Yet for all her hoping and wishing Merrylips did not recognize her soldiers of the king, when first she set eyes on them. She had been out with Mawkin, one shimmery hot afternoon, to gather broom-flowers on Cuckstead common. She had also found a lively little green snake, which she was carrying home in her handkerchief to show to her godmother. "And indeed my lady will not thank you for the sight of such vermin!" protested Mawkin. "It giveth me creeps but to look thereon. Put it down, do 'ee now, there's my lovey mistress." Merrylips shook her head, and held fast to her handkerchief. So intent was she upon the snake that she did not look up till she heard a sudden little cry from Mawkin. At that moment they had come to the top of a little swell of land, too gentle to be called a hill, whence they could look down on the roofs of Larkland and the thatched cottages of the village that nestled against its wall. They had reached indeed the highest point of Cuckstead common, and there, couched among the golden gorse, a boy was lying and a man was sitting by his side. So well were the strangers screened that Mawkin had not spied them till she was almost upon them. She gave a start of natural terror and laid her hand on Merrylips' shoulder. "Trudge briskly, mistress!" she bade, in a low voice. "I like not the look of yonder fellow." As she spoke, Mawkin glanced anxiously at the roofs of the village, which were a good half mile away across the lonely common. But Merrylips, who knew nothing of fear, halted short. To be sure, the man seemed a rough fellow. He was low-browed, with a shock of fair hair and a sunburnt face. His leathern breeches and frieze doublet were soiled and travel-stained, and he had laid on the ground beside him a bundle wrapped in a handkerchief and a great knotted cudgel. He looked as Merrylips fancied a padder might look, but there was a helpless distress in his pale eyes that made her, in spite of Mawkin's whisper, turn to him. "Were you fain to speak unto me?" asked Merrylips. The man peered upon her stupidly beneath his thatch of light hair, and seemed to grope for words. "Ja, ja, gracious fräulein," he said, in a thick, foreign speech. "Rupert, mein kindlein--he beeth outworn--sick." At that the boy, who had lain face down among the flowering gorse, turned languidly and lifted his head. He was a young boy, not so old as Flip. He did not look like the man, for his hair was dark and soft, and his eyes were gray. Indeed he would have been a handsome boy, for all his mean garments, if his eyes had not been dulled and his face flushed with weariness or with fever. "Let be, Claus!" he said, in a weak voice. "I'll be better straightway, and then we'll trudge." But as he spoke, he let his dark head sink on his arms once more. "He cannot lie in the fields," the man said thickly. "Gracious fräulein--bring us to shelter!"