em, he set his staff above his
head, and rode at the Doone robber. With a trick of his horse, the wild
man escaped the sudden onset, although it must have amazed him sadly
that any durst resist him. Then when Smiler was carried away with the
dash and the weight of my father (not being brought up to battle, nor
used to turn, save in plough harness), the outlaw whistled upon his
thumb, and plundered the rest of the yeoman. But father, drawing at
Smiler's head, to try to come back and help them, was in the midst of
a dozen men, who seemed to come out of a turf-rick, some on horse, and
some a-foot. Nevertheless, he smote lustily, so far as he could see;
and being of great size and strength, and his blood well up, they had no
easy job with him. With the play of his wrist, he cracked three or four
crowns, being always famous at single-stick; until the rest drew their
horses away, and he thought that he was master, and would tell his wife
about it.

But a man beyond the range of staff was crouching by the peat-stack,
with a long gun set to his shoulder, and he got poor father against the
sky, and I cannot tell the rest of it. Only they knew that Smiler came
home, with blood upon his withers, and father was found in the morning
dead on the moor, with his ivy-twisted cudgel lying broken under him.
Now, whether this were an honest fight, God judge betwixt the Doones and
me.

It was more of woe than wonder, being such days of violence, that mother
knew herself a widow, and her children fatherless. Of children there
were only three, none of us fit to be useful yet, only to comfort
mother, by making her to work for us. I, John Ridd, was the eldest,
and felt it a heavy thing on me; next came sister Annie, with about two
years between us; and then the little Eliza.

Now, before I got home and found my sad loss--and no boy ever loved his
father more than I loved mine--mother had done a most wondrous thing,
which made all the neighbours say that she must be mad, at least. Upon
the Monday morning, while her husband lay unburied, she cast a white
hood over her hair, and gathered a black cloak round her, and, taking
counsel of no one, set off on foot for the Doone-gate.

In the early afternoon she came to the hollow and barren entrance, where
in truth there was no gate, only darkness to go through. If I get on
with this story, I shall have to tell of it by-and-by, as I saw it
afterwards; and will not dwell there now. Enough that no gun