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Ruth

by Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell · English · Gutenberg #4275 · 899,603 chars · public domain (US)

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Title: Ruth

Author: Elizabeth Cleghorn Gaskell


        
Release date: July 1, 2003 [eBook #4275]
                Most recently updated: March 1, 2008

Language: English

Other information and formats: www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/4275

Credits: E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.


*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK RUTH ***


E-text prepared by Charles Aldarondo
and revised by Joseph E. Loewenstein, M.D.



RUTH

by

ELIZABETH GASKELL

First published in book form by Chapman and Hall in 1853







CONTENTS

        I. The Dressmaker's Apprentice at Work
       II. Ruth Goes to the Shire-Hall
      III. Sunday at Mrs Mason's
       IV. Treading in Perilous Places
        V. In North Wales
       VI. Troubles Gather About Ruth
      VII. The Crisis--Watching and Waiting
     VIII. Mrs Bellingham "Does the Thing Handsomely"
       IX. The Storm-Spirit Subdued
        X. A Note and the Answer
       XI. Thurstan and Faith Benson
      XII. Losing Sight of the Welsh Mountains
     XIII. The Dissenting Minister's Household
      XIV. Ruth's First Sunday at Eccleston
       XV. Mother and Child
      XVI. Sally Tells of Her Sweethearts, and Discourses
           on the Duties of Life
     XVII. Leonard's Christening
    XVIII. Ruth Becomes a Governess in Mr Bradshaw's Family
      XIX. After Five Years
       XX. Jemima Refuses to Be Managed
      XXI. Mr Farquhar's Attentions Transferred
     XXII. The Liberal Candidate and His Precursor
    XXIII. Recognition
     XXIV. The Meeting on the Sands
      XXV. Jemima Makes a Discovery
     XXVI. Mr Bradshaw's Virtuous Indignation
    XXVII. Preparing to Stand on the Truth
   XXVIII. An Understanding Between Lovers
     XXIX. Sally Takes Her Money Out of the Bank
      XXX. The Forged Deed
     XXXI. An Accident to the Dover Coach
    XXXII. The Bradshaw Pew Again Occupied
   XXXIII. A Mother to Be Proud Of
    XXXIV. "I Must Go and Nurse Mr Bellingham"
     XXXV. Out of Darkness into Light
    XXXVI. The End




   Drop, drop, slow tears!
   And bathe those beauteous feet,
   Which brought from heaven
   The news and Prince of peace.
   Cease not, wet eyes,
   For mercy to entreat:
   To cry for vengeance
   Sin doth never cease.
   In your deep floods
   Drown all my faults and fears;
   Nor let His eye
   See sin, but through my tears.

   _Phineas Fletcher_




CHAPTER I

The Dressmaker's Apprentice at Work


There is an assize-town in one of the eastern counties which was much
distinguished by the Tudor sovereigns, and, in consequence of their
favour and protection, attained a degree of importance that surprises
the modern traveller.

A hundred years ago its appearance was that of picturesque grandeur.
The old houses, which were the temporary residences of such of the
county-families as contented themselves with the gaieties of a
provincial town, crowded the streets and gave them the irregular but
noble appearance yet to be seen in the cities of Belgium. The sides
of the streets had a quaint richness, from the effect of the gables,
and the stacks of chimneys which cut against the blue sky above;
while, if the eye fell lower down, the attention was arrested by all
kinds of projections in the shape of balcony and oriel; and it was
amusing to see the infinite variety of windows that had been crammed
into the walls long before Mr Pitt's days of taxation. The streets
below suffered from all these projections and advanced stories above;
they were dark, and ill-paved with large, round, jolting pebbles, and
with no side-path protected by kerb-stones; there were no lamp-posts
for long winter nights; and no regard was paid to the wants of the
middle class, who neither drove about in coaches of their own, nor
were carried by their own men in their own sedans into the very
halls of their friends. The professional men and their wives, the
shopkeepers and their spouses, and all such people, walked about at
considerable peril both night and day. The broad unwieldy carriages
hemmed them up against the houses in the narrow streets. The
inhospitable houses projected their flights of steps almost into the
carriage-way, forcing pedestrians again into the danger they had
avoided for twenty or thirty paces. Then, at night, the only light
was derived from the glaring, flaring oil-lamps hung above the doors
of the more aristocratic mansions; just allowing space for the
passers-by to become visible, before they again disappeared into the
darkness, where it was no uncommon thing for robbers to be in waiting
for their prey.

The traditions of those bygone times, even to the smallest social
particular, enable one to understand more clearly the circumstances
which contributed to the formation of character. The daily life
into which people are born, and into which they are absorbed before
they are well aware, forms chains which only one in a hundred has
moral strength enough to despise, and to break when the right time
comes--when an inward necessity for independent individual action
arises, which is superior to all outward conventionalities. Therefore
it is well to know what were the chains of daily domestic habit which
were the natural leading-strings of our forefathers before they
learnt to go alone.

The picturesqueness of those ancient streets has departed now.
The Astleys, the Dunstans, the Waverhams--names of power in that
district--go up duly to London in the season, and have sold their
residences in the county-town fifty years ago, or more. And when the
county-town lost its attraction for the Astleys, the Dunstans, the
Waverhams, how could it be supposed that the Domvilles, the Bextons,
and the Wildes would continue to go and winter there in their
second-rate houses, and with their increased expenditure? So the
grand old houses stood empty awhile; and then speculators ventured
to purchase, and to turn the deserted mansions into many smaller
dwellings, fitted for professional men, or even (bend your ear lower,
lest the shade of Marmaduke, first Baron Waverham, hear) into shops!

Even that was not so very bad, compared with the next innovation on
the old glories. The shopkeepers found out that the once fashionable
street was dark, and that the dingy light did not show off their
goods to advantage; the surgeon could not see to draw his patient's
teeth; the lawyer had to ring for candles an hour earlier than he was
accustomed to do when living in a more plebeian street. In short, by
mutual consent, the whole front of one side of the street was pulled
down, and rebuilt in the flat, mean, unrelieved style of George the
Third. The body of the houses was too solidly grand to submit to
alteration; so people were occasionally surprised, after passing
through a commonplace-looking shop, to find themselves at the foot of
a grand carved oaken staircase, lighted by a window of stained glass,
storied all over with armorial bearings.

Up such a stair--past such a window (through which the moonlight fell
on her with a glory of many colours)--Ruth Hilton passed wearily one
January night, now many years ago. I call it night; but, strictly
speaking, it was morning. Two o'clock in the morning chimed forth
the old bells of St Saviour's. And yet more than a dozen girls still
sat in the room into which Ruth entered, stitching away as if for
very life, not daring to gape, or show any outward manifestation of
sleepiness. They only sighed a little when Ruth told Mrs Mason the
hour of the night, as the result of her errand; for they knew that,
stay up as late as they might, the work-hours of the next day must
begin at eight, and their young limbs were very weary.

Mrs Mason worked away as hard as any of them; but she was older and
tougher; and, besides, the gains were hers. But even she perceived
that some rest was needed. "Young ladies! there will be an interval
allowed of half an hour. Ring the bell, Miss Sutton. Martha shall
bring you up some bread and cheese and beer. You will be so good as
to eat it standing--away from the dresses--and to have your hands
washed ready for work when I return. In half an hour," said she once
more, very distinctly; and then she left the room.

It was curious to watch the young girls as they instantaneously
availed themselves of Mrs Mason's absence. One fat, particularly
heavy-looking damsel laid her head on her folded arms and was asleep
in a moment; refusing to be wakened for her share in the frugal
supper, but springing up with a frightened look at the sound of
Mrs Mason's returning footstep, even while it was still far off on
the echoing stairs. Two or three others huddled over the scanty
fireplace, which, with every possible economy of space, and no
attempt whatever at anything of grace or ornament, was inserted in
the slight, flat-looking wall, that had been run up by the present
owner of the property to portion off this division of the grand old
drawing-room of the mansion. Some employed the time in eating their
bread and cheese, with as measured and incessant a motion of the jaws
(and almost as stupidly placid an expression of countenance), as you
may see in cows ruminating in the first meadow you happen to pass.

Some held up admiringly the beautiful ball-dress in progress, while
others examined the effect, backing from the object to be criticised
in the true artistic manner. Others stretched themselves into all
sorts of postures to relieve the weary muscles; one or two gave vent
to all the yawns, coughs, and sneezes that had been pent up so long
in the presence of Mrs Mason. But Ruth Hilton sprang to the large old
window, and pressed against it as a bird presses against the bars of
its cage. She put back the blind, and gazed into the quiet moonlight
night. It was doubly light--almost as much so as day--for everything
was covered with the deep snow which had been falling silently ever
since the evening before. The window was in a square recess; the old
strange little panes of glass had been replaced by those which gave
more light. A little distance off, the feathery branches of a larch
waved softly to and fro in the scarcely perceptible night-breeze.
Poor old larch! the time had been when it had stood in a pleasant
lawn, with the tender grass creeping caressingly up to its very
trunk; but now the lawn was divided into yards and squalid
back premises, and the larch was pent up and girded about with
flag-stones. The snow lay thick on its boughs, and now and then fell
noiselessly down. The old stables had been added to, and altered into
a dismal street of mean-looking houses, back to back with the ancient
mansions. And over all these changes from grandeur to squalor, bent
down the purple heavens with their unchanging splendour!

Ruth pressed her hot forehead against the cold glass, and strained
her aching eyes in gazing out on the lovely sky of a winter's night.
The impulse was strong upon her to snatch up a shawl, and wrapping it
round her head, to sally forth and enjoy the glory; and time was when
that impulse would have been instantly followed; but now, Ruth's eyes
filled with tears, and she stood quite still, dreaming of the days
that were gone. Some one touched her shoulder while her thoughts were
far away, remembering past January nights, which had resembled this,
and were yet so different.

"Ruth, love," whispered a girl who had unwillingly distinguished
herself by a long hard fit of coughing, "come and have some supper.
You don't know yet how it helps one through the night."

"One run--one blow of the fresh air would do me more good," said
Ruth.

"Not such a night as this," replied the other, shivering at the very
thought.

"And why not such a night as this, Jenny?" answered Ruth. "Oh! at
home I have many a time run up the lane all the way to the mill, just
to see the icicles hang on the great wheel; and when I was once out,
I could hardly find in my heart to come in, even to mother, sitting
by the fire;--even to mother," she added, in a low, melancholy tone,
which had something of inexpressible sadness in it. "Why, Jenny!"
said she, rousing herself, but not before her eyes were swimming
with tears, "own, now, that you never saw those dismal, hateful,
tumble-down old houses there look half so--what shall I call them?
almost beautiful--as they do now, with that soft, pure, exquisite
covering; and if they are so improved, think of what trees, and
grass, and ivy must be on such a night as this."

Jenny could not be persuaded into admiring the winter's night, which
to her came only as a cold and dismal time, when her cough was more
troublesome, and the pain in her side worse than usual. But she put
her arm round Ruth's neck, and stood by her, glad that the orphan
apprentice, who was not yet inured to the hardship of a dressmaker's
workroom, should find so much to give her pleasure in such a common
occurrence as a frosty night.

They remained deep in separate trains of thought till Mrs Mason's
step was heard, when each returned, supperless but refreshed, to her
seat.

Ruth's place was the coldest and the darkest in the room, although
she liked it the best; she had instinctively chosen it for the sake
of the wall opposite to her, on which was a remnant of the beauty
of the old drawing-room, which must once have been magnificent, to
judge from the faded specimen left. It was divided into panels of
pale sea-green, picked out with white and gold; and on these panels
were painted--were thrown with the careless, triumphant hand of a
master--the most lovely wreaths of flowers, profuse and luxuriant
beyond description, and so real-looking, that you could almost
fancy you smelt their fragrance, and heard the south wind go softly
rustling in and out among the crimson roses--the branches of purple
and white lilac--the floating golden-tressed laburnum boughs.
Besides these, there were stately white lilies, sacred to the
Virgin--hollyhocks, fraxinella, monk's-hood, pansies, primroses;
every flower which blooms profusely in charming old-fashioned country
gardens was there, depicted among its graceful foliage, but not in
the wild disorder in which I have enumerated them. At the bottom of
the panel lay a holly-branch, whose stiff straightness was ornamented
by a twining drapery of English ivy and mistletoe and winter aconite;
while down either side hung pendant garlands of spring and autumn
flowers; and, crowning all, came gorgeous summer with the sweet
musk-roses, and the rich-coloured flowers of June and July.

Surely Monnoyer, or whoever the dead and gone artist might be, would
have been gratified to know the pleasure his handiwork, even in its
wane, had power to give to the heavy heart of a young girl; for they
conjured up visions of other sister-flowers that grew, and blossomed,
and withered away in her early home.

Mrs Mason was particularly desirous that her workwomen should exert
themselves to-night, for, on the next, the annual hunt-ball was to
take place. It was the one gaiety of the town since the assize-balls
had been discontinued. Many were the dresses she had promised should
be sent home "without fail" the next morning; she had not let one
slip through her fingers, for fear, if it did, it might fall into the
hands of the rival dressmaker, who had just established herself in
the very same street.

She determined to administer a gentle stimulant to the flagging
spirits, and with a little preliminary cough to attract attention,
she began:

"I may as well inform you, young ladies, that I have been requested
this year, as on previous occasions, to allow some of my young people
to attend in the ante-chamber of the assembly-room with sandal
ribbon, pins, and such little matters, and to be ready to repair any
accidental injury to the ladies' dresses. I shall send four--of the
most diligent." She laid a marked emphasis on the last words, but
without much effect; they were too sleepy to care for any of the
pomps and vanities, or, indeed, for any of the comforts of this
world, excepting one sole thing--their beds.

Mrs Mason was a very worthy woman, but, like many other worthy women,
she had her foibles; and one (very natural to her calling) was to
pay an extreme regard to appearances. Accordingly, she had already
selected in her own mind the four girls who were most likely to do
credit to the "establishment;" and these were secretly determined
upon, although it was very well to promise the reward to the most
diligent. She was really not aware of the falseness of this conduct;
being an adept in that species of sophistry with which people
persuade themselves that what they wish to do is right.

At last there was no resisting the evidence of weariness. They were
told to go to bed; but even that welcome command was languidly
obeyed. Slowly they folded up their work, heavily they moved about,
until at length all was put away, and they trooped up the wide, dark
staircase.

"Oh! how shall I get through five years of these terrible nights! in
that close room! and in that oppressive stillness! which lets every
sound of the thread be heard as it goes eternally backwards and
forwards," sobbed out Ruth, as she threw herself on her bed, without
even undressing herself.

"Nay, Ruth, you know it won't be always as it has been to-night. We
often get to bed by ten o'clock; and by-and-by you won't mind the
closeness of the room. You're worn out to-night, or you would not
have minded the sound of the needle; I never hear it. Come, let me
unfasten you," said Jenny.

"What is the use of undressing? We must be up again and at work in
three hours."

"And in those three hours you may get a great deal of rest, if you
will but undress yourself and fairly go to bed. Come, love."

Jenny's advice was not resisted; but before Ruth went to sleep, she
said:

"Oh! I wish I was not so cross and impatient. I don't think I used to
be."

"No, I am sure not. Most new girls get impatient at first; but it
goes off, and they don't care much for anything after awhile. Poor
child! she's asleep already," said Jenny to herself.

She could not sleep or rest. The tightness at her side was worse than
usual. She almost thought she ought to mention it in her letters
home; but then she remembered the premium her father had struggled
hard to pay, and the large family, younger than herself, that had to
be cared for, and she determined to bear on, and trust that when the
warm weather came both the pain and the cough would go away. She
would be prudent about herself.

What was the matter with Ruth? She was crying in her sleep as if her
heart would break. Such agitated slumber could be no rest; so Jenny
wakened her.

"Ruth! Ruth!"

"Oh, Jenny!" said Ruth, sitting up in bed, and pushing back the
masses of hair that were heating her forehead, "I thought I saw mamma
by the side of the bed, coming, as she used to do, to see if I were
asleep and comfortable; and when I tried to take hold of her, she
went away and left me alone--I don't know where; so strange!"

"It was only a dream; you know you'd been talking about her to me,
and you're feverish with sitting up late. Go to sleep again, and I'll
watch, and waken you if you seem uneasy."

"But you'll be so tired. Oh, dear! dear!" Ruth was asleep again, even
while she sighed.

Morning came, and though their rest had been short, the girls arose
refreshed.

"Miss Sutton, Miss Jennings, Miss Booth, and Miss Hilton, you will
see that you are ready to accompany me to the shire-hall by eight
o'clock."

One or two of the girls looked astonished, but the majority,
having anticipated the selection, and knowing from experience the
unexpressed rule by which it was made, received it with the sullen
indifference which had become their feeling with regard to most
events--a deadened sense of life, consequent upon their unnatural
mode of existence, their sedentary days, and their frequent nights of
late watching.

But to Ruth it was inexplicable. She had yawned, and loitered, and
looked off at the beautiful panel, and lost herself in thoughts of
home, until she fully expected the reprimand which at any other time
she would have been sure to receive, and now, to her surprise, she
was singled out as one of the most diligent!

Much as she longed for the delight of seeing the noble
shire-hall--the boast of the county--and of catching glimpses of the
dancers, and hearing the band; much as she longed for some variety to
the dull, monotonous life she was leading, she could not feel happy
to accept a privilege, granted, as she believed, in ignorance of the
real state of the case; so she startled her companions by rising
abruptly and going up to Mrs Mason, who was finishing a dress which
ought to have been sent home two hours before:

"If you please, Mrs Mason, I was not one of the most diligent; I am
afraid--I believe--I was not diligent at all. I was very tired; and
I could not help thinking, and when I think, I can't attend to my
work." She stopped, believing she had sufficiently explained her
meaning; but Mrs Mason would not understand, and did not wish for any
further elucidation.

"Well, my dear, you must learn to think and work too; or, if you
can't do both, you must leave off thinking. Your guardian, you know,
expects you to make great progress in your business, and I am sure
you won't disappoint him."

But that was not to the point. Ruth stood still an instant, although
Mrs Mason resumed her employment in a manner which any one but a "new
girl" would have known to be intelligible enough, that she did not
wish for any more conversation just then.

"But as I was not diligent I ought not to go, ma'am. Miss Wood was
far more industrious than I, and many of the others."

"Tiresome girl!" muttered Mrs Mason; "I've half a mind to keep her
at home for plaguing me so." But, looking up, she was struck afresh
with the remarkable beauty which Ruth possessed; such a credit to the
house, with her waving outline of figure, her striking face, with
dark eyebrows and dark lashes, combined with auburn hair and a fair
complexion. No! diligent or idle, Ruth Hilton must appear to-night.

"Miss Hilton," said Mrs Mason, with stiff dignity, "I am not
accustomed (as these young ladies can tell you) to have my decisions
questioned. What I say, I mean; and I have my reasons. So sit down,
if you please, and take care and be ready by eight. Not a word more,"
as she fancied she saw Ruth again about to speak.

"Jenny! you ought to have gone, not me," said Ruth, in no low voice
to Miss Wood, as she sat down by her.

"Hush! Ruth. I could not go if I might, because of my cough. I would
rather give it up to you than any one, if it were mine to give. And
suppose it is, and take the pleasure as my present, and tell me every
bit about it when you come home to-night."

"Well! I shall take it in that way, and not as if I'd earned it,
which I haven't. So thank you. You can't think how I shall enjoy it
now. I did work diligently for five minutes last night, after I heard
of it, I wanted to go so much. But I could not keep it up. Oh, dear!
and I shall really hear a band! and see the inside of that beautiful
shire-hall!"




CHAPTER II

Ruth Goes to the Shire-Hall


In due time that evening, Mrs Mason collected "her young ladies"
for an inspection of their appearance before proceeding to the
shire-hall. Her eager, important, hurried manner of summoning them
was not unlike that of a hen clucking her chickens together; and to
judge from the close investigation they had to undergo, it might have
been thought that their part in the evening's performance was to be
far more important than that of temporary ladies'-maids.

"Is that your best frock, Miss Hilton?" asked Mrs Mason, in a
half-dissatisfied tone, turning Ruth about; for it was only her
Sunday black silk, and was somewhat worn and shabby.

"Yes, ma'am," answered Ruth, quietly.

"Oh! indeed. Then it will do" (still the half-satisfied tone).
"Dress, young ladies, you know, is a very secondary consideration.
Conduct is everything. Still, Miss Hilton, I think you should write
and ask your guardian to send you money for another gown. I am sorry
I did not think of it before."

"I do not think he would send any if I wrote," answered Ruth, in a
low voice. "He was angry when I wanted a shawl, when the cold weather
set in."

Mrs Mason gave her a little push of dismissal, and Ruth fell into the
ranks by her friend, Miss Wood.

