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CHAPTER XVII
JOHN IS CLEARLY BEWITCHED
To forget one's luck of life, to forget the cark of
care and withering of young fingers; not to feel, or
not be moved by, all the change of thought and heart,
from large young heat to the sinewy lines and dry bones
of old age--this is what I have to do ere ever I can
make you know (even as a dream is known) how I loved my
Lorna. I myself can never know; never can conceive, or
treat it as a thing of reason, never can behold myself
dwelling in the midst of it, and think that this was I;
neither can I wander far from perpetual thought of it.
Perhaps I have two farrows of pigs ready for the
chapman; perhaps I have ten stones of wool waiting for
the factor. It is all the same. I look at both, and
what I say to myself is this: 'Which would Lorna choose
of them?' Of course, I am a fool for this; any man may
call me so, and I will not quarrel with him, unless he
guess my secret. Of course, I fetch my wit, if it be
worth the fetching, back again to business. But there
my heart is and must be; and all who like to try can
cheat me, except upon parish matters.
That week I could do little more than dream and dream
and rove about, seeking by perpetual change to find the
way back to myself. I cared not for the people round
me, neither took delight in victuals; but made believe
to eat and drink and blushed at any questions. And
being called the master now, head-farmer, and chief
yeoman, it irked me much that any one should take
advantage of me; yet everybody did so as soon as ever
it was known that my wits were gone moon-raking. For
that was the way they looked at it, not being able to
comprehend the greatness and the loftiness. Neither do
I blame them much; for the wisest thing is to laugh at
people when we cannot understand them. I, for my part,
took no notice; but in my heart despised them as beings
of a lesser nature, who never had seen Lorna. Yet I
was vexed, and rubbed myself, when John Fry spread all
over the farm, and even at the shoeing forge, that a
mad dog had come and bitten me, from the other side of
Mallond.
This seems little to me now; and so it might to any
one; but, at the time, it worked me up to a fever of
indignity. To make a mad dog of Lorna, to compare all
my imaginings (which were strange, I do assure you--the
faculty not being apt to work), to count the raising of
my soul no more than hydrophobia! All this acted on me
so, that I gave John Fry the soundest threshing that
ever a sheaf of good corn deserved, or a bundle of
tares was blessed with. Afterwards he went home, too
tired to tell his wife the meaning of it; but it proved
of service to both of them, and an example for their
children.
Now the climate of this country is--so far as I can
make of it--to throw no man into extremes; and if he
throw himself so far, to pluck him back by change of
weather and the need of looking after things. Lest we
should be like the Southerns, for whom the sky does
everything, and men sit under a wall and watch both
food and fruit come beckoning. Their sky is a mother
to them; but ours a good stepmother to us--fearing to
hurt by indulgence, and knowing that severity and
change of mood are wholesome.
The spring being now too forward, a check to it was
needful; and in the early part of March there came a
change of weather. All the young growth was arrested
by a dry wind from the east, which made both face and
fingers burn when a man was doing ditching. The
lilacs and the woodbines, just crowding forth in little
tufts, close kernelling their blossom, were ruffled
back, like a sleeve turned up, and nicked with brown at
the corners. In the hedges any man, unless his eyes
were very dull, could see the mischief doing. The
russet of the young elm-bloom was fain to be in its
scale again; but having pushed forth, there must be,
and turn to a tawny colour. The hangers of the hazel,
too, having shed their dust to make the nuts, did not
spread their little combs and dry them, as they ought
to do; but shrivelled at the base and fell, as if a
knife had cut them. And more than all to notice was
(at least about the hedges) the shuddering of
everything and the shivering sound among them toward
the feeble sun; such as we make to a poor fireplace
when several doors are open. Sometimes I put my face
to warm against the soft, rough maple-stem, which feels
like the foot of a red deer; but the pitiless east wind
came through all, and took and shook the caved hedge
aback till its knees were knocking together, and
nothing could be shelter. Then would any one having
blood, and trying to keep at home with it, run to a
sturdy tree and hope to eat his food behind it, and
look for a little sun to come and warm his feet in the
shelter. And if it did he might strike his breast, and
try to think he was warmer.
But when a man came home at night, after long day's
labour, knowing that the days increased, and so his
care should multiply; still he found enough of light to
show him what the day had done against him in his
garden. Every ridge of new-turned earth looked like an
old man's muscles, honeycombed, and standing out void
of spring, and powdery. Every plant that had rejoiced
in passing such a winter now was cowering, turned away,
unfit to meet the consequence. Flowing sap had stopped
its course; fluted lines showed want of food, and if
you pinched the topmost spray, there was no rebound or
firmness.
We think a good deal, in a quiet way, when people ask
us about them--of some fine, upstanding pear-trees,
grafted by my grandfather, who had been very greatly
respected. And he got those grafts by sheltering a
poor Italian soldier, in the time of James the First, a
man who never could do enough to show his grateful
memories. How he came to our place is a very difficult
story, which I never understood rightly, having heard
it from my mother. At any rate, there the pear-trees
were, and there they are to this very day; and I wish
every one could taste their fruit, old as they are, and
rugged.
