name of
forest; but in the shelter, where the wind flies over, are many thick
places full of shade. For here the trees and bushes thrive, so copious
with rich moisture that, from the hills on the opposite side, no eye
may pick holes in the umbrage; neither may a foot that gets amid them
be sure of getting out again. And now was the fullest and heaviest
time, for the summer had been a wet one, after a winter that went
to our bones; and the leaves were at their darkest tone without any
sense of autumn. As one stood beneath and wondered at their countless
multitude, a quick breathing passed among them, not enough to make them
move, but seeming rather as if they wished, and yet were half ashamed
to sigh. And this was very sad for one whose spring comes only once for
all.
One night toward the end of August I was lying awake thinking of the
happier times, and wondering what the end would be--for now we had very
little money left, and I would rather starve than die in debt--when I
heard our cottage door smashed in and the sound of horrible voices. The
roar of a gun rang up the stairs, and the crash of someone falling and
the smoke came through my bedroom door, and then wailing mixed with
curses. “Out of the way, old hag!” I heard, and then another shriek;
and then I stood upon the stairs and looked down at them. The moon was
shining through the shattered door, and the bodies and legs of men
went to and fro, like branches in a tempest. Nobody seemed to notice
me, although I had cast over my night-dress--having no more sense in
the terror--a long silver coat of some animal shot by my father in his
wanderings, and the light upon the stairs glistened round it. Having no
time to think, I was turning to flee and jump out of my bedroom window,
for which I had made some arrangements, according to the wisdom of
the Councillor, when the flash of some light or the strain of my eyes
showed me the body of Thomas Pring, our faithful old retainer, lying at
the foot of the broken door, and beside it his good wife, creeping up
to give him the last embrace of death. And lately she had been cross to
him. At the sight of this my terror fled, and I cared not what became
of me. Buckling the white skin round my waist, I went down the stairs
as steadily as if it were breakfast time, and said:
“Brutes, murderers, cowards! you have slain my father; now slay me!”
Every one of those wicked men stood up and fixed his eyes on me; and
if it had been a time to laugh, their amazement might have been
laughed at. Some of them took me for a spirit--as I was told long
afterward--and rightly enough their evil hearts were struck with dread
of judgment. But even so, to scare them long in their contemptuous,
godless vein was beyond the power of Heaven itself; and when one of my
long tresses fell, to my great vexation, down my breast, a shocking
sneer arose, and words unfit for a maiden’s ear ensued.
“None of that! This is no farmhouse wench, but a lady of birth and
breeding. She shall be our queen, instead of the one that hath been
filched away. Sylvia, thou shalt come with me.”
The man who spoke with this mighty voice was a terror to the others,
for they fell away before him, and he was the biggest monster
there--Carver Doone, whose name for many a generation shall be used
to frighten unruly babes to bed. And now, as he strode up to me and
bowed,--to show some breeding,--I doubt if the moon, in all her rounds
of earth and sky and the realms below, fell ever upon another face so
cold, repulsive, ruthless.
To belong to him, to feel his lips, to touch him with anything but a
dagger! Suddenly I saw my father’s sword hanging under a beam in the
scabbard. With a quick spring I seized it, and, leaping up the stairs,
had the long blade gleaming in the moonlight. The staircase would not
hold two people abreast, and the stairs were as steep as narrow. I
brought the point down it, with the hilt against my breast, and there
was no room for another blade to swing and strike it up.
“Let her alone!” said Carver Doone, with a smile upon his cold and
corpselike face. “My sons, let the lady have her time. She is worthy to
be the mother of many a fine Doone.”
The young men began to lounge about in a manner most provoking, as if
I had passed from their minds altogether; and some of them went to
the kitchen for victuals, and grumbled at our fare by the light of a
lantern which they had found upon a shelf. But I stood at my post, with
my heart beating, so that the long sword quivered like a candle. Of my
life they might rob me, but of my honour, never!
“Beautiful maiden! Who hath ever seen the like? Why, even Lorna hath
not such eyes.”
