Lorna Doone: A Romance of Exmoor Page 12

  CHAPTER XI

  TOM DESERVES HIS SUPPER

  'Well done, lad,' Mr. Faggus said good naturedly; for all were nowgathered round me, as I rose from the ground, somewhat tottering, andmiry, and crest-fallen, but otherwise none the worse (having fallenupon my head, which is of uncommon substance); nevertheless John Fry waslaughing, so that I longed to clout his ears for him; 'Not at all badwork, my boy; we may teach you to ride by-and-by, I see; I thought notto see you stick on so long--'

  'I should have stuck on much longer, sir, if her sides had not been wet.She was so slippery--'

  'Boy, thou art right. She hath given many the slip. Ha, ha! Vex not,Jack, that I laugh at thee. She is like a sweetheart to me, and better,than any of them be. It would have gone to my heart if thou hadstconquered. None but I can ride my Winnie mare.'

  'Foul shame to thee then, Tom Faggus,' cried mother, coming up suddenly,and speaking so that all were amazed, having never seen her wrathful;'to put my boy, my boy, across her, as if his life were no more thanthine! The only son of his father, an honest man, and a quiet man, nota roystering drunken robber! A man would have taken thy mad horse andthee, and flung them both into horse-pond--ay, and what's more, I'llhave it done now, if a hair of his head is injured. Oh, my boy, my boy!What could I do without thee? Put up the other arm, Johnny.' All thetime mother was scolding so, she was feeling me, and wiping me; whileFaggus tried to look greatly ashamed, having sense of the ways of women.

  'Only look at his jacket, mother!' cried Annie; 'and a shillingsworthgone from his small-clothes!'

  'What care I for his clothes, thou goose? Take that, and heed thine owna bit.' And mother gave Annie a slap which sent her swinging up againstMr. Faggus, and he caught her, and kissed and protected her, and shelooked at him very nicely, with great tears in her soft blue eyes. 'Oh,fie upon thee, fie upon thee!' cried mother (being yet more vexed withhim, because she had beaten Annie); 'after all we have done for thee,and saved thy worthless neck--and to try to kill my son for me! Nevermore shall horse of thine enter stable here, since these be thy returnsto me. Small thanks to you, John Fry, I say, and you Bill Dadds, and youJem Slocomb, and all the rest of your coward lot; much you care for yourmaster's son! Afraid of that ugly beast yourselves, and you put a boyjust breeched upon him!'

  'Wull, missus, what could us do?' began John; 'Jan wudd goo, now wudd'ther, Jem? And how was us--'

  'Jan indeed! Master John, if you please, to a lad of his years andstature. And now, Tom Faggus, be off, if you please, and think yourselflucky to go so; and if ever that horse comes into our yard, I'llhamstring him myself if none of my cowards dare do it.'

  Everybody looked at mother, to hear her talk like that, knowing howquiet she was day by day and how pleasant to be cheated. And the menbegan to shoulder their shovels, both so as to be away from her, andto go and tell their wives of it. Winnie too was looking at her, beingpointed at so much, and wondering if she had done amiss. And then shecame to me, and trembled, and stooped her head, and asked my pardon, ifshe had been too proud with me.

  'Winnie shall stop here to-night,' said I, for Tom Faggus still saidnever a word all the while; but began to buckle his things on, for heknew that women are to be met with wool, as the cannon-balls were at thesiege of Tiverton Castle; 'mother, I tell you, Winnie shall stop; elseI will go away with her, I never knew what it was, till now, to ride ahorse worth riding.'

  'Young man,' said Tom Faggus, still preparing sternly to depart, 'youknow more about a horse than any man on Exmoor. Your mother may well beproud of you, but she need have had no fear. As if I, Tom Faggus, yourfather's cousin--and the only thing I am proud of--would ever have letyou mount my mare, which dukes and princes have vainly sought, exceptfor the courage in your eyes, and the look of your father about you. Iknew you could ride when I saw you, and rarely you have conquered. Butwomen don't understand us. Good-bye, John; I am proud of you, and Ihoped to have done you pleasure. And indeed I came full of some courtlytales, that would have made your hair stand up. But though not a crusthave I tasted since this time yesterday, having given my meat to awidow, I will go and starve on the moor far sooner than eat the bestsupper that ever was cooked, in a place that has forgotten me.' Withthat he fetched a heavy sigh, as if it had been for my father; andfeebly got upon Winnie's back, and she came to say farewell to me. Helifted his hat to my mother, with a glance of sorrow, but never a word;and to me he said, 'Open the gate, Cousin John, if you please. You havebeaten her so, that she cannot leap it, poor thing.'

