THE good-hearted Catherine was not happy. Not that she reproached herself very deeply for not having gone quickly enough to Sevenbergen, whither she was not bound to go at all—except on the score of having excited false hopes in Margaret. But she was in dismay when she reflected that Gerard must reach home in another month at farthest, more likely in a week. And how should she tell him she had not even kept an eye upon his betrothed? Then there was the uncertainty as to the girl's fate: and this uncertainty sometimes took a sickening form.
"Oh, Kate," she groaned, "if she should have gone and made herself away."
"Mother, she would never be so wicked."
"Ah, my lass, you know not what hasty fools young lasses be, that have no mothers to keep 'em straight. They will fling themselves into the water for a man that the next man they meet would ha' cured 'em of in a week. I have known 'em to jump in like brass one moment and scream for help in the next. Couldn't know their own minds ye see even such a trifle as yon. And then there's times when their bodies ail like no other living creatures ever I could hear of, and that strings up their feelings so, the patience, that belongs to them at other times beyond all living souls barring an ass, seems all to jump out of 'em at one turn, and into the water they go. Therefore, I say that men are monsters."
"Mother!"
"Monsters, and no less, to go making such heaps o' canals just to tempt the poor women in. They know we shall not cut our throats, hating the sight of blood, and rating our skins a hantle higher nor our lives; and as for hanging, while she is fixing of the nail and a making of the noose she has time t'alter her mind. But a jump into a canal is no more than into bed; and the water it does all the lave, will ye, nill ye. Why, look at me, the mother o' nine, wasn't I agog to make a hole in our canal for the nonce?"
"Nay, mother, I'll never believe it of you."
"Ye may, though. 'Twas in the first year of our keeping house together. Eli hadn't found out my weak stitches then, nor I his;so we made a rent, pulling contrariwise; had a quarrel. So then I ran crying, to tell some gabbling fool like myself what I had no business to tell out o' doors except to the saints, and there was one of our precious canals in the way; do they take us for teal? Oh, how tempting it did look! Says I to myself, 'Sith he has let me go out of his door quarrelled, he shall see me drowned next, and then he will change his key. He will blubber a good one, and I shall look down from heaven' (I forgot I should be in t'other part), 'and see him take on, and, oh, but that will be sweet!' and I was all a tiptoe and going in, only just then I thought I wouldn't. I had got a new gown a-making, for one thing, and hard upon finished. So I went home instead, and what was Eli's first word? 'Let yon flea stick i' the wall, my lass,' says he. 'Not a word of all I said t' anger thee was sooth, but this: 'I love thee.' These were his very words, I minded 'em, being the first quarrel. So I flung my arms about his neck and sobbed a bit, and thought o' the canal; and he was no colder to me than I to him, being a man and a young one: and so then that was better than lying in the water; and spoiling my wedding kirtle and my fine new shoon, old John Bush made 'em, that was uncle to him keeps the shop now. And what was my grief to hers?"
Little Kate hoped that Margaret loved her father too much to think of leaving him so at his age. "He is father and mother and all to her, you know."
"Nay, Kate, they do forget all these things in a moment o' despair, when the very sky seems black above them. I place more faith in him that is unborn, than on him that is ripe for the grave, to keep her out o' mischief. For certes it do go sore against us to die when there's a little innocent a-pulling at our hearts to let un live, and feeding at our very veins."
"Well, then, keep up a good heart, mother." She added, that very likely all these fears were exaggerated. She ended by solemnly entreating her mother at all events not to persist in naming the sex of Margaret's infant. It was so unlucky, all the gossips told her; "dear heart, as if there were not as many girls born as boys."
This reflection, though not unreasonable, was met with clamour.
"Have you the cruelty to threaten me with a girl!!? I want no more girls, while I have you. What use would a lass be to me?Can I set her on my knee and see my Gerard again as I can a boy? I tell thee 'tis all settled."
"How may that be?"
"In my mind. And if I am to be disappointed i' the end, t'isn't for you to disappoint me beforehand, telling me it is not to be a child, but only a girl."
All these anxieties, and, if I may be permitted, without disrespect to the dead, to add, all this twaddle, that accompanied them, were shortly suspended by an incident that struck nearer home; made Tergou furiously jealous of Catherine, and Catherine weep. And, if my reader is fond of wasting his time, as some novel readers are, he cannot do it more effectually than by guessing what could produce results so incongruous.
