CHAPTER XII

A MAN JUSTLY POPULAR

[Illustration: 093.jpg Tom Faggus]

Now although Mr. Faggus was so clever, and generous, and celebrated,

I know not whether, upon the whole, we were rather proud of him as a

member of our family, or inclined to be ashamed of him. And indeed I

think that the sway of the balance hung upon the company we were in. For

instance, with the boys at Brendon--for there is no village at Oare--I

was exceeding proud to talk of him, and would freely brag of my Cousin

Tom. But with the rich parsons of the neighbourhood, or the justices

(who came round now and then, and were glad to ride up to a warm

farm-house), or even the well-to-do tradesmen of Porlock--in a word, any

settled power, which was afraid of losing things--with all of them we

were very shy of claiming our kinship to that great outlaw.

And sure, I should pity, as well as condemn him though our ways in the

world were so different, knowing as I do his story; which knowledge,

methinks, would often lead us to let alone God's prerogative--judgment,

and hold by man's privilege--pity. Not that I would find excuse for

Tom's downright dishonesty, which was beyond doubt a disgrace to him,

and no credit to his kinsfolk; only that it came about without his

meaning any harm or seeing how he took to wrong; yet gradually knowing

it. And now, to save any further trouble, and to meet those who

disparage him (without allowance for the time or the crosses laid upon

him), I will tell the history of him, just as if he were not my cousin,

and hoping to be heeded. And I defy any man to say that a word of this

is either false, or in any way coloured by family. Much cause he had

to be harsh with the world; and yet all acknowledged him very pleasant,

when a man gave up his money. And often and often he paid the toll for

the carriage coming after him, because he had emptied their pockets, and

would not add inconvenience. By trade he had been a blacksmith, in the

town of Northmolton, in Devonshire, a rough rude place at the end of

Exmoor, so that many people marvelled if such a man was bred there. Not

only could he read and write, but he had solid substance; a piece of

land worth a hundred pounds, and right of common for two hundred sheep,

and a score and a half of beasts, lifting up or lying down. And being

left an orphan (with all these cares upon him) he began to work right

early, and made such a fame at the shoeing of horses, that the farriers

of Barum were like to lose their custom. And indeed he won a golden

Jacobus for the best-shod nag in the north of Devon, and some say that

he never was forgiven.

As to that, I know no more, except that men are jealous. But whether

it were that, or not, he fell into bitter trouble within a month of his

victory; when his trade was growing upon him, and his sweetheart ready

to marry him. For he loved a maid of Southmolton (a currier's daughter

I think she was, and her name was Betsy Paramore), and her father had

given consent; and Tom Faggus, wishing to look his best, and be clean of

course, had a tailor at work upstairs for him, who had come all the way

from Exeter. And Betsy's things were ready too--for which they accused

him afterwards, as if he could help that--when suddenly, like a

thunderbolt, a lawyer's writ fell upon him.

This was the beginning of a law-suit with Sir Robert Bampfylde, a

gentleman of the neighbourhood, who tried to oust him from his common,

and drove his cattle and harassed them. And by that suit of law poor Tom

was ruined altogether, for Sir Robert could pay for much swearing; and

then all his goods and his farm were sold up, and even his smithery

taken. But he saddled his horse, before they could catch him, and rode

away to Southmolton, looking more like a madman than a good farrier,

as the people said who saw him. But when he arrived there, instead of

comfort, they showed him the face of the door alone; for the news of his

loss was before him, and Master Paramore was a sound, prudent man, and

a high member of the town council. It is said that they even gave him

notice to pay for Betsy's wedding-clothes, now that he was too poor to

marry her. This may be false, and indeed I doubt it; in the first place,

because Southmolton is a busy place for talking; and in the next, that

I do not think the action would have lain at law, especially as the

maid lost nothing, but used it all for her wedding next month with Dick

Vellacott, of Mockham.

All this was very sore upon Tom; and he took it to heart so grievously,

that he said, as a better man might have said, being loose of mind and

property, “The world hath preyed on me like a wolf. God help me now to

prey on the world.”

