Taking a short cut round by the moat, and crossing the stile above the King's Arms, Ruth soon gained the river towing-path.
As the sights and sounds of the new day greeted her, she felt a little cheered. One must have been wretched indeed not to have found an agreeable distraction in the blithe bird chorus overhead, and the buzzing of the insects in the young grass studded with the early summer flowers, whose brilliant hues mirrored themselves in the clear water rippling up into tiny bays to her very feet.
What a bright merry world it was! How hard to think that it had in it any such thing as sorrow, or sin, or cruelty, or—and ere the shadow of the sad word could flit across her thoughts, a butterfly fell at her feet, and fluttering its poor bruised wings for a moment, lay motionless on the flinty path.
It was quite dead; and Ruth bent down, and gently placing it on a fresh young dock-leaf, laid it beneath a whitethorn bush, well hidden from all tread of hob-nailed shoes and ruthless plough-boy fingers; and leaving the soft west wind sweeping low through the sedge, to sigh it a dirge, she pursued her way, till a turn of the path brought her within sound of rushing water, and in a few minutes she reached a rough foot-bridge composed of one plank with a hand-rail of hazel-bough, which was thrown across a little rivulet, thickly screened at its furthermost end by a copse of elder and hazel bushes. Into this cool retreat a posse of old mother sheep had penetrated with their lambs, and lay in soft white heaps down to the water's very brink, not in the least put about at the apparition of Ruth, as she came to a standstill in the middle of the bridge to watch the pranks of the lambs with a half amused, half absent smile.
So absorbed was she, that the touch of a hand laid ever so gently on her shoulder caused her to start with surprise.
"Lawrence!" she exclaimed, for he it was.
"Ay, Lawrence!" he answered; "and good-morrow to you, Ruth! Were you coming to the Hall?"
She nodded.
Lawrence Lee prevaricates.
"To be sure then," he went on, "some good angel brought me by the copse, instead of going round by the weir, for in that case I should have missed you."