Part 27 (2/2)

'And my father-your father-what I mean is-'

'Your father and mine never met one another. Your father was killed by an accident in the Pyrenean mountains, and your mother by the Doones; or at least they caused her death, and carried you away from her.'

All this, coming as in one breath upon the sensitive maiden, was more than she could bear all at once; as any but a fool like me must of course have known. She lay back on the garden bench, with her black hair shed on the oaken bark, while her colour went and came and only by that, and her quivering breath, could any one say that she lived and thought. And yet she pressed my hand with hers, that I might tell her all of it.

CHAPTER LVI

JOHN BECOMES TOO POPULAR

No flower that I have ever seen, either in s.h.i.+fting of light and shade, or in the pearly morning, may vie with a fair young woman's face when tender thought and quick emotion vary, enrich, and beautify it. Thus my Lorna hearkened softly, almost without word or gesture, yet with sighs and glances telling, and the pressure of my hand, how each word was moving her.

When at last my tale was done, she turned away, and wept bitterly for the sad fate of her parents. But to my surprise she spoke not even a word of wrath or rancour. She seemed to take it all as fate.

'Lorna, darling,' I said at length, for men are more impatient in trials of time than women are, 'do you not even wish to know what your proper name is?'

'How can it matter to me, John?' she answered, with a depth of grief which made me seem a trifler. 'It can never matter now, when there are none to share it.'

'Poor little soul!' was all I said in a tone of purest pity; and to my surprise she turned upon me, caught me in her arms, and loved me as she had never done before.

'Dearest, I have you,' she cried; 'you, and only you, love. Having you I want no other. All my life is one with yours. Oh, John, how can I treat you so?'

Blus.h.i.+ng through the wet of weeping, and the gloom of pondering, yet she would not hide her eyes, but folded me, and dwelled on me.

'I cannot believe,' in the pride of my joy, I whispered into one little ear, 'that you could ever so love me, beauty, as to give up the world for me.'

'Would you give up your farm for me, John?' cried Lorna, leaping back and looking, with her wondrous power of light at me; 'would you give up your mother, your sisters, your home, and all that you have in the world and every hope of your life, John?'

'Of course I would. Without two thoughts. You know it; you know it, Lorna.'

'It is true that I do, 'she answered in a tone of deepest sadness; 'and it is this power of your love which has made me love you so. No good can come of it, no good. G.o.d's face is set against selfishness.'

As she spoke in that low tone I gazed at the clear lines of her face (where every curve was perfect) not with love and wonder only, but with a strange new sense of awe.

'Darling,' I said, 'come nearer to me. Give me surety against that. For G.o.d's sake never frighten me with the thought that He would part us.'

'Does it then so frighten you?' she whispered, coming close to me; 'I know it, dear; I have known it long; but it never frightens me. It makes me sad, and very lonely, till I can remember.'

'Till you can remember what?' I asked, with a long, deep shudder; for we are so superst.i.tious.

'Until I do remember, love, that you will soon come back to me, and be my own for ever. This is what I always think of, this is what I hope for.'

Although her eyes were so glorious, and beaming with eternity, this distant sort of beat.i.tude was not much to my liking. I wanted to have my love on earth; and my dear wife in my own home; and children in good time, if G.o.d should please to send us any. And then I would be to them, exactly what my father was to me. And beside all this, I doubted much about being fit for heaven; where no ploughs are, and no cattle, unless sacrificed bulls went thither.

Therefore I said, 'Now kiss me, Lorna; and don't talk any nonsense.' And the darling came and did it; being kindly obedient, as the other world often makes us.

'You sweet love,' I said at this, being slave to her soft obedience; 'do you suppose I should be content to leave you until Elysium?'

'How on earth can I tell, dear John, what you will be content with?'

'You, and only you,' said I; 'the whole of it lies in a syllable. Now you know my entire want; and want must be my comfort.'

'But surely if I have money, sir, and birth, and rank, and all sorts of grandeur, you would never dare to think of me.'

She drew herself up with an air of pride, as she gravely p.r.o.nounced these words, and gave me a scornful glance, or tried; and turned away as if to enter some grand coach or palace; while I was so amazed and grieved in my raw simplicity especially after the way in which she had first received my news, so loving and warm-hearted, that I never said a word, but stared and thought, 'How does she mean it?'

She saw the pain upon my forehead, and the wonder in my eyes, and leaving coach and palace too, back she flew to me in a moment, as simple as simplest milkmaid.

'Oh, you fearful stupid, John, you inexpressibly stupid, John,' she cried with both arms round my neck, and her lips upon my forehead; 'you have called yourself thick-headed, John, and I never would believe it. But now I do with all my heart. Will you never know what I am, love?'

'No, Lorna, that I never shall. I can understand my mother well, and one at least of my sisters, and both the Snowe girls very easily, but you I never understand; only love you all the more for it.'

'Then never try to understand me, if the result is that, dear John. And yet I am the very simplest of all foolish simple creatures. Nay, I am wrong; therein I yield the palm to you, my dear. To think that I can act so! No wonder they want me in London, as an ornament for the stage, John.'

