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CHAPTER LIX
LORNA GONE AWAY
Although there are very ancient tales of gold being
found upon Exmoor, in lumps and solid hummocks, and of
men who slew one another for it, this deep digging and
great labour seemed to me a dangerous and unholy
enterprise. And Master Huckaback confessed that up to
the present time his two partners and himself (for they
proved to be three adventurers) had put into the earth
more gold than they had taken out of it. Nevertheless
he felt quite sure that it must in a very short time
succeed, and pay them back an hundredfold; and he
pressed me with great earnestness to join them, and
work there as much as I could, without moving my
mother's suspicions. I asked him how they had managed
so long to carry on without discovery; and he said that
this was partly through the wildness of the
neighbourhood, and the legends that frightened people
of a superstitious turn; partly through their own great
caution, and the manner of fetching both supplies and
implements by night; but most of all, they had to thank
the troubles of the period, the suspicions of
rebellion, and the terror of the Doones, which (like
the wizard I was speaking of) kept folk from being too
inquisitive where they had no business. The slough,
moreover, had helped them well, both by making their
access dark, and yet more by swallowing up and
concealing all that was cast from the mouth of the pit.
Once, before the attack on Glen Doone, they had a
narrow escape from the King's Commissioner; for Captain
Stickles having heard no doubt the story of John Fry,
went with half a dozen troopers, on purpose to search
the neighbourhood. Now if he had ridden alone, most
likely he would have discovered everything; but he
feared to venture so, having suspicion of a trap.
Coming as they did in a company, all mounted and
conspicuous, the watchman (who was posted now on the
top of the hill, almost every day since John Fry's
appearance) could not help espying them, miles distant,
over the moorland. He watched them under the shade of
his hand, and presently ran down the hill, and raised a
great commotion. Then Simon Carfax and all his men
came up, and made things natural, removing every sign
of work; and finally, sinking underground, drew across
the mouth of the pit a hurdle thatched with sedge and
heather. Only Simon himself was left behind, ensconced
in a hole of the crags, to observe the doings of the
enemy.
Captain Stickles rode very bravely, with all his men
clattering after him, down the rocky pass, and even to
the margin of the slough. And there they stopped, and
held council; for it was a perilous thing to risk the
passage upon horseback, between the treacherous brink
and the cliff, unless one knew it thoroughly.
Stickles, however, and one follower, carefully felt the
way along, having their horses well in hand, and
bearing a rope to draw them out, in case of being
foundered. Then they spurred across the rough boggy
land, farther away than the shaft was. Here the ground
lay jagged and shaggy, wrought up with high tufts of
reed, or scragged with stunted brushwood. And between
the ups and downs (which met anybody anyhow)
green-covered places tempted the foot, and black
bog-holes discouraged it. It is not to be marvelled at
that amid such place as this, for the first time
visited, the horses were a little skeary; and their
riders partook of the feeling, as all good riders do.
In and out of the tufts they went, with their eyes
dilating, wishing to be out of harm, if conscience were
but satisfied. And of this tufty flaggy ground, pocked
with bogs and boglets, one especial nature is that it
will not hold impressions.
Seeing thus no track of men, nor anything but
marsh-work, and stormwork, and of the seasons, these
two honest men rode back, and were glad to do so. For
above them hung the mountains, cowled with fog, and
seamed with storm; and around them desolation; and
below their feet the grave. Hence they went, with all
goodwill; and vowed for ever afterwards that fear of a
simple place like that was only too ridiculous. So
they all rode home with mutual praises, and their
courage well-approved; and the only result of the
expedition was to confirm John Fry's repute as a bigger
liar than ever.
Now I had enough of that underground work, as before
related, to last me for a year to come; neither would
I, for sake of gold, have ever stepped into that
bucket, of my own goodwill again. But when I told
Lorna--whom I could trust in any matter of secrecy, as
if she had never been a woman--all about my great
descent, and the honeycombing of the earth, and the
mournful noise at eventide, when the gold was under the
crusher and bewailing the mischief it must do, then
Lorna's chief desire was to know more about Simon
Carfax.
