The Project Gutenberg eBook of Miles Lawson
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Title: Miles Lawson
or, the Yews
Author: Bitha Lloyd
Release date: January 17, 2024 [eBook #72740]
Language: English
Original publication: Boston: Ira Bradley & Co, 1896
*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK MILES LAWSON ***
Transcriber's note: Unusual and inconsistent spelling is as printed.
Miles Lawson;
OR,
THE YEWS.
BY THE AUTHOR OF
"HOW TO SEE THE ENGLISH LAKES," ETC.
"Therefore, although it be a history
Homely and rude, I will relate the same,
For the delight of a few natural hearts."
WORDSWORTH.
BOSTON:
PUBLISHED BY IRA BRADLEY & CO.
162 WASHINGTON STREET.
CONTENTS.
Chapter I. The Homestead
Chapter II. Conscience
Chapter III. The Snow Drift
Chapter IV. The Search
Chapter V. Home Again
Chapter VI. The Mountain Echoes
Chapter VII. Changing Seasons
MILES LAWSON;
OR,
THE YEWS.
CHAPTER I.
THE HOMESTEAD.
"The lonely cottage in the guardian nook,
Hath stirred then deeply—with its own dear brook,
Its own small pasture—almost its own sky."
WORDSWORTH.
BENEATH the crags which overhang one of the deep mountain valleys of
Westmoreland, there nestles an old farm-house, whose low, irregular
roof, deep stone porch, and large round chimneys, make it a type of its
class. Its windows are low, wide, and mullioned; and on the sunny side,
next the small garden, they are quite embowered by an ancient jasmine,
an old-fashioned cabbage rose, and a broad sheet of ivy, whose twisted
stems are as large as those of a good-sized tree, and whose long,
clinging arms clasp the walls nearly all round the building, festooning
and fringing even the great round chimneys. Those chimneys are almost
as large as little lime-kilns; but the smoke, which curls up in gentle
volumes, is of that pure blue tint which betokens it to be the breath
of a peat fire. The house is beautifully white—whitewashed afresh by
loving hands at every Whitsuntide Scrow. *
* The great annual house-cleaning of the north.
But the glory of the homestead consists in its two enormous yew trees,
a pair of sombre giants, which are so old that they never seem to
grow older. They became stiff, twisted and furrowed with age, so many
centuries ago, that a few generations time, a few odd scores of years
here and there, are nothing to them now—a mere trifle that is not worth
noticing. And so there they stretch their huge branches towards each
other, across the flagged path which leads straight up from the garden
wicket to the pointed porch, making a dim twilight of their own, even
at mid-day.
There is a rustic seat encircling the trunk of one of the brother yew
trees. Ah! That is Miles's work. Miles, the oldest son of the house,
cut those billets and branches out of the little copse-wood at the
entrance of the glen, and made them into a seat for his sister Alice
to rest on, when she is sewing in the golden light of the summer
evenings. There is a cluster of larches, as well as a spreading oak and
a sycamore, grouped about the farm buildings; but the place borrows its
name from none of these, and for three hundred years it has been known
as "The Yews." A slab of stone, let into the wall of the house, just
above the porch, bears the date 1559.
Pass through that deep stone porch, and you enter the farm kitchen, a
long room, whose low, raftered ceiling is made lower still by the rack
which is stretched across it, on which rest flitches of smoked bacon,
and a large assortment of dried herbs and simples; for Mrs. Lawson
is famed through the dales for her herb teas and febrifuges. She is
known, too, for better things than these; for the perfume of her humble
piety spreads like an atmosphere around her, though her daily cup has
long been seasoned with the bitter herbs of affliction. She does not
complain of these distasteful draughts, but declares that they are the
best of medicines, the very things to strengthen and purify the soul's
health.
"If they were not good for me, I shouldn't have them. My Saviour knows
what a bitter cup is; and he wouldn't hand it to me unless he saw I
wanted it."
Watch her as she sits in her rocking chair, which is softly cushioned
with little diamonds of patchwork. That many-colored patchwork is a
mosaic representing her whole life. She has often expounded the story
from those little pictured memorials. This lilac spot ("pop," she calls
it) is a relic of her first short frock: the pink square is the only
survivor of the dress she wore on her first visit to Kendal—to her a
wonderful metropolis, which she thought could be like nothing less than
Jerusalem itself, "beautiful for situation, on the sides of the north."
Ah! That "innocent" chintz was her wedding gown. Her Miles chose it
himself, and he had been a good husband to her, "walking in his house
with a perfect heart," and trying to bring up his children "in the
nurture and admonition of the Lord."
Whenever Mrs. Lawson spoke on serious subjects, she dropped
unconsciously into the language of Scripture: for she had been a close
student of only one book; and after Miles was taken from her, that book
had been the household lamp which had lightened the darkness that had
fallen upon The Yews. She has that old family Bible on her lap now, as
she sits beside the large open hearth; and the look of settled repose
on her brow is a fine commentary on the words which she is now reading:
"In quietness and confidence shall be your strength." Now her eye is
following her daughter Alice's lively motions, as she sees her through
the open door of the cottage parlor, where she is dusting the furniture.
That room has a delightful old-world look; it is panelled all round
with black oak, cracked and worm-eaten, but still shining. The
mantel-piece is of carved dark oak likewise; and faces, hideous as
masks, there display their long-lived rage or changeless smiles.
Opposite the fire-place is an ancient chest, with the name "MILES
LAWESON, 1562," cut on it in high relief, and the motto, "FEARE GOD,
AND WORKE RYTEOUSNESSE," runs along on a ribbon-like scroll, which
binds together a pair of stiff trees, like gooseberry bushes, but which
are evidently designed to represent the goodly Yews. This, then, is the
muniment room of the Lawson family.
They were not of gentle birth; but they have been a race of sturdy,
free-born yeomen, "statesmen" * of the dales, watching jealously over
the integrity of their fell-side acres, and of their few green meadows
beside the stream: and in every generation since 1562, has there been a
young "Miles Lawson of the Yews" to transmit the memory of him of the
old oak chest.
* "Estatesmen:" Small freeholders, whose little properties often
remain in the same family, from generation to generation, for centuries.
This sombre-looking parlor is Alice's quiet world of romance; it is
her "chamber of imagery." For here her young mind, stimulated by the
antique features which surrounds her, loves to picture the scenes and
people of former days.
The chief source whence she draws her genealogical groupings of Lawsons
(of whom she firmly believes the hideous faces on the mantle-piece to
be faithful portraits), is the fine historical memory of Mark Wilson,
the itinerating schoolmaster of the dales. Mark is expected to-day at
the Yews, to take up his residence there for the next month, in the
course of his regular routine journey from homestead to homestead. * He
is the orphan son of the old curate of one of the neighboring dales,
who could leave him from his spare pittance little besides his moderate
store of learning and his thinly furnished bookshelves. But with this
important legacy Mark felt himself, and was universally acknowledged to
be, the learned man of the district. Pardon him his little weaknesses,
for Mark is a good, honest, true-hearted lad, though his gait is a
shade too measured, and the fountain of his learning a little too apt
to overflow. Pardon him these fertilizing inundations; for he considers
the land around to be marvellously dry and thirsty, and he thinks he is
commissioned to do the bountiful work of the Nile when it overflows its
banks and refreshes the waiting gardens and meadows of Egypt.
* This is the plan pursued in the more remote dales, where the
population is very thinly scattered.
Before Alice had finished polishing her household motto, and rubbing
up her ungainly family portraits, the latch of the wicket gate is
heard, and she hastily looks out of the window. "Master Wilson is come,
mother, books and all!"
The said books distend the old leather bag on the shoulders of the
young man who enters, far more than do the few quaint articles of his
slender wardrobe. If this be all he includes under the portentous name
of "luggage," life is a tolerably simple thing, after all.
"Peace be unto this house," says Mark, solemnly, as he bends his tall
thin figure under the low porch: and he looks like a true son of peace
himself, as he pronounces his accustomed benediction, though his broad
and high forehead is not without some lines which belong rather to the
autumnal ploughing than to the spring-tide of life. But no one who ever
saw the steady light of his fine clear eye could doubt that in him the
words had been fulfilled, "They looked unto him [their Lord] and were
lightened; and their faces were not ashamed."
Alice received him with great deference, and a certain distant
timidity; for she herself has been Master Wilson's pupil, as well as
Miles and her younger brother Mat. He gives her a grave nod, and passes
on to the widow's easy chair.
"Winter has been here since I saw you, Mrs. Lawson. How did you bear
up under the cold? Has the rheumatism been a little quieter?" This was
spoken in a voice of such singular sweetness and power, that if one had
caught its accents in the midst of the crush of one of the principal
streets of London, one would have been impelled to look round and
search out the speaker.
"Nae, nae, Mark," said the widow, "the rheumatism hasn't been quiet—far
awa' from that. But God hasn't forgotten the old woman; and when he
giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?"
"You have got hold of the true medicine, Mrs. Lawson; better than any
herb tea which you can concoct."
"Nae!" said the widow, in a rather controversial tone. "They all
help! It's the three P's that does it, say I—Prayer, Patience, and
Pennyroyal."
"Well, well," replies the schoolmaster; "give me the first two and you
may keep the third. But where's my scholar, Mat?"
"Mat was off to the Scar after the sheep, hours ago," said Alice.
"He had better get them to the lower fells before long, I'm thinking,"
said his mother, turning towards the window, and looking at the sky;
"there's a snow-storm in yon clouds above Rowter Fell—though 'tis over
late in the season for snow."
"If I read the signs aright," said the schoolmaster, "we shall have a
quiet life hereaway, blocked in by a deep fall of snow. A fine time for
Mat and his learning. Perhaps we shall get Miles, too, to go over some
of the old ground and refresh his memory. Is Miles at home?"
"Miles has been a good deal out lately—more than I like," said his
mother, as, a cloud of care gathered upon her calm forehead, just like
that which was veiling the fine brow of Rowter Fell at the same moment.
"I think he must be taking to mining work, up on the 'Old Man,'" * said
Alice; "he goes that way so very often."
* "Coniston Old Man," the name of a mountain.
"Does not he tell you what he is about, when he leaves you?" inquired
Mark, anxiously.
"Nae, nae; not so very often now," was the mother's reply; "young men
like to think they are their own masters. He says he doesn't like to be
watched and followed about."
"He always used to like me to set him off as far as the top of Green
Gap in all weathers," said Alice, mournfully; "but he thinks I can't
keep up with him now, he says, and yet I can run all the way there and
back faster than old Chance."
"Does Chance go with his master?"
"No; he will not let him go either, though the dear old fellow whines
after him."
"There is some mystery here," thought the schoolmaster. "Heaven grant
that the widow's son, the son of many prayers, may not be turning at
last into the 'broad path.'"
"Perhaps it's only Bella Hartley, after all," exclaimed Alice, with a
sudden flush of illumination.
"Nae, I fear not," the widow replied. "Bella is a good girl, and he
needn't be ashamed to visit her; he knows he would have his mother's
blessing upon the head of that any day," though her brimming eyes, as
she looked round tenderly on the old place, showed how much it would
cost her to leave the ancestral Yews, and abdicate her quiet throne in
favor of a youthful successor.
At this moment came in Mat from the fells with a flushed face; and
pulling down his open forehead by the front curl, by way of bow, he
stood, cap in hand, evidently with something to say.
"Well, Mat, my man," said his teacher in his kindest tone, "what cheer
from the fells?"
"We've brought the sheep all down to the lower fells, because there's
snow in the cloud over Rowter."
"Did Miles help you?"
"Nae; 'twas Chance and I. But Chance did it all. I'm sure he saw the
storm coming, he looked so all around, and sniffed, and began at the
sheep before I set him. But there are two men yon, who want Miles."
"What like are the men?" asked the widow uneasily. "And what do they
want of Miles?"
"They said he was bound to meet them in the Gap, and he didn't come, so
they want to know if he is in the house."
"Did you bid them in, Mat? I would as lief know who my son's friends
may be."
"They said they would bide without and speak with him there."
The widow shook her head and exchanged an anxious look with Mark
Wilson, who left the room immediately.
The two strangers, sullen, ill-favored men, one of whom never looked
you full in the face, but was always glancing anywhere rather than
straight before him, did not appear to wish for a parley with the
schoolmaster, the clear daylight of whose countenance was in perfect
keeping with the uprightness of his character, and the unbending
texture of his principles.
"What is your will, friends?"
"We only want Miles Lawson. Is he in or off?"
"I cannot say. May I ask your business with him?"
"No. 'Twas only for a talk with him. He wasn't in the Gap, where he
should have met us, for we are naught but friends: as he wasn't there,
we came on. That's all."
The speaker looked a miner, and his companion might have been a
broom-maker; but they were ungainly, unhappy-looking men; the one, bold
and defiant, the other sinister and cunning.
"Well!" said the miner, after a pause. "If you can't tell us anything,
we are off again. Come along, Jack."
"Stop!" cried Mark, hastily. "Is there no message for Miles Lawson?
Nothing about the business which brings you here?"
