CHAPTER VIII.

GOING HOME.

WHEN Ishmael had obeyed her, and gone away from her death-bed, Ruth had for a little while lain still in utter solitude. After the echo of Ishmael's and Elsie's footsteps had died away, not a sound had reached her ears. She was accustomed to be alone; but this loneliness seemed terrible in her last hours. An unutterable yearning came upon her to see her boy once more, to know what he was doing, and what was befalling him. He had gone into danger at her bidding; and until she knew what became of him, she felt as if she could not turn her thoughts even to the God in whom she trusted. If only Humphrey would come home, she would prevail upon him to follow Ishmael to the cave, and bring back word, or send some one to tell her what was going on.

How could she die in peace whilst her boy was in instant danger? She lifted herself up, and strained her ear to catch some distant sound of voices or footsteps, but there was nothing save utter silence and solitude.

Then a feverish strength, the strength of the dying, came to her. To be somewhere near where Ishmael was, to have faces about her, and hear the voices of her neighbours, seemed absolutely needful to her. With feeble, yet hurried hands, she dressed herself in the poor old clothing she had laid aside for the last time, and with faltering feet she descended the steep ladder.

The fresh air of the evening blowing softly in her face revived her, and made her feel as if it had only been because she had been lying in bed in the hot, dark loft that she had thought herself dying. But as she crept on through the tangle of brushwood, with barely strength enough to part the hazel twigs which beset her path, the numbing hand of death weighed more and more heavily upon her. She heard the voices of her neighbours passing to and fro in the woods, but she could not call loudly enough to make them hear.

The thrushes sang in the topmost branches of the trees, where they could yet see the lingering sunset light, but below her path was all in darkness, and the power of seeing was fading out of her eyes. Half-blind, stumbling over the roots of the trees, fainting with weariness, yet urged on by her passionate love for her son, Ruth reached the cave at last. She was come to die somewhere near where Ishmael was.

"Didn't he say his mother lay a-dying?" exclaimed some of the crowd, as they fell back to make way for her.

But as soon as they caught sight of her face by the light of the lanterns, they knew that she was dying. She tottered forward with stumbling feet to the end of the cave, and sunk down on the ground, breathing fitfully, whilst her sunken eyes gleamed with a bright light.

Nutkin shrunk away in awe of her; but she smiled faintly, and beckoned with her hand that he should watch and listen still at the post he had held since Ishmael had entered the old quarry. But he stood, pale and panic-stricken, looking down upon her as if she had been one come back from the dead.

"Ruth," cried Mrs. Clift, the schoolmistress, coming forward from among the villagers, "how did you get here?"

She sat down on the ground beside her, and drew the grey old head upon her lap; and Ruth looked up thankfully, and summoned all her failing strength to answer.

"I was afeared," she whispered, "never to see Ishmael again. And God helped me. The poor lad 'ud fret so if he never saw me again; and it 'll be easier to die here than all alone at home yonder."

"Some of us ought to have thought of you," said the schoolmistress.

"It's best here," she whispered near Ishmael. "God's been very good to me all my life; and He's very good to me now I'm dying. I'd rather wait here for him to come back than be anywhere else in the world. Only I shall miss seein' Humphrey, and he was a good husband to me once."

"Ruth Medway," said the squire, speaking slowly and distinctly, that she might hear him, "don't you be troubled about your son. I will see after him, and make a man of him; I promise you solemnly."

Ruth looked up inquiringly into the squire's face; an unfamiliar face, looking blurred and misty to her failing eyes.

"Who is it?" she asked.

"The squire," said the schoolmistress, gently.

"I thank you humbly, sir," she said, making a great effort, "but it's too late now, I'm afeared. He's goin' away to a country where there's a better chance for him as soon as I'm gone. He won't leave me, sir, not as long as I live, if he starves for it. But he'll go as soon as I'm dead."

"I'll make it worth his while to stay at home," said the squire.

"There won't be no home when I'm gone," murmured Ruth; "he's never had a home these five years; like Him that had no place to lay His head."

