“Tartars or Cossacks burned our house. We have been traveling this day more than two weeks in a cart only to find ourselves homeless here. Father had kinsfolk in this city, but the head of the house is dead and the others are away.”
“Where are your people now?”
“In the market place.”
“H’m,” the man muttered to himself, “homeless and in the market place. And what will they do?”
The boy shook his head. “I think that my father will find us some shelter,” he said finally. “He was thinking——” He hesitated for he had been taught never to speak of troubles before strangers, though the girl peered straight into his eyes with great kindness and sweetness.
“There is something curious here,” thought the man. “The boy’s face has a high degree of intelligence and his speech is the speech of one who has listened to good words. A noble action this—I think in good faith that the whelp might have had his teeth in the child’s throat.” Looking down upon the boy he said, “You have rendered us a noteworthy service, you have saved my niece from much painful injury; will you not accompany us to our home that we may hear your whole story and perhaps in our turn——”
The boy’s face reddened. “Nay,” he said, “I wish no reward. What I did——”
The girl caught him up. “Indeed you do my uncle wrong. He meant but this: we live humbly, will you not come and rest for a moment until you may join your people?”
“I ask pardon,” the boy said quickly.
Whereat the man laughed, for their speech and expression had been over-serious for children, though it still was an age when children grew to be men and women often over a single night. In some provinces girls of fourteen or fifteen were considered grown women and even given in marriage. Boys at that age had seen much of the rough side of life, of war and battle and cruelty.