"Never mind, Ruthie; you're prettier than any of them," said a merry,
good-natured girl, whose plainness excluded her from any of the envy
of rivalry.

"Yes! I know I am pretty," said Ruth, sadly, "but I am sorry I have
no better gown, for this is very shabby. I am ashamed of it myself,
and I can see Mrs Mason is twice as much ashamed. I wish I need not
go. I did not know we should have to think about our own dress at
all, or I should not have wished to go."

"Never mind, Ruth," said Jenny, "you've been looked at now, and Mrs
Mason will soon be too busy to think about you and your gown."

"Did you hear Ruth Hilton say she knew she was pretty?" whispered one
girl to another, so loudly that Ruth caught the words.

"I could not help knowing," answered she, simply, "for many people
have told me so."

At length these preliminaries were over, and they were walking
briskly through the frosty air; the free motion was so inspiriting
that Ruth almost danced along, and quite forgot all about shabby
gowns and grumbling guardians. The shire-hall was even more striking
than she had expected. The sides of the staircase were painted with
figures that showed ghostly in the dim light, for only their faces
looked out of the dark, dingy canvas, with a strange fixed stare of
expression.

The young milliners had to arrange their wares on tables in the
ante-room, and make all ready before they could venture to peep
into the ball-room, where the musicians were already tuning their
instruments, and where one or two char-women (strange contrast! with
their dirty, loose attire, and their incessant chatter, to the grand
echoes of the vaulted room) were completing the dusting of benches
and chairs.

They quitted the place as Ruth and her companions entered. They had
talked lightly and merrily in the ante-room, but now their voices
were hushed, awed by the old magnificence of the vast apartment. It
was so large, that objects showed dim at the further end, as through
a mist. Full-length figures of county worthies hung around, in all
varieties of costume, from the days of Holbein to the present time.
The lofty roof was indistinct, for the lamps were not fully lighted
yet; while through the richly-painted Gothic window at one end the
moonbeams fell, many-tinted, on the floor, and mocked with their
vividness the struggles of the artificial light to illuminate its
little sphere.

High above sounded the musicians, fitfully trying some strain of
which they were not certain. Then they stopped playing and talked,
and their voices sounded goblin-like in their dark recess, where
candles were carried about in an uncertain wavering manner, reminding
Ruth of the flickering zigzag motion of the will-o'-the-wisp.

Suddenly the room sprang into the full blaze of light, and Ruth felt
less impressed with its appearance, and more willing to obey Mrs
Mason's sharp summons to her wandering flock, than she had been
when it was dim and mysterious. They had presently enough to do in
rendering offices of assistance to the ladies who thronged in, and
whose voices drowned all the muffled sound of the band Ruth had
longed so much to hear. Still, if one pleasure was less, another was
greater than she had anticipated.

"On condition" of such a number of little observances that Ruth
thought Mrs Mason would never have ended enumerating them, they were
allowed during the dances to stand at a side-door and watch. And what
a beautiful sight it was! Floating away to that bounding music--now
far away, like garlands of fairies, now near, and showing as lovely
women, with every ornament of graceful dress--the elite of the county
danced on, little caring whose eyes gazed and were dazzled. Outside
all was cold, and colourless, and uniform, one coating of snow over
all. But inside it was warm, and glowing, and vivid; flowers scented
the air, and wreathed the head, and rested on the bosom, as if it
were midsummer. Bright colours flashed on the eye and were gone, and
succeeded by others as lovely in the rapid movement of the dance.
Smiles dimpled every face, and low tones of happiness murmured
indistinctly through the room in every pause of the music.

Ruth did not care to separate the figures that formed a joyous and
brilliant whole; it was enough to gaze, and dream of the happy
smoothness of the lives in which such music, and such profusion of
flowers, of jewels, elegance of every description, and beauty of all
shapes and hues, were everyday things. She did not want to know who
the people were; although to hear a catalogue of names seemed to be
the great delight of most of her companions.

In fact, the enumeration rather disturbed her; and to avoid the shock
of too rapid a descent into the commonplace world of Miss Smiths and
Mr Thomsons, she returned to her post in the ante-room. There she
stood thinking, or dreaming. She was startled back to actual life by
a voice close to her. One of the dancing young ladies had met with a
misfortune. Her dress, of some gossamer material, had been looped up
by nosegays of flowers, and one of these had fallen off in the dance,
leaving her gown to trail. To repair this, she had begged her partner
to bring her to the room where the assistants should have been. None
were there but Ruth.

"Shall I leave you?" asked the gentleman. "Is my absence necessary?"

"Oh, no!" replied the lady. "A few stitches will set all to rights.
Besides, I dare not enter that room by myself." So far she spoke
sweetly and prettily. But now she addressed Ruth. "Make haste. Don't
keep me an hour." And her voice became cold and authoritative.

She was very pretty, with long dark ringlets and sparkling black
eyes. These had struck Ruth in the hasty glance she had taken, before
she knelt down to her task. She also saw that the gentleman was young
and elegant.

"Oh, that lovely galop! How I long to dance to it! Will it never be
done? What a frightful time you are taking; and I'm dying to return
in time for this galop!"

By way of showing a pretty, childlike impatience, she began to beat
time with her feet to the spirited air the band was playing. Ruth
could not darn the rent in her dress with this continual motion, and
she looked up to remonstrate. As she threw her head back for this
purpose, she caught the eye of the gentleman who was standing by; it
was so expressive of amusement at the airs and graces of his pretty
partner, that Ruth was infected by the feeling, and had to bend her
face down to conceal the smile that mantled there. But not before
he had seen it, and not before his attention had been thereby drawn
to consider the kneeling figure, that, habited in black up to the
throat, with the noble head bent down to the occupation in which
she was engaged, formed such a contrast to the flippant, bright,
artificial girl who sat to be served with an air as haughty as a
queen on her throne.

"Oh, Mr Bellingham! I'm ashamed to detain you so long. I had no idea
any one could have spent so much time over a little tear. No wonder
Mrs Mason charges so much for dress-making, if her work-women are so
slow."

It was meant to be witty, but Mr Bellingham looked grave. He saw the
scarlet colour of annoyance flush to that beautiful cheek which was
partially presented to him. He took a candle from the table, and held
it so that Ruth had more light. She did not look up to thank him, for
she felt ashamed that he should have seen the smile which she had
caught from him.

"I am sorry I have been so long, ma'am," said she, gently, as she
finished her work. "I was afraid it might tear out again if I did not
do it carefully." She rose.

"I would rather have had it torn than have missed that charming
galop," said the young lady, shaking out her dress as a bird shakes
its plumage. "Shall we go, Mr Bellingham?" looking up at him.

He was surprised that she gave no word or sign of thanks to the
assistant. He took up a camellia that some one had left on the table.

"Allow me, Miss Duncombe, to give this in your name to this young
lady, as thanks for her dexterous help."

"Oh--of course," said she.

Ruth received the flower silently, but with a grave, modest motion of
her head. They had gone, and she was once more alone. Presently, her
companions returned.

"What was the matter with Miss Duncombe? Did she come here?" asked
they.

"Only her lace dress was torn, and I mended it," answered Ruth,
quietly.

"Did Mr Bellingham come with her? They say he's going to be married
to her; did he come, Ruth?"

"Yes," said Ruth, and relapsed into silence.

Mr Bellingham danced on gaily and merrily through the night, and
flirted with Miss Duncombe, as he thought good. But he looked often
to the side-door where the milliner's apprentices stood; and once he
recognised the tall, slight figure, and the rich auburn hair of the
girl in black; and then his eye sought for the camellia. It was
there, snowy white in her bosom. And he danced on more gaily than
ever.

The cold grey dawn was drearily lighting up the streets when Mrs
Mason and her company returned home. The lamps were extinguished, yet
the shutters of the shops and dwelling-houses were not opened. All
sounds had an echo unheard by day. One or two houseless beggars sat
on doorsteps, and, shivering, slept, with heads bowed on their knees,
or resting against the cold hard support afforded by the wall.

Ruth felt as if a dream had melted away, and she were once more in
the actual world. How long it would be, even in the most favourable
chance, before she should again enter the shire-hall! or hear a band
of music! or even see again those bright, happy people--as much
without any semblance of care or woe as if they belonged to another
race of beings. Had they ever to deny themselves a wish, much less
a want? Literally and figuratively, their lives seemed to wander
through flowery pleasure-paths. Here was cold, biting mid-winter
for her, and such as her--for those poor beggars almost a season of
death; but to Miss Duncombe and her companions, a happy, merry time,
when flowers still bloomed, and fires crackled, and comforts and
luxuries were piled around them like fairy gifts. What did they know
of the meaning of the word, so terrific to the poor? What was winter
to them? But Ruth fancied that Mr Bellingham looked as if he could
understand the feelings of those removed from him by circumstance
and station. He had drawn up the windows of his carriage, it is true,
with a shudder.

Ruth, then, had been watching him.

Yet she had no idea that any association made her camellia precious
to her. She believed it was solely on account of its exquisite beauty
that she tended it so carefully. She told Jenny every particular of
its presentation, with open, straight-looking eye, and without the
deepening of a shade of colour.

"Was it not kind of him? You can't think how nicely he did it, just
when I was a little bit mortified by her ungracious ways."

"It was very nice, indeed," replied Jenny. "Such a beautiful flower!
I wish it had some scent."

"I wish it to be exactly as it is; it is perfect. So pure!" said
Ruth, almost clasping her treasure as she placed it in water. "Who is
Mr Bellingham?"

"He is son to that Mrs Bellingham of the Priory, for whom we made the
grey satin pelisse," answered Jenny, sleepily.

"That was before my time," said Ruth. But there was no answer. Jenny
was asleep.

It was long before Ruth followed her example. Even on a winter day,
it was clear morning light that fell upon her face as she smiled in
her slumber. Jenny would not waken her, but watched her face with
admiration; it was so lovely in its happiness.

"She is dreaming of last night," thought Jenny.

It was true she was; but one figure flitted more than all the rest
through her visions. He presented flower after flower to her in that
baseless morning dream, which was all too quickly ended. The night
before, she had seen her dead mother in her sleep, and she wakened,
weeping. And now she dreamed of Mr Bellingham, and smiled.

And yet, was this a more evil dream than the other?

The realities of life seemed to cut more sharply against her heart
than usual that morning. The late hours of the preceding nights, and
perhaps the excitement of the evening before, had indisposed her to
bear calmly the rubs and crosses which beset all Mrs Mason's young
ladies at times.

For Mrs Mason, though the first dressmaker in the county, was human
after all; and suffered, like her apprentices, from the same causes
that affected them. This morning she was disposed to find fault
with everything, and everybody. She seemed to have risen with the
determination of putting the world and all that it contained (her
world, at least) to rights before night; and abuses and negligences,
which had long passed unreproved, or winked at, were to-day to
be dragged to light, and sharply reprimanded. Nothing less than
perfection would satisfy Mrs Mason at such times.

She had her ideas of justice, too; but they were not divinely
beautiful and true ideas; they were something more resembling
a grocer's, or tea-dealer's ideas of equal right. A little
over-indulgence last night was to be balanced by a good deal of
over-severity to-day; and this manner of rectifying previous errors
fully satisfied her conscience.

Ruth was not inclined for, or capable of, much extra exertion; and it
would have tasked all her powers to have pleased her superior. The
work-room seemed filled with sharp calls. "Miss Hilton! where have
you put the blue Persian? Whenever things are mislaid, I know it has
been Miss Hilton's evening for siding away!"

"Miss Hilton was going out last night, so I offered to clear the
workroom for her. I will find it directly, ma'am," answered one of
the girls.

"Oh, I am well aware of Miss Hilton's custom of shuffling off her
duties upon any one who can be induced to relieve her," replied Mrs
Mason.

Ruth reddened, and tears sprang to her eyes; but she was so conscious
of the falsity of the accusation, that she rebuked herself for being
moved by it, and, raising her head, gave a proud look round, as if in
appeal to her companions.

"Where is the skirt of Lady Farnham's dress? The flounces not put on!
I am surprised. May I ask to whom this work was entrusted yesterday?"
inquired Mrs Mason, fixing her eyes on Ruth.

"I was to have done it, but I made a mistake, and had to undo it. I
am very sorry."

"I might have guessed, certainly. There is little difficulty, to be
sure, in discovering, when work has been neglected or spoilt, into
whose hands it has fallen."

Such were the speeches which fell to Ruth's share on this day of all
days, when she was least fitted to bear them with equanimity.

In the afternoon it was necessary for Mrs Mason to go a few miles
into the country. She left injunctions, and orders, and directions,
and prohibitions without end; but at last she was gone, and in the
relief of her absence, Ruth laid her arms on the table, and, burying
her head, began to cry aloud, with weak, unchecked sobs.

"Don't cry, Miss Hilton,"--"Ruthie, never mind the old dragon,"--"How
will you bear on for five years, if you don't spirit yourself up
not to care a straw for what she says?"--were some of the modes of
comfort and sympathy administered by the young workwomen.

Jenny, with a wiser insight into the grievance and its remedy, said:

"Suppose Ruth goes out instead of you, Fanny Barton, to do the
errands. The fresh air will do her good; and you know you dislike the
cold east winds, while Ruth says she enjoys frost and snow, and all
kinds of shivery weather."

Fanny Barton was a great sleepy-looking girl, huddling over the
fire. No one so willing as she to relinquish the walk on this bleak
afternoon, when the east wind blew keenly down the street, drying up
the very snow itself. There was no temptation to come abroad, for
those who were not absolutely obliged to leave their warm rooms;
indeed, the dusk hour showed that it was the usual tea-time for the
humble inhabitants of that part of the town through which Ruth had to
pass on her shopping expedition. As she came to the high ground just
above the river, where the street sloped rapidly down to the bridge,
she saw the flat country beyond all covered with snow, making the
black dome of the cloud-laden sky appear yet blacker; as if the
winter's night had never fairly gone away, but had hovered on the
edge of the world all through the short bleak day. Down by the bridge
(where there was a little shelving bank, used as a landing-place for
any pleasure-boats that could float on that shallow stream) some
children were playing, and defying the cold; one of them had got a
large washing-tub, and with the use of a broken oar kept steering and
pushing himself hither and thither in the little creek, much to the
admiration of his companions, who stood gravely looking on, immovable
in their attentive observation of the hero, although their faces were
blue with cold, and their hands crammed deep into their pockets with
some faint hope of finding warmth there. Perhaps they feared that, if
they unpacked themselves from their lumpy attitudes and began to move
about, the cruel wind would find its way into every cranny of their
tattered dress. They were all huddled up, and still; with eyes
intent on the embryo sailor. At last, one little man, envious of the
reputation that his playfellow was acquiring by his daring, called
out:

"I'll set thee a craddy, Tom! Thou dar'n't go over yon black line in
the water, out into the real river."

Of course the challenge was not to be refused, and Tom paddled away
towards the dark line, beyond which the river swept with smooth,
steady current. Ruth (a child in years herself) stood at the top of
the declivity watching the adventurer, but as unconscious of any
danger as the group of children below. At their playfellow's success,
they broke through the calm gravity of observation into boisterous
marks of applause, clapping their hands, and stamping their impatient
little feet, and shouting, "Well done, Tom; thou hast done it
rarely!"

Tom stood in childish dignity for a moment, facing his admirers;
then, in an instant, his washing-tub boat was whirled round, and he
lost his balance, and fell out; and both he and his boat were carried
away slowly, but surely, by the strong full river which eternally
moved onwards to the sea.

The children shrieked aloud with terror; and Ruth flew down to the
little bay, and far into its shallow waters, before she felt how
useless such an action was, and that the sensible plan would have
been to seek for efficient help. Hardly had this thought struck her,
when, louder and sharper than the sullen roar of the stream that was
ceaselessly and unrelentingly flowing on, came the splash of a horse
galloping through the water in which she was standing. Past her like
lightning--down in the stream, swimming along with the current--a
stooping rider--an outstretched, grasping arm--a little life
redeemed, and a child saved to those who loved it! Ruth stood dizzy
and sick with emotion while all this took place; and when the rider
turned his swimming horse, and slowly breasted up the river to the
landing-place, she recognised him as the Mr Bellingham of the night
before. He carried the unconscious child across his horse; the body
hung in so lifeless a manner that Ruth believed it was dead, and her
eyes were suddenly blinded with tears. She waded back to the beach,
to the point towards which Mr Bellingham was directing his horse.

"Is he dead?" asked she, stretching out her arms to receive the
little fellow; for she instinctively felt that the position in which
he hung was not the most conducive to returning consciousness, if,
indeed, it would ever return.

"I think not," answered Mr Bellingham, as he gave the child to her,
before springing off his horse. "Is he your brother? Do you know who
he is?"

"Look!" said Ruth, who had sat down upon the ground, the better to
prop the poor lad, "his hand twitches! he lives! oh, sir, he lives!
Whose boy is he?" (to the people, who came hurrying and gathering to
the spot at the rumour of an accident).

"He's old Nelly Brownson's," said they. "Her grandson."

"We must take him into a house directly," said she. "Is his home far
off?"

"No, no; it's just close by."

"One of you go for a doctor at once," said Mr Bellingham,
authoritatively, "and bring him to the old woman's without delay. You
must not hold him any longer," he continued, speaking to Ruth, and
remembering her face now for the first time; "your dress is dripping
wet already. Here! you fellow, take him up, d'ye see!"

But the child's hand had nervously clenched Ruth's dress, and she
would not have him disturbed. She carried her heavy burden very
tenderly towards a mean little cottage indicated by the neighbours;
an old crippled woman was coming out of the door, shaking all over
with agitation.

"Dear heart!" said she, "he's the last of 'em all, and he's gone
afore me."

"Nonsense," said Mr Bellingham, "the boy is alive, and likely to
live."

But the old woman was helpless and hopeless, and insisted on
believing that her grandson was dead; and dead he would have been
if it had not been for Ruth, and one or two of the more sensible
neighbours, who, under Mr Bellingham's directions, bustled about, and
did all that was necessary until animation was restored.

"What a confounded time these people are in fetching the doctor,"
said Mr Bellingham to Ruth, between whom and himself a sort of
silent understanding had sprung up from the circumstance of their
having been the only two (besides mere children) who had witnessed
the accident, and also the only two to whom a certain degree of
cultivation had given the power of understanding each other's
thoughts and even each other's words.

"It takes so much to knock an idea into such stupid people's heads.
They stood gaping and asking which doctor they were to go for, as if
it signified whether it was Brown or Smith, so long as he had his
wits about him. I have no more time to waste here, either; I was on
the gallop when I caught sight of the lad; and, now he has fairly
sobbed and opened his eyes, I see no use in my staying in this
stifling atmosphere. May I trouble you with one thing? Will you be
so good as to see that the little fellow has all that he wants? If
you'll allow me, I'll leave you my purse," continued he, giving it to
Ruth, who was only too glad to have this power entrusted to her of
procuring one or two requisites which she had perceived to be wanted.
But she saw some gold between the net-work; she did not like the
charge of such riches.

"I shall not want so much, really, sir. One sovereign will be
plenty--more than enough. May I take that out, and I will give you
back what is left of it when I see you again? or, perhaps I had
better send it to you, sir?"

"I think you had better keep it all at present. Oh! what a horrid
dirty place this is; insufferable two minutes longer. You must not
stay here; you'll be poisoned with this abominable air. Come towards
the door, I beg. Well, if you think one sovereign will be enough, I
will take my purse; only, remember you apply to me if you think they
want more."

They were standing at the door, where some one was holding Mr
Bellingham's horse. Ruth was looking at him with her earnest eyes
(Mrs Mason and her errands quite forgotten in the interest of
the afternoon's event), her whole thoughts bent upon rightly
understanding and following out his wishes for the little boy's
welfare; and until now this had been the first object in his own
mind. But at this moment the strong perception of Ruth's exceeding
beauty came again upon him. He almost lost the sense of what he was
saying, he was so startled into admiration. The night before, he had
not seen her eyes; and now they looked straight and innocently full
at him, grave, earnest, and deep. But when she instinctively read the
change in the expression of his countenance, she dropped her large
white veiling lids; and he thought her face was lovelier still.

The irresistible impulse seized him to arrange matters so that he
might see her again before long.

"No!" said he. "I see it would be better that you should keep
the purse. Many things may be wanted for the lad which we cannot
calculate upon now. If I remember rightly, there are three sovereigns
and some loose change; I shall, perhaps, see you again in a few days,
when, if there be any money left in the purse, you can restore it to
me."

"Oh, yes, sir," said Ruth, alive to the magnitude of the wants to
which she might have to administer, and yet rather afraid of the
responsibility implied in the possession of so much money.

"Is there any chance of my meeting you again in this house?" asked
he.

"I hope to come whenever I can, sir; but I must run in errand-times,
and I don't know when my turn may be."

"Oh"--he did not fully understand this answer--"I should like to know
how you think the boy is going on, if it is not giving you too much
trouble; do you ever take walks?"