"No," said the man, rudely; "catch us telling you."
And laughing loudly, they walked off at a quick pace.
Mark was still standing under the yew trees, thinking over this
suspicious affair, when he heard a step and a whistle, and Miles
himself appeared, lounging along with his hands in his pockets. He
started, and flushed crimson, when he recognized the old friend and
master who had not only taught him all that he knew of book-learning
in his many migratory visits, but who had earnestly endeavored to
counteract the faults of his character by instilling good, sound
Bible principles. The younger man's face was a strikingly fine one
as to outline and feature; but there was a look of uncertainty and
hesitation, a wandering, restless expression about the eye, which gave
the impression that principles were beginning to give way to mere
impulses, healthy feeling to heartless selfishness; a critical moment
in a young man's history.
"Well Miles, dear old fellow, I'm glad you are come home. There's a
storm abroad, and we shall have a rare time for the books. I have
brought a history of England, and a book about the stars."
Miles held out his hand; but it was not with his old eager cordiality:
no hearty welcome to the old Yews was given or felt; and after an
awkward silence, he turned round and said in a constrained voice, "I am
sorry I shall not be at home for awhile. I have business that takes me
away."
Mark Wilson turned the full power of his piercing eye upon his face,
and was grieved to see that his friend's eye fell under the searching
survey. "I am sorry too, I am sure. I thought we should have had some
capital times of reading and talk in the long evenings, when the mother
has got her knitting and her Bible, and Mat is learning to write, and
Alice is listening with her eyes as much as her ears. I confess I am
very sorry, Miles, unless you have some object in hand on which you can
ask God's blessing, and your mother's prayers, just as freely as if you
were sitting in your father's own seat in his own old place."
The young man winced painfully at this, and then, recovering himself
with a bluster, (the usual recourse of a bad cause), exclaimed, "I
declare, I am treated like a child. I am watched and questioned, and
doubted, as if I was not old enough to take care of myself: and mind, I
am not a little fool of a schoolboy any longer, Mark Wilson, I say."
Mark's powerful eyes were still fastened on his old friend, so that the
voice, which began boldly enough, died off into a pitiful shake before
the sentence was finished. He saw his advantage and quietly said, "You
know he is the fool who says in his heart, 'There is no God:' and it
is really and practically to say this, if we act as if we had not his
all-seeing eye constantly upon us. You never need tell me what you
are about, if you go to God and tell him. You know I don't want your
confidence, Miles, if you can give it to God in prayer, and to your
widowed mother in grateful love. But a man is known by the company he
keeps." This was said in so significant a tone that it was Miles' turn
now a look of searching inquiry; and he read something in Mark's face
which evidently startled and troubled him.
"What do you know about my friends? What do you mean by the company I
keep?"
Mark lifted up his heart in silent prayer and then replied, "I will
just leave this little word with you, my brother, 'If sinners entice
thee, consent thou not.'"
"Well," said Miles, after musing for a long season, in which, strong
symptoms of the inward conflict between the two principles of good and
of evil were visible on his changing countenance; "well, I do believe
you are my true friend, Mark, after all; and I wish I had never sought
others."
The poor fellow wrung the hand of his old master, while a rushing
tide of feeling rose within him until it left a moisture even in his
softened eyes. Mark pressed his hand in return, in wise silence; and
the two reconciled friends entered the farm kitchen together. Neither
knew that during this painful conversation, one, feeble in body but
strong in faith, had been earnestly wrestling for a blessing; and that
even young Alice had stolen into the old oak parlor, and slipping down
on her knees, in a dark corner, had offered up the clear, pure gems of
a sister's tears. The mother looked up through her misty spectacles,
and saw, as the young men crossed the threshold, that the prayer of
faith had gained the victory, at least for this time.
"Mother, we'll have a regular jolly evening, as Mark is come. He shall
not say a word about his old books; we're going to have a holiday.
Where's Alice? Alice give us your best riddle-cakes, and Mat shall
bring out some of his whitest honey. Let us have some broiled ham, too;
and then we'll crack * to heart's content."
* "Crack" signifies chat in Westmoreland parlance, as well as in
Scotland.
This was spoken with an uneasy effort to be cheerful, which did not
deceive any one of the party. But they were rejoiced to have the truant
son of the ancient house, the representative of an honored father—glad
to have him safely amongst them, on any terms. And so a grand fire was
built up on the hearth on scientific principles, by Alice's skilled
hands, peat laid against peat, and log resting on log, until the
crackling and sputtering were prodigious. The whole long, low room was
brilliantly illuminated; the jets of reflected flame danced upon the
shining old oak; a great toasting and buttering of cakes began; the
frying-pan added its characteristic hearth-song to the general chorus
of household music, which was in truth more cheering than melodious;
a coarse table-cloth of snow-like whiteness was spread; horn-handled
knives and forks were arranged like rays about the round-table; and a
great homemade cheese took its respectable stand in the centre.
The mother's calm eyes watched Alice's movements with loving approval;
other eyes followed her, too, but she took little heed, until Miles
broke out with the words—sincere, genuine words this time—
"Well, it is a pleasure to have such a warm home, and a nice handy
little sister to make one comfortable on a cold winter evening."
She looked full at her brother with a sparkling smile; but her eyes
presently brimmed over at the recollection of how rarely of late
that brother had chosen to be "made comfortable" beside his own warm
hearth-stone. He saw what was in her mind; for Alice's was a face
as truthful in reflecting all her meanings, as the little tarns and
broader lakes which enamel her mountain land, to mirror the blue skies
or the solemn stars of heaven, and to give back the bending of a reed
or the waving of a fern:
"Heaven's height and home's deep valley,
Much of earth, but more of heaven."
Miles read the thoughts which were reflected on his sister's simple,
open countenance; his own flushed at the silent expostulation; and
turning hastily to the schoolmaster, he led him off into talk about the
months which had passed since the last round of scholastic visits. "How
are the folk up at Scarf Beck?"
"Oh, they are very well; the sons are fine likely lads, and Bella is a
clever winsome girl. They have got a deal of learning, out of my mouth
amongst them. Fine scholars they will be, the best in the round, except
you, Miles, and little Mat here. At least, you have been my prime
scholar, and Mat promises fair. I wish you would keep it up. It is a
fine thing to have a good home-pursuit, something to keep the hearth
bright besides the peat and the logs."
"There are no books to be had," said Miles evasively; "one can't read
the spelling book over and over again. It's weary work, that."
"Weary, indeed; but if you will only give me an order, I can get a
capital assortment of good sound healthy books for you. I can easily
fill those little shelves above the oak chest: nay, I declare that
you and I will knock up some more. It will be grand in-door work for
us, now that we are in for a snow-storm. I have some small literary
taste, and I am not without a literary connection—that is, amongst the
booksellers of Kendal," said the simple young pedant, drawing himself
up and looking round upon his admiring friends.
This was poor Mark's weak point; and it was every now and then
"cropping out," as miners would say; though every revealing of his
inner man always showed fine veins of pure ore, as well as a little of
the lighter rubbish, which slightly, very slightly, overlaid it. In
truth, Mark's object in this talk was to revive in his favorite old
pupil the taste for intellectual improvement, which, in earlier days,
he had succeeded in implanting in him. He had a very exalted view of
the duties of Christian friendship. He felt that those duties had to
deal with the whole moral, intellectual, and spiritual being; and for
the treatment of each of these divisions of that mysterious being, he
had his list of simples, and febrifuges, and strengthening drinks, just
as dear mother Lawson, there, in her patchwork cushioned easy chair,
had for the many ails of the other great division—the physical.
They were dear and close friends, the aged Christian and the young. The
one supplied the deeper teachings of long experience, the other brought
to her the energy of the young believer who had not spent the strength
of his days for naught, nor wasted his substance in the service of a
wasteful world. The one could speak of the many days of the years of
her pilgrimage, wherein her God had led her about in the wilderness, to
humble her, to prove her, and to know what was in her heart; the other
told of the sweetness of his first love for Christ and of the joy of
his espousals. The one spoke of the fiery trials of temptation or of
the heated furnace of affliction; the other told of triumphant conflict
and of the hope which maketh not ashamed. The one spoke thankfully of
the "peace which passeth all understanding;" the other, of "joy in the
Holy Ghost." But they were one in all the great truths of the gospel;
both felt that they were sinners, lost, undone, and bankrupt, but
for the pardoning mercy of God in Christ, the redeeming love of the
Saviour, the sanctifying power of the in-dwelling Spirit. Both knew
that they had no title to the favor of God but through the finished
work of Jesus, and no fitness for his presence except through the work
of the Spirit in their hearts. Thus were they "one in Christ;" and if
the angel believer were sustained by a deeper faith, the younger was
animated by a more lively hope; while the third great grace of the
Spirit, love, equally overflowed the heart of each.
It was beautiful to see them communing together, whenever the fixed
routine of his circuit brought the young man to "The Yews;" and Alice
used to look and listen until she felt that it was indeed good to be
there. There was a secret work going on in her own young heart; but
it was as yet wholly hidden, except by its gentle fruits; for she had
not yet found the courage to speak of what God had done for her soul.
The time for the confession of the lips was not yet come, though the
season for the evidence of the life was already begun. Love was her
characteristic: love, deep and true to Him who had first loved her;
love to her widowed mother; love to her father's memory; tender love
to each brother, though in the one there had lately been so much to
disappoint and chill; love for all the world, and even for every living
thing about her; and love, (shall it be told?) love strong and pure,
though timid and unconfessed, for the teacher, who was to her the very
ideal of every thing that was noble and true.
Mark was not so much older than his young friends as his stability of
character and superior endowments might have led one to suppose. He was
but twenty-five years of age when he came for his month's teaching to
the Yews. Miles was twenty; Alice about eighteen; young Mat fourteen.
But Mark Wilson, had always been ahead of everybody in the whole
compass of the dales, excepting the neighboring clergyman, who treated
him with much kindness, and looked upon him as a fellow-worker; so
that his position was a really influential one. He had been "round
schoolmaster" ever since he was a grave, thoughtful, intelligent youth
of eighteen; and ever since that time, the consistency Christian
character had been unimpeached.
The Yews was not entirely a solitary house. There was a little
dwelling close at hand which was occupied by the old laborer, Geordie
Garthwaite, whose attachment to the soil was little less binding than
that of the Lawson family themselves; and under this roof the more
shifting population of farm servants, who were generally changed at
every fresh "hiring day," that is once in six months, was housed and
fed. They commonly all lived under one roof: but Mrs. Lawson had a
decided preference for family completeness and household quiet; and
so the two strong lads, who aided in the work of the farm, always
obeyed Old Geordie's blowing of the cow's horn which summoned them in
to breakfast, dinner, supper and bed, if they were ploughing the Beck
meadows or herding the kine and the sheep on the Gap Fells.
Dear old Chance knew the jocund meaning of that most dismal blast as
well as Johnny and Jamie, and was sure to be home before them, unless
he were out on picket duty; at which seasons, he pricked his ears
and whined with a gentle resignation, and yet with a lofty sense of
duty, which were quite edifying to witness. He won his undignified
name of "Chance," by scratching and whining at the kitchen door of the
farm-house late on a bitter winter's night long ago; and when the door
was opened, there was such a footsore and emaciated creature looking
pitifully in little Alice's face, with such a pair of tenderly mournful
eyes, that she brought him in immediately, burst into a flood of
sympathizing tears, and on her knees before the fire gave him all her
own porridge with her own spoon. He looked as if he would much rather
have helped himself out of the bowl; but he evidently appreciated the
tenderness of her touch, and submitted with an awkward grace to the
ministrations of the spoon. This was years ago; but the noble fellow,
(a great black dog with a white tip to his tail, and a slight touch of
tan over each eye and on each foot,) had maintained his position on
that warm hearth ever since the night of tears and the spoon.
For some weeks, he seemed uneasy in his mind, and not quite sure
that he had done what was right, for he searched the face of every
stranger he met, and made a visit of inquiry to every homestead in the
district. Miles drew the conclusion from this conduct, that he had
lost his master, perhaps a Scotch drover, who had probably taken the
coach at Ambleside, and so had accidentally thrown his faithful servant
hopelessly off the scent.
Whatever may have been the previous story of his life, Chance, as he
was now called, instantly turned into a fresh course of duty, and
adopted the interests of his benefactors as if he had been attached to
them all his days. At first, he much preferred the society of the cows
to that of the sheep, evidently from his old drover habits; but finding
that he made himself much more important by herding the black-nosed
sheep and checking their ranging propensities, he very wisely turned
his attention to that especial branch of his new duties, and soon
became accomplished sheep dog, reading his masters meanings from a
simple wave of the hand, and fulfilling his commissions with beautiful
fidelity.
There was a younger dog, one on whom Chance evidently looked down as a
mere ignorant lad, whose playful vagaries were to be tolerated rather
than countenanced. This was "Laddie," a handsome brindled dog, with a
magnificent white plumy tail. He was a native-born dalesman, and had a
fine eye and ear for a shepherd calling. The two worked when they were
out on duty, as if they had but one mind, doing everything in concert,
and vying with each other in the most literal fulfilment of their
master's wishes; but when off work, the two creatures were as different
as youth and age, the one brimming over with extravagant frolic, the
other, sober, sedate and dignified. When either of them caught the
sound of Alice's step, and clear ringing voice, or could succeed in
licking their aged mistress's hand, the look of affection which beamed
out of their fine, expressive eyes, was the same in each.