'It must be our Gwenny's father,' she cried; 'the man
who disappeared underground, and whom she has ever been
seeking. How grieved the poor little thing will be, if
it should turn out, after all, that he left his child
on purpose! I can hardly believe it; can you, John?'
'Well,' I replied; 'all men are wicked, more or less,
to some extent; and no man may say otherwise.'
For I did not wish to commit myself to an opinion about
Simon, lest I might be wrong, and Lorna think less of
my judgment.
But being resolved to see this out, and do a good turn,
if I could, to Gwenny, who had done me many a good one,
I begged my Lorna to say not a word of this matter to
the handmaiden, until I had further searched it out.
And to carry out this resolve, I went again to the
place of business where they were grinding gold as
freely as an apothecary at his pills.
Having now true right of entrance, and being known to
the watchman, and regarded (since I cracked the
boulder) as one who could pay his footing, and perhaps
would be the master, when Uncle Ben should he choked
with money, I found the corb sent up for me rather
sooner than I wished it. For the smell of the places
underground, and the way men's eyes came out of them,
with links, and brands, and flambeaux, instead of God's
light to look at, were to me a point of caution, rather
than of pleasure.
No doubt but what some men enjoy it, being born, like
worms, to dig, and to live in their own scoopings. Yet
even the worms come up sometimes, after a good soft
shower of rain, and hold discourse with one another;
whereas these men, and the horses let down, come above
ground never.
And the changing of the sky is half the change our
nature calls for. Earth we have, and all its produce
(moving from the first appearance, and the hope with
infants' eyes, through the bloom of beauty's promise,
to the rich and ripe fulfilment, and the falling back
to rest); sea we have (with all its wonder shed on
eyes, and ears, and heart; and the thought of something
more)--but without the sky to look at, what would
earth, and sea, and even our own selves, be to us?
Do we look at earth with hope? Yes, for victuals only.
Do we look at sea with hope? Yes, that we may escape
it. At the sky alone (though questioned with the
doubts of sunshine, or scattered with uncertain stars),
at the sky alone we look with pure hope and with
memory.
Hence it always hurt my feelings when I got into that
bucket, with my small-clothes turned up over, and a
kerchief round my hat. But knowing that my purpose was
sound, and my motives pure, I let the sky grow to a
little blue hole, and then to nothing over me. At the
bottom Master Carfax met me, being captain of the mine,
and desirous to know my business. He wore a loose sack
round his shoulders, and his beard was two feet long.
'My business is to speak with you,' I answered rather
sternly; for this man, who was nothing more than Uncle
Reuben's servant, had carried things too far with me,
showing no respect whatever; and though I did not care
for much, I liked to receive a little, even in my early
days.
'Coom into the muck-hole, then,' was his gracious
answer; and he led me into a filthy cell, where the
miners changed their jackets.
'Simon Carfax, I began, with a manner to discourage
him; 'I fear you are a shallow fellow, and not worth my
trouble.'
'Then don't take it,' he replied; 'I want no man's
trouble.'
'For your sake I would not,' I answered; 'but for your
daughter's sake I will; the daughter whom you left to
starve so pitifully in the wilderness.'
The man stared at me with his pale gray eyes, whose
colour was lost from candle light; and his voice as
well as his body shook, while he cried,--
'It is a lie, man. No daughter, and no son have I.
Nor was ever child of mine left to starve in the
wilderness. You are too big for me to tackle, and that
makes you a coward for saying it.' His hands were
playing with a pickaxe helve, as if he longed to have
me under it.
'Perhaps I have wronged you, Simon,' I answered very
softly; for the sweat upon his forehead shone in the
smoky torchlight; 'if I have, I crave your pardon. But
did you not bring up from Cornwall a little maid named
"Gwenny," and supposed to be your daughter?'
