"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.