Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER XX

  LORNA BEGINS HER STORY

  'I cannot go through all my thoughts so as to make them clear to you,nor have I ever dwelt on things, to shape a story of them. I know notwhere the beginning was, nor where the middle ought to be, nor even howat the present time I feel, or think, or ought to think. If I look forhelp to those around me, who should tell me right and wrong (being olderand much wiser), I meet sometimes with laughter, and at other times withanger.

  'There are but two in the world who ever listen and try to help me; oneof them is my grandfather, and the other is a man of wisdom, whom wecall the Counsellor. My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doone, is very old andharsh of manner (except indeed to me); he seems to know what is rightand wrong, but not to want to think of it. The Counsellor, on the otherhand, though full of life and subtleties, treats my questions as ofplay, and not gravely worth his while to answer, unless he can make witof them.

  'And among the women there are none with whom I can hold converse, sincemy Aunt Sabina died, who took such pains to teach me. She was a lady ofhigh repute and lofty ways, and learning, but grieved and harassed moreand more by the coarseness, and the violence, and the ignorance aroundher. In vain she strove, from year to year, to make the young menhearken, to teach them what became their birth, and give them sense ofhonour. It was her favourite word, poor thing! and they called her "OldAunt Honour." Very often she used to say that I was her only comfort,and I am sure she was my only one; and when she died it was more to methan if I had lost a mother.

  'For I have no remembrance now of father or of mother, although they saythat my father was the eldest son of Sir Ensor Doone, and the bravestand the best of them. And so they call me heiress to this little realmof violence; and in sorry sport sometimes, I am their Princess or theirQueen.

  'Many people living here, as I am forced to do, would perhaps bevery happy, and perhaps I ought to be so. We have a beauteous valley,sheltered from the cold of winter and power of the summer sun,untroubled also by the storms and mists that veil the mountains;although I must acknowledge that it is apt to rain too often. The grassmoreover is so fresh, and the brook so bright and lively, and flowersof so many hues come after one another that no one need be dull, if onlyleft alone with them.

  'And so in the early days perhaps, when morning breathes around me, andthe sun is going upward, and light is playing everywhere, I am not sofar beside them all as to live in shadow. But when the evening gathersdown, and the sky is spread with sadness, and the day has spent itself;then a cloud of lonely trouble falls, like night, upon me. I cannot seethe things I quest for of a world beyond me; I cannot join the peaceand quiet of the depth above me; neither have I any pleasure in thebrightness of the stars.

  'What I want to know is something none of them can tell me--what amI, and why set here, and when shall I be with them? I see that you aresurprised a little at this my curiosity. Perhaps such questions neverspring in any wholesome spirit. But they are in the depths of mine, andI cannot be quit of them.

  'Meantime, all around me is violence and robbery, coarse delight andsavage pain, reckless joke and hopeless death. Is it any wonder that Icannot sink with these, that I cannot so forget my soul, as to live thelife of brutes, and die the death more horrible because it dreams ofwaking? There is none to lead me forward, there is none to teach meright; young as I am, I live beneath a curse that lasts for ever.'

  Here Lorna broke down for awhile, and cried so very piteously, thatdoubting of my knowledge, and of any power to comfort, I did my best tohold my peace, and tried to look very cheerful. Then thinking that mightbe bad manners, I went to wipe her eyes for her.

  'Master Ridd,' she began again, 'I am both ashamed and vexed at my ownchildish folly. But you, who have a mother, who thinks (you say) somuch of you, and sisters, and a quiet home; you cannot tell (it is notlikely) what a lonely nature is. How it leaps in mirth sometimes, withonly heaven touching it; and how it falls away desponding, when thedreary weight creeps on.

  'It does not happen many times that I give way like this; more shamenow to do so, when I ought to entertain you. Sometimes I am so full ofanger, that I dare not trust to speech, at things they cannot hide fromme; and perhaps you would be much surprised that reckless men would careso much to elude a young girl's knowledge. They used to boast to AuntSabina of pillage and of cruelty, on purpose to enrage her; but theynever boast to me. It even makes me smile sometimes to see howawkwardly they come and offer for temptation to me shining packets,half concealed, of ornaments and finery, of rings, or chains, or jewels,lately belonging to other people.