Carver Doone came to the foot of the stairs and flashed the lantern
at me, and, thinking that he meant to make a rush for it, I thrust my
weapon forward; but at the same moment a great pair of arms was thrown
around me from behind by some villain who must have scaled my chamber
window, and backward I fell, with no sense or power left.
When my scattered wits came back I felt that I was being shaken
grievously, and the moon was dancing in my eyes through a mist of
tears, half blinding them. I remember how hard I tried to get my
fingers up to wipe my eyes, so as to obtain some knowledge; but jerk
and bump and helpless wonder were all that I could get or take; for my
hands were strapped, and my feet likewise, and I seemed like a wave
going up and down, without any judgment, upon the open sea.
But presently I smelled the wholesome smell which a horse of all
animals alone possesses, though sometimes a cow is almost as good, and
then I felt a mane coming into my hair, and then there was the sound
of steady feet moving just under me, with rise and fall and swing
alternate, and a sense of going forward. I was on the back of a great,
strong horse, and he was obeying the commands of man. Gradually I began
to think, and understood my awful plight. The Doones were taking me to
Doone Glen to be some cut-throat’s light-of-love; perhaps to be passed
from brute to brute--me, Sylvia Ford, my father’s darling, a proud and
dainty and stately maiden, of as good birth as any in this English
realm. My heart broke down as I thought of that, and all discretion
vanished. Though my hands were tied my throat was free, and I sent
forth such a scream of woe that the many-winding vale of Lynn, with all
its wild waters could not drown, nor with all its dumb foliage smother
it; and the long wail rang from crag to crag, as the wrongs of men echo
unto the ears of God.
“Valiant damsel, what a voice thou hast! Again, and again let it strike
the skies. With them we are at peace, being persecuted here, according
to the doom of all good men. And yet I am loth to have that fair throat
strained.”
It was Carver Doone who led my horse; and his horrible visage glared
into my eyes through the strange, wan light that flows between the
departure of the sinking moon and the flutter of the morning when it
cannot see its way. I strove to look at him; but my scared eyes fell,
and he bound his rank glove across my poor lips. “Let it be so,” I
thought; “I can do no more.”
Then, when my heart was quite gone in despair, and all trouble shrank
into a trifle, I heard a loud shout, and the trample of feet, and the
rattle of arms, and the clash of horses. Contriving to twist myself a
little, I saw that the band of the Doones were mounting a saddle-backed
bridge in a deep wooded glen, with a roaring water under them. On the
crown of the bridge a vast man stood, such as I had never descried
before, bearing no armour that I could see, but wearing a farmer’s hat,
and raising a staff like the stem of a young oak tree. He was striking
at no one, but playing with his staff, as if it were a willow in the
morning breeze.
“Down with him! Ride him down! Send a bullet through him!” several of
the Doones called out, but no one showed any hurry to do it. It seemed
as if they knew him, and feared his mighty strength, and their guns
were now slung behind their backs on account of the roughness of the
way.
“Charlie, you are not afraid of him,” I heard that crafty Carver say
to the tallest of his villains, and a very handsome young man he was;
“if the girl were not on my horse, I would do it. Ride over him, and
you shall have my prize, when I am tired of her.”
I felt the fire come into my eyes, to be spoken of so by a brute;
and then I saw Charlie Doone spur up the bridge, leaning forward and
swinging a long blade round his head.
“Down with thee, clod!” he shouted; and he showed such strength and
fury that I scarce could look at the farmer, dreading to see his great
head fly away. But just as the horse rushed at him, he leaped aside
with most wonderful nimbleness, and the rider’s sword was dashed out of
his grasp, and down he went, over the back of the saddle, and his long
legs spun up in the air, as a juggler tosses a two-pronged fork.
“Now for another!” the farmer cried, and his deep voice rang above the
roar of Lynn; “or two at once, if it suits you better. I will teach
you to carry off women, you dogs!”