A leading character in the community was old Ann, the wife of old
Geordie. She managed to live an active life, although bent almost
double by long-standing rheumatism. It was marvellous how she could
maintain her equilibrium, with that extraordinary gait and figure. But
she was cheery old woman, kind to all dumb creatures and dearly beloved
by them in return. It was a picture to see her sallying forth from her
door-way, her blue bed-gown tied round her waist by her blue linsey
apron, which was almost always full of potato skins or bran, or corn,
for one class or another of the subjects in her little kingdom; while
a blue serge petticoat completed her uniform. Winter or summer she
never wore a bonnet. It was rumored she possessed one of extraordinary
dimensions, date unknown, in a corner of a huge chest, which was
supposed to contain other superfluities. But it never appeared. The
little church was too far off for old Ann to join the scattered
congregation, bent and infirm as she was; and so on Sundays, a clean
cap was put on, and she sat with her suffering mistress in the farm
kitchen, while the sweet old lady read in her own peculiar Westmoreland
intonation, the solemn narratives of the Old Testament and the precious
teachings of the New. The widow, though helplessly bound to her easy
chair, had always a very earnest and feeling prayer to pour, forth
into the listening ear of Almighty Love, before the little service was
concluded; and then the aged women shook hands, while the one said "God
bless thee, Ann," and the other said "God bless thee, mistress."
But to return to the large "following" which always attended the clump,
clump, of old Ann's heavy wooden and iron-shod clogs, * wherever
she went in the farm premises. First there were the turkeys, the
turkey-cock being a formidable fellow, the martinet of the yard, who
hectored and domineered over everybody and everything, with the single
exception of old Ann, towards whom he was as gentle as a dove.
* The shoes of the country: they are soled with wood, and then shod
with iron, and make a prodigious noise.
Then there were the guinea-fowls picking daintily about, with round
backs, and refined, not to say affected gait; while every evening
there was enacted that little scene which is so peculiarly their
own—the cock bird always flying to the top of the highest chimney and
there shouting, "Come back! Come back!" as if he were recalling lost
companions. Next there were the geese, which used to walk out into the
meadows that bordered upon the beck * in long Indian file, the most
experienced and responsible gander leading the way, a trustworthy young
one bringing up the rear: comparatively uninteresting creatures they
were, save for their self-sacrificing love of their young, in whose
defence, if attacked by strange dogs, they would lay down their lives.
* The local name for "stream."
Then there were ducks without end, and cocks and hens innumerable,
quaking, crowing, cackling, screaming about the desirable contents of
old Ann's linsey apron, and besetting her wherever she turned.
She treated them all as dear friends, talked incessantly to them, in
return for their vociferous addresses. "Coom, lad, coom along with
thee this gait. Well, lile * lassie! Get awa', wilt thoo?" Thou hast a
kindly heart, old Ann. Thou would'st not willingly hurt a single thing:
and when a violent end has to be put to the happy little lives of thy
many pets, it costs thy loving nature more than thou would'st like to
tell. Those who have studied the ways of the feathered creatures, as
thou hast done, know that there are fine distinctions of character, and
beautiful adaptations of that mysterious instinct which is the gift
of their kind Creator, that the careless and indifferent observer has
never discovered or even suspected.
* "Lile" is almost invariably used for "little" in the country
districts of Westmoreland.
They are alluded to here, not for the sake of crowding the canvas with
pictures of animal life, but in order to cultivate a loving interest
in the happiness of the living things around our daily path. They are,
many of them, helpless in themselves, and entirely dependent on our
good will. By all means, let there be as much innocent happiness as
there can be in this selfish world. Let consideration for the comfort
of animals, as long as their poor lives last, (and this life, remember,
is their little all,) be a regular part of the home-training of
children; and then the beautiful world we live in would not be such a
scene of oppression and wrong as it is.
CHAPTER II.
CONSCIENCE.
"Would'st draw a bow at a venture? Then see
thou to it, that the point of thy arrow be dipped in
love, and its winged shaft in prayer."
Before supper was over at the Yews, Chance and Laddie were heard
barking vehemently without. This vociferous demonstration was made
whenever any stranger appeared on the premises, but was not warlike
in its meaning; it was only intended as a notification that there was
somebody come, who ought to be attended to.
The somebody on this occasion was an old exciseman, Mr. Knibb, who
itinerated though the dales almost as punctually as the schoolmaster,
but who was not nearly so popular a personage. And yet when his old
white mare, Madam, was comfortably housed in the stable, and the drab
top-coat was hung up in the kitchen, Mr. Knibb could make himself very
pleasant company beside the hearth, or at the simple table of the
farm-houses within his round: for it was he who brought the greatest
amount of intelligence respecting the doings of the great wide world on
the other side of the barrier mountains; and he generally had in his
pocket a Kendal newspaper, not more than ten days or a fortnight old.
Mr. Knibb, therefore, helped to keep up the circulation of ideas within
his circuit; and a great flood-tide of news overflowed the valleys
and rose up to the homesteads on the steep hill-sides whenever he
made his periodical appearances. Old Madam was so thoroughly aware of
her master's communicative habits, that she used to make a full stop
whenever she met a grown person in winding lane or rocky pathway; and
if left to her own devices, she would allow her master just ten minutes
for every "crack;" at the expiration of which social interval, she
would prick her ear and slowly jog on again. Boys and girls neither she
nor her master thought it worth while to enlighten, but trotted past
them with contemptuous indifference.
Somehow or other, Mr. Knibb's visit on the present occasion was not
acceptable to the young master of the Yews. Nobody looked exactly
pleased when the old gentleman's well-known whistle was heard without,
because it was a rather uncongenial interruption to the new-born
happiness of the household group; but Miles looked both displeased and
discomposed. He started—turned pale—flushed deep red—and then hastily
rose and went to the door as if to bid the visitor welcome: but this
movement seemed less like an impulse of hospitality than a mask for his
unaccountable confusion. In truth, Miles was strangely moved.
These symptoms of perturbed feeling were not lost upon the young
schoolmaster, whose calling had cultivated that keen perception
of character and that skill in reading the symbolic language of
manner, look, and tone, with which he had been originally gifted.
The old lady—and lady she might fairly be called, because, in spite
of provincial accent and mountain phrase, she was one of nature's
own aristocracy, and one of religion's own gentlewomen—the old lady
bestowed a kindly and courteous greeting on the guest, who in his turn
advanced to her chair, and gave her that horizontal shake of the hand,
(swinging cheerily like a pendulum from side to side) which is supposed
to express cordiality.
[Illustration: The Exciseman's Visit.]
Mr. Knibb soon formed a member of the group round the circular table,
which was drawn near the widow's rocking chair. A solemn grace, not a
ceremonial form, but a heart-felt giving of thanks, was spoken from
that same presidential chair; and then the sharp clatter of knife and
fork began in earnest. Much too earnest was the business in hand, in
its earlier stages, to admit of any table-talk; but when the healthy
intercourse between good appetites and good fare had begun a little to
relax, Mr. Knibb opened the sluices of conversation.
"Madam and I could scarce make our way up the valley, the wind was so
strong, and as keen as a razor, right in our faces. Besides, the snow
was driving full against us; and if the good old mare hadn't known
every foot of the way, we might have got into a deep drift, and stayed
there until you and Chance had dug us out, Mat."
"You had better have stopped away for the night, and not got into the
dale at all," said Miles.
"Nay," replied the old gentleman, "Madam knows good quarters as well as
her master: besides, I have a little job in hand, and I don't rightly
know how it will turn out yet. I shall want your help in it, Miles
Lawson."
"What is afoot now, then?" said the young "statesman," hastily.
"Why, I'm half on and half off a pretty good scent this time—something
out of the common run—and scent lies strong upon the heather. We shall
run down some sort of game, I'm thinking, before another nightfall;
unless this unfortunate snow-storm throws us off the tracks."
Miles rose and poked the peat fire violently, sending showers of sparks
careering about the hearth, some of which alighted on his mother's
white apron. Alice and Mat and the schoolmaster were all up in a
moment, the two former crushing out the threatening danger with their
eager hands, while the zealous young philosopher fluttered the poor old
lady yet more by solemnly pouring a whole jug of milk into her lap.
"Heigh, then! The lad is daft for sure," cried the gasping widow. "He
has drowned out the fire, but he will bring on the rheumatism, like
enough."
Mark was much abashed by the evident unpopularity of his attempt
to lead the fire brigade; but larger interests soon engrossed his
thoughts; for his attention was speedily riveted by the strange
perturbation of Miles' countenance and manner, while Mr. Knibb went on
with his talk.
"I want you good folks to help me in a queer sort of job, for sure. I
cannot fairly see through it; but I have got hold of information (no
matter how) that there's a deal of spirits drunk in some of the miners'
cottages round the Old Man; and I have tracked some of it into several
of the farm-houses in my district. Now, where it comes from is the
question."
"Surely there cannot be anything like smuggling going on in my
valleys?" said the honest young schoolmaster, opening his large blue
eyes with wonder.
"Well, I will let you into one or two facts, Mr. Wilson, and then you
may reason upon them, like a philosopher as you are."
"Like a Christian, as I would rather be," said Mark, parenthetically.
"Very well; like a Christian, as I am sure you are. I found a strong
smell of whisky in one or two of the homesteads that I visited rather
out of course; for Madam was tired, and I couldn't find in my heart to
give her the whip—we've jogged on too long together for that; and so,
as I said, I was rather out of time all through the round; and I found
some of the lads saucy and quarrelsome. I knew what had made them so,
for I saw by their ways that something stronger than the malt had got
into their hot heads. However, I took it quietly and said nothing. But
in coming along a little mountain road up out of yon dale and down
into the next, I saw a cart ahead of me, with two men. When we came
alongside, Madam pulled up as usual for a crack. But one of the men,
with a lot of brooms on his back, said, 'Hush! or you'll waken the poor
old mother in the cart.' 'What's to do with the old mother?' said I.
'She's had a stroke,' said he, and we are taking her as soft as we can
over to the workhouse at Milnthorpe.' And so seeing the poor body lying
all of a heap in the cart amongst the heather brooms, I just said,
'Poor soul and went my ways. But I'm thinking they were too many for
old George Knibb; for Bella Hartley tells me that she came sharply upon
them just after, in a turn of the lane, and saw them bargaining with
some potters, who had another cart with them; and all of a sudden, they
tossed the 'old women' out upon the ground, and she fell abroad into
nothing but a bundle of clothes with an old bonnet upon the top of it."
Mr. Knibb here laughed heartily at his story; but everybody else looked
startled, except Miles, who over-acted his part by violent bursts of
explosive laughter.
The schoolmaster watched him with pain; and then said quietly, "After
all, there is no fun in sin."
"Sin?" said Miles, looking fiercely at him, "I am not laughing at sin;
it was only a capital joke—capital."
"It will be no joke to those men if I can catch them," resumed the
exciseman; "but I am very much obliged to them for putting me on the
true scent."
"The scent lies no further than the cart, however," remarked Miles;
"and there's naught to prove there was anything but brooms in that, as
far as I see."
"Stop a bit, my good friend; Bella Hartley's bright eyes made out more
than that. She saw great heavy jars taken out from under the heather,
and exchanged with the potters for empty ones; and then, from the other
side of the wall, she watched them dressing up the 'old woman' again,
and heard them calling her a 'witch,' because she was mounted on a
broom, forsooth. And then, I hear, they took the road to the Old Man."
"And what are you minded to do now then?" asked the young farmer, in an
oft hand manner.
"Why, of course, I am for following it up as best I can. It's my clear
duty to do that. I must try the mountain and about; for though we are
not in Ireland, I have a strong suspicion that I shall find an illicit
still, hid away in some nook or crevice."
The young man turned white—so white that even Alice's unsuspicious mind
read something painful and alarming in his face. She looked appealingly
at Mark while his eye rested compassionately on her anxious brow. She
turned from him to her mother, and saw that her thin hands were clasped
tight together, as they always were when the mother's heart within her
was working with fear and wrestling in the hidden might of prayer. Her
eyes were fixed upon her wayward son, but they were lambent with the
holy light of love.
"It is growing over late for any more talk," said she, gently, "and
seems to me that the best thing we can do will be to have our chapter
and our little bit prayer. Mark Wilson, thou wilt take the book;" and
her trembling finger pointed at the great family Bible on the little
oak table beside her.
Mark silently took his place before the book, asking in his heart that
God the Spirit would guide him "rightly to divide the word of truth,"
would "take of the things of Christ; and show them unto them;" would
send home the teaching until it should be "as a nail in a sure place."
He opened upon that precious story which has been the turning point
in the downward path of so many thousands of sinners, who are now
rejoicing saints in their Father's house above.