  But before he was truly gone out of our yard, my mother came softlyafter him, with her afternoon apron across her eyes, and one hand readyto offer him. Nevertheless, he made as if he had not seen her, though helet his horse go slowly.

  'Stop, Cousin Tom,' my mother said, 'a word with you, before you go.'

  'Why, bless my heart!' Tom Faggus cried, with the form of hiscountenance so changed, that I verily thought another man must haveleaped into his clothes--'do I see my Cousin Sarah? I thought every onewas ashamed of me, and afraid to offer me shelter, since I lost my bestcousin, John Ridd. 'Come here,' he used to say, 'Tom, come here, whenyou are worried, and my wife shall take good care of you.' 'Yes, dearJohn,' I used to answer, 'I know she promised my mother so; but peoplehave taken to think against me, and so might Cousin Sarah.' Ah, he was aman, a man! If you only heard how he answered me. But let that go, I amnothing now, since the day I lost Cousin Ridd.' And with that he beganto push on again; but mother would not have it so.

  'Oh, Tom, that was a loss indeed. And I am nothing either. And youshould try to allow for me; though I never found any one that did.' Andmother began to cry, though father had been dead so long; and I lookedon with a stupid surprise, having stopped from crying long ago.

  'I can tell you one that will,' cried Tom, jumping off Winnie, in atrice, and looking kindly at mother; 'I can allow for you, Cousin Sarah,in everything but one. I am in some ways a bad man myself; but I knowthe value of a good one; and if you gave me orders, by God--' And heshook his fists towards Bagworthy Wood, just heaving up black in thesundown.

  'Hush, Tom, hush, for God's sake!' And mother meant me, without pointingat me; at least I thought she did. For she ever had weaned me fromthoughts of revenge, and even from longings for judgment. 'God knowsbest, boy,' she used to say, 'let us wait His time, without wishingit.' And so, to tell the truth, I did; partly through her teaching, andpartly through my own mild temper, and my knowledge that father, afterall, was killed because he had thrashed them.

  'Good-night, Cousin Sarah, good-night, Cousin Jack,' cried Tom, takingto the mare again; 'many a mile I have to ride, and not a bit inside ofme. No food or shelter this side of Exeford, and the night will be blackas pitch, I trow. But it serves me right for indulging the lad, beingtaken with his looks so.'

  'Cousin Tom,' said mother, and trying to get so that Annie and I couldnot hear her; 'it would be a sad and unkinlike thing for you to despiseour dwelling-house. We cannot entertain you, as the lordly inns on theroad do; and we have small change of victuals. But the men will go home,being Saturday; and so you will have the fireside all to yourself andthe children. There are some few collops of red deer's flesh, and a hamjust down from the chimney, and some dried salmon from Lynmouth weir,and cold roast-pig, and some oysters. And if none of those be to yourliking, we could roast two woodcocks in half an hour, and Annie wouldmake the toast for them. And the good folk made some mistake last week,going up the country, and left a keg of old Holland cordial in thecoving of the wood-rick, having borrowed our Smiler, without askingleave. I fear there is something unrighteous about it. But what can apoor widow do? John Fry would have taken it, but for our Jack. Our Jackwas a little too sharp for him.'

  Ay, that I was; John Fry had got it, like a billet under his apron,going away in the gray of the morning, as if to kindle his fireplace.'Why, John,' I said, 'what a heavy log! Let me have one end of it.''Thank'e, Jan, no need of thiccy,' he answered, turning his back tome; 'waife wanteth a log as will last all day
, to kape the crock azimmerin.' And he banged his gate upon my heels to make me stop and rubthem. 'Why, John,' said I, 'you'm got a log with round holes in the endof it. Who has been cutting gun-wads? Just lift your apron, or I will.'

  But, to return to Tom Faggus--he stopped to sup that night with us, andtook a little of everything; a few oysters first, and then dried salmon,and then ham and eggs, done in small curled rashers, and then a fewcollops of venison toasted, and next to that a little cold roast-pig,and a woodcock on toast to finish with, before the Scheidam and hotwater. And having changed his wet things first, he seemed to be in fairappetite, and praised Annie's cooking mightily, with a kind of noiselike a smack of his lips, and a rubbing of his hands together, wheneverhe could spare them.

  He had gotten John Fry's best small-clothes on, for he said he was notgood enough to go into my father's (which mother kept to look at), norman enough to fill them. And in truth my mother was very glad that herefused, when I offered them. But John was over-proud to have it in hispower to say that such a famous man had ever dwelt in any clothes ofhis; and afterwards he made show of them. For Mr. Faggus's glory, then,though not so great as now it is, was spreading very fast indeed allabout our neighbourhood, and even as far as Bridgewater.

