ner's hut or a shelter where a shepherd was
hiding with the few sheep left to him. Each man they met wore the same
look of stony suffering in his face; but, when the boys begged for
bread and water, as was their habit, no one refused to share the little
he had. It soon became plain to them that they were thought to be two
young fugitives whose homes had probably been destroyed and who were
wandering about with no thought but that of finding safety until the
worst was over. That one of them traveled on crutches added to their
apparent helplessness, and that he could not speak the language of the
country made him more an object of pity. The peasants did not know
what language he spoke. Sometimes a foreigner came to find work in
this small town or that. The poor lad might have come to the country
with his father and mother and then have been caught in the whirlpool
of war and tossed out on the world parent-less. But no one asked
questions. Even in their desolation they were silent and noble people
who were too courteous for curiosity.

"In the old days they were simple and stately and kind. All doors were
open to travelers. The master of the poorest hut uttered a blessing
and a welcome when a stranger crossed his threshold. It was the custom
of the country," Marco said. "I read about it in a book of my
father's. About most of the doors the welcome was carved in stone. It
was this--'The Blessing of the Son of God, and Rest within these
Walls.'"

"They are big and strong," said The Rat. "And they have good faces.
They carry themselves as if they had been drilled--both men and women."

It was not through the blood-drenched part of the unhappy land their
way led them, but they saw hunger and dread in the villages they
passed. Crops which should have fed the people had been taken from
them for the use of the army; flocks and herds had been driven away,
and faces were gaunt and gray. Those who had as yet only lost crops
and herds knew that homes and lives might be torn from them at any
moment. Only old men and women and children were left to wait for any
fate which the chances of war might deal out to them.

When they were given food from some poor store, Marco would offer a
little money in return. He dare not excite suspicion by offering much.
He was obliged to let it be imagined that in his flight from his ruined
home he had been able to snatch at and secrete some poor hoard which
might save him from st