"Not for walking's sake, sir."

"Well!" said he, "you go to church, I suppose? Mrs Mason does not
keep you at work on Sundays, I trust?"

"Oh, no, sir. I go to church regularly."

"Then, perhaps, you will be so good as to tell me what church you go
to, and I will meet you there next Sunday afternoon?"

"I go to St Nicholas', sir. I will take care and bring you word how
the boy is, and what doctor they get; and I will keep an account of
the money I spend."

"Very well; thank you. Remember, I trust to you."

He meant that he relied on her promise to meet him; but Ruth thought
that he was referring to the responsibility of doing the best she
could for the child. He was going away, when a fresh thought struck
him, and he turned back into the cottage once more, and addressed
Ruth, with a half smile on his countenance:

"It seems rather strange, but we have no one to introduce us; my name
is Bellingham--yours is--?"

"Ruth Hilton, sir," she answered, in a low voice, for, now that
the conversation no longer related to the boy, she felt shy and
restrained.

He held out his hand to shake hers, and just as she gave it to him,
the old grandmother came tottering up to ask some question. The
interruption jarred upon him, and made him once more keenly alive to
the closeness of the air, and the squalor and dirt by which he was
surrounded.

"My good woman," said he to Nelly Brownson, "could you not keep your
place a little neater and cleaner? It is more fit for pigs than human
beings. The air in this room is quite offensive, and the dirt and
filth is really disgraceful."

By this time he was mounted, and, bowing to Ruth, he rode away.

Then the old woman's wrath broke out.

"Who may you be, that knows no better manners than to come into a
poor woman's house to abuse it?--fit for pigs, indeed! What d'ye call
yon fellow?"

"He is Mr Bellingham," said Ruth, shocked at the old woman's apparent
ingratitude. "It was he that rode into the water to save your
grandson. He would have been drowned but for Mr Bellingham. I thought
once they would both have been swept away by the current, it was so
strong."

"The river is none so deep, either," the old woman said, anxious to
diminish as much as possible the obligation she was under to one who
had offended her. "Some one else would have saved him, if this fine
young spark had never been near. He's an orphan, and God watches over
orphans, they say. I'd rather it had been any one else as had picked
him out, than one who comes into a poor body's house only to abuse
it."

"He did not come in only to abuse it," said Ruth, gently. "He came
with little Tom; he only said it was not quite so clean as it might
be."

"What! you're taking up the cry, are you? Wait till you are an old
woman like me, crippled with rheumatiz, and a lad to see after like
Tom, who is always in mud when he isn't in water; and his food and
mine to scrape together (God knows we're often short, and do the best
I can), and water to fetch up that steep brow."

She stopped to cough; and Ruth judiciously changed the subject, and
began to consult the old woman as to the wants of her grandson, in
which consultation they were soon assisted by the medical man.

When Ruth had made one or two arrangements with a neighbour, whom she
asked to procure the most necessary things, and had heard from the
doctor that all would be right in a day or two, she began to quake
at the recollection of the length of time she had spent at Nelly
Brownson's, and to remember, with some affright, the strict watch
kept by Mrs Mason over her apprentices' out-goings and in-comings on
working days. She hurried off to the shops, and tried to recall her
wandering thoughts to the respective merits of pink and blue as a
match to lilac, found she had lost her patterns, and went home with
ill-chosen things, and in a fit of despair at her own stupidity.

The truth was, that the afternoon's adventure filled her mind; only,
the figure of Tom (who was now safe, and likely to do well) was
receding into the background, and that of Mr Bellingham becoming
more prominent than it had been. His spirited and natural action of
galloping into the water to save the child, was magnified by Ruth
into the most heroic deed of daring; his interest about the boy
was tender, thoughtful benevolence in her eyes, and his careless
liberality of money was fine generosity; for she forgot that
generosity implies some degree of self-denial. She was gratified,
too, by the power of dispensing comfort he had entrusted to her,
and was busy with Alnaschar visions of wise expenditure, when the
necessity of opening Mrs Mason's house-door summoned her back into
actual present life, and the dread of an immediate scolding.

For this time, however, she was spared; but spared for such a reason
that she would have been thankful for some blame in preference to
her impunity. During her absence, Jenny's difficulty of breathing
had suddenly become worse, and the girls had, on their own
responsibility, put her to bed, and were standing round her in
dismay, when Mrs Mason's return home (only a few minutes before Ruth
arrived) fluttered them back into the workroom.

And now, all was confusion and hurry; a doctor to be sent for; a mind
to be unburdened of directions for a dress to a forewoman, who was
too ill to understand; scoldings to be scattered with no illiberal
hand amongst a group of frightened girls, hardly sparing the poor
invalid herself for her inopportune illness. In the middle of all
this turmoil, Ruth crept quietly to her place, with a heavy saddened
heart at the indisposition of the gentle forewoman. She would gladly
have nursed Jenny herself, and often longed to do it, but she could
not be spared. Hands, unskilful in fine and delicate work, would be
well enough qualified to tend the sick, until the mother arrived from
home. Meanwhile, extra diligence was required in the workroom; and
Ruth found no opportunity of going to see little Tom, or to fulfil
the plans for making him and his grandmother more comfortable, which
she had proposed to herself. She regretted her rash promise to Mr
Bellingham, of attending to the little boy's welfare; all that she
could do was done by means of Mrs Mason's servant, through whom she
made inquiries, and sent the necessary help.

The subject of Jenny's illness was the prominent one in the house.
Ruth told of her own adventure, to be sure; but when she was at the
very crisis of the boy's fall into the river, the more fresh and
vivid interest of some tidings of Jenny was brought into the room,
and Ruth ceased, almost blaming herself for caring for anything
besides the question of life or death to be decided in that very
house.

Then a pale, gentle-looking woman was seen moving softly about; and
it was whispered that this was the mother come to nurse her child.
Everybody liked her, she was so sweet-looking, and gave so little
trouble, and seemed so patient, and so thankful for any inquiries
about her daughter, whose illness, it was understood, although its
severity was mitigated, was likely to be long and tedious. While all
the feelings and thoughts relating to Jenny were predominant, Sunday
arrived. Mrs Mason went the accustomed visit to her father's, making
some little show of apology to Mrs Wood for leaving her and her
daughter; the apprentices dispersed to the various friends with whom
they were in the habit of spending the day; and Ruth went to St
Nicholas', with a sorrowful heart, depressed on account of Jenny, and
self-reproachful at having rashly undertaken what she had been unable
to perform.

As she came out of church, she was joined by Mr Bellingham. She had
half hoped that he might have forgotten the arrangement, and yet she
wished to relieve herself of her responsibility. She knew his step
behind her, and the contending feelings made her heart beat hard, and
she longed to run away.

"Miss Hilton, I believe," said he, overtaking her, and bowing
forward, so as to catch a sight of her rose-red face. "How is our
little sailor going on? Well, I trust, from the symptoms the other
day."

"I believe, sir, he is quite well now. I am very sorry, but I have
not been able to go and see him. I am so sorry--I could not help it.
But I have got one or two things through another person. I have put
them down on this slip of paper; and here is your purse, sir, for
I am afraid I can do nothing more for him. We have illness in the
house, and it makes us very busy."

Ruth had been so much accustomed to blame of late, that she almost
anticipated some remonstrance or reproach now, for not having
fulfilled her promise better. She little guessed that Mr Bellingham
was far more busy trying to devise some excuse for meeting her again,
during the silence that succeeded her speech, than displeased with
her for not bringing a more particular account of the little boy, in
whom he had ceased to feel any interest.

She repeated, after a minute's pause:

"I am very sorry I have done so little, sir."

"Oh, yes, I am sure you have done all you could. It was thoughtless
in me to add to your engagements."

"He is displeased with me," thought Ruth, "for what he believes to
have been neglect of the boy, whose life he risked his own to save.
If I told all, he would see that I could not do more; but I cannot
tell him all the sorrows and worries that have taken up my time."

"And yet I am tempted to give you another little commission, if it is
not taking up too much of your time, and presuming too much on your
good-nature," said he, a bright idea having just struck him. "Mrs
Mason lives in Heneage Place, does not she? My mother's ancestors
lived there; and once, when the house was being repaired, she took me
in to show me the old place. There was an old hunting-piece painted
on a panel over one of the chimney-pieces; the figures were portraits
of my ancestors. I have often thought I should like to purchase it,
if it still remained there. Can you ascertain this for me, and bring
me word next Sunday?"

"Oh, yes, sir," said Ruth, glad that this commission was completely
within her power to execute, and anxious to make up for her previous
seeming neglect. "I'll look directly I get home, and ask Mrs Mason to
write and let you know."

"Thank you," said he, only half satisfied; "I think perhaps, however,
it might be as well not to trouble Mrs Mason about it; you see, it
would compromise me, and I am not quite determined to purchase the
picture; if you would ascertain whether the painting is there, and
tell me, I would take a little time to reflect, and afterwards I
could apply to Mrs Mason myself."

"Very well, sir; I will see about it." So they parted.

Before the next Sunday, Mrs Wood had taken her daughter to her
distant home, to recruit in that quiet place. Ruth watched her down
the street from an upper window, and, sighing deep and long, returned
to the workroom, whence the warning voice and the gentle wisdom had
departed.




CHAPTER III

Sunday at Mrs Mason's


Mr Bellingham attended afternoon service at St Nicholas' church the
next Sunday. His thoughts had been far more occupied by Ruth than
hers by him, although his appearance upon the scene of her life
was more an event to her than it was to him. He was puzzled by the
impression she had produced on him, though he did not in general
analyse the nature of his feelings, but simply enjoyed them with the
delight which youth takes in experiencing new and strong emotion.

He was old compared to Ruth, but young as a man; hardly
three-and-twenty. The fact of his being an only child had given
him, as it does to many, a sort of inequality in those parts of the
character which are usually formed by the number of years that a
person has lived.

The unevenness of discipline to which only children are subjected;
the thwarting, resulting from over-anxiety; the indiscreet
indulgence, arising from a love centred all in one object; had been
exaggerated in his education, probably from the circumstance that his
mother (his only surviving parent) had been similarly situated to
himself.

He was already in possession of the comparatively small property
he inherited from his father. The estate on which his mother lived
was her own; and her income gave her the means of indulging or
controlling him, after he had grown to man's estate, as her wayward
disposition and her love of power prompted her.

Had he been double-dealing in his conduct towards her, had he
condescended to humour her in the least, her passionate love for him
would have induced her to strip herself of all her possessions to
add to his dignity or happiness. But although he felt the warmest
affection for her, the regardlessness which she had taught him (by
example, perhaps, more than by precept) of the feelings of others,
was continually prompting him to do things that she, for the time
being, resented as mortal affronts. He would mimic the clergyman she
specially esteemed, even to his very face; he would refuse to visit
her schools for months and months; and, when wearied into going
at last, revenge himself by puzzling the children with the most
ridiculous questions (gravely put) that he could imagine.

All these boyish tricks annoyed and irritated her far more than the
accounts which reached her of more serious misdoings at college and
in town. Of these grave offences she never spoke; of the smaller
misdeeds she hardly ever ceased speaking.

Still, at times, she had great influence over him, and nothing
delighted her more than to exercise it. The submission of his will
to hers was sure to be liberally rewarded; for it gave her great
happiness to extort, from his indifference or his affection, the
concessions which she never sought by force of reason, or by appeals
to principle--concessions which he frequently withheld, solely for
the sake of asserting his independence of her control.

She was anxious for him to marry Miss Duncombe. He cared little or
nothing about it--it was time enough to be married ten years hence;
and so he was dawdling through some months of his life--sometimes
flirting with the nothing-loath Miss Duncombe, sometimes plaguing,
and sometimes delighting his mother, at all times taking care to
please himself--when he first saw Ruth Hilton, and a new, passionate,
hearty feeling shot through his whole being. He did not know why he
was so fascinated by her. She was very beautiful, but he had seen
others equally beautiful, and with many more _agaceries_ calculated
to set off the effect of their charms.

There was, perhaps, something bewitching in the union of the
grace and loveliness of womanhood with the _naïveté_, simplicity,
and innocence of an intelligent child. There was a spell in the
shyness, which made her avoid and shun all admiring approaches to
acquaintance. It would be an exquisite delight to attract and tame
her wildness, just as he had often allured and tamed the timid fawns
in his mother's park.

By no over-bold admiration, or rash, passionate word, would he
startle her; and, surely, in time she might be induced to look upon
him as a friend, if not something nearer and dearer still.

In accordance with this determination, he resisted the strong
temptation of walking by her side the whole distance home after
church. He only received the intelligence she brought respecting the
panel with thanks, spoke a few words about the weather, bowed, and
was gone. Ruth believed she should never see him again; and, in spite
of sundry self-upbraidings for her folly, she could not help feeling
as if a shadow were drawn over her existence for several days to
come.

Mrs Mason was a widow, and had to struggle for the sake of the six or
seven children left dependent on her exertions; thus there was some
reason, and great excuse, for the pinching economy which regulated
her household affairs.

On Sundays she chose to conclude that all her apprentices had friends
who would be glad to see them to dinner, and give them a welcome
reception for the remainder of the day; while she, and those of
her children who were not at school, went to spend the day at her
father's house, several miles out of the town. Accordingly, no
dinner was cooked on Sundays for the young workwomen; no fires were
lighted in any rooms to which they had access. On this morning they
breakfasted in Mrs Mason's own parlour, after which the room was
closed against them through the day by some understood, though
unspoken prohibition.

What became of such as Ruth, who had no home and no friends in that
large, populous, desolate town? She had hitherto commissioned the
servant, who went to market on Saturdays for the family, to buy her a
bun or biscuit, whereon she made her fasting dinner in the deserted
workroom, sitting in her walking-dress to keep off the cold, which
clung to her in spite of shawl and bonnet. Then she would sit at
the window, looking out on the dreary prospect till her eyes were
often blinded by tears; and, partly to shake off thoughts and
recollections, the indulgence in which she felt to be productive
of no good, and partly to have some ideas to dwell upon during the
coming week beyond those suggested by the constant view of the same
room, she would carry her Bible, and place herself in the window-seat
on the wide landing, which commanded the street in front of the
house. From thence she could see the irregular grandeur of the place;
she caught a view of the grey church-tower, rising hoary and massive
into mid-air; she saw one or two figures loiter along on the sunny
side of the street, in all the enjoyment of their fine clothes and
Sunday leisure; and she imagined histories for them, and tried to
picture to herself their homes and their daily doings.

And before long, the bells swung heavily in the church-tower, and
struck out with musical clang the first summons to afternoon church.

After church was over, she used to return home to the same
window-seat, and watch till the winter twilight was over and gone,
and the stars came out over the black masses of houses. And then she
would steal down to ask for a candle, as a companion to her in the
deserted workroom. Occasionally the servant would bring her up some
tea; but of late Ruth had declined taking any, as she had discovered
she was robbing the kind-hearted creature of part of the small
provision left out for her by Mrs Mason. She sat on, hungry and cold,
trying to read her Bible, and to think the old holy thoughts which
had been her childish meditations at her mother's knee, until one
after another the apprentices returned, weary with their day's
enjoyment, and their week's late watching; too weary to make her in
any way a partaker of their pleasure by entering into details of the
manner in which they had spent their day.

And last of all, Mrs Mason returned; and, summoning her "young
people" once more into the parlour, she read a prayer before
dismissing them to bed. She always expected to find them all in
the house when she came home, but asked no questions as to their
proceedings through the day; perhaps because she dreaded to hear
that one or two had occasionally nowhere to go, and that it would be
sometimes necessary to order a Sunday's dinner, and leave a lighted
fire on that day.

For five months Ruth had been an inmate at Mrs Mason's, and such had
been the regular order of the Sundays. While the forewoman stayed
there, it is true, she was ever ready to give Ruth the little variety
of hearing of recreations in which she was no partaker; and however
tired Jenny might be at night, she had ever some sympathy to bestow
on Ruth for the dull length of day she had passed. After her
departure, the monotonous idleness of the Sunday seemed worse to
bear than the incessant labour of the work-days; until the time came
when it seemed to be a recognised hope in her mind, that on Sunday
afternoons she should see Mr Bellingham, and hear a few words from
him, as from a friend who took an interest in her thoughts and
proceedings during the past week.

Ruth's mother had been the daughter of a poor curate in Norfolk,
and, early left without parents or home, she was thankful to marry
a respectable farmer a good deal older than herself. After their
marriage, however, everything seemed to go wrong. Mrs Hilton fell
into a delicate state of health, and was unable to bestow the
ever-watchful attention to domestic affairs so requisite in a
farmer's wife. Her husband had a series of misfortunes--of a more
important kind than the death of a whole brood of turkeys from
getting among the nettles, or the year of bad cheeses spoilt by a
careless dairymaid--which were the consequences (so the neighbours
said) of Mr Hilton's mistake in marrying a delicate, fine lady. His
crops failed; his horses died; his barn took fire; in short, if he
had been in any way a remarkable character, one might have supposed
him to be the object of an avenging fate, so successive were the
evils which pursued him; but as he was only a somewhat commonplace
farmer, I believe we must attribute his calamities to some want in
his character of the one quality required to act as keystone to many
excellences. While his wife lived, all worldly misfortunes seemed as
nothing to him; her strong sense and lively faculty of hope upheld
him from despair; her sympathy was always ready, and the invalid's
room had an atmosphere of peace and encouragement, which affected all
who entered it. But when Ruth was about twelve, one morning in the
busy hay-time, Mrs Hilton was left alone for some hours. This had
often happened before, nor had she seemed weaker than usual when they
had gone forth to the field; but on their return, with merry voices,
to fetch the dinner prepared for the haymakers, they found an unusual
silence brooding over the house; no low voice called out gently to
welcome them, and ask after the day's progress; and, on entering the
little parlour, which was called Mrs Hilton's, and was sacred to her,
they found her lying dead on her accustomed sofa. Quite calm and
peaceful she lay; there had been no struggle at last; the struggle
was for the survivors, and one sank under it. Her husband did not
make much ado at first--at least, not in outward show; her memory
seemed to keep in check all external violence of grief; but, day by
day, dating from his wife's death, his mental powers decreased. He
was still a hale-looking elderly man, and his bodily health appeared
as good as ever; but he sat for hours in his easy-chair, looking into
the fire, not moving, nor speaking, unless when it was absolutely
necessary to answer repeated questions. If Ruth, with coaxings and
draggings, induced him to come out with her, he went with measured
steps around his fields, his head bent to the ground with the
same abstracted, unseeing look; never smiling--never changing the
expression of his face, not even to one of deeper sadness, when
anything occurred which might be supposed to remind him of his dead
wife. But in this abstraction from all outward things, his worldly
affairs went ever lower down. He paid money away, or received it, as
if it had been so much water; the gold mines of Potosi could not have
touched the deep grief of his soul; but God in His mercy knew the
sure balm, and sent the Beautiful Messenger to take the weary one
home.

After his death, the creditors were the chief people who appeared to
take any interest in the affairs; and it seemed strange to Ruth to
see people, whom she scarcely knew, examining and touching all that
she had been accustomed to consider as precious and sacred. Her
father had made his will at her birth. With the pride of newly and
late-acquired paternity, he had considered the office of guardian to
his little darling as one which would have been an additional honour
to the lord-lieutenant of the county; but as he had not the pleasure
of his lordship's acquaintance, he selected the person of most
consequence amongst those whom he did know; not any very ambitious
appointment, in those days of comparative prosperity; but certainly
the flourishing maltster of Skelton was a little surprised, when,
fifteen years later, he learnt that he was executor to a will
bequeathing many vanished hundreds of pounds, and guardian to a young
girl whom he could not remember ever to have seen.

He was a sensible, hard-headed man of the world; having a very fair
proportion of conscience as consciences go; indeed, perhaps more than
many people; for he had some ideas of duty extending to the circle
beyond his own family; and did not, as some would have done, decline
acting altogether, but speedily summoned the creditors, examined
into the accounts, sold up the farming-stock, and discharged all the
debts; paid about £80 into the Skelton bank for a week, while he
inquired for a situation or apprenticeship of some kind for poor
heart-broken Ruth; heard of Mrs Mason's; arranged all with her in two
short conversations; drove over for Ruth in his gig; waited while she
and the old servant packed up her clothes; and grew very impatient
while she ran, with her eyes streaming with tears, round the garden,
tearing off in a passion of love whole boughs of favourite China and
damask roses, late flowering against the casement-window of what
had been her mother's room. When she took her seat in the gig, she
was little able, even if she had been inclined, to profit by her
guardian's lectures on economy and self-reliance; but she was quiet
and silent, looking forward with longing to the night-time, when, in
her bedroom, she might give way to all her passionate sorrow at being
wrenched from the home where she had lived with her parents, in that
utter absence of any anticipation of change, which is either the
blessing or the curse of childhood. But at night there were four
other girls in her room, and she could not cry before them. She
watched and waited till, one by one, they dropped off to sleep, and
then she buried her face in the pillow, and shook with sobbing grief;
and then she paused to conjure up, with fond luxuriance, every
recollection of the happy days, so little valued in their uneventful
peace while they lasted, so passionately regretted when once gone for
ever; to remember every look and word of the dear mother, and to moan
afresh over the change caused by her death;--the first clouding in
of Ruth's day of life. It was Jenny's sympathy on this first night,
when awakened by Ruth's irrepressible agony, that had made the bond
between them. But Ruth's loving disposition, continually sending
forth fibres in search of nutriment, found no other object for regard
among those of her daily life to compensate for the want of natural
ties.