But the outlaws would not try another charge. On a word from their
leader they all dismounted, and were bringing their long guns to bear,
and I heard the clink of their flints as they fixed the trigger. Carver
Doone, grinding his enormous teeth, stood at the head of my horse, who
was lashing and plunging, so that I must have been flung if any of the
straps had given way. In terror of the gun flash I shut my eyes, for if
I had seen that brave man killed, it would have been the death of me as
well. Then I felt my horse treading on something soft. Carver Doone was
beneath his feet, and an awful curse came from the earth.
“Have no fear!” said the sweetest voice that ever came into the ears
of despair. “Sylvia, none can harm you now. Lie still, and let this
protect your face.”
“How can I help lying still?” I said, as a soft cloak was thrown over
me, and in less than a moment my horse was rushing through branches
and brushwood that swept his ears. At his side was another horse, and
my bridle rein was held by a man who stooped over his neck in silence.
Though his face was out of sight, I knew that Anthony Purvis was
leading me.
There was no possibility of speaking now, but after a tumult of speed
we came to an open glade where the trees fell back, and a gentle brook
was gurgling. Then Captain Purvis cut my bonds, and lifting me down
very softly, set me upon a bank of moss, for my limbs would not support
me; and I lay there unable to do anything but weep.
When I returned to myself, the sun was just looking over a wooded
cliff, and Anthony, holding a horn of water, and with water on his
cheeks, was regarding me.
“Did you leave that brave man to be shot?” I asked, as if that were all
my gratitude.
“I am not so bad as that,” he answered, without any anger, for he saw
that I was not in reason yet. “At sight of my men, although we were but
five in all, the robbers fled, thinking the regiment was there; but it
is God’s truth that I thought little of anyone’s peril compared with
thine. But there need be no fear for John Ridd; the Doones are mighty
afraid of him since he cast their culverin through their door.”
“Was that the John Ridd I have heard so much of? Surely I might have
known it, but my wits were shaken out of me.”
“Yes, that was the mighty man of Exmoor, to whom thou owest more than
life.”
In horror of what I had so narrowly escaped, I fell upon my knees and
thanked the Lord, and then I went shyly to the captain’s side and said:
“I am ashamed to look at thee. Without Anthony Purvis, where should I
be? Speak of no John Ridd to me.”
For this man whom I had cast forth, with coldness, as he must have
thought--although I knew better, when he was gone--this man (my
honoured husband now, who hath restored me to my father’s place, when
kings had no gratitude or justice), Sir Anthony Purvis, as now he is,
had dwelled in a hovel and lived on scraps, to guard the forsaken
orphan, who had won, and shall ever retain, his love.
FRIDA; OR, THE LOVER’S LEAP.
A LEGEND OF THE WEST COUNTRY.
CHAPTER I.
On the very day when Charles I. was crowned with due
rejoicings--Candlemas-day, in the year of our Lord 1626--a loyalty,
quite as deep and perhaps even more lasting, was having its beer at Ley
Manor in the north of Devon. A loyalty not to the king, for the old
West-country folk knew little and cared less about the house that came
over the Border; but to a lord who had won their hearts by dwelling
among them, and dealing kindly, and paying his way every Saturday
night. When this has been done for three generations general and genial
respect may almost be relied upon. The present Baron de Wichehalse was
fourth in descent from that Hugh de Wichehalse, the head of an old and
wealthy race, who had sacrificed his comfort to his resolve to have a
will of his own in matters of religion. That Hugh de Wichehalse, having
an eye to this, as well as the other world, contrived to sell his large
estates before they were confiscated, and to escape with all the money,
from very sharp measures then enforced, by order of King Philip II.,
in the unhappy Low Countries. Landing in England, with all his effects
and a score of trusty followers, he bought a fine property, settled,
and died, and left a good name behind him. And that good name had been
well kept up, and the property had increased and thriven, so that the
present lord was loved and admired by all the neighbourhood.