Marched up to Eli's door a pageant brave to the eye of sense, and to the vulgar judgment noble, but, to the philosophic, pitiable more or less.
It looked one animal, a centaur: but on severe analysis proved two. The human half was sadly bedizened with those two metals, to clothe his carcass with which and line his pouch, man has now and then disposed of his soul: still the horse was the vainer brute of the two; he was far worse beflounced, bebonneted, and bemantled, than any fair lady regnante crinolinâ. For the man, under the colour of a warming-pan, retained Nature's outline. But it was "subaudi equum!" Scarce a pennyweight of honest horseflesh to be seen. Our crinoline spares the noble parts of woman, and makes but the baser parts gigantic (why this preference?): but this poor animal from stem to stern was swamped in finery. His ears were hid in great sheaths of white linen tipped with silver and blue. His body swaddled in stiff gorgeous cloths descending to the ground, except just in front, where they left him room to mince. His tail, though dear to memory, no doubt, was lost to sight, being tucked in heaven knows how. Only his eyes shone out like goggles, through two holes pierced in the wall of haberdashery, and his little front hoofs peeped in and out like rats.
Yet did this compound, gorgeous and irrational, represent power; absolute power: it came straight from a tournament at the duke's court, which being on a progress, lay last night at a neighboring town—to execute the behests of royalty.
"What ho!" cried the upper half, and on Eli emerging, with his wife behind him, saluted them. "Peace be with you, good people. Rejoice! I am come for your dwarf."
Eli looked amazed, and said nothing. But Catherine screamed over his shoulder, "You have mistook your road, good man; here abides no dwarf."
"Nay, wife, he means our Giles, who is somewhat small of stature: why gainsay what gainsayed may not be?"
"Ay!" cried the pageant, "that is he, and discourseth like the big tabor."
"His breast is sound for that matter," said Catherine, sharply.
"And prompt with his fists though at long odds."
"Else how would the poor thing keep his head in such a world as this?"
"'Tis well said, dame. Art as ready with thy weapon as he; art his mother, likely. So bring him forth and that presently. See, they lead a stunted mule for him. The duke hath need of him; sore need; we are clean out o' dwarven; and tigercats; which may not be, whiles earth them yieldeth. Our last hop o' my thumb tumbled down the well t'other day."
"And think you I'll let my darling go to such an ill-guided house as yon, where the reckless trollops of servants close not the well mouth, but leave it open to trap innocents like wolven?"
The representative of autocracy lost patience at this unwonted opposition, and with stern look and voice bade her bethink her whether it was the better of the two; "to have your abortion at court fed like a bishop and put on like a prince, or to have all your heads stricken off and borne on poles, with the bell-man crying, 'Behold the heads of hardy rebels, which having by good luck a misbegotten son, did traitorously grudge him to the duke, who is the true father of all his folk, little or mickle?'"
"Nay," said Eli, sadly, "miscall us not. We be true folk, and neither rebels nor traitors. But 'tis sudden, and the poor lad is our true flesh and blood, and hath of late given proof of more sense than heretofore."
"Avails not threatening our lives," whimpered Catherine, "we grudge him not to the duke: but in sooth he cannot go: his linen is all in holes. So there is an end."
But the male mind resisted this crusher.
"Think you the duke will not find linen, and cloth of gold to boot? None so brave, none so affected, at court, as our monsters, big or wee."
How long the dispute might have lasted, before the iron arguments of despotism achieved the inevitable victory, I know not; but it was cut short by a party whom neither disputant had deigned to consult.
The bone of contention walked out of the house, and sided with monarchy.
"If my folk are mad, I am not," he roared. "I'll go with you, and on the instant."
At this Catherine set up a piteous cry. She saw another of her brood escaping from under her wing into some unknown element. Giles was not quite insensible to her distress so simple yet so eloquent. He said, "Nay take not on, mother! Why 'tis a godsend. And I am sick of this ever since Gerard left it."
"Ah, cruel Giles! Should ye not rather say she is bereaved of Gerard: the more need of you to stay aside her and comfort her!"
"Oh! I am not going to Rome. Not such a fool I shall never be farther than Rotterdam: and I'll often come and see you; and, if I like not the place, who shall keep me there? Not all the dukes in Christendom."
