"Nor I. And how we're to get food and shelter, or find work to keep us, goodness knows."
"God knows," corrected Phil gravely, "and it's a comfort He does know. But now come on, Tad; we must put some miles between us and old Foxy afore the next few hours is over."
For another half-hour they trudged along the road, talking busily, and trying to form some plan of action for the future. By this time the sun was rising, and the tardy winter morn had begun.
"We must take to the fields now," said Phil. "We mustn't be seen on the road by any folks goin' to market, for old Foxy will be sure to ask everybody he meets if they've seen us, and if they had, why, it would end in our bein' nabbed. Come along, Tad!"
So the boys left the highway, and clambering over a gate, walked along a strip of low marsh-land, which was, however, dry now with the frost.
Here, sheltered from view by the hedge, they followed the windings of the road for some distance, feeling quite safe. But as the morning advanced, and the excitement of their escape subsided, the pangs of hunger and thirst became almost intolerable. And when they spied in the distance a little house standing among trees, they resolved to go there and beg for something to eat.
As they approached nearer, they saw that the house was not an ordinary cottage, but a substantial and neatly built, though small, building of two storeys. It had a stable and coach-house at the back, and a little yard where cocks and hens were crowing and clucking over a feed of grain just thrown out to them.
A pale, dark-eyed, sad-faced woman answered the timid knock at the door which Tad gave.
"What would you, my children?" she asked gently. "You look weary and ill. What ails you? Tell me!" And her kind eyes rested with a wondering pity upon Phil, whose thin, patient, white little face appealed to her motherly heart.
"We are starving, madame," said Tad, in the queer French he had picked up during his short stay in France; "and we have not a sou to buy bread. Will you, of your goodness, give us something to eat, that we may have strength to pursue our journey?"