CHAPTER III

THE WAR-PATH OF THE DOONES

[Illustration: 014.jpg Illustrated Capital]

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; for

the way is still unmade, at least, on this side of Dulverton, although

there is less danger now than in the time of my schooling; for now a

good horse may go there without much cost of leaping, but when I was

a boy the spurs would fail, when needed most, by reason of the

slough-cake. It is to the credit of this age, and our advance upon

fatherly ways, that now we have laid down rods and fagots, and even

stump-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 doing

my 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 are

taking now to mark it off with a fence on either side, at least, when

a town is handy; but to me this seems of a high pretence, and a sort of

landmark, and channel for robbers, though well enough near London, where

they 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 demanded

by the nags, sore of foot and foundered. For my part, too, I was glad to

rest, having aches all over me, and very heavy bruises; and we lodged

at 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 in

gold letters, because we must take the homeward way at cockcrow of the

morning. Though still John Fry was dry with me of the reason of his

coming, and only told lies about father, and could not keep them

agreeable, I hoped for the best, as all boys will, especially after a

victory. And I thought, perhaps father had sent for me because he had a

good harvest, and the rats were bad in the corn-chamber.

It was high noon before we were got to Dulverton that day, near to which

town the river Exe and its big brother Barle have union. My mother had

an uncle living there, but we were not to visit his house this time, at

which I was somewhat astonished, since we needs must stop for at least

two hours, to bait our horses thorough well, before coming to the black

bogway. The bogs are very good in frost, except where the hot-springs

rise; but as yet there had been no frost this year, save just enough

to make the blackbirds look big in the morning. In a hearty black-frost

they look small, until the snow falls over them.

The road from Bampton to Dulverton had not been very delicate, yet

nothing to complain of much--no deeper, indeed, than the hocks of a

horse, except in the rotten places. The day was inclined to be mild and

foggy, and both nags sweated freely; but Peggy carrying little weight

(for my wardrobe was upon Smiler, and John Fry grumbling always), we

could 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 ill

taste at coming home for the holidays; and yet I made allowance for

John, because he had never been at school, and never would have chance

to eat fry upon condition of spelling it; therefore I rode on, thinking

that he was hard-set, like a saw, for his dinner, and would soften after

tooth-work. And yet at his most hungry times, when his mind was far gone

upon bacon, certes he seemed to check himself and look at me as if he

were sorry for little things coming over great.

But now, at Dulverton, we dined upon the rarest and choicest victuals

that ever I did taste. Even now, at my time of life, to think of it

gives me appetite, as once and awhile to think of my first love makes

me love all goodness. Hot mutton pasty was a thing I had often heard

of from very wealthy boys and men, who made a dessert of dinner; and to

hear 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 a

short-legged man, and shouted as loud as if he was calling sheep upon

Exmoor,--

“Hot mooton pasty for twoo trarv'lers, at number vaive, in vaive

minnits! Dish un up in the tin with the grahvy, zame as I hardered last

Tuesday.”

Of course it did not come in five minutes, nor yet in ten or twenty; but

that made it all the better when it came to the real presence; and the

smell of it was enough to make an empty man thank God for the room there

was inside him. Fifty years have passed me quicker than the taste of

that gravy.

It is the manner of all good boys to be careless of apparel, and take no

pride in adornment. Good lack, if I see a boy make to do about the fit

of his crumpler, and the creasing of his breeches, and desire to be shod

for comeliness rather than for use, I cannot 'scape the mark that God

took thought to make a girl of him. Not so when they grow older, and

court the regard of the maidens; then may the bravery pass from the

inside 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 fool

to 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 well

also, 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 little

to wash, save Sabbath days in his own soap, and who had kept me from the

pump 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, and

listen 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 turned

round to go back again; but put a better face upon it, and gave a

trip and hitched her dress, and looked at the sun full body, lest the

hostlers should laugh that she was losing her complexion. With a long

Italian glass in her fingers very daintily, she came up to the pump in

the middle of the yard, where I was running the water off all my head

and shoulders, and arms, and some of my breast even, and though I had

glimpsed her through the sprinkle, it gave me quite a turn to see

her, child as I was, in my open aspect. But she looked at me, no whit

abashed, 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 said

to me in a brazen manner, as if I had been nobody, while I was shrinking

behind the pump, and craving to get my shirt on, “Good leetle boy, come

hither to me. Fine heaven! how blue your eyes are, and your skin like

snow; but some naughty man has beaten it black. Oh, leetle boy, let me

feel it. Ah, how then it must have hurt you! There now, and you shall

love 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 and

manner 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 English

than she; and yet I longed for my jerkin, but liked not to be rude to

her.