"And he said, a certain man had two sons." Mark's was a voice of
wondrous power, and as sweet as it was strong; but never had it sounded
more thrilling than when it read how the young man waywardly demanded
the portion of goods that fell to him, and went away into a far country
to waste his substance with riotous living; never more mournful than
when it told of the great famine that arose when he had spent all,
and how he began to be in want; never more touching in its chastened
gladness than when the story told how the young man "came to himself"
in the depth of his utter desolation, and said, "I will arise and go
to my father;" but never had it swelled so triumphantly to the higher
notes of joy, as when it told that the father "saw him when he was yet
a great way off;" but here the clear voice trembled, shook, fell; and
then kneeling down, Mark Wilson turned the rest into a prayer.
He prayed and said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy
sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son:" he prayed and asked
that the robe, the seamless robe of the Redeemer's righteousness, might
be brought forth and put on each returning prodigal; that the ring of
covenant love might be placed on the trembling hand of repentance; that
the wounded feet of the weary wanderer might be shod afresh to walk
in the ways of holiness, until they became even "beautiful upon the
mountains," as bearers of "good tidings of great joy." Then Mark Wilson
paused again, and his voice changed from the pleading accents of prayer
to the full hymn-notes of praise, while he repeated the words of the
reconciled father, "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he
was lost, and is found."
No one stirred—but there was a sound as of a wind sobbing in the
branches of the shaken trees, and there were drops falling, as of a
gracious rain on the mown grass. It was Alice who was sobbing, but so
gently that she knew not it could be heard—it was Miles whose strong
limbs were trembling with over-mastering emotion, and whose tears were
falling fast as rain. The widowed mother had retired into that inner
chamber of the heart where the believing soul communes with her Lord;
and there she was interceding, as Moses interceded for the rebellious
children of his people:—
"Oh, he hath sinned a great sin; yet now, if thou wilt forgive his sin—"
Old Mr. Knibb had quietly submitted to the turn which things had taken,
though he was altogether unenlightened as to the true cause of the
emotion which was prevailing around him. But the old man's thoughts
had gone back into some almost forgotten haunts of memory, and the
handmaid, who, with lantern in hand, was lighting him through those dim
and crooked bye-paths of the past, was none other than conscience. Yes,
conscience, a rather sleepy inmate of the old man's "house of life,"
had been suddenly aroused from her long lethargy, and, her lantern,
which had gone out, was suddenly lighted up afresh from the clear
lamp of the word. And he was seeing some turns in his past road as he
had never seen them before, and wish, nay, longing, that the crooked
had been made straight, and the broad had been narrow, never mind how
narrow, so that it might not have brought him to the hard parched land
of his dry old age.
Look! the old man is weeping—weeping softly and tenderly as a little
child. Perhaps there may be a beam of Divine love shining on those
tears which the old man is wiping away with the back of his hard thin
hand. Sometimes, very late in the evening there is a light—light enough
to show the cross of Christ, though the eye maybe dim and the natural
strength abated, and it be very late in the day to bring the offering
of a contrite heart into the house of the Lord. But he has taken his
candle and gone to his chamber; and there we will leave him alone with
God.
The party round the hearth now broke up and withdrew to their several
rooms, after exchanging a scarcely audible "good night." But when
Miles, who had lingered behind the guests, stooped to kiss his mother,
he seemed struck with her sunk and worn look; and instead of allowing
Mat and Alice to push her chair into the little chamber opening out of
the kitchen, which she always occupied with Alice as her companion,
in order to avoid the stairs, he gently, very gently, put his strong
arms around, her shrunk frame and carried her into her room. This was
so like one of the little thoughtful acts of former days, that the old
lady, when he had placed her in the chair by her bedside, laid her
shaking hand upon his thick brown curls and solemnly pronounced the Old
Testament blessing: "'The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: The Lord make
his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up
his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace,' my son!"
"Amen," said Miles, in a choking voice, as he again kissed his mother,
and rushed to his own little chamber. He closed the door and flung
himself upon his knees in an agony of remorse.
"Ah!" muttered he, in the bitterness of his spirit. "I see how it is
now. It is the first wrong step that leads one off the road. I thought
I was the strong man that could stand in his strength. I thought my
training was so good, and my principles so firm that I could afford to
look, temptation in the face. I thought 'twas only weak people that
yielded, and it was not needful for such as I to keep out of harm's
way. And then thought it was well to see what life is, that it would
only give one experience and strength to look a little into what the
rest of the world were about. And I made acquaintance with young men
who said there was no spirit in the dull sort of life I was living,
ordered about by a sick mother, and led blindfold by a silly little
sister, and a 'prig of a preaching schoolmaster, that carried his head
above all his betters in the whole country side.' At first I only
laughed, for I knew well enough they were mistaken."
"Ah! I see now, plain as sunlight, that when a young man laughs at
evil insinuations, the devil is sure to be laughing too: the one laugh
is only the echo of the other. Then came the Ambleside fair, and that
nasty little booth with the play going on in it. I shook my head at the
things that were acted there and at the still worse things that were
hinted at. Ah, those vile hints! They are a deal worse than saying the
full meanings right out, because that would have shocked, and the other
just amuses and leads one's curiosity on further still. Yes, at first I
shook my head, but before it was over I laughed; and that laugh again
was an echo from beneath. I don't rightly know what followed; because
when I came out from the booth I was so thirsty that I went into the
tap to take one glass—only just one, no more, on any account, before
going home."
"Bella! Bella! And thou had'st begged me in thy own sweet way,
begged and prayed me not to cross the threshold of temptation. But I
vowed in my heart that I would only take that one glass of needful
refreshment—yes, refreshment I called it—and in I went. Miner Jack
was there, and Tim o' the Brooms presently came in, and told capital
stories, until we roared with fun. I am sure I don't know what
followed—only, those two tempters saw me home as far as the dale,
talking very large about speculations, and good safe investments for a
young man's money, remunerative labor, and grinding laws, that 'twas
a spirited young fellow's duty to break through, because they were
unrighteous legislation. I thought them brave, noble fellows, fool as
I was. They have been constantly at me ever since that fatal night,
alluring me into their deadly ways until they have got me wholly in
their power, bound hand and foot. Father of the prodigal! Father, I
have sinned against heaven and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be
called thy son. I know I am a very great way off; but oh, canst not
thou see me even here, and have compassion and come to meet me?"
Just at this very moment, and a critical moment it was—for that young
man's soul was hovering over the dim confines betwixt life and death—a
low whistle was heard without.
The young man started to his feet with a spring, clasping his hands,
and crying with an exceeding bitter cry, "Hast thou found me, O mine
enemy?"
Yes, truly; his hard task-master had come to look after the bond-slave
who at that moment was meditating desertion from his side. It was not
probable that Satan would give up his own, without another effort to
retain him. It is not safe for the sinner to say, "Ah, I can turn,
repent, and live, whenever I choose: all in good time. Sin is not quite
so pleasant as I thought it would be; and so, on the whole, I think I
had better go home and lead a new life."
Poor Miles Lawson! The strong man armed "thinks he shall be able to
keep thee a little longer in peace;" let us wait, and see whether "a
stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, and take from
him all his armour wherein he trusteth, and divide his spoils."
Again the low whistle is heard, and this time it sounds just beneath
his window. How was it that Chance and Laddie did not begin to bark
until the first whistle was heard? It must have been the snow that
muffled the tread of that stealthy foot. They are barking furiously
now! But Miles, flinging open the casement, bids them be still; and
unwillingly they drop into sullen silence, broken at times by a low,
protesting growl.
"Send away your dogs, or I'll finish them right out," said the voice
uneasily from below.
"Be off; Chance, I say—away with thee, Laddie," said their poor master
from the chamber window. Laddie obeyed, and disappeared; Chance
withdrew a few yards, and then sat down determinately on the cold white
snow. They thought he was gone, and the voices renewed their parley.
"You have got the old fox in there. Now that he has run to earth, I say
keep him there."
"I can't keep him here, unless the snow stops the hole for you," was
the troubled reply.
"What are you at by saying for us? It is just as much for yourself. You
are in it full as deep as we. I would lame his old mare, but the stable
door is locked, and the dogs are about."
"He came unbidden, and he shall leave unhindered," said Miles firmly.
"Yes; and you think to be his guide. You are going to try your mean
hand at the informer's trade; for it is always the chief rogue that
turns king's evidence," said Tim o' the Brooms, with an insulting sneer.
"I'm going to do naught of the kind," said Miles, "but the old man
shall go his own gait. He has always been a friend of the family,
like—my dead father's friend; and nothing shall harm him."
"Very well, as you like," was the cool reply: "then the stock must be
shifted before morning; that's all."
"Stay, where will you be putting it? I will know that," cried Miles.
"Oh, it's all ready planned. We've got a safe hiding in view. The scent
will be hard up at somebody else's door. 'Twill be a good joke, too,
to catch the psalm-singers up at Scarf Beck in a trap. But that's your
concern, not mine."
"I'll not have that done, whatever else may be," cried Miles, with
burning cheek and clenched fist. "I'd sooner die than any of them
should be harmed. There shall not a breath stir against any one
belonging to—to—the folk up at Scarf Beck."
The man sneered offensively, and said, "I know how the land lies well
enough. But if you don't bring your cart tonight, and help us to shift
right off, 'over sands,' * we'll move all the whisky jars into the old
barn at Scarf Beck; and we'll see if anybody will believe the Hartley
lads when they swear they didn't put them there." So saying, Tim o' the
Brooms glided noiselessly away over the snow.
* Across Morecambe Bay.
CHAPTER III.
THE SNOW-DRIFT.
"A snow-feathered pillow,
On snow-drifted bed;
As foam on the billow,
So white was it spread."
Miles leaned on the windowsill, and thought long and anxiously. The
snow, continued to fall, soft and silent. The deep stillness of the
night was oppressive in its solemn weight. Even the dreary night-wind
seemed to hold its breath for awe; but all this while, each downy
snowflake that fluttered to the ground took its place slowly and surely
beside its sister-flake, quietly laying the foundations of one of those
heavy and long-standing falls which sometimes re-assert their dominion
over the mountain land, even after spring has begun to awaken the
sleeping life of the earth.
The soul of Miles Lawson was in the darkness of desertion and dismay.
He thought that every moment there was a fresh loop added to the great
net which Satan was forming around him; he almost fancied he could
see him netting, netting on, plying his mesh and his supple cords,
the while he laughed at his misery. "He got my will first; and now he
has bound my limbs, so that I cannot work when I would. This is thick
darkness—no light and no hope. And all this while I am losing precious
time; all this while those men, who are too strong and too cunning for
me, are laying their dreadful traps and snares at Bella's very door.
I can't endure that. Anything rather than that. I will go directly to
Scarf Beck, and give them warning; informer or no informer, spy or no
spy, traitor or not, I will go and save Bella and those harmless lads
from wrong."
He tried to open the window again, but it would scarcely stir, for it
was so banked up with snow. "Darkness, deathly darkness, and deep,
treacherous snow!" muttered the miserable young man. Suddenly there was
a rent in the black pall of clouds, which parted on either hand, and
the full moon looked serenely down upon the white world beneath.
Miles clasped his hands: "Oh, Father of the repentant prodigal! If thou
canst part the thick clouds like that, and give light, wilt thou not
give me light in my soul, and show me the way I should go?" He repeated
over to himself "the way—the way," when suddenly there darted into his
bewildered mind the luminous words, "I am the way, the truth; and the
life. No man cometh unto the Father, but by me."
Miles crept to his bedside, and dropped down on his knees in the very
place where he used to pray his little prayers when he was yet a little
child; and, like a little child, he clasped his hands, and prayed the
simple prayers of his childhood. He even remembered every word of the
hymn with which his mother used to sing him to sleep, and he repeated
that too. Miles continued long on his knees, and when he gently rose
and went to the window, it was not with the "exceeding bitter cry" with
which he had last sprung to his feet, but with the words, whispered as
if he could "scarce believe for joy and wonder":
"Hast thou indeed found me, O my Saviour?"
The moon was now shining steadily upon the scene, and the snow had
ceased falling; but it lay so deep upon all around, that the usual
tracks were obliterated.
"Nevertheless I must go," said he, firmly, in answer to the
remonstrances of thought; "Bella must be saved at any cost from this
wicked wrong; and I must tell these men that I have done with them
forever, but that I will not inform against them if they will only give
up the bad line they are in, and leave the neighborhood."
He opened the door, and listened: all was quiet, except that the clock
ticked on the stairs in its own measured way, and he started when it
struck three, as he glided past it with shoeless feet. He found his
black-and-white shepherd's plaid wrapper hanging on the pin in the
kitchen, and he threw it around him in the approved mountain fashion,
whereby it forms a good protection for chest and shoulders, while
sufficient freedom is left for the arms. He then put on a stout pair of
boots, drew on his warm worsted gloves, tied Alice's "comforter" round
his neck, and taking his stout staff, opened the door.
