"Thank God!" she always cried in the depth of her soul, when his sluggish and leaden feet were safely planted on the floor above.
[CHAPTER II.]
IN THE WOODS.
THE village schoolmistress, Mrs. Cliff, knew Ruth well, for she had employed her as her laundress from the time she had taken charge of the school; and no linen could be sweeter and whiter than that which Ruth washed, and dried in the sun on the gorse-bushes growing about the old lime-kiln. Ishmael had been one of the most constant and least troublesome of her scholars; and she was willing to mark her approbation of him by entrusting her little girl to his care for a long day in the Lime-kiln Woods.
The spring had come slowly on during May, and though it was already June the trees were not yet in full leaf. The delicate network of boughs overhead still kept many an open space for the sunshine to stream through; and the half-transparent leaves glistened with a green light. There was no thick tangle of burdock and thistle at present to catch their feet and hinder them as they strolled along under the hazel bushes. Here and there patches of bluebells covered the dusky earth; and in a few rare spots, known to Ishmael, white lilies of the valley were growing amid their broad green leaves. No very tall or massive forest trees grew in the thin soil; but now and then an elm or an oak, somewhat stunted, spread out its crooked branches; and there were clumps of larches, tall and thin, growing in close companionship, with their pointed tops piercing the sky.
And what a sky it was! A deeper blue than the bluebells under the hazels, with little clouds scattered over it whiter than the lilies, some of gleaming brightness, and others of a pearly grey, floating lazily along before the soft fresh westerly wind. Ishmael felt a pride in it all, as if the woods, and the flowers, and the sky belonged to himself.
"Sit down and listen, Elsie," he said, throwing himself under an elm tree, and holding his breath for very pleasure, as he strained his ear to catch the different notes of the birds, singing in these early hours of the sunny day.
There was the merry whistle of the starling—did Elsie hear that?—and the deep, soft cooing of the wood-pigeons from their great clumsy nests in the fir trees; and the harsh cry of the jay, as he flitted across the open space between some trees, displaying his bright blue wing-feathers. Oftener than any other note, except the chirp of the sparrows, came the deep, grave caw of the rooks, as they sailed by high in the air. Or was not the clear merry song of the thrushes and blackbirds in the bushes all about them the most frequent sound of them all?
But Ishmael knew also the note of the kingfisher and the woodpecker, and the plaintive cry of the lapwing, and the call of the little moor-lion in the swampy ground, overgrown with water weeds and tall bulrushes. Every sound, loud and low, of the busy woodlands was known to him; but they had never been so sweet to him as now, when, for the first time, he had a companion gazing admiringly into his face as he displayed his knowledge. Elsie was far before him in school; but here she sat with wide-open wondering eyes, drinking in every word he spoke.