“If you please, madam, I must go. John Fry is waiting by the tapster's

door, and Peggy neighing to me. If you please, we must get home

to-night; and father will be waiting for me this side of the

telling-house.”

“There, there, you shall go, leetle dear, and perhaps I will go after

you. I have taken much love of you. But the baroness is hard to me. How

far 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 roads

as soft as the road to Oare.”

“Oh-ah, oh-ah--I shall remember; that is the place where my leetle boy

live, 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 unless

a nebule be formed outside the glass.”

I did not know what she meant by that; yet I pumped for her very

heartily, and marvelled to see her for fifty times throw the water away

in the trough, as if it was not good enough. At last the water suited

her, with a likeness of fog outside the glass, and the gleam of a

crystal under it, and then she made a curtsey to me, in a sort of

mocking manner, holding the long glass by the foot, not to take the

cloud off; and then she wanted to kiss me; but I was out of breath, and

have always been shy of that work, except when I come to offer it; and

so I ducked under the pump-handle, and she knocked her chin on the knob

of it; and the hostlers came out, and asked whether they would do as

well.

Upon this, she retreated up the yard, with a certain dark dignity, and

a foreign way of walking, which stopped them at once from going farther,

because it was so different from the fashion of their sweethearts. One

with another they hung back, where half a cart-load of hay was, and

they looked to be sure that she would not turn round; and then each one

laughed 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 must

trudge on together, until we come to a broken cross, where a murdered

man lies buried. Peggy and Smiler went up the hill, as if nothing could

be too much for them, after the beans they had eaten, and suddenly

turning a corner of trees, we happened upon a great coach and six horses

labouring very heavily. John Fry rode on with his hat in his hand, as

became him towards the quality; but I was amazed to that degree, that I

left my cap on my head, and drew bridle without knowing it.

[Illustration: 019.jpg Great Coach and Six Horses Labouring]

For in the front seat of the coach, which was half-way open, being of

the city-make, and the day in want of air, sate the foreign lady, who

had met me at the pump and offered to salute me. By her side was a

little girl, dark-haired and very wonderful, with a wealthy softness on

her, as if she must have her own way. I could not look at her for two

glances, 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 handsome

lady, very warmly dressed, and sweetly delicate of colour. And close

to her was a lively child, two or it may be three years old, bearing a

white cockade in his hat, and staring at all and everybody. Now, he saw

Peggy, and took such a liking to her, that the lady his mother--if so

she 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 us

very kindly, and with a sweetness rarely found in the women who milk the

cows 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, that

I looked like a gentle and good little boy; for folk always called me

innocent, 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 was

about to salute her, at a distance, indeed, and not with the nicety she

had offered to me, but, strange to say, she stared at my eyes as if she

had never seen me before, neither wished to see me again. At this I was

so startled, such things being out of my knowledge, that I startled

Peggy 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 I

could 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 about

them, 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 all

that 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 came

from. And a good thing for me, and a providence, that I was gone down

Dulverton town to buy sweetstuff for Annie, else my stupid head would

have gone astray with their great out-coming.

We saw no more of them after that, but turned into the sideway; and soon

had the fill of our hands and eyes to look to our own going. For the

road got worse and worse, until there was none at all, and perhaps the

purest thing it could do was to be ashamed to show itself. But we pushed

on as best we might, with doubt of reaching home any time, except by

special grace of God.

The fog came down upon the moors as thick as ever I saw it; and there

was no sound of any sort, nor a breath of wind to guide us. The little

stubby trees that stand here and there, like bushes with a wooden leg

to them, were drizzled with a mess of wet, and hung their points with

dropping. Wherever the butt-end of a hedgerow came up from the hollow

ground, like the withers of a horse, holes of splash were pocked and

pimpled 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 the

valleys.

