“Like my father.”
“And how does your father look?”
“My father’s dead.”
“Did he die of the plague?” asked Felion, laying his hand on the lad’s shoulder.
“No,” said the lad quickly, and shut his lips tight.
“Won’t you tell me?” asked Felion, with a strange inquisitiveness.
“No. Mother’ll tell you, but I won’t.” The lad’s eyes filled with tears.
“Poor boy—poor boy!” said Felion, and his hand tightened on the small shoulder.
“Don’t be sorry for me; be sorry for mother, please,” said the boy, and he laid a hand on the old man’s knee, and that touch went to a heart long closed against the little city below; and Felion rose and said: “I will go with you to your mother.”
Then he went into another room, and the boy came near the axe and ran his fingers along the bright steel, and fondled the handle, as does a hunter the tried weapon which has been his through many seasons. When the old man came back he said to the boy: “Why do you look at the axe?”