CHAPTER XLI

COLD COMFORT

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All things being full of flaw, all things being full of holes, the

strength of all things is in shortness. If Sir Ensor Doone had dwelled

for half an hour upon himself, and an hour perhaps upon Lorna and me,

we must both have wearied of him, and required change of air. But now

I longed to see and know a great deal more about him, and hoped that he

might not go to Heaven for at least a week or more. However, he was too

good for this world (as we say of all people who leave it); and I verily

believe his heart was not a bad one, after all.

Evil he had done, no doubt, as evil had been done to him; yet how many

have done evil, while receiving only good! Be that as it may; and not

vexing a question (settled for ever without our votes), let us own that

he was, at least, a brave and courteous gentleman.

And his loss aroused great lamentation, not among the Doones alone, and

the women they had carried off, but also of the general public, and many

even of the magistrates, for several miles round Exmoor. And this,

not only from fear lest one more wicked might succeed him (as appeared

indeed too probable), but from true admiration of his strong will, and

sympathy with his misfortunes.

I will not deceive any one, by saying that Sir Ensor Doone gave (in so

many words) his consent to my resolve about Lorna. This he never did,

except by his speech last written down; from which as he mentioned

grandchildren, a lawyer perhaps might have argued it. Not but what he

may have meant to bestow on us his blessing; only that he died next day,

without taking the trouble to do it.

He called indeed for his box of snuff, which was a very high thing to

take; and which he never took without being in very good humour, at

least for him. And though it would not go up his nostrils, through the

failure of his breath, he was pleased to have it there, and not to think

of dying.

“Will your honour have it wiped?” I asked him very softly, for the

brown appearance of it spoiled (to my idea) his white mostacchio; but

he seemed to shake his head; and I thought it kept his spirits up. I had

never before seen any one do, what all of us have to do some day; and it

greatly kept my spirits down, although it did not so very much frighten

me.

For it takes a man but a little while, his instinct being of death

perhaps, at least as much as of life (which accounts for his slaying his

fellow men so, and every other creature), it does not take a man very

long to enter into another man's death, and bring his own mood to suit

it. He knows that his own is sure to come; and nature is fond of the

practice. Hence it came to pass that I, after easing my mother's fears,

and seeing a little to business, returned (as if drawn by a polar

needle) to the death-bed of Sir Ensor.

There was some little confusion, people wanting to get away, and people

trying to come in, from downright curiosity (of all things the most

hateful), and others making great to-do, and talking of their own time

to come, telling their own age, and so on. But every one seemed to

think, or feel, that I had a right to be there; because the women took

that view of it. As for Carver and Counsellor, they were minding their

own affairs, so as to win the succession; and never found it in their

business (at least so long as I was there) to come near the dying man.

He, for his part, never asked for any one to come near him, not even

a priest, nor a monk or friar; but seemed to be going his own way,

peaceful, and well contented. Only the chief of the women said that from

his face she believed and knew that he liked to have me at one side of

his bed, and Lorna upon the other. An hour or two ere the old man died,

when only we two were with him, he looked at us both very dimly and

softly, as if he wished to do something for us, but had left it now too

late. Lorna hoped that he wanted to bless us; but he only frowned at

that, and let his hand drop downward, and crooked one knotted finger.

“He wants something out of the bed, dear,” Lorna whispered to me; “see

what it is, upon your side, there.”

I followed the bent of his poor shrunken hand, and sought among the

pilings; and there I felt something hard and sharp, and drew it forth

and gave it to him. It flashed, like the spray of a fountain upon us, in

the dark winter of the room. He could not take it in his hand, but let

it hang, as daisies do; only making Lorna see that he meant her to have

it.

“Why, it is my glass necklace!” Lorna cried, in great surprise; “my

necklace he always promised me; and from which you have got the ring,

John. But grandfather kept it, because the children wanted to pull it

from my neck. May I have it now, dear grandfather? Not unless you wish,

dear.”

Darling Lorna wept again, because the old man could not tell her (except

by one very feeble nod) that she was doing what he wished. Then she gave

to me the trinket, for the sake of safety; and I stowed it in my breast.

He seemed to me to follow this, and to be well content with it.

Before Sir Ensor Doone was buried, the greatest frost of the century

had set in, with its iron hand, and step of stone, on everything. How

it came is not my business, nor can I explain it; because I never have

watched the skies; as people now begin to do, when the ground is not to

their liking. Though of all this I know nothing, and less than nothing I

may say (because I ought to know something); I can hear what people tell

me; and I can see before my eyes.