And in sooth it did seem, for a while, as if Providence were with him;

for he took rare toll on the highway, and his name was soon as good as

gold anywhere this side of Bristowe. He studied his business by night

and by day, with three horses all in hard work, until he had made a fine

reputation; and then it was competent to him to rest, and he had plenty

left for charity. And I ought to say for society too, for he truly

loved high society, treating squires and noblemen (who much affected his

company) to the very best fare of the hostel. And they say that once

the King's Justitiaries, being upon circuit, accepted his invitation,

declaring merrily that if never true bill had been found against him,

mine host should now be qualified to draw one. And so the landlords did;

and he always paid them handsomely, so that all of them were kind to

him, and contended for his visits. Let it be known in any township that

Mr. Faggus was taking his leisure at the inn, and straightway all the

men flocked thither to drink his health without outlay, and all the

women to admire him; while the children were set at the cross-roads to

give warning of any officers. One of his earliest meetings was with Sir

Robert Bampfylde himself, who was riding along the Barum road with only

one serving-man after him. Tom Faggus put a pistol to his head, being

then obliged to be violent, through want of reputation; while the

serving-man pretended to be a long way round the corner. Then the baronet

pulled out his purse, quite trembling in the hurry of his politeness.

Tom took the purse, and his ring, and time-piece, and then handed them

back with a very low bow, saying that it was against all usage for him

to rob a robber. Then he turned to the unfaithful knave, and trounced

him right well for his cowardice, and stripped him of all his property.

But now Mr. Faggus kept only one horse, lest the Government should steal

them; and that one was the young mare Winnie. How he came by her he

never would tell, but I think that she was presented to him by a certain

Colonel, a lover of sport, and very clever in horseflesh, whose life Tom

had saved from some gamblers. When I have added that Faggus as yet

had never been guilty of bloodshed (for his eyes, and the click of

his pistol at first, and now his high reputation made all his wishes

respected), and that he never robbed a poor man, neither insulted a

woman, but was very good to the Church, and of hot patriotic opinions,

and full of jest and jollity, I have said as much as is fair for him,

and shown why he was so popular. Everybody cursed the Doones, who lived

apart disdainfully. But all good people liked Mr. Faggus--when he had

not robbed them--and many a poor sick man or woman blessed him for other

people's money; and all the hostlers, stable-boys, and tapsters entirely

worshipped him.

I have been rather long, and perhaps tedious, in my account of him, lest

at any time hereafter his character should be misunderstood, and his

good name disparaged; whereas he was my second cousin, and the lover of

my--But let that bide. 'Tis a melancholy story.

He came again about three months afterwards, in the beginning of the

spring-time, and brought me a beautiful new carbine, having learned my

love of such things, and my great desire to shoot straight. But mother

would not let me have the gun, until he averred upon his honour that he

had bought it honestly. And so he had, no doubt, so far as it is honest

to buy with money acquired rampantly. Scarce could I stop to make my

bullets in the mould which came along with it, but must be off to the

Quarry Hill, and new target I had made there. And he taught me then

how to ride bright Winnie, who was grown since I had seen her, but

remembered me most kindly. After making much of Annie, who had a

wondrous liking for him--and he said he was her godfather, but God knows

how he could have been, unless they confirmed him precociously--away he

went, and young Winnie's sides shone like a cherry by candlelight.

Now I feel that of those boyish days I have little more to tell, because

everything went quietly, as the world for the most part does with us. I

began to work at the farm in earnest, and tried to help my mother, and

when I remembered Lorna Doone, it seemed no more than the thought of a

dream, which I could hardly call to mind. Now who cares to know how many

bushels of wheat we grew to the acre, or how the cattle milched till we

ate them, or what the turn of the seasons was? But my stupid self seemed

like to be the biggest of all the cattle; for having much to look after

the sheep, and being always in kind appetite, I grew four inches longer

in every year of my farming, and a matter of two inches wider; until

there was no man of my size to be seen elsewhere upon Exmoor. Let that

pass: what odds to any how tall or wide I be? There is no Doone's door

at Plover's Barrows and if there were I could never go through it. They

vexed me so much about my size, long before I had completed it, girding

at me with paltry jokes whose wit was good only to stay at home, that

I grew shame-faced about the matter, and feared to encounter a

looking-glass. But mother was very proud, and said she never could have

too much of me.

The worst of all to make me ashamed of bearing my head so high--a thing

I saw no way to help, for I never could hang my chin down, and my back

was like a gatepost whenever I tried to bend it--the worst of all was

our little Eliza, who never could come to a size herself, though she had

the wine from the Sacrament at Easter and Allhallowmas, only to be small

and skinny, sharp, and clever crookedly. Not that her body was out of

the straight (being too small for that perhaps), but that her wit was

full of corners, jagged, and strange, and uncomfortable. You never could

tell what she might say next; and I like not that kind of women. Now God

forgive me for talking so of my own father's daughter, and so much the

more by reason that my father could not help it. The right way is

to face the matter, and then be sorry for every one. My mother fell

grievously on a slide, which John Fry had made nigh the apple-room door,

and hidden with straw from the stable, to cover his own great idleness.

