Chapter VI: The Mountain Echoes

"An idle word—a lowly prayer—
A gentle 'Bless thee!' fitly spoken,
May live, and echo through the air,
As if its life could ne'er be broken."

It was days before Miles Lawson rallied. His powers were so utterly prostrated, that dull heavy sleep seemed to be the only resource of nature. They could scarcely rouse him, even to take the needful nourishment; and at such times he took no notice of any one, but drank his mother's concoctions, or Alice's less distasteful preparations, in a mere mechanical manner, without raising his dim eyes to see what hand was ministering to him. All this while he never spoke, or showed the least consciousness of what had passed; and his watchful attendants wisely refrained from forcing any exciting subject upon his over-strained nerves.

"He will mind all about it as soon as he has got strength to look back over his shoulder," said the old lady; and so she folded her hands patiently, and waited another day, and yet another, for the signs of reviving consciousness.

In the meantime, all were not idle at The Yews. Mr. Knibb had been extremely excited by the news of the discovery of the secret still on the mountainside, and had made more than one effort to set off for the lofty spot on the same evening. But Madam was wholly of another mind, and showed so much partiality for the warm stable, and such an objection to be mounted on four hard and slippery balls of snow, that the impatient old gentleman had to yield the point. Madam was quite in the right; nothing could then have been attempted with success, or even with safety.

Early on the following morning a strong party was mustered, headed by Mr. Knibb and the schoolmaster, and composed of Geordie Garthwaite, young Mat Lawson, the farm lads, and Bella Hartley's brothers. There were two carts in attendance, and these were picketed at a chosen spot, as far up the mountainside as wheels could reach. The old exciseman, leaving Madam with the rear guard, carefully covered with his own drab top-coat, labored up the steep path with marvellous spirit and speed.

Once or twice they caught sight of a small figure, apparently that of a young boy, which was hovering about at a considerable distance from them, and hiding in nooks and crevices, as if stealthily watching their proceedings.

"What is that? 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."

Besides his compassionate feeling, Mark was very anxious, for his friend's sake, to get through the affair as quickly and easily as possible, consistently with his strong sense of the just and the right. And although he would have done everything which he believed to be required of him as a good subject, yet he was not sorry to see the little scout re-appear at an amazing distance down the steep, and joining a larger group of moving objects, wholly vanish together with them behind a broad spur of the mountain. Pursuit was hopeless, as the unknown figures had the advantage of ground and of great distance.

"There go your potters, I should say, Mr. Knibb," said Mark.

"Likely enough," was the reply, in a tone of mortification. "Much if they have not been at the still in the night and carried off all the stock."

"We had best hurry on, and see about it," said Old Geordie eagerly.

They did hasten on, gained the mouth of the adit, and looked anxiously round to see if anything had been disturbed. No; everything wore the same look as on the previous day.

"Here we are, just in time," remarked Mr. Knibb, rubbing his hands; "my potter friends were just then coming to strip the place, and old George Knibb has for once got the start."

He was perfectly charmed with the completeness of the little establishment, and went about sniffing and tasting with marvellous zest, making entries in his note-book of everything which the cave contained.

Whilst this regular inspection was going on, and whilst Mr. Knibb was making his official inventory, Mark looked anxiously round to see if he could discover any traces of his friend's complicity in the lawless affair. Suddenly, he espied a sheet of writing paper, which was stuffed into a corner, and which looked as if it had been used to wrap up some little refreshment, such as bread and cheese, or the like. A thought struck him; that scrap of paper may afford evidence of guilt.

He stepped across to the side where it lay, and, on looking at it more closely, thought he recognized his own hand-writing upon it. His own writing? How could this possibly be? He looked at it again: "My dear Miles." Here, then, was proof fearfully clear. This must be a letter which he had written to Miles Lawson a week or two before, in reference to the period of his regularly revolving visit to The Yews, and which he had sent by a careful hand, not likely to have failed in its due delivery.

He hastily seized the paper, and, crumpling it up, thrust it into his breast; but this was done with such an undisguised look of pale terror, that Old Geordie, who, like himself, was on the look-out for traces of his young master's former presence in this unlawful spot, saw at a glance that something was wrong.

With his wonted almost feudal attachment to his house, he hurried to the schoolmaster's help by calling out in a loud voice, in order to divert attention. "To think that we should be such a bad disloyal lot, as never to have minded that 'tis our first duty to drink the king's health in his own 'mountain dew,' with 'three times three,' my lads!"

"Ay, to be sure, so we ought," exclaimed the farm servants.

"Come, then, all of you, out to the mouth of the hole," said the old shepherd leading the way—an invitation which was but too willingly followed by the whole party, with the single exception of Mark Wilson.

"Come, schoolmaster," said Mr. Knibb, "I hope you teach loyalty to all your lads."

"Yes; but not by making them worthless subjects," replied Mark, recovering from his ill-concealed consternation.

"You don't mean to say you are not going to drink his majesty's health and long reign on this extraordinary occasion?" expostulated the excited old exciseman.