  Tom Faggus was a jovial soul, if ever there has been one, not makingbones of little things, nor caring to seek evil. There was about himsuch a love of genuine human nature, that if a traveller said a goodthing, he would give him back his purse again. It is true that he tookpeople's money more by force than fraud; and the law (being used to theinverse method) was bitterly moved against him, although he could quoteprecedent. These things I do not understand; having seen so much ofrobbery (some legal, some illegal), that I scarcely know, as here wesay, one crow's foot from the other. It is beyond me and above me, todiscuss these subjects; and in truth I love the law right well, when itdoth support me, and when I can lay it down to my liking, with prejudiceto nobody. Loyal, too, to the King am I, as behoves churchwarden; andready to make the best of him, as he generally requires. But afterall, I could not see (until I grew much older, and came to have someproperty) why Tom Faggus, working hard, was called a robber and felon ofgreat; while the King, doing nothing at all (as became his dignity), wasliege-lord, and paramount owner; with everybody to thank him kindly foraccepting tribute.

  For the present, however, I learned nothing more as to what our cousin'sprofession was; only that mother seemed frightened, and whispered tohim now and then not to talk of something, because of the children beingthere; whereupon he always nodded with a sage expression, and appliedhimself to hollands.

  'Now let us go and see Winnie, Jack,' he said to me after supper; 'forthe most part I feed her before myself; but she was so hot from theway you drove her. Now she must be grieving for me, and I never let hergrieve long.'

  I was too glad to go with him, and Annie came slyly after us. The fillywas walking to and fro on the naked floor of the stable (for he wouldnot let her have any straw, until he should make a bed for her), andwithout so much as a headstall on, for he would not have her fastened.'Do you take my mare for a dog?' he had said when John Fry brought him ahalter. And now she ran to him like a child, and her great eyes shone atthe lanthorn.

  'Hit me, Jack, and see what she will do. I will not let her hurt thee.'He was rubbing her ears all the time he spoke, and she was leaningagainst him. Then I made believe to strike him, and in a moment shecaught me by the waistband, and lifted me clean from the ground, and wascasting me down to trample upon me, when he stopped her suddenly.

  'What think you of that, boy? Have you horse or dog that would do thatfor you? Ay, and more than that she will do. If I were to whistle,by-and-by, in the tone that tells my danger, she would break thisstable-door down, and rush into the room to me. Nothing will keep herfrom me then, stone-wall or church-tower. Ah, Winnie, Winnie, you littlewitch, we shall die together.'

  Then he turned away with a joke, and began to feed her nicely, for shewas very dainty. Not a husk of oat would she touch that had been underthe breath of another horse, however hungry she might be. And with heroats he mixed some powder, fetching it from his saddle-bags. What thiswas I could not guess, neither would he tell me, but laughed and calledit 'star-shavings.' He watched her eat every morsel of it, with two orthree drinks of pure water, ministered between whiles; and then he madeher bed in a form I had never seen before, and so we said 'Good-night'to her.

  Afterwards by the fireside he kept us very merry, sitting in the greatchimney-corner, and making us play games with him. And all the while hewas smoking tobacco in a manner I never had seen before, not using anypipe for it, but having it rolled in little sticks about as long as myfinger, blunt at one end and sharp at the other. The sharp end he wouldput in his mouth, and lay a brand of wood to the other, and then drawa white cloud of curling smoke, and we never tired of watching him. Iwanted him to let me do it, but he said, 'No, my son it is not meantfor boys.' Then Annie put up her lips and asked, with both hands on hisknees (for she had taken to him wonderfully), 'Is it meant for girlsthen cousin Tom?' But she had better not have asked, for he gave it herto try, and she shut both eyes, and sucked at it. One breath, however,was quite enough, for it made her cough so violently that Lizzie andI must thump her back until she was almost crying. To atone for that,cousin Tom set to, and told us whole pages of stories, not about his owndoings at all, but strangely enough they seemed to concern almost everyone else we had ever heard of. Without halting once for a word or adeed, his tales flowed onward as freely and brightly as the flames ofthe wood up the chimney, and with no smaller variety. For he spoke withthe voices of twenty people, giving each person the proper manner, andthe proper place to speak from; so that Annie and Lizzie ran all about,and searched the clock and the linen-press. And he changed his faceevery moment so, and with such power of mimicry that without so much asa smile of his own, he made even mother laugh so that she broke her newtenpenny waistband; and as for us children, we rolled on the floor, andBetty Muxworthy roared in the wash-up.