But, almost insensibly, Jenny's place in Ruth's heart was filled
up; there was some one who listened with tender interest to all
her little revelations; who questioned her about her early days
of happiness, and, in return, spoke of his own childhood--not so
golden in reality as Ruth's, but more dazzling, when recounted
with stories of the beautiful cream-coloured Arabian pony, and the
old picture-gallery in the house, and avenues, and terraces, and
fountains in the garden, for Ruth to paint, with all the vividness
of imagination, as scenery and background for the figure which was
growing by slow degrees most prominent in her thoughts.

It must not be supposed that this was effected all at once, though
the intermediate stages have been passed over. On Sunday, Mr
Bellingham only spoke to her to receive the information about
the panel; nor did he come to St Nicholas' the next, nor yet the
following Sunday. But the third he walked by her side a little way,
and, seeing her annoyance, he left her; and then she wished for him
back again, and found the day very dreary, and wondered why a strange
undefined feeling had made her imagine she was doing wrong in walking
alongside of one so kind and good as Mr Bellingham; it had been very
foolish of her to be self-conscious all the time, and if ever he
spoke to her again she would not think of what people might say,
but enjoy the pleasure which his kind words and evident interest in
her might give. Then she thought it was very likely he never would
notice her again, for she knew she had been very rude with her short
answers; it was very provoking that she had behaved so rudely. She
should be sixteen in another month, and she was still childish and
awkward. Thus she lectured herself, after parting with Mr Bellingham;
and the consequence was, that on the following Sunday she was ten
times as blushing and conscious, and (Mr Bellingham thought) ten
times more beautiful than ever. He suggested, that instead of going
straight home through High-street, she should take the round by the
Leasowes; at first she declined, but then, suddenly wondering and
questioning herself why she refused a thing which was, as far as
reason and knowledge (_her_ knowledge) went, so innocent, and which
was certainly so tempting and pleasant, she agreed to go the round;
and when she was once in the meadows that skirted the town, she
forgot all doubt and awkwardness--nay, almost forgot the presence of
Mr Bellingham--in her delight at the new tender beauty of an early
spring day in February. Among the last year's brown ruins, heaped
together by the wind in the hedgerows, she found the fresh green
crinkled leaves and pale star-like flowers of the primroses. Here and
there a golden celandine made brilliant the sides of the little brook
that (full of water in "February fill-dyke") bubbled along by the
side of the path; the sun was low in the horizon, and once, when they
came to a higher part of the Leasowes, Ruth burst into an exclamation
of delight at the evening glory of mellow light which was in the sky
behind the purple distance, while the brown leafless woods in the
foreground derived an almost metallic lustre from the golden mist and
haze of the sunset. It was but three-quarters of a mile round by the
meadows, but somehow it took them an hour to walk it. Ruth turned
to thank Mr Bellingham for his kindness in taking her home by this
beautiful way, but his look of admiration at her glowing, animated
face, made her suddenly silent; and, hardly wishing him good-bye, she
quickly entered the house with a beating, happy, agitated heart.

"How strange it is," she thought that evening, "that I should feel as
if this charming afternoon's walk were, somehow, not exactly wrong,
but yet as if it were not right. Why can it be? I am not defrauding
Mrs Mason of any of her time; that I know would be wrong; I am left
to go where I like on Sundays. I have been to church, so it can't be
because I have missed doing my duty. If I had gone this walk with
Jenny, I wonder whether I should have felt as I do now. There must
be something wrong in me, myself, to feel so guilty when I have done
nothing which is not right; and yet I can thank God for the happiness
I have had in this charming spring walk, which dear mamma used to say
was a sign when pleasures were innocent and good for us."

She was not conscious, as yet, that Mr Bellingham's presence had
added any charm to the ramble; and when she might have become aware
of this, as, week after week, Sunday after Sunday, loitering ramble
after loitering ramble succeeded each other, she was too much
absorbed with one set of thoughts to have much inclination for
self-questioning.

"Tell me everything, Ruth, as you would to a brother; let me help
you, if I can, in your difficulties," he said to her one afternoon.
And he really did try to understand, and to realise, how an
insignificant and paltry person like Mason the dressmaker could be an
object of dread, and regarded as a person having authority, by Ruth.
He flamed up with indignation when, by way of impressing him with Mrs
Mason's power and consequence, Ruth spoke of some instance of the
effects of her employer's displeasure. He declared his mother should
never have a gown made again by such a tyrant--such a Mrs Brownrigg;
that he would prevent all his acquaintances from going to such
a cruel dressmaker; till Ruth was alarmed at the threatened
consequences of her one-sided account, and pleaded for Mrs Mason as
earnestly as if a young man's menace of this description were likely
to be literally fulfilled.

"Indeed, sir, I have been very wrong; if you please, sir, don't be so
angry. She is often very good to us; it is only sometimes she goes
into a passion; and we are very provoking, I dare say. I know I am
for one. I have often to undo my work, and you can't think how it
spoils anything (particularly silk) to be unpicked; and Mrs Mason has
to bear all the blame. Oh! I am sorry I said anything about it. Don't
speak to your mother about it, pray, sir. Mrs Mason thinks so much of
Mrs Bellingham's custom."

"Well, I won't this time"--recollecting that there might be some
awkwardness in accounting to his mother for the means by which he
had obtained his very correct information as to what passed in Mrs
Mason's workroom--"but if ever she does so again, I'll not answer for
myself."

"I will take care and not tell again, sir," said Ruth, in a low
voice.

"Nay, Ruth, you are not going to have secrets from me, are you? Don't
you remember your promise to consider me as a brother? Go on telling
me everything that happens to you, pray; you cannot think how much
interest I take in all your interests. I can quite fancy that
charming home at Milham you told me about last Sunday. I can almost
fancy Mrs Mason's workroom; and that, surely, is a proof either of
the strength of my imagination, or of your powers of description."

Ruth smiled. "It is, indeed, sir. Our workroom must be so different
to anything you ever saw. I think you must have passed through Milham
often on your way to Lowford."

"Then you don't think it is any stretch of fancy to have so clear an
idea as I have of Milham Grange? On the left hand of the road, is it,
Ruth?"

"Yes, sir, just over the bridge, and up the hill where the elm-trees
meet overhead and make a green shade; and then comes the dear old
Grange, that I shall never see again."

"Never! Nonsense, Ruthie; it is only six miles off; you may see it
any day. It is not an hour's ride."

"Perhaps I may see it again when I am grown old; I did not think
exactly what 'never' meant; it is so very long since I was there, and
I don't see any chance of my going for years and years, at any rate."

"Why, Ruth, you--we may go next Sunday afternoon, if you like."

She looked up at him with a lovely light of pleasure in her face at
the idea. "How, sir? Can I walk it between afternoon service and the
time Mrs Mason comes home? I would go for only one glimpse; but if I
could get into the house--oh, sir! if I could just see mamma's room
again!"

He was revolving plans in his head for giving her this pleasure, and
he had also his own in view. If they went in any of his carriages,
the loitering charm of the walk would be lost; and they must, to
a certain degree, be encumbered by, and exposed to, the notice of
servants.

"Are you a good walker, Ruth? Do you think you can manage six miles?
If we set off at two o'clock, we shall be there by four, without
hurrying; or say half-past four. Then we might stay two hours, and
you could show me all the old walks and old places you love, and we
could still come leisurely home. Oh, it's all arranged directly!"

"But do you think it would be right, sir? It seems as if it would be
such a great pleasure, that it must be in some way wrong."

"Why, you little goose, what can be wrong in it?"

"In the first place, I miss going to church by setting out at two,"
said Ruth, a little gravely.

"Only for once. Surely you don't see any harm in missing church for
once? You will go in the morning, you know."

"I wonder if Mrs Mason would think it right--if she would allow it?"

"No, I dare say not. But you don't mean to be governed by Mrs Mason's
notions of right and wrong. She thought it right to treat that poor
girl Palmer in the way you told me about. You would think that wrong,
you know, and so would every one of sense and feeling. Come, Ruth,
don't pin your faith on any one, but judge for yourself. The pleasure
is perfectly innocent; it is not a selfish pleasure either, for I
shall enjoy it to the full as much as you will. I shall like to see
the places where you spent your childhood; I shall almost love them
as much as you do." He had dropped his voice; and spoke in low,
persuasive tones. Ruth hung down her head, and blushed with exceeding
happiness; but she could not speak, even to urge her doubts afresh.
Thus it was in a manner settled.

How delightfully happy the plan made her through the coming week!
She was too young when her mother died to have received any cautions
or words of advice respecting _the_ subject of a woman's life--if,
indeed, wise parents ever directly speak of what, in its depth and
power, cannot be put into words--which is a brooding spirit with no
definite form or shape that men should know it, but which is there,
and present before we have recognised and realised its existence.
Ruth was innocent and snow-pure. She had heard of falling in love,
but did not know the signs and symptoms thereof; nor, indeed, had
she troubled her head much about them. Sorrow had filled up her days,
to the exclusion of all lighter thoughts than the consideration of
present duties, and the remembrance of the happy time which had been.
But the interval of blank, after the loss of her mother and during
her father's life-in-death, had made her all the more ready to value
and cling to sympathy--first from Jenny, and now from Mr Bellingham.
To see her home again, and to see it with him; to show him (secure
of his interest) the haunts of former times, each with its little
tale of the past--of dead and gone events!--No coming shadow threw
its gloom over this week's dream of happiness--a dream which was too
bright to be spoken about to common and indifferent ears.




CHAPTER IV

Treading in Perilous Places


Sunday came, as brilliant as if there were no sorrow, or death, or
guilt in the world; a day or two of rain had made the earth fresh and
brave as the blue heavens above. Ruth thought it was too strong a
realisation of her hopes, and looked for an over-clouding at noon;
but the glory endured, and at two o'clock she was in the Leasowes,
with a beating heart full of joy, longing to stop the hours, which
would pass too quickly through the afternoon.

They sauntered through the fragrant lanes, as if their loitering
would prolong the time, and check the fiery-footed steeds galloping
apace towards the close of the happy day. It was past five o'clock
before they came to the great mill-wheel, which stood in Sabbath
idleness, motionless in a brown mass of shade, and still wet with
yesterday's immersion in the deep transparent water beneath. They
clambered the little hill, not yet fully shaded by the overarching
elms; and then Ruth checked Mr Bellingham, by a slight motion of
the hand which lay within his arm, and glanced up into his face to
see what that face should express as it looked on Milham Grange,
now lying still and peaceful in its afternoon shadows. It was a
house of after-thoughts; building materials were plentiful in the
neighbourhood, and every successive owner had found a necessity
for some addition or projection, till it was a picturesque mass of
irregularity--of broken light and shadow--which, as a whole, gave a
full and complete idea of a "Home." All its gables and nooks were
blended and held together by the tender green of the climbing roses
and young creepers. An old couple were living in the house until it
should be let, but they dwelt in the back part, and never used the
front door; so the little birds had grown tame and familiar, and
perched upon the window-sills and porch, and on the old stone cistern
which caught the water from the roof.

They went silently through the untrimmed garden, full of the
pale-coloured flowers of spring. A spider had spread her web over
the front door. The sight of this conveyed a sense of desolation to
Ruth's heart; she thought it was possible the state entrance had
never been used since her father's dead body had been borne forth,
and, without speaking a word, she turned abruptly away, and went
round the house to another door. Mr Bellingham followed without
questioning, little understanding her feelings, but full of
admiration for the varying expression called out upon her face.

The old woman had not yet returned from church, or from the weekly
gossip or neighbourly tea which succeeded. The husband sat in the
kitchen, spelling the psalms for the day in his Prayer-book, and
reading the words out aloud--a habit he had acquired from the double
solitude of his life, for he was deaf. He did not hear the quiet
entrance of the pair, and they were struck with the sort of ghostly
echo which seems to haunt half-furnished and uninhabited houses. The
verses he was reading were the following:


   Why art thou so vexed, O my soul: and why art thou so
   disquieted within me?

   O put thy trust in God: for I will yet thank him, which is
   the help of my countenance, and my God.


And when he had finished he shut the book, and sighed with the
satisfaction of having done his duty. The words of holy trust, though
perhaps they were not fully understood, carried a faithful peace
down into the depths of his soul. As he looked up, he saw the young
couple standing on the middle of the floor. He pushed his iron-rimmed
spectacles on to his forehead, and rose to greet the daughter of his
old master and ever-honoured mistress.

"God bless thee, lass; God bless thee! My old eyes are glad to see
thee again."

Ruth sprang forward to shake the horny hand stretched forward in
the action of blessing. She pressed it between both of hers, as
she rapidly poured out questions. Mr Bellingham was not altogether
comfortable at seeing one whom he had already begun to appropriate as
his own, so tenderly familiar with a hard-featured, meanly-dressed
day-labourer. He sauntered to the window, and looked out into the
grass-grown farm-yard; but he could not help overhearing some of the
conversation, which seemed to him carried on too much in the tone of
equality. "And who's yon?" asked the old labourer at last. "Is he
your sweetheart? Your missis's son, I reckon. He's a spruce young
chap, anyhow."

Mr Bellingham's "blood of all the Howards" rose and tingled about
his ears, so that he could not hear Ruth's answer. It began by "Hush,
Thomas; pray hush!" but how it went on he did not catch. The idea of
his being Mrs Mason's son! It was really too ridiculous; but, like
most things which are "too ridiculous," it made him very angry. He
was hardly himself again when Ruth shyly came to the window-recess
and asked him if he would like to see the house-place, into which
the front door entered; many people thought it very pretty, she said,
half timidly, for his face had unconsciously assumed a hard and
haughty expression, which he could not instantly soften down. He
followed her, however; but before he left the kitchen he saw the old
man standing, looking at Ruth's companion with a strange, grave air
of dissatisfaction.

They went along one or two zigzag, damp-smelling stone passages, and
then entered the house-place, or common sitting-room for a farmer's
family in that part of the country. The front door opened into it,
and several other apartments issued out of it, such as the dairy,
the state bedroom (which was half-parlour as well), and a small room
which had been appropriated to the late Mrs Hilton, where she sat,
or more frequently lay, commanding through the open door the comings
and goings of her household. In those days the house-place had been a
cheerful room, full of life, with the passing to and fro of husband,
child, and servants; with a great merry wood fire crackling and
blazing away every evening, and hardly let out in the very heat of
summer; for with the thick stone walls, and the deep window-seats,
and the drapery of vine-leaves and ivy, that room, with its
flag-floor, seemed always to want the sparkle and cheery warmth of a
fire. But now the green shadows from without seemed to have become
black in the uninhabited desolation. The oaken shovel-board, the
heavy dresser, and the carved cupboards, were now dull and damp,
which were formerly polished up to the brightness of a looking-glass
where the fire-blaze was for ever glinting; they only added to the
oppressive gloom; the flag-floor was wet with heavy moisture. Ruth
stood gazing into the room, seeing nothing of what was present. She
saw a vision of former days--an evening in the days of her childhood;
her father sitting in the "master's corner" near the fire, sedately
smoking his pipe, while he dreamily watched his wife and child; her
mother reading to her, as she sat on a little stool at her feet. It
was gone--all gone into the land of shadows; but for the moment it
seemed so present in the old room, that Ruth believed her actual life
to be the dream. Then, still silent, she went on into her mother's
parlour. But there, the bleak look of what had once been full of
peace and mother's love, struck cold on her heart. She uttered a cry,
and threw herself down by the sofa, hiding her face in her hands,
while her frame quivered with her repressed sobs.

"Dearest Ruth, don't give way so. It can do no good; it cannot bring
back the dead," said Mr Bellingham, distressed at witnessing her
distress.

"I know it cannot," murmured Ruth; "and that is why I cry. I cry
because nothing will ever bring them back again." She sobbed afresh,
but more gently, for his kind words soothed her, and softened, if
they could not take away, her sense of desolation.

"Come away; I cannot have you stay here, full of painful
associations as these rooms must be. Come"--raising her with gentle
violence--"show me your little garden you have often told me about.
Near the window of this very room, is it not? See how well I remember
everything you tell me."

He led her round through the back part of the house into the pretty
old-fashioned garden. There was a sunny border just under the
windows, and clipped box and yew-trees by the grass-plat, further
away from the house; and she prattled again of her childish
adventures and solitary plays. When they turned round they saw the
old man, who had hobbled out with the help of his stick, and was
looking at them with the same grave, sad look of anxiety.

Mr Bellingham spoke rather sharply:

"Why does that old man follow us about in that way? It is excessively
impertinent of him, I think."

"Oh, don't call old Thomas impertinent. He is so good and kind, he
is like a father to me. I remember sitting on his knee many and many
a time when I was a child, whilst he told me stories out of the
'Pilgrim's Progress.' He taught me to suck up milk through a straw.
Mamma was very fond of him too. He used to sit with us always in the
evenings when papa was away at market, for mamma was rather afraid of
having no man in the house, and used to beg old Thomas to stay; and
he would take me on his knee, and listen just as attentively as I did
while mamma read aloud."

"You don't mean to say you have sat upon that old fellow's knee?"

"Oh, yes! many and many a time."

Mr Bellingham looked graver than he had done while witnessing Ruth's
passionate emotion in her mother's room. But he lost his sense of
indignity in admiration of his companion as she wandered among the
flowers, seeking for favourite bushes or plants, to which some
history or remembrance was attached. She wound in and out in natural,
graceful, wavy lines between the luxuriant and overgrown shrubs,
which were fragrant with a leafy smell of spring growth; she went on,
careless of watching eyes, indeed unconscious, for the time, of their
existence. Once she stopped to take hold of a spray of jessamine, and
softly kiss it; it had been her mother's favourite flower.

Old Thomas was standing by the horse-mount, and was also an observer
of all her goings-on. But, while Mr Bellingham's feeling was that
of passionate admiration mingled with a selfish kind of love, the
old man gazed with tender anxiety, and his lips moved in words of
blessing:

"She's a pretty creature, with a glint of her mother about her; and
she's the same kind lass as ever. Not a bit set up with yon fine
manty-maker's shop she's in. I misdoubt that young fellow though,
for all she called him a real gentleman, and checked me when I asked
if he was her sweetheart. If his are not sweetheart's looks, I've
forgotten all my young days. Here! they're going, I suppose. Look!
he wants her to go without a word to the old man; but she is none so
changed as that, I reckon."

Not Ruth, indeed! She never perceived the dissatisfied expression of
Mr Bellingham's countenance, visible to the old man's keen eye; but
came running up to Thomas to send her love to his wife, and to shake
him many times by the hand.

"Tell Mary I'll make her such a fine gown, as soon as ever I set up
for myself; it shall be all in the fashion, big gigot sleeves, that
she shall not know herself in them! Mind you tell her that, Thomas,
will you?"

"Aye, that I will, lass; and I reckon she'll be pleased to hear thou
hast not forgotten thy old merry ways. The Lord bless thee--the Lord
lift up the light of His countenance upon thee."

Ruth was half-way towards the impatient Mr Bellingham when her old
friend called her back. He longed to give her a warning of the
danger that he thought she was in, and yet he did not know how. When
she came up, all he could think of to say was a text; indeed, the
language of the Bible was the language in which he thought, whenever
his ideas went beyond practical everyday life into expressions of
emotion or feeling. "My dear, remember the devil goeth about as a
roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; remember that, Ruth."

The words fell on her ear, but gave no definite idea. The utmost they
suggested was the remembrance of the dread she felt as a child when
this verse came into her mind, and how she used to imagine a lion's
head with glaring eyes peering out of the bushes in a dark shady part
of the wood, which, for this reason, she had always avoided, and even
now could hardly think of without a shudder. She never imagined that
the grim warning related to the handsome young man who awaited her
with a countenance beaming with love, and tenderly drew her hand
within his arm.

The old man sighed as he watched them away. "The Lord may help her
to guide her steps aright. He may. But I'm afeard she's treading
in perilous places. I'll put my missis up to going to the town and
getting speech of her, and telling her a bit of her danger. An old
motherly woman like our Mary will set about it better nor a stupid
fellow like me."

