"I'm ill, Humphrey," she answered, meekly; "I swoonded away dead when they told me on it."
"Swoonded!" he repeated, sneeringly. "Don't tell me. It's only born ladies as can do that, not a workin' woman like thee. But swound or no swound, just hearken to my words. Ishmael niver sets his foot over yon door-sill. I'll harbour no poachers or gaol-birds under my roof."
Very quietly Ruth went on lighting the fire and boiling the kettle. It was a relief to her to be at home again, out of the stir and buzz of the little town, and out of sight of inquisitive eyes. Even her husband's threats and jeers could not altogether spoil the sense of having found rest at her own fireside.
And when he was gone, the unbroken silence of the dark hut suited her. Her harassed soul could recollect itself now. Even in dense darkness our eyes, by eager gazing, begin to see a little, and so in the deepest trouble the soul, by its earnest yearning towards God, begins to discern light. As Ruth sat alone in the dark hut, there came back to her memory the old story in the Bible, from which she had taken a name for her youngest boy. She thought of Hagar in the wilderness, a runaway slave, fleeing from her mistress, and how God heard her affliction; and how once more she was driven into the wilderness, wandering up and down homeless, until her son Ishmael was dying of thirst, and his mother cast him under a shrub to die, and went away out of sight—a good way off—lest she should see the death of her child; and how God heard the voice of the lad, and once again sent His angel to succour Hagar.
Ruth shut her aching and swollen eyelids with a feeling of comfort and awe, as she whispered, "'Thou God seest me.'"
Yes, God saw; God knew. There was unspeakable consolation in that. She felt no bitterness of heart, even against Nutkin. She had nothing to say against the law that had sent Ishmael to prison. She did not try to justify her boy; he had done wrong, though in lightheartedness and thoughtlessness, not in malice. None of these things occupied her simple mind. God had seen all; and He knew all about it. It was in that thought she was to find consolation and strength. She must endure, as seeing Him who is invisible.
[CHAPTER V.]
TURNED ADRIFT.
THE hay-harvest and the corn-harvest, with their long hours of labour in the sunshine, passed by; and Ruth was one of the busiest of the women working on Chipchase's farm. No one saw much change in her, for she had always been a silent, inoffensive woman, minding her own business, and leaving other folks alone.
But when harvest was ended, and the shooting season begun, the term of Ishmael's imprisonment was nearly over. Nutkin and his assistant-keepers were very busy about the woods, watching them all night, whilst all day long the crash of guns could be heard far and near. It was not a good time for Ishmael to be coming home; there was too much to put her husband in mind of his threats, and to keep his anger hot against his son. But surely he could not be so hard as to turn Ishmael out of doors when the law let him go free!