'Ay, and she was my daughter, my last and only child of
five; and for her I would give this mine, and all the
gold will ever come from it.'
'You shall have her, without either mine or gold; if
you only prove to me that you did not abandon her.'
'Abandon her! I abandon Gwenny!' He cried with such a
rage of scorn, that I at once believed him. 'They told
me she was dead, and crushed, and buried in the drift
here; and half my heart died with her. The Almighty
blast their mining-work, if the scoundrels lied to me!'
'The scoundrels must have lied to you,' I answered,
with a spirit fired by his heat of fury: 'the maid is
living and with us. Come up; and you shall see her.'
'Rig the bucket,' he shouted out along the echoing
gallery; and then he fell against the wall, and through
the grimy sack I saw the heaving of his breast, as I
have seen my opponent's chest, in a long hard bout of
wrestling. For my part, I could do no more than hold
my tongue and look at him.
Without another word we rose to the level of the moors
and mires; neither would Master Carfax speak, as I led
him across the barrows. In this he was welcome to his
own way, for I do love silence; so little harm can come
of it. And though Gwenny was no beauty, her father
might be fond of her.
So I put him in the cow-house (not to frighten the
little maid), and the folding shutters over him, such
as we used at the beestings; and he listened to my
voice outside, and held on, and preserved himself. For
now he would have scooped the earth, as cattle do at
yearning-time, and as meekly and as patiently, to have
his child restored to him. Not to make long tale of
it--for this thing is beyond me, through want of true
experience--I went and fetched his Gwenny forth from
the back kitchen, where she was fighting, as usual,
with our Betty.
'Come along, you little Vick,' I said, for so we called
her; 'I have a message to you, Gwenny, from the Lord in
heaven.'
'Don't 'ee talk about He,' she answered; 'Her have long
forgatten me.'
'That He has never done, you stupid. Come, and see who
is in the cowhouse.'
Gwenny knew; she knew in a moment. Looking into my
eyes, she knew; and hanging back from me to sigh, she
knew it even better.
She had not much elegance of emotion, being flat and
square all over; but none the less for that her heart
came quick, and her words came slowly.
'Oh, Jan, you are too good to cheat me. Is it joke you
are putting upon me?'
I answered her with a gaze alone; and she tucked up her
clothes and followed me because the road was dirty.
Then I opened the door just wide enough for the child
to to go her father, and left those two to have it out,
as might be most natural. And they took a long time
about it.
Meanwhile I needs must go and tell my Lorna all the
matter; and her joy was almost as great as if she
herself had found a father. And the wonder of the
whole was this, that I got all the credit; of which not
a thousandth part belonged by right and reason to me.
Yet so it almost always is. If I work for good desert,
and slave, and lie awake at night, and spend my unborn
life in dreams, not a blink, nor wink, nor inkling of
my labour ever tells. It would have been better to
leave unburned, and to keep undevoured, the fuel and
the food of life. But if I have laboured not, only
acted by some impulse, whim, caprice, or anything; or
even acting not at all, only letting things float by;
piled upon me commendations, bravoes, and applauses,
almost work me up to tempt once again (though sick of
it) the ill luck of deserving.
Without intending any harm, and meaning only good
indeed, I had now done serious wrong to Uncle Reuben's
prospects. For Captain Carfax was full as angry at the
trick played on him as he was happy in discovering the
falsehood and the fraud of it. Nor could I help
agreeing with him, when he told me all of it, as with
tears in his eyes he did, and ready to be my slave
henceforth; I could not forbear from owning that it was
a low and heartless trick, unworthy of men who had
families; and the recoil whereof was well deserved,
whatever it might end in.
