Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER XLII

  THE GREAT WINTER

  It must have snowed most wonderfully to have made that depth of coveringin about eight hours. For one of Master Stickles' men, who had been outall the night, said that no snow began to fall until nearly midnight.And here it was, blocking up the doors, stopping the ways, and the watercourses, and making it very much worse to walk than in a saw-pit newlyused. However, we trudged along in a line; I first, and the other menafter me; trying to keep my track, but finding legs and strength notup to it. Most of all, John Fry was groaning; certain that his time wascome, and sending messages to his wife, and blessings to his children.For all this time it was snowing harder than it ever had snowed before,so far as a man might guess at it; and the leaden depth of the sky camedown, like a mine turned upside down on us. Not that the flakes wereso very large; for I have seen much larger flakes in a shower of March,while sowing peas; but that there was no room between them, neither anyrelaxing, nor any change of direction.

  Watch, like a good and faithful dog, followed us very cheerfully,leaping out of the depth, which took him over his back and ears already,even in the level places; while in the drifts he might have sunk to anydistance out of sight, and never found his way up again. However, wehelped him now and then, especially through the gaps and gateways; andso after a deal of floundering, some laughter, and a little swearing, wecame all safe to the lower meadow, where most of our flock was hurdled.

  But behold, there was no flock at all! None, I mean, to be seenanywhere; only at one corner of the field, by the eastern end, where thesnow drove in, a great white billow, as high as a barn, and as broad asa house. This great drift was rolling and curling beneath the violentblast, tufting and combing with rustling swirls, and carved (as inpatterns of cornice) where the grooving chisel of the wind swept round.Ever and again the tempest snatched little whiffs from the channellededges, twirled them round and made them dance over the chime of themonster pile, then let them lie like herring-bones, or the seams of sandwhere the tide has been. And all the while from the smothering sky, moreand more fiercely at every blast, came the pelting, pitiless arrows,winged with murky white, and pointed with the barbs of frost.

  But although for people who had no sheep, the sight was a very fine one(so far at least as the weather permitted any sight at all); yet for us,with our flock beneath it, this great mount had but little charm. Watchbegan to scratch at once, and to howl along the sides of it; he knewthat his charge was buried there, and his business taken from him. Butwe four men set to in earnest, digging with all our might and main,shovelling away at the great white pile, and fetching it into themeadow. Each man made for himself a cave, scooping at the soft, coldflux, which slid upon him at every stroke, and throwing it out behindhim, in piles of castled fancy. At last we drove our tunnels in (forwe worked indeed for the lives of us), and all converging towards themiddle, held our tools and listened.

  The other men heard nothing at all; or declared that they heard nothing,being anxious now to abandon the matter, because of the chill in theirfeet and knees. But I said, 'Go, if you choose all of you. I will workit out by myself, you pie-crusts,' and upon that they gripped theirshovels, being more or less of Englishmen; and the least drop of Englishblood is worth the best of any other when it comes to lasting out.

  But before we began again, I laid my head well into the chamber; andthere I hears a faint 'ma-a-ah,' coming through some ells of snow, likea plaintive, buried hope, or a last appeal. I shouted aloud to cheer himup, for I knew what sheep it was, to wit, the most valiant of all thewethers, who had met me when I came home from London, and been so gladto see me. And then we all fell to again; and very soon we hauledhim out. Watch took charge of him at once, with an air of the noblestpatronage, lying on his frozen fleece, and licking all his face andfeet, to restore his warmth to him. Then fighting Tom jumped up at once,and made a little butt at Watch, as if nothing had ever ailed him, andthen set off to a shallow place, and looked for something to nibble at.

  Further in, and close under the bank, where they had huddled themselvesfor warmth, we found all the rest of the poor sheep packed, as closelyas if they were in a great pie. It was strange to observe how theirvapour and breath, and the moisture exuding from their wool had scooped,as it were, a coved room for them, lined with a ribbing of deep yellowsnow. Also the churned snow beneath their feet was as yellow as gamboge.Two or three of the weaklier hoggets were dead, from want of air, andfrom pressure; but more than three-score were as lively as ever; thoughcramped and stiff for a little while.

  'However shall us get 'em home?' John Fry asked in great dismay, whenwe had cleared about a dozen of them; which we were forced to do verycarefully, so as not to fetch the roof down. 'No manner of maning todraive 'un, drough all they girt driftnesses.'

  'You see to this place, John,' I replied, as we leaned on our shovelsa moment, and the sheep came rubbing round us; 'let no more of them outfor the present; they are better where they be. Watch, here boy, keepthem!'