"Good sense lies in little bulk," said the emissary approvingly. "Therefore, master Giles, buss the old folk, and thank them for misbegetting of thee, and—ho! you—bring hither his mule!"
One of his retinue brought up the dwarf mule. Giles refused it with scorn. And, on being asked the reason, said it was not just. "What would ye throw all into one scale? Put muckle to muckle, and little to wee? Besides I hate and scorn small things. I'll go on the highest horse here, or not at all."
The pursuivant eyed him attentively a moment. He then adopted a courteous manner. "I shall study your will in all things reasonable. (Dismount, Eric, yours is the highest horse.) And if you would halt in the town an hour or so, while you bid them farewell, say but the word, and your pleasure shall be my delight."
Giles reflected.
"Master," said he, "if we wait a month 'twill be still the same: my mother is a good soul, but her body is bigger than her spirit. Weshall not part without a tear or two, and the quicker 'tis done the fewer; so, bring yon horse to me."
Catherine threw her apron over her face and sobbed. The high horse was brought, and Giles was for swarming up his tail, like a rope; but one of the servants cried out hastily "forbear, for he kicketh." "I'll kick him," said Giles. "Bring him close beneath this window, and I'll learn you all how to mount a horse which kicketh, and will not be clomb by the tail, the staircase of an horse." And he dashed into the house and almost immediately reappeared at an upper window with a rope in his hand. He fastened an end somehow and holding the other descended as swift and smooth as an oiled thunderbolt in a groove; and lighted astride his high horse as unperceived by that animal as a fly settling on him.
The official lifted his hands to heaven in mawkish admiration. "I have gotten a pearl," thought he; "and wow but this will be a good day's work for me."
"Come, father, come, mother, buss me, and bless me, and off I go."
Eli gave him his blessing, and bade him be honest and true, and a credit to his folk. Catherine could not speak, but clung to him with many sobs and embraces; and even through the mist of tears her eye detected in a moment a little rent in his sleeve he had made getting out of window, and she whipped out her needle and mended it then and there, and her tears fell on his arm the while, unheeded—except by those unfleshly eyes, with which they say the very air is thronged.
And so the dwarf mounted the high horse, and rode away complacent, with the old hand laying the court butter on his back with a trowel. Little recked Perpusillus of two poor silly females that sat by the bereaved hearth, rocking themselves, and weeping, and discussing all his virtues, and how his mind had opened lately, and blind as two beetles to his faults, who rode away from them jocund and bold,
Ingentes animos angusto pectore versans.
Arrived at court he speedily became a great favourite.
One strange propensity of his electrified the palace: but, on account of his small size, and for variety's sake, and as a monster, he was indulged on it. In a word he was let speak the truth.
It is an unpopular thing.
He made it an intolerable one.
Bawled it.
MARGARET BRANDT had always held herself apart from Sevenbergen; and her reserve had passed for pride; this had come to her ears, and she knew many hearts were swelling with jealousy and malevolence. How would they triumph over her when her condition could no longer be concealed! This thought gnawed her night and day. For some time it had made her bury herself in the house, and shun daylight even on those rare occasions when she went abroad.
Not that in her secret heart and conscience she mistook her moral situation, as my unlearned readers have done perhaps. Though not acquainted with the nice distinctions of the contemporary law, she knew that betrothal was a marriage contract, and could no more be legally broken on either side than any other compact written and witnessed: and that marriage with another party than the betrothed had been formally annulled both by Church and State; and that betrothed couples often came together without any further ceremony, and their children were legitimate.
But what weighed down her simple mediæval mind was this: that very contract of betrothal was not forthcoming. Instead of her keeping it, Gerard had got it, and Gerard was far, far away. She hated and despised herself for the miserable oversight, which had placed her at the mercy of false opinion.
For though she had never heard of Horace's famous coupletSegnius irritant, &c., she was Horatian by the plain, hard, positive intelligence, which strange to say characterizes the judgment of her sex, when feeling happens not to blind it altogether. She gauged the understanding of the world to a T. Her marriage lines being out of sight, and in Italy, would never prevail to balance her visible pregnancy, and the sight of her child when born. What sort of a tale was this to stop slanderous tongues? "I have got my marriage lines, but I cannot show them you." What woman would believe her? or even pretend to believe her? And, as she was inreality one of the most modest girls in Holland, it was women's good opinion she wanted, not men's.