For when this poor man left his daughter, asleep as he
supposed, and having his food, and change of clothes,
and Sunday hat to see to, he meant to return in an hour
or so, and settle about her sustenance in some house of
the neighbourhood. But this was the very thing of all
things which the leaders of the enterprise, who had
brought him up from Cornwall, for his noted skill in
metals, were determined, whether by fair means or foul,
to stop at the very outset. Secrecy being their main
object, what chance could there be of it, if the miners
were allowed to keep their children in the
neighbourhood? Hence, on the plea of feasting Simon,
they kept him drunk for three days and three nights,
assuring him (whenever he had gleams enough to ask for
her) that his daughter was as well as could be, and
enjoying herself with the children. Not wishing the
maid to see him tipsy, he pressed the matter no
further; but applied himself to the bottle again, and
drank her health with pleasure.
However, after three days of this, his constitution
rose against it, and he became quite sober; with a
certain lowness of heart moreover, and a sense of
error. And his first desire to right himself, and
easiest way to do it, was by exerting parental
authority upon Gwenny. Possessed with this intention
(for he was not a sweet tempered man, and his head was
aching sadly) he sought for Gwenny high and low; first
with threats, and then with fears, and then with tears
and wailing. And so he became to the other men a
warning and a great annoyance. Therefore they combined
to swear what seemed a very likely thing, and might be
true for all they knew, to wit, that Gwenny had come to
seek for her father down the shaft-hole, and peering
too eagerly into the dark, had toppled forward, and
gone down, and lain at the bottom as dead as a stone.
'And thou being so happy with drink,' the villains
finished up to him, 'and getting drunker every day, we
thought it shame to trouble thee; and we buried the
wench in the lower drift; and no use to think more of
her; but come and have a glass, Sim.'
But Simon Carfax swore that drink had lost him his
wife, and now had lost him the last of his five
children, and would lose him his own soul, if further
he went on with it; and from that day to his death he
never touched strong drink again. Nor only this; but
being soon appointed captain of the mine, he allowed no
man on any pretext to bring cordials thither; and to
this and his stern hard rule and stealthy secret
management (as much as to good luck and place) might it
be attributed that scarcely any but themselves had
dreamed about this Exmoor mine.
As for me, I had no ambition to become a miner; and the
state to which gold-seeking had brought poor Uncle Ben
was not at all encouraging. My business was to till
the ground, and tend the growth that came of it, and
store the fruit in Heaven's good time, rather than to
scoop and burrow like a weasel or a rat for the yellow
root of evil. Moreover, I was led from home, between
the hay and corn harvests (when we often have a week to
spare), by a call there was no resisting; unless I gave
up all regard for wrestling, and for my county.
Now here many persons may take me amiss, and there
always has been some confusion; which people who ought
to have known better have wrought into subject of
quarrelling. By birth it is true, and cannot be
denied, that I am a man of Somerset; nevertheless by
breed I am, as well as by education, a son of Devon
also. And just as both of our two counties vowed that
Glen Doone was none of theirs, but belonged to the
other one; so now, each with hot claim and jangling
(leading even to blows sometimes), asserted and would
swear to it (as I became more famous) that John Ridd
was of its own producing, bred of its own true blood,
and basely stolen by the other.
Now I have not judged it in any way needful or even
becoming and delicate, to enter into my wrestling
adventures, or describe my progress. The whole thing
is so different from Lorna, and her gentle manners, and
her style of walking; moreover I must seem (even to
kind people) to magnify myself so much, or at least
attempt to do it, that I have scratched out written
pages, through my better taste and sense.
Neither will I, upon this head, make any difference
even now; being simply betrayed into mentioning the
matter because bare truth requires it, in the tale of
Lorna's fortunes.
For a mighty giant had arisen in a part of Cornwall:
and his calf was twenty-five inches round, and the
breadth of his shoulders two feet and a quarter; and
his stature seven feet and three-quarters. Round the
chest he was seventy inches, and his hand a foot
across, and there were no scales strong enough to judge
of his weight in the market-place. Now this man--or I
should say, his backers and his boasters, for the giant
himself was modest--sent me a brave and haughty
challenge, to meet him in the ring at Bodmin-town, on
the first day of August, or else to return my
champion's belt to them by the messenger.