The porch was floored with snow: the walk was a shining sheet of white:
Alice's pet plants were buried, or else feathered into white and
drooping plumes: the brother yews were bending under masses of snow:
the little wicket stood like bars of alabaster before him; and rather
than break the shining spell, he vaulted lightly over it.
He passed through the farm-yard, and his favorite young horse whinnied
when he heard his master's step, muffled thought it was by the
deadening snows. Laddie sprang to his side, but was waved off; Chance
did not appear, yet all the while he was watching and lurking about
behind corners, and under walls; for he had settled it in his faithful
mind that go he would, whatever orders he received to the contrary. He
did not like the look of the man who had been whistling and whispering
under the window, and he did not like the snow; and therefore if danger
were abroad, wherever his master was, there would his faithful servant
be.
Miles was quite unconscious of this mute resolve, and of its answering
movements, but plodded heavily on along the white lane, and across the
white fields in the well-known direction of Green Gap. As he approached
the narrow gateway into the glen, he found that the snow forced through
the narrow pass by the driving wind of the previous evening, had been
whirled about in wild eddies, and had then settled into fantastic
wreaths, or gathered into smooth and sloping banks, as the accidents of
the ground or the impulse of the gale had determined. Onward, however,
he forced his way, until he was startled to see that, in the very jaws
of the Gap white walls rose above his head, here eight, then ten, now
twelve feet high, sometimes smooth as Parian marble; at others, crested
like a breaking wave. What if that curling and foaming billow should
suddenly bend, break, and engulf him? What if the treacherous wind
should blow a blast against that mountain surge, and shiver it into
showers of frozen spray? He stops and looks up. The moon is shining
coldly upon the glistening crags; and there, gleaming through the Gap,
rises the Old Man, with a white sheet thrown over his lofty forehead,
enwrapping his broad shoulders, and lying in glittering folds about his
feet.
The scene was magnificent in its wintry grandeur; but it was appalling
to the young man's mind. How was he to force his lonely way up the
gorge to Scarf Beck? He clasped his cold hands and breathed a prayer
for guidance; "Leave me not, neither forsake me; show me the way in
which thou would'st have me to walk, outwardly as well as inwardly,
through the snows and through the snares. Guide me by thine eye: uphold
me with thy hand. I look unto thee to save me, for thou art my God."
These, and other little fragments of broken prayer, little snatches of
precious psalms, little bits of remembered teachings, came thrilling
through his bewildered mind.
And still he struggled on. Oh, the weariness and the weight! the
weariness of dragging his limbs out of the deepening snows, the weight
of the aching limbs as he plunged them into fresh wreaths and took the
soundings of new depths.
Is he in the right path? He looks round, but he is growing dizzy: his
eyes must be dazzled by the moonshine on the glittering snows: it is
sickening, that changeless glare. He wishes the moon would go behind
the cloud to relieve his giddy brain for one brief space, only that
would leave him in darkness.
On, then he must go. He should be beside the beck by this time, Scarf
Beck, Bella's beloved stream. Ah, that thought rouses him from his
sleepy languor. He listens: he catches a muffled sound—how unlike its
usual living gladness; how thick its voice compared with its wonted
clear cadences, or with its loud tumultuous brawl when once it is
angry. It must be half choked with snows and dulled with intruding ice.
Ah, the weariness and the weight! He must rest, must sleep away his
sickening giddiness, just for a little moment, before he struggles and
labors onward. He is reeling, rambling towards that smooth bed, that
soft pillow, those fringed curtains, those white and winding sheets.
Stay, Miles, it is the cold white bed of death.
Now Chance, this is thy moment. Thou hast been laboring on after thy
unconscious master without a word to encourage thee, without a sign
to teach thee thy duty: thou hast dragged thy weary way a few yards
behind him, not daring to show thy self for fear of being driven back
as usual, Now, then, at last, thy time come. The noble dog plunges
forward, all tired as he is, and jumps to lick his failing master's
hand.
"What is it? Chance, my poor, poor fellow, art thou come to help thy
master? Thanks, thanks, Chance," murmured he in a dull, dreary voice.
But the kind tone, the evident acceptance of his poor presence, the
hand laid upon his great black head, all this was payment enough, and
over payment to old Chance, and he is happy.
Encouraged by his dog's companionship, Miles struggles on a few yards
further. But his spasmodic efforts cannot hold out much longer. Once
more, he reels, staggers, sinks into a deep drift. And there we leave
him to sleep out his leaden sleep, which that melancholy bark of the
old dog, and that most piteous whining have no power to awaken.
CHAPTER IV.
THE SEARCH.
"Take we heed to all our foot-prints;
Tell-tales are they, where we go.
Let them bear no evil witness
On the sand, or on the snow;
On the mould, or on the clay,
Or life's dusty, thronged highway."
THE family at The Yews are sleeping rather longer than usual on the
morning at which we are now arrived. Sleep had been a late guest at the
pillows of several of the household, for anxious thoughts had kept the
earlier watches of the night with them, "holding their eyes waking." At
last Mat was up, and out with Geordie and the farm lads, looking after
the sheep. Laddie was at hand in readiness to help; but Chance failed
to obey the whistle which generally brought him in a moment, eager for
his work.
"What's to do with the old dog, that he doesn't come at call?" said
Geordie Garthwaite; "I heard both the dogs barking terribly fierce in
the night; but Chance is no where this morning. Is the young master at
home, I wonder?"
"Yes," said Mat, "so far as I know. He was in last night. But he's
lying late this morning;" and away they went to dig out some of their
sheep, which had been buried in the drifts of the night.
"Miles dear," shouted Alice at her brother's door—"Miles, come to
breakfast."
No answer.
She opened the door and he was not there. There was the bed just as her
own careful hands had left the sheet neatly turned down, and the pillow
round and smooth. The casement was not quite closed, and there was a
little bank of snow lying on the windowsill.
A single glance showed her all this, and she rushed down to the
kitchen in consternation "Oh, Mark! he isn't there; and his bed is all
untouched. He must have gone out—and oh I think of the snow."
"Gone?" exclaimed Mark, with terror in his face, "and such a night!"
He ran up stairs to Miles's room to try to collect evidences of what
had occurred; but he could gain nothing here. Then the place where hung
the hats and plaids was examined; and Miles's hat and plaid were gone;
his boots were gone too, and his mountain staff.
"He has taken his 'comforter,'" sobbed Alice, "mine that he liked so
much; and the gloves that I knitted."
"Has he?" said Mark, with a brightening face, "then he wasn't
desperate; he wouldn't have done things so orderly, unless he were cool
and clear. There is hope in that, dear Alice;" and he took her hand
tenderly. "I will go and seek him; and thou must trust me, as thou
would'st a brother."
"I will," was her firm reply; but when she saw him silently making
ready to set forth, her heart misgave her; and going up to him, she
said pleadingly, "Will you not tell me where you are going, and what
you will do?"
"Going to call Geordie and the lads, and then search the road to the
Old Man."
Alice shuddered; and quietly laying her cold hand on his arm, said,
"Mark, you must let me go with you. I cannot stay behind."
"And leave the mother in her desolation, Alice? Besides," he added in
a low voice, as he rushed out through the porch, "how could I bear to
risk my all?"
Poor Alice! She knew only too well how great was her stake, too. But
every wandering thought was called home to assist in the dreaded duty
of breaking Miles' mysterious disappearance to the widowed mother.
There was no wringing of hands, no tearing of hair, no wild burst of
passionate grief; but there was a look of inexpressible anguish which
seemed to make her ten years older at one stroke; and there were just
these few words, "I had best be alone, Alice, dear; but bring me my
book; for I am thinking I shall want every promise I can find, and
every prayer I can pray."
Alice silently crossed the door, and left her to the prayer of faith.
In the meantime, Mark was far on his way to the Green Gap, striding
onward in eager haste, and Geordie and the lads plodded after, looking
anxiously for tracks as they went. But some fresh snow had fallen in
the early morning, obliterating the footmarks which had been left,
first by Tim o' the Brooms, and then by Miles and his mute companion.
"I see nothing but smooth snows," shouted Mark to the group behind him.
"Well, Master Wilson, I seem to see sores in the snow, which have
healed over, like. They'll serve for the length of a man's stride well
enough, too. Look ye here."
And here and there slight signs of disturbance were just visible,
though only the eye of a shepherd, who had often tracked his lost sheep
in the fields and fells of snow, could have detected them.
Now they have reached the Gap, and they look with inward misgivings at
the snowy battlements by which it was defended—rampart, curtain, and
fosse. However, borne by their strong limbs and helped by their strong
staves, and impelled by their strong motive, the bold young men and the
brave old man forced their way through.
On the further side of the barrier there were two mountain roads
branching off from that which they had been following, the one leading
up the gorge to Scarf Beck Farm, the other winding up the side of
the Old Man. The party stop to consider. Mark Wilson thinks he has
grounds for the belief that his friend would take the way of the
mountain; but as his suspicions are vague, founded only upon the hints
and half-revealings of the previous day, which he had painfully put
together, he could give his companions no reason for the course which
he intended to pursue.
"Seems to me," said Geordie Garthwaite, "that young master is kind,
like, to Scarf Beck Bella—and so, like enough, he's gone there. That's
an old man's mind upon it."
"No," said Mark, "I must search the mountain's side before I go home."
"Then it's my belief," replied Geordie, "that we shall never get home
at all, if we do the like of that. There's snow enough in places to
bury us all, like sheep. But, stay! What's this, again?"
And sure enough there were undeniable footmarks plodding up the path
which led to the old workings of a deserted mine, high up on the
mountainside.
Geordie stooped down and examined. "It's a man's foot, however, turning
up here; and the prints are part filled again with new snow, looser and
softer than the old. So it's done since evening, when there was the
great fall. We'll try the mountain, master."
But those tracks, all the while, were but the tracks of Tim o' the
Brooms.
Poor Chance! Thou dost not know how near is help, and how it is already
turning away and leaving thee in thy distress. And yet thy poor
unenlightened instinct is doing wonders of self-sacrificing devotion,
and of beautiful, tender skill. Thou halt dug away the snow which had
closed over thy unconscious master; thou hast licked his pale forehead;
licked his livid face over and over again; licked his stiffening
wrists: takes his hand in thy mouth in thy agonized efforts to rouse
him from his strange, cold sleep; and then, lying down close to his
side, thou hast moaned and whined to the winds. If there be a heart
yet beating feebly within that rigid form, it is because thy anxious
efforts have not suffered the last faint glow of animal heat to die out.
The little band of searchers is now working its way wearily up the
steep. It was well that the old shepherd knew the path in past times,
or they would have been inevitably lost. They are too much engrossed,
by their life and death engagement, to see how glorious in its wintry
majesty is the scene above, beneath, and around; the shining crest of
the mountain, each broad white shoulder, and every descending line,
sharply cut against the dark blue sky; the lake beneath as blue as the
deep sapphire above, each headland projected in silvery curves into the
lake, pencilled with the feathery outlines of snow-laden branches, or
heavily fringed and embroidered with the dull dark green of the pines.
The crags, where they were too precipitous to afford a resting-place
to the snows, on ledge or in hollow, looked out stern and bald from
the prevailing drapery; and here and there a fleecy cloud had floated
down to hold some mysterious parley with a mountain-top, for the time
confounding all distinction between earth and sky.
"What can that little line of thread be, up there in the hollow of the
crag?" asked Mark Wilson. "It cannot be a shred of mist, can it? It
looks strangely like smoke." They all looked up; and there was, sure
enough, a slender line of blue smoke curling upward from a dark crevice
of the rock.
"Smoke, heather smoke, and none other, unless I am blinded with the
snow," was Geordie's reply. "It's uncommon strange, that. Come, my
lads, we will find out who has lighted a heather fire up on the heights
like that, and what for it is."
Mark made no reply, but strode and clambered on. He had his own painful
theory whereby to account for the phenomenon. They were now at the foot
of the crag, when first one man's head, and then another, was seen
peering down over the rocks. The heads instantly disappeared again;
and presently, after, the curling line of blue smoke disappeared also;
but the old shepherd's practised eye had already carefully taken its
bearings and noted its way-marks.
"Up this way, lads; we will soon see what sort of bird has been
building its nest in such a queer hole as that."
"It is the nest of foul birds of prey, and we must net them, if we
can," remarked the schoolmaster, gloomily.
"Ay, ay, net them, master; and carry off the nest egg," said the
shepherd with a knowing smile.
"Have they got guns up there, I wonder?" said one of the farm lads, in
a hesitating voice. "I can't say as though I much like the sport."
"Come on," cried the schoolmaster, "we are doing our duty, and that is
enough for brave Englishmen."
Scarcely had he spoken when a bullet whistled sharply past his head,
and splintered a projecting point of rock close behind him.
"Now, then, I am strong to do my duty," said Mark, "for they are
murderers in their hearts, though God has spared me."
Another bullet whizzed by.
"This will not do at all," said old Geordie, quietly; "now, then, my
lads, make a rush for your dear lives."
The old man planted his iron-shod shepherd's staff on the rock, and
sprang up with the agility of a native-born cragsman; for he had robbed
many a raven's nest, and eagle's eyrie, in his distant youth, and had
won the shepherd's prize for the feat. At this instant, a man rushed
down the craggy path and sprang away like a goat from rock to rock.
