Father Martin said to Stephen as they sat by a lingering fire. They had made camp again in a woods. The villagers had been generous and there had been vegetables enough to make a thick soup. The newcomers had bolted it down gratefully and, their bellies full, now lay sleeping around the embers in the warm spring night. Only Angeline was still awake. She sat slightly apart from Stephen and Father Martin. Dominic was snuggled up against her as usual. The two imps, Yves and Marc, lay close together not far away. Their faces looked so angelic in the flickering firelight, Stephen thought wryly, but those two were certainly not angels. They had been chased back to camp only that day by an irate villager who claimed he had caught them stealing turnips from his small garden. “We have food enough,” Stephen had protested when he chastised them. “There is no need for you to steal. Why did you do it?” They had not answered him, merely hung their heads. He would have thought them contrite but for the sly smile he caught them exchanging.