In one thing, however, he had been unlucky, at least in his own
opinion. Ten years of married life had not found issue in parental
life. All his beautiful rocks and hills, lovely streams and glorious
woods, green meadows and golden corn lands, must pass to his nephew
and not to his child, because he had not gained one. Being a good man,
he did his best to see this thing in its proper light. Children, after
all, are a plague, a risk, and a deep anxiety. His nephew was a very
worthy boy, and his rights should be respected. Nevertheless, the baron
often longed to supersede them.
Of this there was every prospect now. The lady of the house had
intrusted her case to a highly celebrated simple-woman, who lived among
rocks and scanty vegetation at Heddon’s Mouth, gathering wisdom from
the earth and from the sea tranquillity. De Wichehalse was naturally
vexed a little when all this accumulated wisdom culminated in nothing
grander than a somewhat undersized, and unhappily female child--one,
moreover, whose presence cost him that of his faithful and loving wife.
So that the heiress of Ley Manor was greeted, after all, with a very
brief and sorry welcome. “Jennyfried,” for so they named her, soon
began to grow into a fair esteem and good liking. Her father, after
a year or two, plucked up his courage and played with her; and the
more he played the more pleased he was, both with her and his own kind
self. Unhappily, there were at that time no shops in the neighbourhood;
unhappily, now there are too many. Nevertheless, upon the whole, she
had all the toys that were good for her; and her teeth had a fair
chance of fitting themselves for life’s chief operation in the absence
of sugared allurements.
A brief and meagre account is this of the birth, and growth, and
condition of a maiden whose beauty and goodness still linger in the
winter tales of many a simple homestead. For, sharing her father’s
genial nature, she went about among the people in her soft and playful
way; knowing all their cares, and gifted with a kindly wonder at them,
which is very soothing. All the simple folk expected condescension
from her; and she would have let them have it, if she had possessed it.
At last she was come to a time of life when maidens really must
begin to consider their responsibilities--a time when it does matter
how the dress sits and what it is made of, and whether the hair is
well arranged for dancing in the sunshine and for fluttering in the
moonlight; also that the eyes convey not from that roguish nook the
heart any betrayal of “hide and seek”; neither must the risk of
blushing tremble on perpetual brinks; neither must--but, in a word,
’twas the seventeenth year of a maiden’s life.
More and more such matters gained on her motherless necessity. Strictly
anxious as she was to do the right thing always, she felt more and
more upon every occasion (unless it was something particular) that her
cousin need not so impress his cousinly salutation.
Albert de Wichehalse (who received that name before it became so
inevitable) was that same worthy boy grown up as to whom the baron
had felt compunctions, highly honourable to either party, touching his
defeasance; or rather, perhaps, as to interception of his presumptive
heirship by the said Albert, or at least by his mother contemplated.
And Albert’s father had entrusted him to his uncle’s special care and
love, having comfortably made up his mind, before he left this evil
world, that his son should have a good slice of it.
Now, therefore, the baron’s chief desire was to heal all breaches and
make things pleasant, and to keep all the family property snug by
marrying his fair Jennyfried (or “Frida,” as she was called at home)
to her cousin Albert, now a fine young fellow of five-and-twenty. De
Wichehalse was strongly attached to his nephew, and failed to see any
good reason why a certain large farm near Martinhoe, quite a huge
cantle from the Ley estates, which by a prior devise must fall to
Albert upon his own demise, should be allowed to depart in that way
from his posthumous control.
However, like most of our fallible race, he went the worst possible way
to work in pursuit of his favourite purpose. He threw the young people
together daily, and dinned into the ears of each perpetual praise of
the other. This seemed to answer well enough in the case of the simple
Albert. He could never have too much of his lively cousin’s company,
neither could he weary of sounding her sweet excellence. But with
the young maid it was not so. She liked the good Albert well enough,
and never got out of his way at all. Moreover, sometimes his curly
hair and bright moustache, when they came too near, would raise not a
positive flutter, perhaps, but a sense of some fugitive movement in the
unexplored distances of the heart. Still, this might go on for years,
and nothing more to come of it. Frida loved her father best of all the
world, at present.