d all over her. It was a refinement of
bullying, for which I swore to God that night, upon my knees, in secret,
that I would smite down Carver Doone or else he should smite me down.
Base beast! what largest humanity, or what dreams of divinity, could
make a man put up with this?

My darling (the loveliest, and most harmless, in the world of maidens),
fell away on a bank of grass, and wept at her own cowardice; and
trembled, and wondered where I was; and what I would think of this. Good
God! What could I think of it? She over-rated my slow nature, to admit
the question.

While she leaned there, quite unable yet to save herself, Carver came
to the brink of the flood, which alone was between them; and then he
stroked his jet-black beard, and waited for Lorna to begin. Very likely,
he thought that she would thank him for his kindness to her. But she was
now recovering the power of her nimble limbs; and ready to be off like
hope, and wonder at her own cowardice.

'I have spared you this time,' he said, in his deep calm voice, 'only
because it suits my plans; and I never yield to temper. But unless you
come back to-morrow, pure, and with all you took away, and teach me
to destroy that fool, who has destroyed himself for you, your death is
here, your death is here, where it has long been waiting.'

Although his gun was empty, he struck the breech of it with his finger;
and then he turned away, not deigning even once to look back again; and
Lorna saw his giant figure striding across the meadow-land, as if the
Ridds were nobodies, and he the proper owner. Both mother and I were
greatly hurt at hearing of this insolence: for we had owned that meadow,
from the time of the great Alfred; and even when that good king lay in
the Isle of Athelney, he had a Ridd along with him.

Now I spoke to Lorna gently, seeing how much she had been tried; and
I praised her for her courage, in not having run away, when she was so
unable; and my darling was pleased with this, and smiled upon me for
saying it; though she knew right well that, in this matter, my judgment
was not impartial. But you may take this as a general rule, that a woman
likes praise from the man whom she loves, and cannot stop always to
balance it.

Now expecting a sharp attack that night--when Jeremy Stickles the more
expected, after the words of Carver, which seemed to be meant to mislead
us--we prepared a great quantity of knuckles of pork, and a ham in full
cut, and a f