Lorna Doone | Page 7

of us, small boys all, and not conspicuous in the
closing of the daylight and the fog that came at eventide, else Cop
would have rated us up the green, for he was churly to little boys when
his wife had taken their money. There was plenty of room for all of us,

for the gate will hold nine boys close-packed, unless they be fed rankly,
whereof is little danger; and now we were looking out on the road and
wishing we could get there; hoping, moreover, to see a good string of
pack-horses come by, with troopers to protect them. For the day-boys
had brought us word that some intending their way to the town had lain
that morning at Sampford Peveril, and must be in ere nightfall, because
Mr. Faggus was after them. Now Mr. Faggus was my first cousin and
an honour to the family, being a Northmolton man of great renown on
the highway from Barum town even to London. Therefore of course, I
hoped that he would catch the packmen, and the boys were asking my
opinion as of an oracle, about it.
A certain boy leaning up against me would not allow my elbow room,
and struck me very sadly in the stomach part, though his own was full
of my parliament. And this I felt so unkindly, that I smote him
straightway in the face without tarrying to consider it, or weighing the
question duly. Upon this he put his head down, and presented it so
vehemently at the middle of my waistcoat, that for a minute or more
my breath seemed dropped, as it were, from my pockets, and my life
seemed to stop from great want of ease. Before I came to myself again,
it had been settled for us that we should move to the "Ironing-box," as
the triangle of turf is called where the two causeways coming from the
school-porch and the hall-porch meet, and our fights are mainly
celebrated; only we must wait until the convoy of horses had passed,
and then make a ring by candlelight, and the other boys would like it.
But suddenly there came round the post where the letters of our founder
are, not from the way of Taunton but from the side of Lowman bridge,
a very small string of horses, only two indeed (counting for one the
pony), and a red-faced man on the bigger nag.
"Plaise ye, worshipful masters," he said, being feared of the gateway,
"carn 'e tull whur our Jan Ridd be?"
"Hyur a be, ees fai, Jan Ridd," answered a sharp little chap, making
game of John Fry's language.
"Zhow un up, then," says John Fry poking his whip through the bars at
us; "Zhow un up, and putt un aowt."

The other little chaps pointed at me, and some began to hallo; but I
knew what I was about.
"Oh, John, John," I cried, "what's the use of your coming now, and
Peggy over the moors, too, and it so cruel cold for her? The holidays
don't begin till Wednesday fortnight, John. To think of your not
knowing that!"
John Fry leaned forward in the saddle, and turned his eyes away from
me; and then there was a noise in his throat like a snail crawling on a
window-pane.
"Oh, us knaws that wull enough, Maister Jan; reckon every Oare-man
knaw that, without go to skoo-ull, like you doth. Your moother have
kept arl the apples up, and old Betty toorned the black puddens, and
none dare set trap for a blagbird. Arl for thee, lad; every bit of it now
for thee!"
He checked himself suddenly, and frightened me. I knew that John
Fry's way so well.
"And father, and father--oh, how is father?" I pushed the boys right and
left as I said it. "John, is father up in town! He always used to come for
me, and leave nobody else to do it."
"Vayther'll be at the crooked post, tother zide o' telling-house.* Her
coodn't lave 'ouze by raison of the Chirstmas bakkon comin' on, and
zome o' the cider welted."
* The "telling-houses" on the moor are rude cots where the shepherds
meet to "tell" their sheep at the end of the pasturing season.
He looked at the nag's ears as he said it; and, being up to John Fry's
ways, I knew that it was a lie. And my heart fell like a lump of lead,
and I leaned back on the stay of the gate, and longed no more to fight
anybody. A sort of dull power hung over me, like the cloud of a
brooding tempest, and I feared to be told anything. I did not even care
to stroke the nose of my pony Peggy, although she pushed it in