  Watch came, with his little scut of a tail cocked as sharp as duty, andI set him at the narrow mouth of the great snow antre. All the sheepsidled away, and got closer, that the other sheep might be bitten first,as the foolish things imagine; whereas no good sheep-dog even so much aslips a sheep to turn it.

  Then of the outer sheep (all now snowed and frizzled like a lawyer'swig) I took the two finest and heaviest, and with one beneath my rightarm, and the other beneath my left, I went straight home to the uppersheppey, and set them inside and fastened them. Sixty and six I tookhome in that way, two at a time on each joumey; and the work grew harderand harder each time, as the drifts of the snow were deepening. No otherman should meddle with them; I was resolved to try my strength againstthe strength of the elements; and try it I did, ay, and proved it. Acertain fierce delight burned in me, as the struggle grew harder; butrather would I die than yield; and at last I finished it. People talk ofit to this day; but none can tell what the labour was, who have not feltthat snow and wind.

  Of the sheep upon the mountain, and the sheep upon the western farm, andthe cattle on the upper barrows, scarcely one in ten was saved; do whatwe would for them, and this was not through any neglect (now that ourwits were sharpened), but from the pure impossibility of finding themat all. That great snow never ceased a moment for three days and nights;and then when all the earth was filled, and the topmost hedges wereunseen, and the trees broke down with weight (wherever the wind had notlightened them), a brilliant sun broke forth and showed the loss of allour customs.

  All our house was quite snowed up, except where we had purged a way, bydint of constant shovellings. The kitchen was as dark and darker thanthe cider-cellar, and long lines of furrowed scollops ran even up to thechimney-stacks. Several windows fell right inwards, through the weightof the snow against them; and the few that stood, bulged in, and bentlike an old bruised lanthorn. We were obliged to cook by candle-light;we were forced to read by candle-light; as for baking, we could not doit, because the oven was too chill; and a load of faggots only brought alittle wet down the sides of it.

  For when the sun burst forth at last upon that world of white, what hebrought was neither warmth, nor cheer, nor hope of softening; only aclearer shaft of cold, from the violet depths of sky. Long-drawn alleysof white haze seemed to lead towards him, yet such as he could not comedown, with any warmth remaining. Broad white curtains of the frost-foglooped around the lower sky, on the verge of hill and valley, and abovethe laden trees. Only round the sun himself, and the spot of heaven heclaimed, clustered a bright purple-blue, clear, and calm, and deep.

  That night such a frost ensued as we had never dreamed of, neither readin ancient books, or histories of Frobisher. The kettle by the firefroze, and the crock upon the hearth-cheeks; many men were killed, andcattle rigid in their head-ropes. Then I heard that fearful sound, whichnever I had heard before, neither since have heard (except during thatsame winter), the sharp yet solemn sound of trees burst open by thefrost-blow. Our gre
at walnut lost three branches, and has been dyingever since; though growing meanwhile, as the soul does. And the ancientoak at the cross was rent, and many score of ash trees. But why shouldI tell all this? the people who have not seen it (as I have) will onlymake faces, and disbelieve; till such another frost comes; which perhapsmay never be.

  This terrible weather kept Tom Faggus from coming near our house forweeks; at which indeed I was not vexed a quarter so much as Annie was;for I had never half approved of him, as a husband for my sister; inspite of his purchase from Squire Bassett, and the grant of the Royalpardon. It may be, however, that Annie took the same view of my love forLorna, and could not augur well of it; but if so, she held her peace,though I was not so sparing. For many things contributed to make me lessgood-humoured now than my real nature was; and the very least of allthese things would have been enough to make some people cross, and rude,and fractious. I mean the red and painful chapping of my face and hands,from working in the snow all day, and lying in the frost all night. Forbeing of a fair complexion, and a ruddy nature, and pretty plump withal,and fed on plenty of hot victuals, and always forced by my mother to sitnearer the fire than I wished, it was wonderful to see how the cold ranrevel on my cheeks and knuckles. And I feared that Lorna (if it shouldever please God to stop the snowing) might take this for a proof of lowand rustic blood and breeding.

  And this I say was the smallest thing; for it was far more serious thatwe were losing half our stock, do all we would to shelter them. Even thehorses in the stables (mustered all together for the sake of breath andsteaming) had long icicles from their muzzles, almost every morning.But of all things the very gravest, to my apprehension, was theimpossibility of hearing, or having any token of or from my loved one.Not that those three days alone of snow (tremendous as it was) couldhave blocked the country so; but that the sky had never ceased, for morethan two days at a time, for full three weeks thereafter, to pour freshpiles of fleecy mantle; neither had the wind relaxed a single day fromshaking them. As a rule, it snowed all day, cleared up at night, andfroze intensely, with the stars as bright as jewels, earth spread out inlustrous twilight, and the sounds in the air as sharp and crackling asartillery; then in the morning, snow again; before the sun could come tohelp.

