ph would run to the next
cottage and get help. People would come when they knew the soldiers were
gone.

There was nothing but Steadfast's leathern cap to hold the milk, and
he felt as if his fingers had no strength to draw it; but when he had
brought his sister enough to quiet little Ben, she recollected Rusha,
and besought him to find her. She could hardly sit still and feed the
little one while she heard his voice shouting in vain for the child,
and all the time she was starting with the fancy that she saw her father
move, or heard a rustling in the straw where her brothers had laid him.

And when little Ben was satisfied, she was almost rent asunder between
her unwillingness to leave unwatched all that was left of her father,
still with that vain hopeless hope that he might revive, all could not
have been over in such a moment, and her terrible anxiety about her
little sister. Could she have run back into the burning house? Or could
those dreadful soldiers have killed her too?

Steadfast presently came back, having found some of the startled cattle
and driven them in, but no Rusha. Patience was sure she could find her,
and giving the baby to Steadfast ran out in the rain and smouldering
smoke calling her; all in vain. Then she heard voices and feet, and in a
fresh fright was about to turn again, when she knew Jephthah's call. He
had the child in his arms. He had been coming back from the village with
some neighbours, when they saw the poor little thing, crouched like a
hare in her form under a bush. No sooner did she hear them, than like a
hare, she started up to run away; but stumbling over the root of a tree,
she fell and lay, too much frightened even to scream till her brother
picked her up.

Kind motherly arms were about the poor girls. Old Goody Grace, who had
been with them through their mother's illness, had hobbled up on hearing
the terrible news. She looked like a witch, with a tall hat, short
cloak, and nose and chin nearly meeting, but all Elmwood loved and
trusted her, and the feeling of utter terror and helplessness almost
vanished when she kissed and grieved over the orphans, and took the
direction of things. She straightened and composed poor John Kenton's
limbs, and gave what comfort she could by assuring the children that the
passage must have been well nigh without pain. "And if ever there was
a good man fit to be taken suddenly, it was he," she added. "He be in
a happier place than this has be