Even barefaced slander attacks her sex at a great advantage; but here was slander with a face of truth. "The strong-minded woman" had not yet been invented; and Margaret, though by nature and by having been early made mistress of a family, she was resolute in some respects, was weak as water in others, and weakest of all in this. Like all the élite of her sex she was a poor little leaf trembling at each gust of the world's opinion, true or false. Much misery may be contained in few words; I doubt if pages of description from any man's pen could make any human creature, except virtuous women (and these need no such aid) realize the anguish of a virtuous woman foreseeing herself paraded as a frail one. Had she been frail at heart, she might have brazened it out. But she had not that advantage. She was really pure as snow, and saw the pitch coming nearer her and nearer. The poor girl sat listless hours at a time, and moaned with inner anguish. And often, when her father was talking to her and she giving mechanical replies, suddenly her cheek would burn like fire, and the old man would wonder what he had said to discompose her. Nothing. His words were less than air to her. It was the ever present dread sent the colour of shame into her burning cheek, no matter what she seemed to be talking and thinking about. But both shame and fear rose to a climax when she came back that night from Margaret Van Eyck's. Her condition was discovered, and by persons of her own sex. The old artist, secluded like herself, might not betray her: but Catherine, a gossip in the centre of a family, and a thick neighbourhood? One spark of hope remained. Catherine had spoken kindly, even lovingly. The situation admitted no half course. Gerard's mother thus roused must either be her best friend or worst enemy. She waited then in racking anxiety to hear more. No word came. She gave up hope. Catherine was not going to be her friend. Then she would expose her, since she had no strong and kindly feeling to balance the natural love of babbling.
Then it was, the wish to fly from this neighbourhood began to grow and gnaw upon her, till it became a wild and passionate desire. But how persuade her father to this? Old people cling to places. He was very old and infirm to change his abode. There was no course but to make him her confidant; better so than to runaway from him: and she felt that would be the alternative. And now between her uncontrollable desire to fly and hide, and her invincible aversion to speak out to a man, even to her father, she vibrated in a suspense full of lively torture. And presently betwixt these two came in one day the fatal thought "end all!" Things foolishly worded are not always foolish; one of poor Catherine's bugbears, these numerous canals, did sorely tempt this poor fluctuating girl. She stood on the bank one afternoon, and eyed the calm deep water. It seemed an image of repose, and she was so harassed. No more trouble. No more fear of shame. If Gerard had not loved her, I doubt she had ended there.
As it was, she kneeled by the waterside, and prayed fervently to God to keep such wicked thoughts from her. "Oh! selfish wretch," said she, "to leave thy father. Oh wicked wretch to kill thy child, and make thy poor Gerard lose all his pain and peril undertaken for thy sight. I will tell father all, ay ere this sun shall set." And she went home with eager haste lest her good resolution should ooze out ere she got there.
Now in matters domestic the learned Peter was simple as a child, and Margaret from the age of sixteen had governed the house gently but absolutely. It was therefore a strange thing in this house, the faltering irresolute way in which its young but despotic mistress addressed that person, who in a domestic sense was less important than Martin Wittenhaagen, or even than the little girl, who came in the morning and for a pittance washed the vessels, &c., and went home at night.
"Father, I would speak to thee."
"Speak on, girl."
"Wilt listen to me? And—and—not—and try to excuse my faults."
"We have all our faults, Margaret, thou no more than the rest of us; but fewer, unless parental feeling blinds me."
"Alas, no, father: I am a poor foolish girl, that would fain do well, but have done ill, most ill, most unwisely: and now must bear the shame. But, father, I love you, with all my faults, and will not you forgive my folly, and still love your motherless girl?"
"That ye may count on," said Peter, cheerfully.
"Oh, well, smile not. For then how can I speak and make you sad?"
"Why, what is the matter?"
"Father, disgrace is coming on this house: it is at the door. And I the culprit. Oh, father, turn your head away. I—I—father, I have let Gerard take away my marriage lines."
"Is that all? 'Twas an oversight."
"'Twas the deed of a mad woman. But woe is me! that is not the worst."
Peter interrupted her. "The youth is honest, and loves you dear. You are young. What is a year or two to you? Gerard will assuredly come back and keep troth."
"And meantime, know you what is coming?"
