ther?'

'I cannot tell, mother. How should I know? And what is that to thee?'

'It is something to thy mother, John, and something to thyself, I trow;
and nothing worse could befall thee.'

I waited for her to speak again, because she had spoken so sadly that it
took my breath away.

'John Ridd, if thou hast any value for thy body or thy soul, thy mother,
or thy father's name, have nought to do with any Doone.'

She gazed at me in earnest so, and raised her voice in saying it, until
the whole valley, curving like a great bell echoed 'Doone,' that it
seemed to me my heart was gone for every one and everything. If it were
God's will for me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come out of the
rocks, and I would try to believe it. But no sign came, and I turned to
the woman, and longed that she had been a man.

'You poor thing, with bones and blades, pails of water, and door-keys,
what know you about the destiny of a maiden such as Lorna? Chilblains
you may treat, and bone-shave, ringworm, and the scaldings; even scabby
sheep may limp the better for your strikings. John the Baptist and his
cousins, with the wool and hyssop, are for mares, and ailing dogs, and
fowls that have the jaundice. Look at me now, Mother Melldrum, am I like
a fool?'

'That thou art, my son. Alas that it were any other! Now behold the end
of that; John Ridd, mark the end of it.'

She pointed to the castle-rock, where upon a narrow shelf, betwixt us
and the coming stars, a bitter fight was raging. A fine fat sheep, with
an honest face, had clomb up very carefully to browse on a bit of juicy
grass, now the dew of the land was upon it. To him, from an upper crag,
a lean black goat came hurrying, with leaps, and skirmish of the horns,
and an angry noise in his nostrils. The goat had grazed the place
before, to the utmost of his liking, cropping in and out with jerks, as
their manner is of feeding. Nevertheless he fell on the sheep with fury
and great malice.

The simple wether was much inclined to retire from the contest, but
looked around in vain for any way to peace and comfort. His enemy stood
between him and the last leap he had taken; there was nothing left him
but to fight, or be hurled into the sea, five hundred feet below.

'Lie down, lie down!' I shouted to him, as if he were a dog, for I had
seen a battle like this before, and knew that the sheep had no chance of
life except from his greater weight, and the difficulty of moving him.