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Lorna Doone: Dugal

His Lorna was discovered to be no true Doone, but the niece of the great Lord Dugal, kidnapped as a child. To London and the protection of her noble uncle she was summoned, her heart as well as her lover's torn by the separation. The thought that he might never again behold his Lorna plunged him into misery. "After all," he asked himself, "who am I but a simple farmer who dares lift his eyes to the niece of an earl?"

But this was no time for repining, for the ill-starred rebellion of Monmouth flamed out, catching John Ridd, innocent though he was, in its toils. But all came to a happy issue when John, summoned to London, frustrated the intended murder of Lord Dugal, captured the attackers, and turned them over for punishment to the terrible Lord Jeffreys. Events moved swiftly: his exploit made London ring, he was knighted by King James and when the Earl of Dugal died soon after, a well-directed bribe secured Jeffrey's permission to let Lorna, his ward in Chancery, wed the redoubtable Sir John Ridd. Back to Exmoor and Plover's Barrows went John Ridd, knight, to lead the farmers of the countryside, who, infuriated by a new outrage committed by the Doones, took the law into their own hands and swept the robber stronghold clean with fire and sword. Only the scheming old "Counselor" and his son, the brutal Carver, escaped a bloody death.

Now at last the great day dawned for John and Lorna, and they made their way to the little country church to be wed, while all the neighboring farmers came to applaud the event. Scarcely were the sacred words pronounced when a shot rang through the church and Lorna, her dark eyes drooping, her wedding-gown stained with blood, sank into her husband's arms. John Ridd never forgot the agony of that moment and yet he seemed strangely calm. Only Carver Doone could have done this dastardly deed, and as John dashed off in hot pursuit he swore that the world was too narrow a place to harbor him and his enemy another day. For Carver on his jaded horse there was no escape. His pistol missed fire, and at last in a narrow defile flanked by a wood and a stretch of bog the two men came to grips. They spoke little and that grim duel was fought with neither knife nor pistol, but body to body as became two giants. John felt a lower rib crack beneath Carver's terrible embrace, but his iron hand ripped the muscles of his assailant's arm from the bone like an orange pulp and he flung him, crushed and bleeding, upon the ground. In an instant the black lips of the bog fastened upon Carver's huge limbs, swiftly, silently, and John Ridd had scarce time to get his own feet upon firm soil before his enemy was sucked down into those grim depths, his face distorted with agony, but his quivering lips uttering no sound. Love's true course does not always run awry and both John and Lorna recovered, he to worship her and she to assure him through the serene years with eyes and lips all eloquent, "I love you, John Ridd."