The poor old labourer prayed long and earnestly that night for Ruth.
He called it "wrestling for her soul;" and I think his prayers were
heard, for "God judgeth not as man judgeth."

Ruth went on her way, all unconscious of the dark phantoms of the
future that were gathering around her; her melancholy turned, with
the pliancy of childish years, at sixteen not yet lost, into a
softened manner which was infinitely charming. By-and-by she cleared
up into sunny happiness. The evening was still and full of mellow
light, and the new-born summer was so delicious that, in common with
all young creatures, she shared its influence and was glad.

They stood together at the top of a steep ascent, "the hill" of the
hundred. At the summit there was a level space, sixty or seventy
yards square, of unenclosed and broken ground, over which the golden
bloom of the gorse cast a rich hue, while its delicious scent
perfumed the fresh and nimble air. On one side of this common, the
ground sloped down to a clear bright pond, in which were mirrored the
rough sand-cliffs that rose abrupt on the opposite bank; hundreds
of martens found a home there, and were now wheeling over the
transparent water, and dipping in their wings in their evening sport.
Indeed, all sorts of birds seemed to haunt the lonely pool; the
water-wagtails were scattered around its margin, the linnets perched
on the topmost sprays of the gorse-bushes, and other hidden warblers
sang their vespers on the uneven ground beyond. On the far side
of the green waste, close by the road, and well placed for the
requirements of horses or their riders who might be weary with the
ascent of the hill, there was a public-house, which was more of a
farm than an inn. It was a long, low building, rich in dormer-windows
on the weather side, which were necessary in such an exposed
situation, and with odd projections and unlooked-for gables on every
side; there was a deep porch in front, on whose hospitable benches
a dozen persons might sit and enjoy the balmy air. A noble sycamore
grew right before the house, with seats all round it ("such tents
the patriarchs loved"); and a nondescript sign hung from a branch
on the side next to the road, which, being wisely furnished with an
interpretation, was found to mean King Charles in the oak.

Near this comfortable, quiet, unfrequented inn, there was another
pond, for household and farm-yard purposes, from which the cattle
were drinking, before returning to the fields after they had been
milked. Their very motions were so lazy and slow, that they served
to fill up the mind with the sensation of dreamy rest. Ruth and Mr
Bellingham plunged through the broken ground to regain the road near
the wayside inn. Hand-in-hand, now pricked by the far-spreading
gorse, now ankle-deep in sand; now pressing the soft, thick heath,
which should make so brave an autumn show; and now over wild thyme
and other fragrant herbs, they made their way, with many a merry
laugh. Once on the road, at the summit, Ruth stood silent, in
breathless delight at the view before her. The hill fell suddenly
down into the plain, extending for a dozen miles or more. There was
a clump of dark Scotch firs close to them, which cut clear against
the western sky, and threw back the nearest levels into distance.
The plain below them was richly wooded, and was tinted by the young
tender hues of the earliest summer, for all the trees of the wood had
donned their leaves except the cautious ash, which here and there
gave a soft, pleasant greyness to the landscape. Far away in the
champaign were spires, and towers, and stacks of chimneys belonging
to some distant hidden farm-house, which were traced downwards
through the golden air by the thin columns of blue smoke sent up from
the evening fires. The view was bounded by some rising ground in deep
purple shadow against the sunset sky.

When first they stopped, silent with sighing pleasure, the air seemed
full of pleasant noises; distant church-bells made harmonious music
with the little singing-birds near at hand; nor were the lowings of
the cattle, nor the calls of the farm-servants discordant, for the
voices seemed to be hushed by the brooding consciousness of the
Sabbath. They stood loitering before the house, quietly enjoying the
view. The clock in the little inn struck eight, and it sounded clear
and sharp in the stillness.

"Can it be so late?" asked Ruth.

"I should not have thought it possible," answered Mr Bellingham.
"But, never mind, you will be at home long before nine. Stay, there
is a shorter road, I know, through the fields; just wait a moment,
while I go in and ask the exact way." He dropped Ruth's arm, and went
into the public-house.

A gig had been slowly toiling up the sandy hill behind, unperceived
by the young couple, and now it reached the table-land, and was close
upon them as they separated. Ruth turned round, when the sound of the
horse's footsteps came distinctly as he reached the level. She faced
Mrs Mason!

They were not ten--no, not five yards apart. At the same moment they
recognised each other, and, what was worse, Mrs Mason had clearly
seen, with her sharp, needle-like eyes, the attitude in which Ruth
had stood with the young man who had just quitted her. Ruth's hand
had been lying in his arm, and fondly held there by his other hand.

Mrs Mason was careless about the circumstances of temptation into
which the girls entrusted to her as apprentices were thrown, but
severely intolerant if their conduct was in any degree influenced by
the force of these temptations. She called this intolerance "keeping
up the character of her establishment." It would have been a better
and more Christian thing, if she had kept up the character of her
girls by tender vigilance and maternal care.

This evening, too, she was in an irritated state of temper. Her
brother had undertaken to drive her round by Henbury, in order to
give her the unpleasant information of the misbehaviour of her eldest
son, who was an assistant in a draper's shop in a neighbouring town.
She was full of indignation against want of steadiness, though not
willing to direct her indignation against the right object--her
ne'er-do-well darling. While she was thus charged with anger (for
her brother justly defended her son's master and companions from her
attacks), she saw Ruth standing with a lover, far away from home,
at such a time in the evening, and she boiled over with intemperate
displeasure.

"Come here directly, Miss Hilton," she exclaimed, sharply. Then,
dropping her voice to low, bitter tones of concentrated wrath, she
said to the trembling, guilty Ruth:

"Don't attempt to show your face at my house again after this
conduct. I saw you, and your spark, too. I'll have no slurs on the
character of my apprentices. Don't say a word. I saw enough. I shall
write and tell your guardian to-morrow."

The horse started away, for he was impatient to be off, and Ruth was
left standing there, stony, sick, and pale, as if the lightning had
torn up the ground beneath her feet. She could not go on standing,
she was so sick and faint; she staggered back to the broken
sand-bank, and sank down, and covered her face with her hands.

"My dearest Ruth! are you ill? Speak, darling! My love, my love, do
speak to me!"

What tender words after such harsh ones! They loosened the fountain
of Ruth's tears, and she cried bitterly.

"Oh! did you see her--did you hear what she said?"

"She! Who, my darling? Don't sob so, Ruth; tell me what it is. Who
has been near you?--who has been speaking to you to make you cry so?"

"Oh, Mrs Mason." And there was a fresh burst of sorrow.

"You don't say so! are you sure? I was not away five minutes."

"Oh, yes, sir, I'm quite sure. She was so angry; she said I must
never show my face there again. Oh, dear! what shall I do?"

It seemed to the poor child as if Mrs Mason's words were irrevocable,
and, that being so, she was shut out from every house. She saw how
much she had done that was deserving of blame, now when it was too
late to undo it. She knew with what severity and taunts Mrs Mason had
often treated her for involuntary failings, of which she had been
quite unconscious; and now she had really done wrong, and shrank
with terror from the consequences. Her eyes were so blinded by the
fast-falling tears, she did not see (nor had she seen would she have
been able to interpret) the change in Mr Bellingham's countenance, as
he stood silently watching her. He was silent so long, that even in
her sorrow she began to wonder that he did not speak, and to wish to
hear his soothing words once more.

"It is very unfortunate," he began, at last; and then he stopped;
then he began again: "It is very unfortunate; for, you see, I did not
like to name it to you before, but, I believe--I have business, in
fact, which obliges me to go to town to-morrow--to London, I mean;
and I don't know when I shall be able to return."

"To London!" cried Ruth; "are you going away? Oh, Mr Bellingham!" She
wept afresh, giving herself up to the desolate feeling of sorrow,
which absorbed all the terror she had been experiencing at the idea
of Mrs Mason's anger. It seemed to her at this moment as though she
could have borne everything but his departure; but she did not speak
again; and after two or three minutes had elapsed, he spoke--not in
his natural careless voice, but in a sort of constrained, agitated
tone.

"I can hardly bear the idea of leaving you, my own Ruth. In such
distress, too; for where you can go I do not know at all. From
all you have told me of Mrs Mason, I don't think she is likely to
mitigate her severity in your case."

No answer, but tears quietly, incessantly flowing. Mrs Mason's
displeasure seemed a distant thing; his going away was the present
distress. He went on:

"Ruth, would you go with me to London? My darling, I cannot leave
you here without a home; the thought of leaving you at all is pain
enough, but in these circumstances--so friendless, so homeless--it is
impossible. You must come with me, love, and trust to me."

Still she did not speak. Remember how young, and innocent, and
motherless she was! It seemed to her as if it would be happiness
enough to be with him; and as for the future, he would arrange and
decide for that. The future lay wrapped in a golden mist, which she
did not care to penetrate; but if he, her sun, was out of sight and
gone, the golden mist became dark heavy gloom, through which no hope
could come. He took her hand.

"Will you not come with me? Do you not love me enough to trust me?
Oh, Ruth," (reproachfully), "can you not trust me?"

She had stopped crying, but was sobbing sadly.

"I cannot bear this, love. Your sorrow is absolute pain to me; but it
is worse to feel how indifferent you are--how little you care about
our separation."

He dropped her hand. She burst into a fresh fit of crying.

"I may have to join my mother in Paris; I don't know when I shall see
you again. Oh, Ruth!" said he, vehemently, "do you love me at all?"

She said something in a very low voice; he could not hear it, though
he bent down his head--but he took her hand again.

"What was it you said, love? Was it not that you did love me? My
darling, you do! I can tell it by the trembling of this little hand;
then you will not suffer me to go away alone and unhappy, most
anxious about you? There is no other course open to you; my poor girl
has no friends to receive her. I will go home directly, and return
in an hour with a carriage. You make me too happy by your silence,
Ruth."

"Oh, what can I do!" exclaimed Ruth. "Mr Bellingham, you should help
me, and instead of that you only bewilder me."

"How, my dearest Ruth? Bewilder you! It seems so clear to me. Look
at the case fairly! Here you are, an orphan, with only one person
to love you, poor child!--thrown off, for no fault of yours, by the
only creature on whom you have a claim, that creature a tyrannical,
inflexible woman; what is more natural (and, being natural, more
right) than that you should throw yourself upon the care of the
one who loves you dearly--who would go through fire and water for
you--who would shelter you from all harm? Unless, indeed, as I
suspect, you do not care for him. If so, Ruth! if you do not care for
me, we had better part--I will leave you at once; it will be better
for me to go, if you do not care for me."

He said this very sadly (it seemed so to Ruth, at least), and made as
though he would have drawn his hand from hers, but now she held it
with soft force.

"Don't leave me, please, sir. It is very true I have no friend but
you. Don't leave me, please. But, oh! do tell me what I must do!"

"Will you do it if I tell you? If you will trust me, I will do my
very best for you. I will give you my best advice. You see your
position. Mrs Mason writes and gives her own exaggerated account to
your guardian; he is bound by no great love to you, from what I have
heard you say, and throws you off; I, who might be able to befriend
you--through my mother, perhaps--I, who could at least comfort you
a little (could not I, Ruth?), am away, far away, for an indefinite
time; that is your position at present. Now, what I advise is this.
Come with me into this little inn; I will order tea for you--(I am
sure you require it sadly)--and I will leave you there, and go home
for the carriage. I will return in an hour at the latest. Then we
are together, come what may; that is enough for me; is it not for
you, Ruth? Say, yes--say it ever so low, but give me the delight of
hearing it. Ruth, say yes."

Low and soft, with much hesitation, came the "Yes;" the fatal word of
which she so little imagined the infinite consequences. The thought
of being with him was all and everything.

"How you tremble, my darling! You are cold, love! Come into the
house, and I'll order tea directly and be off."

She rose, and, leaning on his arm, went into the house. She was
shaking and dizzy with the agitation of the last hour. He spoke to
the civil farmer-landlord, who conducted them into a neat parlour,
with windows opening into the garden at the back of the house. They
had admitted much of the evening's fragrance through their open
casements, before they were hastily closed by the attentive host.

"Tea, directly, for this lady!" The landlord vanished.

"Dearest Ruth, I must go; there is not an instant to be lost; promise
me to take some tea, for you are shivering all over, and deadly pale
with the fright that abominable woman has given you. I must go; I
shall be back in half an hour--and then no more partings, darling."

He kissed her pale cold face, and went away. The room whirled round
before Ruth; it was a dream--a strange, varying, shifting dream--with
the old home of her childhood for one scene, with the terror of Mrs
Mason's unexpected appearance for another; and then, strangest,
dizziest, happiest of all, there was the consciousness of his love,
who was all the world to her; and the remembrance of the tender
words, which still kept up their low soft echo in her heart.

Her head ached so much that she could hardly see; even the dusky
twilight was a dazzling glare to her poor eyes; and when the daughter
of the house brought in the sharp light of the candles, preparatory
for tea, Ruth hid her face in the sofa pillows with a low exclamation
of pain.

"Does your head ache, miss?" asked the girl, in a gentle,
sympathising voice. "Let me make you some tea, miss, it will do you
good. Many's the time poor mother's headaches were cured by good
strong tea."

Ruth murmured acquiescence; the young girl (about Ruth's own age,
but who was the mistress of the little establishment, owing to her
mother's death) made tea, and brought Ruth a cup to the sofa where
she lay. Ruth was feverish and thirsty, and eagerly drank it off,
although she could not touch the bread and butter which the girl
offered her. She felt better and fresher, though she was still faint
and weak.

"Thank you," said Ruth. "Don't let me keep you; perhaps you are busy.
You have been very kind, and the tea has done me a great deal of
good."

The girl left the room. Ruth became as hot as she had previously been
cold, and went and opened the window, and leant out into the still,
sweet, evening air. The bush of sweetbrier, underneath the window,
scented the place, and the delicious fragrance reminded her of her
old home. I think scents affect and quicken the memory more than
either sights or sounds; for Ruth had instantly before her eyes the
little garden beneath the window of her mother's room, with the old
man leaning on his stick, watching her, just as he had done, not
three hours before, on that very afternoon.

"Dear old Thomas! He and Mary would take me in, I think; they would
love me all the more if I were cast off. And Mr Bellingham would,
perhaps, not be so very long away; and he would know where to find
me if I stayed at Milham Grange. Oh, would it not be better to go to
them? I wonder if he would be very sorry! I could not bear to make
him sorry, so kind as he has been to me; but I do believe it would
be better to go to them, and ask their advice, at any rate. He would
follow me there; and I could talk over what I had better do, with the
three best friends I have in the world--the only friends I have."

She put on her bonnet, and opened the parlour-door; but then she saw
the square figure of the landlord standing at the open house-door,
smoking his evening pipe, and looming large and distinct against the
dark air and landscape beyond. Ruth remembered the cup of tea that
she had drank; it must be paid for, and she had no money with her.
She feared that he would not let her quit the house without paying.
She thought that she would leave a note for Mr Bellingham, saying
where she was gone, and how she had left the house in debt, for
(like a child) all dilemmas appeared of equal magnitude to her; and
the difficulty of passing the landlord while he stood there, and
of giving him an explanation of the circumstances (as far as such
explanation was due to him), appeared insuperable, and as awkward,
and fraught with inconvenience, as far more serious situations.
She kept peeping out of her room, after she had written her little
pencil-note, to see if the outer door was still obstructed. There
he stood, motionless, enjoying his pipe, and looking out into the
darkness which gathered thick with the coming night. The fumes of
the tobacco were carried by the air into the house, and brought back
Ruth's sick headache. Her energy left her; she became stupid and
languid, and incapable of spirited exertion; she modified her plan
of action, to the determination of asking Mr Bellingham to take her
to Milham Grange, to the care of her humble friends, instead of to
London. And she thought, in her simplicity, that he would instantly
consent when he had heard her reasons.

She started up. A carriage dashed up to the door. She hushed her
beating heart, and tried to stop her throbbing head to listen. She
heard him speaking to the landlord, though she could not distinguish
what he said; heard the jingling of money, and, in another moment, he
was in the room, and had taken her arm to lead her to the carriage.

"Oh, sir! I want you to take me to Milham Grange," said she, holding
back. "Old Thomas would give me a home."

"Well, dearest, we'll talk of all that in the carriage; I am sure
you will listen to reason. Nay, if you will go to Milham you must go
in the carriage," said he, hurriedly. She was little accustomed to
oppose the wishes of any one--obedient and docile by nature, and
unsuspicious and innocent of any harmful consequences. She entered
the carriage, and drove towards London.




CHAPTER V

In North Wales


The June of 18-- had been glorious and sunny, and full of flowers;
but July came in with pouring rain, and it was a gloomy time for
travellers and for weather-bound tourists, who lounged away the days
in touching up sketches, dressing flies, and reading over again for
the twentieth time the few volumes they had brought with them. A
number of the _Times_, five days old, had been in constant demand in
all the sitting-rooms of a certain inn in a little mountain village
of North Wales, through a long July morning. The valleys around were
filled with thick cold mist, which had crept up the hillsides till
the hamlet itself was folded in its white dense curtain, and from the
inn-windows nothing was seen of the beautiful scenery around. The
tourists who thronged the rooms might as well have been "wi' their
dear little bairnies at hame;" and so some of them seemed to think,
as they stood, with their faces flattened against the window-panes,
looking abroad in search of an event to fill up the dreary time.
How many dinners were hastened that day, by way of getting through
the morning, let the poor Welsh kitchen-maid say! The very village
children kept indoors; or if one or two more adventurous stole out
into the land of temptation and puddles, they were soon clutched back
by angry and busy mothers.

It was only four o'clock, but most of the inmates of the inn thought
it must be between six and seven, the morning had seemed so long--so
many hours had passed since dinner--when a Welsh car, drawn by two
horses, rattled briskly up to the door. Every window of the ark was
crowded with faces at the sound; the leathern curtains were undrawn
to their curious eyes, and out sprang a gentleman, who carefully
assisted a well-cloaked-up lady into the little inn, despite the
landlady's assurances of not having a room to spare.

The gentleman (it was Mr Bellingham) paid no attention to the
speeches of the hostess, but quietly superintended the unpacking of
the carriage, and paid the postillion; then, turning round with his
face to the light, he spoke to the landlady, whose voice had been
rising during the last five minutes:

"Nay, Jenny, you're strangely altered, if you can turn out an old
friend on such an evening as this. If I remember right, Pen trê
Voelas is twenty miles across the bleakest mountain road I ever saw."

"Indeed, sir, and I did not know you; Mr Bellingham, I believe.
Indeed, sir, Pen trê Voelas is not above eighteen miles--we only
charge for eighteen; it may not be much above seventeen; and we're
quite full, indeed, more's the pity."

"Well, but Jenny, to oblige me, an old friend, you can find lodgings
out for some of your people--the house across, for instance."

"Indeed, sir, and it's at liberty; perhaps you would not mind lodging
there yourself; I could get you the best rooms, and send over a
trifle or so of furniture, if they wern't as you'd wish them to be."

"No, Jenny! here I stay. You'll not induce me to venture over into
those rooms, whose dirt I know of old. Can't you persuade some one
who is not an old friend to move across? Say, if you like, that I had
written beforehand to bespeak the rooms. Oh! I know you can manage
it--I know your good-natured ways."

"Indeed, sir--well! I'll see, if you and the lady will just step into
the back parlour, sir--there's no one there just now; the lady is
keeping her bed to-day for a cold, and the gentleman is having a
rubber at whist in number three. I'll see what I can do."

"Thank you, thank you. Is there a fire? if not, one must be lighted.
Come, Ruthie, come."

He led the way into a large, bow-windowed room, which looked gloomy
enough that afternoon, but which I have seen bright and buoyant with
youth and hope within, and sunny lights creeping down the purple
mountain slope, and stealing over the green, soft meadows, till they
reached the little garden, full of roses and lavender-bushes, lying
close under the window. I have seen--but I shall see no more.

"I did not know you had been here before," said Ruth, as Mr
Bellingham helped her off with her cloak.

"Oh, yes; three years ago I was here on a reading party. We were here
above two months, attracted by Jenny's kind heart and oddities; but
driven away finally by the insufferable dirt. However, for a week or
two it won't much signify."

"But can she take us in, sir? I thought I heard her saying her house
was full."

"Oh, yes--I dare say it is; but I shall pay her well; she can easily
make excuses to some poor devil, and send him over to the other side;
and, for a day or two, so that we have shelter, it does not much
signify."

"Could not we go to the house on the other side, sir?"

"And have our meals carried across to us in a half-warm state, to say
nothing of having no one to scold for bad cooking! You don't know
these out-of-the-way Welsh inns yet, Ruthie."

"No! I only thought it seemed rather unfair--" said Ruth, gently; but
she did not end her sentence, for Mr Bellingham formed his lips into
a whistle, and walked to the window to survey the rain.

