This could hardly fail to be the
room wherein my darling lay; for here that impudent young fel-
low had gazed while he was whistling.
room wherein my darling lay; for here that impudent young fel-
low had gazed while he was whistling.
Warner - World's Best Literature - v04 - Bes to Bro
It was the last of their meetings before Sheila was
ushered into the big world to busy herself with new occupations
and cares. It was a pleasant little journey throughout; for as
they got into the landau to drive back to town, the moon was
shining high up in the southern heavens, and the air was mild
and fresh, so that they had the carriage opened, and Sheila, well
wrapped up, lay and looked around her with a strange wonder
## p. 2010 (#200) ###########################################
2010
WILLIAM BLACK
and joy as they drove underneath the shadow of the trees and
out again into the clear sheen of the night. They saw the river,
too, flowing smoothly and palely down between its dark banks;
and somehow here the silence checked them, and they hummed.
no more those duets they used to sing up at Borva. Of what
were they thinking, then, as they drove through the clear night
along the lonely road? Lavender at least was rejoicing at his
great good fortune that he had secured for ever to himself the
true-hearted girl who now sat opposite to him, with the moon-
light touching her face and hair; and he was laughing to himself
at the notion that he did not properly appreciate her or under-
stand her or perceive her real character. If not he, who then?
Had he not watched every turn of her disposition, every expres-
sion of her wishes, every grace of her manner and look of her
eyes? and was he not overjoyed to find that the more he knew of
her the more he loved her? Marriage had increased rather than
diminished the mystery and wonder he had woven about her.
He was more her lover now than he had been before his mar-
riage. Who could see in her eyes what he saw? Elderly folks
can look at a girl's eyes, and see that they are brown or blue or
green, as the case may be; but the lover looks at them and sees
in them the magic mirror of a hundred possible worlds. How
can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there, or tell what
strange fancies and reminiscences may be involved in an absent
look? Is she thinking of starlit nights on some distant lake, or
of the old bygone days on the hills? All her former life is
told there, and yet but half told, and he longs to become
possessed of all the beautiful past that she has seen. Here is a
constant mystery to him, and there is a singular and wistful
attraction for him in those still deeps where the thoughts and
dreams of an innocent soul lie but half revealed. He does not
see those things in the eyes of women he is not in love with;
but when in after years he is carelessly regarding this or the
other woman, some chance look, some brief and sudden turn of
expression, will recall to him, as with a stroke of lightning, all
the old wonder-time, and his heart will go nigh to breaking to
think that he has grown old, and that he has forgotten so much,
and that the fair, wild days of romance and longing are passed
away forever.
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R. D. BLACKMORE.
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2011
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
(1825-)
He was
HE literary success of Blackmore came late in life.
born in Longworth, Berkshire, England, in 1825, was grad-
uated at Exeter College, Oxford, and afterwards studied law
in the Middle Temple, practicing his profession as a conveyancer.
But his heart was in an outdoor life. Like his own John Ridd, the
hero of Lorna Doone,' he is a man of the moors and fields, with a
fresh breeze blowing over him and a farmer's cares in his mind. In
1854-5 he published several volumes of poems under the pen-name
of "Melanter. " (The Bugle of the Black Sea' and a complete trans-
lation of Virgil's 'Georgics' appeared in 1871.
Other volumes of verse followed, of which it may be said that he
is a poet more sensitive to influence than fertile in original impulse;
although some of his prose, in which even rhythm is observed in
what seems to be an unconscious manner, displays high original
quality. It is therefore fair to say of him as a poet that while his
works did not gain him the reputation that has placed him among
the foremost literary men of the day, the subtle influence rural nature
exerts on man, and the part it bears in the sweet harmonies of life,
are told in passages that are resonant with melody.
The poet's delight is in the prosperity of the fields, as if they
were his friends, and in the dumb loving motherhood with which all
nature seems, to his eyes, to surround him.
As the precursor of a summer that yielded such a mellow harvest,
the spring of Mr. Blackmore's fiction was slow and intermittent. The
plot of his stories is never probable, but in his first novel, 'Clara
Vaughan,' published in 1864, it impairs belief in the general reality
of the book; and though there is hint of the power to excite sym-
pathy of which his latter novels prove him so great a master, the
intelligence refuses such shrieking melodrama. 'Lorna Doone' there-
fore came unheralded. It was published in London in 1869 and
slowly grew in favor, then leaped into popularity. In 1878 twenty-
two editions had been printed.
Other novels followed. 'The Maid of Sker,' 'Alice Lorraine,'
'Cripps the Carrier,' 'Erema,' 'Mary Anerley,' 'Christowell,' 'Sir
Thomas Upton,' came in rapid succession. The paternity of no
novel of Mr. Blackmore's is doubtful. All have marked character-
istics. They are long and exceedingly minute in detail. With all his
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2012
finish, he tells his story almost with a child's elaborateness of inci-
dent. Every change of the seasons, the history of every walk is set
down. He is in love with every feature of the landscape, be it the
wild doons of Exmoor or the wilder Yorkshire coast, or, across the
seas, the plains of the Sierras. He is a story-teller of the days in
which it was quite unimportant whether tales should come to an end
or not. He would have saved Scheherazade all her trouble and
enjoyed the task. He cannot pass carelessly by the slightest inci-
dent; it is his nature to approfondir all his surroundings: if the hero
breaks his stirrup and stops at the blacksmith's to have it mended,
the blacksmith will appear at the end of the story united to the rider,
from the third and fourth generation, by a subtle thread of connec-
tion. But all these details, while they encumber the tale, contribute
to a harmonious whole; for he has in a peculiar degree an instinct
for the judicious introduction of telling human characters that are as
much a part of the detail of the scene as the trees and stones.
Upon these characters he expends a wealth of humor, and his humor
is characteristic of Blackmore alone. It is full of unexpected turns
and twists of fancy, quiet fun when we expect grave comment.
Friendly old people appear, full of innumerable quips of individual-
ity, and breezy fields and wealthy orchards and a general mellow
fruitfulness form the background of the play.
Especially in his prodigality is Blackmore characteristic of Black-
more. Other writers keep their quaint reflections for their dialogue,
and confer immortality on their principal characters. But Blackmore
has no sense of economy. As Mr. Saintsbury says of Thackeray, he
could not introduce a personage, however subordinate, without mak-
ing him a living creature. He does little with a character he has
described in such powerful lines as Stephen Anerley. The fisher
village folks, wild and hardy, with their slow speech and sly sagacity,
the men at sea and the women at home; the maimed and broken-
down yet jolly old tars; the anxious little merchants, and the heavy
coast-guardsmen, we learn to know as we know the rocks and caves,
the fishing cobbles in their bright colors, the slow-tongued gos-
sips pouring out their long-voweled speech. All these characters,
although they have a general resemblance to each other, have also
a peculiar, quaint simplicity and wisdom that is Blackmoreish, as
Thackeray's characters are Thackeraian. The author steps in and
gives his puppets his little twist, the characteristic obliquity each
possesses, his quips and cranks. If he would but confine the abund-
ant tide of his flowing and leisurely utterances, he would have more
time to bestow on really exciting and dramatic episodes, instead of
going off into a little corner and carefully embellishing it, while the
dénouement waits and the interest grows cold. Neither can he write
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2013
a page without sending a sly bolt of amused perception through it,
in which he discovers some foible or pricks some bubble of preten-
sion, but always tenderly, as if he loved his victim. To the fact
that Mr. Blackmore's success came late in life, we have perhaps to
be thankful for the softened and indulgent maturity which finds a
hundred excuses, and knows that nothing is as good or as bad as it
seems.
The best expression of his genius in the delineation of character
is not-with perhaps the exception of John Ridd-in his heroes and
heroines. The former are drawn with the stronger hand. The
maidens are pretty girls, sweet and good and brave for the sake of
their fathers, and cunning for their lovers. His young men are
gallant and true; but as exemplary love is apt to run smooth, it is
not here that the drama finds the necessary amount of difficulty and
pain. The interest centres in such delicious conceptions as Parson
Short, full of muscular energy and sound doctrine, in Dr. Uperan-
down, his salt-water parish rival, the carrier Cripps, Parson Chowne,
and the renowned highwayman Tom Faggus, of whom they were
immensely proud. These people, before he has done with them, get
hold of our sympathies, while the author keeps perennially fresh his
enjoyment of human follies. His rustics do not talk with elaborate
humor, nor are they amiable, but they are racy of the soil.
One cannot dismiss a novelist without a reference to his plots,
unless indeed he discards plots as an article of faith. Mr. Blackmore
has no such intention. His stories are full of adventure and dramatic
situations, and his melodrama is of the lurid kind on which the cal-
cium light is thrown. Sometimes, as in The Maid of Sker' and
'Cripps, they violate every probability. In others, as in Mary
Anerley, the mystery is childishly simple, the oft-repeated plot of a
lost child recovered by certain strangely wrought gold buttons. In
'Erema,' the narrative suffers for want of vraisemblance, and loses by
being related by a very young girl who has had no opportunity of
becoming familiar with the world she describes. He is constantly
guilty of that splendid mendacity which fiction loves, but which is
nearly impossible to actual life. Self-sacrifice as depicted in 'Christo-
well,' involving much suffering to little purpose, is unsatisfactory;
and it is a sin against the verities to make unreasonable generosity
the basis of fiction representing life.
But while the reader quarrels with a waste of precious material,
Mr. Blackmore pursues his meditative way, with his smile of genial
observation, himself the best of all his personages. The smell of the
heather and the wild moorland odors, the honeyed grass and the
fragrant thyme, the darker breathings of the sea, get into his pages
and render them fragrant. A few villages lie on the edge of that
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2014
wild region, and a living trout stream darts by, but the landscape
does not obtrude itself nor interrupt the story. The quaint philos-
ophy flows on spontaneously, with a tender humanity and cheerful
fun. A writer like this may be pardoned if he is an indifferent
builder of a tale.
