"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?"
"And," added Steadfast, "there is an old cowshed against the rock
down there, where we could harbour the beasts, for 'tis them that the
soldiers are most after.
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