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She saw little enough of the dusty high road along which they drove, or of the bustling streets thronged with a concourse of market people. It was only when she came within sight of the gaol that she seemed to wake up from a brown study and get her wits about her again. It stood outside the town, amid green fields; a large square ugly building, surrounded by strong and black stone walls. Small round windows, closely barred and grated, looked out like hoodwinked eyes over the lonely fields.
Ruth felt herself shivering, though the September sun was shining in an unclouded sky, as she looked up, and wondered which one of those gloomy windows had lighted Ishmael's cell. But before she could reach the heavy gate, she saw sauntering down the path from the gaol, creeping with sluggish footsteps and a bowed down head, her boy, Ishmael himself.
"Mother," he cried, "mother!"
He threw himself into her arms, laughing and crying at the same moment.
Ruth could not weep; but she held him fast in her arms, until he lifted up his head to look into her dear face. There was no one near to see them; they were as much alone as in their own quiet woods; only that grim and ugly building looked down upon their meeting with its hollow eyes.
She drew him away to a lonely spot under its walls; and they sat down together on the grass, whilst, with her trembling hands, she untied the little packet of home-made bread, baked in their own oven, which she had brought for them to eat together, before they had to part again.
"I never meant any harm, mother," he said, when their meal was over. "I never thought of anything save little Elide wishing for 'em. But I know it was poaching; and oh, mother, it 'll turn up against me all my life."
"I'm afeared so, lad," she answered, sighing. "But hast thee asked God's forgiveness, Ishmael?"
"Often and often," he replied, eagerly. "Mother, I never forgot to sing, 'Glory to Thee, my God, this night;' only I sang it low, in a whisper; like I used to do when father was at home. I thought you'd be singing it as well, mother."
"Ay," she said, softly; "thank God I could sing it after the first evenin', Ishmael."
"When I get home," he went on, "I'll go up to the Hall and ask the squire to forgive me; I'll beg and pray of him; and if he will, maybe I can go to work with Mr. Chipchase, like I was to go before I came here."
"He's got another waggoner's boy," answered his mother; "and thee 'rt not to go home with me, but do thy best away from home. Father won't hear of it; and maybe the squire 'ud get us turned out altogether if thee comes home. But if God has forgiven thee—"
"Not go home with you, mother?" he cried.
"No," she said, half sobbing, "no! But God sees; God knows. Jesus Christ had not where to lay His head, and had to wander about without a home. Ishmael, I want thee to believe that God sees us always; and He loves us, in spite of it seeming as if He didn't take any notice of us. Oh, if I thought God didn't know and didn't care, my heart 'ud break. I'd go down to the river, yonder, and just drown myself. But some day He'll find us a home again, thee and me."
She had never spoken so passionately before, even to him; and he was startled, gazing into her agitated face with wondering eyes. Then he looked back at the dreary gaol, his last dwelling-place. There seemed to be no place for him in the whole world now he had been in there.
"Where can we find a home again, mother?" he asked at last. "There's no place like home."
"Up there!" she said, lifting her dim eyes to the great sky above them. "If God gives us no other home here in this world, He's got one ready there for thee and me. 'Let not your heart be troubled: ye believe in God, believe also in Me. In My Father's house are many mansions; I go to prepare a place for you. That's what Jesus said. He's preparing a place for us, Ishmael; and we must not trouble our hearts too much. Only we must go on believing in Him."
"I'll try, mother," he said, putting his hand in hers.
And they sat there, not speaking much, but with hands closely clasped, till the chiming of the church clocks in the town behind them reminded Ruth there was still something to be done. A place must be found for Ishmael to sleep in that night, and if possible to stay at till he could get work to do.
It was hard work leaving him, so far away from her, to loiter about the streets and pick up any stray job that might fall in the way of a boy with a doubtful character. Her mother's heart told her but too plainly how precarious such a life must be. Only a few months ago, he was still a child; even yet, in happier homes he would be reckoned among the children, to be punished, indeed, for his faults, but not to be thrust into want and temptation.
But Ishmael was to fight in the thickest of the battle, bereft of his good name, and removed from all good companionship. Yet Ruth had hope and faith. She worked harder than ever, never taking a day's rest, that she might save a few pence every week to send to his help. She knew he was almost always hungry; often pinched with cold; ragged and nearly barefoot at all times; scarcely able to pay for a shelter night after night. He roamed about the country from farmstead to farmstead, doing any odd work the farmers would trust him with, and sleeping in any outhouse or broken shed he could find open. But he failed in getting a settled place; there were too many boys of good character who wanted to set their foot on the first step of the ladder.
