they take me."

Love found it impossible to move Robert from his resolution. He bade
him good-night and turned away.

CHAPTER EIGHTEEN.

WHAT BEFELL SOME OF THEM.

For half-an-hour, safely hidden behind a hedge, Robert Purcas watched
the door of Johnson's cottage, until at last he saw the priest come out,
and go up the lane for a short distance. Then he stopped, looked round,
and gave a low, peculiar whistle. A man jumped down from the bank on
the other side of the lane, with whom the priest held a long, low-toned
conversation. Robert knew he could not safely move before they were out
of the way. At length they parted, and he just caught the priest's
final words.

"Good: we shall have them all afore the even."

"That you shall not, if God speed me!" said Robert to himself.

The priest went up the lane towards Bentley, and the man who had been
talking with him took the opposite way to Thorpe. When his footsteps
had died away, Robert crept out from the shelter of the hedge, and made
his way in the dark to Johnson's cottage. A rap on the door brought
Cissy.

"Who is it, please?" she said, "because I can't see."

"It is Robin Purcas, Cis. I want a word with thy father."

"Come in, Robin!" called Johnson's voice from within. "I could see thou
wert bursting with some news not to be spoken in the presence but just
gone. What ails thee, man?"

"Ay, I was, and I promised to tell you. Jack, thou must win away ere
daylight, or the Bailiff shall be on thee. Set these little ones in
safe guard, and hie thee away with all the speed thou mayest."

"Is it come so near?" said Johnson, gravely.

"Father, you're not going nowhere without me!" said Cissy, creeping up
to him, and slipping her hand in his. "You can leave Will and Baby with
Neighbour Ursula: but I'll not be left unless you bid me--and you won't
Father? You can never do without me? I must go where you go."

"She's safe, I reckon," said Robert, answering Johnson's look: "they'd
never do no mischief to much as she. Only maybe she'd be more out of
reach if I took her with me. They'll seek to breed her up in a convent,
most like."

Cissy felt her father's hand tighten upon hers.

"I'm not going with you, nor nobody!" said she. "I'll go with Father.
Nobody'll get me nowhere else, without they carry me."

Johnson seemed to wake up, as if till then he had scarcely understood
what it all meant.

"God bless thee for the warning, lad!" he sa