  It mattered not what way the wind was. Often and often the vanes wentround, and we hoped for change of weather; the only change was that itseemed (if possible) to grow colder. Indeed, after a week or so, thewind would regularly box the compass (as the sailors call it) in thecourse of every day, following where the sun should be, as if to makea mock of him. And this of course immensely added to the peril of thedrifts; because they shifted every day; and no skill or care might learnthem.

  I believe it was on Epiphany morning, or somewhere about that period,when Lizzie ran into the kitchen to me, where I was thawing mygoose-grease, with the dogs among the ashes--the live dogs, I mean, notthe iron ones, for them we had given up long ago,--and having caughtme, by way of wonder (for generally I was out shoveling long before my'young lady' had her nightcap off), she positively kissed me, for thesake of warming her lips perhaps, or because she had something proud tosay.

  'You great fool, John,' said my lady, as Annie and I used to call her,on account of her airs and graces; 'what a pity you never read, John!'

  'Much use, I should think, in reading!' I answered, though pleased withher condescension 'read, I suppose, with roof coming in, and only thischimney left sticking out of the snow!'

  'The very time to read, John,' said Lizzie, looking grander; 'our worsttroubles are the need, whence knowledge can deliver us.'

  'Amen,' I cried out; 'are you parson or clerk? Whichever you are,good-morning.'

  Thereupon I was bent on my usual round (a very small one nowadays), butEliza took me with both hands, and I stopped of course; for I could notbear to shake the child, even in play, for a moment, because her backwas tender. Then she looked up at me with her beautiful eyes, so large,unhealthy and delicate, and strangely shadowing outward, as if to spreadtheir meaning; and she said,--

  'Now, John, this is no time to joke. I was almost frozen in bed lastnight; and Annie like an icicle. Feel how cold my hands are. Now, willyou listen to what I have read about climates ten times worse than this;and where none but clever men can live?'

  'Impossible for me to listen now, I have hundreds of things to see to;but I will listen after breakfast to your foreign climates, child. Nowattend to mother's hot coffee.'

  She looked a little disappointed, but she knew what I had to do; andafter all she was not so utterly unreasonable; although she didread books. And when I had done my morning's work, I listened to herpatiently; and it was out of my power to think that all she said wasfoolish.

  For I knew common sense pretty well, by this time, whether it happenedto be my own, or any other person's, if clearly laid before me. AndLizzie had a particular way of setting forth very clearly whatever shewished to express and enforce. But the queerest part of it all was this,that if she could but have dreamed for a moment what would be the firstapplication made me by of her lesson, she would rather have bitten hertongue off than help me to my purpose.

  She told me that in the Arctic Regions, as they call some places, a longway north, where the Great Bear lies all across the heavens, and nosun is up, for whole months at a time, and yet where people will goexploring, out of pure contradiction, and for the sake of novelty, andlove of being frozen--that here they always had such winters as we werehaving now. It never ceased to freeze, she said; and it never ceased tosnow; except when it was too cold; and then all the air was choked withglittering spikes; and a man's skin might come off of him, before hecould ask the reason. Nevertheless the people there (although the snowwas fifty feet deep, and all their breath fell behind them frozen, likea log of wood dropped from their shoulders), yet they managed toget along, and make the time of the year to each other, by a littlecleverness. For seeing how the snow was spread, lightly over everything,covering up the hills and valleys, and the foreskin of the sea, theycontrived a way to crown it, and to glide like a flake along. Throughthe sparkle of the whiteness, and the wreaths of windy tossings, andthe ups and downs of cold, any man might get along with a boat on eitherfoot, to prevent his sinking.

  She told me how these boats were made; very strong and very light,of ribs with skin across them; five feet long, and one foot wide; andturned up at each end, even as a canoe is. But she did not tell me, nordid I give it a moment's thought myself, how hard it was to walk uponthem without early practice. Then she told me another thing equallyuseful to me; although I would not let her see how much I thought aboutit. And this concerned the use of sledges, and their power of gliding,and the lightness of their following; all of which I could see at once,through knowledge of our own farm-sleds; which we employ in lieu ofwheels, used in flatter districts. When I had heard all this from her, amere chit of a girl as she was, unfit to make a snowball even, or to frysnow pancakes, I looked down on her with amazement, and began to wish alittle that I had given more time to books.