The scene of 'Lorna Doone,' the novelist's masterpiece, is laid
in Devonshire; and what Wordsworth did for the lake country,
Blackmore has done for the fairest county in England. The time is
that of Charles II. The book is historical, it is very long, it is
minute in detail, and it is melodramatic: but it is alive. The strange
adventures may or may not have happened, but we believe in them,
for it is real life that is set before us; and whatever the author may
tell us of robber caves and black-hearted villains, there is nothing
incredible in any of his confidences. Nothing in recent novel writing
is more vivid than the contrast between these outcast nobles the
Doones, robbers and brigands, living in the wilds of Bagworthy For-
est, locked fast in the hills,-and the peaceful farm-house of the yeo-
man Ridd who lives on the Downs. This home is not idealized.
From the diamond-paned kitchen come savory smells of cooking and
substantial fare. Pretty Annie, whose "like has never been seen for
making a man comfortable," Lizzie, who was undersized and loved
books, "but knew the gift of cooking had not been vouchsafed her
by God," the sweet homely mother, and above all the manly figure
of the young giant John, make a picture of which the gloomy castle
of the Doones is the shadow. And what more charming than the
story of the love that takes possession of the young boy, making a
poet, a soldier, a knight of him, through a chance encounter with
Lorna, the queen of the wild band, the grandchild of old Sir Ensor
Doone?
With John Ridd,-"Grit Jan"—the author dwelt till he possessed
him with human attributes and made him alive. Around him the
interest of the story centres. He is full of mother-wit and observa-
tion of men and things, especially of every changing mood of the
nature he regards as his true mother. He is brave and resourceful,
and rescues Lorna and himself from numberless difficulties by his
native shrewdness. And his love is a poem, an idyl that crowns him
a shepherd king in his own green pastures. Nothing that he does in
his plodding, sturdy way wearies us. His size, his strength, his good
farming, the way he digs his sheep out of the snow, entertain us as
well as his rescue of Lorna from the clan.
The texture of this novel is close, the composition elaborate. It
is impossible to escape from it, the story having been once begun.
'Lorna Doone' is Blackmore at his highest point, full of truest nature
and loveliest thoughts.
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2015
A DESPERATE VENTURE
From Lorna Doone
THE
HE journey was a great deal longer to fetch around the south-
ern hills, and enter by the Doone gate, than to cross the
lower land and steal in by the water-slide. However, I
durst not take a horse (for fear of the Doones, who might be
abroad upon their usual business), but started betimes in the
evening, so as not to hurry, or waste any strength upon the way.
And thus I came to the robbers' highway, walking circumspectly,
scanning the sky-line of every hill, and searching the folds of
every valley, for any moving figure.
Although it was now well on toward dark, and the sun was
down an hour or so, I could see the robbers' road before me, in
a trough of the winding hills, where the brook plowed down.
from the higher barrows, and the coving banks were roofed with
furze. At present there was no one passing, neither post nor
sentinel, so far as I could descry; but I thought it safer to wait
a little, as twilight melted into night; and then I crept down a
seam of the highland, and stood upon the Doone track.
As the road approached the entrance, it became more straight
and strong,
like a channel cut from rock, with the water
brawling darkly along the naked side of it. Not a tree or bush
was left, to shelter a man from bullets; all was stern, and stiff,
and rugged, as I could not help perceiving, even through the
darkness: and a smell as of churchyard mold, a sense of being
boxed in and cooped, made me long to be out again.
And here I was, or seemed to be, particularly unlucky; for as
I drew near the very entrance, lightly of foot, and warily, the
moon (which had often been my friend) like an enemy broke
upon me, topping the eastward ridge of rock, and filling all the
open spaces with the play of wavering light. I shrank back into
the shadowy quarter on the right side of the road, and gloomily
employed myself to watch the triple entrance, on which the
moonlight fell askew.
All across and before the three rude and beetling archways
hung a felled oak overhead, black and thick and threatening.
This, as I heard before, could be let fall in a moment, so as to
crush a score of men, and bar the approach of horses. Behind
this tree the rocky mouth was spanned, as by a gallery, with
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2016
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
brushwood and piled timber, all upon a ledge or stone, where
thirty men might lurk unseen, and fire at any invader. From
that rampart it would be impossible to dislodge them, because
the rock fell sheer below them twenty feet, or it may be more;
while overhead it towered three hundred, and so jutted over that
nothing could be cast upon them, even if a man could climb the
height. And the access to this portcullis place-if I may so call
it, being no portcullis there—was through certain rocky chambers
known to the tenants only.
But the cleverest of their devices, and the most puzzling to
an enemy, was that, instead of one mouth only, there were three
to choose from, with nothing to betoken which was the proper
access, all being pretty much alike, and all unfenced and yawn-
ing. And the common rumor was that in times of any danger,
when any force was known to be on muster in their neighbor-
hood, they changed their entrance every day, and diverted the
other two, by means of sliding-doors, to the chasm and dark
abysses.
Now I could see those three rough arches, jagged, black, and
terrible, and I knew that only one of them could lead me to the
valley; neither gave the river now any further guidance, but
dived underground with a sullen roar, where it met the cross-bar
of the mountain. Having no means at all of judging which was
the right way of the three, and knowing that the other two
would lead to almost certain death, in the ruggedness and dark-
ness for how could a man, among precipices and bottomless
depths of water, without a ray of light, have any chance to save
his life? I do declare that I was half inclined to go away, and
have done with it.
However, I knew one thing for certain, to wit, that the longer
I stayed debating, the more would the enterprise pall upon me,
and the less my relish be. And it struck me that, in times of
peace, the middle way was the likeliest; and the others diverging
right and left in their further parts might be made to slide into
it (not far from the entrance) at the pleasure of the warders.
Also I took it for good omen that I remembered (as rarely hap-
pened) a very fine line in the Latin grammar, whose emphasis
and meaning is, "Middle road is fastest. "
Therefore, without more hesitation, I plunged into the middle
way, holding a long ash-staff before me, shodden at the end with
iron. Presently I was in black darkness, groping along the wall,
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2017
and feeling a deal more fear than I wished to feel; especially
when, upon looking back, I could no longer see the light, which
I had forsaken. Then I stumbled over something hard, and
sharp, and very cold; moreover, so grievous to my legs that it
needed my very best doctrine and humor to forbear from swear-
ing in the manner they use in London. But when I arose, and
felt it, and knew it to be a culverin, I was somewhat reassured
thereby, inasmuch as it was not likely that they would plant this
engine except in the real and true entrance.
Therefore I went on again, more painfully and wearily, and
presently found it to be good that I had received that knock,
and borne it with such patience; for otherwise I might have
blundered full upon the sentries, and been shot without more
ado. As it was, I had barely time to draw back, as I turned a
corner upon them; and if their lantern had been in its place,
they could scarce have failed to descry me, unless indeed I had
seen the gleam before I turned the corner.
There seemed to be only two of them, of size indeed and
stature as all the Doones must be; but I need not have feared to
encounter them both, had they been unarmed, as I was.
It was
plain, however, that each had a long and heavy carbine, not in
his hands (as it should have been), but standing close beside
him. Therefore it behooved me now to be exceeding careful;
and even that might scarce avail, without luck in proportion. So
I kept well back at the corner, and laid one cheek to the rock
face, and kept my outer eye round the jut in the wariest mode I
could compass, watching my opportunity; and this is what I saw:
The two villains looked very happy- which villains have no
right to be, but often are, meseemeth; they were sitting in a
niche of rock, with the lantern in the corner, quaffing something
from glass measures, and playing at pushpin, or shepherd's chess,
or basset, or some trivial game of that sort. Each was smoking
a long clay pipe, quite of new London shape, I could see, for the
shadow was thrown out clearly; and each would laugh from time
to time as he fancied he got the better of it. One was sitting
with his knees up, and left hand on his thigh; and this one had
his back to me, and seemed to be the stouter. The other leaned
more against the rock, half sitting and half astraddle, and wear-
ing leathern overalls, as if newly come from riding. I could see
his face quite clearly by the light of the open lantern, and a
handsomer or a bolder face I had seldom if ever set eyes upon;
IV-127
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RICHARD DOD DRIDGE BLACKMORE
insomuch that it made me very unhappy to think of his being so
near my Lorna.
"
"How long am I to stay crouching here? " I asked of myself
at last, being tired of hearing them cry, "Score one,"
"Score
two," "No, by, Charlie! " "By I say it is, Phelps. "
And yet my only chance of slipping by them unperceived was to
wait till they quarreled more, and came to blows about it. Pres-
ently, as I made up my mind to steal along towards them (for
the cavern was pretty wide just there), Charlie, or Charleworth
Doone, the younger and taller man, reached forth his hand to
seize the money, which he swore he had won that time. Upon
this the other jerked his arm, vowing that he had no right to do
it; whereupon Charlie flung at his face the contents of the glass
he was sipping, but missed him and hit the candle, which sput-
tered with a flare of blue flame (from the strength, perhaps, of
the spirit), and then went out completely. At this one swore and
the other laughed; and before they had settled what to do, I was
past them and round the corner.
And then, like a giddy fool as I was, I needs must give them
a startler- the whoop of an owl, done so exactly, as John Fry
had taught me, and echoed by the roof so fearfully, that one of
them dropped the tinder-box, and the other caught up his gun
and cocked it—at least as I judged by the sounds they made.
And then, too late, I knew my madness: for if either of them
had fired, no doubt but what all the village would have risen and
rushed upon me. However, as the luck of the matter went, it
proved for my advantage; for I heard one say to the other:
"Curse it, Charlie, what was that? It scared me so, I have
dropped my box; my flint is gone, and everything. Will the
brimstone catch from your pipe, my lad ? »
"My pipe is out, Phelps, ever so long. D-n it, I am not
afraid of an owl, man. Give me the lantern, and stay here. I'm
not half done with you yet, my friend. ”
"Well said, my boy, well said! Go straight to Carver's, mind
you. The other sleepy-heads be snoring, as there is nothing up
to-night. No dallying now under captain's window: Queen will
have naught to say to you, and Carver will punch your head
into a new wick for your lantern. "
"Will he, though? Two can play at that. "
–
And so, after some rude jests and laughter, and a few more
oaths, I heard Charlie (or at any rate somebody) coming toward
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2019
me, with a loose and not too sober footfall. As he reeled a little
in his gait, and I would not move from his way one inch, after
his talk of Lorna, but only longed to grasp him (if common
sense permitted it), his braided coat came against my thumb, and
his leathern gaiters brushed my knee. If he had turned or
noticed it, he would have been a dead man in a moment; but
his drunkenness saved him.
