Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor

by R. D. Blackmore

  CHAPTER LI

  A VISIT FROM THE COUNSELLOR

  Now while I was riding home that evening, with a tender conscienceabout Ruth, although not a wounded one, I guessed but little that allmy thoughts were needed much for my own affairs. So however it provedto be; for as I came in, soon after dark, my sister Eliza met me atthe corner of the cheese-room, and she said, 'Don't go in there, John,'pointing to mother's room; 'until I have had a talk with you.'

  'In the name of Moses,' I inquired, having picked up that phrase atDulverton 'what are you at about me now? There is no peace for a quietfellow.'

  'It is nothing we are at,' she answered; 'neither may you make light ofit. It is something very important about Mistress Lorna Doone.'

  'Let us have it at once,' I cried; 'I can bear anything about Lorna,except that she does not care for me.'

  'It has nothing to do with that, John. And I am quite sure thatyou never need fear anything of that sort. She perfectly wearies mesometimes, although her voice is so soft and sweet, about your endlessperfections.'

  'Bless her little heart!' I said; 'the subject is inexhaustible.'

  'No doubt,' replied Lizzie, in the driest manner; 'especially to yoursisters. However this is no time to joke. I fear you will get the worstof it, John. Do you know a man of about Gwenny's shape, nearly as broadas he is long, but about six times the size of Gwenny, and with alength of snow-white hair, and a thickness also; as the copses were lastwinter. He never can comb it, that is quite certain, with any comb yetinvented.'

  'Then you go and offer your services. There are few things you cannotscarify. I know the man from your description, although I have neverseen him. Now where is my Lorna?'

  'Your Lorna is with Annie, having a good cry, I believe; and Annie tooglad to second her. She knows that this great man is here, and knowsthat he wants to see her. But she begged to defer the interview, untildear John's return.'

  'What a nasty way you have of telling the very commonest piece of news!'I said, on purpose to pay her out. 'What man will ever fancy you, youunlucky little snapper? Now, no more nursery talk for me. I will go andsettle this business. You had better go and dress your dolls; if you cangive them clothes unpoisoned.' Hereupon Lizzie burst into a perfect roarof tears; feeling that she had the worst of it. And I took her up, andbegged her pardon although she scarcely deserved it; for she knew thatI was out of luck, and she might have spared her satire.

  I was almost sure that the man who was come must be the Counsellorhimself; of whom I felt much keener fear than of his son Carver. Andknowing that his visit boded ill to me and Lorna, I went and soughtmy dear; and led her with a heavy heart, from the maiden's room tomother's, to meet our dreadful visitor.

  Mother was standing by the door, making curtseys now and then, andlistening to a long harangue upon the rights of state and land, whichthe Counsellor (having found that she was the owner of her property, andknew nothing of her title to it) was encouraged to deliver it. My dearmother stood gazing at him, spell-bound by his eloquence, and onlyhoping that he would stop. He was shaking his hair upon his shoulders,in the power of his words, and his wrath at some little thing, which hedeclared to be quite illegal.

  Then I ventured to show myself, in the flesh, before him; although hefeigned not to see me; but he advanced with zeal to Lorna; holding outboth hands at once.

  'My darling child, my dearest niece; how wonderfully well you look!Mistress Ridd, I give you credit. This is the country of good things. Inever would have believed our Queen could have looked so royal. Surelyof all virtues, hospitality is the finest, and the most romantic.Dearest Lorna, kiss your uncle; it is quite a privilege.'

  'Perhaps it is to you, sir,' said Lorna, who could never quite check hersense of oddity; 'but I fear that you have smoked tobacco, which spoilsreciprocity.'

  'You are right, my child. How keen your scent is! It is always so withus. Your grandfather was noted for his olfactory powers. Ah, a greatloss, dear Mrs. Ridd, a terrible loss to this neighbourhood! As one ofour great writers says--I think it must be Milton--"We ne'er shall lookupon his like again."'

  'With your good leave sir,' I broke in, 'Master Milton could neverhave written so sweet and simple a line as that. It is one of the greatShakespeare.'

  'Woe is me for my neglect!' said the Counsellor, bowing airily; 'thismust be your son, Mistress Ridd, the great John, the wrestler. And onewho meddles with the Muses! Ah, since I was young, how everything ischanged, madam! Except indeed the beauty of women, which seems to me toincrease every year.' Here the old villain bowed to my mother; and sheblushed, and made another curtsey, and really did look very nice.

