But as he still held her in his arms, and she pushed him feebly away, Elsie's clear young voice was heard in the kitchen below, calling hurriedly.
"Ishmael," she cried, "little Willie Nutkin is lost in the old quarry behind the cave, and we want you. Nutkin, and the squire, and everybody; we all want you."
[CHAPTER VII.]
HER LAST COMMAND.
ISHMAEL loosed his hold of his mother, but he did not rise from the place where he was kneeling beside her. A faint gleam coming up from the room below lit up Ruth's face as she looked earnestly and searchingly into his.
"I can't quit my mother," he answered, speaking in a loud but forced tone; "she's dyin', and if I go, maybe I shall never see her again."
"Ishmael," said Ruth, "thee has never forgiven Nutkin yet."
"No," he muttered, "no; it's been too much to forgive. He drove me away from home; and I'd have been a man by now, instead of a wastrel, if he hadn't been hard on me. Thee 'd not ha' worked thyself to death, mother, if it hadn't been for him. No; I've not forgiven him. Let him find his little lad for himself!"
"You must come, Ishmael," called Elsie. "Willie's been missing five hours or more; and we can hear him crying in the old quarry; and nobody knows it like you do; and the opening's too small for a man to crawl through, and it's no use sending in a boy, if any of them would go alone. Oh, come quickly! Suppose he strayed into one of those pools you told me of and was drowned. Come down this minute!"
But Ishmael did not move; holding his mother's hand between his own, and gazing mournfully into her beseeching face.