  'But when I try to search the past, to get a sense of what befell me eremy own perception formed; to feel back for the lines of childhood, asa trace of gossamer, then I only know that nought lives longer than Godwills it. So may after sin go by, for we are children always, as theCounsellor has told me; so may we, beyond the clouds, seek this infancyof life, and never find its memory.

  'But I am talking now of things which never come across me when any workis toward. It might have been a good thing for me to have had a fatherto beat these rovings out of me; or a mother to make a home, and teachme how to manage it. For, being left with none--I think; and nothingever comes of it. Nothing, I mean, which I can grasp and have with anysurety; nothing but faint images, and wonderment, and wandering. Butoften, when I am neither searching back into remembrance, nor asking ofmy parents, but occupied by trifles, something like a sign, or message,or a token of some meaning, seems to glance upon me. Whether from therustling wind, or sound of distant music, or the singing of a bird, likethe sun on snow it strikes me with a pain of pleasure.

  'And often when I wake at night, and listen to the silence, or wanderfar from people in the grayness of the evening, or stand and look atquiet water having shadows over it, some vague image seems to hover onthe skirt of vision, ever changing place and outline, ever flitting as Ifollow. This so moves and hurries me, in the eagerness and longing, thatstraightway all my chance is lost; and memory, scared like a wild bird,flies. Or am I as a child perhaps, chasing a flown cageling, who amongthe branches free plays and peeps at the offered cage (as a home not tobe urged on him), and means to take his time of coming, if he comes atall?

  'Often too I wonder at the odds of fortune, which made me (helpless asI am, and fond of peace and reading) the heiress of this mad domain, thesanctuary of unholiness. It is not likely that I shall have much powerof authority; and yet the Counsellor creeps up to be my Lord of theTreasury; and his son aspires to my hand, as of a Royal alliance. Well,"honour among thieves," they say; and mine is the first honour: althoughamong decent folk perhaps, honesty is better.

  'We should not be so quiet here, and safe from interruption but that Ihave begged one privilege rather than commanded it. This was that thelower end, just this narrowing of the valley, where it is most hard tocome at, might be looked upon as mine, except for purposes of guard.Therefore none beside the sentries ever trespass on me here, unless itbe my grandfather, or the Counsellor or Carver.

  'By your face, Master Ridd, I see that you have heard of Carver Doone.For strength and courage and resource he bears the first repute amongus, as might well be expected from the son of the Counsellor. But hediffers from his father, in being very hot and savage, and quite freefrom argument. The Counsellor, who is my uncle, gives his son the bestadvice; commending all the virtues, with eloquence and wisdom; yethimself abstaining from them accurately and impartially.

  'You must be tired of this story, and the time I take to think, andthe weakness of my telling; but my life from day to day shows so littlevariance. Among the riders there is none whose safe return I watchfor--I mean none more than other--and indeed there seems no risk, allare now so feared of us. Neither of the old men is there whom Ican revere or love (except alone my grandfather, whom I love withtrembling): neither of the women any whom I like to deal with, unless itbe a little maiden whom I saved from starving.

  'A little Cornish girl she is, and shaped in western manner,
not so verymuch less in width than if you take her lengthwise. Her father seems tohave been a miner, a Cornishman (as she declares) of more than averageexcellence, and better than any two men to be found in Devonshire, orany four in Somerset. Very few things can have been beyond his power ofperformance, and yet he left his daughter to starve upon a peat-rick.She does not know how this was done, and looks upon it as a mystery,the meaning of which will some day be clear, and redound to her father'shonour. His name was Simon Carfax, and he came as the captain of a gangfrom one of the Cornish stannaries. Gwenny Carfax, my young maid, wellremembers how her father was brought up from Cornwall. Her mother hadbeen buried, just a week or so before; and he was sad about it, and hadbeen off his work, and was ready for another job. Then people came tohim by night, and said that he must want a change, and everybody losttheir wives, and work was the way to mend it. So what with grief,and over-thought, and the inside of a square bottle, Gwenny says theybrought him off, to become a mighty captain, and choose the countryround. The last she saw of him was this, that he went down a laddersomewhere on the wilds of Exmoor, leaving her with bread and cheese, andhis travelling-hat to see to. And from that day to this he never cameabove the ground again; so far as we can hear of.