After awhile even that was gone, and no other comfort left us except to

see our horses' heads jogging to their footsteps, and the dark ground

pass below us, lighter where the wet was; and then the splash, foot

after foot, more clever than we can do it, and the orderly jerk of the

tail, and the smell of what a horse is.

John Fry was bowing forward with sleep upon his saddle, and now I could

no longer see the frizzle of wet upon his beard--for he had a very brave

one, of a bright red colour, and trimmed into a whale-oil knot, because

he was newly married--although that comb of hair had been a subject of

some wonder to me, whether I, in God's good time, should have the like

of 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 his

hat--a Sunday hat with a top to it--and some of his shoulder bowed out

in the mist, so that one could say “Hold up, John,” when Smiler put

his foot in. “Mercy of God! where be us now?” said John Fry, waking

suddenly; “us ought to have passed hold hash, Jan. Zeen it on the road,

have 'ee?”

[Illustration: 021.jpg Where be us now?]

“No indeed, John; no old ash. Nor nothing else to my knowing; nor heard

nothing, 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 drops

from our head-covers and clothing, and the soft sounds of the lonely

night, that make us feel, and try not to think. Then there came a mellow

noise, very low and mournsome, not a sound to be afraid of, but to long

to know the meaning, with a soft rise of the hair. Three times it came

and went again, as the shaking of a thread might pass away into the

distance; and then I touched John Fry to know that there was something

near me.

“Doon't 'e be a vule, Jan! Vaine moozick as iver I 'eer. God bless the

man 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, the

King 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 often

as to hope that the people sometimes deserved it, and think that it

might be a lesson to the rogues who unjustly loved the mutton they were

never born to. But, of course, they were born to hanging, when they set

themselves so high.

“It be nawbody,” said John, “vor us to make a fush about. Belong to

t'other zide o' the moor, and come staling shape to our zide. Red Jem

Hannaford his name. Thank God for him to be hanged, lad; and good cess

to his soul for craikin' zo.”

So the sound of the quiet swinging led us very modestly, as it came and

went on the wind, loud and low pretty regularly, even as far as the foot

of the gibbet where the four cross-ways are.

“Vamous job this here,” cried John, looking up to be sure of it, because

there were so many; “here be my own nick on the post. Red Jem, too, and

no doubt of him; he do hang so handsome like, and his ribs up laike a

horse a'most. God bless them as discoovered the way to make a rogue so

useful. Good-naight to thee, Jem, my lad; and not break thy drames with

the craikin'.”

John Fry shook his bridle-arm, and smote upon Smiler merrily, as he

jogged into the homeward track from the guiding of the body. But I was

sorry for Red Jem, and wanted to know more about him, and whether

he might not have avoided this miserable end, and what his wife and

children thought of it, if, indeed, he had any.

But John would talk no more about it; and perhaps he was moved with a

lonesome feeling, as the creaking sound came after us.

“Hould thee tongue, lad,' he said sharply; 'us be naigh the Doone-track

now, 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 awe

of all Devon and Somerset, outlaws, traitors, murderers. My little legs

began to tremble to and fro upon Peggy's sides, as I heard the dead

robber in chains behind us, and thought of the live ones still in front.

“But, John,” I whispered warily, sidling close to his saddle-bow; “dear

John, 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 done

with it. But even then I wondered why he talked of my mother so, and

said not a word of father.

We were come to a long deep “goyal,” as they call it on Exmoor, a word

whose fountain and origin I have nothing to do with. Only I know that

when 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, and

meant the hollow of the hand. And another time a Welshman told me that

it 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 among

wild hills, falling towards the plain country, rounded at the bottom,

perhaps, and stiff, more than steep, at the sides of it. Whether it be

straight or crooked, makes no difference to it.

We rode very carefully down our side, and through the soft grass at

the bottom, and all the while we listened as if the air was a

speaking-trumpet. Then gladly we breasted our nags to the rise, and were

coming to the comb of it, when I heard something, and caught John's

arm, and he bent his hand to the shape of his ear. It was the sound of

horses' feet knocking up through splashy ground, as if the bottom sucked

them. Then a grunting of weary men, and the lifting noise of stirrups,

and sometimes the clank of iron mixed with the wheezy croning of leather

and 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 and

crop, sniffing more than they need have done. I crept to John's side

very softly, with the bridle on my arm.

