Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER XVII

  JOHN IS CLEARLY BEWITCHED

  To forget one's luck of life, to forget the cark of care and witheringof young fingers; not to feel, or not be moved by, all the change ofthought and heart, from large young heat to the sinewy lines and drybones of old age--this is what I have to do ere ever I can make youknow (even as a dream is known) how I loved my Lorna. I myself can neverknow; never can conceive, or treat it as a thing of reason, never canbehold myself dwelling in the midst of it, and think that this was I;neither can I wander far from perpetual thought of it. Perhaps I havetwo farrows of pigs ready for the chapman; perhaps I have ten stonesof wool waiting for the factor. It is all the same. I look at both, andwhat I say to myself is this: 'Which would Lorna choose of them?' Ofcourse, I am a fool for this; any man may call me so, and I will notquarrel with him, unless he guess my secret. Of course, I fetch my wit,if it be worth the fetching, back again to business. But there my heartis and must be; and all who like to try can cheat me, except upon parishmatters.

  That week I could do little more than dream and dream and rove about,seeking by perpetual change to find the way back to myself. I carednot for the people round me, neither took delight in victuals; but madebelieve to eat and drink and blushed at any questions. And being calledthe master now, head-farmer, and chief yeoman, it irked me much that anyone should take advantage of me; yet everybody did so as soon as ever itwas known that my wits were gone moon-raking. For that was the waythey looked at it, not being able to comprehend the greatness and theloftiness. Neither do I blame them much; for the wisest thing is tolaugh at people when we cannot understand them. I, for my part, took nonotice; but in my heart despised them as beings of a lesser nature, whonever had seen Lorna. Yet I was vexed, and rubbed myself, when John Fryspread all over the farm, and even at the shoeing forge, that a mad doghad come and bitten me, from the other side of Mallond.

  This seems little to me now; and so it might to any one; but, at thetime, it worked me up to a fever of indignity. To make a mad dog ofLorna, to compare all my imaginings (which were strange, I do assureyou--the faculty not being apt to work), to count the raising of my soulno more than hydrophobia! All this acted on me so, that I gave John Frythe soundest threshing that ever a sheaf of good corn deserved, or abundle of tares was blessed with. Afterwards he went home, too tiredto tell his wife the meaning of it; but it proved of service to both ofthem, and an example for their children.

  Now the climate of this country is--so far as I can make of it--to throwno man into extremes; and if he throw himself so far, to pluck himback by change of weather and the need of looking after things. Lest weshould be like the Southerns, for whom the sky does everything, and mensit under a wall and watch both food and fruit come beckoning. Their skyis a mother to them; but ours a good stepmother to us--fearing tohurt by indulgence, and knowing that severity and change of mood arewholesome.

  The spring being now too forward, a check to it was needful; and in theearly part of March there came a change of weather. All the young growthwas arrested by a dry wind from the east, which made both faceand fingers burn when a man was doing ditching. The lilacs and thewoodbines, just crowding forth in little tufts, close kernelling theirblossom, were ruffled back, like a sleeve turned up, and nicked withbrown at the corners. In the hedges any man, unless his eyes were verydull, could see the mischief doing. The russet of the young elm-bloomwas fain to be in its scale again; but having pushed forth, there mustbe, and turn to a tawny colour. The hangers of the hazel, too, havingshed their dust to make the nuts, did not spread their little combs anddry them, as they ought to do; but shrivelled at the base and fell, asif a knife had cut them. And more than all to notice was (at least aboutthe hedges) the shuddering of everything and the shivering sound amongthem toward the feeble sun; such as we make to a poor fireplace whenseveral doors are open. Sometimes I put my face to warm against thesoft, rough maple-stem, which feels like the foot of a red deer; but thepitiless east wind came through all, and took and shook the cavedhedge aback till its knees were knocking together, and nothing couldbe shelter. Then would any one having blood, and trying to keep at homewith it, run to a sturdy tree and hope to eat his food behind it, andlook for a little sun to come and warm his feet in the shelter. And ifit did he might strike his breast, and try to think he was warmer.

  But when a man came home at night, after long day's labour, knowingthat the days increased, and so his care should multiply; still he foundenough of light to show him what the day had done against him inhis garden. Every ridge of new-turned earth looked like an old man'smuscles, honeycombed, and standing out void of spring, and powdery.Every plant that had rejoiced in passing such a winter now was cowering,turned away, unfit to meet the consequence. Flowing sap had stopped itscourse; fluted lines showed want of food, and if you pinched the topmostspray, there was no rebound or firmness.

  We think a good deal, in a quiet way, when people ask us about them--ofsome fine, upstanding pear-trees, grafted by my grandfather, who hadbeen very greatly respected. And he got those grafts by sheltering apoor Italian soldier, in the time of James the First, a man who nevercould do enough to show his grateful memories. How he came to our placeis a very difficult story, which I never understood rightly, havingheard it from my mother. At any rate, there the pear-trees were, andthere they are to this very day; and I wish every one could taste theirfruit, old as they are, and rugged.