-
So I let him reel on unharmed; and thereupon it occurred to
me that I could have no better guide, passing as he would
exactly where I wished to be that is to say, under Lorna's
window. Therefore I followed him, without any special caution;
and soon I had the pleasure of seeing his form against the
moonlit sky.
Down a steep and winding path, with a hand-rail at the cor-
ners (such as they have at Ilfracombe), Master Charlie tripped
along—and indeed there was much tripping, and he must have
been an active fellow to recover as he did - and after him
walked I, much hoping (for his own poor sake) that he might
not turn and espy me.
But Bacchus (of whom I read at school, with great wonder
about his meaning-and the same I may say of Venus), that
great deity, preserved Charlie, his pious worshiper, from regard-
ing consequences. So he led me very kindly to the top of the
meadow-land where the stream from underground broke forth,
seething quietly with a little hiss of bubbles. Hence I had fair
view and outline of the robbers' township, spread with bushes
here and there, but not heavily overshadowed. The moon, ap-
proaching now the full, brought the forms in manner forth, cloth-
ing each with character, as the moon (more than the sun) does
to an eye accustomed.
I knew that the captain's house was first, both from what
Lorna had said of it, and from my mother's description, and
now again from seeing Charlie halt there for a certain time,
and whistle on his fingers, and hurry on, fearing consequence.
The tune that he whistled was strange to me, and lingered in
my ears, as having something very new and striking and fantas-
tic in it. And I repeated it softly to myself, while I marked the
position of the houses and the beauty of the village. For the
stream, in lieu of the street, passing between the houses, and
affording perpetual change and twinkling and reflections-more-
over, by its sleepy murmur, soothing all the dwellers there-
I
ĭ
I
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
this, and the snugness of the position, walled with rock and
spread with herbage, made it look in the quiet moonlight like a
little paradise. And to think of all the inmates there sleeping
with good consciences, having plied their useful trade of making
others work for them, enjoying life without much labor, yet with
great renown!
Master Charlie went down the village, and I followed him
carefully, keeping as much as possible in the shadowy places,
and watching the windows of every house, lest any light should
be burning. As I passed Sir Ensor's house, my heart leaped up,
for I spied a window, higher than the rest above the ground,
and with a faint light moving.
This could hardly fail to be the
room wherein my darling lay; for here that impudent young fel-
low had gazed while he was whistling. And here my courage
grew tenfold, and my spirit feared no evil; for lo! if Lorna
had been surrendered to that scoundrel Carver, she would not
have been at her grandfather's house, but in Carver's accursed
dwelling.
Warm with this idea, I hurried after Charleworth Doone,
being resolved not to harm him now, unless my own life required
it. And while I watched from behind a tree, the door of the
furthest house was opened; and, sure enough, it was Carver's
self, who stood bareheaded, and half undressed, in the doorway.
I could see his great black chest and arms, by the light of the
lamp he bore.
"Who wants me this time of night? " he grumbled, in a deep,
gruff voice; "any young scamp prowling after the maids shall
have sore bones for his trouble. "
"All the fair maids are for thee, are they, Master Carver? "
Charlie answered, laughing; "we young scamps must be well
content with coarser stuff than thou wouldst have. "
"Would have? Ay, and will have," the great beast muttered,
angrily. "I bide my time; but not very long. Only one word
for thy good, Charlie. I will fling thee senseless into the river
if ever I catch thy girl-face here again. "
<< Mayhap, Master Carver, it is more than thou couldst do.
But I will not keep thee; thou art not pleasant company to-night.
All I want is a light for my lantern, and a glass of schnapps, if
thou hast it. "
"What is become of thy light, then? Good for thee I am
not on duty. "
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2021
"A great owl flew between me and Phelps as we watched
beside the culverin, and so scared was he at our fierce bright
eyes that he fell and knocked the light out. "
"Likely tale, or likely lie, Charles! We will have the truth
to-morrow. Here, take thy light, and be gone with thee. All
virtuous men are in bed now. "
"Then so will I be; and why art thou not? Ha! have I
earned my schnapps now? "
"If thou hast, thou hast paid a bad debt! there is too much
in thee already. Be off! my patience is done with. "
Then he slammed the door in the young man's face, having
kindled his lantern by this time; and Charlie went up the watch-
place again, muttering, as he passed me, "Bad lookout for all of
us when that surly old beast is captain. No gentle blood in him,
no hospitality, not even pleasant language, nor a good new oath
in his frowzy pate! I've a mind to cut the whole of it; and but
for the girls I would do so. "
My heart was in my mouth, as they say, when I stood in the
shade by Lorna's window, and whispered her name gently. The
house was of one story only, as the others were, with pine-ends
standing forth the stone, and only two rough windows upon that
western side of it, and perhaps those two were Lorna's. The
Doones had been their own builders, for no one should know
their ins and outs; and of course their work was clumsy. As for
their windows, they stole them mostly from the houses round
about. But though the window was not very close, I might have
whispered long enough before she would have answered me,
frightened as she was, no doubt, by many a rude overture. And
I durst not speak aloud, because I saw another watchman posted
on the western cliff, and commanding all the valley. And now
this man (having no companion for drinking or for gambling)
espied me against the wall of the house, and advanced to the
brink, and challenged me.
"Who are you there? Answer. One, two, three and I fire at
thee. "
The nozzle of his gun was pointed full upon me, as I could
see, with the moonlight striking on the barrel; he was not more.
than fifty yards off, and now he began to reckon. Being almost
desperate about it, I began to whistle, wondering how far I
should get before I lost my windpipe; and as luck would have
it, my lips fell into that strange tune I had practiced last; the
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
one I had heard from Charlie. My mouth would hardly frame
the notes, being parched with terror; but to my surprise, the
man fell back, dropped his gun, and saluted. Oh, sweetest of all
sweet melodies!
That tune was Carver Doone's passport (as I heard long after-
ward), which Charleworth Doone had imitated, for decoy of
Lorna. The sentinel took me for that vile Carver, who was like
enough to be prowling there for private talk with Lorna, but
not very likely to shout forth his name, if it might be avoided.
The watchman, perceiving the danger, perhaps, of intruding on
Carver's privacy, not only retired along the cliff, but withdrew
himself to good distance.
Meanwhile he had done me the kindest service; for Lorna
came to the window at once to see what the cause of the shout
was, and drew back the curtain timidly. Then she opened the
rough lattice, and then she watched the cliff and trees, and then
she sighed very sadly.
"O Lorna, don't you know me? " I whispered from the side,
being afraid of startling her by appearing over-suddenly.
Quick though she always was of thought, she knew me not
from my whisper, and was shutting the window hastily, when I
caught it back and showed myself.
"John! " she cried, yet with sense enough not to speak aloud;
"oh, you must be mad, John! "
"As mad as a March hare," said I, "without any news of my
darling. You knew I would come of course you did. "
A WEDDING AND A REVENGE
From Lorna Doone'
Η
OWEVER humble I might be, no one knowing anything of our
part of the country would for a moment doubt that now
here was a great to-do and talk of John Ridd and his
wedding. The fierce fight with the Doones so lately, and my
leading of the combat (though I fought not more than need be),
and the vanishing of Sir Counselor, and the galloping madness
of Carver, and the religious fear of the women that this last was
gone to hell,- for he himself had declared that his aim, while he
cut through the yeomanry,- also their remorse that he should
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2023
have been made to go thither, with all his children left behind-
these things, I say (if ever I can again contrive to say any-
thing), had led to the broadest excitement about my wedding of
Lorna. We heard that people meant to come from more than
thirty miles around, upon excuse of seeing my stature and Lor-
na's beauty, but in good truth out of sheer curiosity and the love
of meddling.
Our clerk had given notice that not a man should come inside
the door of his church without shilling fee, and women (as
sure to see twice as much) must every one pay two shillings.
I thought this wrong; and as churchwarden, begged that the
money might be paid into mine own hands when taken. But
the clerk said that was against all law; and he had orders from
the parson to pay it to him without any delay. So, as I always
obey the parson when I care not much about a thing, I let them
have it their own way, though feeling inclined to believe some-
times that I ought to have some of the money.
Dear mother arranged all the ins and outs of the way in
which it was to be done; and Annie and Lizzie, and all the
Snowes, and even Ruth Huckaback (who was there, after great
persuasion), made such a sweeping of dresses that I scarcely
knew where to place my feet, and longed for a staff to put by
their gowns.
Then Lorna came out of a pew half-way, in a
manner which quite astonished me, and took my left hand in
her right, and I prayed God that it were done with.
My darling looked so glorious that I was afraid of glancing at
her, yet took in all her beauty. She was in a fright, no doubt,
but nobody should see it; whereas I said (to myself, at least), “I
will go through it like a grave-digger. "
Lorna's dress was of pure white, clouded with faint lavender
(for the sake of the old Earl Brandir), and as simple as need be,
except for perfect loveliness. I was afraid to look at her, as I
said before, except when each of us said, "I will;" and then
each dwelt upon the other.
It is impossible for any who have not loved as I have to con-
ceive my joy and pride when, after ring and all was done, and
the parson had blessed us, Lorna turned to look at me with her
glances of subtle fun subdued by this great act.
Her eyes, which none on earth may ever equal or compare
with, told me such a depth of comfort, yet awaiting further com-
mune, that I was almost amazed, thoroughly as I knew them.
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2024
Darling eyes, the sweetest eyes, the loveliest, the most loving
eyes the sound of a shot rang through the church, and those
eyes were filled with death.
-
Lorna fell across my knees when I was going to kiss her, as
the bridegroom is allowed to do, and encouraged, if he needs it:
a flood of blood came out upon the yellow wood of the altar
steps; and at my feet lay Lorna, trying to tell me some last mes-
sage out of her faithful eyes. I lifted her up, and petted her,
and coaxed her, but it was no good; the only sign of life remain-
ing was a spurt of bright red blood.
me
-
Some men know what things befall them in the supreme
time of their life- - far above the time of death but to
comes back as a hazy dream, without any knowledge in it, what
I did, or felt, or thought, with my wife's arms flagging, flagging,
around my neck, as I raised her up, and softly put them there.
She sighed a long sigh on my breast, for her last farewell to
life, and then she grew so cold, and cold, that I asked the time
of year.