The remembrance of his former good payment prompted many little lies
of which Mrs Morgan was guilty that afternoon, before she succeeded
in turning out a gentleman and lady, who were only planning to remain
till the ensuing Saturday at the outside, so, if they did fulfil
their threat, and leave on the next day, she would be no very great
loser.

These household arrangements complete, she solaced herself with tea
in her own little parlour, and shrewdly reviewed the circumstances of
Mr Bellingham's arrival.

"Indeed! and she's not his wife," thought Jenny, "that's clear as
day. His wife would have brought her maid, and given herself twice as
many airs about the sitting-rooms; while this poor miss never spoke,
but kept as still as a mouse. Indeed, and young men will be young
men; and, as long as their fathers and mothers shut their eyes, it's
none of my business to go about asking questions."

In this manner they settled down to a week's enjoyment of that Alpine
country. It was most true enjoyment to Ruth. It was opening a new
sense; vast ideas of beauty and grandeur filled her mind at the sight
of the mountains now first beheld in full majesty. She was almost
overpowered by the vague and solemn delight; but by-and-by her love
for them equalled her awe, and in the night-time she would softly
rise, and steal to the window to see the white moonlight, which gave
a new aspect to the everlasting hills that girdle the mountain
village.

Their breakfast-hour was late, in accordance with Mr Bellingham's
tastes and habits; but Ruth was up betimes, and out and away,
brushing the dew-drops from the short crisp grass; the lark sung high
above her head, and she knew not if she moved or stood still, for the
grandeur of this beautiful earth absorbed all idea of separate and
individual existence. Even rain was a pleasure to her. She sat in the
window-seat of their parlour (she would have gone out gladly, but
that such a proceeding annoyed Mr Bellingham, who usually at such
times lounged away the listless hours on a sofa, and relieved himself
by abusing the weather); she saw the swift-fleeting showers come
athwart the sunlight like a rush of silver arrows; she watched the
purple darkness on the heathery mountain-side, and then the pale
golden gleam which succeeded. There was no change or alteration of
nature that had not its own peculiar beauty in the eyes of Ruth;
but if she had complained of the changeable climate, she would have
pleased Mr Bellingham more; her admiration and her content made him
angry, until her pretty motions and loving eyes soothed down his
impatience.

"Really, Ruth," he exclaimed one day, when they had been imprisoned
by rain a whole morning, "one would think you had never seen a shower
of rain before; it quite wearies me to see you sitting there watching
this detestable weather with such a placid countenance; and for the
last two hours you have said nothing more amusing or interesting
than--'Oh, how beautiful!' or, 'There's another cloud coming across
Moel Wynn.'"

Ruth left her seat very gently, and took up her work. She wished she
had the gift of being amusing; it must be dull for a man accustomed
to all kinds of active employments to be shut up in the house. She
was recalled from her absolute self-forgetfulness. What could she say
to interest Mr Bellingham? While she thought, he spoke again:

"I remember when we were reading here three years ago, we had a week
of just such weather as this; but Howard and Johnson were capital
whist players, and Wilbraham not bad, so we got through the days
famously. Can you play _écarté_, Ruth, or picquet?"

"No, sir; I have sometimes played at beggar-my-neighbour," answered
Ruth, humbly, regretting her own deficiencies.

He murmured impatiently, and there was silence for another half-hour.
Then he sprang up, and rung the bell violently. "Ask Mrs Morgan for a
pack of cards. Ruthie, I'll teach you _écarté_," said he.

But Ruth was stupid, not so good as a dummy, he said; and it was
no fun betting against himself. So the cards were flung across the
table--on the floor--anywhere. Ruth picked them up. As she rose, she
sighed a little with the depression of spirits consequent upon her
own want of power to amuse and occupy him she loved.

"You're pale, love!" said he, half repenting of his anger at her
blunders over the cards. "Go out before dinner; you know you don't
mind this cursed weather; and see that you come home full of
adventures to relate. Come, little blockhead! give me a kiss, and
begone."

She left the room with a feeling of relief; for if he were dull
without her, she should not feel responsible, and unhappy at her own
stupidity. The open air, that kind soothing balm which gentle mother
Nature offers to us all in our seasons of depression, relieved her.
The rain had ceased, though every leaf and blade was loaded with
trembling glittering drops. Ruth went down to the circular dale, into
which the brown-foaming mountain river fell and made a deep pool,
and, after resting there for a while, ran on between broken rocks
down to the valley below. The waterfall was magnificent, as she had
anticipated; she longed to extend her walk to the other side of the
stream, so she sought the stepping-stones, the usual crossing-place,
which were over-shadowed by trees, a few yards from the pool. The
waters ran high and rapidly, as busy as life, between the pieces of
grey rock; but Ruth had no fear, and went lightly and steadily on.
About the middle, however, there was a great gap; either one of the
stones was so covered with water as to be invisible, or it had been
washed lower down; at any rate, the spring from stone to stone was
long, and Ruth hesitated for a moment before taking it. The sound of
rushing waters was in her ears to the exclusion of every other noise;
her eyes were on the current running swiftly below her feet; and
thus she was startled to see a figure close before her on one of the
stones, and to hear a voice offering help.

She looked up and saw a man, who was apparently long past middle
life, and of the stature of a dwarf; a second glance accounted for
the low height of the speaker, for then she saw he was deformed. As
the consciousness of this infirmity came into her mind, it must have
told itself in her softened eyes, for a faint flush of colour came
into the pale face of the deformed gentleman, as he repeated his
words:

"The water is very rapid; will you take my hand? Perhaps I can help
you."

Ruth accepted the offer, and with this assistance she was across in
a moment. He made way for her to precede him in the narrow wood path,
and then silently followed her up the glen.

When they had passed out of the wood into the pasture-land beyond,
Ruth once more turned to mark him. She was struck afresh with
the mild beauty of the face, though there was something in the
countenance which told of the body's deformity, something more and
beyond the pallor of habitual ill-health, something of a quick
spiritual light in the deep set-eyes, a sensibility about the mouth;
but altogether, though a peculiar, it was a most attractive face.

"Will you allow me to accompany you if you are going the round by
Cwm Dhu, as I imagine you are? The hand-rail is blown away from the
little wooden bridge by the storm last night, and the rush of waters
below may make you dizzy; and it is really dangerous to fall there,
the stream is so deep."

They walked on without much speech. She wondered who her companion
might be. She should have known him, if she had seen him among the
strangers at the inn; and yet he spoke English too well to be a
Welshman; he knew the country and the paths so perfectly, he must
be a resident; and so she tossed him from England to Wales and back
again in her imagination.

"I only came here yesterday," said he, as a widening in the path
permitted them to walk abreast. "Last night I went to the higher
waterfalls; they are most splendid."

"Did you go out in all that rain?" asked Ruth, timidly.

"Oh, yes. Rain never hinders me from walking. Indeed, it gives a new
beauty to such a country as this. Besides, my time for my excursion
is so short, I cannot afford to waste a day."

"Then, you do not live here?" asked Ruth.

"No! my home is in a very different place. I live in a busy town,
where at times it is difficult to feel the truth that


   There are in this loud stunning tide
      Of human care and crime,
   With whom the melodies abide
      Of th' everlasting chime;
   Who carry music in their heart
   Through dusky lane and crowded mart,
   Plying their task with busier feet,
   Because their secret souls a holy strain repeat.


I have an annual holiday, which I generally spend in Wales; and often
in this immediate neighbourhood."

"I do not wonder at your choice," replied Ruth. "It is a beautiful
country."

"It is, indeed; and I have been inoculated by an old innkeeper at
Conway with a love for its people, and history, and traditions. I
have picked up enough of the language to understand many of their
legends; and some are very fine and awe-inspiring, others very poetic
and fanciful."

Ruth was too shy to keep up the conversation by any remark of her
own, although his gentle, pensive manner was very winning.

"For instance," said he, touching a long bud-laden stem of fox-glove
in the hedge-side, at the bottom of which one or two crimson-speckled
flowers were bursting from their green sheaths, "I dare say, you
don't know what makes this fox-glove bend and sway so gracefully. You
think it is blown by the wind, don't you?" He looked at her with a
grave smile, which did not enliven his thoughtful eyes, but gave an
inexpressible sweetness to his face.

"I always thought it was the wind. What is it?" asked Ruth,
innocently.

"Oh, the Welsh tell you that this flower is sacred to the fairies,
and that it has the power of recognising them, and all spiritual
beings who pass by, and that it bows in deference to them as they
waft along. Its Welsh name is Maneg Ellyllyn--the good people's
glove; and hence, I imagine, our folk's-glove or fox-glove."

"It's a very pretty fancy," said Ruth, much interested, and wishing
that he would go on, without expecting her to reply.

But they were already at the wooden bridge; he led her across, and
then, bowing his adieu, he had taken a different path even before
Ruth had thanked him for his attention.

It was an adventure to tell Mr Bellingham, however; and it roused and
amused him till dinner-time came, after which he sauntered forth with
a cigar.

"Ruth," said he, when he returned, "I've seen your little hunchback.
He looks like Riquet-with-the-Tuft. He's not a gentleman, though. If
it had not been for his deformity, I should not have made him out
from your description; you called him a gentleman."

"And don't you, sir?" asked Ruth, surprised.

"Oh, no! he's regularly shabby and seedy in his appearance; lodging,
too, the ostler told me, over that horrible candle and cheese shop,
the smell of which is insufferable twenty yards off--no gentleman
could endure it; he must be a traveller or artist, or something of
that kind."

"Did you see his face, sir?" asked Ruth.

"No; but a man's back--his _tout ensemble_ has character enough in it
to decide his rank."

"His face was very singular; quite beautiful!" said she, softly; but
the subject did not interest Mr Bellingham, and he let it drop.




CHAPTER VI

Troubles Gather About Ruth


The next day the weather was brave and glorious; a perfect "bridal
of the earth and sky;" and every one turned out of the inn to enjoy
the fresh beauty of nature. Ruth was quite unconscious of being the
object of remark, and, in her light, rapid passings to and fro, had
never looked at the doors and windows, where many watchers stood
observing her, and commenting upon her situation or her appearance.

"She's a very lovely creature," said one gentleman, rising from the
breakfast-table to catch a glimpse of her as she entered from her
morning's ramble. "Not above sixteen, I should think. Very modest and
innocent-looking in her white gown!"

His wife, busy administering to the wants of a fine little boy, could
only say (without seeing the young girl's modest ways, and gentle,
downcast countenance):

"Well! I do think it's a shame such people should be allowed to come
here. To think of such wickedness under the same roof! Do come away,
my dear, and don't flatter her by such notice."

The husband returned to the breakfast-table; he smelt the broiled
ham and eggs, and he heard his wife's commands. Whether smelling
or hearing had most to do in causing his obedience, I cannot tell;
perhaps you can.

"Now, Harry, go and see if nurse and baby are ready to go out with
you. You must lose no time this beautiful morning."

Ruth found Mr Bellingham was not yet come down; so she sallied out
for an additional half-hour's ramble. Flitting about through the
village, trying to catch all the beautiful sunny peeps at the scenery
between the cold stone houses, which threw the radiant distance into
aërial perspective far away, she passed by the little shop; and, just
issuing from it, came the nurse and baby, and little boy. The baby
sat in placid dignity in her nurse's arms, with a face of queenly
calm. Her fresh, soft, peachy complexion was really tempting; and
Ruth, who was always fond of children, went up to coo and to smile
at the little thing, and, after some "peep-boing," she was about to
snatch a kiss, when Harry, whose face had been reddening ever since
the play began, lifted up his sturdy little right arm and hit Ruth a
great blow on the face.

"Oh, for shame, sir!" said the nurse, snatching back his hand; "how
dare you do that to the lady who is so kind as to speak to Sissy."

"She's not a lady!" said he, indignantly. "She's a bad naughty
girl--mamma said so, she did; and she shan't kiss our baby."

The nurse reddened in her turn. She knew what he must have heard;
but it was awkward to bring it out, standing face to face with the
elegant young lady.

"Children pick up such notions, ma'am," said she at last,
apologetically, to Ruth, who stood, white and still, with a new idea
running through her mind.

"It's no notion; it's true, nurse; and I heard you say it yourself.
Go away, naughty woman!" said the boy, in infantile vehemence of
passion to Ruth.

To the nurse's infinite relief, Ruth turned away, humbly and meekly,
with bent head, and slow, uncertain steps. But as she turned, she saw
the mild sad face of the deformed gentleman, who was sitting at the
open window above the shop; he looked sadder and graver than ever;
and his eyes met her glance with an expression of deep sorrow. And
so, condemned alike by youth and age, she stole with timid step into
the house. Mr Bellingham was awaiting her coming in the sitting-room.
The glorious day restored all his buoyancy of spirits. He talked
gaily away, without pausing for a reply; while Ruth made tea, and
tried to calm her heart, which was yet beating with the agitation of
the new ideas she had received from the occurrence of the morning.
Luckily for her, the only answers required for some time were
mono-syllables; but those few words were uttered in so depressed and
mournful a tone, that at last they struck Mr Bellingham with surprise
and displeasure, as the condition of mind they unconsciously implied
did not harmonise with his own.

"Ruth, what is the matter this morning? You really are very
provoking. Yesterday, when everything was gloomy, and you might have
been aware that I was out of spirits, I heard nothing but expressions
of delight; to-day, when every creature under heaven is rejoicing,
you look most deplorable and woe-begone. You really should learn to
have a little sympathy."

The tears fell quickly down Ruth's cheeks, but she did not speak.
She could not put into words the sense she was just beginning to
entertain of the estimation in which she was henceforward to be held.
She thought he would be as much grieved as she was at what had taken
place that morning; she fancied she should sink in his opinion if she
told him how others regarded her; besides, it seemed ungenerous to
dilate upon the suffering of which he was the cause.

"I will not," thought she, "embitter his life; I will try and be
cheerful. I must not think of myself so much. If I can but make him
happy, what need I care for chance speeches?"

Accordingly, she made every effort possible to be as light-hearted as
he was; but, somehow, the moment she relaxed, thoughts would intrude,
and wonders would force themselves upon her mind; so that altogether
she was not the gay and bewitching companion Mr Bellingham had
previously found her.

They sauntered out for a walk. The path they chose led to a wood on
the side of a hill, and they entered, glad of the shade of the trees.
At first, it appeared like any common grove, but they soon came to a
deep descent, on the summit of which they stood, looking down on the
tree-tops, which were softly waving far beneath their feet. There was
a path leading sharp down, and they followed it; the ledge of rock
made it almost like going down steps, and their walk grew into a
bounding, and their bounding into a run, before they reached the
lowest plane. A green gloom reigned there; it was the still hour of
noon; the little birds were quiet in some leafy shade. They went on a
few yards, and then they came to a circular pool overshadowed by the
trees, whose highest boughs had been beneath their feet a few minutes
before. The pond was hardly below the surface of the ground, and
there was nothing like a bank on any side. A heron was standing there
motionless, but when he saw them he flapped his wings and slowly
rose, and soared above the green heights of the wood up into the very
sky itself, for at that depth the trees appeared to touch the round
white clouds which brooded over the earth. The speed-well grew in
the shallowest water of the pool, and all around its margin, but the
flowers were hardly seen at first, so deep was the green shadow cast
by the trees. In the very middle of the pond the sky was mirrored
clear and dark, a blue which looked as if a black void lay behind.

"Oh, there are water-lilies," said Ruth, her eye catching on the
farther side. "I must go and get some."

"No; I will get them for you. The ground is spongy all round there.
Sit still, Ruth; this heap of grass will make a capital seat."

He went round, and she waited quietly for his return. When he came
back he took off her bonnet, without speaking, and began to place
his flowers in her hair. She was quite still while he arranged her
coronet, looking up in his face with loving eyes, with a peaceful
composure. She knew that he was pleased from his manner, which had
the joyousness of a child playing with a new toy, and she did not
think twice of his occupation. It was pleasant to forget everything
except his pleasure. When he had decked her out, he said:

"There, Ruth! now you'll do. Come and look at yourself in the pond.
Here, where there are no weeds. Come."

She obeyed, and could not help seeing her own loveliness; it gave
her a sense of satisfaction for an instant, as the sight of any
other beautiful object would have done, but she never thought of
associating it with herself. She knew that she was beautiful; but
that seemed abstract, and removed from herself. Her existence was in
feeling, and thinking, and loving.

Down in that green hollow they were quite in harmony. Her beauty was
all that Mr Bellingham cared for, and it was supreme. It was all he
recognised of her, and he was proud of it. She stood in her white
dress against the trees which grew around; her face was flushed into
a brilliancy of colour which resembled that of a rose in June; the
great heavy white flowers drooped on either side of her beautiful
head, and if her brown hair was a little disordered, the very
disorder only seemed to add a grace. She pleased him more by looking
so lovely than by all her tender endeavours to fall in with his
varying humour.

But when they left the wood, and Ruth had taken out her flowers, and
resumed her bonnet, as they came near the inn, the simple thought of
giving him pleasure was not enough to secure Ruth's peace. She became
pensive and sad, and could not rally into gaiety.

"Really, Ruth," said he, that evening, "you must not encourage
yourself in this habit of falling into melancholy reveries without
any cause. You have been sighing twenty times during the last
half-hour. Do be a little cheerful. Remember, I have no companion but
you in this out-of-the-way place."

"I am very sorry, sir," said Ruth, her eyes filling with tears; and
then she remembered that it was very dull for him to be alone with
her, heavy-hearted as she had been all day. She said in a sweet,
penitent tone:

"Would you be so kind as to teach me one of those games at cards you
were speaking about yesterday, sir? I would do my best to learn."

Her soft, murmuring voice won its way. They rang for the cards, and
he soon forgot that there was such a thing as depression or gloom in
the world, in the pleasure of teaching such a beautiful ignoramus the
mysteries of card-playing.

"There!" said he, at last, "that's enough for one lesson. Do you
know, little goose, your blunders have made me laugh myself into one
of the worst headaches I have had for years."

He threw himself on the sofa, and in an instant she was by his side.

"Let me put my cool hands on your forehead," she begged; "that used
to do mamma good."

He lay still, his face away from the light, and not speaking.
Presently he fell asleep. Ruth put out the candles, and sat patiently
by him for a long time, fancying he would awaken refreshed. The room
grew cool in the night air; but Ruth dared not rouse him from what
appeared to be sound, restoring slumber. She covered him with her
shawl, which she had thrown over a chair on coming in from their
twilight ramble. She had ample time to think; but she tried to banish
thought. At last, his breathing became quick and oppressed, and,
after listening to it for some minutes with increasing affright, Ruth
ventured to waken him. He seemed stupified and shivery. Ruth became
more and more terrified; all the household were asleep except one
servant-girl, who was wearied out of what little English she had
knowledge of in more waking hours, and she could only answer, "Iss,
indeed, ma'am," to any question put to her by Ruth.

She sat by the bedside all night long. He moaned and tossed, but
never spoke sensibly. It was a new form of illness to the miserable
Ruth. Her yesterday's suffering went into the black distance of
long-past years. The present was all-in-all. When she heard people
stirring, she went in search of Mrs Morgan, whose shrewd, sharp
manners, unsoftened by inward respect for the poor girl, had awed
Ruth even when Mr Bellingham was by to protect her.

"Mrs Morgan," said she, sitting down in the little parlour
appropriated to the landlady, for she felt her strength suddenly
desert her--"Mrs Morgan, I'm afraid Mr Bellingham is very ill;"--here
she burst into tears, but instantly checking herself, "Oh, what
must I do?" continued she; "I don't think he has known anything all
through the night, and he looks so strange and wild this morning."

She gazed up into Mrs Morgan's face, as if reading an oracle.

"Indeed, miss, ma'am, and it's a very awkward thing. But don't cry,
that can do no good, 'deed it can't. I'll go and see the poor young
man myself, and then I can judge if a doctor is wanting."

Ruth followed Mrs Morgan upstairs. When they entered the sick-room Mr
Bellingham was sitting up in bed, looking wildly about him, and as he
saw them, he exclaimed:

"Ruth! Ruth! come here; I won't be left alone!" and then he fell down
exhausted on the pillow. Mrs Morgan went up and spoke to him, but he
did not answer or take any notice.

"I'll send for Mr Jones, my dear, 'deed and I will; we'll have him
here in a couple of hours, please God."

"Oh, can't he come sooner?" asked Ruth, wild with terror.

"'Deed no; he lives at Llanglâs when he's at home, and that's seven
mile away, and he may be gone a round eight or nine mile on the other
side Llanglâs; but I'll send a boy on the pony directly."

Saying this, Mrs Morgan left Ruth alone. There was nothing to be
done, for Mr Bellingham had again fallen into a heavy sleep. Sounds
of daily life began, bells rang, breakfast-services clattered up
and down the passages, and Ruth sat on shivering by the bedside in
that darkened room. Mrs Morgan sent her breakfast upstairs by a
chambermaid, but Ruth motioned it away in her sick agony, and the
girl had no right to urge her to partake of it. That alone broke the
monotony of the long morning. She heard the sound of merry parties
setting out on excursions, on horseback or in carriages; and once,
stiff and wearied, she stole to the window, and looked out on one
side of the blind; but the day looked bright and discordant to her
aching, anxious heart. The gloom of the darkened room was better and
more befitting.

