Nanny Pierce was older in years, but
far more childish than Patience, and the life in this gulley seemed
to her utter solitude and desolation, and if Patience had been ten
times a poacher and a prelatist, she could not have helped making
friends with the only creature of her own kind within a mile. And
when Patience's experience with Ben and other older babes at rest in
the churchyard, had aided the poor little helpless woman through a
convulsion fit of her baby's before Goody Grace could arrive, Peter
himself owned that "the Kenton wench was good for somewhat," though
he continued to think Steadfast's great carefulness not to
transgress, only a further proof that "he was a deep one"--all the
more because he refused to let anyone but himself have a search for a
vanished polecat in "them holes," which Peter was persuaded contained
some mystery, though Steadfast laid it, and not untruly, on the
health of the young stock he kept penned in the caves, which were
all, he hoped, of which Peter was aware.
All this was harassing, but a greater trouble came in the second
winter.
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