other, but in and out as skittles are; only that the first of all, which
proved to be the captain's, was a sort of double house, or rather two
houses joined together by a plank-bridge, over the river.

Fourteen cots my mother counted, all very much of a pattern, and nothing
to choose between them, unless it were the captain's. Deep in the quiet
valley there, away from noise, and violence, and brawl, save that of
the rivulet, any man would have deemed them homes of simple mind and
innocence. Yet not a single house stood there but was the home of
murder.

Two men led my mother down a steep and gliddery stair-way, like the
ladder of a hay-mow; and thence from the break of the falling water as
far as the house of the captain. And there at the door they left her
trembling, strung as she was, to speak her mind.

Now, after all, what right had she, a common farmer's widow, to take it
amiss that men of birth thought fit to kill her husband. And the Doones
were of very high birth, as all we clods of Exmoor knew; and we had
enough of good teaching now--let any man say the contrary--to feel that
all we had belonged of right to those above us. Therefore my mother was
half-ashamed that she could not help complaining.

But after a little while, as she said, remembrance of her husband came,
and the way he used to stand by her side and put his strong arm round
her, and how he liked his bacon fried, and praised her kindly for
it--and so the tears were in her eyes, and nothing should gainsay them.

A tall old man, Sir Ensor Doone, came out with a bill-hook in his
hand, hedger's gloves going up his arms, as if he were no better than a