It was now Whit-Tuesday, and the lilacs all in blossom; and
why I thought of the time of year, with the young death in my
arms, God or his angels may decide, having so strangely given
us. Enough that so I did, and looked, and our white lilacs
were beautiful. Then I laid my wife in my mother's arms, and
begging that no one would make a noise, went forth for my
―
revenge.
Of course I knew who had done it. There was but one man
in the world, or at any rate in our part of it, who could have
done such a thing-such a thing. I use no harsher word about
it, while I leaped upon our best horse, with bridle, but no sad-
dle, and set the head of Kickums toward the course now pointed
out to me. Who showed me the course I cannot tell. I only
know that I took it. And the men fell back before me.
Weapon of no sort had I. Unarmed, and wondering at my
strange attire (with a bridal vest wrought by our Annie, and red
with the blood of the bride), I went forth just to find out this-
whether in this world there be or be not a God of justice.
With my vicious horse at a furious speed, I came up Black
Barrow Down, directed by some shout of men, which seemed to
me but a whisper. And there, about a furlong before me, rode
a man on a great black horse, and I knew that man was Carver
Doone.
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2025
"Your life, or mine," I said to myself; "as the will of God
may be.
But we two live not upon this earth one more hour
together. "
I knew the strength of this great man; and I knew that he
was armed with a gun-if he had time to load again, after
shooting my Lorna or at any rate with pistols, and a horse-
man's sword as well. Nevertheless, I had no more doubt of
killing the man before me than a cook has of spitting a headless
fowl.
-
Sometimes seeing no ground beneath me, and sometimes heed-
ing every leaf, and the crossing of the grass-blades, I followed
over the long moor, reckless whether seen or not. But only
once the other man turned round and looked back again, and
then I was beside a rock, with a reedy swamp behind me.
Although he was so far before me, and riding as hard as
ride he might, I saw that he had something on the horse in
front of him; something which needed care, and stopped him
from looking backward. In the whirling of my wits, I fancied
first that this was Lorna; until the scene I had been through
fell across hot brain and heart, like the drop at the close of a
tragedy. Rushing there through crag and quag at utmost speed
of a maddened horse, I saw, as of another's fate, calmly (as on
canvas laid), the brutal deed, the piteous anguish, and the cold
despair.
The man turned up the gully leading from the moor to Cloven
Rocks, through which John Fry had tracked Uncle Ben, as of old
related. But as Carver entered it, he turned round, and beheld
me not a hundred yards behind; and I saw that he was bearing
his child, little Ensie, before him. Ensie also descried me, and
stretched his hands and cried to me; for the face of his father
frightened him.
Carver Doone, with a vile oath, thrust spurs into his flagging
horse, and laid one hand on a pistol-stock, whence I knew that
his slung carbine had received no bullet since the one that
pierced Lorna. And a cry of triumph rose from the black
depths of my heart. What cared I for pistols? I had no spurs,
neither was my horse one to need the rowel; I rather held him
in than urged him, for he was fresh as ever; and I knew that
the black steed in front, if he breasted the steep ascent, where
the track divided, must be in our reach at once.
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
His rider knew this, and having no room in the rocky chan
nel to turn and fire, drew rein at the crossways sharply, and
plunged into the black ravine leading to the Wizard's Slough.
"Is it so? " I said to myself, with brain and head cold as iron:
"though the foul fiend come from the slough to save thee, thou
shalt carve it, Carver. "
I followed my enemy carefully, steadily, even leisurely; for I
had him as in a pitfall, whence no escape might be. He thought
that I feared to approach him, for he knew not where he was;
and his low disdainful laugh came back. "Laugh he who wins,"
thought I.
A gnarled and half-starved oak, as stubborn as my own re-
solve, and smitten by some storm of old, hung from the crag
above me. Rising from my horse's back, although I had no stir-
rups, I caught a limb, and tore it (like a mere wheat-awn) from
the socket. Men show the rent even now with wonder; none
with more wonder than myself.
Carver Doone turned the corner suddenly on the black and
bottomless bog; with a start of fear he reined back his horse,
and I thought he would have turned upon me. But instead of
that, he again rode on, hoping to find a way round the side.
Now there is a way between cliff and slough for those who
know the ground thoroughly, or have time enough to search it;
but for him there was no road, and he lost some time in seek-
ing it. Upon this he made up his mind; and wheeling, fired,
and then rode at me.
His bullet struck me somewhere, but I took no heed of that.
Fearing only his escape, I laid my horse across the way, and
with the limb of oak struck full on the forehead his charging
steed. Ere the slash of the sword came nigh me, man and
horse rolled over and well-nigh bore my own horse down with
the power of their onset.
Carver Doone was somewhat stunned, and could not arise for
a moment. Meanwhile I leaped on the ground and awaited,
smoothing my hair back, and baring my arms, as though in the
ring for wrestling. Then the little boy ran to me, clasped my
leg, and looked up at me, and the terror in his eyes made me
almost fear myself.
"Ensie dear," I said quite gently, grieving that he should see
his wicked father killed, "run up yonder round the corner, and
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2027
try to find a pretty bunch of bluebells for the lady. " The child
obeyed me, hanging back, and looking back, and then laughing,
while I prepared for business. There and then I might have
killed mine enemy with a single blow while he lay unconscious,
but it would have been foul play.
With a sullen and black scowl, the Carver gathered his
mighty limbs and arose, and looked round for his weapons; but
I had put them well away. Then he came to me and gazed,
being wont to frighten thus young men.
"I would not harm you, lad," he said, with a lofty style of
sneering: “I have punished you enough for most of your imper-
tinence. For the rest I forgive you, because you have been
good and gracious to my little son. Go and be contented. "
For answer I smote him on the cheek, lightly, and not to
hurt him, but to make his blood leap up. I would not sully my
tongue by speaking to a man like this.
There was a level space of sward between us and the slough.
With the courtesy derived from London, and the procession I
had seen, to this place I led him. And that he might breathe
himself, and have every fibre cool, and every muscle ready, my
hold upon his coat I loosed, and left him to begin with me
whenever he thought proper.
I think he felt that his time was come. I think he knew
from my knitted muscles, and the firm arch of my breast, and
the way in which I stood, but most of all from my stern blue
eyes, that he had found his master. At any rate, a paleness
came, an ashy paleness on his cheeks, and the vast calves of his
legs bowed in, as if he were out of training.
Seeing this, villain as he was, I offered him first chance. I
stretched forth my left hand as I do to a weaker antagonist, and
I let him have the hug of me. But in this I was too generous;
having forgotten my pistol-wound, and the cracking of one of my
short lower ribs. Carver Doone caught me round the waist with
such a grip as never yet had been laid upon me.
I heard my rib go; I grasped his arm and tore the muscle
out of it* (as the string comes out of an orange); then I took
him by the throat, which is not allowed in wrestling, but he had
snatched at mine; and now was no time of dalliance. In vain he
* A far more terrible clutch than this is handed down, to weaker ages, of
the great John Ridd. - ED. L. D.
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2028
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
tugged and strained and writhed, dashed his bleeding fist into
my face, and flung himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath
the iron of my strength-for God that day was with me - I had
him helpless in two minutes, and his fiery eyes lolled out.
"I will not harm thee any more," I cried, so far as I could
for panting, the work being very furious: "Carver Doone, thou
art beaten; own it, and thank God for it; and go thy way, and
repent thyself. "
It was all too late. Even if he had yielded in his ravening
frenzy for his beard was like a mad dog's jowl-even if he
would have owned that for the first time in his life he had
found his master, it was all too late.
The black bog had him by the feet; the sucking of the ground
drew on him, like the thirsty lips of death. In our fury we had
heeded neither wet nor dry, nor thought of earth beneath us.
I myself might scarcely leap, with the last spring of o'erlabored
legs, from the engulfing grave of slime. He fell back, with his
swarthy breast (from which my grip had rent all clothing), like
a hummock of bog-oak, standing out the quagmire; and then he
tossed his arms to heaven, and they were black to the elbow,
and the glare of his eyes was ghastly. I could only gaze and
pant; for my strength was no more than an infant's from the
fury and the horror. Scarcely could I turn away, while, joint by
joint, he sank from sight.
―
LANDING THE TROUT
From Alice Lorraine'
HE trout knew nothing of all this. They had not tasted a
Tworm for a month, except when a sod of the bank fell in,
through cracks of the sun, and the way cold water has of
licking upward. And even the flies had no flavor at all; when
they fell on the water, they fell flat, and on the palate they
tasted hot, even under the bushes.
Hilary followed a path through the meadows, with the calm.
bright sunset casting its shadow over the shorn grass, or up in
the hedge-road, or on the brown banks where the drought had
struck. On his back he carried a fishing-basket, containing his
bits of refreshment; and in his right hand a short springy rod,
the absent sailor's favorite. After long council with Mabel, he
## p. 2029 (#223) ###########################################
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2029
had made up his mind to walk up-stream as far as the spot
where two brooks met, and formed body enough for a fly flipped
in very carefully to sail downward. Here he began, and the
creak of his reel and the swish of his rod were music to him,
after the whirl of London life.
The brook was as bright as the best cut-glass, and the twinkles
of its shifting facets only made it seem more clear. It twisted
about a little, here and there; and the brink was fringed now
and then with something, a clump of loosestrife, a tuft of avens,
or a bed of flowering water-cress, or any other of the many
plants that wash and look into the water. But the trout, the
main object in view, were most objectionably too much in view.
They scudded up the brook at the shadow of a hair, or even the
tremble of a blade of grass; and no pacific assurance could make
them even stop to be reasoned with. "This won't do," said
Hilary, who very often talked to himself, in lack of a better
comrade. "I call this very hard upon me. The beggars won't
rise till it is quite dark. I must have the interdict off my tobacco,
if this sort of thing is to go on. How I should enjoy a pipe just
now! I may just as well sit on a gate and think. No, hang it,
I hate thinking now. There are troubles hanging over me, as
sure as the tail of that comet grows. How I detest that comet!
No wonder the fish won't rise. But if I have to strip, and tickle
them in the dark, I won't go back without some for her. "
He was lucky enough to escape the weight of such horrible
poaching upon his conscience; for suddenly to his ears was borne
the most melodious of all sounds, the flop of a heavy fish sweetly.
jumping after some excellent fly or grub.