She closed her eyelids, and lay still, breathing heavily and fitfully; whilst all around her, her old neighbours looked on in mournful silence.

"He's long in coming," she murmured at last, "and it's growing dark, very dark. It's time to sing, 'Glory to Thee;' it 'll cheer him maybe, wherever he is. Only I can't begin."

"She wishes us to sing 'Glory to Thee,'" said Mrs. Clift, looking round at the circle of grave and sorrowful faces surrounding them; "she says it will cheer Ishmael; and it will, if he can only catch a distant sound of it. Some of you belong to the choir; please start it, for I cannot."

Her voice was broken and low; and for the first two or three lines the hymn was sung very tremulously by the villagers. But Ruth's eyes brightened, and a smile broke over her grey and withered face, as the familiar strain and the old words reached her dull ear. Her lips moved, and now and then the feeble whispering of a word or two was heard by the schoolmistress.

But when the "Praise God, from whom all blessings flow" had been sung in a loud, clear, hearty chorus of every voice, there came, in the silence that followed, a sound as of an echo repeating it in the winding galleries of the old quarry. Ruth lifted up her head, and with sudden strength raised herself to her feet, and leaned against the opening to listen.

"I can hear him," she said, joyously, "and I shall see him again! I bid him go, for I was afeared he hadn't forgiven Nutkin; but my heart went with him. He's the only one of 'em all as cares for their old mother; it's the way of young folks," she added, as if to excuse them herself; "but Ishmael was loth to leave me, for fear I should die afore he got back. But I'm here, Ishmael, my lad; I'm close beside thee. Thee and me 'll see each other again."

She sunk back slowly to the ground; and the neighbours gathered round her again. She was only a poor old toiling woman, for years well-known to them all, and little thought of; but there was not one of them who did not grieve for her, or say to themselves how they could have made her hard life a little easier for her. Nutkin knelt down beside her, and his red sunburnt face looked more full of life and health than ever beside her thin, pinched, pallid features.

"Ruth, forgive me!" he said. "I'd rather have had my right hand shot off, if I'd ha' known it before. It were my wicked hatred as did it. I'd ha' winked at any other lad robbing a pheasant's nest; but I hated the very name o' Medway."

"I never thought myself as there were anything to forgive," she answered. "It's the law, I know; and the justices are wise men. But Ishmael couldn't forgive it, not till now."

But before any one could speak again, there came a shout through the narrow opening, and the sound of a child's voice calling "Father."

Ruth lifted up her head again, and turned her smiling face to the opening.

"He's coming," she said. "God is very good to us."

Yet a few minutes passed away, long, slow minutes, before they could hear Ishmael's footsteps, and his voice speaking gently to the child, who was chattering back again, as if he felt no fear of him, or of the strange place they were in.

Very soon the child's tear-stained face was seen crawling back through the archway; yet no one stirred or spoke but Nutkin, who caught his boy in his arms, and hushed him into silence.

Ishmael was coming back; and his old mother was leaning forward with her eager, dying face, waiting to see him once more. The lad crept out slowly and reluctantly, unwilling to face so many of his old neighbours, and anxious to get away out of sight. His dazzled eyes saw nothing but a cluster of faces about him; and he did not perceive his mother until her feeble voice broke the utter silence which astonished and affrighted him.

"Ishmael!" she called.

"Mother!" he cried, in a loud, shrill tone of surprise and gladness, as he flung himself upon the earth beside her, and put his arm about her, drawing her head down upon his breast.

"I couldn't keep away," she murmured, "and God helped me to come. Be good, Ishmael. God sees us, every one, always. I shall watch for thee on the door-sill—to come into the Father's house—boldly—where He's gone to prepare a place—and then we'll be at home again—with Him."

The words dropped slowly, one by one, from the failing lips, which were growing stiff with death; and the bright light in her sunken eyes flickered and died out. But there was still a faint, patient smile on the wrinkled face, and as Ishmael called to her for the last time, in a voice of bitter grief and loneliness, she tried to raise her head, and look again into her boy's face. "Ishmael," she whispered, "because the Lord has heard thy affliction."