I was not come to my full strength then: only I am speaking now of the
average size of our neighbourhood, and the Doones were far beyond that.
Moreover, they were taught to shoot with a heavy carbine so delicately
and wisely, that even a boy could pass a ball through a rabbit's head at
the distance of fourscore yards. Some people may think nought of this,
being in practice with longer shots from the tongue than from the
shoulder; nevertheless, to do as above is, to my ignorance, very good
work, if you can be sure to do it. Not one word do I believe of Robin
Hood splitting peeled wands at seven-score yards, and such like. Whoever
wrote such stories knew not how slippery a peeled wand is, even if one
could hit it, and how it gives to the onset. Now, let him stick one in
the ground, and take his bow and arrow at it, ten yards away, or even
five.

Now, after all this which I have written, and all the rest which a
reader will see, being quicker of mind than I am (who leave more than
half behind me, like a man sowing wheat, with his dinner laid in the
ditch too near his dog), it is much but what you will understand the
Doones far better than I did, or do even to this moment; and therefore
none will doubt when I tell them that our good justiciaries feared to
make an ado, or hold any public inquiry about my dear father's death.
They would all have had to ride home that night, and who could say what
might betide them. Least said soonest mended, because less chance of
breaking.

So we buried him quietly--all except my mother, indeed, for she could
not keep silence--in the sloping little churchyard of Oare, as meek a
place as need be, with the Lynn brook down below it. There is not much
of company there for anybody's tombstone, because the parish spreads
so far in woods and moors without dwelling-house. If we bury one man