Ralph was "nane o' yer feckless fowk." Ralph's mother was sorely troubled; but just as she had yielded to his father's will in the days that were long gone by, so she yielded now to his.

The intervening years had brought an added gentleness to her character; they had made mellower her dear face, now ruddy and round, though wrinkled.

Folks said she had looked happier and happier, and had talked less and less, as the time wore on.

It had become a saying in Wythburn that the dame of Shoulthwaite Moss was never seen without a smile, and never heard to say more than "God bless you!" The tears filled her eyes when her son came to kiss her on the morning when he left her home for the first time, but she wiped them away with her housewife's apron, and dismissed him with her accustomed blessing.
Ralph Ray joined Cromwell's army against the second Charles at Dunbar, in 1650.

Between two and three years afterwards he returned to Wythburn city and resumed his old life on the fells.