Now these fine trees had taken advantage of the west
winds, and the moisture, and the promise of the spring
time, so as to fill the tips of the spray-wood and the
rowels all up the branches with a crowd of eager
blossom. Not that they were yet in bloom, nor even
showing whiteness, only that some of the cones were
opening at the side of the cap which pinched them; and
there you might count perhaps, a dozen nobs, like very
little buttons, but grooved, and lined, and huddling
close, to make room for one another. And among these
buds were gray-green blades, scarce bigger than a hair
almost, yet curving so as if their purpose was to
shield the blossom.
Other of the spur-points, standing on the older wood
where the sap was not so eager, had not burst their
tunic yet, but were flayed and flaked with light,
casting off the husk of brown in three-cornered
patches, as I have seen a Scotchman's plaid, or as his
legs shows through it. These buds, at a distance,
looked as if the sky had been raining cream upon them.
Now all this fair delight to the eyes, and good promise
to the palate, was marred and baffled by the wind and
cutting of the night-frosts. The opening cones were
struck with brown, in between the button buds, and on
the scapes that shielded them; while the foot part of
the cover hung like rags, peeled back, and quivering.
And there the little stalk of each, which might have
been a pear, God willing, had a ring around its base,
and sought a chance to drop and die. The others which
had not opened comb, but only prepared to do it, were a
little better off, but still very brown and unkid, and
shrivelling in doubt of health, and neither peart nor
lusty.
Now this I have not told because I know the way to do
it, for that I do not, neither yet have seen a man who
did know. It is wonderful how we look at things, and
never think to notice them; and I am as bad as anybody,
unless the thing to be observed is a dog, or a horse,
or a maiden. And the last of those three I look at,
somehow, without knowing that I take notice, and
greatly afraid to do it, only I knew afterwards (when
the time of life was in me), not indeed, what the
maiden was like, but how she differed from others.
Yet I have spoken about the spring, and the failure of
fair promise, because I took it to my heart as token of
what would come to me in the budding of my years and
hope. And even then, being much possessed, and full of
a foolish melancholy, I felt a sad delight at being
doomed to blight and loneliness; not but that I managed
still (when mother was urgent upon me) to eat my share
of victuals, and cuff a man for laziness, and see that
a ploughshare made no leaps, and sleep of a night
without dreaming. And my mother half-believing, in her
fondness and affection, that what the parish said was
true about a mad dog having bitten me, and yet arguing
that it must be false (because God would have prevented
him), my mother gave me little rest, when I was in the
room with her. Not that she worried me with questions,
nor openly regarded me with any unusual meaning, but
that I knew she was watching slyly whenever I took a
spoon up; and every hour or so she managed to place a
pan of water by me, quite as if by accident, and
sometimes even to spill a little upon my shoe or
coat-sleeve. But Betty Muxworthy was worst; for,
having no fear about my health, she made a villainous
joke of it, and used to rush into the kitchen, barking
like a dog, and panting, exclaiming that I had bitten
her, and justice she would have on me, if it cost her a
twelvemonth's wages. And she always took care to do
this thing just when I had crossed my legs in the
corner after supper, and leaned my head against the
oven, to begin to think of Lorna.
However, in all things there is comfort, if we do not
look too hard for it; and now I had much satisfaction,
in my uncouth state, from labouring, by the hour
together, at the hedging and the ditching, meeting the
bitter wind face to face, feeling my strength increase,
and hoping that some one would be proud of it. In the
rustling rush of every gust, in the graceful bend of
every tree, even in the 'lords and ladies,' clumped in
the scoops of the hedgerow, and most of all in the soft
primrose, wrung by the wind, but stealing back, and
smiling when the wrath was passed--in all of these, and
many others there was aching ecstasy, delicious pang of
Lorna.
But however cold the weather was, and however hard the
wind blew, one thing (more than all the rest) worried
and perplexed me. This was, that I could not settle,
turn and twist as I might, how soon I ought to go again
upon a visit to Glen Doone. For I liked not at all the
falseness of it (albeit against murderers), the
creeping out of sight, and hiding, and feeling as a spy
might. And even more than this. I feared how Lorna
might regard it; whether I might seem to her a prone
and blunt intruder, a country youth not skilled in
manners, as among the quality, even when they rob us.
For I was not sure myself, but that it might be very
bad manners to go again too early without an
invitation; and my hands and face were chapped so badly
by the bitter wind, that Lorna might count them
unsightly things, and wish to see no more of them.
However, I could not bring myself to consult any one
upon this point, at least in our own neighbourhood, nor
even to speak of it near home. But the east wind
holding through the month, my hands and face growing
worse and worse, and it having occurred to me by this
time that possibly Lorna might have chaps, if she came
abroad at all, and so might like to talk about them and
show her little hands to me, I resolved to take another
opinion, so far as might be upon this matter, without
disclosing the circumstances.