There was one thing he could not make up his mind to do. He could not put such a distance between himself and his mother as would prevent him seeing her every Sunday. He never failed to steal homewards at the close of the week, lurking about the lime-kiln or the woods, in hiding from his father, until he could make his presence known to his mother. It was the great solace and enjoyment of her life.
She could still wash and mend his clothes for him, and get him a sufficient meal or two, and listen to all that had happened to him during the week. He never crossed the threshold of his old home; but on summer evenings, Ruth and he sat together within the tangle of green brushwood behind it, and on winter nights, they sheltered themselves under the walls of the old kiln, or, if they needed a roof over their heads, they met in the limestone cave, which most often of all was Ishmael's sleeping-place.
FIVE YEARS.
SO five years went on, and still Ishmael was not a man. There was little hope now of his even making a strong, hardy, capable man. The privations he was compelled to undergo had told upon his undersized, thin, and feeble frame. But still more had the anxieties and the mortifications he had to endure borne down his spirit.
No one but his mother cared for him. Suspicion dogged him, and the doubtful companions necessity forced upon him strengthened suspicion. He was losing heart, and growing hopeless. His mother had called him Ishmael, because the Lord had heard her affliction; but she might have called him Ishmael because every man's hand was against him. Would the day come, dreaded by his mother, when his hand would be against every man?
The last few years had weighed more heavily upon Ruth than ten might have done if Ishmael had been at home. She could no longer help her old husband up the ladder when he came home drunk; and many a night he had lain on the damp floor, groaning with rheumatic pains, for want of a strong young arm such as Ishmael's would have been. Still every Sunday brought her a gleam of gladness. As yet Ishmael had not gone astray amid his manifold temptations; and she was comforted for her own sorrow and his. But what would become of him when she was no longer there?
It was a hard trial to her, when she heard Ishmael's call, plaintive and low, sounding round and round the hut through the stillness of a winter's night, and she could not answer it. It would come nearer and nearer, until it seemed as if it were under the very eaves; but if her husband was crouching over the fire, she dared not even open the door to look out. In the black darkness outside the little casement, she could see for a moment the dim outline of her boy's white face gazing through the lattice-panes; and then the long, low, plaintive cry grew fainter, and died away in the woods behind.
"I must tell Nutkin of that owl," said old Humphrey, peevishly.
At last Ruth could go out no more to her hard work, but lay still and almost helpless in her close loft, scarcely able to creep down the ladder to the hearth below.
Old Humphrey could not understand that she was no longer the willing drudge she had been so long. That she should get free from him by death never once crossed his dull brain, soddened by drink. Many a moan he made over his wife's idleness in the sanded kitchen of the Labour in Vain, where he sat now on a corner of a bench farthest from the fire, having only a few pence to spend; he who in better days had been welcome to the best seat, and been most lavish with his money.
But whenever Sunday came, new life seemed to visit Ruth. Whence the strength arose she could not tell; but it never failed her when she got up from her bed, and crept downstairs, and out into the spring sunshine to meet Ishmael. Everybody knew now, except Humphrey, that Ishmael haunted the old home where his mother was dying, but they took no notice except by carrying food, as they said, for old Ruth, though they knew well she could not eat it. Some of the women offered to do any washing they could for her, and made no remark when Ishmael's clothing was among it.
For when we are going down visibly into the dark valley of the shadow of death, those around us look upon us with other eyes, and press upon us some of the kindliness and tenderness which would have made all the pilgrimage of life only a happy journey. Ruth, so long a solitary and sorrowful woman, wondered at the friendliness which gathered about her in her last days.
"It makes home seem sweeter," she said to Ishmael, "to have plenty o' friends, and plenty o' everything else. But if it had always been so, I might never ha' thought as dyin' was like goin' home. I always think as if heaven were home now, Ishmael," she added, a faint smile lighting up her wrinkled face.
She was sitting beside him on the old door-sill for the last time, though that they did not know. For when death is drawing near to any one of us, we do not always know that the last time is come for the old familiar duties and habits of every-day life. It had been a long sunny day in May, but now the twilight was coming on, and every minute made her beloved face more thin and shadowy.
"It feels a'most," she went on falteringly, "like when I was a little girl, and 'ud hear father callin' me in from my play. I'm partly afeared to say it, Ishmael; but it's sometimes as if I could hear the blessed Lord callin', 'Ruth, come to Me, and ye shall find rest.'
"And last night I answered Him out loud, 'Lord, I can't rest because of my lad Ishmael.'