"Ha, my friend!
ushered into the big world to busy herself with new occupations
and cares. It was a pleasant little journey throughout; for as
they got into the landau to drive back to town, the moon was
shining high up in the southern heavens, and the air was mild
and fresh, so that they had the carriage opened, and Sheila, well
wrapped up, lay and looked around her with a strange wonder
## p. 2010 (#200) ###########################################
2010
WILLIAM BLACK
and joy as they drove underneath the shadow of the trees and
out again into the clear sheen of the night. They saw the river,
too, flowing smoothly and palely down between its dark banks;
and somehow here the silence checked them, and they hummed.
no more those duets they used to sing up at Borva. Of what
were they thinking, then, as they drove through the clear night
along the lonely road? Lavender at least was rejoicing at his
great good fortune that he had secured for ever to himself the
true-hearted girl who now sat opposite to him, with the moon-
light touching her face and hair; and he was laughing to himself
at the notion that he did not properly appreciate her or under-
stand her or perceive her real character. If not he, who then?
Had he not watched every turn of her disposition, every expres-
sion of her wishes, every grace of her manner and look of her
eyes? and was he not overjoyed to find that the more he knew of
her the more he loved her? Marriage had increased rather than
diminished the mystery and wonder he had woven about her.
He was more her lover now than he had been before his mar-
riage. Who could see in her eyes what he saw? Elderly folks
can look at a girl's eyes, and see that they are brown or blue or
green, as the case may be; but the lover looks at them and sees
in them the magic mirror of a hundred possible worlds. How
can he fathom the sea of dreams that lies there, or tell what
strange fancies and reminiscences may be involved in an absent
look? Is she thinking of starlit nights on some distant lake, or
of the old bygone days on the hills? All her former life is
told there, and yet but half told, and he longs to become
possessed of all the beautiful past that she has seen. Here is a
constant mystery to him, and there is a singular and wistful
attraction for him in those still deeps where the thoughts and
dreams of an innocent soul lie but half revealed. He does not
see those things in the eyes of women he is not in love with;
but when in after years he is carelessly regarding this or the
other woman, some chance look, some brief and sudden turn of
expression, will recall to him, as with a stroke of lightning, all
the old wonder-time, and his heart will go nigh to breaking to
think that he has grown old, and that he has forgotten so much,
and that the fair, wild days of romance and longing are passed
away forever.
## p. 2010 (#201) ###########################################
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R. D. BLACKMORE.
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2011
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
(1825-)
He was
HE literary success of Blackmore came late in life.
born in Longworth, Berkshire, England, in 1825, was grad-
uated at Exeter College, Oxford, and afterwards studied law
in the Middle Temple, practicing his profession as a conveyancer.
But his heart was in an outdoor life. Like his own John Ridd, the
hero of Lorna Doone,' he is a man of the moors and fields, with a
fresh breeze blowing over him and a farmer's cares in his mind. In
1854-5 he published several volumes of poems under the pen-name
of "Melanter. " (The Bugle of the Black Sea' and a complete trans-
lation of Virgil's 'Georgics' appeared in 1871.
Other volumes of verse followed, of which it may be said that he
is a poet more sensitive to influence than fertile in original impulse;
although some of his prose, in which even rhythm is observed in
what seems to be an unconscious manner, displays high original
quality. It is therefore fair to say of him as a poet that while his
works did not gain him the reputation that has placed him among
the foremost literary men of the day, the subtle influence rural nature
exerts on man, and the part it bears in the sweet harmonies of life,
are told in passages that are resonant with melody.
The poet's delight is in the prosperity of the fields, as if they
were his friends, and in the dumb loving motherhood with which all
nature seems, to his eyes, to surround him.
As the precursor of a summer that yielded such a mellow harvest,
the spring of Mr. Blackmore's fiction was slow and intermittent. The
plot of his stories is never probable, but in his first novel, 'Clara
Vaughan,' published in 1864, it impairs belief in the general reality
of the book; and though there is hint of the power to excite sym-
pathy of which his latter novels prove him so great a master, the
intelligence refuses such shrieking melodrama. 'Lorna Doone' there-
fore came unheralded. It was published in London in 1869 and
slowly grew in favor, then leaped into popularity. In 1878 twenty-
two editions had been printed.
Other novels followed. 'The Maid of Sker,' 'Alice Lorraine,'
'Cripps the Carrier,' 'Erema,' 'Mary Anerley,' 'Christowell,' 'Sir
Thomas Upton,' came in rapid succession. The paternity of no
novel of Mr. Blackmore's is doubtful. All have marked character-
istics. They are long and exceedingly minute in detail. With all his
## p. 2012 (#206) ###########################################
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2012
finish, he tells his story almost with a child's elaborateness of inci-
dent. Every change of the seasons, the history of every walk is set
down. He is in love with every feature of the landscape, be it the
wild doons of Exmoor or the wilder Yorkshire coast, or, across the
seas, the plains of the Sierras. He is a story-teller of the days in
which it was quite unimportant whether tales should come to an end
or not. He would have saved Scheherazade all her trouble and
enjoyed the task. He cannot pass carelessly by the slightest inci-
dent; it is his nature to approfondir all his surroundings: if the hero
breaks his stirrup and stops at the blacksmith's to have it mended,
the blacksmith will appear at the end of the story united to the rider,
from the third and fourth generation, by a subtle thread of connec-
tion. But all these details, while they encumber the tale, contribute
to a harmonious whole; for he has in a peculiar degree an instinct
for the judicious introduction of telling human characters that are as
much a part of the detail of the scene as the trees and stones.
Upon these characters he expends a wealth of humor, and his humor
is characteristic of Blackmore alone. It is full of unexpected turns
and twists of fancy, quiet fun when we expect grave comment.
Friendly old people appear, full of innumerable quips of individual-
ity, and breezy fields and wealthy orchards and a general mellow
fruitfulness form the background of the play.
Especially in his prodigality is Blackmore characteristic of Black-
more. Other writers keep their quaint reflections for their dialogue,
and confer immortality on their principal characters. But Blackmore
has no sense of economy. As Mr. Saintsbury says of Thackeray, he
could not introduce a personage, however subordinate, without mak-
ing him a living creature. He does little with a character he has
described in such powerful lines as Stephen Anerley. The fisher
village folks, wild and hardy, with their slow speech and sly sagacity,
the men at sea and the women at home; the maimed and broken-
down yet jolly old tars; the anxious little merchants, and the heavy
coast-guardsmen, we learn to know as we know the rocks and caves,
the fishing cobbles in their bright colors, the slow-tongued gos-
sips pouring out their long-voweled speech. All these characters,
although they have a general resemblance to each other, have also
a peculiar, quaint simplicity and wisdom that is Blackmoreish, as
Thackeray's characters are Thackeraian. The author steps in and
gives his puppets his little twist, the characteristic obliquity each
possesses, his quips and cranks. If he would but confine the abund-
ant tide of his flowing and leisurely utterances, he would have more
time to bestow on really exciting and dramatic episodes, instead of
going off into a little corner and carefully embellishing it, while the
dénouement waits and the interest grows cold. Neither can he write
## p. 2013 (#207) ###########################################
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2013
a page without sending a sly bolt of amused perception through it,
in which he discovers some foible or pricks some bubble of preten-
sion, but always tenderly, as if he loved his victim. To the fact
that Mr. Blackmore's success came late in life, we have perhaps to
be thankful for the softened and indulgent maturity which finds a
hundred excuses, and knows that nothing is as good or as bad as it
seems.
The best expression of his genius in the delineation of character
is not-with perhaps the exception of John Ridd-in his heroes and
heroines. The former are drawn with the stronger hand. The
maidens are pretty girls, sweet and good and brave for the sake of
their fathers, and cunning for their lovers. His young men are
gallant and true; but as exemplary love is apt to run smooth, it is
not here that the drama finds the necessary amount of difficulty and
pain. The interest centres in such delicious conceptions as Parson
Short, full of muscular energy and sound doctrine, in Dr. Uperan-
down, his salt-water parish rival, the carrier Cripps, Parson Chowne,
and the renowned highwayman Tom Faggus, of whom they were
immensely proud. These people, before he has done with them, get
hold of our sympathies, while the author keeps perennially fresh his
enjoyment of human follies. His rustics do not talk with elaborate
humor, nor are they amiable, but they are racy of the soil.
One cannot dismiss a novelist without a reference to his plots,
unless indeed he discards plots as an article of faith. Mr. Blackmore
has no such intention. His stories are full of adventure and dramatic
situations, and his melodrama is of the lurid kind on which the cal-
cium light is thrown. Sometimes, as in The Maid of Sker' and
'Cripps, they violate every probability. In others, as in Mary
Anerley, the mystery is childishly simple, the oft-repeated plot of a
lost child recovered by certain strangely wrought gold buttons. In
'Erema,' the narrative suffers for want of vraisemblance, and loses by
being related by a very young girl who has had no opportunity of
becoming familiar with the world she describes. He is constantly
guilty of that splendid mendacity which fiction loves, but which is
nearly impossible to actual life. Self-sacrifice as depicted in 'Christo-
well,' involving much suffering to little purpose, is unsatisfactory;
and it is a sin against the verities to make unreasonable generosity
the basis of fiction representing life.
But while the reader quarrels with a waste of precious material,
Mr. Blackmore pursues his meditative way, with his smile of genial
observation, himself the best of all his personages. The smell of the
heather and the wild moorland odors, the honeyed grass and the
fragrant thyme, the darker breathings of the sea, get into his pages
and render them fragrant. A few villages lie on the edge of that
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2014
wild region, and a living trout stream darts by, but the landscape
does not obtrude itself nor interrupt the story. The quaint philos-
ophy flows on spontaneously, with a tender humanity and cheerful
fun. A writer like this may be pardoned if he is an indifferent
builder of a tale.
The scene of 'Lorna Doone,' the novelist's masterpiece, is laid
in Devonshire; and what Wordsworth did for the lake country,
Blackmore has done for the fairest county in England. The time is
that of Charles II. The book is historical, it is very long, it is
minute in detail, and it is melodramatic: but it is alive. The strange
adventures may or may not have happened, but we believe in them,
for it is real life that is set before us; and whatever the author may
tell us of robber caves and black-hearted villains, there is nothing
incredible in any of his confidences. Nothing in recent novel writing
is more vivid than the contrast between these outcast nobles the
Doones, robbers and brigands, living in the wilds of Bagworthy For-
est, locked fast in the hills,-and the peaceful farm-house of the yeo-
man Ridd who lives on the Downs. This home is not idealized.