The strong men broke three good pickaxes, ere they got through the hard

brown sod, streaked with little maps of gray where old Sir Ensor was to

lie, upon his back, awaiting the darkness of the Judgment-day. It was in

the little chapel-yard; I will not tell the name of it; because we are

now such Protestants, that I might do it an evil turn; only it was the

little place where Lorna's Aunt Sabina lay.

Here was I, remaining long, with a little curiosity; because some people

told me plainly that I must be damned for ever by a Papist funeral; and

here came Lorna, scarcely breathing through the thick of stuff around

her, yet with all her little breath steaming on the air, like frost.

I stood apart from the ceremony, in which of course I was not entitled,

either by birth or religion, to bear any portion; and indeed it would

have been wiser in me to have kept away altogether; for now there was no

one to protect me among those wild and lawless men; and both Carver

and the Counsellor had vowed a fearful vengeance on me, as I heard from

Gwenny. They had not dared to meddle with me while the chief lay dying;

nor was it in their policy, for a short time after that, to endanger

their succession by an open breach with Lorna, whose tender age and

beauty held so many of the youths in thrall.

The ancient outlaw's funeral was a grand and moving sight; more perhaps

from the sense of contrast than from that of fitness. To see those dark

and mighty men, inured to all of sin and crime, reckless both of man and

God, yet now with heads devoutly bent, clasped hands, and downcast eyes,

following the long black coffin of their common ancestor, to the place

where they must join him when their sum of ill was done; and to see the

feeble priest chanting, over the dead form, words the living would

have laughed at, sprinkling with his little broom drops that could not

purify; while the children, robed in white, swung their smoking censers

slowly over the cold and twilight grave; and after seeing all, to ask,

with a shudder unexpressed, “Is this the end that God intended for a man

so proud and strong?”

Not a tear was shed upon him, except from the sweetest of all sweet

eyes; not a sigh pursued him home. Except in hot anger, his life had

been cold, and bitter, and distant; and now a week had exhausted all

the sorrow of those around him, a grief flowing less from affection than

fear. Aged men will show his tombstone; mothers haste with their infants

by it; children shrink from the name upon it, until in time his history

shall lapse and be forgotten by all except the great Judge and God.

After all was over, I strode across the moors very sadly; trying to

keep the cold away by virtue of quick movement. Not a flake of snow had

fallen yet; all the earth was caked and hard, with a dry brown crust

upon it; all the sky was banked with darkness, hard, austere, and

frowning. The fog of the last three weeks was gone, neither did any

rime remain; but all things had a look of sameness, and a kind of furzy

colour. It was freezing hard and sharp, with a piercing wind to back it;

and I had observed that the holy water froze upon Sir Ensor's coffin.

One thing struck me with some surprise, as I made off for our fireside

(with a strong determination to heave an ash-tree up the chimney-place),

and that was how the birds were going, rather than flying as they used

to fly. All the birds were set in one direction, steadily journeying

westward, not with any heat of speed, neither flying far at once; but

all (as if on business bound), partly running, partly flying, partly

fluttering along; silently, and without a voice, neither pricking head

nor tail. This movement of the birds went on, even for a week or more;

every kind of thrushes passed us, every kind of wild fowl, even plovers

went away, and crows, and snipes and wood-cocks. And before half the

frost was over, all we had in the snowy ditches were hares so tame that

we could pat them; partridges that came to hand, with a dry noise in

their crops; heath-poults, making cups of snow; and a few poor hopping

redwings, flipping in and out the hedge, having lost the power to fly.

And all the time their great black eyes, set with gold around them,

seemed to look at any man, for mercy and for comfort.

Annie took a many of them, all that she could find herself, and all the

boys would bring her; and she made a great hutch near the fire, in the

back-kitchen chimney-place. Here, in spite of our old Betty (who sadly

wanted to roast them), Annie kept some fifty birds, with bread and milk,

and raw chopped meat, and all the seed she could think of, and lumps of

rotten apples, placed to tempt them, in the corners. Some got on, and

some died off; and Annie cried for all that died, and buried them under

the woodrick; but, I do assure you, it was a pretty thing to see, when

she went to them in the morning. There was not a bird but knew her well,

after one day of comforting; and some would come to her hand, and sit,

and shut one eye, and look at her. Then she used to stroke their heads,

and feel their breasts, and talk to them; and not a bird of them all was

there but liked to have it done to him. And I do believe they would eat

from her hand things unnatural to them, lest she should be grieved and

hurt by not knowing what to do for them. One of them was a noble bird,

such as I never had seen before, of very fine bright plumage, and larger

than a missel-thrush. He was the hardest of all to please: and yet he

tried to do his best. I have heard since then, from a man who knows all

about birds, and beasts, and fishes, that he must have been a Norwegian

bird, called in this country a Roller, who never comes to England but in

the most tremendous winters.