"Not I, except that I shall be gone first for one."
"Worse than that. There is worse pain than death. Nay, for pity's sake, turn away your head, father."
"Foolish wench!" muttered Peter, but turned his head.
She trembled violently, and with her cheeks on fire began to falter out, "I did look on Gerard as my husband—we being betrothed—and he was in so sore danger, and I thought I had killed him, and I— Oh, if you were but my mother I might find courage: you would question me. But you say not a word."
"Why, Margaret, what is all this coil about? and why are thy cheeks crimson, speaking to no stranger but to thy old father?"
"Why are my cheeks on fire? Because—because—Father, kill me! send me to heaven! bid Martin shoot me with his arrow! And then the gossips will come and tell you why I blush so this day. And then, when I am dead, I hope you will love your girl again for her mother's sake."
"Give me thy hand, mistress," said Peter, a little sternly.
She put it out to him trembling. He took it gently, and began with some anxiety in his face to feel her pulse.
"Alas, nay!" said she. "'Tis my soul that burns, not my body with fever. I cannot, will not, bide in Sevenbergen." And she wrung her hands impatiently.
"Be calm now," said the old man, soothingly, "nor torment thyself for nought. Not bide in Sevenbergen? What need to bide a day, as it vexes thee, and puts thee in a fever: for fevered thou art, deny it not."
"What!" cried Margaret, "would you yield to go hence, and—and ask no reason but my longing to be gone?" and, suddenly throwing herself on her knees beside him, in a fervour of supplicationshe clutched his sleeve, and then his arm, and then his shoulder, while imploring him to quit this place, and not ask her why. "Alas! what needs it? You will soon see it. And I could never say it. I would liever die."
"Foolish child! Who seeks thy girlish secrets? Is it I, whose life hath been spent in searching Nature's? And, for leaving Sevenbergen, what is there to keep me in it, thee unwilling? Is there respect for me here, or gratitude? Am I not yclept quacksalver by those that come not near me, and wizard by those I heal? And give they not the guerdon and the honour they deny me, to the empirics that slaughter them? Besides, what is't to me where we sojourn? Choose thou that, as did thy mother before thee."
Margaret embraced him tenderly, and wept upon his shoulder.
She was respited.
Yet as she wept, respited, she almost wished she had had the courage to tell him.
After a while nothing would content him but her taking a medicament he went and brought her. She took it submissively, to please him. It was the least she could do. It was a composing draught, and though administered under an error, and a common one, did her more good than harm: she awoke calmed by a long sleep, and that very day began her preparations.
Next week they went to Rotterdam, bag and baggage, and lodged above a tailor's shop in the Brede-Kirk Straet.
Only one person in Tergou knew whither they were gone.
The Burgomaster.
He locked the information in his own breast.
The use he made of it ere long, my reader will not easily divine: for he did not divine it himself.
But time will show.
AMONG strangers Margaret Brandt was comparatively happy. And soon a new and unexpected cause of content arose. A civic dignitary being ill, and fanciful in proportion, went from doctor to doctor; and having arrived at Death's door, sent for Peter. Peter found him bled and purged to nothing.He flung a battalion of bottles out of the window, and left it open; beat up yolks of eggs in neat Schiedam, and administered it in small doses: followed this up by meat stewed in red wine and water, shredding into both mild febrifugal herbs, that did no harm. Finally, his patient got about again, looking something between a man and a pillow-case, and being a voluble dignitary, spread Peter's fame in every street; and that artist, who had long merited a reputation in vain, made one rapidly by luck. Things looked bright. The old man's pride was cheered at last, and his purse began to fill. He spent much of his gain, however, in sovereign herbs and choice drugs, and would have so invested them all, but Margaret white-mailed a part. The victory came too late. Its happy excitement was fatal.
One evening, in bidding her good-night, his voice seemed rather inarticulate.
The next morning he was found speechless, and only just sensible.
