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MARTHA PRESTON.

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A neighbour took her produce to market, | that she lost sight of Fly, and stood bewildered and made what little purchases she required; until he should return to guide her. The wind two or three kindly friends helped her at had ceased for a time, and the air was still and busy times; and were consulted as to the dis- motionless,-every bird and beast was in its posal of her accumulating money, for Martha sheltering home, and the quiet on those moors was growing very rich in the simple estimation was almost awful. Suddenly a child's feeble, of the dalesmen; a circumstance about which wailing, hopeless cry smote her ear, and in an she scarcely thought herself; money had but instant she pressed on in the direction from little power to heal the deep, sharp sorrows of whence it came. As she gained upon it, she her heart. She was growing old alone; with heard Fly's loud howl for assistance; and that a most loving nature, she had none to love as gave her more guidance, for she was sure he she could have done, had God permitted her to was by the lost wanderer. At last, panting and have husband and children; and sometimes in agitated, she reached the spot where what the deep midnight she cried aloud to heaven in seemed in that obscurity to be merely a black her exceeding grief that she had never heard heap, was fast becoming whitened by the ceasea child's murmuring voice call her "Mother." less snow. It was a child half asleep, in the fatal The late autumn, with falling leaves, and sleep which precedes death, but not yet unconpiping winds, and long rainy nights harmonized scious to the pain of the excessive cold which with her life, which like the year had had a bright was freezing up his life-blood, for though he calm spring, in the days now long past, when could not speak in reply to her anxious words, she strayed about the woods with little Johnnie. he moaned dreamily. Now came in the use She saw herself and him, happy wanderers; for the gin; she wetted his lips, she poured a she watched the two pictures in her mind's eye little down his throat; she raised him up, and, as if they were separate from herself, and so past youth as she long had been, she yet found they were by long years of sorrow and disap- strength to carry him a little way down the pointment. hill; then she stopped, overpowered, for a short time; then again with desperate effort she bore him on to the wood, where at any rate the cold was less piercing. Again she gave him a little gin; and now he was able to walk a few steps; and so with passionate prayers to God, who looked down upon her that wild night, she dragged him along to her cottage; and laid him down within the warm influence of the fire. She threw herself on the ground in utter exhaustion for a minute or two; then she arose, stripped him of his wet things, wrapped him in her cloak, and began to chafe his limbs. Then presently he recovered and was able to tell his short story.

One winter's night, when evening had shut in unusually early, owing to the black snowclouds that hung like night. close around the horizon, she sat looking dreamily into the fire; she saw in the blaze the two children of her imagination roaming to and fro; her old sheep dog, Fly, lay at her feet; the cows were foddered for the night; the sheep were penned up in the outhouse close by. Fly had been with her while these duties were being done three hours ago; what made the old dog so suddenly restless then? Why did he prick up his ears, and go snuffing to the door; and then pace back to her with such a meaning look?

"Lie down, Fly-good dog!" said she, anxious to resume her dreaming. But Fly would not lie down; and she could no longer dream. Somebody, something must be abroad in this heavy snow-storm; she said afterwards to a neighbour, she felt as "if she must go up to the Fell;" and sure enough it was God's guiding which led her out. With the foresight common to the Dale's people, who know what mountain storms are, she took under her cloak a little vial of gin, which had long been stored up for any emergency. She set out with Fly; the snow fell so fast she was almost blinded at first, and the drifts lay thick where the wind blew them. But she had long confidence in Fly, and he ran straight up the little steep path which led through the wood to the more open part of Loughrigg Fell. On she went, her cloak white with snow, which fell on her face, her very eyelashes; when she emerged into the more open ground, it even fell so thickly

"Father had sent him up to the fells for a sheep that was missing; but their dog was not well broken in to the woods, and left him; and night and snow came on, and he got wildered on the fells, for they had only lately come to live near Rydal, and he did not know the landmarks." Something in his dark-blue eyes prompted the sudden question, "What do they call you, lad?" The answer was, 66 John Hawkshaw."

"Is your father's name William Hawkshaw? Did you ever live in Troutbeck?" asked Martha, as calmly as she could; for her heart gave a leap, a mist came before her eyes as she uttered the name once so familiar, but so long unspoken by her lips that the sound seemed strange and wild.

