Free Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell

being wisely furnished with an
interpretation, was found to mean King Charles in the oak.
    Near this comfortable, quiet, unfrequented inn, there was another
pond, for household and farm-yard purposes, from which the cattle
were drinking, before returning to the fields after they had been
milked. Their very motions were so lazy and slow, that they served
to fill up the mind with the sensation of dreamy rest. Ruth and Mr
Bellingham plunged through the broken ground to regain the road near
the wayside inn. Hand-in-hand, now pricked by the far-spreading
gorse, now ankle-deep in sand; now pressing the soft, thick heath,
which should make so brave an autumn show; and now over wild thyme
and other fragrant herbs, they made their way, with many a merry
laugh. Once on the road, at the summit, Ruth stood silent, in
breathless delight at the view before her. The hill fell suddenly
down into the plain, extending for a dozen miles or more. There was
a clump of dark Scotch firs close to them, which cut clear against
the western sky, and threw back the nearest levels into distance.
The plain below them was richly wooded, and was tinted by the young
tender hues of the earliest summer, for all the trees of the wood had
donned their leaves except the cautious ash, which here and there
gave a soft, pleasant greyness to the landscape. Far away in the
champaign were spires, and towers, and stacks of chimneys belonging
to some distant hidden farm-house, which were traced downwards
through the golden air by the thin columns of blue smoke sent up from
the evening fires. The view was bounded by some rising ground in deep
purple shadow against the sunset sky.
    When first they stopped, silent with sighing pleasure, the air seemed
full of pleasant noises; distant church-bells made harmonious music
with the little singing-birds near at hand; nor were the lowings of
the cattle, nor the calls of the farm-servants discordant, for the
voices seemed to be hushed by the brooding consciousness of the
Sabbath. They stood loitering before the house, quietly enjoying the
view. The clock in the little inn struck eight, and it sounded clear
and sharp in the stillness.
    "Can it be so late?" asked Ruth.
    "I should not have thought it possible," answered Mr Bellingham.
"But, never mind, you will be at home long before nine. Stay, there
is a shorter road, I know, through the fields; just wait a moment,
while I go in and ask the exact way." He dropped Ruth's arm, and went
into the public-house.
    A gig had been slowly toiling up the sandy hill behind, unperceived
by the young couple, and now it reached the table-land, and was close
upon them as they separated. Ruth turned round, when the sound of the
horse's footsteps came distinctly as he reached the level. She faced
Mrs Mason!
    They were not ten—no, not five yards apart. At the same moment they
recognised each other, and, what was worse, Mrs Mason had clearly
seen, with her sharp, needle-like eyes, the attitude in which Ruth
had stood with the young man who had just quitted her. Ruth's hand
had been lying in his arm, and fondly held there by his other hand.
    Mrs Mason was careless about the circumstances of temptation into
which the girls entrusted to her as apprentices were thrown, but
severely intolerant if their conduct was in any degree influenced by
the force of these temptations. She called this intolerance "keeping
up the character of her establishment." It would have been a better
and more Christian thing, if she had kept up the character of her
girls by tender vigilance and maternal care.
    This evening, too, she was in an irritated state of temper. Her
brother had undertaken to drive her round by Henbury, in order to
give her the unpleasant information of the misbehaviour of her eldest
son, who was an assistant in a draper's shop in a neighbouring town.
She was full of indignation against want of steadiness, though not
willing to direct her indignation against the right object—her
ne'er-do-well darling.