Ruth was half-way towards the impatient Mr. Bellingham when her old friend called her back.  He longed to give her a warning of the danger that he thought she was in, and yet he did not know how.  When she came up, all he could think of to say was a text; indeed, the language of the Bible was the language in which he thought, whenever his ideas went beyond practical everyday life into expressions of emotion or feeling.  “My dear, remember the devil goeth about as a roaring lion, seeking whom he may devour; remember that, Ruth.”

The words fell on her ear, but gave no definite idea.  The utmost they suggested was the remembrance of the dread she felt as a child when this verse came into her mind, and how she used to imagine a lion’s head with glaring eyes peering out of the bushes in a dark shady part of the wood, which, for this reason, she had always avoided, and even now could hardly think of without a shudder.  She never imagined that the grim warning related to the handsome young man who awaited her with a countenance beaming with love, and tenderly drew her hand within his arm.

The old man sighed as he watched them away.  “The Lord may help her to guide her steps aright.  He may.  But I’m afeard she’s treading in perilous places.  I’ll put my missis up to going to the town and getting speech of her, and telling her a bit of her danger.  An old motherly woman like our Mary will set about it better nor a stupid fellow like me.”

The poor old labourer prayed long and earnestly that night for Ruth.  He called it “wrestling for her soul;” and I think that his prayers were heard, for “God judgeth not as man judgeth.”

Ruth went on her way, all unconscious of the dark phantoms of the future that were gathering around her; her melancholy turned, with the pliancy of childish years, at sixteen not yet lost, into a softened manner which was infinitely charming.  By-and-by she cleared up into sunny happiness.  The evening was still and full of mellow light, and the new-born summer was so delicious that, in common with all young creatures, she shared its influence and was glad.  They stood together at the top of a steep ascent, “the hill” of the hundred.  At the summit there was a level space, sixty or seventy yards square, of unenclosed and broken ground, over which the golden bloom of the gorse cast a rich hue, while its delicious scent perfumed the fresh and nimble air.  On one side of this common, the ground sloped down to a clear bright pond, in which were mirrored the rough sand-cliffs that rose abrupt on the opposite bank; hundreds of martens found a home there, and were now wheeling over the transparent water, and dipping in their wings in their evening sport.  Indeed, all sorts of birds seemed to haunt the lonely pool; the water-wagtails were scattered around its margin, the linnets perched on the topmost sprays of the gorse-bushes, and other hidden warblers sang their vespers on the uneven ground