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.