"Ishmael's time's up to-morrow," she said, in a tremulous voice one evening, with a deep anxiety she was striving to conceal.
"Ay," answered Humphrey, slowly, "that's what Nutkin says. So I up to the Hall this mornin' early, and I says to th' squire, 'Squire, I've been a honest man all my life; and I've worked on your hedges many a year; and I'm not a-goin' to harbour no poacher in my home. There's that lad o' mine, that's been a disgrace to me, a-comin' out o' the county gaol to-morrow. He'll niver set his foot o'er my door-sill, I promise you.
"The squire says, 'As you choose, Humphrey. Go into the kitchen, and get a draught o' ale.' And good ale it was; a sight better nor that at the Labour in Vain. I'm not the man to drink the squire's good ale, and go agen him in any way."
"Thou 'lt never turn the lad adrift on the world?" cried Ruth.
"Adrift! He's big enough to shift for himself," said Humphrey, doggedly. "The squire could get us turned out o' here neck-and-crop if he chosen; and what 'ud become of me, if we had to go to the workhouse? The squire won't have no poacher harboured close to his woods: and who's to save me from goin' into the house in my old age, eh? Me, as can't live without my drop o' goad ale, often and regular. I tasted the beer in the workhouse once. No; Ishmael niver sets his foot o'er that door-sill agen! And now thou knows it, and can make the best on it."
Ruth had a sleepless night again, as if the first bitterness of her sorrow had come back upon her with tenfold power. Early as the dawn came the next morning, she was up before it, making a bundle of all Ishmael's coarse clothing, the scanty outfit she had scraped together for him three months ago, when he was going out to earn his own living. Mrs. Chipchase was taking her butter to market in the county town, and had offered to carry Ruth with her in the gig, that she might meet Ishmael at the gate-of the county gaol.
She saw little enough of the dusty high road along which they drove, or of the bustling streets thronged with a concourse of market people. It was only when she came within sight of the gaol that she seemed to wake up from a brown study and get her wits about her again. It stood outside the town, amid green fields; a large square ugly building, surrounded by strong and black stone walls. Small round windows, closely barred and grated, looked out like hoodwinked eyes over the lonely fields.
Ruth felt herself shivering, though the September sun was shining in an unclouded sky, as she looked up, and wondered which one of those gloomy windows had lighted Ishmael's cell. But before she could reach the heavy gate, she saw sauntering down the path from the gaol, creeping with sluggish footsteps and a bowed down head, her boy, Ishmael himself.
"Mother," he cried, "mother!"