Chapter II: Conscience

"Would'st draw a bow at a venture? Then see
thou to it, that the point of thy arrow be dipped in
love, and its winged shaft in prayer."

Before supper was over at the Yews, Chance and Laddie were heard barking vehemently without. This vociferous demonstration was made whenever any stranger appeared on the premises, but was not warlike in its meaning; it was only intended as a notification that there was somebody come, who ought to be attended to.

The somebody on this occasion was an old exciseman, Mr. Knibb, who itinerated though the dales almost as punctually as the schoolmaster, but who was not nearly so popular a personage. And yet when his old white mare, Madam, was comfortably housed in the stable, and the drab top-coat was hung up in the kitchen, Mr. Knibb could make himself very pleasant company beside the hearth, or at the simple table of the farm-houses within his round: for it was he who brought the greatest amount of intelligence respecting the doings of the great wide world on the other side of the barrier mountains; and he generally had in his pocket a Kendal newspaper, not more than ten days or a fortnight old.

Mr. Knibb, therefore, helped to keep up the circulation of ideas within his circuit; and a great flood-tide of news overflowed the valleys and rose up to the homesteads on the steep hill-sides whenever he made his periodical appearances. Old Madam was so thoroughly aware of her master's communicative habits, that she used to make a full stop whenever she met a grown person in winding lane or rocky pathway; and if left to her own devices, she would allow her master just ten minutes for every "crack;" at the expiration of which social interval, she would prick her ear and slowly jog on again. Boys and girls neither she nor her master thought it worth while to enlighten, but trotted past them with contemptuous indifference.

Somehow or other, Mr. Knibb's visit on the present occasion was not acceptable to the young master of the Yews. Nobody looked exactly pleased when the old gentleman's well-known whistle was heard without, because it was a rather uncongenial interruption to the new-born happiness of the household group; but Miles looked both displeased and discomposed. He started—turned pale—flushed deep red—and then hastily rose and went to the door as if to bid the visitor welcome: but this movement seemed less like an impulse of hospitality than a mask for his unaccountable confusion. In truth, Miles was strangely moved.

These symptoms of perturbed feeling were not lost upon the young schoolmaster, whose calling had cultivated that keen perception of character and that skill in reading the symbolic language of manner, look, and tone, with which he had been originally gifted. The old lady—and lady she might fairly be called, because, in spite of provincial accent and mountain phrase, she was one of nature's own aristocracy, and one of religion's own gentlewomen—the old lady bestowed a kindly and courteous greeting on the guest, who in his turn advanced to her chair, and gave her that horizontal shake of the hand, (swinging cheerily like a pendulum from side to side) which is supposed to express cordiality.

Mr. Knibb soon formed a member of the group round the circular table, which was drawn near the widow's rocking chair. A solemn grace, not a ceremonial form, but a heart-felt giving of thanks, was spoken from that same presidential chair; and then the sharp clatter of knife and fork began in earnest. Much too earnest was the business in hand, in its earlier stages, to admit of any table-talk; but when the healthy intercourse between good appetites and good fare had begun a little to relax, Mr. Knibb opened the sluices of conversation.

"Madam and I could scarce make our way up the valley, the wind was so strong, and as keen as a razor, right in our faces. Besides, the snow was driving full against us; and if the good old mare hadn't known every foot of the way, we might have got into a deep drift, and stayed there until you and Chance had dug us out, Mat."

"You had better have stopped away for the night, and not got into the dale at all," said Miles.

"Nay," replied the old gentleman, "Madam knows good quarters as well as her master: besides, I have a little job in hand, and I don't rightly know how it will turn out yet. I shall want your help in it, Miles Lawson."

"What is afoot now, then?" said the young "statesman," hastily.

"Why, I'm half on and half off a pretty good scent this time—something out of the common run—and scent lies strong upon the heather. We shall run down some sort of game, I'm thinking, before another nightfall; unless this unfortunate snow-storm throws us off the tracks."

Miles rose and poked the peat fire violently, sending showers of sparks careering about the hearth, some of which alighted on his mother's white apron. Alice and Mat and the schoolmaster were all up in a moment, the two former crushing out the threatening danger with their eager hands, while the zealous young philosopher fluttered the poor old lady yet more by solemnly pouring a whole jug of milk into her lap.

"Heigh, then! The lad is daft for sure," cried the gasping widow. "He has drowned out the fire, but he will bring on the rheumatism, like enough."

Mark was much abashed by the evident unpopularity of his attempt to lead the fire brigade; but larger interests soon engrossed his thoughts; for his attention was speedily riveted by the strange perturbation of Miles' countenance and manner, while Mr. Knibb went on with his talk.

"I want you good folks to help me in a queer sort of job, for sure. I cannot fairly see through it; but I have got hold of information (no matter how) that there's a deal of spirits drunk in some of the miners' cottages round the Old Man; and I have tracked some of it into several of the farm-houses in my district. Now, where it comes from is the question."

"Surely there cannot be anything like smuggling going on in my valleys?" said the honest young schoolmaster, opening his large blue eyes with wonder.

"Well, I will let you into one or two facts, Mr. Wilson, and then you may reason upon them, like a philosopher as you are."

