l door,
Patience standing there crying, with the baby in her arms, and Rusha
holding her apron, and an elderly man whom Stead knew as old Lady
Elmwood's steward talking to the other men, who seemed to be persuading
him to something.

As soon as Stead appeared, the other children ran up to him, and Rusha
hid herself behind him, while Patience said "O Stead, Stead, he has come
to turn us all out! Don't let him!"

"Nay, nay, little wench, not so fast," said the steward, not unkindly.
"I am but come to look after my Lady's interests, seeing that we heard
your poor father was dead, God have mercy on his soul (touching his hat
reverently), and his son gone off to the wars, and nothing but a pack of
children left."

"But 'tis all poor father's," muttered Stead, almost dumbfounded.

"It is held under the manor of Elmwood," explained the steward, "on the
tenure of the delivery of the prime beast on the land on the demise of
lord or tenant, and three days' service in hay and harvest time."

What this meant Steadfast and Patience knew as little as did Rusha or
Ben, but Goodman Blane explained.

"The land here is all held under my Lady and Sir George, Stead--mine
just the same--no rent paid, but if there's a death--landlord or
tenant--one has to give the best beast as a fee, besides the work in
harvest."

"And the question is," proceeded the steward, "who and what is there to
look to. The eldest son is but a lad, if he were here, and this one is a
mere child, and the house is burnt down, and here they be, crouching in
a hovel, and how is it to be with the land. I'm bound to look after the
land. I'm bound to look after my Lady's interest and Sir George's."

"Be they ready to build up the place if you had another tenant?" asked
Blane, signing to Stead to hold his peace.

"Well--hum--ha! It might not come handy just now, seeing that Sir George
is off with the King, and all the money and plate with him and most
of the able-bodied servants, but I'm the more bound to look after his
interests."

That seemed to be Master Brown's one sentence. But Blane took him up,
"Look you here, Master Brown, I, that have been friend and gossip this
many years with poor John Kenton--rest his soul--can tell you that your
lady is like to be better served with this here Steadfast, boy though he
be, than if you had the other stripling with his head full of drums and
marches, guns and preachments, and what not, and who never had a good
day's work