CHAPTER III
THE WAR-PATH OF THE DOONES
From Tiverton town to the town of Oare is a very long and painful road,and in good truth the traveller must make his way, as the saying is; forthe way is still unmade, at least, on this side of Dulverton, althoughthere is less danger now than in the time of my schooling; for now agood horse may go there without much cost of leaping, but when I wasa boy the spurs would fail, when needed most, by reason of theslough-cake. It is to the credit of this age, and our advance uponfatherly ways, that now we have laid down rods and fagots, and evenstump-oaks here and there, so that a man in good daylight need not sink,if he be quite sober. There is nothing I have striven at more than doingmy duty, way-warden over Exmoor.
But in those days, when I came from school (and good times they were,too, full of a warmth and fine hearth-comfort, which now are dying out),it was a sad and sorry business to find where lay the highway. We aretaking now to mark it off with a fence on either side, at least, whena town is handy; but to me this seems of a high pretence, and a sort oflandmark, and channel for robbers, though well enough near London, wherethey have earned a race-course.
We left the town of the two fords, which they say is the meaning of it,very early in the morning, after lying one day to rest, as was demandedby the nags, sore of foot and foundered. For my part, too, I was glad torest, having aches all over me, and very heavy bruises; and we lodgedat the sign of the White Horse Inn, in the street called Gold Street,opposite where the souls are of John and Joan Greenway, set up ingold letters, because we must take the homeward way at cockcrow of themorning. Though still John Fry was dry with me of the reason of hiscoming, and only told lies about father, and could not keep themagreeable, I hoped for the best, as all boys will, especially after avictory. And I thought, perhaps father had sent for me because he had agood harvest, and the rats were bad in the corn-chamber.
It was high noon before we were got to Dulverton that day, near to whichtown the river Exe and its big brother Barle have union. My mother hadan uncle living there, but we were not to visit his house this time, atwhich I was somewhat astonished, since we needs must stop for at leasttwo hours, to bait our horses thorough well, before coming to the blackbogway. The bogs are very good in frost, except where the hot-springsrise; but as yet there had been no frost this year, save just enoughto make the blackbirds look big in the morning. In a hearty black-frostthey look small, until the snow falls over them.
The road from Bampton to Dulverton had not been very delicate, yetnothing to complain of much--no deeper, indeed, than the hocks of ahorse, except in the rotten places. The day was inclined to be mild andfoggy, and both nags sweated freely; but Peggy carrying little weight(for my wardrobe was upon Smiler, and John Fry grumbling always), wecould easily keep in front, as far as you may hear a laugh.
John had been rather bitter with me, which methought was a mark of illtaste at coming home for the holidays; and yet I made allowance forJohn, because he had never been at school, and never would have chanceto eat fry upon condition of spelling it; therefore I rode on, thinkingthat he was hard-set, like a saw, for his dinner, and would soften aftertooth-work. And yet at his most hungry times, when his mind was far goneupon bacon, certes he seemed to check himself and look at me as if hewere sorry for little things coming over great.
But now, at Dulverton, we dined upon the rarest and choicest victualsthat ever I did taste. Even now, at my time of life, to think of itgives me appetite, as once and awhile to think of my first love makesme love all goodness. Hot mutton pasty was a thing I had often heardof from very wealthy boys and men, who made a dessert of dinner; and tohear them talk of it made my lips smack, and my ribs come inwards.
And now John Fry strode into the hostel, with the air and grace of ashort-legged man, and shouted as loud as if he was calling sheep uponExmoor,--
'Hot mooton pasty for twoo trarv'lers, at number vaive, in vaiveminnits! Dish un up in the tin with the grahvy, zame as I hardered lastTuesday.'
Of course it did not come in five minutes, nor yet in ten or twenty; butthat made it all the better when it came to the real presence; and thesmell of it was enough to make an empty man thank God for the room therewas inside him. Fifty years have passed me quicker than the taste ofthat gravy.
It is the manner of all good boys to be careless of apparel, and take nopride in adornment. Good lack, if I see a boy make to do about the fitof his crumpler, and the creasing of his breeches, and desire to be shodfor comeliness rather than for use, I cannot 'scape the mark that Godtook thought to make a girl of him. Not so when they grow older, andcourt the regard of the maidens; then may the bravery pass from theinside to the outside of them; and no bigger fools are they, even then,than their fathers were before them. But God forbid any man to be a foolto love, and be loved, as I have been. Else would he have prevented it.
