With no sign of pity in his face, no quiver of relenting, but a well-pleased grin at all the charming palsy of his victim, Carver Doone lowered, inch by inch, the muzzle of his gun.  When it pointed to the ground, between her delicate arched insteps, he pulled the trigger, and the bullet flung the mould all over her.  It was a refinement of bullying, for which I swore to God that night, upon my knees, in secret, that I would smite down Carver Doone or else he should smite me down.  Base beast! what largest humanity, or what dreams of divinity, could make a man put up with this?

My darling (the loveliest, and most harmless, in the world of maidens), fell away on a bank of grass, and wept at her own cowardice; and trembled, and wondered where I was; and what I would think of this.  Good God!  What could I think of it?  She over-rated my slow nature, to admit the question.

While she leaned there, quite unable yet to save herself, Carver came to the brink of the flood, which alone was between them; and then he stroked his jet-black beard, and waited for Lorna to begin.  Very likely, he thought that she would thank him for his kindness to her.  But she was now recovering the power of her nimble limbs; and ready to be off like hope, and wonder at her own cowardice.

“I have spared you this time,” he said, in his deep calm voice, “only because it suits my plans; and I never yield to temper.  But unless you come back to-morrow, pure, and with all you took away, and teach me to destroy that fool, who has destroyed himself for you, your death is here, your death is here, where it has long been waiting.”

Although his gun was empty, he struck the breech of it with his finger; and then he turned away, not deigning even once to look back again; and Lorna saw his giant figure striding across the meadow-land, as if the Ridds were nobodies, and he the proper owner.  Both mother and I were greatly hurt at hearing of this insolence:  for we had owned that meadow, from the time of the great Alfred; and even when that good king lay in the Isle of Athelney, he had a Ridd along with him.

Now I spoke to Lorna gently, seeing how much she had been tried; and I praised her for her courage, in not having run away, when she was so unable; and my darling was pleased with this, and smiled upon me for saying it; though she knew right well that, in this matter, my judgment was not impartial.  But you may take this as a general rule, that a woman likes praise from the man whom she loves, and cannot stop always to balance it.

Now expecting a sharp attack that night—­when Jeremy Stickles the more expected, after the words of Carver, which seemed to be meant to mislead us—­we prepared a great quantity of knuckles of pork, and a ham in full cut, and a fillet of hung mutton.  For we would almost surrender rather than keep our garrison hungry.  And all our men were exceedingly brave; and counted their rounds of the house in half-pints.