r to Lady Elmwood's crops just as all their own were cut, and as,
of course, Master Brown had chosen the finest weather, every one went
in fear and trembling for their own, and Oates and others grumbled so
bitterly at having to work without wage, that Blane asked if they called
their own houses and land nothing.

There was fresh grumbling too that the food sent out to the labourers in
the field was not as it used to be, good beef and mutton, but only bread
and very hard cheese, and bowls of hasty pudding, with thin, sour small
beer to wash it down. Oates growled and vowed he would never come again
to be so scurvily used; and perhaps no one guessed that my lady was far
more impoverished than her tenants, and had a hard matter to supply even
such fare as this.

Happily the weather lasted good long enough to save the Kentons' little
crop, though there was a sad remembrance of the old times, when the
church bell gave the signal at sunrise for all the harvesters to come to
church for the brief service, and then to start fair in their gleaning.
The bell did still ring, but there were no prayers. The vicar had never
come back, and it was reported that he had been sent to the plantations
in America. There was no service on Sunday nearer than Bristol. It
was the churchwardens' business to find a minister, and of these, poor
Kenton was dead, and the other, Master Cliffe, was not likely to do
anything that might put the parish to expense.

Goodman Blane, and some of the other more seriously minded folk used to
walk into Bristol to church when the weather was tolerably fine. If it
were wet, the little stream used to flood the lower valley so that
it was not possible to get across. Steadfast was generally one of the
party. Patience could not go, as it was too far for Rusha to walk, or
for the baby to be carried.

Once, seeing how much she wished to go again to church, Stead undertook
to mind the children, the cattle, and the dinner in her place; but
what work he found it! When he tried to slice the onions for the broth,
little Ben toddled off, and had to be caught lest he should tumble into
the river. Then Rusha got hold of the knife, cut her hand, and rolled it
up in her Sunday frock, and Steadfast, thinking he had got a small bit
of rag, tied it up in Patience's round cap, but that he did not know
till afterwards, only that baby had got out again, and after some search
was found asleep cuddled up close to the old sow. And so it