Part 11 (1/2)

'Thou art made to weight, John, more than order. How much dost thou tip the scales to?'

'Only twelvescore pounds, my lord, when I be in wrestling trim. And sure I must have lost weight here, fretting so long in London.'

'Ha, ha! Much fret is there in thee! Hath His Majesty seen thee?'

'Yes, my lord, twice or even thrice; and he made some jest concerning me.'

'A very bad one, I doubt not. His humour is not so dainty as mine, but apt to be coa.r.s.e and unmannerly. Now John, or Jack, by the look of thee, thou art more used to be called.'

'Yes, your wors.h.i.+p, when I am with old Molly and Betty Muxworthy.'

'Peace, thou forward varlet! There is a deal too much of thee. We shall have to try short commons with thee, and thou art a very long common. Ha, ha! Where is that rogue Spank? Spank must hear that by-and-by. It is beyond thy great thick head, Jack.'

'Not so, my lord; I have been at school, and had very bad jokes made upon me.'

'Ha, ha! It hath hit thee hard. And faith, it would be hard to miss thee, even with harpoon. And thou lookest like to blubber, now. Capital, in faith! I have thee on every side, Jack, and thy sides are manifold; many-folded at any rate. Thou shalt have double expenses, Jack, for the wit thou hast provoked in me.'

'Heavy goods lack heavy payment, is a proverb down our way, my lord.'

'Ah, I hurt thee, I hurt thee, Jack. The harpoon hath no tickle for thee. Now, Jack Whale, having hauled thee hard, we will proceed to examine thee.' Here all his manner was changed, and he looked with his heavy brows bent upon me, as if he had never laughed in his life, and would allow none else to do so.

'I am ready to answer, my lord,' I replied, 'if he asks me nought beyond my knowledge, or beyond my honour.'

'Hadst better answer me everything, lump. What hast thou to do with honour? Now is there in thy neighbourhood a certain nest of robbers, miscreants, and outlaws, whom all men fear to handle?'

'Yes, my lord. At least, I believe some of them be robbers, and all of them are outlaws.'

'And what is your high sheriff about, that he doth not hang them all? Or send them up for me to hang, without more to do about them?'

'I reckon that he is afraid, my lord; it is not safe to meddle with them. They are of good birth, and reckless; and their place is very strong.'

'Good birth! What was Lord Russell of, Lord Ess.e.x, and this Sidney? 'Tis the surest heirs.h.i.+p to the block to be the chip of a good one. What is the name of this pestilent race, and how many of them are there?'

'They are the Doones of Bagworthy forest, may it please your wors.h.i.+p. And we reckon there be about forty of them, beside the women and children.'

'Forty Doones, all forty thieves! and women and children! Thunder of G.o.d! How long have they been there then?'

'They may have been there thirty years, my lord; and indeed they may have been forty. Before the great war broke out they came, longer back than I can remember.'

'Ay, long before thou wast born, John. Good, thou speakest plainly. Woe betide a liar, whenso I get hold of him. Ye want me on the Western Circuit; by G.o.d, and ye shall have me, when London traitors are spun and swung. There is a family called De Whichehalse living very nigh thee, John?'

This he said in a sudden manner, as if to take me off my guard, and fixed his great thick eyes on me. And in truth I was much astonished.

'Yes, my lord, there is. At least, not so very far from us. Baron de Whichehalse, of Ley Manor.'

'Baron, ha! of the Exchequer-eh, lad? And taketh dues instead of His Majesty. Somewhat which halts there ought to come a little further, I trow. It shall be seen to, as well as the witch which makes it so to halt. Riotous knaves in West England, drunken outlaws, you shall dance, if ever I play pipe for you. John Ridd, I will come to Oare parish, and rout out the Oare of Babylon.'

'Although your wors.h.i.+p is so learned,' I answered seeing that now he was beginning to make things uneasy; 'your wors.h.i.+p, though being Chief Justice, does little justice to us. We are downright good and loyal folk; and I have not seen, since here I came to this great town of London, any who may better us, or even come anigh us, in honesty, and goodness, and duty to our neighbours. For we are very quiet folk, not prating our own virtues-'

'Enough, good John, enough! Knowest thou not that modesty is the maidenhood of virtue, lost even by her own approval? Now hast thou ever heard or thought that De Whichehalse is in league with the Doones of Bagworthy?'

Saying these words rather slowly, he skewered his great eyes into mine, so that I could not think at all, neither look at him, nor yet away. The idea was so new to me that it set my wits all wandering; and looking into me, he saw that I was groping for the truth.

'John Ridd, thine eyes are enough for me. I see thou hast never dreamed of it. Now hast thou ever seen a man whose name is Thomas f.a.ggus?'

'Yes, sir, many and many a time. He is my own worthy cousin; and I fear he that hath intentions'-here I stopped, having no right there to speak about our Annie.

'Tom f.a.ggus is a good man,' he said; and his great square face had a smile which showed me he had met my cousin; 'Master f.a.ggus hath made mistakes as to the t.i.tle to property, as lawyers oftentimes may do; but take him all for all, he is a thoroughly straightforward man; presents his bill, and has it paid, and makes no charge for drawing it. Nevertheless, we must tax his costs, as of any other solicitor.'

'To be sure, to be sure, my lord!' was all that I could say, not understanding what all this meant.

'I fear he will come to the gallows,' said the Lord Chief Justice, sinking his voice below the echoes; 'tell him this from me, Jack. He shall never be condemned before me; but I cannot be everywhere, and some of our Justices may keep short memory of his dinners. Tell him to change his name, turn parson, or do something else, to make it wrong to hang him. Parson is the best thing, he hath such command of features, and he might take his t.i.thes on horseback. Now a few more things, John Ridd; and for the present I have done with thee.'