From the diamond-paned kitchen come savory smells of cooking and
substantial fare. Pretty Annie, whose "like has never been seen for
making a man comfortable," Lizzie, who was undersized and loved
books, "but knew the gift of cooking had not been vouchsafed her
by God," the sweet homely mother, and above all the manly figure
of the young giant John, make a picture of which the gloomy castle
of the Doones is the shadow. And what more charming than the
story of the love that takes possession of the young boy, making a
poet, a soldier, a knight of him, through a chance encounter with
Lorna, the queen of the wild band, the grandchild of old Sir Ensor
Doone?
With John Ridd,-"Grit Jan"—the author dwelt till he possessed
him with human attributes and made him alive. Around him the
interest of the story centres. He is full of mother-wit and observa-
tion of men and things, especially of every changing mood of the
nature he regards as his true mother. He is brave and resourceful,
and rescues Lorna and himself from numberless difficulties by his
native shrewdness. And his love is a poem, an idyl that crowns him
a shepherd king in his own green pastures. Nothing that he does in
his plodding, sturdy way wearies us. His size, his strength, his good
farming, the way he digs his sheep out of the snow, entertain us as
well as his rescue of Lorna from the clan.
The texture of this novel is close, the composition elaborate. It
is impossible to escape from it, the story having been once begun.
'Lorna Doone' is Blackmore at his highest point, full of truest nature
and loveliest thoughts.
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2015
A DESPERATE VENTURE
From Lorna Doone
THE
HE journey was a great deal longer to fetch around the south-
ern hills, and enter by the Doone gate, than to cross the
lower land and steal in by the water-slide. However, I
durst not take a horse (for fear of the Doones, who might be
abroad upon their usual business), but started betimes in the
evening, so as not to hurry, or waste any strength upon the way.
And thus I came to the robbers' highway, walking circumspectly,
scanning the sky-line of every hill, and searching the folds of
every valley, for any moving figure.
Although it was now well on toward dark, and the sun was
down an hour or so, I could see the robbers' road before me, in
a trough of the winding hills, where the brook plowed down.
from the higher barrows, and the coving banks were roofed with
furze. At present there was no one passing, neither post nor
sentinel, so far as I could descry; but I thought it safer to wait
a little, as twilight melted into night; and then I crept down a
seam of the highland, and stood upon the Doone track.
As the road approached the entrance, it became more straight
and strong,
like a channel cut from rock, with the water
brawling darkly along the naked side of it. Not a tree or bush
was left, to shelter a man from bullets; all was stern, and stiff,
and rugged, as I could not help perceiving, even through the
darkness: and a smell as of churchyard mold, a sense of being
boxed in and cooped, made me long to be out again.
And here I was, or seemed to be, particularly unlucky; for as
I drew near the very entrance, lightly of foot, and warily, the
moon (which had often been my friend) like an enemy broke
upon me, topping the eastward ridge of rock, and filling all the
open spaces with the play of wavering light. I shrank back into
the shadowy quarter on the right side of the road, and gloomily
employed myself to watch the triple entrance, on which the
moonlight fell askew.
All across and before the three rude and beetling archways
hung a felled oak overhead, black and thick and threatening.
This, as I heard before, could be let fall in a moment, so as to
crush a score of men, and bar the approach of horses. Behind
this tree the rocky mouth was spanned, as by a gallery, with
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
brushwood and piled timber, all upon a ledge or stone, where
thirty men might lurk unseen, and fire at any invader. From
that rampart it would be impossible to dislodge them, because
the rock fell sheer below them twenty feet, or it may be more;
while overhead it towered three hundred, and so jutted over that
nothing could be cast upon them, even if a man could climb the
height. And the access to this portcullis place-if I may so call
it, being no portcullis there—was through certain rocky chambers
known to the tenants only.
But the cleverest of their devices, and the most puzzling to
an enemy, was that, instead of one mouth only, there were three
to choose from, with nothing to betoken which was the proper
access, all being pretty much alike, and all unfenced and yawn-
ing. And the common rumor was that in times of any danger,
when any force was known to be on muster in their neighbor-
hood, they changed their entrance every day, and diverted the
other two, by means of sliding-doors, to the chasm and dark
abysses.
Now I could see those three rough arches, jagged, black, and
terrible, and I knew that only one of them could lead me to the
valley; neither gave the river now any further guidance, but
dived underground with a sullen roar, where it met the cross-bar
of the mountain. Having no means at all of judging which was
the right way of the three, and knowing that the other two
would lead to almost certain death, in the ruggedness and dark-
ness for how could a man, among precipices and bottomless
depths of water, without a ray of light, have any chance to save
his life? I do declare that I was half inclined to go away, and
have done with it.
However, I knew one thing for certain, to wit, that the longer
I stayed debating, the more would the enterprise pall upon me,
and the less my relish be. And it struck me that, in times of
peace, the middle way was the likeliest; and the others diverging
right and left in their further parts might be made to slide into
it (not far from the entrance) at the pleasure of the warders.
Also I took it for good omen that I remembered (as rarely hap-
pened) a very fine line in the Latin grammar, whose emphasis
and meaning is, "Middle road is fastest. "
Therefore, without more hesitation, I plunged into the middle
way, holding a long ash-staff before me, shodden at the end with
iron. Presently I was in black darkness, groping along the wall,
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2017
and feeling a deal more fear than I wished to feel; especially
when, upon looking back, I could no longer see the light, which
I had forsaken. Then I stumbled over something hard, and
sharp, and very cold; moreover, so grievous to my legs that it
needed my very best doctrine and humor to forbear from swear-
ing in the manner they use in London. But when I arose, and
felt it, and knew it to be a culverin, I was somewhat reassured
thereby, inasmuch as it was not likely that they would plant this
engine except in the real and true entrance.
Therefore I went on again, more painfully and wearily, and
presently found it to be good that I had received that knock,
and borne it with such patience; for otherwise I might have
blundered full upon the sentries, and been shot without more
ado. As it was, I had barely time to draw back, as I turned a
corner upon them; and if their lantern had been in its place,
they could scarce have failed to descry me, unless indeed I had
seen the gleam before I turned the corner.
There seemed to be only two of them, of size indeed and
stature as all the Doones must be; but I need not have feared to
encounter them both, had they been unarmed, as I was.
It was
plain, however, that each had a long and heavy carbine, not in
his hands (as it should have been), but standing close beside
him. Therefore it behooved me now to be exceeding careful;
and even that might scarce avail, without luck in proportion. So
I kept well back at the corner, and laid one cheek to the rock
face, and kept my outer eye round the jut in the wariest mode I
could compass, watching my opportunity; and this is what I saw:
The two villains looked very happy- which villains have no
right to be, but often are, meseemeth; they were sitting in a
niche of rock, with the lantern in the corner, quaffing something
from glass measures, and playing at pushpin, or shepherd's chess,
or basset, or some trivial game of that sort. Each was smoking
a long clay pipe, quite of new London shape, I could see, for the
shadow was thrown out clearly; and each would laugh from time
to time as he fancied he got the better of it. One was sitting
with his knees up, and left hand on his thigh; and this one had
his back to me, and seemed to be the stouter. The other leaned
more against the rock, half sitting and half astraddle, and wear-
ing leathern overalls, as if newly come from riding. I could see
his face quite clearly by the light of the open lantern, and a
handsomer or a bolder face I had seldom if ever set eyes upon;
IV-127
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insomuch that it made me very unhappy to think of his being so
near my Lorna.
"
"How long am I to stay crouching here? " I asked of myself
at last, being tired of hearing them cry, "Score one,"
"Score
two," "No, by, Charlie! " "By I say it is, Phelps. "
And yet my only chance of slipping by them unperceived was to
wait till they quarreled more, and came to blows about it. Pres-
ently, as I made up my mind to steal along towards them (for
the cavern was pretty wide just there), Charlie, or Charleworth
Doone, the younger and taller man, reached forth his hand to
seize the money, which he swore he had won that time. Upon
this the other jerked his arm, vowing that he had no right to do
it; whereupon Charlie flung at his face the contents of the glass
he was sipping, but missed him and hit the candle, which sput-
tered with a flare of blue flame (from the strength, perhaps, of
the spirit), and then went out completely. At this one swore and
the other laughed; and before they had settled what to do, I was
past them and round the corner.
And then, like a giddy fool as I was, I needs must give them
a startler- the whoop of an owl, done so exactly, as John Fry
had taught me, and echoed by the roof so fearfully, that one of
them dropped the tinder-box, and the other caught up his gun
and cocked it—at least as I judged by the sounds they made.
And then, too late, I knew my madness: for if either of them
had fired, no doubt but what all the village would have risen and
rushed upon me. However, as the luck of the matter went, it
proved for my advantage; for I heard one say to the other:
"Curse it, Charlie, what was that? It scared me so, I have
dropped my box; my flint is gone, and everything. Will the
brimstone catch from your pipe, my lad ? »
"My pipe is out, Phelps, ever so long. D-n it, I am not
afraid of an owl, man. Give me the lantern, and stay here. I'm
not half done with you yet, my friend. ”
"Well said, my boy, well said! Go straight to Carver's, mind
you. The other sleepy-heads be snoring, as there is nothing up
to-night. No dallying now under captain's window: Queen will
have naught to say to you, and Carver will punch your head
into a new wick for your lantern. "
"Will he, though? Two can play at that. "
–
And so, after some rude jests and laughter, and a few more
oaths, I heard Charlie (or at any rate somebody) coming toward
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2019
me, with a loose and not too sober footfall. As he reeled a little
in his gait, and I would not move from his way one inch, after
his talk of Lorna, but only longed to grasp him (if common
sense permitted it), his braided coat came against my thumb, and
his leathern gaiters brushed my knee. If he had turned or
noticed it, he would have been a dead man in a moment; but
his drunkenness saved him.
