It was less wonderful, the suspicionless conduct of the villagers towards Ruth, than the calm prudence with which she conducted all the details relating to her secret; her poverty was well known, yet she daily procured a double portion of food, which was won by double labour; she toiled in the fields for the meed of oaten cake and potatoes, or she dashed out in a crazy boat on the wide ocean to win with the dredgers the spoils of the oyster beds that lie on its bosom; the daintier fare was for the unhappy guest, and daily did she wander among the rocks, when the tides were retiring, for the shell-fish which they had flung among the fissures in their retreat, which she bore, exhausted with fatigue, to her home—and which her lovely child, now rising into womanhood, prepared for the luxurious meal; it was wonderful too, the settled prudence of the little maiden, who spoke nothing of the food which was borne from their frugal board; if she suspected the secret of her mother, she respected it too much to allow others to discover that she did so.
Many sad hours did Ruth pass in the robber’s cave; and many times, by conversing with him upon the subject of her destiny, did she seek to alleviate the pangs its recollection gave her; but the result of such discussions were by no means favourable to her hopes; Rhys had acknowledged that his threat had originated in malice, and that he intended to alarm and subdue, but not to the extent that he had effected: “I knew well,” said he, “that disgrace alone would operate upon you as I wished, for I foresaw you would glory in the thought of nobly sustained misfortune; I meant to degrade you with the lowest; I meant to attribute to you what I now painfully experience to be the vilest of the vices; I intended to tell you, you were destined to be a thief, but I could not utter the words I had arranged, and I was struck with horror at those I heard involuntarily proceeding from my lips; I would have recalled them but I could not; I would have said, ‘Maiden, I did but jest,’ but there was something that seemed to withhold my speech and press upon my soul, ‘so as thou hast said shall this thing be’—yet take comfort, my own fortunes have ever deceived me, and doubtlessly ever will, for I feel as if I should one day return to this cave and make it my final home.”