Margaret, who had been for years her father's attentive pupil, saw at once that he had had a paralytic stroke. But not trusting to herself, she ran for a doctor. One of those, who, obstructed by Peter, had not killed the civic dignitary, came, and cheerfully confirmed her views. He was for bleeding the patient. She declined. "He was always against blooding," said she, "especially the old." Peter lived, but was never the same man again. His memory became much affected, and of course he was not to be trusted to prescribe: and several patients had come, and one or two, that were bent on being cured by the new doctor and no other, awaited his convalescence. Misery stared her in the face. She resolved to go for advice and comfort to her cousin William Johnson, from whom she had hitherto kept aloof out of pride and poverty. She found him and his servant sitting in the same room, and neither of them the better for liquor. Mastering all signs of surprise, she gave her greetings, and presently told him she had come to talk on a family matter, and with this glanced quietly at the servant by way of hint. The woman took it, but not as expected.
"Oh, you can speak before me, can she not, my old man?"
At this familiarity Margaret turned very red, and said,—
"I cry your mercy, mistress. I knew not my cousin had falleninto the custom of this town. Well, I must take a fitter opportunity"; and she rose to go.
"I wot not what ye mean by custom o' the town," said the woman, bouncing up. "But this I know: 'tis the part of a faithful servant to keep her master from being preyed on by his beggarly kin."
Margaret retorted: "Ye are too modest, mistress. Ye are no servant. Your speech betrays you. 'Tis not till the ape hath mounted the tree that she shows her tail so plain. Nay, there sits the servant; God help him! And while so it is, fear not thou his kin will ever be so poor in spirit, as come where the likes of you can flout their dole." And casting one look of mute reproach at her cousin for being so little of a man as to sit passive and silent all this time, she turned and went haughtily out; nor would she shed a single tear till she got home and thought of it. And now here were two men to be lodged and fed by one pregnant girl; and another mouth coming into the world.
But this last, though the most helpless of all, was their best friend.
Nature was strong in Margaret Brandt; that same nature which makes the brutes, the birds and the insects, so cunning at providing food and shelter for their progeny yet to come.
Stimulated by nature she sat and brooded, and brooded, and thought, and thought, how to be beforehand with destitution. Ay, though she had still five gold pieces left, she saw starvation coming with inevitable foot.
Her sex, when, deviating from custom, it thinks with male intensity, thinks just as much to the purpose as we do. She rose, bade Martin move Peter to another room, made her own very neat and clean, polished the glass globe, and suspended it from the ceiling, dusted the crocodile and nailed him to the outside wall: and, after duly instructing Martin, set him to play the lounging sentinel about the street door, and tell the crocodile-bitten that a great, and aged, and learned alchymist abode there, who in his moments of recreation would sometimes amuse himself by curing mortal diseases.
Patients soon came, and were received by Margaret, and demanded to see the leech. "That might not be. He was deep in his studies, searching for the grand elixir, and not princes could have speech ofhim. They must tell her their symptoms, and return in two hours." And, oh! mysterious powers! when they did return, the drug or draught was always ready for them. Sometimes, when it was a worshipful patient, she would carefully scan his face, and feeling both pulse and skin, as well as hearing his story, would go softly with it to Peter's room; and there think and ask herself how her father, whose system she had long quietly observed, would have treated the case. Then she would write an illegible scrawl with a cabalistic letter, and bring it down, reverentially, and show it the patient, and "Could he read that?" Then it would be either "I am no reader," or, with admiration, "Nay mistress, nought can I make on't."
"Ay, but I can. 'Tis sovereign. Look on thyself as cured!" If she had the materials by her, and she was too good an economist not to favour somewhat those medicines she had in her own stock, she would sometimes let the patient see her compound it, often and anxiously consulting the sacred prescription lest great Science should suffer in her hands. And so she would send them away relieved of cash, but with their pockets full of medicine, and minds full of faith, and humbugged to their heart's content.Populus vult decipi.And when they were gone, she would take down two little boxes Gerard had made her; and on one of these she had writtenTo-day, and on the otherTo-morrow, and put the smaller coins into "To-day," and the larger into "To-morrow," along with such of her gold pieces as had survived the journey from Sevenbergen, and the expenses of housekeeping in a strange place. And so she met current expenses, and laid by for the rainy day she saw coming, and mixed drugs with simples, and vice with virtue. On this last score her conscience pricked her sore, and after each day's comedy, she knelt down and prayed God to forgive her "for the sake of her child." But lo and behold cure after cure was reported to her: so then her conscience began to harden. Martin Wittenhaagen had of late been a dead weight on her hands. Like most men who have endured great hardships, he had stiffened rather suddenly. But, though less supple, he was as strong as ever, and at his own pace could have carried the doctor herself round Rotterdam city. He carried her slops instead.