When the mutton pasty was done, and Peggy and Smiler had dined wellalso, out I went to wash at the pump, being a lover of soap and water,at all risk, except of my dinner. And John Fry, who cared very littleto wash, save Sabbath days in his own soap, and who had kept me from thepump by threatening loss of the dish, out he came in a satisfied manner,with a piece of quill in his hand, to lean against a door-post, andlisten to the horses feeding, and have his teeth ready for supper.
Then a lady's-maid came out, and the sun was on her face, and she turnedround to go back again; but put a better face upon it, and gave atrip and hitched her dress, and looked at the sun full body, lest thehostlers should laugh that she was losing her complexion. With a longItalian glass in her fingers very daintily, she came up to the pump inthe middle of the yard, where I was running the water off all my headand shoulders, and arms, and some of my breast even, and though I hadglimpsed her through the sprinkle, it gave me quite a turn to seeher, child as I was, in my open aspect. But she looked at me, no whitabashed, making a baby of me, no doubt, as a woman of thirty will do,even with a very big boy when they catch him on a hayrick, and she saidto me in a brazen manner, as if I had been nobody, while I was shrinkingbehind the pump, and craving to get my shirt on, 'Good leetle boy, comehither to me. Fine heaven! how blue your eyes are, and your skin likesnow; but some naughty man has beaten it black. Oh, leetle boy, let mefeel it. Ah, how then it must have hurt you! There now, and you shalllove me.'
All this time she was touching my breast, here and there, very lightly,with her delicate brown fingers, and I understood from her voice andmanner that she was not of this country, but a foreigner by extraction.And then I was not so shy of her, because I could talk better Englishthan she; and yet I longed for my jerkin, but liked not to be rude toher.
'If you please, madam, I must go. John Fry is waiting by the tapster'sdoor, and Peggy neighing to me. If you please, we must get hometo-night; and father will be waiting for me this side of thetelling-house.'
'There, there, you shall go, leetle dear, and perhaps I will go afteryou. I have taken much love of you. But the baroness is hard to me. Howfar you call it now to the bank of the sea at Wash--Wash--'
'At Watchett, likely you mean, madam. Oh, a very long way, and the roadsas soft as the road to Oare.'
'Oh-ah, oh-ah--I shall remember; that is the place where my leetle boylive, and some day I will come seek for him. Now make the pump to flow,my dear, and give me the good water. The baroness will not touch unlessa nebule be formed outside the glass.'
I did not know what she meant by that; yet I pumped for her veryheartily, and marvelled to see her for fifty times throw the water awayin the trough, as if it was not good enough. At last the water suitedher, with a likeness of fog outside the glass, and the gleam of acrystal under it, and then she made a curtsey to me, in a sort ofmocking manner, holding the long glass by the foot, not to take thecloud off; and then she wanted to kiss me; but I was out of breath, andhave always been shy of that work, except when I come to offer it; andso I ducked under the pump-handle, and she knocked her chin on the knobof it; and the hostlers came out, and asked whether they wou
ld do aswell.
Upon this, she retreated up the yard, with a certain dark dignity, anda foreign way of walking, which stopped them at once from going farther,because it was so different from the fashion of their sweethearts. Onewith another they hung back, where half a cart-load of hay was, andthey looked to be sure that she would not turn round; and then each onelaughed at the rest of them.
Now, up to the end of Dulverton town, on the northward side of it,where the two new pig-sties be, the Oare folk and the Watchett folk musttrudge on together, until we come to a broken cross, where a murderedman lies buried. Peggy and Smiler went up the hill, as if nothing couldbe too much for them, after the beans they had eaten, and suddenlyturning a corner of trees, we happened upon a great coach and six horseslabouring very heavily. John Fry rode on with his hat in his hand, asbecame him towards the quality; but I was amazed to that degree, that Ileft my cap on my head, and drew bridle without knowing it.
For in the front seat of the coach, which was half-way open, being ofthe city-make, and the day in want of air, sate the foreign lady, whohad met me at the pump and offered to salute me. By her side was alittle girl, dark-haired and very wonderful, with a wealthy softness onher, as if she must have her own way. I could not look at her for twoglances, and she did not look at me for one, being such a little child,and busy with the hedges. But in the honourable place sate a handsomelady, very warmly dressed, and sweetly delicate of colour. And closeto her was a lively child, two or it may be three years old, bearing awhite cockade in his hat, and staring at all and everybody. Now, he sawPeggy, and took such a liking to her, that the lady his mother--if soshe were--was forced to look at my pony and me. And, to tell the truth,although I am not of those who adore the high folk, she looked at usvery kindly, and with a sweetness rarely found in the women who milk thecows for us.