Yes! it was Will Hawkshaw's child she had saved. She fed him and put him warm to bed, and placing the candle where the light fell on his face, without awakening him, she sat down

to watch him through the night. His mouth | grateful mother; sent by his far-casting father, was very different from what Will's had been; that feature he must have inherited from his mother; and it almost seemed strange to her that she was not his mother; for the maternal breast which is in every woman yearned after him.

who thought in his heart that possibly Martha might be induced to leave the land, he had so early coveted, to his son. But from whatever motive he came, he was ever and always welcome, and his own sweet nature harboured no selfish motives. He came as a child for the amusement and the variety of the thing, but he came as a youth and as a man for the real love and respect he felt for his aunt (for so she would have him call her). Such was the state of things when first I saw the cottage, and heard the history. Martha had never cared for her wealth; had never realized the power it gave her. But all at once a bright light broke upon her, of the happiness it might create, when she learnt from "her boy" (a grown man he was), how he loved a poor girl in Grasmere; a good daughter to her parents, and a braidsitter; but how they could not marry for many years, for she had nothing, and he was but one out of a large family. He looked forward to this long engagement with resigned regret, and she said nothing at the time. But she made long inquiry about the girl; all answers were satisfactory. She surprised her nephew when next he came, with the statement of her property in the bank; she told him he should marry the girl, and bring her to the old woodhouse as to her home; and they should dwell

She sent word at break of day, by the nearest neighbours, to his parents living three miles away; then she returned to watch him once more. He slept so long and so soundly that, when his mother came with all the speed of anxious love, she found him only at breakfast -sitting like a little king, at a round table, covered with a clean coarse cloth, and feasting away on clap-bread and "sweet butter," that regular Westmoreland dainty, composed of rum, butter, and sugar, and made only for high days and holidays. Mrs. Hawkshaw, bonny and bright, younger looking than her years, (happy matron as she was,) little dreamed that she saw a former rival in the worn, sad-looking woman, who had saved her child's life. Martha's face hardly brightened as she listened to Mrs. Hawkshaw's overpowering gratitude; she | longed so to retain the child, who was now to be taken away from her. She refused all the pressing invitations showered upon her by the wife of the lover of her youth. She only said very earnestly: "You will let the lad come and see me some- with her, and be to her as a son and a daughter. times."

"To be sure! we'll all come. My master would have been here by now to thank ye, but it's Ambleside cattle market, and he never misses a market."

Martha wondered if any other reason hindered him from coming on the very natural errand of fetching home his lost child; but she said nothing, and when left alone that day she dreamed more than ever of the days of her youth.

Now she holds the honoured place of a grandmother. She nurses a little Martha on her knee, while a "Johnnie" (for whom she puts up many an earnest prayer) strays out with toddling steps, and makes that childish garden you saw, with many a crow of delight, and call to " Granny" to come and look.

There will not be a grave in Grasmere churchyard, more decked with flowers-more visited with respect, regret, and tears, and faithful trust, than that of Martha Preston when she

John Hawkshaw often came-sent by his dies.

THE YELLOW DOCK.

BY HARRIET FARLEY.

ROUND the cotter's hut upspringing,
Fresh and green, the humble dock,
Golden sap its veins upbringing,

Clusters, like the grain in shock.
Lowly stands it with the grass,
O'er it rough feet careless pass,
Simple, unpresuming weed,
Yielding yet, to her in need,
Tints that dazzle to the sight,
Hues that make her drapery bright.

In life's thoroughfares thick standing,
Simple, cultureless, and green,
Sheltered but by mutual banding,
Many a human weed is seen.
Crushed to earth by heedless tread,
Bruised its unresisting head,
Still within its veins there flows
Golden sap, for him who knows
How the wealth may from it start,
What bright hues it can impart.

A YEAR AT AMBLESIDE.

FEBRUARY.

BY HARRIET MARTINEAU.

