Status Updates From Lorna Doone

For that, she gave me the simplest, kindest, and sweetest of all kisses; and I went down the grand stairs grandly, thinking of nothing else but that.

I wrung the hand of Jeremy Stickles, for his truth and goodness; and he almost wept (for since his wound, he had been a weakened man) as he answered, 'Turn for turn, John. You saved my life from the Doones; and by the mercy of God, I have saved you from a far worse company. Let your sister Annie know it.'

He turned away in bitter pain, that none might see his trouble, and Annie, going along with him, looked as if I had killed our mother. For my part, I was so upset, for fear of having gone too far, that without a word to either of them, but a message on the title-page of King James's Prayer-book, I saddled Kickums and was off, and glad of the moorland air again.

(...) Being in the leg-line myself, I wanted to know what the muscles of a man were like who turned a wheel all day. I had never seen a treadmill (though they have one now at Exeter), and it touched me much to learn whether it was good exercise. And herein, from what I saw of Odam, I incline to think that it does great harm, as moving the muscles too much in a line, and without variety.

For such, I tried to persuade myself, was the nature of Ruth's regard for me: and upon looking back, I could not charge myself with any misconduct towards the little maiden. I had never sought her company, I had never trifled with her (at least until that very day), and being so engrossed with my own love, I had scarcely even thought of her. (...)

Having made this very long speech (for her), mother came home upon my shoulder, and wept so that (but for heeding her) I would have taken Tom by the nose, and thrown him, and Winnie after him, over our farmyard gate. For I am violent when roused, and freely hereby acknowledge it, though even my enemies will own that it takes a great deal to rouse me. (...)

With this, I folded her in my arms, and she looked frightened at me, not having perceived her danger. Then I told Gwenny again what I had told her mistress, but she only nodded and said, 'Young man, go and teach thy grandmother.'

Upon that, he shook me by the hand, with a pressure such as we feel not often; and having learned from me how to pass quite beyond the view of his enemies, he rode on to his duty, whatever it might be. (...)

Rudely rolling these ideas in my heavy head and brain, I resolved to let the morrow put them into form and order, but not contradict them. And then, as my constitution willed (being like that of England), I slept; and there was no stopping me.

Then Annie came sailing down the dance, with her beautiful hair flowing round her; the lightest figure in all the room, and the sweetest, and the loveliest. She was blushing, with her fair cheeks red beneath her dear blue eyes, as she met my glance of surprise and grief at the partner she was leaning on. It was Squire Marwood de Whichehalse. (...)

For I was ready to kiss his hand, to think that any man in London (the meanest and most suspicious place, upon all God's earth) should trust me with five pounds, without even a receipt for it! It overcame me so that I sobbed; for, after all, though big in body, I am but a child at heart. It was not the five pounds that moved me, but the way of giving it; (...)

(...) But though I lay hidden behind the trees upon the crest of the stony fall, and waited so quiet that the rabbits and squirrels played around me, and even the keen-eyed weasel took me for a trunk of wood - it was all as one; no cast of colour changed the white stone, whose whiteness now was hateful to me; nor did wreath or skirt of maiden break the loneliness of the vale.

Nay, pardon me, whosoever thou art, for seeming fickle and rude to thee; I have tried to do as first proposed, to tell the tale in my own words, as of another's fortune. But, lo! I was beset at once with many heavy obstacles, which grew as I went onward, until I knew not where I was, and mingled past and present. And two of these difficulties only were enough to stop me; (...)

Here he sat down, with a glisten in his eyes, and called for a little mulled bastard. All the maids, who had now come back, raced to get it for him, but Annie, of course, was foremost. And herein ended the expedition, a perilous and a great one, against the Doones of Bagworthy; an enterprise over which we had all talked plainly more than was good for us. (...)

(...) And he changed his face every moment so, and with such power of mimicry, that without so much as a smile of his own, he made even mother laugh so that she broke her new tenpenny waistband; and as for us children, we rolled on the floor, and Betty Muxworthy roared in the wash-up.

Annie was her love and joy. For Annie, she would do anything, even so far as to try to smile, when the little maid laughed and danced to her. And in truth, I know not how it was, but everyone was taken with Annie at the first time of seeing her. She had such pretty ways and manners, and such a look of kindness, and a sweet, soft light in her long, blue eyes, full of trustful gladness.