w not; all I know is that without weapon, each man killed the other.
And Margery Badcock came, and wept, and hung upon her poor husband; and
died, that summer, of heart-disease.

Now for these and other things (whereof I could tell a thousand) was the
reckoning come that night; and not a line we missed of it; soon as our
bad blood was up. I like not to tell of slaughter, though it might be
of wolves and tigers; and that was a night of fire and slaughter, and
of very long-harboured revenge. Enough that ere the daylight broke
upon that wan March morning, the only Doones still left alive were the
Counsellor and Carver. And of all the dwellings of the Doones (inhabited
with luxury, and luscious taste, and licentiousness) not even one was
left, but all made potash in the river.

This may seem a violent and unholy revenge upon them. And I (who led
the heart of it) have in these my latter years doubted how I shall
be judged, not of men--for God only knows the errors of man's
judgments--but by that great God Himself, the front of whose forehead is
mercy.

CHAPTER LXXII

THE COUNSELLOR AND THE CARVER

[Illustration: 671.jpg Law and Justice]

From that great confusion--for nothing can be broken up, whether lawful
or unlawful, without a vast amount of dust, and many people grumbling,
and mourning for the good old times, when all the world was happiness,
and every man a gentleman, and the sun himself far brighter than since
the brassy idol upon which he shone was broken--from all this loss of
ancient landmarks (as unrobbed men began to call our clearance of those
murderers) we returned on the following day, almost as full of anxiety
as we were of triumph. In the first place, what could we possibly do
with all these women and children, thrown on our hands as one might say,
with none to protect and care for them? Again how should we answer to
the justices of the peace, or perhaps even to Lord Jeffreys, for having,
without even a warrant, taken the law into our own hands, and abated
our nuisance so forcibly? And then, what was to be done with the spoil,
which was of great value; though the diamond necklace came not to public
light? For we saw a mighty host of claimants already leaping up for
booty. Every man who had ever been robbed, expected usury on his loss;
the lords of the manors demanded the whole; and so did the King's
Commissioner of revenue at Porlock; and so did the men who had fought
our battle; while even the