THE hill on which the church stands is steep; | every one glad that he, who can never go out, and it would be out of our way to ascend it, in making the circuit of the valley. So I will merely say, in a few words, what lies in that eastern part of our little town. As we go up the ascent, there are houses on each side,built on limestone, with gushing water within hearing, and on a slope so steep as to make a natural drainage; yet are these houses, for the most part, undrained, ill supplied with water, close and unwholesome. Dung-heaps and other collections of dirt are before our eyes and under our noses, wherever we turn; and one consequence is,-and a very natural one, -that the men of the place, finding little comfort in an unsavoury home, (which besides is usually over-crowded,) resort to the public houses, which seem to me to be full whenever I pass them. This is one token of the oldfashioned character of the place. The morals of health have not been preached, or taught, or thought of here; and other morals have a poor chance while such is the state of things. From the time when I became a resident, I saw that something must be done about this. The bad state of health and of morals in the place was evidently a gratuitous evil. The site of the town seemed made for health,—with its slopes, and its abundance of water, and its open position, fronting the valley. The two great evils of there not being houses enough, and of the existing houses being, in a large proportion, unwholesome, seemed to me presently remediable; and we may perhaps see hereafter what the prospect of remedy has become. The houses near the churchyard are the worst; and as for the churchyard itself, the sexton faints when he opens a grave. The small enclosure is surrounded by three roads; so that it is difficult to say how it could be enlarged. But here are hillsides in abundance for a cemetery, if the gentry of the place would set about having one. The idea is, however, too modern for the Ambleside gentry at present. It will probably be some years before they can shake off the impression that there is something irreligious and French, in burying their dead anywhere but within the shadow of the church. There are some charming detached dwellings as high up as the church, and even higher. The nearest is the house of Mr. C., the retired surgeon; retired from such a failure of health as makes

should have such a bay-window as his, and live enclosed in so pretty a garden. From that window he commands the whole valley, with the lake at one end, and the Rydal Pass at the other, and the Langdale Pikes afar, conspicuous over the whole. A little farther along the lane is Bellevue,-a sort of bridal abode, where a young couple might fairly expect to find their first year of marriage a wondrous experience of paradise. Not much more than a year, however; for in this valley the gentlemen soon grow tired. They go off somewhere to find something to do,-some business, or foreign travel, or hunting. The ladies are satisfied enough; so well, as to be in danger of pride and exclusiveness, and indolence about leaving home: but there are really few gentlemen in the valley but the invalid Mr. C., and two or three aged men, who like the quietness. When the young or middle-aged gentry disappear, they let their houses to widow ladies with daughters, or to single ladies; and these, it is observed, rarely go away again. Thus, the society becomes, in some sort, Amazonian. When I want to make a party to meet my guests, it is a wonder if a single coat and hat can be got. Mr. C. never leaves his house: Dr. B. is crippled, and can be seen only at home, or, as a rare chance, on a fine summer's day, on the road in his wheeled chair. Mr. Wordsworth likes to see his friends at home, but does not visit. Mrs. Arnold's sons are dispersed about the world; and we see two or three of them only on occasion, for a few days. Mr. G. is always flying backwards and forwards between his home and his business in Cheshire. So, for three times out of four, our little parties are composed wholly of ladies; and they happen to be such ladies as leave nothing to be wished. Farther still along the lane is the new parsonage, a goodly house, not yet finished, where the clergyman's eight children are to grow and flourish, in full view of such a prospect as will make every landscape that their windows may command in after life flat and ugly in comparison. The lane is steep and illkept at present; but when the new parsonage is finished it will be improved; and I have my eye upon it for an extension of Ambleside in this direction.

Higher yet up the hill, beyond the church,

is the suburb, called (for some reason unknown) Edinburgh, which has formed itself round the mill, -the bobbin-mill, whose great water-wheel is turned by the beautiful Stock beck, as it comes down foaming and frothing, from the Stock ghyll force, (ghyll, ravine, force, waterfall,) a quarter of a mile above. There is nothing good about this cluster of houses but its position. It wants purifying, physically and morally; and, till that is done, we will let it alone.

