When Kate arrived at the dwelling, she found that some sympathetic neighbours were there, who were assisting Jane Redmore to remove her sticks of furniture from the interior. The labourer who was incomer was kindly, and also lent a hand. Her goods had been brought out into the lane, and were piled up together against the bank, and on them she sat crying, with her children frightened and sobbing around her. Neighbours had been good to her, and now endeavoured to appease the tears and distress of the children with offers of bread and treacle, and bits of saffron cake, and endearments. The woman herself was helpless; she did not know whither she should betake herself for the night, where she should bestow her goods.
The incomer urged Mrs. Redmore to tell him what were her intentions. He must bring in his own family that afternoon, and would help her, as much as he was able, to settle herself somewhere. It was not possible for her to remain in the road. The parish officers would interfere, and carry her off to the poorhouse; but it was uncertain whether she could be accommodated there, interposed a neighbour, as the house was full of real widows.
Mrs. Redmore was a feeble, incapable creature, delicate, without the mental or moral power of rising to an emergency and forming a resolution. She sat weeping and crying out that she was without Roger, and he always managed for her.
“But you see, Jane,” argued a neighbour, “as how Roger can’t be here for very good reasons, which us needn’t mention, and so someone must do something, and who else is there but you?”
“I wish I was dead,” wailed the poor creature.
“Well, now, Jane,” said the neighbour, “don’t ye be so silly. If you was dead, what ’d become o’ the childer?”
At this juncture Kate arrived, breathless with running.
“It is well.” She stood panting, with her eyes bright with pleasure at the consciousness that she brought relief. “I asked my father, and he says Mrs. Redmore and the little ones may go into his cottage at Roundle Post, and stay there till something is settled.”
“That’s brave!” exclaimed the women who were standing round. “Now, let me take the little ones, Jane, and you lead the way, and Matthew Woodman, he’ll help to carry some of your things.”
“I have the key,” said Kate; “and the distance is nothing.”