“Let goo braidle; let goo, lad. Plaise God they take them for

forest-ponies, or they'll zend a bullet through us.”

I saw what he meant, and let go the bridle; for now the mist was rolling

off, 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 gullet

was, and I crept to him, afraid of the noise I made in dragging my legs

along, and the creak of my cord breeches. John bleated like a sheep to

cover 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. And

suddenly a strong red light, cast by the cloud-weight downwards, spread

like fingers over the moorland, opened the alleys of darkness, and hung

on the steel of the riders.

“Dunkery Beacon,” whispered John, so close into my ear, that I felt his

lips and teeth ashake; “dursn't fire it now except to show the Doones

way home again, since the naight as they went up and throwed the

watchmen atop of it. Why, wutt be 'bout, lad? God's sake--”

For I could keep still no longer, but wriggled away from his arm, and

along the little gullet, still going flat on my breast and thighs, until

I 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 I

feared 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 the

form of its flame came and went in the folds, and the heavy sky was

hovering. All around it was hung with red, deep in twisted columns, and

then a giant beard of fire streamed throughout the darkness. The sullen

hills were flanked with light, and the valleys chined with shadow, and

all the sombrous moors between awoke in furrowed anger.

But most of all the flinging fire leaped into the rocky mouth of the

glen below me, where the horsemen passed in silence, scarcely deigning

to look round. Heavy men and large of stature, reckless how they bore

their guns, or how they sate their horses, with leathern jerkins, and

long boots, and iron plates on breast and head, plunder heaped behind

their saddles, and flagons slung in front of them; I counted more than

thirty pass, like clouds upon red sunset. Some had carcasses of sheep

swinging with their skins on, others had deer, and one had a child flung

across his saddle-bow. Whether the child were dead, or alive, was more

than I could tell, only it hung head downwards there, and must take the

chance of it. They had got the child, a very young one, for the sake of

the dress, no doubt, which they could not stop to pull off from it; for

the dress shone bright, where the fire struck it, as if with gold and

jewels. I longed in my heart to know most sadly what they would do with

the little thing, and whether they would eat it.

It touched me so to see that child, a prey among those vultures, that in

my foolish rage and burning I stood up and shouted to them leaping on

a rock, and raving out of all possession. Two of them turned round, and

one set his carbine at me, but the other said it was but a pixie, and

bade him keep his powder. Little they knew, and less thought I, that the

pixie then before them would dance their castle down one day.

[Illustration: 026.jpg Said it was but a Pixie]

John Fry, who in the spring of fright had brought himself down from

Smiler's side, as if he were dipped in oil, now came up to me, all risk

being over, cross, and stiff, and aching sorely from his wet couch of

heather.

“Small thanks to thee, Jan, as my new waife bain't a widder. And who be

you to zupport of her, and her son, if she have one? Zarve thee right if

I 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 ever

born man was in a fright, and ready to thank God for anything, the name

of that man was John Fry not more than five minutes agone.

However, I answered nothing at all, except to be ashamed of myself; and

soon we found Peggy and Smiler in company, well embarked on the homeward

road, and victualling where the grass was good. Right glad they were

to 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 dogs

kept such a noise that he must have heard us. Home-side of the

linhay, and under the ashen hedge-row, where father taught me to catch

blackbirds, all at once my heart went down, and all my breast was

hollow. There was not even the lanthorn light on the peg against the

cow'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 to

smoke his pipe and sing. Then I thought he had guests perhaps--people

lost upon the moors--whom he could not leave unkindly, even for his

son's sake. And yet about that I was jealous, and ready to be vexed with

him, when he should begin to make much of me. And I felt in my pocket

for the new pipe which I had brought him from Tiverton, and said to

myself, “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 slunk

away, 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 I

wanted was to lack, and none to tell me anything.

By-and-by, a noise came down, as of woman's weeping; and there my mother

and sister were, choking and holding together. Although they were my

dearest loves, I could not bear to look at them, until they seemed to

want my help, and put their hands before their eyes.