"There goes Miner Jack," cried one of the lads.
But another figure which had been stealing round a buttress of the
mountain fortress, suddenly leaped out upon Mark Wilson with a yell of
hatred, and grappling with him, rolled heavily down the steep.
"Save the master, save him," shouted old Geordie from above.
The young men rushed down after the yet rolling figures, and contrived
to stop them in their headlong course. It was but just in time; a yard
or two more and they would have bounded together down a precipice which
was masked by snow, and been dashed in pieces at the foot. Tim o' the
Brooms instantly shook himself free from the lads, writhing from their
grasp like a slippery serpent, as he was, glided rapidly down the path,
and disappeared.
"Now for the hawk's nest, without the old birds," said Geordie.
They climbed to the entrance of an old working of the deserted mine—an
"adit," the Cornish miners would have called it—and looking in, they
were half-stifled by the smoke of an expiring heather fire, and by the
stupefying fumes of distilling whiskey.
Mark's eye eagerly searched the cave for an expected object, but that
object, to his inexpressible relief, he found not.
"Thank heaven he isn't here," whispered he. "Thank God for our
preservation," he solemnly added, aloud: and the three men stood in
deep silence, the two young men and the old, while the schoolmaster
offered up a brief thanksgiving in that strange oratory.
Then came the difficult consideration of what must be done under such
novel circumstances. Here was a perfect little distillery in full
working; the whole plant, as it is termed, of an illicit still, in
complete order. Here was a large heap of dried heather stored up for
fuel; for it is the heather smoke which imparts that peculiar mountain
flavor which distinguished the illicit whiskey from the lawfully
manufactured but ever dangerous and treacherous liquor. And there, in
the deep chamber of the adit, was a long array of stone jars, many of
them evidently full and others empty; while just at the mouth of the
cave was a lot of heavy jars, arranged as if in readiness for removal.
"I take possession in the king's name," said Mark, with serious
dignity. "This discovery must be notified immediately to Mr. Knibb; and
then we wash our hands of the affair. But recollect, my friends, we
have not yet found Miles Lawson. Everything must be sacrificed to the
search for him. All this, while he may be perishing in the snow."
"Ay, ay, the young master first of all, and then the spoil," replied
Geordie Garthwaite.
"We had best have a dram to drive the cold out of us, in course,"
suggested one of the farm lads.
"And just to see if it is worth anything," added the other.
"Not a drop shall be touched," said Mark, firmly; "I wish I dare pour
it all out on the heather; but it is not ours end I cannot do as I
would. Now for the young master, without a moment's waste of time."
"What if the Miner and Broom Tim should come back and take all the
stock away?" reasoned one of the young men, as they descended.
"They will not do that," said old Geordie. "They saw we knew them, and
they are far enough off by this time. Besides, they'd never think we
should be such silly folks as to leave the prey." Then, coming close to
Mark, he said in a low voice, "What is't has brought you a'top here,
Master Wilson, to seek for young master in such a rabbit-hole like?"
"I had rather not tell even such an old friend of the Lawsons as you
are, Geordie; only I am humbly thankful that we have not found him
there."
"Well, well, you needn't say it; for I have had my heavy doubts about
what was a'foot for a good bit o'time. But 'twasn't for an old friend
of the lad's, his father's servant and his grandfather's before him,
to say aught against the good name of the family. But I have been sore
sorry for the mistress when the poor lad has been out o'nights, and
slighting the land by day. I've done my best to keep things together,
and taken more upon me than I should, like enough. But it is an evil
case when the master takes to bad ways."
"What is your advice now Geordie?" asked the schoolmaster. "For I am
quite at sea again."
"I thought so. Well, it's my counsel that we go home round by way of
Scarf Beck, and see if they know aught about him, there."
"That is it," said Mark, with a gleam of revived hope; "round by way
of Scarf Beck, lads, as fast as legs can carry us. My watch to whoever
finds him first."
CHAPTER V.
HOME AGAIN.
"Thou wilt not be weary of me;
Thy promise my faith will sustain;
And soon, very soon I shall see
That I have not been asking in vain."
A. L. WARING.
Hours had passed at the Yews, and there was no sign of the seekers
or of the sought. Alice and Mat had been making expeditions in all
directions excepting that one which had been taken by Mark and the farm
servants; but not a trace could they find. Old Ann had half buried
herself in the snow in her attempts to reach the furthest of the Beck
meadows, and had tottered home half dead with cold. Even Mr. Knibb
had saddled Madam, and attended by young Mat, had made a bold dash at
the road which led out of the dale at the end opposite to the Green
Gap. But Madam's shoes had become so completely balled with snow, that
it was with much ado, he had led her back to the farm; while Mat had
bravely made his way to the little hamlet in the adjoining dale, along
roads less blocked by snow than the taken by the schoolmaster and his
party, but still formidable to any but a shepherd lad.
At last, the suspense had become intolerable to Alice, and watching her
opportunity when she saw old Ann settled in by the warm fire beside her
mother's rocking chair, she called Laddie, and set forth.
"Now Laddie," said she in a cheery voice, waving her hand around her,
"we must find master."
The fine fellow pricked his ears, whined, and fawned upon her, in full
comprehension of the duty laid upon him, and darted away before her.
"No, stop; keep beside me, Laddie, I say."
He leaped back to her side, in recognition of the second clause of his
important commission.
"Master," said she, pointing at the snow.
He sniffed carefully about, and then set his face determinately towards
Green Gap.
She thought it strange that Geordie and his party had failed to take
the dog with them, as by far the most probable means of finding the
lost one; until she recollected that there had been a great calling and
whistling for the dogs at the time of their setting forth, that Laddie
could no where be found because he was away on the lower fells with
Mat, in full business looking after the sheep, and that Chance had been
unaccountably missing all the day.
The young dog was now evidently following up a good scent, as his
short, pleased barks and determined manner proceeding sufficiently
testified. She plunged and plodded after him through the snow as
fast as her limbs could carry her, but his chiding impatience at the
slowness of the progress was painful to her to behold. They have passed
Green Gap now, though nothing less than her own strong love and her
stimulating fears could have carried the young girl through the perils
of the pass.
"Which way, now?"
The way up the gorge to Scarf Beck without a doubt; Laddie has
evidently no misgiving whatever; for he has tried the trampled road to
the mountain, renounced it immediately, trying back for a few yards
until, with a short cry, he showed he was in full scent again. On,
then, by the side of the now roaring beck, for the snows were melting
and the stream was becoming strong and loud.
Suddenly Laddie stops—ears pricked—head in the air. What can he hear
beside the brawling of the stream? He breaks out into an almost human
cry, and rushes on in spite of Alice's distressed calls and commands
that he should not leave her. She certainly hears another voice besides
his, no—yes, the joyful barking of two dogs—old Chance's full deep
voice and Laddie's sharp treble. Look, Laddie is coming back to meet
her, trembling all over with intense excitement.
A few more painful efforts, and the young girl sinks perfectly
exhausted beside her senseless brother. But she has no leisure for
fainting, no time for feeling: she has stern work in hand. Is he dead
or alive? That is the only thought. Chance is still laboriously licking
the face and the hands of his master. Alice lays her hand on his heart,
and still—yes, still—she thinks there is a feeble beating and a little
sense of vital warmth. That is enough for her.
"Off, Laddie," said she earnestly to the dog, waving her hand in the
direction of Scarf Beck Farm; "off, and bring them here;" pointing to
his master.
The dog understood and was off. What cannot a shepherd's dog
understand, when, at his master's bidding, he will hunt up, collect and
bring home, a whole flock of lost and scattered sheep, without missing
a single one?
The party returning from the old Man were coming along the pathway
which led to Scarf Beck Farm, when Laddie saw them at a distance—dark
figures on the white snow—and rushed wildly up to them, entreating them
by every argument, short of speech to follow him.
"What's to do with the young dog?" said old Geordie in an excited
voice. "He has found out something for sure. Look at his ways."
They hurried along after him as though he were a human guide, and
before long they came, sure enough, upon that sad group in the
cave-like hollow which was scooped out of the side of the great
snow-drift.
"She has found him," exclaimed Mark; "thank God for that."
Alice was sitting on the snow holding her brother in her arms and
clasping him tight to her warm heart. She had wound her plaid around
him besides; and the old dog was still leaning against him, licking his
blue hands and wrists. Alice's face was buried in her brother's hair;
but at the sound of Mark's exclamation, she looked up hastily, and
saying:
"Oh, Mark," burst into an agony of tears, the first she had shed. "Oh,
do something to save him. I know he is not dead. I am sure I can feel
his breath."
They knelt around the seemingly lifeless figure, and Old Geordie took
out a little flask of brandy, which he had put into his pocket on
starting from home, saying to Old Ann, "I'll take this, however; no one
knows but there may be sore need of it."
He now managed to get a little of the restorative within the livid
lips; and after what seemed a long, long time, there was an evident
attempt to swallow. It was more like a spasm of pain than a natural
effort; but it showed that the living spark had not quite gone out.
They all now set to work, rubbing the hands, chafing the feet, bathing
the temples with brandy, and again contriving to get a little of the
liquid swallowed.
"We must carry him home," said Geordie; "we shall never get him round
here, in the cold wind. Sister will wrap him up right well, and we men
will carry him."
And so the melancholy-looking procession moved away from the shining
snow-cavern, the dogs trailing along behind in a state of deep
depression, because they did not like the look of the long muffled
figure helplessly borne along by the four silent men. Alice tried to
get on in advance, to give warning to her mother, and to prepare the
hot bed, hot blankets, and hot drinks, on which she rested her hopes.
But with all her efforts, her spent strength could make small progress.
"Don't distress yourself so, Alice," said Mark Wilson, who was
anxiously watching her spasmodic efforts; "we shall be there as soon as
you."
"I must do something to help," she replied, with quivering lip.
"Thou go and help the lile maiden," said Geordie compassionately;
"she'll drop soon, and we shall e'en have them both to carry home to
mother. One is bad enough."
But for this encouragement from the old servant, Mark's shy reserve
would have withheld him from aiding the poor girl. She had dropped
behind by this time, in utter prostration of her over-strained powers.
It was well that this strong and willing arm came to the rescue. How
confidingly she leaned on him! How she trusted her weakness to his
strength! She felt as if she could have done anything with that arm
to aid, that voice to encourage, that look of understanding sympathy,
tender and true, to comfort her. Will they ever forget that mournful
walk? Never—as long as they live.
Young Mat had by this time returned from his bold but fruitless
expedition to the distant hamlet, and had caught sight of the dark
group of figures winding along over the white fields. He thought that
all was indeed over. It looked like nothing but one of those mournful
processions which he was accustomed to see creeping along the side of
the hills, up out of one valley, and down into another, on the old
paved pathways leading to the common centre in the church-yard which
are expressively called in the language of the country, "corpse-roads."
"They are coming along, mother," said he, entering the kitchen, and
gently going up to his mother's chair; "they have found Miles, I think,
but I don't rightly know how."
The widow looked searchingly in the boy's face, and trembled all
over. "Nevertheless," said she, "I'll have everything ready for life.
In His hands are the issues. Warm the lad's bed, Ann, and heat the
blankets—ay, roast them brown, if thou likest. Put the peppermint tea
on the hob. Do thou try warmth, and I'll try prayer;" and the aged
women betook themselves to their several offices.
The party soon entered in silence; for they dared not raise the
mother's hopes over so very doubtful a case of revival.
"Take him straight to his own warm bed," she said, "and place me and
my chair beside him. Who knows but the Lord may hear the cry of the
destitute and not despise their prayer? It seems borne in upon my mind
that it shall be well with the lad, and that his spirit shall come to
him again."
Two long hours afterwards, Alice glided downstairs, and going to Mark,
who was leaning his head on both his hands, with his elbows on the
kitchen table, said with beaming eyes and glowing face, "Oh, Master
Wilson, the color is come again into Miles' face, and he is quite warm,
and sleeping like a child."
He started up, took both her hands in his, and pronounced a solemn
thanksgiving.
"Alice," he added, "let us pray that our brother may in very truth be
alive from the dead. Surely that was repentance last night. I thought I
heard the sob of a broken and a contrite spirit. But his going out in
that strange way is what puzzles me."
"Wait—wait, and see," said the loving sister; "I think it will all be
made clear. He was so tender to mother last night; so very gentle and
kind to me."
"That is no particular sign of good that I know of," said Mark, smiling
at her flushed and eager defence of her brother; "how could he be
anything else than kind, and loving to thee?"
"Oh, Master Wilson, you don't understand me at all."
"Master? We can never be master and pupil in that old distant way after
having shared so much together yesterday and to-day. I shall never be
able to separate the thought of thee from anything now, Alice."
But she was gone, fluttering away like a startled bird, before he
had finished the sentence which it had cost him so much emotion to
pronounce.
"She is gone," said he, despairingly. "I believe I don't understand
women's minds as well as school-boys. Now, one would have thought that
she would at least have waited to hear what I should say next."
