Lorna Doone

The Counsellor sleeps in the spare bedroom. John wonders if the Counsellor’s goodwill is real and considers that he may have been pretending to be more drunk than he was. Lorna later informs John that, in the night, she thought she heard someone rifling through her drawers, but when she sat up and listened, the noise stopped. In the morning, the Counsellor tells Annie that there is a magic charm to make the clotted cream triple in size, but that it needs a string of glass. She says that Lorna has a necklace which would work. He tricks her into taking the necklace in secret, placing it under a cup for 24 hours, praying for three hours immediately thereafter, and not telling anyone. He steals the necklace and leaves.

John is angry that Lorna has been robbed by the charming Counsellor, but he considers that the theft might be for the best, as no one could call him a fortune-hunter, and the Doones may let her marry him without protest now that they have the necklace. Annie is distraught, but Lorna is more concerned about everyone’s feelings than her own loss.

Stickles returns and suggests that John is more upset by the accusation of reciprocal paternal murder than the theft of the diamonds. John admits that he tried to be more accepting of it than he felt for Lorna’s sake and thinks that he is more upset by the prospect of Lorna’s father killing his than Lorna would be by the prospect of John’s father killing hers. Stickles says this is because women’s “natures” are larger when they truly love, though they have smaller minds. (368)

Stickles tells John the story of his recent visit to Watchett, where he met an Italian woman named Benita. She told him how she came to be in such a place. She had met an aristocratic family vacationing in Europe. Benita took employment with them, agreeing to be their maid. They traveled for a time, but then the father died. The remaining family, with Benita in tow, returned to England. On their way home, robbers attacked their carriage. The mother recognized the man leading the robbery as an “ancient enemy” of the family. Benita placed a diamond necklace around the neck of the young girl to hide it from the highwaymen, but she was knocked unconscious. When she awoke, the daughter was missing, the son was dead, and the mother was insensible with grief. They continued the journey, but the mother died in childbirth before arriving at home. When Stickles ends his tale, John expresses curiosity about the missing girl. Stickles calls John a fool for not realizing that the girl must surely be Lorna Doone.

John admits that he likes for people to believe him to be less intelligent than he is. As he considers the story, he concludes that the girl was Lorna. Further, he believes that the young girl in the heavy carriage he had seen with the beautiful foreign servant was also Lorna, as was the child thrown over the Doone’s saddle he had seen in his youth. He considers that fate had given them each the worst days of their lives on the very same day. He also realizes that Lorna is proving to be of greater wealth and birth than even he had originally thought and is hesitant to investigate her mother’s name and prove it. He worries that others will prevent their marriage or that he will think it is necessary to give her up because of her parentage.

Stickles insists that John not tell Lorna or anyone else of his discovery. Instead, the two will profit from it, John in love and Stickles in money, once all is over. At John’s inquiry, Stickles decides to put it all in writing in case the two of them die before telling Lorna.

The “yellow” Somersetshire trained bands arrive without an officer to lead them. The “red” Devonshire men, however, are a proper faction, skilled and with proper leadership. Stickles says to double the bill for housing them, but John does not want to charge an unfair price. There are 120 men total, plus the 15 actual soldiers. They go to attack the Doones, 50 men on each side, plus 35 at the gate. The attack is a failure because the Devonshire men accidentally fire on the Somersetshire men, leading them to return fire on purpose. The Doones then attack the Somersetshire men, and the 35 at the gate from behind, having left the valley through Gwenny’s door, which John had forgotten about. Several men and horses die, and two cannons end up in the hands of the Doones.

After the defeat, the trained bands return home, and Jeremy Stickles recovers slowly from his injuries. John is irked by said injuries delaying his ability to secure Stickles’s permission to tell Lorna the truth of her parentage. There is a growing division between Lorna and Mrs. Ridd as well as between Lorna and John, due to the Counsellor’s assertion of mutual murder by their fathers, even though they claimed not to believe it. Two men from the Court of Chancery arrive, having been mistreated by the Doones, with letters for Lorna and for those who have custody over her. The first letter instructs Lorna to await further instructions and orders her not to “commit herself” to anyone. The second addresses those with power over her and offers appropriate threats and promises of recompense. In light of the Chancery’s knowledge of Lorna’s true parentage, John tells his family—and Lorna—the truth.