In this new business he showed the qualities of a soldier: unreasoning obedience, punctuality, accuracy, despatch and drunkenness.
He fell among "good fellows"; the blackguards plied him with Schiedam; he babbled, he bragged.
Doctor Margaret had risen very high in his estimation. All this brandishing of a crocodile for a standard, and setting a dotard in ambush, and getting rid of slops, and taking good money in exchange, struck him not as Science but something far superior, Strategy. And he boasted in his cups and before a mixed company how "me and my General we are a biting of the burghers."
When this revelation had had time to leaven the city, his General, Doctor Margaret, received a call from the constables: they took her, trembling and begging subordinate machines to forgive her, before the burgomaster; and by his side stood real physicians, a terrible row, in long robes and square caps, accusing her of practising unlawfully on the bodies of the duke's lieges. At first she was too frightened to say a word. Novice like, the very name of "Law" paralyzed her. But being questioned closely, but not so harshly as if she had been ugly, she told the truth; she had long been her father's pupil, and had but followed his system, and she had cured many; "and it is not for myself in very deed, sirs, but I have two poor helpless honest men at home upon my hands, and how else can I keep them? Ah, good sirs, let a poor girl make her bread honestly; ye hinder them not to make it idly and shamefully: and oh, sirs, ye are husbands, ye are fathers; ye cannot but see I have reason to work and provide as best I may"; and ere this woman's appeal had left her lips, she would have given the world to recall it, and stood with one hand upon her heart and one before her face, hiding it, but not the tears that trickled underneath it. All which went to the wrong address. Perhaps a female bailiff might have yielded to such arguments, and bade her practise medicine, and break law, till such time as her child should be weaned, and no longer.
"What have we to do with that," said the burgomaster, "save and except that if thou wilt pledge thyself to break the law no more, I will remit the imprisonment, and exact but the fine."
On this Doctor Margaret clasped her hands together, and vowed most pentitently never, never, never, to cure body or beast again; and being dismissed with the constables to pay the fine, she turned at the door, and curtsied, poor soul, and thanked the gentlemen for their forbearance.
And to pay the fine the "to-morrow box" must be opened on the instant; and with excess of caution she had gone and nailed it up, that no slight temptation might prevail to open it. And now she could not draw the nails, and the constables grew impatient, and doubted its contents, and said, "Let us break it for you." But she would not let them. "Ye will break it worse than I shall." And she took a hammer, and struck too faintly, and lost all strength for a minute, and wept hysterically; and at last she broke it, and a little cry broke from her when it broke: and she paid the fine, and it took all her unlawful gains and two gold pieces to boot; and, when the men were gone, she drew the broken pieces of the box, and what little money they had left her, all together on the table, and her arms went round them, and her rich hair escaped and fell down all loose, and she bowed her forehead on the wreck, and sobbed, "My love's box it is broken, and my heart withal"; and so remained. And Martin Wittenhaagen came in, and she could not lift her head, but sighed out to him what had befallen her, ending, "My love his box is broken, and so mine heart is broken."
And Martin was not so sad as wroth. Some traitor had betrayed him. What stony heart had told and brought her to this pass? Whoever it was should feel his arrow's point. The curious attitude in which he must deliver the shaft never occurred to him.
"Idle chat! idle chat!" moaned Margaret, without lifting her brow from the table. "When you have slain all the gossips in this town, can we eat them? Tell me how to keep you all, or prithee hold thy peace, and let the saints get leave to whisper me." Martin held his tongue, and cast uneasy glances at his defeated General.
Towards evening she rose, and washed her face and did up her hair, and doggedly bade Martin take down the crocodile, and put out a basket instead.
"I can get up linen better than they seem to do it in this street," said she, "and you must carry it in the basket."
"That will I for thy sake," said the soldier.
"Good Martin! forgive me that I spake shrewishly to thee."
Even while they were talking came a male for advice. Margaret told it the mayor had interfered and forbidden her to sell drugs. "But," said she, "I will gladly iron and starch your linen for you, and—I will come and fetch it from your house."
"Are ye mad, young woman?" said the male. "I come for aleech, and ye proffer me a washerwoman;" and it went out in dudgeon.
"There is a stupid creature," said Margaret sadly.
Presently came a female to tell the symptoms of her sick child. Margaret stopped it.
