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."