Lorna weeps for the deaths of her family members, but she considers it all to be fate. She considers the love she shares with John to be doomed because of its intensity and “selfishness,” saying that she is comforted knowing that they will reunite in heaven. Stickles is enraged that one of the soldiers sent word to London that he had been disabled and had been promoted to captaincy in his place. His health suffers as a result, and he nearly dies.

John goes to see Benita Odam. He asks if she would recognize the girl she had cared for as a woman and asks her to come back with him to Oare to identify her. Benita reveals Lorna’s father to be the Earl of Dugal. The fate of the Earl’s wife is not well known due to John Llandaff, the “next of right,” quietly taking possession of their home, Watchett Grange, and “hushing” the tale up with bribes (403). Instead, John is well known in the area due to his size and wrestling reputation, so his attempts to quietly gain information on the Earl do not work because people keep trying to feed him and claim him for Somerset rather than Devon.

When they return to Plover’s Barrows, Benita recognizes Lorna at once, and once Benita speaks to her in Italian, Lorna remembers “Nita.” The drawing on the gold ring proves to be the “wild cat of the house of Lorne,” as Lorna’s mother was from that even more ancient line of Lorne (406). The Doones had fallen out with the Earl of Lorne prior to Lorna’s father. John considers that the Doones might be held to account for the deaths of Lorna’s mother and brother since they are highborn, and the law cares more about them than the lowborn.

Tom Faggus returns, irritated about the delays to his and Annie’s marriage. Mrs. Ridd admits that their hesitance is over their fear that his fondness for alcohol will become a burden. Despite this, Annie marries Tom Faggus and receives gifts from everyone who knows her, since she is so well-loved. Lorna asks John to borrow some money to buy her a present. John thinks this is ridiculous, since Annie has lost her a hundred thousand pounds, but he agrees to buy something at the cost of twenty pounds at her direction.

John goes to invite Uncle Reuben to the wedding and finds his vitality is noticeably diminished. Reuben says that John would want him dead to know the secret location of a hoard of golden treasure greater than any imagining. John insists that he wants Uncle Ben to live as long as possible for Ruth’s sake. Uncle Ben insists that John has wronged Ruth, as she loves him, and he does not return her love. He later admits to being deeply involved with the western rebellion and tells John to meet him at Wizard’s Slough the next morning.

John believes in witchcraft and carries superstitious bullets to Wizard’s Slough. He recalls the folk tale of a necromancer who once lived there. Once defeated in a riddle contest by a saint, his house sank into the bog. The area was named after the sorcerer, and the saint’s bones are reportedly located in the chapel where Lorna’s Aunt Sabina and Sir Ensor Doone were buried.

Uncle Ben appears and takes John down into a bog hole. A pulley system lowers them down deep into the earth. Simon Carfax is down there working with Uncle Ben to mine for gold. They ask him to hammer a stone they have been unable to break. He breaks it open for them. Inside the man-made caves, there is a giant mill. John quickly realizes that it is the mill that is responsible for the spooky noise which has been frightening the people of the area.

The mine has been a secret due to the superstition surrounding the area. John does not want to mine, but he goes to learn more about Simon Carfax at Lorna’s behest, since he is the father of Gwenny Carfax. Simon says he never abandoned Gwenny, but he was told she was dead by the other miners. John reunites them, and Simon parts ways with the mining operation.

A Cornish giant challenges John to a wrestling match. John agrees, since his mother and Lorna insist he will win. The man is tall, but light-boned, and John is afraid of hurting him. John wins 100 pounds in the match, but when he returns, Lorna is in London under the supervision of an Uncle, as appointed by the Court of Chancery for penance for her association with the outlaw Doones. She is to stay there until she is 21. She had tried to renounce her money and title to stay at Plover’s Barrow, but the court would not allow it. Lorna’s letter to John explains this and entreats him to trust that her love will remain constant, despite the distance between them. His heart believes her, but his mind does not.

John works hard, but without Lorna and Annie, he is lonely. Eliza is jealous of Lorna and the aristocracy. John expects his mom to be attentive to his emotional distress, but she is not. Stickles is gone. John goes to visit Annie to have someone to talk to about Lorna. Once there, he accuses Annie of being spoiled by her husband’s ill-gotten money. Tom says he remembers seeing Lorna as a child. He had stopped Lorna’s mother’s carriage, but seeing only women, did not rob her. Instead, he took a bottle of wine for his trouble and toasted to the lady’s health. John rebukes Tom for speaking wistfully of his days of crime.