are not in the habit of deserting anything that
belongs to us; far less our sacred relatives. The insolence of your
demand well-nigh outdoes the ingratitude. If there be a man upon Exmoor
who has grossly ill-used us, kidnapped our young women, and slain half
a dozen of our young men, you are that outrageous rogue, Sir John. And
after all this, how have we behaved? We have laid no hand upon your
farm, we have not carried off your women, we have even allowed you to
take our Queen, by creeping and crawling treachery; and we have given
you leave of absence to help your cousin the highwayman, and to come
home with a title. And now, how do you requite us? By inflaming the
boorish indignation at a little frolic of our young men; and by
coming with insolent demands, to yield to which would ruin us. Ah, you
ungrateful viper!'

As he turned away in sorrow from me, shaking his head at my badness, I
became so overcome (never having been quite assured, even by people's
praises, about my own goodness); moreover, the light which he threw upon
things differed so greatly from my own, that, in a word--not to be too
long--I feared that I was a villain. And with many bitter pangs--for
I have bad things to repent of--I began at my leisure to ask myself
whether or not this bill of indictment against John Ridd was true. Some
of it I knew to be (however much I condemned myself) altogether out of
reason; for instance, about my going away with Lorna very quietly, over
the snow, and to save my love from being starved away from me. In this
there was no creeping neither crawling treachery; for all was done with
sliding; and yet I was so out of training for being charged by other
people beyond mine own conscience, that Carver Doone's harsh words came
on me, like prickly spinach sown with raking. Therefore I replied, and
said,--

'It is true that I owe you gratitude, sir, for a certain time of
forbearance; and it is to prove my gratitude that I am come here now. I
do not think that my evil deeds can be set against your own; although I
cannot speak flowingly upon my good deeds as you can. I took your Queen
because you starved her, having stolen her long before, and killed her
mother and brother. This is not for me to dwell upon now; any more than
I would say much about your murdering of my father. But how the balance
hangs between us, God knows better than thou or I, thou low miscreant,
Carver Doone.'

I had worked myself up, as I always do, in th