would fain be out of it," replied the old man shrewdly.

It was a clamour that oppressed poor Patience and made her feel sick
with sorrow and noise. Everybody meant to be very kind and pitiful,
but there was a great deal too much of it, and they felt quite
bewildered by the offers made them. Farmer Mill's wife, of Elmwood
Cross, two miles off, was reported by her sister to want a stout girl
to help her, but there was no chance of her taking Rusha or the baby
as well as Patience. Goody Grace could not undertake the care of Ben
unless she could have Patience, because she was so often called away
from home, nor could she support them without the cows. Smith Blane
might have taken Stead, but his wife would not hear of being troubled
with Rusha. And Dame Oates might endure Rusha for the sake of a
useful girl like Patience, but certainly not the baby. It was an
utter Babel and confusion, and in the midst of it all, Patience crept
up to her brother who stood all the time like a stock, and said "Oh!
Stead, I cannot give up Ben to anyone. Cannot we all keep together?"

"Hush, Patty! That's what I mean to do, if you will stand by me," he
whispered, "wait till all the clack is over."

And there he waited with Patience by his side while the parish seemed
to be endlessly striving over them. If one woman seemed about to
make a proposal, half-a-dozen more fell on her and vowed that the
poor orphans would be starved and overworked; till she turned on the
foremost with "And hadn't your poor prentice lad to go before the
justices to shew the weals on his back?" "Aye, Joan Stubbs, and what
are you speaking up for but to get the poor children's sheep? Hey,
you now, Stead Kenton--Lack-a-day, where be they?"