"Be not feared!" Rupert whispered to Merrylips, as they passed slowly down the village street. "There are no soldiers here, for I questioned yesternight at the alehouse. Indeed I have been wary! Now do thou keep mum and let me talk for both. And perchance, an we get a penny, we'll spend it for a night's lodging, and lie beneath a roof for once."
"That would like me mightily!" sighed Merrylips.
In spite of herself she shivered in her worn clothes. Up to that time the weather had been mercifully mild, but now the night was falling wintry cold. The puddles in the road were scummed with ice, and in the air was a raw chill that searched the very marrow of the bones.
Halfway down the street the two children found that a stone had got into Merrylips' shoe. So they sat down on the doorstep of a cottage that was larger than the others, while Rupert untied the shoe-lace and shook out the stone. They were just ready to rise and trudge on, when behind them they heard the door of the cottage flung open.
Out stepped a big, blowzy young woman that made Merrylips think of Mawkin. Before they could rise and run away, she was bending over them.
"Whither beest thou going, sweetheart?" she asked Merrylips.
Rupert looked surprised. You may be sure that he was not spoken to in that kindly way, when he went alone into the village alehouses! But Rupert was almost thirteen, and looked a hardy little fellow, while Merrylips, in her ragged boy's dress, did not seem over nine years old, and she looked tired and piteous besides.
So the blowzy woman did perhaps what any woman would have done, when she took Merrylips by the hand and drew her into the cottage. Merrylips went meekly, because the woman was so large and determined, and Rupert went because Merrylips went.
Almost before they knew how they had come there, they both were seated in a warm chimney-corner, in a well-scoured kitchen. They had a big bowl of porridge to share between them, and the blowzy woman and her old father, who had sat nodding by the fire, were asking them a heap of questions.
Merrylips ate the hot porridge in silence, but Rupert told the story that he had planned to tell.