hen their
love has lost this attractive element, this soft dew-fog (if such
it be), the love itself is apt to languish; unless its bloom be well
replaced by the budding hopes of children. Now Master Stickles neither
had, nor wished to have, any children.

Without waiting for any warrant, only saying something about "captus in
flagrante delicto,"--if that be the way to spell it--Stickles sent our
prisoners off, bound and looking miserable, to the jail at Taunton. I
was desirous to let them go free, if they would promise amendment; but
although I had taken them, and surely therefore had every right to let
them go again, Master Stickles said, "Not so." He assured me that it was
a matter of public polity; and of course, not knowing what he meant,
I could not contradict him; but thought that surely my private rights
ought to be respected. For if I throw a man in wrestling, I expect to
get his stakes; and if I take a man prisoner--why, he ought, in common
justice, to belong to me, and I have a good right to let him go, if I
think proper to do so. However, Master Stickles said that I was quite
benighted, and knew nothing of the Constitution; which was the very
thing I knew, beyond any man in our parish!

[Illustration: 440.jpg Annie bound the broken arm]

Nevertheless, it was not for me to contradict a commissioner; and
therefore I let my prisoners go, and wished them a happy deliverance.
Stickles replied, with a merry grin, that if ever they got it, it would
be a jail deliverance, and the bliss of dancing; and he laid his hand to
his throat in a manner which seemed to me most uncourteous. However, his
foresight proved too correct; for both those poor fellows were executed,
soon after the next assizes. Lorna had done her very best to earn
another chance for them; even going down on her knees to that common
Jeremy, and pleading with great tears for them. However, although much
moved by her, he vowed that he durst do nothing else. To set them free
was more than his own life was worth; for all the country knew, by this
time, that two captive Doones were roped to the cider-press at Plover's
Barrows. Annie bound the broken arm of the one whom I had knocked down
with the club, and I myself supported it; and then she washed and
rubbed with lard the face of the other poor fellow, which the torch had
injured; and I fetched back his collar-bone to the best of my ability.
For before any surgeon could arrive, they were off with a well-a