Ruth by Elizabeth Gaskell Page A

peeping out of her room, after she had written her little
pencil-note, to see if the outer door was still obstructed. There
he stood, motionless, enjoying his pipe, and looking out into the
darkness which gathered thick with the coming night. The fumes of
the tobacco were carried by the air into the house, and brought back
Ruth's sick headache. Her energy left her; she became stupid and
languid, and incapable of spirited exertion; she modified her plan
of action, to the determination of asking Mr Bellingham to take her
to Milham Grange, to the care of her humble friends, instead of to
London. And she thought, in her simplicity, that he would instantly
consent when he had heard her reasons.
    She started up. A carriage dashed up to the door. She hushed her
beating heart, and tried to stop her throbbing head to listen. She
heard him speaking to the landlord, though she could not distinguish
what he said; heard the jingling of money, and, in another moment, he
was in the room, and had taken her arm to lead her to the carriage.
    "Oh, sir! I want you to take me to Milham Grange," said she, holding
back. "Old Thomas would give me a home."
    "Well, dearest, we'll talk of all that in the carriage; I am sure
you will listen to reason. Nay, if you will go to Milham you must go
in the carriage," said he, hurriedly. She was little accustomed to
oppose the wishes of any one—obedient and docile by nature, and
unsuspicious and innocent of any harmful consequences. She entered
the carriage, and drove towards London.

Chapter V - In North Wales
*
    The June of 18— had been glorious and sunny, and full of flowers;
but July came in with pouring rain, and it was a gloomy time for
travellers and for weather-bound tourists, who lounged away the days
in touching up sketches, dressing flies, and reading over again for
the twentieth time the few volumes they had brought with them. A
number of the
Times
, five days old, had been in constant demand in
all the sitting-rooms of a certain inn in a little mountain village
of North Wales, through a long July morning. The valleys around were
filled with thick cold mist, which had crept up the hillsides till
the hamlet itself was folded in its white dense curtain, and from the
inn-windows nothing was seen of the beautiful scenery around. The
tourists who thronged the rooms might as well have been "wi' their
dear little bairnies at hame;" and so some of them seemed to think,
as they stood, with their faces flattened against the window-panes,
looking abroad in search of an event to fill up the dreary time.
How many dinners were hastened that day, by way of getting through
the morning, let the poor Welsh kitchen-maid say! The very village
children kept indoors; or if one or two more adventurous stole out
into the land of temptation and puddles, they were soon clutched back
by angry and busy mothers.
    It was only four o'clock, but most of the inmates of the inn thought
it must be between six and seven, the morning had seemed so long—so
many hours had passed since dinner—when a Welsh car, drawn by two
horses, rattled briskly up to the door. Every window of the ark was
crowded with faces at the sound; the leathern curtains were undrawn
to their curious eyes, and out sprang a gentleman, who carefully
assisted a well-cloaked-up lady into the little inn, despite the
landlady's assurances of not having a room to spare.
    The gentleman (it was Mr Bellingham) paid no attention to the
speeches of the hostess, but quietly superintended the unpacking of
the carriage, and paid the postillion; then, turning round with his
face to the light, he spoke to the landlady, whose voice had been
rising during the last five minutes:
    "Nay, Jenny, you're strangely altered, if you can turn out an old
friend on such an evening as this. If I remember right, Pen trê
Voelas is twenty miles across the bleakest mountain road I ever saw."
    "Indeed, sir, and I did not know you; Mr Bellingham, I believe.
Indeed, sir, Pen trê Voelas is not