Starvecrow Farm by Stanley J. Weyman

Behind the closed door the two haggard-faced women looked at one another. Mrs. Tyson had not left her bed for many days. But she had heard the knocking at the outer door and the answering growl of the dog chained under her window; and hoping, yet scarcely daring to expect, that the nightmare was over and her husband or her friends were at hand, she had dragged herself from the bed and opened the door as soon as the knocking sounded in turn at that.

For days, indeed, one strand, and one only, had held the feeble, frightened woman to life; and that strand was the babe that lay beside her. The sheep will fight for its lamb, the wren for its fledglings. And Mrs. Tyson, if she had not fought, had for the babe's sake borne and endured; and surrounded by the ruffians who had the house at their mercy, she had survived terrors that in other circumstances would have driven her mad.