“Food— everything you can pack in,” he ordered. “Lars, here!”
From the pegs he pulled down all the extra clothing they had. “Get dressed to go out.”
But his brother shook his head. “You know I can’t make it, Dard.”
Dessie went on stuffing provisions into the hag “I’ll help you, Daddy,” she promised “’just as soon as I can.”
Dard paid no attention to his brother. Instead he ran to the far end of the room and raised the trap door of the cellar.
“Last summer,” he explained as he came back to gather up the clothing, “’I found a passage down there behind the wall. It leads out to the foundations of the barn. We can hide there—”
“They know we are here They’ll be looking for a move such as that,” objected Lars.
“Not after I cover our trail.”
He saw that Lars was pulling on the remnants of a coat. Dessie was almost ready to go and now she helped her father not only to dress but to crawl across the floor to the hole. Dard gave her a pine knot torch before he went to work.
The doors and all the downstairs shutters were barred. Those ought to hold just long enough—