Now the wisest person in all our parts was reckoned to
be a certain wise woman, well known all over Exmoor by
the name of Mother Melldrum. Her real name was Maple
Durham, as I learned long afterwards; and she came of
an ancient family, but neither of Devon nor Somerset.
Nevertheless she was quite at home with our proper
modes of divination; and knowing that we liked them
best--as each man does his own religion--she would
always practise them for the people of the country.
And all the while, she would let us know that she kept
a higher and nobler mode for those who looked down upon
this one, not having been bred and born to it.
Mother Melldrum had two houses, or rather she had none
at all, but two homes wherein to find her, according to
the time of year. In summer she lived in a pleasant
cave, facing the cool side of the hill, far inland near
Hawkridge and close above Tarr-steps, a wonderful
crossing of Barle river, made (as everybody knows) by
Satan, for a wager. But throughout the winter, she
found sea-air agreeable, and a place where things could
be had on credit, and more occasion of talking. Not
but what she could have credit (for every one was
afraid of her) in the neighbourhood of Tarr-steps; only
there was no one handy owning things worth taking.
Therefore, at the fall of the leaf, when the woods grew
damp and irksome, the wise woman always set her face to
the warmer cliffs of the Channel; where shelter was,
and dry fern bedding, and folk to be seen in the
distance, from a bank upon which the sun shone. And
there, as I knew from our John Fry (who had been to her
about rheumatism, and sheep possessed with an evil
spirit, and warts on the hand of his son, young John),
any one who chose might find her, towards the close of
a winter day, gathering sticks and brown fern for fuel,
and talking to herself the while, in a hollow stretch
behind the cliffs; which foreigners, who come and go
without seeing much of Exmoor, have called the Valley
of Rocks.
This valley, or goyal, as we term it, being small for a
valley, lies to the west of Linton, about a mile from
the town perhaps, and away towards Ley Manor. Our
homefolk always call it the Danes, or the Denes, which
is no more, they tell me, than a hollow place, even as
the word 'den' is. However, let that pass, for I know
very little about it; but the place itself is a pretty
one, though nothing to frighten anybody, unless he hath
lived in a gallipot. It is a green rough-sided hollow,
bending at the middle, touched with stone at either
crest, and dotted here and there with slabs in and out
the brambles. On the right hand is an upward crag,
called by some the Castle, easy enough to scale, and
giving great view of the Channel. Facing this, from
the inland side and the elbow of the valley, a queer
old pile of rock arises, bold behind one another, and
quite enough to affright a man, if it only were ten
times larger. This is called the Devil's Cheese-ring,
or the Devil's Cheese-knife, which mean the same thing,
as our fathers were used to eat their cheese from a
scoop; and perhaps in old time the upmost rock (which
has fallen away since I knew it) was like to such an
implement, if Satan eat cheese untoasted.
But all the middle of this valley was a place to rest
in; to sit and think that troubles were not, if we
would not make them. To know the sea outside the
hills, but never to behold it; only by the sound of
waves to pity sailors labouring. Then to watch the
sheltered sun, coming warmly round the turn, like a
guest expected, full of gentle glow and gladness,
casting shadow far away as a thing to hug itself, and
awakening life from dew, and hope from every spreading
bud. And then to fall asleep and dream that the fern
was all asparagus.
Alas, I was too young in those days much to care for
creature comforts, or to let pure palate have things
that would improve it. Anything went down with me, as
it does with most of us. Too late we know the good
from bad; the knowledge is no pleasure then; being
memory's medicine rather than the wine of hope.
Now Mother Melldrum kept her winter in this vale of
rocks, sheltering from the wind and rain within the
Devil's Cheese-ring, which added greatly to her fame
because all else, for miles around, were afraid to go
near it after dark, or even on a gloomy day. Under
eaves of lichened rock she had a winding passage, which
none that ever I knew of durst enter but herself. And
to this place I went to seek her, in spite of all
misgivings, upon a Sunday in Lenten season, when the
sheep were folded.
Our parson (as if he had known my intent) had preached
a beautiful sermon about the Witch of Endor, and the
perils of them that meddle wantonly with the unseen
Powers; and therein he referred especially to the
strange noise in the neighbourhood, and upbraided us
for want of faith, and many other backslidings. We
listened to him very earnestly, for we like to hear
from our betters about things that are beyond us, and
to be roused up now and then, like sheep with a good
dog after them, who can pull some wool without biting.
Nevertheless we could not see how our want of faith
could have made that noise, especially at night time,
notwithstanding which we believed it, and hoped to do a
little better.
And so we all came home from church; and most of the
people dined with us, as they always do on Sundays,
because of the distance to go home, with only words
inside them. The parson, who always sat next to
mother, was afraid that he might have vexed us, and
would not have the best piece of meat, according to his
custom. But soon we put him at his ease, and showed
him we were proud of him; and then he made no more to
do, but accepted the best of the sirloin.
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