My father laid John's nose on the ice, and kept him warm in spite of it;

but it was too late for Eliza. She was born next day with more mind than

body--the worst thing that can befall a man.

But Annie, my other sister, was now a fine fair girl, beautiful to

behold. I could look at her by the fireside, for an hour together, when

I was not too sleepy, and think of my dear father. And she would do the

same thing by me, only wait the between of the blazes. Her hair was done

up in a knot behind, but some would fall over her shoulders; and the

dancing of the light was sweet to see through a man's eyelashes. There

never was a face that showed the light or the shadow of feeling, as if

the heart were sun to it, more than our dear Annie's did. To look at her

carefully, you might think that she was not dwelling on anything; and

then she would know you were looking at her, and those eyes would tell

all about it. God knows that I try to be simple enough, to keep to His

meaning in me, and not make the worst of His children. Yet often have I

been put to shame, and ready to bite my tongue off, after speaking amiss

of anybody, and letting out my littleness, when suddenly mine eyes have

met the pure soft gaze of Annie.

As for the Doones, they were thriving still, and no one to come against

them; except indeed by word of mouth, to which they lent no heed

whatever. Complaints were made from time to time, both in high and low

quarters (as the rank might be of the people robbed), and once or twice

in the highest of all, to wit, the King himself. But His Majesty made

a good joke about it (not meaning any harm, I doubt), and was so much

pleased with himself thereupon, that he quite forgave the mischief.

Moreover, the main authorities were a long way off; and the Chancellor

had no cattle on Exmoor; and as for my lord the Chief Justice, some

rogue had taken his silver spoons; whereupon his lordship swore that

never another man would he hang until he had that one by the neck.

Therefore the Doones went on as they listed, and none saw fit to meddle

with them. For the only man who would have dared to come to close

quarters with them, that is to say Tom Faggus, himself was a quarry for

the law, if ever it should be unhooded. Moreover, he had transferred his

business to the neighbourhood of Wantage, in the county of Berks, where

he found the climate drier, also good downs and commons excellent for

galloping, and richer yeomen than ours be, and better roads to rob them

on.

Some folk, who had wiser attended to their own affairs, said that I

(being sizeable now, and able to shoot not badly) ought to do something

against those Doones, and show what I was made of. But for a time I was

very bashful, shaking when called upon suddenly, and blushing as deep as

a maiden; for my strength was not come upon me, and mayhap I had grown

in front of it. And again, though I loved my father still, and would

fire at a word about him, I saw not how it would do him good for me to

harm his injurers. Some races are of revengeful kind, and will for years

pursue their wrong, and sacrifice this world and the next for a

moment's foul satisfaction, but methinks this comes of some black blood,

perverted and never purified. And I doubt but men of true English birth

are stouter than so to be twisted, though some of the women may take

that turn, if their own life runs unkindly.

Let that pass--I am never good at talking of things beyond me. All I

know is, that if I had met the Doone who had killed my father, I would

gladly have thrashed him black and blue, supposing I were able; but

would never have fired a gun at him, unless he began that game with me,

or fell upon more of my family, or were violent among women. And to

do them justice, my mother and Annie were equally kind and gentle, but

Eliza would flame and grow white with contempt, and not trust herself to

speak to us.

Now a strange thing came to pass that winter, when I was twenty-one

years old, a very strange thing, which affrighted the rest, and made me

feel uncomfortable. Not that there was anything in it, to do harm to any

one, only that none could explain it, except by attributing it to the

devil. The weather was very mild and open, and scarcely any snow fell;

at any rate, none lay on the ground, even for an hour, in the highest

part of Exmoor; a thing which I knew not before nor since, as long as

I can remember. But the nights were wonderfully dark, as though with no

stars in the heaven; and all day long the mists were rolling upon

the hills and down them, as if the whole land were a wash-house. The

moorland was full of snipes and teal, and curlews flying and crying, and

lapwings flapping heavily, and ravens hovering round dead sheep; yet no

redshanks nor dottrell, and scarce any golden plovers (of which we have

great store generally) but vast lonely birds, that cried at night, and

moved the whole air with their pinions; yet no man ever saw them. It was

dismal as well as dangerous now for any man to go fowling (which of late

I loved much in the winter) because the fog would come down so thick

that the pan of the gun was reeking, and the fowl out of sight ere the

powder kindled, and then the sound of the piece was so dead, that the

shooter feared harm, and glanced over his shoulder. But the danger of

course was far less in this than in losing of the track, and falling

into the mires, or over the brim of a precipice.

