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CHAPTER XX
LORNA BEGINS HER STORY
'I cannot go through all my thoughts so as to make
them clear to you, nor have I ever dwelt on things, to
shape a story of them. I know not where the beginning
was, nor where the middle ought to be, nor even how at
the present time I feel, or think, or ought to think.
If I look for help to those around me, who should tell
me right and wrong (being older and much wiser), I meet
sometimes with laughter, and at other times with anger.
'There are but two in the world who ever listen and try
to help me; one of them is my grandfather, and the
other is a man of wisdom, whom we call the Counsellor.
My grandfather, Sir Ensor Doone, is very old and harsh
of manner (except indeed to me); he seems to know what
is right and wrong, but not to want to think of it.
The Counsellor, on the other hand, though full of life
and subtleties, treats my questions as of play, and not
gravely worth his while to answer, unless he can make
wit of them.
'And among the women there are none with whom I can
hold converse, since my Aunt Sabina died, who took such
pains to teach me. She was a lady of high repute and
lofty ways, and learning, but grieved and harassed more
and more by the coarseness, and the violence, and the
ignorance around her. In vain she strove, from year to
year, to make the young men hearken, to teach them what
became their birth, and give them sense of honour. It
was her favourite word, poor thing! and they called her
"Old Aunt Honour." Very often she used to say that I
was her only comfort, and I am sure she was my only
one; and when she died it was more to me than if I had
lost a mother.
'For I have no remembrance now of father or of mother,
although they say that my father was the eldest son of
Sir Ensor Doone, and the bravest and the best of them.
And so they call me heiress to this little realm of
violence; and in sorry sport sometimes, I am their
Princess or their Queen.
'Many people living here, as I am forced to do, would
perhaps be very happy, and perhaps I ought to be so.
We have a beauteous valley, sheltered from the cold of
winter and power of the summer sun, untroubled also by
the storms and mists that veil the mountains; although
I must acknowledge that it is apt to rain too often.
The grass moreover is so fresh, and the brook so bright
and lively, and flowers of so many hues come after one
another that no one need be dull, if only left alone
with them.
'And so in the early days perhaps, when morning
breathes around me, and the sun is going upward, and
light is playing everywhere, I am not so far beside
them all as to live in shadow. But when the evening
gathers down, and the sky is spread with sadness, and
the day has spent itself; then a cloud of lonely
trouble falls, like night, upon me. I cannot see the
things I quest for of a world beyond me; I cannot join
the peace and quiet of the depth above me; neither have
I any pleasure in the brightness of the stars.
'What I want to know is something none of them can tell
me--what am I, and why set here, and when shall I be
with them? I see that you are surprised a little at
this my curiosity. Perhaps such questions never spring
in any wholesome spirit. But they are in the depths of
mine, and I cannot be quit of them.
'Meantime, all around me is violence and robbery,
coarse delight and savage pain, reckless joke and
hopeless death. Is it any wonder that I cannot sink
with these, that I cannot so forget my soul, as to live
the life of brutes, and die the death more horrible
because it dreams of waking? There is none to lead me
forward, there is none to teach me right; young as I
am, I live beneath a curse that lasts for ever.'
Here Lorna broke down for awhile, and cried so very
piteously, that doubting of my knowledge, and of any
power to comfort, I did my best to hold my peace, and
tried to look very cheerful. Then thinking that might
be bad manners, I went to wipe her eyes for her.
'Master Ridd,' she began again, 'I am both ashamed and
vexed at my own childish folly. But you, who have a
mother, who thinks (you say) so much of you, and
sisters, and a quiet home; you cannot tell (it is not
likely) what a lonely nature is. How it leaps in mirth
sometimes, with only heaven touching it; and how it
falls away desponding, when the dreary weight creeps
on.
'It does not happen many times that I give way like
this; more shame now to do so, when I ought to
entertain you. Sometimes I am so full of anger, that I
dare not trust to speech, at things they cannot hide
from me; and perhaps you would be much surprised that
reckless men would care so much to elude a young girl's
knowledge. They used to boast to Aunt Sabina of
pillage and of cruelty, on purpose to enrage her; but
they never boast to me. It even makes me smile
sometimes to see how awkwardly they come and offer for
temptation to me shining packets, half concealed, of
ornaments and finery, of rings, or chains, or jewels,
lately belonging to other people.
