CALEB FIELD. CHAPTER I. "Behold Beneath our feet a little lowly vale. A liquid pool that glittered in the sun, Paid cheerful tribute to the moorland house. To shroud them-only from the neighboring vales, WORDSWORTH. THE May sun shone hopefully over the fair heights of Cumberland. Wide slopes of far-stretching hills, with that indescribable soft blue mist hovering about them, which one can fancy the subdued and silent breathing of those great inhabitants who dwell upon the northern border, lay many-tinted below the wayward sky of spring-breaking out into soft verdure here and there, while tracts of dry heather, with the wintry spell not yet departed from them, made the swelling hill-sides piebald. Far up in a lone valley of those hills stood a herdsman's cottage-a rude and homely hut, with mossy thatch and walls of rough red stone, scarcely distinguishable from the background of dark heather, on which it appeared an uncouth bas-relief. Surrounding it, on the sunniest slope of the little glen, was a garden of tolerable dimensions, in which the homely vegetables which supplied the shepherd's family were diversified with here and there a hardy flower or stunted bush. A narrow, winding thread of pathway ran from the entrance of the glen, down the hill-side, to the low country; it seemed the only trace of communication with the mighty world without. A troublous world in those days! Over the Border the demon of persecution was abroad in Scotland. Within this merry England-sadly misnamed, alas! at that time -was oppression also, cruel and fierce, if shedding less blood than in the sister country. Enmity and contention were in the land-worse than that, and more fatal, foul pollution and sin; for the second Charles reigned over a distracted and unhappy empire, in which the rival forces of good and evil, light and darkness, had measured their strength already on various fields of battle, and had yet intervening, before there could be any peace, a time of bitterest and hottest strife. Very still, below the changeful sky, the cot-house of the Cumberland shepherd stood secure in the fastness of its solitude. Some half-dozen miles away, far down in the low country, the farmer whose flocks he managed had his substantial dwelling. In the extreme distance were visible the towers and spires of Carlisle; and saving the occasional descent of Ralph Dutton to his employer's house, or the half-yearly pilgrimage of his good dame for the few household stores which she needed to purchase, there were few footsteps trod the lonely pathway over the hills. At this time, however, while Dame Dutton hobbled busily about her earthen-floored apartment preparing her good-man's dinner, a slight young figure hovered on the watch about the entrance of the glen. Woman-grown and grave, as girls become in times of trial, this watcher wore the soberest of Puritan dresses, dark, plain, and simple as of some youthful nun. Her face had an earnest, devout simplicity about it, the product of such times; for the Puritan maidens of those days, with fathers and brothers in constant peril, holding by their faith at the risk of all things else, had need to be prompt and clear of eye, as they were single-minded, and strong of faith. She was looking anxiously down the winding foot-road, the lines of her soft, girlish forehead curved with graver care than is wont to sit upon such brows. It was no gay wooer's visit she looked for it was the coming of an imperiled, banished man, the expelled minister of antique Hampstead, a wanderer now, having no certain home. He had found a refuge for his daughter here, in the house of the leal old Presbyterian shepherd, while he himself followed his high vocation, in peril and fears, as he could. On the previous morning his daughter had received a message from him, that this day at noon he would visit her. The unusual warning had alarmed her; it seemed to portend some especial crisis in their eventful history. She had been on the watch a full hour, though it was not yet noon; her dark dress pressing the bed of faded heather she leaned upon; her small head, with its hood of black silk, bending out under shadow of an overhanging bush of furze; her clear hazel eyes fixed upon the way-very anxious, very grave, entirely absorbed in anticipation of this interview, yet with only a clear atmosphere of truth, and honor, and purity round about her, and spite of plain dress, and grave face, nothing perceptible of the unnatural austerity and gloom with which men upbraid these, our strong and brave predecessors in the faith. At last she saw him quickly ascending the hill, and ran to meet him. There was a greeting of subdued and yet overflowing tenderness-it did not express itself in any exaggeration of word or action, as intense feeling seldom does; but drawing his daughter's arm within his own, the stranger turned into a lonely ravine of those hills where human footstep seldom passed. He was a tall, athletic man, spare and strong, such an one as you would choose from a crowd to endure and do to the uttermost, for whatever was dear to him. Happily the thing dear above all others to the stout soul of Caleb Field, was the Evangel of Jesus Christ in the simplicity of its unassisted might. "Thy kingdom come," was the continual prayer of his life-spoken in words, morning and night, as the strong current of his days flowed on; but graven in deeds hour by hour upon his history, and upon every span of earth he trod on. "For the Lord's sake," Caleb Field, praying, preaching, scheming, struggling, like a good soldier taking no rest, had labored all his days. The father and the daughter were alone in the narrow pass of the hills. "Edith," said the minister, gravely, "I have somewhat to say to you." He paused. He had been in great haste to make the communication, whatever it was, and yet he hesitated now. "Yes, father." "We are alone in the world, Edith," said her father, dwelling on the words with a sad cadence in his voice. "We two, alone-and earthly comfort I have sought none else, thou knowest, since thy mother left thee in my arms; yet, Edith, there is One demanding closer service from me than thou canst, and better love from thee than I can. For His sake, and for his royal and holy cause I must go forth again-Edith, at peril of my life-at peril of leaving thee, a helpless orphan maiden in this inclement world, alone. What sayest thou?" She clasped his arm with a tremulous, clinging motion -she looked up wistfully into his face. "Father, what is this? tell me." "It is the last trial," said the Puritan; "heretofore I have been ever in danger, living so much a life of peril that I heeded it not-perchance, Edith, that I gave not due thanks for manifold and oft deliverance; but now this last peril into which I go, is sure, as men say, and parts not with its victim. As men say-it is not for me, a servant of Him who ruleth all things, to think that any created desolation carries in it certain fate; but where he sends this scourge |