Here her steps were suddenly arrested, for she thought a form was issuing from the forest, at that interesting spot which her eyes had never ceased to watch. It proved to be no more than the passing shadow of a cloud denser than common, which threw the body of its darkness on the trees, and a portion of its outline on the ground near the margin of the wood. Just at this instant, the recollection that she had incautiously left the postern open flashed upon her mind, and, with feelings divided between husband and children, she commenced her return, in order to repair a neglect, to which habit, no less than prudence, imparted a high degree of culpability. The eyes of the mother, for the feelings of that sacred character were now powerfully uppermost, were fastened on the ground, as she eagerly picked her way along the uneven surface; and, so engrossed was her mind by the omission of duty with which she was severely reproaching herself, that they drank in objects without conveying distinct or intelligible images to her brain.
Notwithstanding the one engrossing thought of the moment, something met her eye that caused even the vacant organ to recoil, and every fibre in her frame to tremble with terror. There was a moment in which delirium nearly heightened terror to madness. Reflection came only when Ruth had reached the distance of many feet from the spot where this startling object had half-unconsciously crossed her vision. Then for a single and a fearful instant she paused, like one who debated on the course she ought to follow. Maternal love prevailed, and the deer of her own woods scarcely bounds with greater agility, than the mother of the sleeping and defenceless family now fled towards the dwellings. Panting and breathless she gained the postern, which was closed, with hands that performed their office more by instinct than in obedience to thought, and doubly and trebly barred.
For the first time in some minutes, Ruth now breathed distinctly and without pain. She strove to rally her thoughts, in order to deliberate on the course that prudence and her duty to Content, who was still exposed to the danger she had herself escaped, prescribed. Her first impulse was to give the established signal that was to recall the laborers from the field, or to awake the sleepers, in the event of an alarm; but better reflection told her that such a step might prove fatal to him who balanced in her affections against the rest of the world The struggle in her mind only ended, as she clearly and unequivocally caught a view of her husband, issuing from the forest, at the very point where he had entered. The return path unfortunately led directly past the spot where such sudden terror had seized her mind. She would have given worlds to have known how to apprize him of a danger with which her own imagination was full, without communicating the warning to other and terrible ears. The night was still, and though the distance was considerable, it was not so great as to render the chances of success desperate. Scarcely knowing what she did, and yet preserving, by a sort of instinctive prudence, the caution which constant exposure weaves into all our habits, the trembling woman made the effort.