Then I took off my cap to the beautiful lady, without asking wherefore;and she put up her hand and kissed it to me, thinking, perhaps, thatI looked like a gentle and good little boy; for folk always called meinnocent, though God knows I never was that. But now the foreign lady,or lady's maid, as it might be, who had been busy with little dark eyes,turned upon all this going-on, and looked me straight in the face. I wasabout to salute her, at a distance, indeed, and not with the nicety shehad offered to me, but, strange to say, she stared at my eyes as if shehad never seen me before, neither wished to see me again. At this I wasso startled, such things beings out of my knowledge, that I startledPeggy also with the muscle of my legs, and she being fresh from stable,and the mire scraped off with cask-hoop, broke away so suddenly that Icould do no more than turn round and lower my cap, now five months old,to the beautiful lady. Soon I overtook John Fry, and asked him all aboutthem, and how it was that we had missed their starting from the hostel.But John would never talk much till after a gallon of cider; and allthat I could win out of him was that they were 'murdering Papishers,'and little he cared to do with them, or the devil, as they camefrom. And a good thing for me, and a providence, that I was gone downDulverton town to buy sweetstuff for Annie, else my stupid head wouldhave gone astray with their great out-coming.
We saw no more of them after that, but turned into the sideway; and soonhad the fill of our hands and eyes to look to our own going. For theroad got worse and worse, until there was none at all, and perhaps thepurest thing it could do was to be ashamed to show itself. But we pushedon as best we might, with doubt of reaching home any time, except byspecial grace of God.
The fog came down upon the moors as thick as ever I saw it; and therewas no sound of any sort, nor a breath of wind to guide us. The littlestubby trees that stand here and there, like bushes with a wooden legto them, were drizzled with a mess of wet, and hung their points withdropping. Wherever the butt-end of a hedgerow came up from the hollowground, like the withers of a horse, holes of splash were pocked andpimpled in the yellow sand of coneys, or under the dwarf tree's ovens.But soon it was too dark to see that, or anything else, I may say,except the creases in the dusk, where prisoned light crept up thevalleys.
After awhile even that was gone, and no other comfort left us except tosee our horses' heads jogging to their footsteps, and the dark groundpass below us, lighter where the wet was; and then the splash, footafter foot, more clever than we can do it, and the orderly jerk of thetail, and the smell of what a horse is.
John Fry was bowing forward with sleep upon his saddle, and now I couldno longer see the frizzle of wet upon his beard--for he had a very braveone, of a bright red colour, and trimmed into a whale-oil knot, becausehe was newly married--although that comb of hair had been a subject ofsome wonder to me, whether I, in God's good time, should have the likeof that, handsomely set with shining beads, small above and large below,from the weeping of the heaven. But still I could see the jog of hishat--a Sunday hat with a top to it--and some of his shoulder bowed outin the mist, so that one could say 'Hold up, John,' when Smiler puthis foot in. 'Mercy of God! where be us now?' said John Fry, wakingsuddenly; 'us ought to have passed hold hash, Jan. Zeen it on the road,have 'ee?'
'No indeed, John; no old ash. Nor nothing else to my knowing; nor heardnothing, save thee snoring.'
'Watt a vule thee must be then, Jan; and me myzell no better. Harken,lad, harken!'
We drew our horses up and listened, through the thickness of the air,and with our hands laid to our ears. At first there was nothing to hear,except the panting of the horses and the trickle of the eaving dropsfrom our head-covers and clothing, and the soft sounds of the lonelynight, that make us feel, and try not to think. Then there came a mellownoise, very low and mournsome, not a sound to be afraid of, but to longto know the meaning, with a soft rise of the hair. Three times it cameand went again, as the shaking of a thread might pass away into thedistance; and then I touched John Fry to know that there was somethingnear me.
'Doon't 'e be a vule, Jan! Vaine moozick as iver I 'eer. God bless theman as made un doo it.'
'Have they hanged one of the Doones then, John?'
'Hush, lad; niver talk laike o' thiccy. Hang a Doone! God knoweth, theKing would hang pretty quick if her did.'
'Then who is it in the chains, John?'