It is no use to deny but that I was greatly dashed and
scared at first. For my part, I was only, when
measured without clothes on, sixty inches round the
breast, and round the calf scarce twenty-one, only two
feet across the shoulders, and in height not six and
three-quarters. However, my mother would never believe
that this man could beat me; and Lorna being of the
same mind, I resolved to go and try him, as they would
pay all expenses and a hundred pounds, if I conquered
him; so confident were those Cornishmen.
Now this story is too well known for me to go through
it again and again. Every child in Devonshire knows,
and his grandson will know, the song which some clever
man made of it, after I had treated him to water, and
to lemon, and a little sugar, and a drop of eau-de-vie.
Enough that I had found the giant quite as big as they
had described him, and enough to terrify any one. But
trusting in my practice and study of the art, I
resolved to try a back with him; and when my arms were
round him once, the giant was but a farthingale put
into the vice of a blacksmith. The man had no bones;
his frame sank in, and I was afraid of crushing him.
He lay on his back, and smiled at me; and I begged his
pardon.
Now this affair made a noise at the time, and redounded
so much to my credit, that I was deeply grieved at it,
because deserving none. For I do like a good strife
and struggle; and the doubt makes the joy of victory;
whereas in this case, I might as well have been sent
for a match with a hay-mow. However, I got my hundred
pounds, and made up my mind to spend every farthing in
presents for mother and Lorna.
For Annie was married by this time, and long before I
went away; as need scarcely be said, perhaps; if any
one follows the weeks and the months. The wedding was
quiet enough, except for everybody's good wishes; and I
desire not to dwell upon it, because it grieved me in
many ways.
But now that I had tried to hope the very best for dear
Annie, a deeper blow than could have come, even through
her, awaited me. For after that visit to Cornwall,
and with my prize-money about me, I came on foot from
Okehampton to Oare, so as to save a little sum towards
my time of marrying. For Lorna's fortune I would not
have; small or great I would not have it; only if there
were no denying we would devote the whole of it to
charitable uses, as Master Peter Blundell had done; and
perhaps the future ages would endeavour to be grateful.
Lorna and I had settled this question at least twice a
day, on the average; and each time with more
satisfaction.
Now coming into the kitchen with all my cash in my
breeches pocket (golden guineas, with an elephant on
them, for the stamp of the Guinea Company), I found
dear mother most heartily glad to see me safe and sound
again--for she had dreaded that giant, and dreamed of
him--and she never asked me about the money. Lizzie
also was softer, and more gracious than usual;
especially when she saw me pour guineas, like
peppercorns, into the pudding-basin. But by the way
they hung about, I knew that something was gone wrong.
'Where is Lorna?' I asked at length, after trying not
to ask it; 'I want her to come, and see my money. She
never saw so much before.'
'Alas!' said mother with a heavy sigh; 'she will see a
great deal more, I fear; and a deal more than is good
for her. Whether you ever see her again will depend
upon her nature, John.'
'What do you mean, mother? Have you quarrelled? Why
does not Lorna come to me? Am I never to know?'
'Now, John, be not so impatient,' my mother replied,
quite calmly, for in truth she was jealous of Lorna,
'you could wait now, very well, John, if it were till
this day week, for the coming of your mother, John.
And yet your mother is your best friend. Who can ever
fill her place?'
Thinking of her future absence, mother turned away and
cried; and the box-iron singed the blanket.
'Now,' said I, being wild by this time; 'Lizzie, you
have a little sense; will you tell me where is Lorna?'
'The Lady Lorna Dugal,' said Lizzie, screwing up her
lips as if the title were too grand, 'is gone to
London, brother John; and not likely to come back
again. We must try to get on without her.'
'You little--[something]' I cried, which I dare not
write down here, as all you are too good for such
language; but Lizzie's lip provoked me so--'my Lorna
gone, my Lorna gone! And without good-bye to me even!
It is your spite has sickened her.'