It was some hours after he was summoned before the doctor made his
appearance. He questioned his patient, and, receiving no coherent
answers, he asked Ruth concerning the symptoms; but when she
questioned him in turn he only shook his head and looked grave. He
made a sign to Mrs Morgan to follow him out of the room, and they
went down to her parlour, leaving Ruth in a depth of despair, lower
than she could have thought it possible there remained for her to
experience, an hour before.

"I am afraid this is a bad case," said Mr Jones to Mrs Morgan in
Welsh. "A brain-fever has evidently set in."

"Poor young gentleman! poor young man! He looked the very picture of
health!"

"That very appearance of robustness will, in all probability, make
his disorder more violent. However, we must hope for the best, Mrs
Morgan. Who is to attend upon him? He will require careful nursing.
Is that young lady his sister? She looks too young to be his wife?"

"No, indeed! Gentlemen like you must know, Mr Jones, that we can't
always look too closely into the ways of young men who come to
our houses. Not but what I'm sorry for her, for she's an innocent,
inoffensive young creature. I always think it right, for my own
morals, to put a little scorn into my manners when such as her come
to stay here; but, indeed, she's so gentle, I've found it hard work
to show the proper contempt."

She would have gone on to her inattentive listener if she had not
heard a low tap at the door, which recalled her from her morality,
and Mr Jones from his consideration of the necessary prescriptions.

"Come in!" said Mrs Morgan, sharply. And Ruth came in. She was white
and trembling; but she stood in that dignity which strong feeling,
kept down by self-command, always imparts.

"I wish you, sir, to be so kind as to tell me, clearly and
distinctly, what I must do for Mr Bellingham. Every direction
you give me shall be most carefully attended to. You spoke about
leeches--I can put them on, and see about them. Tell me everything,
sir, that you wish to have done!"

Her manner was calm and serious, and her countenance and deportment
showed that the occasion was calling out strength sufficient to meet
it. Mr Jones spoke with a deference which he had not thought of using
upstairs, even while he supposed her to be the sister of the invalid.
Ruth listened gravely; she repeated some of the injunctions, in order
that she might be sure that she fully comprehended them, and then,
bowing, left the room.

"She is no common person," said Mr Jones. "Still she is too young to
have the responsibility of such a serious case. Have you any idea
where his friends live, Mrs Morgan?"

"Indeed and I have. His mother, as haughty a lady as you would wish
to see, came travelling through Wales last year; she stopped here,
and, I warrant you, nothing was good enough for her; she was real
quality. She left some clothes and books behind her (for the maid was
almost as fine as the mistress, and little thought of seeing after
her lady's clothes, having a taste for going to see scenery along
with the man-servant), and we had several letters from her. I have
them locked in the drawers in the bar, where I keep such things."

"Well! I should recommend your writing to the lady, and telling her
her son's state."

"It would be a favour, Mr Jones, if you would just write it yourself.
English writing comes so strange to my pen."

The letter was written, and, in order to save time, Mr Jones took it
to the Llanglâs post-office.




CHAPTER VII

The Crisis--Watching and Waiting


Ruth put away every thought of the past or future; everything that
could unfit her for the duties of the present. Exceeding love
supplied the place of experience. She never left the room after the
first day; she forced herself to eat, because his service needed her
strength. She did not indulge in any tears, because the weeping she
longed for would make her less able to attend upon him. She watched,
and waited, and prayed: prayed with an utter forgetfulness of self,
only with a consciousness that God was all-powerful, and that he,
whom she loved so much, needed the aid of the Mighty One.

Day and night, the summer night, seemed merged into one. She lost
count of time in the hushed and darkened room. One morning Mrs Morgan
beckoned her out; and she stole on tiptoe into the dazzling gallery,
on one side of which the bedrooms opened.

"She's come," whispered Mrs Morgan, looking very much excited, and
forgetting that Ruth had never heard that Mrs Bellingham had been
summoned.

"Who is come?" asked Ruth. The idea of Mrs Mason flashed through her
mind--but with a more terrible, because a more vague dread, she heard
that it was his mother; the mother of whom he had always spoken as a
person whose opinion was to be regarded more than that of any other
individual.

"What must I do? Will she be angry with me?" said she, relapsing into
her child-like dependence on others; and feeling that even Mrs Morgan
was some one to stand between her and Mrs Bellingham.

Mrs Morgan herself was a little perplexed. Her morality was rather
shocked at the idea of a proper real lady like Mrs Bellingham
discovering that she had winked at the connexion between her son and
Ruth. She was quite inclined to encourage Ruth in her inclination
to shrink out of Mrs Bellingham's observation, an inclination which
arose from no definite consciousness of having done wrong, but
principally from the representations she had always heard of the
lady's awfulness. Mrs Bellingham swept into her son's room as if she
were unconscious what poor young creature had lately haunted it;
while Ruth hurried into some unoccupied bedroom, and, alone there,
she felt her self-restraint suddenly give way, and burst into the
saddest, most utterly wretched weeping she had ever known. She was
worn out with watching, and exhausted by passionate crying, and she
lay down on the bed and fell asleep. The day passed on; she slumbered
unnoticed and unregarded; she awoke late in the evening with a
sense of having done wrong in sleeping so long; the strain upon
her responsibility had not yet left her. Twilight was closing fast
around; she waited until it had become night, and then she stole down
to Mrs Morgan's parlour.

"If you please, may I come in?" asked she.

Jenny Morgan was doing up the hieroglyphics which she called her
accounts; she answered sharply enough, but it was a permission to
enter, and Ruth was thankful for it.

"Will you tell me how he is? Do you think I may go back to him?"

"No, indeed, that you may not. Nest, who has made his room tidy these
many days, is not fit to go in now. Mrs Bellingham has brought her
own maid, and the family nurse, and Mr Bellingham's man; such a tribe
of servants and no end to packages; water-beds coming by the carrier,
and a doctor from London coming down to-morrow, as if feather-beds
and Mr Jones was not good enough. Why, she won't let a soul of us
into the room; there's no chance for you!"

Ruth sighed. "How is he?" she inquired, after a pause.

"How can I tell indeed, when I'm not allowed to go near him? Mr Jones
said to-night was a turning point; but I doubt it, for it is four
days since he was taken ill, and who ever heard of a sick person
taking a turn on an even number of days; it's always on the third, or
the fifth, or seventh, or so on. He'll not turn till to-morrow night,
take my word for it, and their fine London doctor will get all the
credit, and honest Mr Jones will be thrown aside. I don't think he
will get better myself, though--Gelert does not howl for nothing. My
patience! what's the matter with the girl?--lord, child, you're never
going to faint, and be ill on my hands?" Her sharp voice recalled
Ruth from the sick unconsciousness that had been creeping over her
as she listened to the latter part of this speech. She sat down
and could not speak--the room whirled round and round--her white
feebleness touched Mrs Morgan's heart.

"You've had no tea, I guess. Indeed, and the girls are very
careless." She rang the bell with energy, and seconded her pull
by going to the door and shouting out sharp directions, in Welsh,
to Nest and Gwen, and three or four other rough, kind, slatternly
servants.

They brought her tea, which was comfortable, according to the idea of
comfort prevalent in that rude, hospitable place; there was plenty to
eat, too much, indeed, for it revolted the appetite it was intended
to provoke. But the heartiness with which the kind, rosy waiter
pressed her to eat, and the scolding Mrs Morgan gave her when she
found the buttered toast untouched (toast on which she had herself
desired that the butter might not be spared), did Ruth more good than
the tea. She began to hope, and to long for the morning when hope
might have become certainty. It was all in vain that she was told
that the room she had been in all day was at her service; she did not
say a word, but she was not going to bed that night, of all nights in
the year, when life or death hung trembling in the balance. She went
into the bedroom till the bustling house was still, and heard busy
feet passing to and fro in the room she might not enter; and voices,
imperious, though hushed down to a whisper, ask for innumerable
things. Then there was silence; and when she thought that all were
dead asleep, except the watchers, she stole out into the gallery. On
the other side were two windows, cut into the thick stone wall, and
flower pots were placed on the shelves thus formed, where great,
untrimmed, straggling geraniums grew, and strove to reach the light.
The window near Mr Bellingham's door was open; the soft, warm-scented
night air came sighing in in faint gusts, and then was still. It was
summer; there was no black darkness in the twenty-four hours; only
the light grew dusky, and colour disappeared from objects, of which
the shape and form remained distinct. A soft grey oblong of barred
light fell on the flat wall opposite to the windows, and deeper grey
shadows marked out the tracery of the plants, more graceful thus than
in reality. Ruth crouched where no light fell. She sat on the ground
close by the door; her whole existence was absorbed in listening;
all was still; it was only her heart beating with the strong, heavy,
regular sound of a hammer. She wished she could stop its rushing,
incessant clang. She heard a rustle of a silken gown, and knew it
ought not to have been worn in a sick-room; for her senses seemed to
have passed into the keeping of the invalid, and to feel only as he
felt. The noise was probably occasioned by some change of posture in
the watcher inside, for it was once more dead-still. The soft wind
outside sank with a low, long, distant moan among the windings of
the hills, and lost itself there, and came no more again. But Ruth's
heart beat loud. She rose with as little noise as if she were a
vision, and crept to the open window to try and lose the nervous
listening for the ever-recurring sound. Out beyond, under the calm
sky, veiled with a mist rather than with a cloud, rose the high, dark
outlines of the mountains, shutting in that village as if it lay in a
nest. They stood, like giants, solemnly watching for the end of Earth
and Time. Here and there a black round shadow reminded Ruth of some
"Cwm," or hollow, where she and her lover had rambled in sun and
in gladness. She then thought the land enchanted into everlasting
brightness and happiness; she fancied, then, that into a region so
lovely no bale or woe could enter, but would be charmed away and
disappear before the sight of the glorious guardian mountains. Now
she knew the truth, that earth has no barrier which avails against
agony. It comes lightning-like down from heaven, into the mountain
house and the town garret; into the palace and into the cottage. The
garden lay close under the house; a bright spot enough by day; for
in that soil, whatever was planted grew and blossomed in spite of
neglect. The white roses glimmered out in the dusk all the night
through; the red were lost in shadow. Between the low boundary of
the garden and the hills swept one or two green meadows; Ruth looked
into the grey darkness till she traced each separate wave of outline.
Then she heard a little restless bird chirp out its wakefulness from
a nest in the ivy round the walls of the house. But the mother-bird
spread her soft feathers, and hushed it into silence. Presently,
however, many little birds began to scent the coming dawn, and
rustled among the leaves, and chirruped loud and clear. Just above
the horizon, too, the mist became a silvery grey cloud hanging on the
edge of the world; presently it turned shimmering white; and then,
in an instant, it flushed into rose, and the mountain-tops sprang
into heaven, and bathed in the presence of the shadow of God. With
a bound, the sun of a molten fiery red came above the horizon, and
immediately thousands of little birds sang out for joy, and a soft
chorus of mysterious, glad murmurs came forth from the earth; the low
whispering wind left its hiding-place among the clefts and hollows of
the hills, and wandered among the rustling herbs and trees, waking
the flower-buds to the life of another day. Ruth gave a sigh of
relief that the night was over and gone; for she knew that soon
suspense would be ended, and the verdict known, whether for life or
for death. She grew faint and sick with anxiety; it almost seemed
as if she must go into the room and learn the truth. Then she heard
movements, but they were not sharp or rapid, as if prompted by any
emergency; then, again, it was still. She sat curled up upon the
floor, with her head thrown back against the wall, and her hands
clasped round her knees. She had yet to wait. Meanwhile, the invalid
was slowly rousing himself from a long, deep, sound, health-giving
sleep. His mother had sat by him the night through, and was now
daring to change her position for the first time; she was even
venturing to give directions in a low voice to the old nurse, who
had dozed away in an arm-chair, ready to obey any summons of her
mistress. Mrs Bellingham went on tiptoe towards the door, and chiding
herself because her stiff, weary limbs made some slight noise. She
had an irrepressible longing for a few minutes' change of scene after
her night of watching. She felt that the crisis was over; and the
relief to her mind made her conscious of every bodily feeling and
irritation, which had passed unheeded as long as she had been in
suspense.

She slowly opened the door. Ruth sprang upright at the first sound
of the creaking handle. Her very lips were stiff and unpliable with
the force of the blood which rushed to her head. It seemed as if she
could not form words. She stood right before Mrs Bellingham. "How is
he, madam?"

Mrs Bellingham was for a moment surprised at the white apparition
which seemed to rise out of the ground. But her quick, proud mind
understood it all in an instant. This was the girl, then, whose
profligacy had led her son astray; had raised up barriers in the way
of her favourite scheme of his marriage with Miss Duncombe; nay, this
was the real cause of his illness, his mortal danger at this present
time, and of her bitter, keen anxiety. If, under any circumstances,
Mrs Bellingham could have been guilty of the ill-breeding of not
answering a question, it was now; and for a moment she was tempted to
pass on in silence. Ruth could not wait; she spoke again:

"For the love of God, madam, speak! How is he? Will he live?"

If she did not answer her, she thought the creature was desperate
enough to force her way into his room. So she spoke.

"He has slept well: he is better."

"Oh! my God, I thank Thee," murmured Ruth, sinking back against the
wall.

It was too much to hear this wretched girl thanking God for her son's
life; as if, in fact, she had any lot or part in him, and to dare to
speak to the Almighty on her son's behalf! Mrs Bellingham looked at
her with cold, contemptuous eyes, whose glances were like ice-bolts,
and made Ruth shiver up away from them.

"Young woman, if you have any propriety or decency left, I trust that
you will not dare to force yourself into his room."

She stood for a moment as if awaiting an answer, and half expecting
it to be a defiance. But she did not understand Ruth. She did not
imagine the faithful trustfulness of her heart. Ruth believed that
if Mr Bellingham was alive and likely to live, all was well. When he
wanted her, he would send for her, ask for her, yearn for her, till
every one would yield before his steadfast will. At present she
imagined that he was probably too weak to care or know who was about
him; and though it would have been an infinite delight to her to
hover and brood around him, yet it was of him she thought and not
of herself. She gently drew herself on one side to make way for Mrs
Bellingham to pass.

By-and-by Mrs Morgan came up. Ruth was still near the door, from
which it seemed as if she could not tear herself away.

"Indeed, miss, and you must not hang about the door in this way; it
is not pretty manners. Mrs Bellingham has been speaking very sharp
and cross about it, and I shall lose the character of my inn if
people take to talking as she does. Did not I give you a room last
night to keep in, and never be seen or heard of; and did I not tell
you what a particular lady Mrs Bellingham was, but you must come out
here right in her way? Indeed, it was not pretty, nor grateful to me,
Jenny Morgan, and that I must say."

Ruth turned away like a chidden child. Mrs Morgan followed her to her
room, scolding as she went; and then, having cleared her heart after
her wont by uttering hasty words, her real kindness made her add, in
a softened tone:

"You stop up here like a good girl. I'll send you your breakfast
by-and-by, and let you know from time to time how he is; and you can
go out for a walk, you know; but if you do, I'll take it as a favour
if you'll go out by the side door. It will, maybe, save scandal."

All that day long, Ruth kept herself close prisoner in the room to
which Mrs Morgan accorded her; all that day, and many succeeding
days. But at nights, when the house was still, and even the little
brown mice had gathered up the crumbs, and darted again to their
holes, Ruth stole out, and crept to his door to catch, if she could,
the sound of his beloved voice. She could tell by its tones how he
felt, and how he was getting on, as well as any of the watchers in
the room. She yearned and pined to see him once more; but she had
reasoned herself down into something like patience. When he was well
enough to leave his room, when he had not always one of the nurses
with him, then he would send for her, and she would tell him how very
patient she had been for his dear sake. But it was long to wait even
with this thought of the manner in which the waiting would end. Poor
Ruth! her faith was only building up vain castles in the air; they
towered up into heaven, it is true, but, after all, they were but
visions.




CHAPTER VIII

Mrs Bellingham "Does the Thing Handsomely"


If Mr Bellingham did not get rapidly well, it was more owing to
the morbid querulous fancy attendant on great weakness than from
any unfavourable medical symptom. But he turned away with peevish
loathing from the very sight of food, prepared in the slovenly manner
which had almost disgusted him when he was well. It was of no use
telling him that Simpson, his mother's maid, had superintended the
preparation at every point. He offended her by detecting something
offensive and to be avoided in her daintiest messes, and made Mrs
Morgan mutter many a hasty speech, which, however, Mrs Bellingham
thought it better not to hear until her son should be strong enough
to travel.

"I think you are better to-day," said she, as his man wheeled his
sofa to the bedroom window. "We shall get you downstairs to-morrow."

"If it were to get away from this abominable place, I could go down
to-day; but I believe I'm to be kept prisoner here for ever. I shall
never get well here, I'm sure."

He sank back on his sofa in impatient despair. The surgeon was
announced, and eagerly questioned by Mrs Bellingham as to the
possibility of her son's removal; and he, having heard the same
anxiety for the same end expressed by Mrs Morgan in the regions
below, threw no great obstacles in the way. After the doctor had
taken his departure, Mrs Bellingham cleared her throat several times.
Mr Bellingham knew the prelude of old, and winced with nervous
annoyance.

"Henry, there is something I must speak to you about; an unpleasant
subject, certainly, but one which has been forced upon me by the very
girl herself; you must be aware to what I refer without giving me the
pain of explaining myself."

Mr Bellingham turned himself sharply round to the wall, and prepared
himself for a lecture by concealing his face from her notice; but she
herself was in too nervous a state to be capable of observation.

"Of course," she continued, "it was my wish to be as blind to the
whole affair as possible, though you can't imagine how Mrs Mason has
blazoned it abroad; all Fordham rings with it; but of course it could
not be pleasant, or, indeed, I may say correct, for me to be aware
that a person of such improper character was under the same--I beg
your pardon, dear Henry, what do you say?"

"Ruth is no improper character, mother; you do her injustice!"

"My dear boy, you don't mean to uphold her as a paragon of virtue!"

"No, mother, but I led her wrong; I--"

"We will let all discussions into the cause or duration of her
present character drop, if you please," said Mrs Bellingham, with
the sort of dignified authority which retained a certain power over
her son--a power which originated in childhood, and which he only
defied when he was roused into passion. He was too weak in body to
oppose himself to her, and fight the ground inch by inch. "As I have
implied, I do not wish to ascertain your share of blame; from what
I saw of her one morning, I am convinced of her forward, intrusive
manners, utterly without shame, or even common modesty."

"What are you referring to?" asked Mr Bellingham, sharply.

"Why, when you were at the worst, and I had been watching you all
night, and had just gone out in the morning for a breath of fresh
air, this girl pushed herself before me, and insisted upon speaking
to me. I really had to send Mrs Morgan to her before I could return
to your room. A more impudent, hardened manner, I never saw."

"Ruth was neither impudent nor hardened; she was ignorant enough, and
might offend from knowing no better."

He was getting weary of the discussion, and wished it had never
been begun. From the time he had become conscious of his mother's
presence, he had felt the dilemma he was in in regard to Ruth, and
various plans had directly crossed his brain; but it had been so
troublesome to weigh and consider them all properly, that they
had been put aside to be settled when he grew stronger. But this
difficulty in which he was placed by his connexion with Ruth,
associated the idea of her in his mind with annoyance and angry
regret at the whole affair. He wished, in the languid way in which
he wished and felt everything not immediately relating to his daily
comfort, that he had never seen her. It was a most awkward, a most
unfortunate affair. Notwithstanding this annoyance connected with
and arising out of Ruth, he would not submit to hear her abused;
and something in his manner impressed this on his mother, for she
immediately changed her mode of attack.

"We may as well drop all dispute as to the young woman's manners;
but I suppose you do not mean to defend your connexion with her; I
suppose you are not so lost to all sense of propriety as to imagine
it fit or desirable that your mother and this degraded girl should
remain under the same roof, liable to meet at any hour of the day?"
She waited for an answer, but no answer came.

"I ask you a simple question; is it, or is it not desirable?"

"I suppose it is not," he replied, gloomily.

"And _I_ suppose, from your manner, that you think the difficulty
would be best solved by my taking my departure, and leaving you with
your vicious companion?"

Again no answer, but inward and increasing annoyance, of which Mr
Bellingham considered Ruth the cause. At length he spoke.

