de me feel rather sad. For it seemed to me that there was too great
a difference between John Ridd, the yeoman farmer, and Lady Lorna, the
heiress of the Earl of Lome. Besides, she was now a ward of chancery,
under the care of the great Lord Jeffreys, and I much doubted if he
would consent to our marriage, even if she still remembered me amid the
courtly splendour in which she moved. Judge then of my joy when Lorna
returned in the spring to our farm, as glad as a bird to get back to its
nest.

"Oh, I love it all," she said. "The scent of the gorse on the moors
drove me wild, and the primroses under the hedges. I am sure I was meant
to be a farmer's wife."

This, with a tender, playful look at me. Then she told the good news.
Lord Jeffreys had, for a certain round sum, given his ward permission to
marry me. There was a great to-do throughout the country about our
wedding on Whit-Monday. People came from more than thirty miles around,
upon excuse of seeing Lorna's beauty and my stature; but in good truth
out of curiosity and a love of meddling.

It is impossible for any, who have not loved as I have, to conceive my
joy and pride when, after the ring and all was done, and the parson had
blessed us, she turned and gazed on me. Her eyes were so full of faith
and devotion that I was amazed, thoroughly as I knew them. But when I
stooped to kiss her, as the bridegroom is allowed to do, a shot rang
through the church. My darling fell across my knees, and her blood
flowed out on the altarsteps. She sighed a long sigh to my breast, and
grew cold. I laid her in my mother's arms, and went forth for my
revenge.

The men fell back before me. Who showed me the course, I cannot tell. I
only know that I leaped upon a horse and took it. Weapon of no sort had
I. Unarmed, and wondering at my strange attire, I rode out to discover
this: whether in this world there be or be not a God of justice. Putting
my horse at a furious speed, I came upon Black Burrow Down, and there, a
furlong before me, rode a man on a great black horse. I knew that man
was Carver Doone, bearing his child, little Ensie, before him. I knew he
was strong. I knew he was armed with gun, pistol, and sword.
Nevertheless, I had no more doubt of killing him than a cook has of
spitting a headless fowl.

I came up with him at Wizard's Slough. A bullet struck me somewhere, but
I took no heed of that. With an oak stick I felled his horse. Carver
Doone lay on the ground, stun