"And it seemed to me as if there came a low quiet voice whispering to me, 'Leave Ishmael to Me. He is My son.'
"And I said to myself, 'The Lord has heard my affliction again.'"
Ishmael sat silent, with his eyes fastened on the pale yellow light in the sky behind the tops of the trees, across which a bat was flitting to and fro; but he did not see the sunset light or the flight of the bat.
"Ay!" she said, almost joyously. "And to-day I knew He'd heard; for Mrs. Clift and Miss Elsie came to see me; and Ishmael, my lad, they brought grand news for thee. They're going away across the seas, to that country where folks go for a better chance than they've got here; and they've promised to take thee with them; for Mrs. Clift said, 'It was all along of Elsie that Ishmael got into trouble and disgrace; and folks won't think badly of him there; and I'll be like a mother to him,' said Mrs. Clift. And I knew then that God had heard my affliction again."
"Oh, mother!" cried Ishmael, "I couldn't leave thee, never; not if the Queen of England sent for me to go!"
"But oh, my lad," she answered, "if the Lord doesn't take me home afore the time comes for thee to go, thee must leave me. Ay, and I should die happier, knowin' thee were safe away, and havin' a chance to be a good man, than leavin' thee here to be tempted and drove into sin. Ishmael, promise me thee 'll go, whether I'm alive or dead, when the time comes. Oh, my dear, dear lad, promise to obey me!"
"I cannot, mother, I cannot!" he sobbed. "I'll go gladly if thee are dead; but so long as thee can speak to me, and I can look at thee, I cannot go."
"They're not goin' afore hay-harvest," she said softly; "and, please God, I may be dead by then."
But as she lay awake at night, thinking of Ishmael, who was sleeping soundly in his old shelter, the cave in the limestone rock, she wondered what would become of him if she could not prevail upon him to leave her for ever, whilst she was still living. There would be no one who loved her to close her dying eyes, and hold her dying hand, and whisper last words of love into her dying ear, if Ishmael were gone. But, oh, how gladly would she rather die in utter loneliness if she knew that he was safe, and would have a new start in life!
The days passed slowly away; and the grass grew in the fields around, and blossomed, and ripened for the scythe: but still life seemed to cling to Ruth, weary as she was to die and set Ishmael free. She could no longer come down the ladder which led to the loft, where she lay in darkness; but whenever Humphrey was away, Ishmael was beside her in the darkness, within reach of her hand, as in the old time when he was a child. There was no stint of food for him now, for Mrs. Clift came every day with Elsie, and Mrs. Chipchase sent from the farm, or called in to see Ruth herself, and neither of them came empty-handed. It was only when the time came each day for him to escape out of the way of his father that he felt himself still an exile from his home.
"I'll not leave thee to-night," he said, one evening when she seemed worse than he had ever seen her before; "I can't leave thee to-night. Maybe thou 'rt dyin'."
"Nay," she answered with a long, low, sad sigh, "nay, Ishmael, there mustn't be a fight 'twixt thy father and thee over my dyin' bed."
"He'll come home drunk," he said almost fiercely; "and I can't leave thee alone with him."
"I'm not afeared to be left alone with thy father," she replied. "He was a good husband to me once, and he'll not be hard with me when I'm dyin'. I wasn't always as good a wife as I might ha' been: and I've a many things to say to him. Hark! They're running to tell thee he's comin' up the lane. Go, Ishmael; kiss me, and go quickly."
"I cannot go!" he cried; clinging to her. "P'r'aps I shall never see thy face again, never! Oh, mother, I cannot go!"
But as he still held her in his arms, and she pushed him feebly away, Elsie's clear young voice was heard in the kitchen below, calling hurriedly.
"Ishmael," she cried, "little Willie Nutkin is lost in the old quarry behind the cave, and we want you. Nutkin, and the squire, and everybody; we all want you."
HER LAST COMMAND.
ISHMAEL loosed his hold of his mother, but he did not rise from the place where he was kneeling beside her. A faint gleam coming up from the room below lit up Ruth's face as she looked earnestly and searchingly into his.
"I can't quit my mother," he answered, speaking in a loud but forced tone; "she's dyin', and if I go, maybe I shall never see her again."
"Ishmael," said Ruth, "thee has never forgiven Nutkin yet."
"No," he muttered, "no; it's been too much to forgive. He drove me away from home; and I'd have been a man by now, instead of a wastrel, if he hadn't been hard on me. Thee 'd not ha' worked thyself to death, mother, if it hadn't been for him. No; I've not forgiven him. Let him find his little lad for himself!"
