Ruth (8 page)

"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.