-
So I let him reel on unharmed; and thereupon it occurred to
me that I could have no better guide, passing as he would
exactly where I wished to be that is to say, under Lorna's
window. Therefore I followed him, without any special caution;
and soon I had the pleasure of seeing his form against the
moonlit sky.
Down a steep and winding path, with a hand-rail at the cor-
ners (such as they have at Ilfracombe), Master Charlie tripped
along—and indeed there was much tripping, and he must have
been an active fellow to recover as he did - and after him
walked I, much hoping (for his own poor sake) that he might
not turn and espy me.
But Bacchus (of whom I read at school, with great wonder
about his meaning-and the same I may say of Venus), that
great deity, preserved Charlie, his pious worshiper, from regard-
ing consequences. So he led me very kindly to the top of the
meadow-land where the stream from underground broke forth,
seething quietly with a little hiss of bubbles. Hence I had fair
view and outline of the robbers' township, spread with bushes
here and there, but not heavily overshadowed. The moon, ap-
proaching now the full, brought the forms in manner forth, cloth-
ing each with character, as the moon (more than the sun) does
to an eye accustomed.
I knew that the captain's house was first, both from what
Lorna had said of it, and from my mother's description, and
now again from seeing Charlie halt there for a certain time,
and whistle on his fingers, and hurry on, fearing consequence.
The tune that he whistled was strange to me, and lingered in
my ears, as having something very new and striking and fantas-
tic in it. And I repeated it softly to myself, while I marked the
position of the houses and the beauty of the village. For the
stream, in lieu of the street, passing between the houses, and
affording perpetual change and twinkling and reflections-more-
over, by its sleepy murmur, soothing all the dwellers there-
I
ĭ
I
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this, and the snugness of the position, walled with rock and
spread with herbage, made it look in the quiet moonlight like a
little paradise. And to think of all the inmates there sleeping
with good consciences, having plied their useful trade of making
others work for them, enjoying life without much labor, yet with
great renown!
Master Charlie went down the village, and I followed him
carefully, keeping as much as possible in the shadowy places,
and watching the windows of every house, lest any light should
be burning. As I passed Sir Ensor's house, my heart leaped up,
for I spied a window, higher than the rest above the ground,
and with a faint light moving.
This could hardly fail to be the
room wherein my darling lay; for here that impudent young fel-
low had gazed while he was whistling. And here my courage
grew tenfold, and my spirit feared no evil; for lo! if Lorna
had been surrendered to that scoundrel Carver, she would not
have been at her grandfather's house, but in Carver's accursed
dwelling.
Warm with this idea, I hurried after Charleworth Doone,
being resolved not to harm him now, unless my own life required
it. And while I watched from behind a tree, the door of the
furthest house was opened; and, sure enough, it was Carver's
self, who stood bareheaded, and half undressed, in the doorway.
I could see his great black chest and arms, by the light of the
lamp he bore.
"Who wants me this time of night? " he grumbled, in a deep,
gruff voice; "any young scamp prowling after the maids shall
have sore bones for his trouble. "
"All the fair maids are for thee, are they, Master Carver? "
Charlie answered, laughing; "we young scamps must be well
content with coarser stuff than thou wouldst have. "
"Would have? Ay, and will have," the great beast muttered,
angrily. "I bide my time; but not very long. Only one word
for thy good, Charlie. I will fling thee senseless into the river
if ever I catch thy girl-face here again. "
<< Mayhap, Master Carver, it is more than thou couldst do.
But I will not keep thee; thou art not pleasant company to-night.
All I want is a light for my lantern, and a glass of schnapps, if
thou hast it. "
"What is become of thy light, then? Good for thee I am
not on duty. "
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2021
"A great owl flew between me and Phelps as we watched
beside the culverin, and so scared was he at our fierce bright
eyes that he fell and knocked the light out. "
"Likely tale, or likely lie, Charles! We will have the truth
to-morrow. Here, take thy light, and be gone with thee. All
virtuous men are in bed now. "
"Then so will I be; and why art thou not? Ha! have I
earned my schnapps now? "
"If thou hast, thou hast paid a bad debt! there is too much
in thee already. Be off! my patience is done with. "
Then he slammed the door in the young man's face, having
kindled his lantern by this time; and Charlie went up the watch-
place again, muttering, as he passed me, "Bad lookout for all of
us when that surly old beast is captain. No gentle blood in him,
no hospitality, not even pleasant language, nor a good new oath
in his frowzy pate! I've a mind to cut the whole of it; and but
for the girls I would do so. "
My heart was in my mouth, as they say, when I stood in the
shade by Lorna's window, and whispered her name gently. The
house was of one story only, as the others were, with pine-ends
standing forth the stone, and only two rough windows upon that
western side of it, and perhaps those two were Lorna's. The
Doones had been their own builders, for no one should know
their ins and outs; and of course their work was clumsy. As for
their windows, they stole them mostly from the houses round
about. But though the window was not very close, I might have
whispered long enough before she would have answered me,
frightened as she was, no doubt, by many a rude overture. And
I durst not speak aloud, because I saw another watchman posted
on the western cliff, and commanding all the valley. And now
this man (having no companion for drinking or for gambling)
espied me against the wall of the house, and advanced to the
brink, and challenged me.
"Who are you there? Answer. One, two, three and I fire at
thee. "
The nozzle of his gun was pointed full upon me, as I could
see, with the moonlight striking on the barrel; he was not more.
than fifty yards off, and now he began to reckon. Being almost
desperate about it, I began to whistle, wondering how far I
should get before I lost my windpipe; and as luck would have
it, my lips fell into that strange tune I had practiced last; the
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one I had heard from Charlie. My mouth would hardly frame
the notes, being parched with terror; but to my surprise, the
man fell back, dropped his gun, and saluted. Oh, sweetest of all
sweet melodies!
That tune was Carver Doone's passport (as I heard long after-
ward), which Charleworth Doone had imitated, for decoy of
Lorna. The sentinel took me for that vile Carver, who was like
enough to be prowling there for private talk with Lorna, but
not very likely to shout forth his name, if it might be avoided.
The watchman, perceiving the danger, perhaps, of intruding on
Carver's privacy, not only retired along the cliff, but withdrew
himself to good distance.
Meanwhile he had done me the kindest service; for Lorna
came to the window at once to see what the cause of the shout
was, and drew back the curtain timidly. Then she opened the
rough lattice, and then she watched the cliff and trees, and then
she sighed very sadly.
"O Lorna, don't you know me? " I whispered from the side,
being afraid of startling her by appearing over-suddenly.
Quick though she always was of thought, she knew me not
from my whisper, and was shutting the window hastily, when I
caught it back and showed myself.
"John! " she cried, yet with sense enough not to speak aloud;
"oh, you must be mad, John! "
"As mad as a March hare," said I, "without any news of my
darling. You knew I would come of course you did. "
A WEDDING AND A REVENGE
From Lorna Doone'
Η
OWEVER humble I might be, no one knowing anything of our
part of the country would for a moment doubt that now
here was a great to-do and talk of John Ridd and his
wedding. The fierce fight with the Doones so lately, and my
leading of the combat (though I fought not more than need be),
and the vanishing of Sir Counselor, and the galloping madness
of Carver, and the religious fear of the women that this last was
gone to hell,- for he himself had declared that his aim, while he
cut through the yeomanry,- also their remorse that he should
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2023
have been made to go thither, with all his children left behind-
these things, I say (if ever I can again contrive to say any-
thing), had led to the broadest excitement about my wedding of
Lorna. We heard that people meant to come from more than
thirty miles around, upon excuse of seeing my stature and Lor-
na's beauty, but in good truth out of sheer curiosity and the love
of meddling.
Our clerk had given notice that not a man should come inside
the door of his church without shilling fee, and women (as
sure to see twice as much) must every one pay two shillings.
I thought this wrong; and as churchwarden, begged that the
money might be paid into mine own hands when taken. But
the clerk said that was against all law; and he had orders from
the parson to pay it to him without any delay. So, as I always
obey the parson when I care not much about a thing, I let them
have it their own way, though feeling inclined to believe some-
times that I ought to have some of the money.
Dear mother arranged all the ins and outs of the way in
which it was to be done; and Annie and Lizzie, and all the
Snowes, and even Ruth Huckaback (who was there, after great
persuasion), made such a sweeping of dresses that I scarcely
knew where to place my feet, and longed for a staff to put by
their gowns.
Then Lorna came out of a pew half-way, in a
manner which quite astonished me, and took my left hand in
her right, and I prayed God that it were done with.
My darling looked so glorious that I was afraid of glancing at
her, yet took in all her beauty. She was in a fright, no doubt,
but nobody should see it; whereas I said (to myself, at least), “I
will go through it like a grave-digger. "
Lorna's dress was of pure white, clouded with faint lavender
(for the sake of the old Earl Brandir), and as simple as need be,
except for perfect loveliness. I was afraid to look at her, as I
said before, except when each of us said, "I will;" and then
each dwelt upon the other.
It is impossible for any who have not loved as I have to con-
ceive my joy and pride when, after ring and all was done, and
the parson had blessed us, Lorna turned to look at me with her
glances of subtle fun subdued by this great act.
Her eyes, which none on earth may ever equal or compare
with, told me such a depth of comfort, yet awaiting further com-
mune, that I was almost amazed, thoroughly as I knew them.
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Darling eyes, the sweetest eyes, the loveliest, the most loving
eyes the sound of a shot rang through the church, and those
eyes were filled with death.
-
Lorna fell across my knees when I was going to kiss her, as
the bridegroom is allowed to do, and encouraged, if he needs it:
a flood of blood came out upon the yellow wood of the altar
steps; and at my feet lay Lorna, trying to tell me some last mes-
sage out of her faithful eyes. I lifted her up, and petted her,
and coaxed her, but it was no good; the only sign of life remain-
ing was a spurt of bright red blood.
me
-
Some men know what things befall them in the supreme
time of their life- - far above the time of death but to
comes back as a hazy dream, without any knowledge in it, what
I did, or felt, or thought, with my wife's arms flagging, flagging,
around my neck, as I raised her up, and softly put them there.
She sighed a long sigh on my breast, for her last farewell to
life, and then she grew so cold, and cold, that I asked the time
of year.
