“I may look at it in fifty ways, and yet no good will come of it.  Jeremy, I confess to you, that I tried to make the best of it; partly to baffle the Counsellor, and partly because my darling needed my help, and bore it so, and behaved to me so nobly.  But to you in secret, I am not ashamed to say that a woman may look over this easier than a man may.”

“Because her nature is larger, my son, when she truly loves; although her mind be smaller.  Now, if I can ease you from this secret burden, will you bear, with strength and courage, the other which I plant on you?”

“I will do my best,” said I.

“No man can do more,” said he and so began his story.

CHAPTER LIII

JEREMY FINDS OUT SOMETHING

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“You know, my son,” said Jeremy Stickles, with a good pull at his pipe, because he was going to talk so much, and putting his legs well along the settle; “it has been my duty, for a wearier time than I care to think of (and which would have been unbearable, except for your great kindness), to search this neighbourhood narrowly, and learn everything about everybody.  Now the neighbourhood itself is queer; and people have different ways of thinking from what we are used to in London.  For instance now, among your folk, when any piece of news is told, or any man’s conduct spoken of, the very first question that arises in your mind is this—­’Was this action kind and good?’ Long after that, you say to yourselves, ‘does the law enjoin or forbid this thing?’ Now here is your fundamental error:  for among all truly civilised people the foremost of all questions is, ‘how stands the law herein?’ And if the law approve, no need for any further questioning.  That this is so, you may take my word:  for I know the law pretty thoroughly.

“Very well; I need not say any more about that, for I have shown that you are all quite wrong.  I only speak of this savage tendency, because it explains so many things which have puzzled me among you, and most of all your kindness to men whom you never saw before; which is an utterly illegal thing.  It also explains your toleration of these outlaw Doones so long.  If your views of law had been correct, and law an element of your lives, these robbers could never have been indulged for so many years amongst you:  but you must have abated the nuisance.”

“Now, Stickles,” I cried, “this is too bad!” he was delivering himself so grandly.  “Why you yourself have been amongst us, as the balance, and sceptre, and sword of law, for nigh upon a twelvemonth; and have you abated the nuisance, or even cared to do it, until they began to shoot at you?”

“My son,” he replied, “your argument is quite beside the purpose, and only tends to prove more clearly that which I have said of you.  However, if you wish to hear my story, no more interruptions.  I may not have a chance to tell you, perhaps for weeks, or I know not when, if once those yellows and reds arrive, and be blessed to them, the lubbers!  Well, it may be six months ago, or it may be seven, at any rate a good while before that cursed frost began, the mere name of which sends a shiver down every bone of my body, when I was riding one afternoon from Dulverton to Watchett”—­