It was a happy day for William when he drove through St. Goram with Ruth sitting by his side, and a happy day for Ruth when she alighted at the garden gate of their little cottage, and caught the light of a new hope in her brother's eyes.
It was a fresh start for them both, but to what it might lead they did not know--nor even desire to know.
No sooner had Ralph got settled in his new home than his brain began to work with renewed energy and vigour. He began making experiments again in all sorts of things. He built a rough shed at the back of the cottage, and turned it into a laboratory. He spent all his spare time in trying to reduce some of his theories to practice.
Moreover, he got impatient of the slow monotony of day labour. He did not grumble at the wages. Possibly he was paid as much as he deserved, but he did chafe at the horse-in-the-mill kind of existence. To do the same kind of thing day after day, and feel that an elephant or even an ass might be trained to do it just as well, was from his point of view humiliating. He wanted scope for the play of other faculties. He was not a mule, with so much physical strength that might be paid for at so much per hour; he was a man, with brains and intelligence and foresight. So he began to look round him for some other kind of work, and finally he took a small contract which kept him and three men he employed busy for two months, and left him at the end twenty-eight shillings and ninepence poorer than if he had stuck to his day labour.
He was nothing daunted, however. Indeed, he was a good deal encouraged. He was afraid at one time that he would come out of his contract in debt. He worked considerably more hours than when he was a day labourer, and he was inclined to think that he worked considerably harder, and there was less money at the end; but he was far happier because he was infinitely more interested.
Ruth, who had been educated in a school of the strictest economy, managed to make both ends meet, and with that she was quite content. She had great faith in her brother. She liked to see him busy with his experiments. It kept him out of mischief, if nothing else. But that was not all. She believed in his ultimate success. In what direction she did not know, but he was not commonplace and humdrum. He was not willing to jog along in the same ruts from year's end to year's end without knowing the reason why. She rejoiced in his impatience and discontent, for she recognised that there was something worthy and even heroic behind. Discontent under certain circumstances and conditions might be noble--almost divine. She wished sometimes that she had more of his spirit.