ye go up there, Miss Sophy. Them
mischievous chaps will be after them pigs, fools as they be, so I
brought the poor dumb things out of the way of them, and you'd better be
shut of it too, miss."

"But, my sister, Master Pucklechurch! I must see to her."

"She'll be safe enow, miss. They don't lift a hand to folks, as I've
heard, but I'll do my duty by the beastises."

He certainly seemed more bent on his duty to the "beastises" than that
to his wife or his master's wife; and yet, when Sophy proved deaf to all
his persuasions, he muttered, "Wilful must to water, and Wilful must
drink. But, ah! yon beastises be safe enow, poor dumb things, so I'll
e'en go after the maid, to see as her runs into no harm. She be a fine,
spirity maid whatsome'er."

So on he plodded, in the rear of Sophy, who, with eager foot, had
crossed the sloping home-field, and gained the straw yard, all deserted
now except by the fowls. The red game cock was scratching and crowing
there, as if the rabble rout were not plainly to be seen straggling
along the drive.

Still there was time for Sophy to fly to the house, where, at the door,
she met Mrs Pucklechurch.

"Bless my soul and honour, Miss Sophy. You here! The mistress, she's
gone with the children to Mr Pearson's, and you'll be in time to catch
her up if you look sharp enough."

"I shall not run away. Some one ought to try to protect my brother's
property."

"Now, don't 'ee, don't 'ee, Miss Sophy. You'll do no good with that
lot, and only get hurt yourself."

But Sophy was not to be persuaded. She went manfully out to the gate,
and shut it in the face of the disguised men, who came swaggering up
towards it.

"What's your business here?" she demanded, in her young, clear voice.

"Come, young woman," said a man in a false nose and a green smock-frock,
but whose voice had a town sound in it, and whose legs and feet were
those of no rustic, "clear out of the way, or it will be the worse for
you!"

"What have you to do here on my brother's ground?" again asked Sophy,
standing there in her straw bonnet and pink cotton frock.

"We don't want to do nothing, miss,"--and that voice she knew for Dan
Hewlett's--"but to have down that new-fangled machine as takes away the
work from the poor."

"What work of yours did it ever take away, Dan Hewlett?" said she.
"Look here! it makes bread cheaper--"

She had thought before of the chain of arguments, but they would not
come in the f