"I dare not take you into the house, my husband is so violent against the English, who captured his schuyt, and made him a poor man, that he would inform against you immediately; but go you there, make yourselves as comfortable as you can to-night, and to-morrow I will send you what you want.

_Adieu! Je vous plains, pauvre enfant_." said she, looking at me, as she drove off in the cart towards her own house.
"Peter," said O'Brien, "I think that her kicking us out of her house is a proof of her sincerity, and therefore I say no more about it; we have the brandy-flask to keep up our spirits.

Now then for the wood, though, by the powers, I shall have no relish for any of your pic-nic parties, as they call them, for the next twelve years." "But, O'Brien, how can I get over this ditch in petticoats?
I could hardly leap it in my own clothes." "You must tie your petticoats round your waist and make a good run; get over as far as you can, and I will drag you through the rest." "But you forget that we are to sleep in the wood, and that it's no laughing matter to get wet through, freezing so hard as it does now." "Very true, Peter; but as the snow lies so deep upon the ditch, perhaps the ice may bear.

I'll try; if it bears me, it will not condescend to bend at your shrimp of a carcass." O'Brien tried the ice, which was firm, and we both walked over, and making all the haste we could, arrived at the wood, as the woman called it, but which was not more than a clump of trees of about half an acre.
We cleared away the snow for about six feet round a very hollow part, and then O'Brien cut stakes and fixed them in the earth, to which we stretched one blanket.

The snow being about two feet deep, there was plenty of room to creep underneath the blanket.