"You must come, Ishmael," called Elsie. "Willie's been missing five hours or more; and we can hear him crying in the old quarry; and nobody knows it like you do; and the opening's too small for a man to crawl through, and it's no use sending in a boy, if any of them would go alone. Oh, come quickly! Suppose he strayed into one of those pools you told me of and was drowned. Come down this minute!"
But Ishmael did not move; holding his mother's hand between his own, and gazing mournfully into her beseeching face.
"If I bid thee go," she murmured, "thee would not disobey me now I'm dyin'?"
"Don't send me," he cried; "don't bid me go!"
"Nay," she said tenderly, "I'm bound to bid thee, and thee art bound to go. It 'ud be no comfort to see thee nigh me, if I couldn't die happy for thinkin' o' the little lad in the pit. And it's partly because thee hasn't forgiven Nutkin. And if we forgive not men their sins, neither will our Heavenly Father forgive ours. That's what the blessed Lord says. And oh, if thee forgives him, the Lord will forgive thee. Go, Ishmael; I shall see thee again—not here, maybe—but in some better place."
"I'll go," he said, looking into her face very sorrowfully; "but, oh, if I never see thee again in this world, it 'll seem hard to wait till we get to heaven."
Still Elsie's impatient and entreating voice reached their ears, urging him to make haste, and his mother's sunken eyes were fastened upon him with a look in them as if she was beseeching him to go. It might be the last time he would ever see her face. With a deep and heavy sigh, Ishmael stooped to kiss her, and, as if afraid to trust himself to linger another moment, he sprang down the ladder, and, pushing on through bramble and brushwood, quickly reached the entrance of the cave.
It was no longer dark and solitary. Many of the villagers were there, and the glimmer of several lanterns produced a lurid and fitful light. Nutkin knelt at the far end of the cave before the low and narrow inlet, through which, when there was a moment's silence, he fancied he could hear in the black darkness the voice of his child crying.
"The men will be here with pickaxes soon, Nutkin," said the squire, who stood beside him, "and we'll get the little fellow out in a very short time, my man."
"I'm more afeard of the picks bringing the old roof in than aught else, sir," answered Nutkin, in a voice of despair; "there's been a deal o' heavy rain o' late, and there's been two or three hollows given in above ground; and if the roof gave way betwixt us and the little lad he'd die o' fright before we could dig him out. If the hole was but big enough for a man to creep through! But nobody could creep through a hole no bigger than a rabbit-bury; only a teeny creature like little Willie."
A profound silence followed Nutkin's speech, for no man or woman there could risk the life of any of their boys by sending them into the workings of the old quarry. And amid the silence there was heard plainly enough a low stifled voice speaking.
"I can crawl through," it said; "I know every step o' the old pit."
"Ishmael Medway!" shouted half a dozen voices, joyously. "He's the lad, if there is one."
He felt himself pushed forward to the far end of the cave, where the light was strongest. The thin, stunted, undersized lad, in his tattered clothing, and with his mournful face, stood in front of the squire, and of his old enemy, who gazed at him half in shame and half in hope.
"Mother's sent me," he said, touching his old ragged cap to the squire. "She's dyin', and I don't s'pose as I shall ever see her again; but she couldn't die happy with the little lad lost in the pit. And mother says if I forgive him here, God 'll forgive me, and take me, some day, somewhere, to the place where she's goin'! I slept here last night, and I heard the ground give way. Don't set any picks at work."
Ishmael did not wait for an answer, but lying down on the ground, crept through the narrow, winding tunnel he had often crawled through as a boy. He called back to them when he had reached the shaft, where he could stand upright, and they saw that he had struck a light; but presently all sound and sign of him was lost, and Nutkin and the squire rose from their knees where they had been watching and listening, and the fitful light of the lanterns shone upon the tears in their eyes.
"I'll make a man of that lad," said the squire, in a broken voice.
"God Almighty bring him and Willie safe back," cried Nutkin, sinking down on his knees again, "and I'll treat him as my own son, I will; as long as ever I live! So help me, God!"
So silent for some time was the crowd of villagers now thronging the cave, that they could hear the heavy splashes of water falling from the rain-sodden earth into the little pools collected below in the subterranean alleys of the old pit; and once a low rumbling like distant thunder, telling of the earth giving way in one of the many galleries, made them hold their breath in speechless dread, and look anxiously into one another's faces. But, as if Ishmael too had heard it, and wished to reassure them, there came the sound of his voice, calling back to them from the hidden pathways.
"God bless him!" exclaimed the squire, a smile for a moment crossing his anxious and clouded face.