All my heart leaped up at this, to get away from London so: and yet I could hardly trust to it.

'Is there any sound round your way of disaffection to His Majesty, His most gracious Majesty?'

'No, my lord: no sign whatever. We pray for him in church perhaps, and we talk about him afterwards, hoping it may do him good, as it is intended. But after that we have naught to say, not knowing much about him-at least till I get home again.'

'That is as it should be, John. And the less you say the better. But I have heard of things in Taunton, and even nearer to you in Dulverton, and even nigher still upon Exmoor; things which are of the pillory kind, and even more of the gallows. I see that you know naught of them. Nevertheless, it will not be long before all England hears of them. Now, John, I have taken a liking to thee, for never man told me the truth, without fear or favour, more thoroughly and truly than thou hast done. Keep thou clear of this, my son. It will come to nothing; yet many shall swing high for it. Even I could not save thee, John Ridd, if thou wert mixed in this affair. Keep from the Doones, keep from De Whichehalse, keep from everything which leads beyond the sight of thy knowledge. I meant to use thee as my tool; but I see thou art too honest and simple. I will send a sharper down; but never let me find thee, John, either a tool for the other side, or a tube for my words to pa.s.s through.'

Here the Lord Justice gave me such a glare that I wished myself well rid of him, though thankful for his warnings; and seeing how he had made upon me a long abiding mark of fear, he smiled again in a jocular manner, and said,- 'Now, get thee gone, Jack. I shall remember thee; and I trow, thou wilt'st not for many a day forget me.'

'My lord, I was never so glad to go; for the hay must be in, and the ricks unthatched, and none of them can make spars like me, and two men to twist every hay-rope, and mother thinking it all right, and listening right and left to lies, and cheated at every pig she kills, and even the skins of the sheep to go-'

'John Ridd, I thought none could come nigh your folk in honesty, and goodness, and duty to their neighbours!'

'Sure enough, my lord; but by our folk, I mean ourselves, not the men nor women neither-'

'That will do, John. Go thy way. Not men, nor women neither, are better than they need be.'

I wished to set this matter right; but his wors.h.i.+p would not hear me, and only drove me out of court, saying that men were thieves and liars, no more in one place than another, but all alike all over the world, and women not far behind them. It was not for me to dispute this point (though I was not yet persuaded of it), both because my lord was a Judge, and must know more about it, and also that being a man myself I might seem to be defending myself in an unbecoming manner. Therefore I made a low bow, and went; in doubt as to which had the right of it.

But though he had so far dismissed me, I was not yet quite free to go, inasmuch as I had not money enough to take me all the way to Oare, unless indeed I should go afoot, and beg my sustenance by the way, which seemed to be below me. Therefore I got my few clothes packed, and my few debts paid, all ready to start in half an hour, if only they would give me enough to set out upon the road with. For I doubted not, being young and strong, that I could walk from London to Oare in ten days or in twelve at most, which was not much longer than horse-work; only I had been a fool, as you will say when you hear it. For after receiving from Master Spank the amount of the bill which I had delivered-less indeed by fifty s.h.i.+llings than the money my mother had given me, for I had spent fifty s.h.i.+llings, and more, in seeing the town and treating people, which I could not charge to His Majesty-I had first paid all my debts thereout, which were not very many, and then supposing myself to be an established creditor of the Treasury for my coming needs, and already scenting the country air, and foreseeing the joy of my mother, what had I done but spent half my balance, ay and more than three-quarters of it, upon presents for mother, and Annie, and Lizzie, John Fry, and his wife, and Betty Muxworthy, Bill Dadds, Jim Slocombe, and, in a word, half of the rest of the people at Oare, including all the Snowe family, who must have things good and handsome? And if I must while I am about it, hide nothing from those who read me, I had actually bought for Lorna a thing the price of which quite frightened me, till the shopkeeper said it was nothing at all, and that no young man, with a lady to love him, could dare to offer her rubbish, such as the Jew sold across the way. Now the mere idea of beautiful Lorna ever loving me, which he talked about as patly (though of course I never mentioned her) as if it were a settled thing, and he knew all about it, that mere idea so drove me abroad, that if he had asked three times as much, I could never have counted the money.

Now in all this I was a fool of course-not for remembering my friends and neighbours, which a man has a right to do, and indeed is bound to do, when he comes from London-but for not being certified first what cash I had to go on with. And to my great amazement, when I went with another bill for the victuals of only three days more, and a week's expense on the homeward road reckoned very narrowly, Master Spank not only refused to grant me any interview, but sent me out a piece of blue paper, looking like a butcher's ticket, and bearing these words and no more, 'John Ridd, go to the devil. He who will not when he may, when he will, he shall have nay.' From this I concluded that I had lost favour in the sight of Chief Justice Jeffreys. Perhaps because my evidence had not proved of any value! perhaps because he meant to let the matter lie, till cast on him.

Anyhow, it was a reason of much grief, and some anger to me, and very great anxiety, disappointment, and suspense. For here was the time of the hay gone past, and the harvest of small corn coming on, and the trout now rising at the yellow Sally, and the blackbirds eating our white-heart cherries (I was sure, though I could not see them), and who was to do any good for mother, or stop her from weeping continually? And more than this, what was become of Lorna? Perhaps she had cast me away altogether, as a flouter and a changeling; perhaps she had drowned herself in the black well; perhaps (and that was worst of all) she was even married, child as she was, to that vile Carver Doone, if the Doones ever cared about marrying! That last thought sent me down at once to watch for Mr. Spank again, resolved that if I could catch him, spank him I would to a pretty good tune, although sixteen in family.