  'Now though I have quoted the poets amiss, as your son informs me (forwhich I tender my best thanks, and must amend my reading), I can hardlybe wrong in assuming that this young armiger must be the too attractivecynosure to our poor little maiden. And for my part, she is welcome tohim. I have never been one of those who dwell upon distinctions of rank,and birth, and such like; as if they were in the heart of nature, andmust be eternal. In early youth, I may have thought so, and been fullof that little pride. But now I have long accounted it one of the firstaxioms of political economy--you are following me, Mistress Ridd?'

  'Well, sir, I am doing my best; but I cannot quite keep up with you.'

  'Never mind, madam; I will be slower. But your son's intelligence is soquick--'

  'I see, sir; you thought that mine must be. But no; it all comes fromhis father, sir. His father was that quick and clever--'

  'Ah, I can well suppose it, madam. And a credit he is to both of you.Now, to return to our muttons--a figure which you will appreciate--I maynow be regarded, I think, as this young lady's legal guardian; althoughI have not had the honour of being formally appointed such. Her fatherwas the eldest son of Sir Ensor Doone; and I happened to be the secondson and as young maidens cannot be baronets, I suppose I am "SirCounsellor." Is it so, Mistress Ridd, according to your theory ofgenealogy?'

  'I am sure I don't know, sir,' my mother answered carefully; 'I know notanything of that name, sir, except in the Gospel of Matthew: but I seenot why it should be otherwise.'

  'Good, madam! I may look upon that as your sanction and approval: andthe College of Heralds shall hear of it. And in return, as Lorna'sguardian, I give my full and ready consent to her marriage with yourson, madam.'

  'Oh, how good of you, sir, how kind! Well, I always did say, that thelearnedest people were, almost always, the best and kindest, and themost simple-hearted.'

  'Madam, that is a great sentiment. What a goodly couple they will be!and if we can add him to our strength--'

  'Oh no, sir, oh no!' cried mother: 'you really must not think of it. Hehas always been brought up so honest--'

  'Hem! that makes a difference. A decided disqualification for domesticlife among the Doones. But, surely, he might get over those prejudices,madam?'

  'Oh no, sir! he never can: he never can indeed. When he was only thathigh, sir, he could not steal even an apple, when some wicked boys triedto mislead him.'

  'Ah,' replied the Counsellor, shaking his white head gravely; 'then Igreatly fear that his case is quite incurable. I have known such cases;violent prejudice, bred entirely of education, and anti-economicalto the last degree. And when it is so, it is desperate: no man, afterimbibing ideas of that sort, can in any way be useful.'

  'Oh yes, sir, John is very useful. He can do as much work as three othermen; and you should see him load a sledd, sir.'

  'I was speaking, madam, of higher usefulness,--power of the brain andheart. The main thing for us upon earth is to take a large view ofthings. But while we talk of the heart, what is my niece Lornadoing, that she does not come and thank me, for my perhaps too promptconcession to her youthful fancies? Ah, if I had wanted thanks, I shouldhave been more stubborn.'

  Lorna, being challenged thus, came up and looked at her uncle, withher noble eyes fixed full upon his, which beneath his white eyebrowsglistened, like dormer windows piled with snow.


  'For what am I to thank you, uncle?'

  'My dear niece, I have told you. For removing the heaviest obstacle,which to a mind so well regulated could possibly have existed, betweenyour dutiful self and the object of your affections.'

  'Well, uncle, I should be very grateful, if I thought that you didso from love of me; or if I did not know that you have something yetconcealed from me.'

  'And my consent,' said the Counsellor, 'is the more meritorious, themore liberal, frank, and candid, in the face of an existing fact, and avery clearly established one; which might have appeared to weaker mindsin the light of an impediment; but to my loftier view of matrimony seemsquite a recommendation.'

  'What fact do you mean, sir? Is it one that I ought to know?'

  'In my opinion it is, good niece. It forms, to my mind, so fine a basisfor the invariable harmony of the matrimonial state. To be brief--as Ialways endeavour to be, without becoming obscure--you two young people(ah, what a gift is youth! one can never be too thankful for it) youwill have the rare advantage of commencing married life, with a subjectof common interest to discuss, whenever you weary of--well, say of oneanother; if you can now, by any means, conceive such a possibility. Andperfect justice meted out: mutual goodwill resulting, from the sense ofreciprocity.'