I felt my spirit rise as I asked; for now I had crossed Exmoor so oftenas to hope that the people sometimes deserved it, and think that itmight be a lesson to the rogues who unjustly loved the mutton they werenever born to. But, of course, they were born to hanging, when they setthemselves so high.
'It be nawbody,' said John, 'vor us to make a fush about. Belong tot'other zide o' the moor, and come staling shape to our zide. Red JemHannaford his name. Thank God for him to be hanged, lad; and good cessto his soul for craikin' zo.'
So the sound of the quiet swinging led us very modestly, as it came andwent on the wind, loud and low pretty regularly, even as far as the footof the gibbet where the four cross-ways are.
'Vamous job this here,' cried John, looking up to be sure of it, becausethere were so many; 'here be my own nick on the post. Red Jem, too, andno doubt of him; he do hang so handsome like, and his ribs up laike ahorse a'most. God bless them as discoovered the way to make a rogue souseful. Good-naight to thee, Jem, my lad; and not break thy drames withthe craikin'.'
John Fry shook his bridle-arm, and smote upon Smiler merrily, as hejogged into the homeward track from the guiding of the body. But I wassorry for Red Jem, and wanted to know more about him, and whetherhe might not have avoided this miserable end, and what his wife andchildren thought of it, if, indeed, he had any.
But John would talk no more about it; and perhaps he was moved with alonesome feeling, as the creaking sound came after us.
'Hould thee tongue, lad,' he said sharply; 'us be naigh the Doone-tracknow, two maile from Dunkery Beacon hill, the haighest place of Hexmoor.So happen they be abroad to-naight, us must crawl on our belly-places,boy.'
I knew at once what he meant--those bloody Doones of Bagworthy, the aweof all Devon and Somerset, outlaws, traitors, murderers. My little legsbegan to tremble to and fro
upon Peggy's sides, as I heard the deadrobber in chains behind us, and thought of the live ones still in front.
'But, John,' I whispered warily, sidling close to his saddle-bow; 'dearJohn, you don't think they will see us in such a fog as this?'
'Never God made vog as could stop their eyesen,' he whispered in answer,fearfully; 'here us be by the hollow ground. Zober, lad, goo zober now,if thee wish to see thy moother.'
For I was inclined, in the manner of boys, to make a run of the danger,and cross the Doone-track at full speed; to rush for it, and be donewith it. But even then I wondered why he talked of my mother so, andsaid not a word of father.
We were come to a long deep 'goyal,' as they call it on Exmoor, a wordwhose fountain and origin I have nothing to do with. Only I know thatwhen little boys laughed at me at Tiverton, for talking about a 'goyal,'a big boy clouted them on the head, and said that it was in Homer, andmeant the hollow of the hand. And another time a Welshman told me thatit must be something like the thing they call a 'pant' in those parts.Still I know what it means well enough--to wit, a long trough amongwild hills, falling towards the plain country, rounded at the bottom,perhaps, and stiff, more than steep, at the sides of it. Whether it bestraight or crooked, makes no difference to it.
We rode very carefully down our side, and through the soft grass atthe bottom, and all the while we listened as if the air was aspeaking-trumpet. Then gladly we breasted our nags to the rise, and werecoming to the comb of it, when I heard something, and caught John'sarm, and he bent his hand to the shape of his ear. It was the sound ofhorses' feet knocking up through splashy ground, as if the bottom suckedthem. Then a grunting of weary men, and the lifting noise of stirrups,and sometimes the clank of iron mixed with the wheezy croning of leatherand the blowing of hairy nostrils.
'God's sake, Jack, slip round her belly, and let her go where she wull.'
As John Fry whispered, so I did, for he was off Smiler by this time;but our two pads were too fagged to go far, and began to nose about andcrop, sniffing more than they need have done. I crept to John's sidevery softly, with the bridle on my arm.
'Let goo braidle; let goo, lad. Plaise God they take them forforest-ponies, or they'll zend a bullet through us.'
I saw what he meant, and let go the bridle; for now the mist was rollingoff, and we were against the sky-line to the dark cavalcade below us.John lay on the ground by a barrow of heather, where a little gulletwas, and I crept to him, afraid of the noise I made in dragging my legsalong, and the creak of my cord breeches. John bleated like a sheep tocover it--a sheep very cold and trembling.
Then just as the foremost horseman passed, scarce twenty yards below us,a puff of wind came up the glen, and the fog rolled off before it. Andsuddenly a strong red light, cast by the cloud-weight downwards, spreadlike fingers over the moorland, opened the alleys of darkness, and hungon the steel of the riders.
