But although I looked away, it was plain that I had asked enough.

I felt that the wise woman gazed at me in wrath as well as sorrow; and then I grew angry that any one should seem to make light of Lorna.
'John Ridd,' said the woman, observing this (for now I faced her bravely), 'of whom art thou speaking?
Is it a child of the men who slew your father ?' 'I cannot tell, mother.

How should I know?
And what is that to thee ?' 'It is something to thy mother, John, and something to thyself, I trow; and nothing worse could befall thee.' I waited for her to speak again, because she had spoken so sadly that it took my breath away.
'John Ridd, if thou hast any value for thy body or thy soul, thy mother, or thy father's name, have nought to do with any Doone.' She gazed at me in earnest so, and raised her voice in saying it, until the whole valley, curving like a great bell echoed 'Doone,' that it seemed to me my heart was gone for every one and everything.

If it were God's will for me to have no more of Lorna, let a sign come out of the rocks, and I would try to believe it.

But no sign came, and I turned to the woman, and longed that she had been a man.
'You poor thing, with bones and blades, pails of water, and door-keys, what know you about the destiny of a maiden such as Lorna?
Chilblains you may treat, and bone-shave, ringworm, and the scaldings; even scabby sheep may limp the better for your strikings.