He told her that he was bringing the children back with him.
The poor bairns had got nobody in the world to look to but their uncle and aunt.

And they would not cost Hannah a penny.

For Mr.
Gurney would pay thirty pounds a year for their keep and bringing up.
With what care and labour his clumsy fingers had penned that last sentence so that Hannah might read it plain! Afterwards he brought the children home.

As he drove his light cart up the rough and lonely road to Needham Farm, Louie cried with the cold and the dark, and Davy, with his hands tucked between his knees, grew ever more and more silent, his restless little head turning perpetually from side to side, as though he were trying to discover something of the strange, new world to which he had been brought, through the gloom of the February evening.
Then at the sound of wheels outside in the lane, the back door of the farm was opened, and a dark figure stood on the threshold.
'Yo're late,' Reuben heard.

It was Hannah's piercing voice that spoke.