Nevertheless, I must needs go out, being young and very stupid, and

feared of being afraid; a fear which a wise man has long cast by, having

learned of the manifold dangers which ever and ever encompass us. And

beside this folly and wildness of youth, perchance there was something,

I know not what, of the joy we have in uncertainty. Mother, in fear

of my missing home--though for that matter, I could smell supper, when

hungry, through a hundred land-yards of fog--my dear mother, who thought

of me ten times for one thought about herself, gave orders to ring the

great sheep-bell, which hung above the pigeon-cote, every ten minutes of

the day, and the sound came through the plaits of fog, and I was vexed

about it, like the letters of a copy-book. It reminded me, too, of

Blundell's bell, and the grief to go into school again.

But during those two months of fog (for we had it all the winter), the

saddest and the heaviest thing was to stand beside the sea. To be upon

the beach yourself, and see the long waves coming in; to know that they

are long waves, but only see a piece of them; and to hear them lifting

roundly, swelling over smooth green rocks, plashing down in the hollow

corners, but bearing on all the same as ever, soft and sleek and

sorrowful, till their little noise is over.

[Illustration: 100.jpg To be upon the beach]

One old man who lived at Lynmouth, seeking to be buried there, having

been more than half over the world, though shy to speak about it, and

fain to come home to his birthplace, this old Will Watcombe (who dwelt

by the water) said that our strange winter arose from a thing he called

the “Gulf-stream”, rushing up Channel suddenly. He said it was hot

water, almost fit for a man to shave with, and it threw all our cold

water out, and ruined the fish and the spawning-time, and a cold spring

would come after it. I was fond of going to Lynmouth on Sunday to hear

this old man talk, for sometimes he would discourse with me, when nobody

else could move him. He told me that this powerful flood set in upon our

west so hard sometimes once in ten years, and sometimes not for fifty,

and the Lord only knew the sense of it; but that when it came, therewith

came warmth and clouds, and fog, and moisture, and nuts, and fruit, and

even shells; and all the tides were thrown abroad. As for nuts he winked

awhile, and chewed a piece of tobacco; yet did I not comprehend him.

Only afterwards I heard that nuts with liquid kernels came, travelling

on the Gulf stream; for never before was known so much foreign cordial

landed upon our coast, floating ashore by mistake in the fog, and (what

with the tossing and the mist) too much astray to learn its duty.

Folk, who are ever too prone to talk, said that Will Watcombe himself

knew better than anybody else about this drift of the Gulf-stream,

and the places where it would come ashore, and the caves that took the

in-draught. But De Whichehalse, our great magistrate, certified that

there was no proof of unlawful importation; neither good cause to

suspect it, at a time of Christian charity. And we knew that it was a

foul thing for some quarrymen to say that night after night they had

been digging a new cellar at Ley Manor to hold the little marks of

respect found in the caverns at high-water weed. Let that be, it is none

of my business to speak evil of dignities; duly we common people joked

of the “Gulp-stream,” as we called it.

But the thing which astonished and frightened us so, was not, I do

assure you, the landing of foreign spirits, nor the loom of a lugger at

twilight in the gloom of the winter moonrise. That which made us crouch

in by the fire, or draw the bed-clothes over us, and try to think of

something else, was a strange mysterious sound.

At grey of night, when the sun was gone, and no red in the west

remained, neither were stars forthcoming, suddenly a wailing voice rose

along the valleys, and a sound in the air, as of people running. It

mattered not whether you stood on the moor, or crouched behind rocks

away from it, or down among reedy places; all as one the sound would

come, now from the heart of the earth beneath, now overhead bearing

down on you. And then there was rushing of something by, and melancholy

laughter, and the hair of a man would stand on end before he could

reason properly.

God, in His mercy, knows that I am stupid enough for any man, and very

slow of impression, nor ever could bring myself to believe that our

Father would let the evil one get the upper hand of us. But when I had

heard that sound three times, in the lonely gloom of the evening fog,

and the cold that followed the lines of air, I was loath to go abroad by

night, even so far as the stables, and loved the light of a candle more,

and the glow of a fire with company.

There were many stories about it, of course, all over the breadth of the

moorland. But those who had heard it most often declared that it must be

the wail of a woman's voice, and the rustle of robes fleeing horribly,

and fiends in the fog going after her. To that, however, I paid no heed,

when anybody was with me; only we drew more close together, and barred

the doors at sunset.

[Illustration: 102.jpg Tailpiece]