“‘That thou never shalt, sir,’ cried
a voice as loud as a culverin; and Carver Doone had
Alan Brandir as a spider hath a fly. The boy made
a little shriek at first, with the sudden shock and
the terror; then he looked, methought, ashamed of
himself, and set his face to fight for it. Very
bravely he strove and struggled, to free one arm and
grasp his sword; but as well might an infant buried
alive attempt to lift his gravestone. Carver
Doone, with his great arms wrapped around the slim
gay body, smiled (as I saw by the flash from heaven)
at the poor young face turned up to him; then (as
a nurse bears off a child, who is loath to go to bed),
he lifted the youth from his feet, and bore him away
into the darkness.
“I was young then. I am older now; older
by ten years, in thought, although it is not a twelvemonth
since. If that black deed were done again, I
could follow, and could combat it, could throw weak
arms on the murderer, and strive to be murdered also.
I am now at home with violence; and no dark death
surprises me.
“But, being as I was that night, the horror
overcame me. The crash of thunder overhead, the
last despairing look, the death-piece framed with
blaze of lightning—my young heart was so
affrighted that I could not gasp. My breath went
from me, and I knew not where I was, or who, or what.
Only that I lay, and cowered, under great trees full
of thunder; and could neither count, nor moan, nor
have my feet to help me.
“Yet hearkening, as a coward does, through the
brushing of the wind, and echo of far noises, I heard
a sharp sound as of iron, and a fall of heavy wood.
No unmanly shriek came with it, neither cry for mercy.
Carver Doone knows what it was; and so did Alan Brandir.”
Here Lorna Doone could tell no more, being overcome
with weeping. Only through her tears she whispered,
as a thing too bad to tell, that she had seen that
giant Carver, in a few days afterwards, smoking a little
round brown stick, like those of her poor cousin.
I could not press her any more with questions, or
for clearness; although I longed very much to know
whether she had spoken of it to her grandfather or
the Counsellor. But she was now in such condition,
both of mind and body, from the force of her own fear
multiplied by telling it, that I did nothing more
than coax her, at a distance humbly; and so that she
could see that some one was at least afraid of her.
This (although I knew not women in those days, as
now I do, and never shall know much of it), this,
I say, so brought her round, that all her fear was
now for me, and how to get me safely off, without
mischance to any one. And sooth to say, in spite
of longing just to see if Master Carver could have
served me such a trick—as it grew towards
the dusk, I was not best pleased to be there; for
it seemed a lawless place, and some of Lorna’s
fright stayed with me as I talked it away from her.
