“Oh, John,” she said, “Carver Doone is trying to force me to marry him.  Where have you been?  Tis two months since I gave the signal.”

Thereupon I told her of my travels to London, and when she learnt that my seeming negligence of her was nothing but my wretched absence far away, the tears fell from her eyes, and she came and sat so close beside me that I trembled like a folded sheep at the bleating of her lamb.

“Dearest darling of my life!” I whispered through her clouds of hair, “I love you more than heart can hold in silence!  I have waited long and long, and, though I am so far below you, I can wait no longer!”

“You have been very faithful, John,” she murmured to the fern and moss.  “You are the bravest and the kindest and the simplest of all men, and I like you very much.”

“That will not do for me!” I said.  “I will not have liking!  I must have your heart of hearts, even as you have mine, Lorna!”

She glanced up shyly through her fluttering lashes.  Then she opened wide upon me all the glorious depth and softness of her eyes, and flung both arms around my neck.

“Darling,” she cried, “you have won it all!  I shall never be my own again.  I am yours for ever and ever!”

I am sure I know not what I did or said thereafter, being overcome with transport by her words and her eyes.

“Hush!” said Lorna suddenly, drawing me away from the entrance to her bower.  “Here is Carver Doone!”

A great man was coming leisurely down the valley, and the light was still good enough for me to descry his features through the ivy screen.  Though I am not a good judge of men’s faces, there was something in his which gave me a feeling of horror.  Not that it was an ugly face; nay, rather; it seemed a handsome one, full of strength and vigour and resolution; but there was a cruel hankering in his steel-blue eyes.  Yet, he did not daunt me.  Here, I saw, was a man of strength yet for me to encounter, such as I had never met, but would be glad to meet, having found no man of late who needed not my mercy at wrestling or singlestick.  My heart was hot against him.  And, though he carried a carbine, I would have been at him, maybe ere he could use it, but for the presence of Lorna.  So I crouched down until Carver Doone departed, and then, because she feared for my safety, I returned home.

III.—­Love Amid the Snows

I found the king’s messenger waiting again for me.  He was a small, but keen-witted man called Jeremy Stickler, and I liked his company.  He now came upon a graver business than conducting me to London.  He held a royal commission to raise the train-bands of Somerset and Devon, and he brought a few troops with him, and made our farm his headquarters.  He had been sent in hot haste by Chief Justice Jeffreys to destroy the Doones who were likely now to pay dearly for robbing my Uncle Ben.  I was not, however, as pleased with the arrival of Jeremy Stickler as he expected, for I bethought myself how Lorna would fare in the wild fighting.