centuries. And, casting a shadow of antiquity and solemnity over all, is the great rookery; which I make a point of passing at daybreak, in winter, unless I go to the other rookery, in Lady Le Fleming's great beeches, at Rydal. I like the noise of the creatures,—their amazing din in the February mornings, when they are beginning their building; but better still do I like their earliest morning flight, -a higher flight than I ever see them take at other times. I know now how to look for them. When it is still only beginning to be light with us, but when the sky takes the pearly or pinky hue which belongs to a winter dayspring, I look steadily up into the sky, and presently see an immeasurable flock, just at the point of vision, sailing over the valley,-sometimes winging straight for Lady Le Fleming's beeches, sometimes for the Ambleside elms, and sometimes wheeling round, as if they had time for another sweep abroad, and another chance of seeing the sun, before going to work upon their new nests.

This stream, the Stock, goes leaping, gurgling, and gushing down, overhung by trees and tormented by rocks in its channel, till it passes under the road, near the foot of the hill where we made our pause; after which it flows away in a winding course among the fields, and across the meadows till it enters the Rotha, near the Millar Bridge, which we passed on our way to Fox How. We walk over it on the road, passing the shops of S., the painter, and of the wheelwright, on the left, and of the cooper, and the confectioner, and the shoemaker, on the right. The cooper's shop and The post-office shop is the favourite among children are always neat; though flour and these,—all of which yield civil and friendly groceries are sold, as well as tubs and bowls, treatment. The post-mistress, Mrs. Nicholson, and rolling-pins; and though the children are is a favourite with us all. The post-mistress many, and the mother always busy. She is a of a little country town is always the depositary great needle-woman, to judge by the large of much confidence. I doubt whether anything piece of work, the sheet or shirt,-one sees exists, is done, or is suffered, in Ambleside, on her arm, whenever one glances in at her without Mrs. Nicholson being told of it: yet, open door. Now we are in view of the corner, never, through a long course of years, has she round which we are to turn into the little mar- been charged with saying anything that she ket-place. That corner is shaded by a dark ought not. Yet, with all her discretion, she is sycamore; but before we reach the sycamore, as open-hearted as the most rash of babblers. our attention is fixed by the inn,-the Salu- She gives her confidence freely; but she is so tation, whose name is a reminder of a Catholic innocent, so simple, and so intimately known age, when Gabriel and the Virgin looked down by all her neighbours, that I doubt whether she on the approach of wayfarers. This is the has any secrets of her own, or ever had. I love principal inn; and the range of stables is ra- to go there; but I keep away, if possible, at ther imposing, and the rubbing down and har- post-hours, and near the middle of the day, nessing of horses seem to be always going when she and her daughters are busy. A forward in the summer season. And there is the better time is in the early morning, before any civil and good-natured host; once a stable-boy other shop is open, when there is always one himself, as he likes to tell; now a most impor- of the Nicholsons preparing the shop, and willtant man in the place, and usually out on his ing to serve me with postage-stamps, and spare great flight of steps, or conferring with travel- five minutes for talking over our Building Solers in the area in front of his house. The next ciety, or my cows, or any incident of the time. inn, the Commercial, is on our right, as we turn I never saw more perfect filial conduct than into the little market-place; and a third, the that of the two daughters, who, out of a family White Lion, shows its range of back windows op- of thirteen, remain with their mother. H., the posite. Round the irregular area of the market- handsome and high-spirited one, and M., the place are the rest of the shops;—the saddler's, delicate and diminutive and subdued one, are the butcher's, the watchmaker's, the linen-dra- ladies of nature's making, as truly as their old per's, the ironmonger's, and the lawyer's and mother; and in nothing do they show it more carrier's offices on the left; and on the right, the than in their tender watchfulness over her. coach-office, the baker's, the milliner's, the drug- She is somewhat infirm and suffering; and the gist's, and the post-office; which is also the place more watchful, and the more tender are they. of books and stationary. In the midst stands the Mrs. N. can seldom be induced to leave home; dear old market-cross, up its three steps,-the and I therefore felt it a great honour when she mouldering old stone cross, which tells of past | lately came, with her daughter H., to see my

A YEAR AT AMBLESIDE.

field and my cows, and take tea with me; and as they departed, I felt that never since my house was built, had truer ladies passed its doors.

