But I was not attending to him, being drawn away on
a sudden by a sight which never struck the sharp eyes
of our General. For I had long ago descried that
little opening in the cliff through which I made my
exit, as before related, on the other side of the
valley. No bigger than a rabbit-hole it seemed
from where we stood; and yet of all the scene before
me, that (from my remembrance perhaps) had the most
attraction. Now gazing at it with full thought
of all that it had cost me, I saw a little figure
come, and pause, and pass into it. Something very
light and white, nimble, smooth, and elegant, gone
almost before I knew that any one had been there.
And yet my heart came to my ribs, and all my blood
was in my face, and pride within me fought with shame,
and vanity with self-contempt; for though seven years
were gone, and I from my boyhood come to manhood,
and all must have forgotten me, and I had half-forgotten;
at that moment, once for all, I felt that I was face
to face with fate (however poor it might be), weal
or woe, in Lorna Doone.
[Illustration: 127.jpg Tailpiece]
CHAPTER XVI
LORNA GROWING FORMIDABLE
[Illustration: 128.jpg Illustrated Capital]
Having reconnoitred thus the position of the enemy,
Master Huckaback, on the homeward road, cross-examined
me in a manner not at all desirable. For he had
noted my confusion and eager gaze at something unseen
by him in the valley, and thereupon he made up his
mind to know everything about it. In this, however,
he partly failed; for although I was no hand at fence,
and would not tell him a falsehood, I managed so to
hold my peace that he put himself upon the wrong track,
and continued thereon with many vaunts of his shrewdness
and experience, and some chuckles at my simplicity.
Thus much however, he learned aright, that I had been
in the Doone valley several years before, and might
be brought upon strong inducement to venture there
again. But as to the mode of my getting in, the
things I saw, and my thoughts upon them, he not only
failed to learn the truth, but certified himself into
an obstinacy of error, from which no after-knowledge
was able to deliver him. And this he did, not
only because I happened to say very little, but forasmuch
as he disbelieved half of the truth I told him, through
his own too great sagacity.
Upon one point, however, he succeeded more easily
than he expected, viz. in making me promise to
visit the place again, as soon as occasion offered,
and to hold my own counsel about it. But I could
not help smiling at one thing, that according to his
point of view my own counsel meant my own and Master
Reuben Huckaback’s.