'But when I try to search the past, to get a sense of
what befell me ere my own perception formed; to feel
back for the lines of childhood, as a trace of
gossamer, then I only know that nought lives longer
than God wills it. So may after sin go by, for we are
children always, as the Counsellor has told me; so may
we, beyond the clouds, seek this infancy of life, and
never find its memory.
'But I am talking now of things which never come across
me when any work is toward. It might have been a good
thing for me to have had a father to beat these rovings
out of me; or a mother to make a home, and teach me how
to manage it. For, being left with none--I think; and
nothing ever comes of it. Nothing, I mean, which I can
grasp and have with any surety; nothing but faint
images, and wonderment, and wandering. But often, when
I am neither searching back into remembrance, nor
asking of my parents, but occupied by trifles,
something like a sign, or message, or a token of some
meaning, seems to glance upon me. Whether from the
rustling wind, or sound of distant music, or the
singing of a bird, like the sun on snow it strikes me
with a pain of pleasure.
'And often when I wake at night, and listen to the
silence, or wander far from people in the grayness of
the evening, or stand and look at quiet water having
shadows over it, some vague image seems to hover on the
skirt of vision, ever changing place and outline, ever
flitting as I follow. This so moves and hurries me, in
the eagerness and longing, that straightway all my
chance is lost; and memory, scared like a wild bird,
flies. Or am I as a child perhaps, chasing a flown
cageling, who among the branches free plays and peeps
at the offered cage (as a home not to be urged on him),
and means to take his time of coming, if he comes at
all?
'Often too I wonder at the odds of fortune, which made
me (helpless as I am, and fond of peace and reading)
the heiress of this mad domain, the sanctuary of
unholiness. It is not likely that I shall have much
power of authority; and yet the Counsellor creeps up to
be my Lord of the Treasury; and his son aspires to my
hand, as of a Royal alliance. Well, "honour among
thieves," they say; and mine is the first honour:
although among decent folk perhaps, honesty is better.
'We should not be so quiet here, and safe from
interruption but that I have begged one privilege
rather than commanded it. This was that the lower end,
just this narrowing of the valley, where it is most
hard to come at, might be looked upon as mine, except
for purposes of guard. Therefore none beside the
sentries ever trespass on me here, unless it be my
grandfather, or the Counsellor or Carver.
'By your face, Master Ridd, I see that you have heard
of Carver Doone. For strength and courage and resource
he bears the first repute among us, as might well be
expected from the son of the Counsellor. But he
differs from his father, in being very hot and savage,
and quite free from argument. The Counsellor, who is
my uncle, gives his son the best advice; commending all
the virtues, with eloquence and wisdom; yet himself
abstaining from them accurately and impartially.
'You must be tired of this story, and the time I take
to think, and the weakness of my telling; but my life
from day to day shows so little variance. Among the
riders there is none whose safe return I watch for--I
mean none more than other--and indeed there seems no
risk, all are now so feared of us. Neither of the old
men is there whom I can revere or love (except alone my
grandfather, whom I love with trembling): neither of
the women any whom I like to deal with, unless it be a
little maiden whom I saved from starving.
'A little Cornish girl she is, and shaped in western
manner, not so very much less in width than if you take
her lengthwise. Her father seems to have been a miner,
a Cornishman (as she declares) of more than average
excellence, and better than any two men to be found in
Devonshire, or any four in Somerset. Very few things
can have been beyond his power of performance, and yet
he left his daughter to starve upon a peat-rick. She
does not know how this was done, and looks upon it as a
mystery, the meaning of which will some day be clear,
and redound to her father's honour. His name was Simon
Carfax, and he came as the captain of a gang from one
of the Cornish stannaries. Gwenny Carfax, my young
maid, well remembers how her father was brought up from
Cornwall. Her mother had been buried, just a week or
so before; and he was sad about it, and had been off
his work, and was ready for another job. Then people
came to him by night, and said that he must want a
change, and everybody lost their wives, and work was
the way to mend it. So what with grief, and
over-thought, and the inside of a square bottle, Gwenny
says they brought him off, to become a mighty captain,
and choose the country round. The last she saw of him
was this, that he went down a ladder somewhere on the
wilds of Exmoor, leaving her with bread and cheese, and
his travelling-hat to see to. And from that day to
this he never came above the ground again; so far as we
can hear of.
