"Only be quiet. There's nothing for any one to fear. If they do harm, it is to things, not people. I only go away for the sake of this child! No, Mary dear, nobody will hurt you. You are going for a nice early walk with mamma and baby and Rachel. You,"--to the maids--"may follow if you will feel safer so, but I do not believe there is any real danger to you. Betty Pucklechurch, please tell your husband that I do beg him not to resist. It would be of no use, his master would not wish it, only if he will take care that the poor cattle and horses come to no harm." "He have gone to drive 'em off already to Longacre," said Betty. "I tell'd he, he'd better stand by master's goods, but he be a man for his cows, he be." "Quite right of him," said Mrs Carbonel. "Have you baby's bottle, Rachel? Now, Mary dear, here's your piece of seed cake." The shouts and singing sounded alarmingly as if approaching by this time, and little Mary listened and said, "Funny mens singing." It was very loud as the fugitives gained the verandah, where Tirzah waited with an angry light in her black eyes. "Oh! won't I give it to Joe Todd," she cried, "for turning against the best friend Hoglah ever had--or me either." Mary, carrying her little Mary, and trying to keep a smile that might reassure her, followed Tirzah across the orchard on the opposite side of the house. They had to scramble through a gap in the hedge; Tirzah went over first, breaking it down further, then the baby was put into her arms, and Rachel came next, receiving Mary from her mother, who was telling her how funny it was to get over poor papa's fence, all among the apple trees, and here was Don jumping after them. Don, the Clumber spaniel, wanted a bit of Mary's cake, and this and her mother's jump down from the hedge and over the ditch, happily distracted her attention, and made her laugh, while the three maids were screaming that here were the rascals, hundreds of them a-coming up the drive; they saw them over the apple trees when on the top of the hedge, and heard their horrid shouts. "Oh, the nasty villains, with black faces and all!" Mrs Carbonel dreaded these cries almost as much as the mob itself for her delicate child, and went on talking to her and saying all the nursery rhymes that would come into her head, walking as fast as she could without making her pace felt, though the little maid--albeit small and thin for five years old--was a heavy weight to carry for some distance over a rough stubble field for unaccustomed arms. Tirzah had the baby, who happily was too young to be even disturbed in his noontide sleep, and Rachel Mole had tarried with the other maids, unable to resist her curiosity to see what was doing at the farm since they were out of reach.