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.