"O don't let him take Croppie," cried Patience. "O sir, not the
cows, or baby will die, and we can't make the butter."

"You see, Master Brown," explained Blane, "it is butter as is their
chief stand-by. Poor Dame Kenton, as was took last spring, was the
best dairywoman in the parish, and this little maid takes after her.
Their kine are their main prop, but there's the mare, there's not
much good that she can do them."

"Let us look!" said the steward. "A sorry jade enow! But I don't
know but she will serve our turn better than the cow. There was a
requisition, as they have the impudence to call it, from the
Parliament lot that took off all our horses, except old grey Dobbin
and the colt, and this beast may come in handy to draw the wood. So
I'll take her, and you may think yourself well off, and thank my Lady
I'm so easy with you. 'Be not hard on the orphans,' she said.
'Heaven forbid, my Lady,' says I, 'but I must look after your
interests.'"

The children hung round old Whitefoot, making much of her for the
last time, and Patience and Rusha both cried sadly when she was led
away; and it was hard to believe Master Blane, who told them it was
best for Whitefoot as well as for themselves, since they would find
it a hard matter to get food even for the more necessary animals in
the winter, and the poor beast would soon be skin and bone; while for
themselves the donkey could carry all they wanted to market; and it
might be more important than they understood to be thus regularly
accepted as tenants by the manor, so that no one could turn them out.

And Stead, remembering the cavern, knew that he ought to be thankful,