'Dunkery Beacon,' whispered John, so close into my ear, that I felt hislips and teeth ashake; 'dursn't fire it now except to show the Doonesway home again, since the naight as they went up and throwed thewatchmen atop of it. Why, wutt be 'bout, lad? God's sake--'
For I could keep still no longer, but wriggled away from his arm, andalong the little gullet, still going flat on my breast and thighs, untilI was under a grey patch of stone, with a fringe of dry fern round it;there I lay, scarce twenty feet above the heads of the riders, and Ifeared to draw my breath, though prone to do it with wonder.
For now the beacon was rushing up, in a fiery storm to heaven, and theform of its flame came and went in the folds, and the heavy sky washovering. All around it was hung with red, deep in twisted columns, andthen a giant beard of fire streamed throughout the darkness. The sullenhills were flanked with light, and the valleys chined with shadow, andall the sombrous moors between awoke in furrowed anger.
But most of all the flinging fire leaped into the rocky mouth of theglen below me, where the horsemen passed in silence, scarcely deigningto look round. Heavy men and large of stature, reckless how they boretheir guns, or how they sate their horses, with leathern jerkins, andlong boots, and iron plates on breast and head, plunder heaped behindtheir saddles, and flagons slung in front of them; I counted more thanthirty pass, like clouds upon red sunset. Some had carcasses of sheepswinging with their skins on, others had deer, and one had a child flungacross his saddle-bow. Whether the child were dead, or alive, was morethan I could tell, only it hung head downwards there, and must take thechance of it. They had got the child, a very young one, for the sake ofthe dress, no doubt, which they could not stop to pull off from it; forthe dress shone bright, where the fire struck it, as if with gold andjewels. I longed in my heart to know most sadly what they would do withthe little thing, and whether they would eat it.
It touched me so to see that child, a prey among those vultures, that inmy foolish rage and burning I stood up and shouted to them leaping ona rock, and raving out of all possession. Two of them turned round, andone set his carbine at me, but the other said it was but a pixie, andbade him keep his powder. Little they knew, and less thought I, that thepixie then before them would dance their castle down one day.
John Fry, who in the spring of fright had brought himself down fromSmiler's side, as if he were dipped in oil, now came up to me, all riskbeing over, cross, and stiff, and aching sorely from his wet couch ofheather.
'Small thanks to thee, Jan, as my new waife bain't a widder. And who beyou to zupport of her, and her son, if she have one? Zarve thee right ifI was to chuck thee down into the Doone-track. Zim thee'll come to un,zooner or later, if this be the zample of thee.'
And that was all he had to say, instead of thanking God! For if everborn man was in a fright, and ready to thank God for anything, the nameof that man was John Fry not more than five minutes agone.
However, I answered nothing at all, except to be ashamed of myself; andsoon we found Peggy and Smiler in company, well embarked on the homewardroad, and victualling where the grass was good. Right glad they wereto see us again--not for the pleasure of carrying, but because a horse(like a woman) lacks, and is better without, self-reliance.
My father never came to meet us, at either side of the telling-house,neither at the crooked post, nor even at home-linhay although the dogskept such a noise that he must have heard us. Home-side of thelinhay, and under the ashen hedge-row, where father taught me to catchblackbirds, all at once my heart went down, and all my breast washollow. There was not even the lanthorn light on the peg against thecow's house, and nobody said 'Hold your noise!' to the dogs, or shouted'Here our Jack is!'
I looked at the posts of the gate, in the dark, because they were tall,like father, and then at the door of the harness-room, where he used tosmoke his pipe and sing. Then I thought he had guests perhaps--peoplelost upon the moors--whom he could not leave unkindly, even for hisson's sake. And yet about that I was jealous, and ready to be vexed withhim, when he should begin to make much of me. And I felt in my pocketfor the new pipe which I had brought him from Tiverton, and said tomyself, 'He shall not have it until to-morrow morning.'
Woe is me! I cannot tell. How I knew I know not now--only that I slunkaway, without a tear, or thought of weeping, and hid me in a saw-pit.There the timber, over-head, came like streaks across me; and all Iwanted was to lack, and none to tell me anything.
By-and-by, a noise came down, as of woman's weeping; and there my motherand sister were, choking and holding together. Although they were mydearest loves, I could not bear to look at them, until they seemed towant my help, and put their hands before their eyes.