  Now these fine trees had taken advantage of the west winds, and themoisture, and the promise of the spring time, so as to fill the tips ofthe spray-wood and the rowels all up the branches with a crowd of eagerblossom. Not that they were yet in bloom, nor even showing whiteness,only that some of the cones were opening at the side of the cap whichpinched them; and there you might count perhaps, a dozen nobs, like verylittle buttons, but grooved, and lined, and huddling close, to make roomfor one another. And among these buds were gray-green blades, scarcebigger than a hair almost, yet curving so as if their purpose was toshield the blossom.

  Other of the spur-points, standing on the older wood where the sap wasnot so eager, had not burst their tunic yet, but were flayed and flakedwith light, casting off the husk of brown in three-cornered patches, asI have seen a Scotchman's plaid, or as his legs shows through it. Thesebuds, at a distance, looked as if the sky had been raining cream uponthem.

  Now all this fair delight to the eyes, and good promise to the palate,was marred and baffled by the wind and cutting of the night-frosts. Theopening cones were struck with brown, in between the button buds, andon the scapes that shielded them; while the foot part of the cover hunglike rags, peeled back, and quivering. And there the little stalk ofeach, which might have been a pear, God willing, had a ring around itsbase, and sought a chance to drop and die. The others which had notopened comb, but only prepared to do it, were a little better off, butstill very brown and unkid, and shrivelling in doubt of health, andneither peart nor lusty.

  Now this I have not told because I know the way to do it, for that I donot, neither yet have seen a man who did know. It is wonderful howwe look at things, and never think to notice them; and I am as bad asanybody, unless the thing to be observed is a dog, or a horse, or amaiden. And the last of those three I look at, somehow, without knowingthat I take notice, and greatly afraid to do it, only I knew afterwards(when the time of life was in me), not indeed, what the maiden was like,but how she differed from others.

  Yet I have spoken about the spring, and the failure of fair promise,because I took it to my heart as token of what would come to me in thebudding of my years and hope. And even then, being much possessed, andfull of a foolish melancholy, I felt a sad delight at being doomed toblight and loneliness; not but that I managed still (when motherwas urgent upon me) to eat my share of victuals, and cuff a man forlaziness, and see that a ploughshare made no leaps, and sleep of a nightwithout dreaming. And my mother half-believing, in her fondness andaffection, that what the parish said was true about a mad dog havingbitten me, and yet arguing that
it must be false (because God would haveprevented him), my mother gave me little rest, when I was in the roomwith her. Not that she worried me with questions, nor openly regardedme with any unusual meaning, but that I knew she was watching slylywhenever I took a spoon up; and every hour or so she managed to place apan of water by me, quite as if by accident, and sometimes even to spilla little upon my shoe or coat-sleeve. But Betty Muxworthy was worst;for, having no fear about my health, she made a villainous joke of it,and used to rush into the kitchen, barking like a dog, and panting,exclaiming that I had bitten her, and justice she would have on me, ifit cost her a twelvemonth's wages. And she always took care to do thisthing just when I had crossed my legs in the corner after supper, andleaned my head against the oven, to begin to think of Lorna.

  However, in all things there is comfort, if we do not look too hardfor it; and now I had much satisfaction, in my uncouth state, fromlabouring, by the hour together, at the hedging and the ditching,meeting the bitter wind face to face, feeling my strength increase, andhoping that some one would be proud of it. In the rustling rush ofevery gust, in the graceful bend of every tree, even in the 'lords andladies,' clumped in the scoops of the hedgerow, and most of all in thesoft primrose, wrung by the wind, but stealing back, and smiling whenthe wrath was passed--in all of these, and many others there was achingecstasy, delicious pang of Lorna.

  But however cold the weather was, and however hard the wind blew, onething (more than all the rest) worried and perplexed me. This was, thatI could not settle, turn and twist as I might, how soon I ought to goagain upon a visit to Glen Doone. For I liked not at all the falsenessof it (albeit against murderers), the creeping out of sight, and hiding,and feeling as a spy might. And even more than this. I feared how Lornamight regard it; whether I might seem to her a prone and blunt intruder,a country youth not skilled in manners, as among the quality, even whenthey rob us. For I was not sure myself, but that it might be very badmanners to go again too early without an invitation and my hands andface were chapped so badly by the bitter wind, that Lorna might countthem unsightly things, and wish to see no more of them.

  However, I could not bring myself to consult any one upon this point, atleast in our own neighbourhood, nor even to speak of it near home. Butthe east wind holding through the month, my hands and face growing worseand worse, and it having occurred to me by this time that possibly Lornamight have chaps, if she came abroad at all, and so might like to talkabout them and show her little hands to me, I resolved to take anotheropinion, so far as might be upon this matter, without disclosing thecircumstances.