'You are quite mistaken there,' she replied; 'how can
folk of low degree have either spite or liking towards
the people so far above them? The Lady Lorna Dugal is
gone, because she could not help herself; and she wept
enough to break ten hearts--if hearts are ever broken,
John.'
'Darling Lizzie, how good you are!' I cried, without
noticing her sneer; 'tell me all about it, dear; tell
me every word she said.'
'That will not take long,' said Lizzie, quite as
unmoved by soft coaxing as by urgent cursing; 'the lady
spoke very little to any one, except indeed to mother,
and to Gwenny Carfax; and Gwenny is gone with her, so
that the benefit of that is lost. But she left a
letter for "poor John," as in charity she called him.
How grand she looked, to be sure, with the fine clothes
on that were come for her!'
'Where is the letter, you utter vixen! Oh, may you have
a husband!'
'Who will thresh it out of you, and starve it, and
swear it out of you!' was the meaning of my
imprecation: but Lizzie, not dreaming as yet of such
things, could not understand me, and was rather
thankful; therefore she answered quietly,--
'The letter is in the little cupboard, near the head of
Lady Lorna's bed, where she used to keep the diamond
necklace, which we contrived to get stolen.'
Without another word I rushed (so that every board in
the house shook) up to my lost Lorna's room, and tore
the little wall-niche open and espied my treasure. It
was as simple, and as homely, and loving, as even I
could wish. Part of it ran as follows,--the other
parts it behoves me not to open out to strangers:--'My
own love, and sometime lord,--Take it not amiss of me,
that even without farewell, I go; for I cannot persuade
the men to wait, your return being doubtful. My
great-uncle, some grand lord, is awaiting me at
Dunster, having fear of venturing too near this Exmoor
country. I, who have been so lawless always, and the
child of outlaws, am now to atone for this, it seems,
by living in a court of law, and under special
surveillance (as they call it, I believe) of His
Majesty's Court of Chancery. My uncle is appointed my
guardian and master; and I must live beneath his care,
until I am twenty-one years old. To me this appears a
dreadful thing, and very unjust, and cruel; for why
should I lose my freedom, through heritage of land and
gold? I offered to abandon all if they would only let
me go; I went down on my knees to them, and said I
wanted titles not, neither land, nor money; only to
stay where I was, where first I had known happiness.
But they only laughed and called me "child," and said I
must talk of that to the King's High Chancellor. Their
orders they had, and must obey them; and Master
Stickles was ordered too, to help as the King's
Commissioner. And then, although it pierced my heart
not to say one "goodbye, John," I was glad upon the
whole that you were not here to dispute it. For I am
almost certain that you would not, without force to
yourself, have let your Lorna go to people who never,
never can care for her.'
Here my darling had wept again, by the tokens on the
paper; and then there followed some sweet words, too
sweet for me to chatter them. But she finished with
these noble lines, which (being common to all humanity,
in a case of steadfast love) I do no harm, but rather
help all true love by repeating. 'Of one thing rest
you well assured--and I do hope that it may prove of
service to your rest, love, else would my own be
broken--no difference of rank, or fortune, or of life
itself, shall ever make me swerve from truth to you.
We have passed through many troubles, dangers, and
dispartments, but never yet was doubt between us;
neither ever shall be. Each has trusted well the
other; and still each must do so. Though they tell you
I am false, though your own mind harbours it, from the
sense of things around, and your own undervaluing, yet
take counsel of your heart, and cast such thoughts away
from you; being unworthy of itself they must he
unworthy also of the one who dwells there; and that one
is, and ever shall be, your own Lorna Dugal.'
Some people cannot understand that tears should come
from pleasure; but whether from pleasure or from sorrow
(mixed as they are in the twisted strings of a man's
heart, or a woman's), great tears fell from my stupid
eyes, even on the blots of Lorna's.
'No doubt it is all over,' my mind said to me bitterly;
'trust me, all shall yet be right,' my heart replied
very sweetly.
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