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.