Bitha Lloyd

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ It was Alice who was sobbing, but so gently that she knew not it could be heard—it was Miles whose strong limbs were trembling with over-mastering emotion, and whose tears were falling fast as rain. The widowed mother had retired into that inner chamber of the heart where the believing soul communes with her Lord ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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." ”

“ Again the low whistle is heard, and this time it sounds just beneath his window. How was it that Chance and Laddie did not begin to bark until the first whistle was heard? It must have been the snow that muffled the tread of that stealthy foot. They are barking furiously now! But Miles, flinging open the casement, bids them be still; and unwillingly they drop into sullen silence, broken at times by a low, protesting growl.
"Send away your dogs, or I'll finish them right out," said the voice uneasily from below. ”

“ The Lord make his face to shine upon thee and be gracious unto thee: The Lord lift up his countenance upon thee, and give thee peace,' my son!"
"Amen," said Miles, in a choking voice, as he again kissed his mother, and rushed to his own little chamber. He closed the door and flung himself upon his knees in an agony of remorse.
"Ah!" muttered he, in the bitterness of his spirit. "I see how it is now. It is the first wrong step that leads one off the road. I thought I was the strong man that could stand in his strength. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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 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 ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Look! the old man is weeping—weeping softly and tenderly as a little child. Perhaps there may be a beam of Divine love shining on those tears which the old man is wiping away with the back of his hard thin hand. Sometimes, very late in the evening there is a light—light enough to show the cross of Christ, though the eye maybe dim and the natural strength abated, and it be very late in the day to bring the offering of a contrite heart into the house of the Lord. But he has taken his candle and gone to his chamber ”

“ 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." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ But in coming along a little mountain road up out of yon dale and down into the next, I saw a cart ahead of me, with two men. When we came alongside, Madam pulled up as usual for a crack. But one of the men, with a lot of brooms on his back, said, 'Hush! or you'll waken the poor old mother in the cart.' 'What's to do with the old mother?' said I. 'She's had a stroke,' said he, and we are taking her as soft as we can over to the workhouse at Milnthorpe.' And so seeing the poor body lying all of a heap in the cart amongst the heather brooms, I just said, 'Poor soul and went my ways. ”

“ 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. ”

“ And then thought it was well to see what life is, that it would only give one experience and strength to look a little into what the rest of the world were about. And I made acquaintance with young men who said there was no spirit in the dull sort of life I was living, ordered about by a sick mother, and led blindfold by a silly little sister, and a 'prig of a preaching schoolmaster, that carried his head above all his betters in the whole country side.' At first I only laughed, for I knew well enough they were mistaken. ”

“ 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. ”

“ It was not probable that Satan would give up his own, without another effort to retain him. It is not safe for the sinner to say, "Ah, I can turn, repent, and live, whenever I choose: all in good time. Sin is not quite so pleasant as I thought it would be; and so, on the whole, I think I had better go home and lead a new life."
Poor Miles Lawson! The strong man armed "thinks he shall be able to keep thee a little longer in peace;" let us wait, and see whether "a stronger than he shall come upon him and overcome him, and take from him all his armour wherein he trusteth, and divide his spoils." ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”

“ 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. ”