THE SEARCH.
"Take we heed to all our foot-prints;Tell-tales are they, where we go.Let them bear no evil witnessOn 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."
HOME AGAIN.
"Thou wilt not be weary of me;Thy promise my faith will sustain;And soon, very soon I shall seeThat 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."
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."
CHANGING SEASONS.
"Life is astir beneath dead Nature's snowsSpring'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.'"