"Mother, you are not helping me in my difficulty. I have no desire
to banish you, nor to hurt you, after all your care for me. Ruth has
not been so much to blame as you imagine, that I must say; but I
do not wish to see her again, if you can tell me how to arrange it
otherwise, without behaving unhandsomely. Only spare me all this
worry while I am so weak. I put myself in your hands. Dismiss her, as
you wish it; but let it be done handsomely, and let me hear no more
about it; I cannot bear it; let me have a quiet life, without being
lectured while I am pent up here, and unable to shake off unpleasant
thoughts."

"My dear Henry, rely upon me."

"No more, mother; it's a bad business, and I can hardly avoid blaming
myself in the matter; I don't want to dwell upon it."

"Don't be too severe in your self-reproaches while you are so feeble,
dear Henry; it is right to repent, but I have no doubt in my own mind
she led you wrong with her artifices. But, as you say, everything
should be done handsomely. I confess I was deeply grieved when I
first heard of the affair, but since I have seen the girl-- Well!
I'll say no more about her, since I see it displeases you; but I am
thankful to God that you see the error of your ways."

She sat silent, thinking for a little while, and then sent for her
writing-case, and began to write. Her son became restless, and
nervously irritated.

"Mother," he said, "this affair worries me to death. I cannot shake
off the thoughts of it."

"Leave it to me, I'll arrange it satisfactorily."

"Could we not leave to-night? I should not be so haunted by this
annoyance in another place. I dread seeing her again, because I fear
a scene; and yet I believe I ought to see her, in order to explain."

"You must not think of such a thing, Henry," said she, alarmed at
the very idea. "Sooner than that, we will leave in half an hour, and
try to get to Pen trê Voelas to-night. It is not yet three, and the
evenings are very long. Simpson should stay and finish the packing;
she could go straight to London and meet us there. Macdonald and
nurse could go with us. Could you bear twenty miles, do you think?"

Anything to get rid of his uneasiness. He felt that he was not
behaving as he should do, to Ruth, though the really right never
entered his head. But it would extricate him from his present
dilemma, and save him many lectures; he knew that his mother, always
liberal where money was concerned, would "do the thing handsomely,"
and it would always be easy to write and give Ruth what explanation
he felt inclined, in a day or two; so he consented, and soon lost
some of his uneasiness in watching the bustle of the preparation for
their departure.

All this time Ruth was quietly spending in her room, beguiling the
waiting, weary hours, with pictures of the meeting at the end.
Her room looked to the back, and was in a side-wing away from the
principal state apartments, consequently she was not roused to
suspicion by any of the commotion; but, indeed, if she had heard
the banging of doors, the sharp directions, the carriage-wheels,
she would still not have suspected the truth; her own love was too
faithful.

It was four o'clock and past, when some one knocked at her door,
and, on entering, gave her a note, which Mrs Bellingham had left.
That lady had found some difficulty in wording it, so as to satisfy
herself, but it was as follows:


   My son, on recovering from his illness, is, I thank God,
   happily conscious of the sinful way in which he has been
   living with you. By his earnest desire, and in order to
   avoid seeing you again, we are on the point of leaving
   this place; but before I go, I wish to exhort you to
   repentance, and to remind you that you will not have your
   own guilt alone upon your head, but that of any young man
   whom you may succeed in entrapping into vice. I shall
   pray that you may turn to an honest life, and I strongly
   recommend you, if indeed you are not 'dead in trespasses
   and sins,' to enter some penitentiary. In accordance
   with my son's wishes, I forward you in this envelope a
   bank-note of fifty pounds.

   MARGARET BELLINGHAM.


Was this the end of all? Had he, indeed, gone? She started up, and
asked this last question of the servant, who, half guessing at the
purport of the note, had lingered about the room, curious to see the
effect produced.

"Iss, indeed, miss; the carriage drove from the door as I came
upstairs. You'll see it now on the Yspytty road, if you'll please to
come to the window of No. 24."

Ruth started up, and followed the chambermaid. Aye, there it was,
slowly winding up the steep white road, on which it seemed to move at
a snail's pace.

She might overtake him--she might--she might speak one farewell word
to him, print his face on her heart with a last look--nay, when
he saw her he might retract, and not utterly, for ever, leave her.
Thus she thought; and she flew back to her room, and snatching up
her bonnet, ran, tying the strings with her trembling hands as she
went down the stairs, out at the nearest door, little heeding the
angry words of Mrs Morgan; for the hostess, more irritated at Mrs
Bellingham's severe upbraiding at parting, than mollified by her
ample payment, was offended by the circumstance of Ruth, in her wild
haste, passing through the prohibited front door.

But Ruth was away before Mrs Morgan had finished her speech, out
and away, scudding along the road, thought-lost in the breathless
rapidity of her motion. Though her heart and head beat almost to
bursting, what did it signify if she could but overtake the carriage?
It was a nightmare, constantly evading the most passionate wishes and
endeavours, and constantly gaining ground. Every time it was visible
it was in fact more distant, but Ruth would not believe it. If she
could but gain the summit of that weary, everlasting hill, she
believed that she could run again, and would soon be nigh upon the
carriage. As she ran, she prayed with wild eagerness; she prayed that
she might see his face once more, even if she died on the spot before
him. It was one of those prayers which God is too merciful to grant;
but despairing and wild as it was, Ruth put her soul into it, and
prayed it again, and yet again.

Wave above wave of the ever-rising hills were gained, were crossed,
and at last Ruth struggled up to the very top and stood on the bare
table of moor, brown and purple, stretching far away till it was lost
in the haze of the summer afternoon; and the white road was all flat
before her, but the carriage she sought and the figure she sought had
disappeared. There was no human being there; a few wild, black-faced
mountain sheep quietly grazing near the road, as if it were long
since they had been disturbed by the passing of any vehicle, was all
the life she saw on the bleak moorland.

She threw herself down on the ling by the side of the road in
despair. Her only hope was to die, and she believed she was dying.
She could not think; she could believe anything. Surely life was a
horrible dream, and God would mercifully awaken her from it. She had
no penitence, no consciousness of error or offence; no knowledge
of any one circumstance but that he was gone. Yet afterwards, long
afterwards, she remembered the exact motion of a bright green beetle
busily meandering among the wild thyme near her, and she recalled the
musical, balanced, wavering drop of a skylark into her nest near the
heather-bed where she lay. The sun was sinking low, the hot air had
ceased to quiver near the hotter earth, when she bethought her once
more of the note which she had impatiently thrown down before half
mastering its contents. "Oh, perhaps," she thought, "I have been too
hasty. There may be some words of explanation from him on the other
side of the page, to which, in my blind anguish, I never turned. I
will go and find it."

She lifted herself heavily and stiffly from the crushed heather.
She stood dizzy and confused with her change of posture; and was so
unable to move at first, that her walk was but slow and tottering;
but, by-and-by, she was tasked and goaded by thoughts which forced
her into rapid motion, as if, by it, she could escape from her agony.
She came down on the level ground, just as many gay or peaceful
groups were sauntering leisurely home with hearts at ease; with low
laughs and quiet smiles, and many an exclamation at the beauty of the
summer evening.

Ever since her adventure with the little boy and his sister, Ruth had
habitually avoided encountering these happy--innocents, may I call
them?--these happy fellow-mortals! And even now, the habit grounded
on sorrowful humiliation had power over her; she paused, and then,
on looking back, she saw more people who had come into the main road
from a side path. She opened a gate into a pasture-field, and crept
up to the hedge-bank until all should have passed by, and she could
steal into the inn unseen. She sat down on the sloping turf by the
roots of an old hawthorn-tree which grew in the hedge; she was still
tearless with hot burning eyes; she heard the merry walkers pass by;
she heard the footsteps of the village children as they ran along to
their evening play; she saw the small black cows come into the fields
after being milked; and life seemed yet abroad. When would the world
be still and dark, and fit for such a deserted, desolate creature
as she was? Even in her hiding-place she was not long at peace. The
little children, with their curious eyes peering here and there, had
peeped through the hedge, and through the gate, and now they gathered
from all the four corners of the hamlet, and crowded round the gate;
and one more adventurous than the rest had run into the field to
cry, "Gi' me a halfpenny," which set the example to every little one,
emulous of his boldness; and there, where she sat, low on the ground,
and longing for the sure hiding-place earth gives to the weary, the
children kept running in, and pushing one another forwards, and
laughing. Poor things; their time had not come for understanding what
sorrow is. Ruth would have begged them to leave her alone, and not
madden her utterly; but they knew no English save the one eternal
"Gi' me a halfpenny." She felt in her heart that there was no pity
anywhere. Suddenly, while she thus doubted God, a shadow fell across
her garments, on which her miserable eyes were bent. She looked up.
The deformed gentleman she had twice before seen, stood there. He had
been attracted by the noisy little crowd, and had questioned them in
Welsh, but not understanding enough of the language to comprehend
their answers, he had obeyed their signs, and entered the gate to
which they pointed. There he saw the young girl whom he had noticed
at first for her innocent beauty, and the second time for the idea he
had gained respecting her situation; there he saw her, crouched up
like some hunted creature, with a wild, scared look of despair, which
almost made her lovely face seem fierce; he saw her dress soiled and
dim, her bonnet crushed and battered with her tossings to and fro on
the moorland bed; he saw the poor, lost wanderer, and when he saw
her, he had compassion on her.

There was some look of heavenly pity in his eyes, as gravely and
sadly they met her upturned gaze, which touched her stony heart.
Still looking at him, as if drawing some good influence from him,
she said low and mournfully, "He has left me, sir!--sir, he has
indeed--he has gone and left me!"

Before he could speak a word to comfort her, she had burst into the
wildest, dreariest crying ever mortal cried. The settled form of the
event, when put into words, went sharp to her heart; her moans and
sobs wrung his soul; but as no speech of his could be heard, if he
had been able to decide what best to say, he stood by her in apparent
calmness, while she, wretched, wailed and uttered her woe. But when
she lay worn out, and stupefied into silence, she heard him say to
himself, in a low voice:

"Oh, my God! for Christ's sake, pity her!"

Ruth lifted up her eyes, and looked at him with a dim perception of
the meaning of his words. She regarded him fixedly in a dreamy way,
as if they struck some chord in her heart, and she were listening to
its echo; and so it was. His pitiful look, or his words, reminded her
of the childish days when she knelt at her mother's knee, and she was
only conscious of a straining, longing desire to recall it all.

He let her take her time, partly because he was powerfully affected
himself by all the circumstances, and by the sad pale face upturned
to his; and partly by an instinctive consciousness that the softest
patience was required. But suddenly she startled him, as she herself
was startled into a keen sense of the suffering agony of the present;
she sprang up and pushed him aside, and went rapidly towards the gate
of the field. He could not move as quickly as most men, but he put
forth his utmost speed. He followed across the road, on to the rocky
common; but as he went along, with his uncertain gait, in the dusk
gloaming, he stumbled, and fell over some sharp projecting stone. The
acute pain which shot up his back forced a short cry from him; and,
when bird and beast are hushed into rest and the stillness of the
night is over all, a high-pitched sound, like the voice of pain,
is carried far in the quiet air. Ruth, speeding on in her despair,
heard the sharp utterance, and stopped suddenly short. It did what
no remonstrance could have done; it called her out of herself. The
tender nature was in her still, in that hour when all good angels
seemed to have abandoned her. In the old days she could never bear
to hear or see bodily suffering in any of God's meanest creatures,
without trying to succour them; and now, in her rush to the awful
death of the suicide, she stayed her wild steps, and turned to find
from whom that sharp sound of anguish had issued.

He lay among the white stones, too faint with pain to move, but with
an agony in his mind far keener than any bodily pain, as he thought
that by his unfortunate fall he had lost all chance of saving her.
He was almost overpowered by his intense thankfulness when he saw
her white figure pause, and stand listening, and turn again with
slow footsteps, as if searching for some lost thing. He could hardly
speak, but he made a sound which, though his heart was inexpressibly
glad, was like a groan. She came quickly towards him.

"I am hurt," said he; "do not leave me;" his disabled and tender
frame was overcome by the accident and the previous emotions, and he
fainted away. Ruth flew to the little mountain stream, the dashing
sound of whose waters had been tempting her, but a moment before, to
seek forgetfulness in the deep pool into which they fell. She made a
basin of her joined hands, and carried enough of the cold fresh water
back to dash into his face and restore him to consciousness. While he
still kept silence, uncertain what to say best fitted to induce her
to listen to him, she said softly:

"Are you better, sir?--are you very much hurt?"

"Not very much; I am better. Any quick movement is apt to cause me a
sudden loss of power in my back, and I believe I stumbled over some
of these projecting stones. It will soon go off, and you will help me
to go home, I am sure."

"Oh, yes! Can you go now? I am afraid of your lying too long on this
heather; there is a heavy dew."

He was so anxious to comply with her wish, and not weary out her
thought for him, and so turn her back upon herself, that he tried to
rise. The pain was acute, and this she saw.

"Don't hurry yourself, sir; I can wait."

Then came across her mind the recollection of the business that was
thus deferred; but the few homely words which had been exchanged
between them seemed to have awakened her from her madness. She sat
down by him, and, covering her face with her hands, cried mournfully
and unceasingly. She forgot his presence, and yet she had a
consciousness that some one looked for her kind offices, that she
was wanted in the world, and must not rush hastily out of it. The
consciousness did not take this definite form, it did not become a
thought, but it kept her still, and it was gradually soothing her.

"Can you help me to rise now?" said he, after a while. She did not
speak, but she helped him up, and then he took her arm, and she led
him tenderly through all the little velvet paths, where the turf grew
short and soft between the rugged stones. Once more on the highway,
they slowly passed along in the moonlight. He guided her by a slight
motion of the arm, through the more unfrequented lanes, to his
lodgings at the shop; for he thought for her, and conceived the pain
she would have in seeing the lighted windows of the inn. He leant
more heavily on her arm, as they awaited the opening of the door.

"Come in," said he, not relaxing his hold, and yet dreading to
tighten it, lest she should defy restraint, and once more rush away.

They went slowly into the little parlour behind the shop. The
bonny-looking hostess, Mrs Hughes by name, made haste to light the
candle, and then they saw each other, face to face. The deformed
gentleman looked very pale, but Ruth looked as if the shadow of death
was upon her.




CHAPTER IX

The Storm-Spirit Subdued


Mrs Hughes bustled about with many a sympathetic exclamation, now in
pretty broken English, now in more fluent Welsh, which sounded as
soft as Russian or Italian, in her musical voice. Mr Benson, for that
was the name of the hunchback, lay on the sofa, thinking; while the
tender Mrs Hughes made every arrangement for his relief from pain.
He had lodged with her for three successive years, and she knew and
loved him.

Ruth stood in the little bow-window, looking out. Across the moon,
and over the deep blue heavens, large, torn, irregular-shaped clouds
went hurrying, as if summoned by some storm-spirit. The work they
were commanded to do was not here; the mighty gathering-place lay
eastward, immeasurable leagues, and on they went, chasing each other
over the silent earth, now black, now silver-white at one transparent
edge, now with the moon shining like Hope through their darkest
centre, now again with a silver lining; and now, utterly black,
they sailed lower in the lift, and disappeared behind the immovable
mountains; they were rushing in the very direction in which Ruth
had striven and struggled to go that afternoon; they, in their wild
career, would soon pass over the very spot where he (her world's he)
was lying sleeping, or perhaps not sleeping, perhaps thinking of her.
The storm was in her mind, and rent and tore her purposes into forms
as wild and irregular as the heavenly shapes she was looking at. If,
like them, she could pass the barrier horizon in the night, she might
overtake him.

Mr Benson saw her look, and read it partially. He saw her longing
gaze outwards upon the free, broad world, and thought that the syren
waters, whose deadly music yet rang in her ears, were again tempting
her. He called her to him, praying that his feeble voice might have
power.

"My dear young lady, I have much to say to you; and God has taken
my strength from me now when I most need it.--Oh, I sin to speak
so--but, for His sake, I implore you to be patient here, if only till
to-morrow morning." He looked at her, but her face was immovable, and
she did not speak. She could not give up her hope, her chance, her
liberty till to-morrow.

"God help me," said he, mournfully, "my words do not touch her;"
and, still holding her hand, he sank back on the pillows. Indeed,
it was true that his words did not vibrate in her atmosphere. The
storm-spirit raged there, and filled her heart with the thought that
she was an outcast; and the holy words, "for His sake," were answered
by the demon, who held possession, with a blasphemous defiance of the
merciful God:

"What have I to do with Thee?"

He thought of every softening influence of religion which over his
own disciplined heart had power, but put them aside as useless. Then
the still small voice whispered, and he spake:

"In your mother's name, whether she be dead or alive, I command you
to stay here until I am able to speak to you."

She knelt down at the foot of the sofa, and shook it with her sobs.
Her heart was touched, and he hardly dared to speak again. At length
he said:

"I know you will not go--you could not--for her sake. You will not,
will you?"

"No," whispered Ruth; and then there was a great blank in her heart.
She had given up her chance. She was calm, in the utter absence of
all hope.

"And now you will do what I tell you," said he, gently, but,
unconsciously to himself, in the tone of one who has found the hidden
spell by which to rule spirits.

She slowly said, "Yes." But she was subdued.

He called Mrs Hughes. She came from her adjoining shop.

"You have a bedroom within yours, where your daughter used to sleep,
I think? I am sure you will oblige me, and I shall consider it as
a great favour, if you will allow this young lady to sleep there
to-night. Will you take her there now? Go, my dear. I have full trust
in your promise not to leave until I can speak to you." His voice
died away to silence; but as Ruth rose from her knees at his bidding,
she looked at his face through her tears. His lips were moving in
earnest, unspoken prayer, and she knew it was for her.

That night, although his pain was relieved by rest, he could not
sleep; and, as in fever, the coming events kept unrolling themselves
before him in every changing and fantastic form. He met Ruth in all
possible places and ways, and addressed her in every manner he could
imagine most calculated to move and affect her to penitence and
virtue. Towards morning he fell asleep, but the same thoughts haunted
his dreams; he spoke, but his voice refused to utter aloud; and she
fled, relentless, to the deep, black pool.

But God works in His own way.

The visions melted into deep, unconscious sleep. He was awakened by a
knock at the door, which seemed a repetition of what he had heard in
his last sleeping moments.

It was Mrs Hughes. She stood at the first word of permission within
the room.

"Please, sir, I think the young lady is very ill indeed, sir; perhaps
you would please to come to her."

"How is she ill?" said he, much alarmed.

"Quite quiet-like, sir; but I think she is dying, that's all, indeed,
sir!"

"Go away, I will be with you directly!" he replied, his heart sinking
within him.

In a very short time he was standing with Mrs Hughes by Ruth's
bedside. She lay as still as if she were dead, her eyes shut, her wan
face numbed into a fixed anguish of expression. She did not speak
when they spoke, though after a while they thought she strove to
do so. But all power of motion and utterance had left her. She was
dressed in everything, except her bonnet, as she had been the day
before; although sweet, thoughtful Mrs Hughes had provided her with
nightgear, which lay on the little chest of drawers that served as
a dressing-table. Mr Benson lifted up her arm to feel her feeble,
fluttering pulse; and when he let go her hand, it fell upon the bed
in a dull, heavy way, as if she were already dead.

"You gave her some food?" said he, anxiously, to Mrs Hughes.

"Indeed, and I offered her the best in the house, but she shook her
poor pretty head, and only asked if I would please to get her a cup
of water. I brought her some milk though, and 'deed, I think she'd
rather have had the water; but not to seem sour and cross, she took
some milk." By this time Mrs Hughes was fairly crying.

"When does the doctor come up here?"

"Indeed, sir, and he's up nearly every day now, the inn is so full."

"I'll go for him. And can you manage to undress her and lay her in
bed? Open the window too, and let in the air; if her feet are cold,
put bottles of hot water to them."

It was a proof of the true love, which was the nature of both, that
it never crossed their minds to regret that this poor young creature
had been thus thrown upon their hands. On the contrary, Mrs Hughes
called it "a blessing."


   "It blesseth him that gives, and him that takes."




CHAPTER X

A Note and the Answer


At the inn everything was life and bustle. Mr Benson had to wait long
in Mrs Morgan's little parlour before she could come to him, and he
kept growing more and more impatient. At last she made her appearance
and heard his story.

People may talk as they will about the little respect that is paid to
virtue, unaccompanied by the outward accidents of wealth or station;
but I rather think it will be found that, in the long run, true and
simple virtue always has its proportionate reward in the respect
and reverence of every one whose esteem is worth having. To be
sure, it is not rewarded after the way of the world as mere worldly
possessions are, with low obeisance and lip-service; but all the
better and more noble qualities in the hearts of others make ready
and go forth to meet it on its approach, provided only it be pure,
simple, and unconscious of its own existence.

Mr Benson had little thought for outward tokens of respect just then,
nor had Mrs Morgan much time to spare; but she smoothed her ruffled
brow, and calmed her bustling manner, as soon as ever she saw who it
was that awaited her; for Mr Benson wa

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