"My voice shall swell the cheer," said Mark, smiling; "but my lips shall never touch the white-fire, which might turn me into a fool or a madman."

"The master is right, as he is a'most times," said Geordie; "an old man had so well keep a clear head upon his shoulders, when he has such a scramble before him a'down over t' crags, with a heavy jar or two upon his back. I'll join Master Wilson in a dry toast."

"But, Mr. Knibb," said Mark, "the spirits are not ours."

"Suppose then we honor the king, and give the cheer without the whiskey. It will be a new sort of toast, but not the worse for that." The exciseman agreed to the proposal and gave the words, "Long live the king;" whereupon arose a cheer from the mouth of that strange hollow, which the mountain echoes took up and repeated, one crag tossing it on: like a bounding ball to the next crag, the ledge taking it up and flinging it on into the hollow, the ridge sharpening it afresh before it could die away in the depths of the gorge, and the ravine sending it softly down in a silvery whisper to the sleepy lake below. The group of mountaineers was almost startled by the marvellous effects of this ebullition of their loyalty; for the excited echoes seemed to go on repeating that hearty cheer as if they would never let it die out—as if determined that it should become a living, abiding voice of the hills.

However, time pressed, and they returned to business. It was no trifling undertaking to remove such cumbrous goods and chattels down the steep sides of a craggy mountain; and more than once a disastrous slip occurred in the experience of the heavy-footed farm servants, which sent a jar bounding, leaping, curveting down the face of the rocks, the liquid contents flying off in sparkling jots as it went, insulting the innocent little juniper bushes which were taking their long winter sleep beneath the snow, and demoralizing the pure and spotless snows themselves.

Mr. Knibb was uncommonly exasperated by these accidents, and was led to waste large stores of the "King's English" on the occasion. "Why, it is direct treason. It is his majesty's property that the fellow is destroying in that reckless way. I declare I will report him—I'll prosecute him. There it goes again. Next time I'll send you after it, and we shall see how you will relish trundling in that fashion from rock to rock, all down the precipice."

At length, the bivouac was reached, the carts were loaded and despatched; and the weary procession again ascended the mountain, to return heavily laden as before. The cavern was at last completely dismantled; and the schoolmaster's pen was speedily employed by Mr. Knibb in drawing up a brilliant narrative of "The remarkable discovery of an illicit still on Coniston Old Man."

A reward was afterwards offered for the apprehension of all the offenders; but Miner Jack and Broom Tim had succeeded in effecting their escape "over sands," though chased by a far more relentless foe than the old exciseman, even by that treacherous tide which walks up so calmly and yet with such rapid steps, taking noiseless possession of the sandy plain.

But to return to The Yews: Miles' lethargy lay so long and so heavily upon him, that his patient mother at last thought it would be desirable to rouse him. One evening, when she had been administering her last resource (a burning hot tea made of Cayenne pepper), which had appeared to stimulate, not to say excite him, more than any previous means that had been tried, she thought she would venture to mention the name of Bella Hartley. But she was not prepared for the suddenness of the effect produced.

Miles started up in bed, exclaiming, "I must go—I must go and save her; no wrong shall ever come to her door through me. The snow is deep, very deep; but nevertheless, I must go, traitor or no traitor, informer or not."

With this he made a feeble effort to spring out of bed; but the widow laid her hand upon his arm, settled his head again on his pillow, and said, "Bella is safe; no harm has come to her; the snow is all gone, and thou art lying quietly in thy own bed with thy old mother sitting beside thee, Miles, my son."

He looked first puzzled, then troubled; but the dull light in his eyes was clearing, and gleam after gleam of intelligence was passing slowly over his face. It was evident that the heavy clouds were gathering up and rolling away, and that the distempered mists and unhealthy fogs which lay over the past were being dispelled by the reviving rays of memory. But it was manifest to Mark's eye (for Mark, too, was sitting beside his friend) that the backward views which Miles was obtaining through these rents in the clouds were often very painful ones. He changed color again and again, and passed his hand across his forehead, as if to wipe out their remembrance.

At last he took his mother's hand, and smiled such a smile as she had not seen on her son's face for many a long day—a smile of confiding love and of almost child-like simplicity. "I shall have to tell thee all things that ever I did, I think, mother; and thou must make thy heart ready to listen to a sad story."

"If we confess our sins, God is faithful and just to forgive us our sins, and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness," was his mother's reply; "confess thy sins to God, and ask Jesus to reconcile thee to thy Father and his Father, to thy God and his God. Never mind the telling me all about them."

"I have confessed them to him, mother, and I do believe he has put away their iniquity. But it will be right for me to humble myself to the dust, after sinning with such a high hand: and I wish, I really do wish that someone else, you know who, was here to know all about it, too."

"No," said Mark, hastily, "if you mean the young woman, she never need know all the sad particulars about the past, now. 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."

Miles held out his hand to his old friend and said, "That was the doctrine you always taught me; but I have been a bad scholar indeed. However, I shall tell Bella everything when I am strong enough; and then we shall see whether she will ever trust me again."