"Rascals! How often am I to tell you that this is not to be made a
place for your plunder and slaughter," thundered the new comer,
rising in his stirrups, and striking at the troopers with the flat of
his sword, so that they fell back with growls about "soldiers must
live," and "curs of peasants."
The younger brother had leapt from his horse, and was trying to help
Jephthah raise poor Kenton's head, but it fell back helplessly, deaf
to the screams of "Father, father," with which Patience and Rusha had
darted out, as a cloud of smoke began to rise from the straw yard.
Poor children, they screamed again at what was before them. Rusha
ran wildly away at sight of the soldiers, but Patience, with the baby
in her arms, came up. She did not see her father at first, and only
cried aloud to the gentlemen.
"O sir, don't let them do it. If they take our cows, the babe will
die. He has no mother!"
"They shall not, the villains! Brother, can nothing be done?" cried
the youth, with a face of grief and horror. And then there was a
great confusion.
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