Our circuit will soon be completed now. We go straight on, past the White Lion, with the surgeon's and chief shoemaker's houses on our right, past the Royal Oak public house, past the smithy, along the highroad to Waterhead. There are a few pretty houses, set down in gardens, by the way; and one very ugly house, Fisherbeck, built for a workhouse, and looking just like it, but now let in lodgings: but the views into the Brathay valley, opening as we go, and disclosing again the little church on its height, and the overlapping hills, with the Langdale Pikes appearing last of all, engage one's whole attention, till the lake opens full and calm, and we are at the toll-bar again, and within a quarter of a mile of my host's house.

Can any one wonder that I presently dreamed of living in this valley? There was no reason why I should not live where I pleased. Five years and more of illness had broken all bonds of business, and excluded me from all connexion with affairs. I was free to choose how to begin life afresh. The choice lay between London and pure country; for no one would prefer living in a provincial town for any reasons but such as did not exist for me. I love London; and I love the pure country. As for the choice between them now,-I had some dread of a London literary life for both its moral and physical effects. I was old enough to look forward to old age, and to have already some wish for quiet, and command of my own time. Moreover, every woman requires for her happiness some domestic occupation and responsibility,―to have some one's daily happiness to cherish; and a London lodging is poorly supplied with such objects; whereas, in a country home, with one's maids, and one's neighbours, and a weary brother or sister, or nephew, or niece, or friend, coming to rest under one's trees, or bask on one's sunshiny terrace, there is prospect of abundance of domestic interest. If I chose the country, I might as well choose the best; and this very valley was, beyond all controversy, the best. Here, I could write in the serenest repose; here, I could rove at will; here, I could rest. Here, accordingly, I took up my rest; and I have never repented it, while my family and friends regard it as the wisest step I could take. I was so far cautious, that I engaged a lodging for half a year, to allow myself scope for a change of mind; but I was so far from changing my mind, that, before we were far into the summer, I was looking at any empty cottage I could hear of, which was at all likely to serve me as a permanent abode. In the midst of my search, my late

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host reminded me that the lowest rent would amount to as much as the interest of the sum which would build me a house of my own planning. I was struck with conviction; and immediately after, some land was offered for sale in the best possible situation. I could not get ready by the auction day, or I would have bid for the lot, which consisted of the green knoll I have mentioned before. I never doubted its being bought up instantly. But, to my amusement, and great satisfaction, this was the lot for which there were no bidders. I bought it, with two low-lying lots below it, which I obtained by some critical negotiation and exchange; and before July was out, I was in possession of that knoll and two acres of ground about it. The builder, John Newton, had received my plan of such a house as I should like, and had sent in his tender of a contract. In October, the first sod was turned; and during the winter, the building went on.

In February, I was living in the cottage under the sycamores, at Waterhead, which we have glanced at before. The windows of my sitting-room looked westwards, across the head of the lake. The winter afternoons were thus splendid, in fine weather; but, to enjoy the beauty of the early morning, it was necessary to go forth under the brightening sky. It is my pleasure at that season to go out before there is any daylight-at half past six; and I have never wished myself at home, whatever the weather might be. If rainy, I was sure to see the mists curling and rolling over the surface of the lake,-showing themselves, or letting a streak of the water be seen whenever there was an opening in the clouds above, through which a star, or a ray of the dawn could be disclosed; and, in the worst weather, there were the birds, making their February din in the woods between the highroad and the lake. It mattered little what the weather was when I stood on a little white pebbly beach, with the waves washing up at my feet, and the noisy birds over my head, making my very heart gay with their merry chirp, and pipe, and whistle, and loud song. They seemed to be trying to drown the dash and rush of the brook which was hurrying from the hills above to help to swell the lake, already rising above its bounds. But, in a clear morning, when the stars were rocked on the surface of the lake, and a fragment of the old moon hung over Wansfell, amidst the clear, greenish eastern sky, what a treat was that early walk! I was sure to see, on my return to breakfast, a sight worthy of Switzerland itself;-the snowy summit of Coniston Old Man peering over the intervening ridge, to show itself in the gray expanse of Windermere, with the first pink lines of sunrise touching its loftiest ridge.

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