"Like a Christian, as I would rather be," said Mark, parenthetically.

"Very well; like a Christian, as I am sure you are. I found a strong smell of whisky in one or two of the homesteads that I visited rather out of course; for Madam was tired, and I couldn't find in my heart to give her the whip—we've jogged on too long together for that; and so, as I said, I was rather out of time all through the round; and I found some of the lads saucy and quarrelsome. I knew what had made them so, for I saw by their ways that something stronger than the malt had got into their hot heads. However, I took it quietly and said nothing. 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. But I'm thinking they were too many for old George Knibb; for Bella Hartley tells me that she came sharply upon them just after, in a turn of the lane, and saw them bargaining with some potters, who had another cart with them; and all of a sudden, they tossed the 'old women' out upon the ground, and she fell abroad into nothing but a bundle of clothes with an old bonnet upon the top of it."

Mr. Knibb here laughed heartily at his story; but everybody else looked startled, except Miles, who over-acted his part by violent bursts of explosive laughter.

The schoolmaster watched him with pain; and then said quietly, "After all, there is no fun in sin."

"Sin?" said Miles, looking fiercely at him, "I am not laughing at sin; it was only a capital joke—capital."

"It will be no joke to those men if I can catch them," resumed the exciseman; "but I am very much obliged to them for putting me on the true scent."

"The scent lies no further than the cart, however," remarked Miles; "and there's naught to prove there was anything but brooms in that, as far as I see."

"Stop a bit, my good friend; Bella Hartley's bright eyes made out more than that. She saw great heavy jars taken out from under the heather, and exchanged with the potters for empty ones; and then, from the other side of the wall, she watched them dressing up the 'old woman' again, and heard them calling her a 'witch,' because she was mounted on a broom, forsooth. And then, I hear, they took the road to the Old Man."

"And what are you minded to do now then?" asked the young farmer, in an oft hand manner.

"Why, of course, I am for following it up as best I can. It's my clear duty to do that. I must try the mountain and about; for though we are not in Ireland, I have a strong suspicion that I shall find an illicit still, hid away in some nook or crevice."

The young man turned white—so white that even Alice's unsuspicious mind read something painful and alarming in his face. She looked appealingly at Mark while his eye rested compassionately on her anxious brow. She turned from him to her mother, and saw that her thin hands were clasped tight together, as they always were when the mother's heart within her was working with fear and wrestling in the hidden might of prayer. Her eyes were fixed upon her wayward son, but they were lambent with the holy light of love.

"It is growing over late for any more talk," said she, gently, "and seems to me that the best thing we can do will be to have our chapter and our little bit prayer. Mark Wilson, thou wilt take the book;" and her trembling finger pointed at the great family Bible on the little oak table beside her.

Mark silently took his place before the book, asking in his heart that God the Spirit would guide him "rightly to divide the word of truth," would "take of the things of Christ; and show them unto them;" would send home the teaching until it should be "as a nail in a sure place." He opened upon that precious story which has been the turning point in the downward path of so many thousands of sinners, who are now rejoicing saints in their Father's house above.

"And he said, a certain man had two sons." Mark's was a voice of wondrous power, and as sweet as it was strong; but never had it sounded more thrilling than when it read how the young man waywardly demanded the portion of goods that fell to him, and went away into a far country to waste his substance with riotous living; never more mournful than when it told of the great famine that arose when he had spent all, and how he began to be in want; never more touching in its chastened gladness than when the story told how the young man "came to himself" in the depth of his utter desolation, and said, "I will arise and go to my father;" but never had it swelled so triumphantly to the higher notes of joy, as when it told that the father "saw him when he was yet a great way off;" but here the clear voice trembled, shook, fell; and then kneeling down, Mark Wilson turned the rest into a prayer.

He prayed and said, "Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight, and am no more worthy to be called thy son:" he prayed and asked that the robe, the seamless robe of the Redeemer's righteousness, might be brought forth and put on each returning prodigal; that the ring of covenant love might be placed on the trembling hand of repentance; that the wounded feet of the weary wanderer might be shod afresh to walk in the ways of holiness, until they became even "beautiful upon the mountains," as bearers of "good tidings of great joy." Then Mark Wilson paused again, and his voice changed from the pleading accents of prayer to the full hymn-notes of praise, while he repeated the words of the reconciled father, "For this my son was dead, and is alive again; he was lost, and is found."

No one stirred—but there was a sound as of a wind sobbing in the branches of the shaken trees, and there were drops falling, as of a gracious rain on the mown grass. 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; and there she was interceding, as Moses interceded for the rebellious children of his people:—

"Oh, he hath sinned a great sin; yet now, if thou wilt forgive his sin—"

Old Mr. Knibb had quietly submitted to the turn which things had taken, though he was altogether unenlightened as to the true cause of the emotion which was prevailing around him. But the old man's thoughts had gone back into some almost forgotten haunts of memory, and the handmaid, who, with lantern in hand, was lighting him through those dim and crooked bye-paths of the past, was none other than conscience. Yes, conscience, a rather sleepy inmate of the old man's "house of life," had been suddenly aroused from her long lethargy, and, her lantern, which had gone out, was suddenly lighted up afresh from the clear lamp of the word. And he was seeing some turns in his past road as he had never seen them before, and wish, nay, longing, that the crooked had been made straight, and the broad had been narrow, never mind how narrow, so that it might not have brought him to the hard parched land of his dry old age.

