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LORNA DOONE
By R. D. BLACKMORE I N Exmoor, in the county of Somerset, in the year of grace 1661, dwelt the outlawed Doones, who, huge and brutal, defied king and common, committed brazen robberies with impunity, and took refuge after every outrage in the well-nigh impregnable Glen Doone. On the near-by farm of Plover's Barrows dwelt John Ridd, a great-limbed lad who had been summoned home from boarding-school in his teens to learn that his father, a wealthy farmer, had been slain in a night raid by the Doones. John, blunt and honest, was kind to his mother and his two sisters, did his share of the farm-work, and, as he grew to manhood, learned to ride a horse and shoot a blunderbuss with unfailing skill. One day, while yet a boy, his fishing excursions in Bagworthy Water led him to discover an entrance to Glen Doone, so secret, so re-mote that the robber band stationed no guard there, never dreaming that living soul would discover it. Following a little cascade, John emerged at last into a dell blooming with primroses, and beheld with amazement a beautiful child of eight with hair like a black shower and eyes full of pity and wonder. Her name (pretty, like herself) was Lorna Doone, and John often had her in his thoughts through the six years which followed. He was twenty then and Lorna fourteen, and already John Ridd knew that he loved her, that fate had decreed it so and that all the world was naught when weighed against this girl. To be found in Doone Valley spelled death for any man, but the thought of Lorna, "light and white, nimble, smooth, and elegant," filled John with yearning and lured him to the hazard. Again and again he sought the maid in the primrose bower above the cascade, and then one afternoon in the splendor of an April sunset John once more threw down the gauntlet which love ever casts 'at danger. To Lorna's tremulous, "You are mad to come; they will kill you if they find you here," John smiled and thought her fairer than the primroses amid which she stood. She lived in constant fear, she confessed, for the gigantic and passionate Carver Doone openly paid her homage and glowered with jealous eyes at any man who durst cast a glance at her. "I care naught for him or his jealousy," cried John Ridd. "I have loved you long, as child, as comely girl, and now as full-grown maiden. I love you more than tongue can tell or heart can hold in silence." Lorna raised her glorious eyes and, flinging her arms about his neck, cried, with her heart on his : "Darling, I shall never be my own again. I am yours forever and forever." But before he went she was in tears. "How dare I dream of love? Something in my heart tells me it can never be." That fear of his beloved's spurred John to penetrate into Glen Doone one night at the risk of his life for word of Lorna. Once a guard leveled his gun at him, but went off cringing at the thought that, after all, so huge a form could be only that of Carver Doone. It was a real danger which threatened Lorna, for old Sir Ensor Doone, head "of the robber crew, lay dying, and he alone had been her protector against the brutal Carver. For John to play a desperate game and carry Lorna off would but incite the Doones to wreak revenge upon the countryside with fire and sword. At times he swore to smoke out this nest of rascals, but the timid farmers, overawed by their savagery, would promise no support. Meanwhile an unparalleled winter had set in. Day after day the snow fell steadily and, blown by the wind, almost smothered the low-eaved cottages. Desperate for some word of Lorna, John made his way on snowshoes into the very heart of Glen Doone, unobserved in that feathery fog. John found Lorna's hamlet, stifled her exclamations of surprise with kisses, and felt his heart swell with anger on learning that she and her maid, Gwenny Carfax, were kept in confinement and deprived of food by order of Carver Doone until Lorna should consent to be his wife. Not for naught was John Ridd a giant-and in love. Throwing discretion to the winds, he carried Lorna and Gwenny away upon his sledge that very night to the warm refuge of his mother's fireside. The Doones, though so openly set at de-fiance, bided their time. With spring the roads were open, and one moonlight night, with an arrogance worthy of Carver, they attacked Plover's Barrows in force. John Ridd, nothing daunted, defended his fireside and loved ones with spirit, meeting the attackers squarely with a handful of men and putting them to speedy flight. A murderous attack by the Doones was bad business enough, but to John's honest soul a worse trouble followed. His Lorna was discovered to be no true Doone, but the niece of the great Lord Dugal, kidnapped as a child. To London and the protection of her noble uncle she was summoned, her heart as well as her lover's torn by the separation. The thought that he might never again behold his Lorna plunged him into misery. "After all," he asked himself, "who am I but a simple farmer who dares lift his eyes to the niece of an earl?" But this was no time for repining, for the ill-starred rebellion of Monmouth flamed out, catching John Ridd, innocent though he was, in its toils. But all came to a happy issue when John, summoned to London, frustrated the intended murder of Lord Dugal, captured the attackers, and turned them over for punishment to the terrible Lord Jeffreys. Events moved swiftly: his exploit made Lon-don ring, he was knighted by King James, and when the Earl of Dugal died soon after, a well-directed bribe secured Jeffreys's per-mission to let Lorna, his ward in Chancery, wed the redoubtable Sir John Ridd. Back to Exmoor and Plover's Barrows went John Ridd, knight, to lead the farmers of the countryside, who, infuriated by a new outrage committed by the Doones, took the law into their own hands and swept the robber stronghold clean with fire and sword. Only the scheming old "Counselor" and his son, the brutal Carver, escaped a bloody death. Now at last the great day dawned for John and Lorna, and they made their way to the little country church to be wed, while all the neighboring farmers came to applaud the event. Scarcely were the sacred words pronounced when a shot rang through the church and Lorna, her dark eyes drooping, her wedding-gown stained with blood, sank into her husband's arms. John Ridd never forgot the agony of that moment and yet he seemed strangely calm. Only Carver Doone could have done this dastardly deed, and as John dashed off in hot pursuit he swore that the world was too narrow a place to harbor him and his enemy another day. For Carver on his jaded horse there was no escape. His pistol missed fire, and' at last in a narrow de-file flanked by a wood and a stretch of bog the two men came to grips. They spoke little and that grim duel was fought with neither knife nor pistol, but body to body as became two giants. John felt a lower rib crack beneath Carver's terrible embrace, but his iron hand ripped the muscles of his assailant's arm from the bone like an orange pulp and he flung him, crushed and bleeding, upon the ground. In an instant the black lips of the bog fastened upon Carver's huge limbs, swiftly, silently, and John Ridd had scarce time to get his own feet upon firm soil before his enemy was sucked down into those grim depths, his face distorted with agony, but his quivering lips uttering no sound. Love's true course does not always run awry and both John and Lorna recovered, he to worship her and she to assure him through the serene years with eyes and lips all eloquent, "I love you, John Ridd." |