“I cannot judge for you. Only your own conscience can do that. But I have always been taught never to refuse work that offered itself unsought, unless it would interfere with other work on which one was already engaged, and even then one should consider carefully which was the more important of the two. You know best where your responsibilities would have been greatest—in Thracia, or at home in England. Wherever there was most to do, there your work lay, I think. And you might have done so much for Thracia!”
“But would you have had me go there against my father’s express wish?” asked Caerleon, indignantly. “If you will allow me to have had a conscience at all in the matter, I believe it pointed distinctly to staying at home as the right thing for me to do.”
“That made a difference,” assented Nadia. “I cannot judge of your circumstances for you, as I have said, but I was sorry at the time that you refused the crown, and I am sorry still that you are not King of Thracia now. You might do so much good there.”
A little annoyed by her persistence, Caerleon walked on beside her in silence for a while. They had left Cyril and Louis far behind, and were following a path which presently crossed the main road cut through the mountains. At ordinary times the road was almost as lonely as the rocky paths, but on this occasion a band of men were visible in the distance, coming from the direction of the plain.
“It must be some of the Thracian harvesters,” said Nadia. “When their own harvest is ended, numbers of them cross into Hungary and hire themselves out to help the farmers, for the corn ripens later here. I suppose they are returning home with their wages, now that the harvest is over.”
As they walked on, they gained a closer view of the Thracians, a body of tall, lithe, dark-skinned men, tired and footsore, wearing ragged clothes that had once been gaily coloured, shirts that had once been white, and great leather boots. They slackened their pace as they approached the strangers, and one man, who seemed to be the leader of the party, addressed Nadia in broken German.
“Oh, the poor things!” she said, turning to Caerleon. “This has been a terribly bad year for them. The rain and the floods have injured the corn so much that there was scarcely any harvest. They have only earned enough to keep them while at work, and they have nothing to buy food with on their journey home. I wish I could give them something, but I have no money,” and she exhibited an empty purse as she spoke.
“Poor beggars!” said Caerleon. “Give them this, Miss O’Malachy,” and he turned a handful of loose coin out of his pocket and poured it into Nadia’s hand. She gave it to the man, who was profuse in his gratitude, and rapidly reckoning up the value of the money, said that it would be enough to feed himself and his companions until they reached their homes. Turning over the coins in his hand as if to assure himself of their reality, he came upon an English shilling, and looked at it in a puzzled way.
“Tell him that it’s all right, and that he can get it changed in the first big town he comes to,” said Caerleon to Nadia; but when she interpreted the words to the man, he scouted the idea that there was anything wrong about the coin. They liked English things, he said, and he would make a hole in the shilling and wear it in memory of the gracious lady who had given it to him.
“Oh, but it was not mine,” said Nadia, hastily. “You must thank Lord Caerleon.”