  But God shapes all our fitness, and gives each man his meaning, even ashe guides the wavering lines of snow descending. Our Eliza was meant forbooks; our dear Annie for loving and cooking; I, John Ridd, for sheep,and wrestling, and the thought of Lorna; and mother to love all threeof us, and to make the best of her children. And now, if I must tellthe truth, as at every page I try to do (though God knows it is hardenough), I had felt through all this weather, though my life wasLorna's, something of a satisfaction in so doing duty to my kindest andbest of mothers, and to none but her. For (if you come to think of it)a man's young love is very pleasant, very sweet, and tickling; and takeshim through the core of heart; without his knowing how or why. Then hedwells upon it sideways, without people looking, and builds up all sortsof fancies, growing hot with working so at his own imaginings. So hislove is a crystal Goddess, set upon an obelisk; and whoever will not bowthe knee (yet without glancing at her), the lover makes it a sacred riteeither to kick or to
stick him. I am not speaking of me and Lorna, butof common people.

  Then (if you come to think again) lo!--or I will not say lo! for no onecan behold it--only feel, or but remember, what a real mother is. Everloving, ever soft, ever turning sin to goodness, vices into virtues;blind to all nine-tenths of wrong; through a telescope beholding (thoughherself so nigh to them) faintest decimal of promise, even in her vilestchild. Ready to thank God again, as when her babe was born to her;leaping (as at kingdom-come) at a wandering syllable of Gospel for herlost one.

  All this our mother was to us, and even more than all of this; and henceI felt a pride and joy in doing my sacred duty towards her, now that theweather compelled me. And she was as grateful and delighted as if shehad no more claim upon me than a stranger's sheep might have. Yet fromtime to time I groaned within myself and by myself, at thinking ofmy sad debarment from the sight of Lorna, and of all that might havehappened to her, now she had no protection.

  Therefore, I fell to at once, upon that hint from Lizzie, and being usedto thatching-work, and the making of traps, and so on, before very longI built myself a pair of strong and light snow-shoes, framed with ashand ribbed of withy, with half-tanned calf-skin stretched across, andan inner sole to support my feet. At first I could not walk at all, butfloundered about most piteously, catching one shoe in the other, andboth of them in the snow-drifts, to the great amusement of the girls,who were come to look at me. But after a while I grew more expert,discovering what my errors were, and altering the inclination of theshoes themselves, according to a print which Lizzie found in a book ofadventures. And this made such a difference, that I crossed the farmyardand came back again (though turning was the worst thing of all) withoutso much as falling once, or getting my staff entangled.

  But oh, the aching of my ankles, when I went to bed that night; I wasforced to help myself upstairs with a couple of mopsticks! and I rubbedthe joints with neatsfoot oil, which comforted them greatly. And likelyenough I would have abandoned any further trial, but for Lizzie'sridicule, and pretended sympathy; asking if the strong John Ridd wouldhave old Betty to lean upon. Therefore I set to again, with a fixedresolve not to notice pain or stiffness, but to warm them out of me.And sure enough, before dark that day, I could get along pretty freely;especially improving every time, after leaving off and resting. Theastonishment of poor John Fry, Bill Dadds, and Jem Slocombe, when theysaw me coming down the hill upon them, in the twilight, where they wereclearing the furze rick and trussing it for cattle, was more than Ican tell you; because they did not let me see it, but ran away with oneaccord, and floundered into a snowdrift. They believed, and so did everyone else (especially when I grew able to glide along pretty rapidly),that I had stolen Mother Melldrum's sieves, on which she was said to flyover the foreland at midnight every Saturday.

  Upon the following day, I held some council with my mother; not likingto go without her permission, yet scarcely daring to ask for it. Buthere she disappointed me, on the right side of disappointment; sayingthat she had seen my pining (which she never could have done; becauseI had been too hard at work), and rather than watch me grieving so,for somebody or other, who now was all in all to me, I might go upon mycourse, and God's protection go with me! At this I was amazed, becauseit was not at all like mother; and knowing how well I had behaved, eversince the time of our snowing up, I was a little moved to tell her thatshe could not understand me. However my sense of duty kept me, and myknowledge of the catechism, from saying such a thing as that, or eventhinking twice of it. And so I took her at her word, which she wasnot prepared for; and telling her how proud I was of her trust inProvidence, and how I could run in my new snow-shoes, I took a shortpipe in my mouth, and started forth accordingly.