  'I do not understand you, sir. Why can you not say what you mean, atonce?'

  'My dear child, I prolong your suspense. Curiosity is the most powerfulof all feminine instincts; and therefore the most delightful, when notprematurely satisfied. However, if you must have my strong realities,here they are. Your father slew dear John's father, and dear John'sfather slew yours.'

  Having said thus much, the Counsellor leaned back upon his chair, andshaded his calm white-bearded eyes from the rays of our tallow candles.He was a man who liked to look, rather than to be looked at. But Lornacame to me for aid; and I went up to Lorna and mother looked at both ofus.

  Then feeling that I must speak first (as no one would begin it), I tookmy darling round the waist, and led her up to the Counsellor; while shetried to bear it bravely; yet must lean on me, or did.

  'Now, Sir Counsellor Doone,' I said, with Lorna squeezing both my hands,I never yet knew how (considering that she was walking all the time, orsomething like it); 'you know right well, Sir Counsellor, that Sir EnsorDoone gave approval.' I cannot tell what made me think of this: but soit came upon me.

  'Approval to what, good rustic John? To the slaughter so reciprocal?'

  'No, sir, not to that; even if it ever happened; which I do not believe.But to the love betwixt me and Lorna; which your story shall not break,without more evidence than your word. And even so, shall never break; ifLorna thinks as I do.'

  The maiden gave me a little touch, as much as to say, 'You are right,darling: give it to him, again, like that.' However, I held my peace,well knowing that too many words do mischief.

  Then mother looked at me with wonder, being herself too amazed to speak;and the Counsellor looked, with great wrath in his eyes, which he triedto keep from burning.

  'How say you then, John Ridd,' he cried, stretching out one hand, likeElijah; 'is this a thing of the sort you love? Is this what you are usedto?'

  'So please your worship,' I answered; 'no kind of violence can surpriseus, since first came Doones upon Exmoor. Up to that time none heardof harm; except of taking a purse, maybe, or cutting a strange sheep'sthroat. And the poor folk who did this were hanged, with some benefit ofclergy. But ever since the Doones came first, we are used to anything.'

  'Thou varlet,' cried the Counsellor, with the colour of his eyes quitechanged with the sparkles of his fury; 'is this the way we are to dealwith such a low-bred clod as thou? To question the doings of our people,and to talk of clergy! What, dream you not that we could have clergy,and of the right sort, too, if only we cared to have them? Tush! Am I tospend my time arguing with a plough-tail Bob?'

  'If your worship will hearken to me,' I answered very modestly, notwishing to speak harshly, with Lorna looking up at me; 'there are manythings that might be said without any kind of argument, which I wouldnever wish to try with one of your worship's learning. And in the firstplace it seems to me that if our fathers hated one another bitterly, yetneither won the victory, only mutual discomfiture; surely that is buta reason why we should be wiser than they, and make it up in thisgeneration by goodwill and loving'--

  'Oh, John, you wiser than your father!' mother broke upon me here; 'notbut what you might be as wise, when you come to be old enough.'

  'Young people of the present age,' said the Counsellor severely, 'haveno right feeling of any sort, upon the simplest matter. Lorna Doone,stand forth from contact with that heir of parricide; and state in yourown mellifluous voice, whether you regard this slaughter as a pleasanttrifle.'

  'You know, without any words of mine,' she answered very softly, yet notwithdrawing from my hand, 'that although I have been seasoned well toevery kind of outrage, among my gentle relatives, I have not yet sopurely lost all sense of right and wrong as to receive what you havesaid, as lightly as you declared it. You think it a happy basis for ourfuture concord. I do not quite think that, my uncle; neither do I quitebelieve that a word of it is true. In our happy valley, nine-tenths ofwhat is said is false; and you were always wont to argue that trueand false are but a blind turned upon a pivot. Without any failure ofrespect for your character, good uncle, I decline politely to believe aword of what you have told me. And even if it were proved to me, all Ican say is this, if my John will have me, I am his for ever.'

  This long speech was too much for her; she had overrated her strengthabout it, and the sustenance of irony. So at last she fell into my arms,which had long been waiting for her; and there she lay with no othersound, except a gurgling in her throat.

  'You old villain,' cried my mother, shaking her fist at the Counsellor,while I could do nothing else but hold, and bend across, my darling, andwhisper to deaf ears; 'What is the good of the quality; if this isall that comes of it? Out of the way! You know the words that make thedeadly mischief; but not the ways that heal them. Give me that bottle,if hands you have; what is the use of Counsellors?'