"Ay!" cried Chipchase. "He was as good a lad as ever breathed before he went to gaol for stealing them pheasant's eggs; and old Ruth, his mother, you might trust her in a room full of golden guineas. She's as good an old soul as ever lived. Ishmael said she was a-dying, didn't he, sir?"
"Yes," answered the squire.
"And she'd send him away from her to save Nutkin's little lad!" said Chipchase. "That's what I call being a Christian. Any minute might bring the roof over his head, and bury him alive; and old Ruth knows it. But if any soul in Broadmoor believes in God, it's Ruth; and, please God, I'll be a better man myself from this day forth."
The farmer's voice trembled as he finished speaking, and he turned his face away from the light, ashamed to let his neighbours see how much he felt.
"Old Ruth's had a hard, bitter life," said Mrs. Chipchase, sobbing; "she was near brokenhearted when Ishmael went to gaol; and she's never been the same woman since. He was like the apple of her eye, Ishmael was; and he'd worse luck than any of her children, thanks to Nutkin, I always said, and always shall say to my dying day. What was a boy's taking a few paltry eggs, I'd like to know?"
"I'll treat him like my own son," muttered Nutkin, not looking up.
"We must make it up to him," added the squire. "If I'd known he was a good lad, he should never have gone to gaol."
"Hush!" cried Elsie, who was standing beside Mrs. Chipchase.
Instantly there was a breathless stillness in the cave, and every eye was turned towards the low outer entrance, through which they could hear the dragging of weary footsteps. Bent almost double, and tottering as if every step must be the last, came old Ruth herself.
"Where's Ishmael?" she asked, looking round at her neighbours' faces with eyes dim and glazed.
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."
A NEW HOME.
IT was a solemn and almost speechless procession that marched through the midnight woods, waking up the sleeping birds in their nests, and frightening timid rabbits in their burrows. The moon shone down from the cloudless sky, filling the open spaces with a white light, but deepening the shadows where the hazel bushes grew thickest.
Elsie walked beside Ishmael with her hand in his; remembering, oh! how keenly, that day five years ago, which had laid the foundation-stone of all his sorrow. But beyond the present sadness there shone a bright hope in the future, though he could not at this moment catch its light. Only a few days, and she and her mother were going to sail for America; and now, when Ishmael had seen his mother's feeble worn-out body laid in the old churchyard, he would be free to go with them, and begin his new life in a new country.
They found old Humphrey lying in a drunken sleep on the damp floor of the hut, at the foot of the ladder, which he had not been able to climb up; and they had to drag him on one side to carry their burden to its resting-place in the loft overhead. He was an old man, with his brain softened and soddened with drink, and he could not be made to understand what had happened, or be persuaded to let Ishmael remain even for a few hours in his old home.
It was only now and then, when his father was away during the few days that intervened before the funeral, that he could steal in to look at his mother's calm and placid face, from which the wrinkles, graved sharply on it by many troubles, seemed almost smoothed away. But every house in the parish was open to him, the castaway who had been driven from his home, and thrown upon the world.
He followed his mother to the grave, and stood for the last time amid his father and brothers. There was a whole crowd of villagers and neighbours gathered about the grave; and Nutkin was there with the little boy whom Ishmael had sought and found in the windings of the old quarry.
"I'd like to shake hands with all the Medways," said Nutkin, as the crowd began to melt away, "and let bygones be bygones. And, Ishmael, the squire bid me say, is there nothing as he can do for you; nothing as 'ud make it worth your while to stay at home, 'stead o' going to America?"
"Nothin'," answered Ishmael; "there's no home for me now mother's gone. It was home, sweet home, and I shall never have another."
But ten years after, when Ishmael came back to England, not to stay, but only to visit the old place, he had made a home for himself, with Elsie in it for his wife. He owned a farm of his own, and was prospering in every way. He found the old hut fallen into ruins, for his father had died in the workhouse the year after he had left England: and no one had lived in the desolate hovel since.
The old door-sill was there yet, though the thatched roof had long ago mouldered away; and he could almost fancy he saw his mother sitting there, and looking out for him.
The trees behind the ruins tossed their green branches in the wind, and the blue sky, flecked with clouds, shone above them, as in the bygone days. There were the old pleasant sounds, the song of the birds, and the hum of insects, and the rustling of myriads of leaves; but still it was no more home. His mother, who had made this poor hut a home for him, was no longer there.
"I remember," said Elsie, softly, with her hand in his, "how she said, '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 you and me 'll be at home again, with Him.'"
THE END.
—————————————————————Butler & Tanner, The Selwood Printing Works, Frome, and London.