CHAPTER VI.
THE MOUNTAIN ECHOES.
"An idle word—a lowly prayer—
A gentle 'Bless thee!' fitly spoken,
May live, and echo through the air,
As if its life could ne'er be broken."
It was days before Miles Lawson rallied. His powers were so utterly
prostrated, that dull heavy sleep seemed to be the only resource
of nature. They could scarcely rouse him, even to take the needful
nourishment; and at such times he took no notice of any one, but drank
his mother's concoctions, or Alice's less distasteful preparations,
in a mere mechanical manner, without raising his dim eyes to see
what hand was ministering to him. All this while he never spoke, or
showed the least consciousness of what had passed; and his watchful
attendants wisely refrained from forcing any exciting subject upon his
over-strained nerves.
"He will mind all about it as soon as he has got strength to look back
over his shoulder," said the old lady; and so she folded her hands
patiently, and waited another day, and yet another, for the signs of
reviving consciousness.
In the meantime, all were not idle at The Yews. Mr. Knibb had been
extremely excited by the news of the discovery of the secret still on
the mountainside, and had made more than one effort to set off for
the lofty spot on the same evening. But Madam was wholly of another
mind, and showed so much partiality for the warm stable, and such an
objection to be mounted on four hard and slippery balls of snow, that
the impatient old gentleman had to yield the point. Madam was quite in
the right; nothing could then have been attempted with success, or even
with safety.
Early on the following morning a strong party was mustered, headed by
Mr. Knibb and the schoolmaster, and composed of Geordie Garthwaite,
young Mat Lawson, the farm lads, and Bella Hartley's brothers. There
were two carts in attendance, and these were picketed at a chosen spot,
as far up the mountainside as wheels could reach. The old exciseman,
leaving Madam with the rear guard, carefully covered with his own drab
top-coat, labored up the steep path with marvellous spirit and speed.
Once or twice they caught sight of a small figure, apparently that of
a young boy, which was hovering about at a considerable distance from
them, and hiding in nooks and crevices, as if stealthily watching their
proceedings.
"What is that? A lad or a dog?" asked Mr. Knibb, too much excited to
observe narrowly. "Catch it, my lads, whatever it is. Depend upon it,
it is contraband."
They gave chase for a few minutes; but the little object darted away
like a mountain sheep, and disappeared.
"Never heed," said the schoolmaster; "I don't much like catching a poor
child; even if we could, and torturing him with fright into telling all
he knows, and perhaps more than he knows."
Besides his compassionate feeling, Mark was very anxious, for his
friend's sake, to get through the affair as quickly and easily as
possible, consistently with his strong sense of the just and the
right. And although he would have done everything which he believed
to be required of him as a good subject, yet he was not sorry to see
the little scout re-appear at an amazing distance down the steep, and
joining a larger group of moving objects, wholly vanish together with
them behind a broad spur of the mountain. Pursuit was hopeless, as the
unknown figures had the advantage of ground and of great distance.
"There go your potters, I should say, Mr. Knibb," said Mark.
"Likely enough," was the reply, in a tone of mortification. "Much if
they have not been at the still in the night and carried off all the
stock."
"We had best hurry on, and see about it," said Old Geordie eagerly.
They did hasten on, gained the mouth of the adit, and looked anxiously
round to see if anything had been disturbed. No; everything wore the
same look as on the previous day.
"Here we are, just in time," remarked Mr. Knibb, rubbing his hands; "my
potter friends were just then coming to strip the place, and old George
Knibb has for once got the start."
He was perfectly charmed with the completeness of the little
establishment, and went about sniffing and tasting with marvellous
zest, making entries in his note-book of everything which the cave
contained.
Whilst this regular inspection was going on, and whilst Mr. Knibb was
making his official inventory, Mark looked anxiously round to see if
he could discover any traces of his friend's complicity in the lawless
affair. Suddenly, he espied a sheet of writing paper, which was stuffed
into a corner, and which looked as if it had been used to wrap up some
little refreshment, such as bread and cheese, or the like. A thought
struck him; that scrap of paper may afford evidence of guilt.
He stepped across to the side where it lay, and, on looking at it more
closely, thought he recognized his own hand-writing upon it. His own
writing? How could this possibly be? He looked at it again: "My dear
Miles." Here, then, was proof fearfully clear. This must be a letter
which he had written to Miles Lawson a week or two before, in reference
to the period of his regularly revolving visit to The Yews, and which
he had sent by a careful hand, not likely to have failed in its due
delivery.
He hastily seized the paper, and, crumpling it up, thrust it into his
breast; but this was done with such an undisguised look of pale terror,
that Old Geordie, who, like himself, was on the look-out for traces
of his young master's former presence in this unlawful spot, saw at a
glance that something was wrong.
With his wonted almost feudal attachment to his house, he hurried to
the schoolmaster's help by calling out in a loud voice, in order to
divert attention. "To think that we should be such a bad disloyal lot,
as never to have minded that 'tis our first duty to drink the king's
health in his own 'mountain dew,' with 'three times three,' my lads!"
"Ay, to be sure, so we ought," exclaimed the farm servants.
"Come, then, all of you, out to the mouth of the hole," said the old
shepherd leading the way—an invitation which was but too willingly
followed by the whole party, with the single exception of Mark Wilson.
"Come, schoolmaster," said Mr. Knibb, "I hope you teach loyalty to all
your lads."
"Yes; but not by making them worthless subjects," replied Mark,
recovering from his ill-concealed consternation.
"You don't mean to say you are not going to drink his majesty's health
and long reign on this extraordinary occasion?" expostulated the
excited old exciseman.
"My voice shall swell the cheer," said Mark, smiling; "but my lips
shall never touch the white-fire, which might turn me into a fool or a
madman."
"The master is right, as he is a'most times," said Geordie; "an old man
had so well keep a clear head upon his shoulders, when he has such a
scramble before him a'down over t' crags, with a heavy jar or two upon
his back. I'll join Master Wilson in a dry toast."
"But, Mr. Knibb," said Mark, "the spirits are not ours."
"Suppose then we honor the king, and give the cheer without the
whiskey. It will be a new sort of toast, but not the worse for that."
The exciseman agreed to the proposal and gave the words, "Long live the
king;" whereupon arose a cheer from the mouth of that strange hollow,
which the mountain echoes took up and repeated, one crag tossing it
on: like a bounding ball to the next crag, the ledge taking it up and
flinging it on into the hollow, the ridge sharpening it afresh before
it could die away in the depths of the gorge, and the ravine sending it
softly down in a silvery whisper to the sleepy lake below. The group
of mountaineers was almost startled by the marvellous effects of this
ebullition of their loyalty; for the excited echoes seemed to go on
repeating that hearty cheer as if they would never let it die out—as if
determined that it should become a living, abiding voice of the hills.
However, time pressed, and they returned to business. It was no
trifling undertaking to remove such cumbrous goods and chattels down
the steep sides of a craggy mountain; and more than once a disastrous
slip occurred in the experience of the heavy-footed farm servants,
which sent a jar bounding, leaping, curveting down the face of the
rocks, the liquid contents flying off in sparkling jots as it went,
insulting the innocent little juniper bushes which were taking their
long winter sleep beneath the snow, and demoralizing the pure and
spotless snows themselves.
Mr. Knibb was uncommonly exasperated by these accidents, and was led
to waste large stores of the "King's English" on the occasion. "Why,
it is direct treason. It is his majesty's property that the fellow
is destroying in that reckless way. I declare I will report him—I'll
prosecute him. There it goes again. Next time I'll send you after it,
and we shall see how you will relish trundling in that fashion from
rock to rock, all down the precipice."
At length, the bivouac was reached, the carts were loaded and
despatched; and the weary procession again ascended the mountain, to
return heavily laden as before. The cavern was at last completely
dismantled; and the schoolmaster's pen was speedily employed by Mr.
Knibb in drawing up a brilliant narrative of "The remarkable discovery
of an illicit still on Coniston Old Man."
A reward was afterwards offered for the apprehension of all the
offenders; but Miner Jack and Broom Tim had succeeded in effecting
their escape "over sands," though chased by a far more relentless foe
than the old exciseman, even by that treacherous tide which walks up so
calmly and yet with such rapid steps, taking noiseless possession of
the sandy plain.
But to return to The Yews: Miles' lethargy lay so long and so heavily
upon him, that his patient mother at last thought it would be desirable
to rouse him. One evening, when she had been administering her last
resource (a burning hot tea made of Cayenne pepper), which had appeared
to stimulate, not to say excite him, more than any previous means that
had been tried, she thought she would venture to mention the name of
Bella Hartley. But she was not prepared for the suddenness of the
effect produced.
Miles started up in bed, exclaiming, "I must go—I must go and save her;
no wrong shall ever come to her door through me. The snow is deep, very
deep; but nevertheless, I must go, traitor or no traitor, informer or
not."
With this he made a feeble effort to spring out of bed; but the widow
laid her hand upon his arm, settled his head again on his pillow, and
said, "Bella is safe; no harm has come to her; the snow is all gone,
and thou art lying quietly in thy own bed with thy old mother sitting
beside thee, Miles, my son."
He looked first puzzled, then troubled; but the dull light in his eyes
was clearing, and gleam after gleam of intelligence was passing slowly
over his face. It was evident that the heavy clouds were gathering up
and rolling away, and that the distempered mists and unhealthy fogs
which lay over the past were being dispelled by the reviving rays of
memory. But it was manifest to Mark's eye (for Mark, too, was sitting
beside his friend) that the backward views which Miles was obtaining
through these rents in the clouds were often very painful ones. He
changed color again and again, and passed his hand across his forehead,
as if to wipe out their remembrance.
At last he took his mother's hand, and smiled such a smile as she had
not seen on her son's face for many a long day—a smile of confiding
love and of almost child-like simplicity. "I shall have to tell thee
all things that ever I did, I think, mother; and thou must make thy
heart ready to listen to a sad story."
"If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our
sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," was his mother's
reply; "confess thy sins to God, and ask Jesus to reconcile thee to thy
Father and his Father, to thy God and his God. Never mind the telling
me all about them."
"I have confessed them to him, mother, and I do believe he has put away
their iniquity. But it will be right for me to humble myself to the
dust, after sinning with such a high hand: and I wish, I really do wish
that someone else, you know who, was here to know all about it, too."
"No," said Mark, hastily, "if you mean the young woman, she never need
know all the sad particulars about the past, now. Miles will lead a new
life; he will uphold the good old family motto; he will 'Feare God, and
worke ryteousnesse,' and the young woman's respect and love never need
be shaken, I should think."
"She will only love him the more for all he has suffered," said a
gentle voice; but when they looked round, Alice flushed and went to the
window.
"Alice is right," said Mark Wilson, looking at her with fond pride;
"there is nothing like honesty, and openness and truth. It was only to
spare her and to spare him that I took the weaker part. We always walk
safest and surest in broad daylight."
Miles held out his hand to his old friend and said, "That was the
doctrine you always taught me; but I have been a bad scholar indeed.
However, I shall tell Bella everything when I am strong enough; and
then we shall see whether she will ever trust me again."
CHAPTER VII.
CHANGING SEASONS.
"Life is astir beneath dead Nature's snows
Spring's quickened pulse is bounding through the earth.
Lo, in the wakened heart a life-stream flows:
Old things are dead; behold a second birth."
TIME passed on. Months had slipped away since the mind of Miles Lawson
had awakened to the consciousness of the past. But the recovery of his
bodily powers had not kept pace with the renewal of the mental. A low
fever, the natural rebound of the death-like chill, had been lying
heavily upon him, completely prostrating his strength, and refining
his rude manly frame into something too ethereal and shadow-like for a
young mountaineer.
His brown and sinewy hands had become white and almost transparent; his
cheek hollow and pale, save for the small bright spot which lighted
it up, while his eyes looked prominent and lustrous as lamps. But the
expression of his whole countenance and manner had as decidedly changed
for the better as his health had altered for the worse: the countenance
was now open, winning, and thoughtfully intelligent, instead of
sullen and unhappy: the manner was gentle and deferential, instead of
capricious and intolerant.
No one who knew anything of the changing signs of the moral
seasons—seed-time and harvest, winter and spring—could doubt these
outward evidences of the inward work of grace. That change had been
going on which is described in Scripture language as the turning from
darkness to light, from the power of Satan unto God. The depths of
repentance had been passed through, not once only, but again and again;
the sweetness of reconciliation had been known with a justly offended
God through the free and full atonement offered for sinners by the Son
sent by the Father: and thus delivered from the bondage of sin and
Satan, the new creature in Christ Jesus was seeking to live a new life
through the power of the sanctifying Spirit.
But Miles Lawson, after his many slips and wanderings, had found
it good for his soul's health to linger long in the "valley of
humiliation," and he found it to be such as John Bunyan describes it,
"as fruitful a place as any the crows fly over."
"I have known many laboring men," says Bunyan, "that have got good
estates in the valley; for indeed, it is very fruitful soil, and doth
bring forth by handfuls."
