His mother! How strangely his heart was softened towards himself and-all the world And Ruth! He could think of nothing without tenderness.

And Naomi! Ah! the sun was nigh two hours down, and Naomi would be waiting for him at home, for she was as one that had no life without his presence.

What would befall if he were taken from her?
That thought was like the sweeping of a dead hand across his face.

So his body stooped as he walked with his staff, and his head was held down, and his step was heavy.
Thus the old lion came on to the market-place, where the people were gathered together as wolves to devour him.

On he came, seeing nothing and hearing nothing and fearing nothing, and in the silence of the first surprise at sight of him his footsteps were heard on the stones.
Naomi heard them.
Then it seemed to Naomi's ears that a voice fell, as it were, out of the air, crying, "God has given him into our hands!" After that all sounds seemed to Naomi to fade far-away, and to come to her muffled and stifled by the distance.
But with a loud shout, as if it had been a shout out of one great throat, the crowd encompassed Israel crying, "Kill him!" Israel stopped, and lifted his heavy face upon the people; but neither did he cry out nor make any struggle for his life.