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; and there we will leave him alone with God.

The party round the hearth now broke up and withdrew to their several rooms, after exchanging a scarcely audible "good night." But when Miles, who had lingered behind the guests, stooped to kiss his mother, he seemed struck with her sunk and worn look; and instead of allowing Mat and Alice to push her chair into the little chamber opening out of the kitchen, which she always occupied with Alice as her companion, in order to avoid the stairs, he gently, very gently, put his strong arms around, her shrunk frame and carried her into her room. This was so like one of the little thoughtful acts of former days, that the old lady, when he had placed her in the chair by her bedside, laid her shaking hand upon his thick brown curls and solemnly pronounced the Old Testament blessing: "'The Lord bless thee, and keep thee: 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. I thought my training was so good, and my principles so firm that I could afford to look, temptation in the face. I thought 'twas only weak people that yielded, and it was not needful for such as I to keep out of harm's way. 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."

"Ah! I see now, plain as sunlight, that when a young man laughs at evil insinuations, the devil is sure to be laughing too: the one laugh is only the echo of the other. Then came the Ambleside fair, and that nasty little booth with the play going on in it. I shook my head at the things that were acted there and at the still worse things that were hinted at. Ah, those vile hints! They are a deal worse than saying the full meanings right out, because that would have shocked, and the other just amuses and leads one's curiosity on further still. Yes, at first I shook my head, but before it was over I laughed; and that laugh again was an echo from beneath. I don't rightly know what followed; because when I came out from the booth I was so thirsty that I went into the tap to take one glass—only just one, no more, on any account, before going home."

"Bella! Bella! And thou had'st begged me in thy own sweet way, begged and prayed me not to cross the threshold of temptation. But I vowed in my heart that I would only take that one glass of needful refreshment—yes, refreshment I called it—and in I went. Miner Jack was there, and Tim o' the Brooms presently came in, and told capital stories, until we roared with fun. I am sure I don't know what followed—only, those two tempters saw me home as far as the dale, talking very large about speculations, and good safe investments for a young man's money, remunerative labor, and grinding laws, that 'twas a spirited young fellow's duty to break through, because they were unrighteous legislation. I thought them brave, noble fellows, fool as I was. They have been constantly at me ever since that fatal night, alluring me into their deadly ways until they have got me wholly in their power, bound hand and foot. Father of the prodigal! Father, I have sinned against heaven and in thy sight: I am no more worthy to be called thy son. I know I am a very great way off; but oh, canst not thou see me even here, and have compassion and come to meet me?"

Just at this very moment, and a critical moment it was—for that young man's soul was hovering over the dim confines betwixt life and death—a low whistle was heard without.

The young man started to his feet with a spring, clasping his hands, and crying with an exceeding bitter cry, "Hast thou found me, O mine enemy?"

Yes, truly; his hard task-master had come to look after the bond-slave who at that moment was meditating desertion from his side. 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."

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.

"Be off; Chance, I say—away with thee, Laddie," said their poor master from the chamber window. Laddie obeyed, and disappeared; Chance withdrew a few yards, and then sat down determinately on the cold white snow. They thought he was gone, and the voices renewed their parley.

"You have got the old fox in there. Now that he has run to earth, I say keep him there."

"I can't keep him here, unless the snow stops the hole for you," was the troubled reply.

"What are you at by saying for us? It is just as much for yourself. You are in it full as deep as we. I would lame his old mare, but the stable door is locked, and the dogs are about."

"He came unbidden, and he shall leave unhindered," said Miles firmly.

"Yes; and you think to be his guide. You are going to try your mean hand at the informer's trade; for it is always the chief rogue that turns king's evidence," said Tim o' the Brooms, with an insulting sneer.

"I'm going to do naught of the kind," said Miles, "but the old man shall go his own gait. He has always been a friend of the family, like—my dead father's friend; and nothing shall harm him."

"Very well, as you like," was the cool reply: "then the stock must be shifted before morning; that's all."

"Stay, where will you be putting it? I will know that," cried Miles.

"Oh, it's all ready planned. We've got a safe hiding in view. The scent will be hard up at somebody else's door. 'Twill be a good joke, too, to catch the psalm-singers up at Scarf Beck in a trap. But that's your concern, not mine."

"I'll not have that done, whatever else may be," cried Miles, with burning cheek and clenched fist. "I'd sooner die than any of them should be harmed. There shall not a breath stir against any one belonging to—to—the folk up at Scarf Beck."

The man sneered offensively, and said, "I know how the land lies well enough. But if you don't bring your cart tonight, and help us to shift right off, 'over sands,' * we'll move all the whisky jars into the old barn at Scarf Beck; and we'll see if anybody will believe the Hartley lads when they swear they didn't put them there." So saying, Tim o' the Brooms glided noiselessly away over the snow.

* Across Morecambe Bay.