  'But Gwenny, holding to his hat, and having eaten the bread and cheese(when he came no more to help her), dwelt three days near the mouth ofthe hole; and then it was closed over, the while that she was sleeping.With weakness and with want of food, she lost herself distressfully, andwent away for miles or more, and lay upon a peat-rick, to die before theravens.

  'That very day I chanced to return from Aunt Sabina's dying-place; forshe would not die in Glen Doone, she said, lest the angels feared tocome for her; and so she was taken to a cottage in a lonely valley. Iwas allowed to visit her, for even we durst not refuse the wishes of thedying; and if a priest had been desired, we should have made bold withhim. Returning very sorrowful, and caring now for nothing, I found thislittle stray thing lying, her arms upon her, and not a sign of life,except the way that she was biting. Black root-stuff was in her mouth,and a piece of dirty sheep's wool, and at her feet an old egg-shell ofsome bird of the moorland.

  'I tried to raise her, but she was too square and heavy for me; and soI put food in her mouth, and left her to do right with it. And this shedid in a little time; for the victuals were very choice and rare, beingwhat I had taken over to tempt poor Aunt Sabina. Gwenny ate them withoutdelay, and then was ready to eat the basket and the ware that containedthem.

  'Gwenny took me for an angel--though I am little like one, as you see,Master Ridd; and she followed me, expecting that I would open wings andfly when we came to any difficulty. I brought her home with me, so faras this can be a home, and she made herself my sole attendant, withoutso much as asking me. She has beaten two or three other girls, who usedto wait upon me, until they are afraid to come near the house of mygrandfather. She seems to have no kind of fear even of our roughest men;and yet she looks with reverence and awe upon the Counsellor. As for thewickedness, and theft, and revelry around her, she says it is no concernof hers, and they know their own business best. By this way of regardingmen she has won upon our riders, so that she is almost free from allcontrol of place and season, and is allowed to pass where none even ofthe youths may go. Being so wide, and short, and flat, she has none topay her compliments; and, were there any, she would scorn them, as notbeing Cornishmen. Sometimes she wanders far, by moonlight, on the moorsand up the rivers, to give her father (as she says) another chance offinding her, and she comes back not a wit defeated, or discouraged, ordepressed, but confident that he is only waiting for the proper time.

  'Herein she sets me good example of a patience and contentment hard forme to imitate. Oftentimes I am vexed by things I cannot meddle with, yetwhich cannot be kept from me, that I am at the point of flying from thisdreadful valley, and risking all that can betide me in the unknown outerworld. If it were not for my grandfather, I would have done so long ago;but I cannot bear that he should die with no gentle hand to comfort him;and I fear to think of the conflict that must ensue for the government,if there be a disputed succession.

  'Ah me! We are to be pitied greatly, rather than condemned, by peoplewhose things we have taken from them; for I have read, and seem almostto understand about it, that there are places on the earth where gentlepeace, and love of home, and knowledge of one's neighbours prevail, andare, with reason, looked for as the usual state of things. There honestfolk may go to work in the glory of the sunrise, with hope of cominghome again quite safe in the quiet evening, and finding all theirchildren; and even in the darkness they have no fear of lying down, anddropping off to slumber, and hearken to the wind of night, not as to anenemy trying to find entrance, but a friend who comes to tell the valueof their comfort.

  'Of all this golden ease I hear, but never saw the like of it; and,haply, I shall never do so, being born to turbulence. Once, indeed, Ihad the offer of escape, and kinsman's aid, and high place in the gay,bright world; and yet I was not tempted much, or, at least, dared not totrust it. And it ended very sadly, so dreadfully that I even shrink fromtelling you about it; for that one terror changed my life, in a moment,at a blow, from childhood and from thoughts of play and commune with theflowers and trees, to a sense of death and darkness, and a heavy weightof earth. Be content now, Master Ridd ask me nothing more about it, soyour sleep be sounder.'

  But I, John Ridd, being young and new, and very fond of hearing thingsto make my blood to tingle, had no more of manners than to urge poorLorna onwards, hoping, perhaps, in depth of heart, that she might haveto hold by me, when the worst came to the worst of it. Therefore shewent on again.