For while the dispute was at its loudest and hottest, Stead had taken
Rusha by the hand, made a sign to Patience, and the four deserted
children had quietly gone away together into the copsewood that led
to the little glen where the brook ran, and where was the cave that
Steadfast looked on as his special charge. Rusha, frightened by the
loud voices and angry gestures, had begun to cry, and beg she might
not be given to anyone, but stay with her Patty and Stead.

"And so you shall, my pretty," said Steadfast, sitting down on the
stump of a tree, and taking her on his knee, while Toby nuzzled up to
them.

"Then you think we can go on keeping ourselves, and not letting them
part us," said Patience, earnestly. If I have done the house work
all this time, and we have the fields, and all the beasts. We have
only lost the house, and I could never bear to live there again," she
added, with a shudder.

"No," said Steadfast, "it is too near the road while these savage
fellows are about. Besides--" and there he checked himself and
added, "I'll tell you, Patty. Do you remember the old stone cot down
there in the wood?"

"Where the old hermit lived in the blind Popish times?"

"Aye. We'll live there. No soldiers will ever find us out there,
Patty."

"Oh! oh! that is good," said Patience. "We shall like that, shan't
we, Rusha?"