“Well, Hans Peter, we shall continue our march to Zanah,” he said. “One, two, three. There! We are off at a better pace.”
He took the valise from Hans Peter, who began to trot along at his side. The lad was not taller than a twelve-year old boy, but there was something so strange about him that the man asked him his age.
“One-and-twenty,” replied Hans Peter. “If the Lord had not made me a fool, thou wouldst know that I have a man’s years.”
There was a little quiver in the voice of the village fool, and it touched the heart of the stranger. He put his hand on the boy’s shoulder and said, gently:
“Of course, I knew you were not a child. You seemed small beside me; but I should have noticed that you are a man. I am glad to know you first of all in Zanah, for I want you to be my guide while I am among the people, who are said to be different from those I know out there in the world.”
The boy raised his eyes to the western bluffs, which seemed to touch the crimson sky. Then he nodded his head.
“Hans Peter will do what he can,” he promised, “but the colony elders forbid us to talk to those who come from the wicked cities, where people live not according to the ways of God.”
They moved on through the cabbage-field, and the board walk presently led to a grass-grown lane that widened into the village street. The street wavered uncertainly between vine-covered fences which shut in old-fashioned gardens all a tangle of flowers. Back in the gardens were set stone houses with big chimneys and shut-in porches. On benches before the largest houses milk-pans and pewter plates were leaning against the weather-beaten walls. The diamond-paned windows reflected the gold of the sunset.
Up the street the stranger and the boy walked without meeting any one. They came to a straggling stone house with many wings that opened upon trellised verandas. It differed from the other stone buildings in not being surrounded by a fence. Its hinged windows were thrown open and white curtains flapped in the gentle breeze. Here the street broadened into a public square, the centre of which was occupied by a well. Hans Peter paused before the worn steps leading to the front door.
“Sir, this is the gasthaus,” he said.