A beautiful change in the outward aspect of the dale, and in the habits
of dale life, had been going on during the same period. It is scarcely
like the same region. True, the noble outlines remain immovable—the
mountains drawing their fine forms against the sky; the lower fells
crossing each other in those graceful intersecting lines which the eye
so loves to follow; the valley biding with such shy and shady reserve
under the glooms of the projecting crags; and the stream finding its
way with its lovely curves and bends, forever humming its mountain
melodies.
But everything else has changed: the coppice wood at the mouth of the
glen is one sheet of varied and delicate greens; the rough leaves
of the hazels are intermixed with the silver stems and small bright
foliage of the birch; sycamores are shaking out their broad leaves,
creased and puckered with their tight foldings in the buds, the oaks
are sunning their finely-cut leaves; and the ashes, last to come and
first to go, are waving their sprays in the breeze; while the larches
have long ago hung out their light green tassels, and are now creeping
up the sides of the mountain with pointed crests, and in close array.
All color has changed, saving the dull dark hues of the time-worn
pines, and the grand and sombre masses of the ancestral yews: what is
the short summer of the dales to them? It may be a fleeting joy for the
ephemeral foliage around them. It may make a holiday for the golden
brooms, and the hedges of snowy thorn, and the festal plumes of the
bird cherry. It may cause a flutter of excitement in the sensitive
sprays of the aspen, and make the green moss-beds first all silvery
with snowdrops, then all golden with nodding daffodils and starry
primroses, and again all blue with bell-hung hyacinths, and pearly
with the shy wood anemone. But to them—to these dignified sires of
vegetable life, what is the fleeting influence of season? Hoary winter,
song-resounding spring, festal summer, golden autumn—these can scarcely
impart an added furrow, or wreathe their stately brows with any passing
glory.
Everything else, however, seems young and jubilant. Look at the lambs
upon the springy turf of the fells. They are playing like kittens.
No, better than that they are getting up regular games of their own.
There is system in that fun of theirs. That fat, saucy fellow, white
as snow, save for his black nose and his legs, which seem to dance all
the lighter for their little black worsted stockings—he is evidently
master of the revels. He marshals his band on the top of that old
gray rock that bares its forehead from amidst the elastic turf on the
mountainside. There are some of the young rebels who are determined to
scale the height from beneath in a wholly unauthorized way. That will
never do; the leader and his lambs line the ramparts, and butt and push
at every black nose that aspires upwards. The aspirants are beaten
back; and then down comes the whole garrison, leaping, bounding up in
the air "all fours" at once; and sweeping away the opposing force, the
whole lamb community careers away in one troop down the green slope of
the fell.
This is thought to be rather too wild work by those respectable old
ewes, who, in their staid sobriety, have altogether forgotten the days
of their youth. They lift their plain and anxious countenances from
cropping the scented turf, and, with mouths full of thyme and heath,
utter a few warning remonstrances, which only seem to stimulate the
wild frolics of the young folks. Surely they don't mean to send that
black, perfectly black lamb "to Coventry"? The insolent little rogues,
it really looks so. They won't let him join in the fun, forgetting
their own legs and noses: for they are but quadroons themselves, at the
best: and so he retires to the genial society of his mother, in whose
eyes he seems to be white and comely as a lily. Really, it is rather
trying to think that these charming lambs will grow up into those
ungainly and uninteresting old sheep.
Alice's garden is brilliant with flowers. "'Tis but a common cottage
garden," you will say: no exotics, no rare and delicate plants. But
here are England's dear old favorites, her best and choicest flowers.
What can surpass those regal "cabbage roses," so round and so full, or
those moss rose-buds growing under the lee of the white porch? Then
there are "sweet-williams," deep red and variegated, very stiff and
very handsome in their way: there are showy orange-colored lilies and
queenly white ones: there are purple columbines, and great red peonies,
and tall "Jacob's ladders," and grave "Solomon's seals": there are
graceful sweet peas clinging for support to anything they can reach;
and a little bed of spicy pinks, scenting the air like an island of the
eastern seas. The beds are all edged either with box, or with double
red and white daisies, or with the little fragile "witch's thimbles,"
chiming their small blue and white bells to every passing breeze.
But there is something going on under the broad shadow of the yew
trees. On the smooth grass-plot which spreads before Alice's rustic
seat, stands the long kitchen table, which must have been moved out
of doors for festal purposes, because it is covered with a clean
white table-cloth, and a number of chairs are placed round it. Plates
of piled-up bread and butter, cut and buttered currant "wigs," a
massive-looking cake, whose consistency is very much that of cold
"figgy pudding," a beautiful dish of ripe strawberries, dressed out
with leaves worthy of a ducal coronet *, and another dish of cherries
from off the walls of the house, furnish the entertainment. There is a
tea-tray also; and Mrs. Lawson's dozen of little old-fashioned silver
teaspoons have been taken out of the old oak chest and rubbed up for
the occasion.
* The strawberry-leaf is the ducal symbol, and is placed on the
coronet.
But who are the guests? The widow is there, sitting up in her chair
in considerable state as hostess; Alice, in simple gala costume, is
flitting about with a brilliant flush of pleased expectation on her
artless countenance; Mat is gone in to rub up his merry face until it
shines like a rosy-cheeked apple, to comb his light hair down over his
sun-burnt forehead, and to put on his best red waistcoat, with blue
glass buttons, and his bright green neck-tie. Chance and Laddie have
made no such distinguished toilette, but they are particularly on the
alert, barking little gala salvos, and pricking their ears at every
sound.
There is a sound now in the distance—a slow rumble of wheels in the
direction of Green Gap. The dogs are violently excited by this, because
a friend, a great buff sheep dog, with an enormous white plumy tail,
always comes in company with the rumbling "shandry" * from Scarf Beck
Farm. They are right in their apprehensions.
Mr. and Mrs. Hartley, a particularly comfortable, not to say
jolly-looking couple, are sitting up in the high-backed seat, with
Bella between them, and the young Hartley brothers are walking in
front. This is evidently a state visit; tea out of doors at half-past
three o'clock, and supper looming in the background at seven.
* The "travelling carriage" of the country—half-cart, half-gig.
We must have a photograph of Bella Hartley; for she is called by many,
the Queen of the Dales. She is taller by half-a-head than young Alice
Lawson, and of a far more noble figure and carriage. Her features are
finely-cut; and her head, with its bountiful profusion of bright brown
hair, sits with remarkable grace on her long neck and finely sloping
shoulders. Her dress is a simple light print, with a colored ribbon
round her throat.
Ah! there is a little story attached to that rather faded ribbon, and
some amount of sentiment; or else it would not have been selected for
this especial occasion. She has a grave, thoughtful, perhaps anxious
look; but it has not been always there. Her face was as sparkling as
her own Scarf Beck, until some twelve months ago, when, after a long
and painful talk with Miles Lawson, that care-worn expression took up
its settled abode on her lofty brow, and in her deep shadowy eyes.
On that summer evening, a year ago, she had said to him, "No, Miles,
you must give me back my promise; for I will never be the wife of a man
that I cannot trust out of my sight for half-an-hour."
And so they parted—he to grow more thoughtless and reckless than ever,
because he held himself to be an injured man; she to watch over him
from a distance with the folded hands of prayer, and to weep and mourn
in secret; while she carried before her little mountain world a brow
so calm, and a manner so serene and collected, that folks said she was
unfeeling, fickle, and heartless.
Other young farmers, and one or two land or mine agents, had paid their
court in the meantime; but no one had been even listened to. And all
the while that old faded ribbon had been lying carefully folded up in
her drawer.
What, then, can have brought about this remarkable visit? It is a
diplomatic arrangement between the "heads of houses." First of all,
Alice made a friendly call on Bella, taking with her a nosegay of spice
pinks and sweet-williams, and cursorily mentioning Miles' name some
dozen times, always in a highly favorable manner. This she considered
to be particularly skilful, and even very deep.
Then the eldest Hartley youth called to see Miles in return, and
carried home the news that "he was wasted to an atomy, and looked
as quiet like as schoolmaster himself." This report produced an
extraordinary sensation at Scarf Beck Farm; and the impression was
followed up by a ceremonious visit from old Geordie Garthwaite, with
the present of a fat little black pig from the widow Lawson to Mrs.
Hartley, which was graciously accepted, the faithful feudal emissary
taking occasion to drop sundry laudatory remarks about "young master's
talk being now as good as any sermon," and "if he went on much longer
of that fashion, he was frightened of seeing him soon a saint in
heaven; for he was right away too good for this evil world." Bella ran
off to her little chamber when she heard this, and did not appear again
that day.
Next came Old Ann, with an offering of a favorite guinea-hen for Miss
Bell, remarking "as how 'twas young master that sent it, though he
wasn't so bold as to show his face in it." This was spoken in a very
audible voice just under Bella's window. But of course the guinea-hen
walked and flew home again as soon as the hour came for sounding that
strange muezzin cry from the top of the round chimney, "Come back, come
back."
Then, at last, Mrs. Hartley ordered the shandry, and drove over to The
Yews to report the loss of the sentimental fowl. She was received with
extraordinary alacrity, and was engaged with Mrs. Lawson in the old oak
parlor, with closed doors, for a mysteriously long time. The result
of this interview was an announcement that the whole Hartley family
were coming over to tea and supper on the afternoon which has been
previously introduced.
Poor Miles evidently has not the strength or the courage to encounter
the excitements of this grand arrival. He is sitting in the deep shadow
of the pointed porch, almost justifying by his emaciated appearance and
changed expression of countenance, the eulogium and the fear expressed
by his old retainer, Geordie Garthwaite. He waits until Bella Hartley
passes by, and then nervously calls her by name; she stops and kindly
holds out her hand, "Miles, how ill you look; how changed you are!"
"God grant I may be changed indeed, Bella, for 'twas high time; and the
good of his long-suffering is, that it leads to repentance."
The tears were in her eyes in a moment, but the smile that shone
through that summer shower was a very rainbow of beauty.
"There are too many folks about for us to have a talk now, Bella; but
will you walk with me down to the alder shade by the beck after tea,
and give me your arm to help me on? For I haven't got the strength in
me to walk so far without it."
"Yes; and I will give it to you now in face of them all," said she, her
face crimsoning like a sun-rise.
He took her arm, and she led his tottering steps over to the group
beneath the yew tree. They all rose to receive them with silent respect
and sympathy. Mrs. Hartley gave him her seat on the rustic bench; but
he said, "Bella must be alongside o' me, if you please; for now that I
have found out the strength that there is in her arm, I shall want it
to lean upon for the rest of my life."
Old Geordie and Old Ann were anxiously watching the family proceedings
from the gate leading into the farm-yard; and they ever after
maintained that a great scene hereupon ensued, "that all women-folk
greeted, and all men-folk laughed, and clapped their hands."
The wicket gate had opened just before this denouement, and the
schoolmaster had dropped into the festal group. Perhaps a close
observer might have perceived that some other guest was expected, from
the flutter in Alice's manner, and her rather distracted attentions to
her friends. How ever that may be, now that Mark Wilson has taken the
empty seat, her eye never wanders towards the wicket gate any more.
Mark had come over by invitation from his present place of tarrying,
the hamlet in the neighboring valley, in order to be present at what
was fully expected to be a family betrothal; that is, if things worked
well. And that they had answered expectations, he perceived at a glance.
"Why, Miles, thou art looking a stronger and a heartier man already,
now that thy mind is at rest. God bless thee, Bella Hartley, for being
willing to trust one who has put his trust in Christ."
Tea over, Mat conducted the young Hartley's round the farm, as usual,
to see the stock. Mr. and Mrs. Hartley sat in the porch with the widow
Lawson. Bella redeemed her promise to lend her strong arm to Miles as
they slowly walked down to the alder shade, that made a bower beside
the brook, and there they communed of the painful past, of the happy
present, and of the promised future. Truly did they take sweet counsel
together, because their hope was in the Lord their God; and this was
the spirit of their prayerful resolve, "As for me, and my house, we
will serve the Lord."
What has become of the schoolmaster? And Alice, she is missing too.
Mark had said to her after tea, "You took my arm, once before,
Alice—will you take it again now?" She did not refuse; and they
have walked on beside the brook altogether forgetting that it was a
"babbler."
When they had all returned from their several walks, Mark Wilson went
up to the widow's rocking chair, and bending down, said, in a low
voice, "Mother, dost thou think thou hast two blessings to bestow?
Could'st thou bless a new son as well as a new daughter?"
"Bless the good lads; and bless the dear maidens!" was the ready reply.
"But, Mark, I can tell thee I am giving thee what I can ill afford."
"Your easy chair is never to move from where it now stands; we have
quite fixed that," whispered Bella.
"These are the children of my old age," said the widow, laying her
shaking hands on the head of Mark Wilson and Bella Hartley. "As to
Alice there, she has always been my one pet lamb. Mat is a good lad,
and I have faith to believe he will be a staff to my failing strength.
And as to thee, Miles, my eldest born, what shall I say but that, 'It
was meet we should make merry, and be glad; for this my son was dead,
and is alive again; and was lost, and is found.'"
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