Then she sat down on the lowest step of a horse-block below its open window, through which she could hear the hum of voices coming indistinctly to her ear. How long it was she did not know, but a gaily-dressed, flaunting young woman came to her at length, and spoke in a pitying tone.
"Don't you take on, Mrs. Medway," she said; "you're a good woman, I know, but luck's agen you. Nutkin was very hard on him; and they've give him three months in the county gaol."
"Is it my Ishmael?" she asked, looking up with a wandering and vacant expression in her eyes.
"To be sure," answered the young woman. "'Ishmael Medway, thirteen years of age; three months for stealing pheasant's eggs.'"
Ruth heard no more, saw nothing more. But bending forward, as if to lift herself upon her feet, she fell heavily on the pavement, in a deep swoon. There was a crowd clustering about her, when Ishmael was marched out of the inn by the policeman; he looked round in vain for a last glance at his mother's face.
"It were best for her to go away," he said to himself, with a sob; "but I should ha' liked to ha' seen her again."
He felt as if he were going to die in the prison to which they were sending him, and as if he should never see his mother's face again. His young soul was in a bewilderment of grief and amazement. He had heard himself described as an incorrigible thief and poacher. Everything had gone against him: the notorious character of his father and elder brothers; his own admission of having haunted the woods until he knew every spot in them; even his tearful confession that he knew he had no right to the eggs, and did not know why he should take them then for the first time. All had been against him.
He was going away to gaol, a shame and disgrace to his poor mother. To-day too; the very day he was to have begun to earn his own living, and relieve her from the burden he had been upon her. He would be a worse trouble to her than any of the others had been, even than his father, who came home every night either drunk or angry. What could he ever do to make it up to her now? He could do nothing better than to die.
It was late before Ruth reached home in the evening, and she found her husband awaiting her return, sober and sullen; a hard, tyrannical old man, who looked upon her as a silent and spiritless drudge.
"So," he exclaimed, as she stepped feebly and weariedly over the threshold, "this is what it's come to: thy fine lad's got hisself into gaol! This comes o' book-learnin' and psalm-singin', eh? He brings shame on all on us. Ne'er a one on us was iver up afore the justices till now; and they say at the Labour in Vain as he's got three months. And serve him right, I say. I takes sides with Nutkin, and th' squire, and the justices, as are ivery one on 'em gentlemen. If I'd a bit o' land, I'd hang every poacher as set foot on it. And a young little lad o' his age! What 'll he be when he's a man? I'd ha' sent him to Botany Bay, I would. I'm on the side o' justice. And if ever Ishmael crosses o'er that door-sill agen, I'll thresh him to within an inch o' his life! I'll break ivery bone in his body! And thine, too," he shouted, with growing fury, "if thee don't open that cursed mouth o' thine, and say somethink!"