  Now the wisest person in all our parts was reckoned to be a certain wisewoman, well known all over Exmoor by the name of Mother Melldrum. Herreal name was Maple Durham, as I learned long afterwards; and she cameof an ancient family, but neither of Devon nor Somerset. Neverthelessshe was quite at home with our proper modes of divination and knowingthat we liked them best--as each man does his own religion--she wouldalways practise them for the people of the country. And all the while,she would let us know that she kept a higher and nobler mode for thosewho looked down upon this one, not having been bred and born to it.

  Mother Melldrum had two houses, or rather she had none at all, but twohomes wherein to find her, according to the time of year. In summer shelived in a pleasant cave, facing the cool side of the hill, far inlandnear Hawkridge and close above Tarr-steps, a wonderful crossing of Barleriver, made (as everybody knows) by Satan, for a wager. But throughoutthe winter, she found sea-air agreeable, and a place where things couldbe had on credit, and more occasion of talking. Not but what she couldhave credit (for every one was afraid of her) in the neighbourhood ofTarr-steps; only there was no one handy owning things worth taking.

  Therefore, at the fall of the leaf, when the woods grew damp andirksome, the wise woman always set her face to the warmer cliffs of theChannel; where shelter was, and dry fern bedding, and folk to be seen inthe distance, from a bank upon which the sun shone. And there, as Iknew from our John Fry (who had been to her about rheumatism, and sheeppossessed with an evil spirit, and warts on the hand of his son, youngJohn), any one who chose might find her, towards the close of a winterday, gathering sticks and brown fern for fuel, and talking to herselfthe while, in a hollow stretch behind the cliffs; which foreigners, whocome and go without seeing much of Exmoor, have called the Valley ofRocks.

  This valley, or goyal, as we term it, being small for a valley, lies tothe west of Linton, about a mile from the town perhaps, and away towardsLey Manor. Our homefolk always call it the Danes, or the Denes, which isno more, they tell me, than a hollow place, even as the word 'den' is.However, let that pass, for I know very little about it; but the placeitself is a pretty one, though nothing to frighten anybody, unless hehath lived in a gallipot. It is a green rough-sided hollow, bendingat the middle, touched with stone at either crest, and dotted here andthere with slabs in and out the brambles. On the right hand is an upwardcrag, called by some the Castle, easy enough to scale, and giving greatview of the Channel. Facing this, from the inland side and the elbow ofthe valley, a queer old pile of rock arises, bold behind one another,and quite enough to affright a man, if it only were ten times larger.This is called the Devil's Cheese-ring, or the Devil's Cheese-knife,which mean the same thing, as our fathers were used to eat their cheesefrom a scoop; and perhaps in old time the upmost rock (which has fallenaway since I knew it) was like to such an implement, if Satan eat cheeseuntoasted.

  But all the middle of this valley was a place to rest in; to sit andthink that troubles were not, if we would not make them. To know the seaoutside the hills, but never to behold it; only by the sound of waves topity sailors labouring. Then to watch the sheltered sun, coming warmlyround the turn, like a guest expected, full of gentle glow and gladness,casting shadow far away as a thing to hug itself, and awakening lifefrom dew, and hope from every spreading bud. And then to fall asleep anddream that the fern was all asparagus.

  Alas, I was too young in those days much to care for creature comforts,or to let pure palate have things that would improve it. Anything wentdown with me, as it does with most of us. Too late we know the good frombad; the knowledge is no pleasure then; being memory's medicine ratherthan the wine of hope.

  Now Mother Melldrum kept her winter in this vale of rocks, shelteringfrom the wind and rain within the Devil's Cheese-ring, which addedgreatly to her fame because all else, for miles around, were afraid togo near it after dark, or even on a gloomy day. Under eaves of lichenedrock she had a winding passage, which none that ever I knew of durstenter but herself. And to this place I went to seek her, in spite of allmisgivings, upon a Sunday in Lenten season, when the sheep were folded.

  Our parson (as if he had known my intent) had preached a beautifulsermon about the Witch of Endor, and the perils of them that meddlewantonly with the unseen Powers; and therein he referred especially tothe strange noise in the neighbourhood, and upbraided us for want offaith, and many other backslidings. We listened to him very earnestly,for we like to hear from our betters about things that are beyond us,and to be roused up now and then, like sheep with a good dog after them,who can pull some wool without biting. Nevertheless we could not see howour want of faith could have made that noise, especially at night time,notwithstanding which we believed it, and hoped to do a little better.

  And so we all came home from church; and most of the people dined withus, as they always do on Sundays, because of the distance to go home,with only words inside them. The parson, who always sat next to mother,was afraid that he might have vexed us, and would not have the bestpiece of meat, according to his custom. But soon we put him at his ease,and showed him we were proud of him; and then he made no more to do, butaccepted the best of the sirloin.