"Oh, indeed, indeed I ought! What do I not owe to you, sir? If you only knew how lonely and frightened I felt before I had you; and then you are so poor, and yet you helped us!"
"Well, give me the wine, Ruthie; as to the money, I will settle that with you when I am well again."
Ralph got better quickly now; but a fresh misfortune occurred before he was quite well again. Ollie came from school one day, heavy and sick (not to say cross); Ruth took him home to put him to bed, and ran down to the Rest in the morning to say that "Ollie was out in measles."
"So I cannot come any more to you just now, sir; but what a comfort it is that you are so nearly well! May I ask Miss Jones to come in and see you? she would do your shopping for you."
"No, thank you, dear, I am quite able to get out now, and I shall soon be creeping up the hill to see after you and Ollie. Has the doctor seen him yet?"
"No; nor am I going to send for him. I had them myself last year, and father never had a doctor to see me, because he said I was not bad, and neither is Ollie. I must keep him warm and take good care of him."
She lingered for a minute. All her little store was gone, and attending on Ralph had left her but little time for needlework. But she could not bring herself to speak. He was old, and poor, and suffering, and how could she ask him for money? It would have been like asking for the price of the wine back again. So she went home, and, by Mrs. Cricklade's advice, she took some of her father's clothes to a pawn-shop, and asked the man there what he would give her for them. The pawnbroker was very civil, and explained the system to her very clearly; but poor innocent Ruth telling him her reason for wanting money, he made a great favour of giving her a mere trifle for the good clothes, because he said he must keep them separate, coming as they did from an infected house. So with five shillings for her poor father's best suit, Ruth went home, spending the greater part of it on the way; for she must have coal to keep Ollie warm.
Ralph had hoped to see the children the next day, but it snowed, and he was afraid to go so far. Then followed a sharp frost, and he was laid up again for some days; so altogether some time had passed before he succeeded in creeping up the hill as far as Mrs. Cricklade's shop. He went early, and to his horror found the shop closed, and the neighbours told him that they had not seen Mrs. Cricklade that morning.
"She was a sad drinker," the woman next door told him, "and lately she has seldom been quite sober, and her bread is so bad that she has lost all her custom; and often has she said to me that she'd run off in the night before quarter-day came round again, for that she had nothing laid by to pay her rent. And I asked her where she'd go, and she said she didn't know, and didn't care. So yesterday the shop didn't open—that was nothing new, for often it was closed for the best part of the day lately—but I am surprised that she hasn't opened it yet; at least I should be, only I am sure she has run off."
"And the children!" cried Ralph, turning pale. "Ruth and Ollie—where are they?"