Now in after days, when I heard of Lorna as the richest, and n.o.blest, and loveliest lady to be found in London, I often remembered that little scene, and recalled every word and gesture, wondering what lay under it. Even now, while it was quite impossible once to doubt those clear deep eyes, and the bright lips trembling so; nevertheless I felt how much the world would have to do with it; and that the best and truest people cannot shake themselves quite free. However, for the moment, I was very proud and showed it.

And herein differs fact from fancy, things as they befall us from things as we would have them, human ends from human hopes; that the first are moved by a thousand and the last on two wheels only, which (being named) are desire and fear. Hope of course is nothing more than desire with a telescope, magnifying distant matters, overlooking near ones; opening one eye on the objects, closing the other to all objections. And if hope be the future tense of desire, the future of fear is religion-at least with too many of us.

Whether I am right or wrong in these small moralities, one thing is sure enough, to wit, that hope is the fastest traveller, at any rate, in the time of youth. And so I hoped that Lorna might be proved of blameless family, and honourable rank and fortune; and yet none the less for that, love me and belong to me. So I led her into the house, and she fell into my mother's arms; and I left them to have a good cry of it, with Annie ready to help them.

If Master Stickles should not mend enough to gain his speech a little, and declare to us all he knew, I was to set out for Watchett, riding upon horseback, and there to hire a cart with wheels, such as we had not begun, as yet, to use on Exmoor. For all our work went on broad wood, with runners and with earthboards; and many of us still looked upon wheels (though mentioned in the Bible) as the invention of the evil one, and Pharoah's especial property.

Now, instead of getting better, Colonel Stickles grew worse and worse, in spite of all our tendance of him, with simples and with nourishment, and no poisonous medicine, such as doctors would have given him. And the fault of this lay not with us, but purely with himself and his unquiet const.i.tution. For he roused himself up to a perfect fever, when through Lizzie's giddiness he learned the very thing which mother and Annie were hiding from him, with the utmost care; namely, that Sergeant Bloxham had taken upon himself to send direct to London by the Chancery officers, a full report of what had happened, and of the illness of his chief, together with an urgent prayer for a full battalion of King's troops, and a plenary commander.

This Sergeant Bloxham, being senior of the surviving soldiers, and a very worthy man in his way, but a trifle over-zealous, had succeeded to the captaincy upon his master's disablement. Then, with desire to serve his country and show his education, he sat up most part of three nights, and wrote this very wonderful report by the aid of our stable lanthorn. It was a very fine piece of work, as three men to whom he read it (but only one at a time) p.r.o.nounced, being under seal of secrecy. And all might have gone well with it, if the author could only have held his tongue, when near the ears of women. But this was beyond his sense as it seems, although so good a writer. For having heard that our Lizzie was a famous judge of literature (as indeed she told almost every one), he could not contain himself, but must have her opinion upon his work.

Lizzie sat on a log of wood, and listened with all her ears up, having made proviso that no one else should be there to interrupt her. And she put in a syllable here and there, and many a time she took out one (for the Sergeant overloaded his gun, more often than undercharged it; like a liberal man of letters), and then she declared the result so good, so chaste, and the style to be so elegant, and yet so fervent, that the Sergeant broke his pipe in three, and fell in love with her on the spot. Now this has led me out of my way; as things are always doing, partly through their own perverseness, partly through my kind desire to give fair turn to all of them, and to all the people who do them. If any one expects of me a strict and well-drilled story, standing 'at attention' all the time, with hands at the side like two wens on my trunk, and eyes going neither right nor left; I trow that man has been disappointed many a page ago, and has left me to my evil ways; and if not, I love his charity. Therefore let me seek his grace, and get back, and just begin again.

That great despatch was sent to London by the Chancery officers, whom we fitted up with clothes, and for three days fattened them; which in strict justice they needed much, as well as in point of equity. They were kind enough to be pleased with us, and accepted my new s.h.i.+rts generously; and urgent as their business was, another week (as they both declared) could do no harm to n.o.body, and might set them upon their legs again. And knowing, although they were London men, that fish do live in water, these two fellows went fis.h.i.+ng all day, but never landed anything. However, their holiday was cut short; for the Sergeant, having finished now his narrative of proceedings, was not the man to let it hang fire, and be quenched perhaps by Stickles.

Therefore, having done their business, and served both citations, these two good men had a pannier of victuals put up by dear Annie, and borrowing two of our horses, rode to Dunster, where they left them, and hired on towards London. We had not time to like them much, and so we did not miss them, especially in our great anxiety about poor Master Stickles.

Jeremy lay between life and death, for at least a fortnight. If the link of chain had flown upwards (for half a link of chain it was which took him in the mouth so), even one inch upwards, the poor man could have needed no one except Parson Bowden; for the bottom of his skull, which holds the brain as in the egg-cup, must have clean gone from him. But striking him horizontally, and a little upon the skew, the metal came out at the back of his neck, and (the powder not being strong, I suppose) it lodged in his leather collar.

Now the rust of this iron hung in the wound, or at least we thought so; though since I have talked with a man of medicine, I am not so sure of it. And our chief aim was to purge this rust; when rather we should have stopped the hole, and let the oxide do its worst, with a plug of new flesh on both sides of it.

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