It was now Whit-Tuesday, and the lilacs all in blossom; and
why I thought of the time of year, with the young death in my
arms, God or his angels may decide, having so strangely given
us. Enough that so I did, and looked, and our white lilacs
were beautiful. Then I laid my wife in my mother's arms, and
begging that no one would make a noise, went forth for my
―
revenge.
Of course I knew who had done it. There was but one man
in the world, or at any rate in our part of it, who could have
done such a thing-such a thing. I use no harsher word about
it, while I leaped upon our best horse, with bridle, but no sad-
dle, and set the head of Kickums toward the course now pointed
out to me. Who showed me the course I cannot tell. I only
know that I took it. And the men fell back before me.
Weapon of no sort had I. Unarmed, and wondering at my
strange attire (with a bridal vest wrought by our Annie, and red
with the blood of the bride), I went forth just to find out this-
whether in this world there be or be not a God of justice.
With my vicious horse at a furious speed, I came up Black
Barrow Down, directed by some shout of men, which seemed to
me but a whisper. And there, about a furlong before me, rode
a man on a great black horse, and I knew that man was Carver
Doone.
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2025
"Your life, or mine," I said to myself; "as the will of God
may be.
But we two live not upon this earth one more hour
together. "
I knew the strength of this great man; and I knew that he
was armed with a gun-if he had time to load again, after
shooting my Lorna or at any rate with pistols, and a horse-
man's sword as well. Nevertheless, I had no more doubt of
killing the man before me than a cook has of spitting a headless
fowl.
-
Sometimes seeing no ground beneath me, and sometimes heed-
ing every leaf, and the crossing of the grass-blades, I followed
over the long moor, reckless whether seen or not. But only
once the other man turned round and looked back again, and
then I was beside a rock, with a reedy swamp behind me.
Although he was so far before me, and riding as hard as
ride he might, I saw that he had something on the horse in
front of him; something which needed care, and stopped him
from looking backward. In the whirling of my wits, I fancied
first that this was Lorna; until the scene I had been through
fell across hot brain and heart, like the drop at the close of a
tragedy. Rushing there through crag and quag at utmost speed
of a maddened horse, I saw, as of another's fate, calmly (as on
canvas laid), the brutal deed, the piteous anguish, and the cold
despair.
The man turned up the gully leading from the moor to Cloven
Rocks, through which John Fry had tracked Uncle Ben, as of old
related. But as Carver entered it, he turned round, and beheld
me not a hundred yards behind; and I saw that he was bearing
his child, little Ensie, before him. Ensie also descried me, and
stretched his hands and cried to me; for the face of his father
frightened him.
Carver Doone, with a vile oath, thrust spurs into his flagging
horse, and laid one hand on a pistol-stock, whence I knew that
his slung carbine had received no bullet since the one that
pierced Lorna. And a cry of triumph rose from the black
depths of my heart. What cared I for pistols? I had no spurs,
neither was my horse one to need the rowel; I rather held him
in than urged him, for he was fresh as ever; and I knew that
the black steed in front, if he breasted the steep ascent, where
the track divided, must be in our reach at once.
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
His rider knew this, and having no room in the rocky chan
nel to turn and fire, drew rein at the crossways sharply, and
plunged into the black ravine leading to the Wizard's Slough.
"Is it so? " I said to myself, with brain and head cold as iron:
"though the foul fiend come from the slough to save thee, thou
shalt carve it, Carver. "
I followed my enemy carefully, steadily, even leisurely; for I
had him as in a pitfall, whence no escape might be. He thought
that I feared to approach him, for he knew not where he was;
and his low disdainful laugh came back. "Laugh he who wins,"
thought I.
A gnarled and half-starved oak, as stubborn as my own re-
solve, and smitten by some storm of old, hung from the crag
above me. Rising from my horse's back, although I had no stir-
rups, I caught a limb, and tore it (like a mere wheat-awn) from
the socket. Men show the rent even now with wonder; none
with more wonder than myself.
Carver Doone turned the corner suddenly on the black and
bottomless bog; with a start of fear he reined back his horse,
and I thought he would have turned upon me. But instead of
that, he again rode on, hoping to find a way round the side.
Now there is a way between cliff and slough for those who
know the ground thoroughly, or have time enough to search it;
but for him there was no road, and he lost some time in seek-
ing it. Upon this he made up his mind; and wheeling, fired,
and then rode at me.
His bullet struck me somewhere, but I took no heed of that.
Fearing only his escape, I laid my horse across the way, and
with the limb of oak struck full on the forehead his charging
steed. Ere the slash of the sword came nigh me, man and
horse rolled over and well-nigh bore my own horse down with
the power of their onset.
Carver Doone was somewhat stunned, and could not arise for
a moment. Meanwhile I leaped on the ground and awaited,
smoothing my hair back, and baring my arms, as though in the
ring for wrestling. Then the little boy ran to me, clasped my
leg, and looked up at me, and the terror in his eyes made me
almost fear myself.
"Ensie dear," I said quite gently, grieving that he should see
his wicked father killed, "run up yonder round the corner, and
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2027
try to find a pretty bunch of bluebells for the lady. " The child
obeyed me, hanging back, and looking back, and then laughing,
while I prepared for business. There and then I might have
killed mine enemy with a single blow while he lay unconscious,
but it would have been foul play.
With a sullen and black scowl, the Carver gathered his
mighty limbs and arose, and looked round for his weapons; but
I had put them well away. Then he came to me and gazed,
being wont to frighten thus young men.
"I would not harm you, lad," he said, with a lofty style of
sneering: “I have punished you enough for most of your imper-
tinence. For the rest I forgive you, because you have been
good and gracious to my little son. Go and be contented. "
For answer I smote him on the cheek, lightly, and not to
hurt him, but to make his blood leap up. I would not sully my
tongue by speaking to a man like this.
There was a level space of sward between us and the slough.
With the courtesy derived from London, and the procession I
had seen, to this place I led him. And that he might breathe
himself, and have every fibre cool, and every muscle ready, my
hold upon his coat I loosed, and left him to begin with me
whenever he thought proper.
I think he felt that his time was come. I think he knew
from my knitted muscles, and the firm arch of my breast, and
the way in which I stood, but most of all from my stern blue
eyes, that he had found his master. At any rate, a paleness
came, an ashy paleness on his cheeks, and the vast calves of his
legs bowed in, as if he were out of training.
Seeing this, villain as he was, I offered him first chance. I
stretched forth my left hand as I do to a weaker antagonist, and
I let him have the hug of me. But in this I was too generous;
having forgotten my pistol-wound, and the cracking of one of my
short lower ribs. Carver Doone caught me round the waist with
such a grip as never yet had been laid upon me.
I heard my rib go; I grasped his arm and tore the muscle
out of it* (as the string comes out of an orange); then I took
him by the throat, which is not allowed in wrestling, but he had
snatched at mine; and now was no time of dalliance. In vain he
* A far more terrible clutch than this is handed down, to weaker ages, of
the great John Ridd. - ED. L. D.
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2028
RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
tugged and strained and writhed, dashed his bleeding fist into
my face, and flung himself on me with gnashing jaws. Beneath
the iron of my strength-for God that day was with me - I had
him helpless in two minutes, and his fiery eyes lolled out.
"I will not harm thee any more," I cried, so far as I could
for panting, the work being very furious: "Carver Doone, thou
art beaten; own it, and thank God for it; and go thy way, and
repent thyself. "
It was all too late. Even if he had yielded in his ravening
frenzy for his beard was like a mad dog's jowl-even if he
would have owned that for the first time in his life he had
found his master, it was all too late.
The black bog had him by the feet; the sucking of the ground
drew on him, like the thirsty lips of death. In our fury we had
heeded neither wet nor dry, nor thought of earth beneath us.
I myself might scarcely leap, with the last spring of o'erlabored
legs, from the engulfing grave of slime. He fell back, with his
swarthy breast (from which my grip had rent all clothing), like
a hummock of bog-oak, standing out the quagmire; and then he
tossed his arms to heaven, and they were black to the elbow,
and the glare of his eyes was ghastly. I could only gaze and
pant; for my strength was no more than an infant's from the
fury and the horror. Scarcely could I turn away, while, joint by
joint, he sank from sight.
―
LANDING THE TROUT
From Alice Lorraine'
HE trout knew nothing of all this. They had not tasted a
Tworm for a month, except when a sod of the bank fell in,
through cracks of the sun, and the way cold water has of
licking upward. And even the flies had no flavor at all; when
they fell on the water, they fell flat, and on the palate they
tasted hot, even under the bushes.
Hilary followed a path through the meadows, with the calm.
bright sunset casting its shadow over the shorn grass, or up in
the hedge-road, or on the brown banks where the drought had
struck. On his back he carried a fishing-basket, containing his
bits of refreshment; and in his right hand a short springy rod,
the absent sailor's favorite. After long council with Mabel, he
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RICHARD DODDRIDGE BLACKMORE
2029
had made up his mind to walk up-stream as far as the spot
where two brooks met, and formed body enough for a fly flipped
in very carefully to sail downward. Here he began, and the
creak of his reel and the swish of his rod were music to him,
after the whirl of London life.
The brook was as bright as the best cut-glass, and the twinkles
of its shifting facets only made it seem more clear. It twisted
about a little, here and there; and the brink was fringed now
and then with something, a clump of loosestrife, a tuft of avens,
or a bed of flowering water-cress, or any other of the many
plants that wash and look into the water. But the trout, the
main object in view, were most objectionably too much in view.
They scudded up the brook at the shadow of a hair, or even the
tremble of a blade of grass; and no pacific assurance could make
them even stop to be reasoned with. "This won't do," said
Hilary, who very often talked to himself, in lack of a better
comrade. "I call this very hard upon me. The beggars won't
rise till it is quite dark. I must have the interdict off my tobacco,
if this sort of thing is to go on. How I should enjoy a pipe just
now! I may just as well sit on a gate and think. No, hang it,
I hate thinking now. There are troubles hanging over me, as
sure as the tail of that comet grows. How I detest that comet!
No wonder the fish won't rise. But if I have to strip, and tickle
them in the dark, I won't go back without some for her. "
He was lucky enough to escape the weight of such horrible
poaching upon his conscience; for suddenly to his ears was borne
the most melodious of all sounds, the flop of a heavy fish sweetly.
jumping after some excellent fly or grub.
"Ha, my friend!