Another little bird there was, whom I longed to welcome home, and

protect from enemies, a little bird no native to us, but than any

native dearer. But lo, in the very night which followed old Sir Ensor's

funeral, such a storm of snow began as never have I heard nor read of,

neither could have dreamed it. At what time of night it first began is

more than I can say, at least from my own knowledge, for we all went to

bed soon after supper, being cold and not inclined to talk. At that time

the wind was moaning sadly, and the sky as dark as a wood, and the straw

in the yard swirling round and round, and the cows huddling into the

great cowhouse, with their chins upon one another. But we, being blinder

than they, I suppose, and not having had a great snow for years, made

no preparation against the storm, except that the lambing ewes were in

shelter.

It struck me, as I lay in bed, that we were acting foolishly; for an

ancient shepherd had dropped in and taken supper with us, and foretold a

heavy fall and great disaster to live stock. He said that he had known

a frost beginning, just as this had done, with a black east wind, after

days of raw cold fog, and then on the third night of the frost, at this

very time of year (to wit on the 15th of December) such a snow set in

as killed half of the sheep and many even of the red deer and the forest

ponies. It was three-score years agone,* he said; and cause he had to

remember it, inasmuch as two of his toes had been lost by frost-nip,

while he dug out his sheep on the other side of the Dunkery. Hereupon

mother nodded at him, having heard from her father about it, and how

three men had been frozen to death, and how badly their stockings came

off from them.

* The frost of 1625.

Remembering how the old man looked, and his manner of listening to the

wind and shaking his head very ominously (when Annie gave him a glass

of schnapps), I grew quite uneasy in my bed, as the room got colder and

colder; and I made up my mind, if it only pleased God not to send the

snow till the morning, that every sheep, and horse, and cow, ay, and

even the poultry, should be brought in snug, and with plenty to eat, and

fodder enough to roast them.

Alas what use of man's resolves, when they come a day too late; even if

they may avail a little, when they are most punctual!

In the bitter morning I arose, to follow out my purpose, knowing the

time from the force of habit, although the room was so dark and gray.

An odd white light was on the rafters, such as I never had seen before;

while all the length of the room was grisly, like the heart of a mouldy

oat-rick. I went to the window at once, of course; and at first I could

not understand what was doing outside of it. It faced due east (as I may

have said), with the walnut-tree partly sheltering it; and generally I

could see the yard, and the woodrick, and even the church beyond.

But now, half the lattice was quite blocked up, as if plastered with

gray lime; and little fringes, like ferns, came through, where the

joining of the lead was; and in the only undarkened part, countless dots

came swarming, clustering, beating with a soft, low sound, then gliding

down in a slippery manner, not as drops of rain do, but each distinct

from his neighbour. Inside the iron frame (which fitted, not to say too

comfortably, and went along the stonework), at least a peck of snow had

entered, following its own bend and fancy; light as any cobweb.

With some trouble, and great care, lest the ancient frame should yield,

I spread the lattice open; and saw at once that not a moment must be

lost, to save our stock. All the earth was flat with snow, all the air

was thick with snow; more than this no man could see, for all the world

was snowing.

I shut the window and dressed in haste; and when I entered the kitchen,

not even Betty, the earliest of all early birds, was there. I raked the

ashes together a little, just to see a spark of warmth; and then set

forth to find John Fry, Jem Slocombe, and Bill Dadds. But this was

easier thought than done; for when I opened the courtyard door, I

was taken up to my knees at once, and the power of the drifting cloud

prevented sight of anything. However, I found my way to the woodrick,

and there got hold of a fine ash-stake, cut by myself not long ago. With

this I ploughed along pretty well, and thundered so hard at John

Fry's door, that he thought it was the Doones at least, and cocked his

blunderbuss out of the window.

John was very loth to come down, when he saw the meaning of it; for he

valued his life more than anything else; though he tried to make out

that his wife was to blame. But I settled his doubts by telling him,

that I would have him on my shoulder naked, unless he came in five

minutes; not that he could do much good, but because the other men would

be sure to skulk, if he set them the example. With spades, and shovels,

and pitch-forks, and a round of roping, we four set forth to dig out the

sheep; and the poor things knew that it was high time.