had been obeyed
and feared by all around him; and he knew that I had feared him vastly,
before I got hold of Lorna. And indeed I was still afraid of him; only
for loving Lorna so, and having to protect her.

Then I made him a bow, to the very best of all I had learned both at
Tiverton and in London; after that I waited for him to begin, as became
his age and rank in life.

"Ye two fools!" he said at last, with a depth of contempt which no words
may express; "ye two fools!"

"May it please your worship," I answered softly; "maybe we are not such
fools as we look. But though we be, we are well content, so long as we
may be two fools together."

"Why, John," said the old man, with a spark, as of smiling in his eyes;
"thou art not altogether the clumsy yokel, and the clod, I took thee
for."

"Oh, no, grandfather; oh, dear grandfather," cried Lorna, with such zeal
and flashing, that her hands went forward; "nobody knows what John Ridd
is, because he is so modest. I mean, nobody except me, dear." And here
she turned to me again, and rose upon tiptoe, and kissed me.

"I have seen a little o' the world," said the old man, while I was half
ashamed, although so proud of Lorna; "but this is beyond all I have
seen, and nearly all I have heard of. It is more fit for southern
climates than for the fogs of Exmoor."

"It is fit for all the world, your worship; with your honour's good
leave, and will," I answered in humility, being still ashamed of it;
"when it happens so to people, there is nothing that can stop it, sir."

Now Sir Ensor Doone was leaning back upon his brown chair-rail, which
was built like a triangle, as in old farmhouses (from one of which it
had come, no doubt, free from expense or gratitude); and as I spoke he
coughed a little; and he sighed a good deal more; and perhaps his dying
heart desired to open time again, with such a lift of warmth and hope as
he descried in our eyes, and arms. I could not understand him then; any
more than a baby playing with his grandfather's spectacles; nevertheless
I wondered whether, at his time of life, or rather on the brink of
death, he was thinking of his youth and pride.

"Fools you are; be fools for ever," said Sir Ensor Doone, at last; while
we feared to break his thoughts, but let each other know our own, with
little ways of pressure; "it is the best thing I can wish you; boy and
girl, be boy and girl, until you have grandchildren."

Partly in bitterness he spoke,