There was a pleasant stir and agitation in Ruth's mind, yet there was a vague disquiet mingled with the pleasure. Ishmael was about to cease to be a child, and was stepping into the perils and duties of boyhood, that dangerous crisis in which she had seemed to lose all her other children. He was about to escape from under her wing and flutter away; like these little half-fledged hedge-sparrows, which were twittering and hovering all along the thorn-bushes. Her other boys and girls seemed to care no more for their poor home than the nestlings of this year will care for the old nest next spring. But Ishmael was not like the others, who had all taken after their father, and only thought of their mother as a drudge to slave for them.
She had not been as good a mother to them, she said to herself; but then she had not believed in God as she did now. How marvellously good He had been to her to give her such a son as Ishmael, when she was a weary, worn-down, grey-haired woman!
Mrs. Chipchase nearly filled Ruth's large brown pitcher with buttermilk, and gave her two or three spoonfuls of tea in a screw of paper. Ruth was a favourite with her, as being a quiet, harmless old woman, and she lingered a moment at the door to speak a word or two to her.
"Mind Ishmael's here in time of a morning," she said, "for the master's very particular."
"I'm sure," answered Ruth falteringly, "as I don't know how to thank you and the master for taking him. It 'll be the makin' of him, I know; and he's a good lad, ma'am, God bless him!"
It was seldom Ruth uttered so many words together, except to Ishmael; but her heart was full.
The farmhouse was a homely place, but there was a rude abundance about it, which she seemed to feel for the first time, as if she also had a share in it. She stood at the kitchen door, and could see the big table at which Ishmael would eat, where a plough-boy was now sitting, deeply absorbed in the contents of a huge basin, which had been filled up from a big iron pot hanging a little way above the fire. The smell of the good broth reached her, and seemed to promise that Ishmael would grow a strong, hale man, when he could always satisfy his hunger.
"'He hath satisfied the hungry with good things,'" she murmured to herself, as she took up her brown pitcher, and with a curtsey to the mistress turned to go away.
"Ruth Medway!" shouted a loud, rough voice from the far end of the farmyard, "Nutkin the keeper's been and hauled Ishmael to gaol for stealing pheasant's eggs in the wood!"
"There's the master come home!" cried Mrs. Chipchase. "Whatever is he shouting, Ruth?"