een
my Lorna, in the fishing days of boyhood. As I then had a trident fork,
for sticking of the loaches, so I now had a strong ash stake, to lay
across from rock to rock, and break the speed of descending. With this I
moored the sledd quite safe, at the very lip of the chasm, where all was
now substantial ice, green and black in the moonlight; and then I set
off up the valley, skirting along one side of it.

The stack-fire still was burning strongly, but with more of heat than
blaze; and many of the younger Doones were playing on the verge of it,
the children making rings of fire, and their mothers watching them. All
the grave and reverend warriors having heard of rheumatism, were inside
of log and stone, in the two lowest houses, with enough of candles
burning to make our list of sheep come short.

All these I passed, without the smallest risk or difficulty, walking up
the channel of drift which I spoke of once before. And then I crossed,
with more of care, and to the door of Lorna's house, and made the sign,
and listened, after taking my snow-shoes off.

But no one came, as I expected, neither could I espy a light. And I
seemed to hear a faint low sound, like the moaning of the snow-wind.
Then I knocked again more loudly, with a knocking at my heart: and
receiving no answer, set all my power at once against the door. In a
moment it flew inwards, and I glided along the passage with my feet
still slippery. There in Lorna's room I saw, by the moonlight flowing
in, a sight which drove me beyond sense.

[Illustration: 383.jpg Set all my power against the door]

Lorna was behind a chair, crouching in the corner, with her hands up,
and a crucifix, or something that looked like it. In the middle of the
room lay Gwenny Carfax, stupid, yet with one hand clutching the ankle of
a struggling man. Another man stood above my Lorna, trying to draw the
chair away. In a moment I had him round the waist, and he went out of
the window with a mighty crash of glass; luckily for him that window had
no bars like some of them. Then I took the other man by the neck; and he
could not plead for mercy. I bore him out of the house as lightly as I
would bear a baby, yet squeezing his throat a little more than I fain
would do to an infant. By the bright moonlight I saw that I carried
Marwood de Whichehalse. For his father's sake I spared him, and because
he had been my schoolfellow; but with every muscle of my body strung
with indignation, I ca