"No doubt I can; or, if I cannot, it will not take me long to find a spot whence I can do it."
"Gwenny can climb like any cat. She has been up there in the summer watching the young birds day by day, and daring the boys to touch them. There are neither birds nor eggs there now, of course, and nothing doing. If you see but six rooks' nests, I am in peril, and want you. If you see but five, I am carried off by Carver."
"Good God!" said I, at the mere idea, in a tone which frightened Lorna.
"Fear not, John," she whispered, sadly, and my blood grew
cold at it; "I have means to stop him, or at least to save myself. If you can come within one day of that man's getting hold of me, you will find me quite unharmed. After that you will find me, dead or alive, according to circumstances, but in no case such that you need blush to look at me."
I only said, "God bless you, darling!" and she said the same to me, in a very low, sad voice. And then I stole below Carver's house in the shadow from the eastern cliff; and, knowing enough of the village now to satisfy all necessity, betook myself to my well-known track in returning from the valley.
III.
[It was not long after this that John Ridd saw the signal that Lorna was in danger. With the aid of friends he planned and successfully executed a raid upon the Doone village, and carried away Lorna to his mother's house. Subsequently the Doones attacked the house where Lorna was staying, but John Ridd and his friends were prepared to meet them, as is related in the following scene:]
It was not likely that the outlaws would attack our premises until some time after the moon was risen, because it would be too dangerous to cross the flooded valleys in the darkness of the night. And, but for this consideration, I must have striven harder against the stealthy approach of slumber. But even so, it was very foolish to abandon watch, especially in such as I, who sleep like any dormouse. Moreover, I had chosen the very worst place in the world for such employment, with a goodly chance of awaking in a bed of solid fire.
And so it might have been—nay, it must have been—but for Lorna's vigilance. Her light hand upon my arm awoke me, not too readily, and, leaping up, I seized my club, and prepared to knock down somebody.