'But Gwenny, holding to his hat, and having eaten the
bread and cheese (when he came no more to help her),
dwelt three days near the mouth of the hole; and then
it was closed over, the while that she was sleeping.
With weakness and with want of food, she lost herself
distressfully, and went away for miles or more, and lay
upon a peat-rick, to die before the ravens.
'That very day I chanced to return from Aunt Sabina's
dying-place; for she would not die in Glen Doone, she
said, lest the angels feared to come for her; and so
she was taken to a cottage in a lonely valley. I was
allowed to visit her, for even we durst not refuse the
wishes of the dying; and if a priest had been desired,
we should have made bold with him. Returning very
sorrowful, and caring now for nothing, I found this
little stray thing lying, her arms upon her, and not a
sign of life, except the way that she was biting.
Black root-stuff was in her mouth, and a piece of dirty
sheep's wool, and at her feet an old egg-shell of some
bird of the moorland.
'I tried to raise her, but she was too square and heavy
for me; and so I put food in her mouth, and left her to
do right with it. And this she did in a little time;
for the victuals were very choice and rare, being what
I had taken over to tempt poor Aunt Sabina. Gwenny ate
them without delay, and then was ready to eat the
basket and the ware that contained them.
'Gwenny took me for an angel--though I am little like
one, as you see, Master Ridd; and she followed me,
expecting that I would open wings and fly when we came
to any difficulty. I brought her home with me, so far
as this can be a home, and she made herself my sole
attendant, without so much as asking me. She has
beaten two or three other girls, who used to wait upon
me, until they are afraid to come near the house of my
grandfather. She seems to have no kind of fear even of
our roughest men; and yet she looks with reverence and
awe upon the Counsellor. As for the wickedness, and
theft, and revelry around her, she says it is no
concern of hers, and they know their own business best.
By this way of regarding men she has won upon our
riders, so that she is almost free from all control of
place and season, and is allowed to pass where none
even of the youths may go. Being so wide, and short,
and flat, she has none to pay her compliments; and,
were there any, she would scorn them, as not being
Cornishmen. Sometimes she wanders far, by moonlight,
on the moors and up the rivers, to give her father (as
she says) another chance of finding her, and she comes
back not a wit defeated, or discouraged, or depressed,
but confident that he is only waiting for the proper
time.
'Herein she sets me good example of a patience and
contentment hard for me to imitate. Oftentimes I am
vexed by things I cannot meddle with, yet which cannot
be kept from me, that I am at the point of flying from
this dreadful valley, and risking all that can betide
me in the unknown outer world. If it were not for my
grandfather, I would have done so long ago; but I
cannot bear that he should die with no gentle hand to
comfort him; and I fear to think of the conflict that
must ensue for the government, if there be a disputed
succession.
'Ah me! We are to be pitied greatly, rather than
condemned, by people whose things we have taken from
them; for I have read, and seem almost to understand
about it, that there are places on the earth where
gentle peace, and love of home, and knowledge of one's
neighbours prevail, and are, with reason, looked for as
the usual state of things. There honest folk may go to
work in the glory of the sunrise, with hope of coming
home again quite safe in the quiet evening, and finding
all their children; and even in the darkness they have
no fear of lying down, and dropping off to slumber, and
hearken to the wind of night, not as to an enemy trying
to find entrance, but a friend who comes to tell the
value of their comfort.
'Of all this golden ease I hear, but never saw the like
of it; and, haply, I shall never do so, being born to
turbulence. Once, indeed, I had the offer of escape,
and kinsman's aid, and high place in the gay, bright
world; and yet I was not tempted much, or, at least,
dared not to trust it. And it ended very sadly, so
dreadfully that I even shrink from telling you about
it; for that one terror changed my life, in a moment,
at a blow, from childhood and from thoughts of play and
commune with the flowers and trees, to a sense of death
and darkness, and a heavy weight of earth. Be content
now, Master Ridd ask me nothing more about it, so your
sleep be sounder.'
But I, John Ridd, being young and new, and very fond of
hearing things to make my blood to tingle, had no more
of manners than to urge poor Lorna onwards, hoping,
perhaps, in depth of heart, that she might have to hold
by me, when the worst came to the worst of it.
Therefore she went on again.
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