en air and terror, that all my heart lies low and quivers, like a
weed in water. I listened now for the distant rolling of the great black
storm, and heard it, and was hurried by it. But the youth before me
waved his rolled tobacco at it, and drawled in his daintiest tone and
manner,--

"'The sky is having a smoke, I see, and dropping sparks, and grumbling.
I should have thought these Exmoor hills too small to gather thunder.'

"'I cannot go, I will not go with you, Lord Alan Brandir,' I answered,
being vexed a little by those words of his. 'You are not grave enough
for me, you are not old enough for me. My Aunt Sabina would not
have wished it; nor would I leave my grandfather, without his full
permission. I thank you much for coming, sir; but be gone at once by the
way you came; and pray how did you come, sir?'

"'Fair cousin, you will grieve for this; you will mourn, when you cannot
mend it. I would my mother had been here, soon would she have persuaded
you. And yet,' he added, with the smile of his accustomed gaiety, 'it
would have been an unco thing, as we say in Scotland, for her ladyship
to have waited upon you, as her graceless son has done, and hopes to do
again ere long. Down the cliffs I came, and up them I must make way back
again. Now adieu, fair Cousin Lorna, I see you are in haste tonight;
but I am right proud of my guardianship. Give me just one flower for
token'--here he kissed his hand to me, and I threw him a truss of
woodbine--'adieu, fair cousin, trust me well, I will soon be here
again.'

"'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