  I saw that dear mother was carried away; and indeed I myself wassomething like it; with the pale face upon my bosom, and the heaving ofthe heart, and the heat and cold all through me, as my darling breathedor lay. Meanwhile the Counsellor stood back, and seemed a little sorry;although of course it was not in his power to be at all ashamed ofhimself.

  'My sweet love, my darling child,' our mother went on to Lorna, in a waythat I shall never forget, though I live to be a hundred; 'pretty pet,not a word of it is true, upon that old liar's oath; and if every wordwere true, poor chick, you should have our John all the more for it.You and John were made by God and meant for one another, whatever fallsbetween you. Little lamb, look up and speak: here is your own John andI; and the devil take the Counsellor.'

  I was amazed at mother's words, being so unlike her; while I loved herall the more because she forgot herself so. In another moment in ranAnnie, ay and Lizzie also, knowing by some mystic sense (which I haveoften noticed, but never could explain) that something was astir,belonging to the world of women, yet foreign to the eyes of men. And nowthe Counsellor, being well-born, although such a heartless miscreant,beckoned to me to come away; which I, being smothered with women, wasonly too glad to do, as soon as my own love would let go of me.

  'That is the worst of them,' said the old man; when I had led him intoour kitchen, with an apology at every step, and given him hot schnappsand water, and a cigarro of brave Tom Faggus: 'you never can say much,sir, in the way of reasoning (however gently meant and put) but whatthese women will fly out. It is wiser to put a wild bird in a cage, andexpect him to sit and look at you, and chirp without a feather rumpled,than it is to expect a woman to answer reason reasonably.' Saying this,he looked at his puff of smoke as if it contained more reason.

  'I am sure I do not know, sir,' I answered according to a phrase whichhas always been my
favourite, on account of its general truth: moreover,he was now our guest, and had right to be treated accordingly: 'I am,as you see, not acquainted with the ways of women, except my mother andsisters.'

  'Except not even them, my son, said the Counsellor, now having finishedhis glass, without much consultation about it; 'if you once understandyour mother and sisters--why you understand the lot of them.'

  He made a twist in his cloud of smoke, and dashed his finger throughit, so that I could not follow his meaning, and in manners liked not topress him.

  'Now of this business, John,' he said, after getting to the bottom ofthe second glass, and having a trifle or so to eat, and praising ourchimney-corner; 'taking you on the whole, you know, you are wonderfullygood people; and instead of giving me up to the soldiers, as you mighthave done, you are doing your best to make me drunk.'

  'Not at all, sir,' I answered; 'not at all, your worship. Let me mixyou another glass. We rarely have a great gentleman by the side of ourembers and oven. I only beg your pardon, sir, that my sister Annie (whoknows where to find all the good pans and the lard) could not wait uponyou this evening; and I fear they have done it with dripping instead,and in a pan with the bottom burned. But old Betty quite loses her headsometimes, by dint of over-scolding.'

  'My son,' replied the Counsellor, standing across the front of the fire,to prove his strict sobriety: 'I meant to come down upon you to-night;but you have turned the tables upon me. Not through any skill on yourpart, nor through any paltry weakness as to love (and all that stuff,which boys and girls spin tops at, or knock dolls' noses together), butthrough your simple way of taking me, as a man to be believed; combinedwith the comfort of this place, and the choice tobacco and cordials. Ihave not enjoyed an evening so much, God bless me if I know when!'

  'Your worship,' said I, 'makes me more proud than I well know what todo with. Of all the things that please and lead us into happy sleepat night, the first and chiefest is to think that we have pleased avisitor.'

  'Then, John, thou hast deserved good sleep; for I am not pleased easily.But although our family is not so high now as it hath been, I haveenough of the gentleman left to be pleased when good people try me. Myfather, Sir Ensor, was better than I in this great element of birth, andmy son Carver is far worse. Aetas parentum, what is it, my boy? I hearthat you have been at a grammar-school.'

  'So I have, your worship, and at a very good one; but I only got farenough to make more tail than head of Latin.'

  'Let that pass,' said the Counsellor; 'John, thou art all the wiser.'And the old man shook his hoary locks, as if Latin had been his ruin.I looked at him sadly, and wondered whether it might have so ruined me,but for God's mercy in stopping it.