"We are forbidden by the bailiff to sell drugs. But I will gladly wash, iron, and starch your linen for you—and—I will come and fetch it from your house."
"Oh, ay," said the female. "Well, I have some smocks and ruffs foul. Come for them; and when youarethere, you can look at the boy"; and it told her where it lived, and when its husband would be out; yet it was rather fond of its husband than not.
An introduction is an introduction. And two or three patients, out of all those who came and were denied medicine, made Doctor Margaret their washerwoman.
"Now, Martin, you must help. I'll no more cats than can slay mice."
"Mistress, the stomach is not a wanting for't, but the head-piece, worse luck."
"Oh! I mean not the starching and ironing; that takes a woman and a handy one. But the bare washing; a man can surely contrive that. Why, a mule has wit enough in's head to do't with his hoofs, an ye could drive him into the tub. Come, off doublet, and try."
"I am your man," said the brave old soldier, stripping for the unwonted toil. "I'll risk my arm in soapsuds, an' you will risk your glory."
"My what?"
"Your glory and honour as a—washerwoman."
"Gramercy! if you are man enough to bring me half-washed linen t'iron, I am woman enough to fling't back i' the suds."
And so the brave girl, and the brave soldier, worked with a will, and kept the wolf from the door. More they could not do. Margaret had repaired "the to-morrow box," and, as she leaned over the glue, her tears mixed with it, and she cemented her exiled lover's box with them, at which a smile is allowable, but an intelligent smile tipped with pity, please, and not the empty guffaw of the nineteenth-century-jackass, burlesquing Bibles, and making fun of all things except fun. But when mended it stood unreplenished.
They kept the weekly rent paid, and the pot boiling, but no more.
And now came a concatenation. Recommended from one to another, Margaret washed for the mayor. And bringing home the clean linen one day she heard in the kitchen that his worship's only daughter was stricken with disease, and not like to live. Poor Margaret could not help cross-questioning, and a female servant gave her such of the symptoms as she had observed. But they were too general. However, one gossip would add one fact, and another another. And Margaret pondered them all.
At last one day she met the mayor himself. He recognized her directly. "Why, you are the unlicensed doctor." "I was," said she, "but now I'm your worship's washerwoman." The dignitary coloured, and said that was rather a come down.
"Nay, I bear no malice; for your worship might have been harder. Rather would I do you a good turn. Sir, you have a sick daughter. Let me see her."
The mayor shook his head. "That cannot be. The law I do enforce on others I may not break myself." Margaret opened her eyes.
"Alack, sir, I seek no guerdon now for curing folk; why, I am a washerwoman. I trow one may heal all the world, an if one will but let the world starve one in return." "That is no more than just," said the mayor: he added, "an ye make no trade on't; there is no offence." "Then let me see her."
"What avails it? The learnedst leeches in Rotterdam have all seen her, and bettered her nought. Her ill is inscrutable. One skilled wight saith spleen; another, liver; another, blood; another, stomach; and another, that she is possessed: and, in very truth, she seems to have a demon; shunneth all company; pineth alone; eateth no more victuals than might diet a sparrow. Speaketh seldom, nor hearkens them that speak, and weareth thinner and paler and nearer and nearer the grave, well-a-day." "Sir," said Margaret, "an if you take your velvet doublet to half a dozen of shops in Rotterdam, and speer is this fine or sorry velvet, and worth how much the ell, those six traders will eye it and feel it, and all be in one story to a letter. And why? Because they know their trade. And your leeches are all in different stories. Why? Because they know not their trade. I have heard my father say each is enamoured of some one evil, and seeth it with his bat's eyn in every patient. Had they stayed at home, and ne'er seen your daughter, they hadanswered all the same, spleen, blood, stomach, lungs, liver, lunacy, or, as they call it, possession. Let me see her. We are of a sex, and that is much." And when he still hesitated, "Saints of Heaven!" cried she, giving way to the irritability of a breeding woman, "is this how men love their own flesh and blood? Her mother had ta'en me in her arms ere this, and carried me to the sick room." And two violet eyes flashed fire.
"Come with me," said the mayor, hastily.
"Mistress, I have brought thee a new doctor."
The person addressed, a pale young girl of eighteen, gave a contemptuous wrench of her shoulder, and turned more decidedly to the fire she was sitting over.
Margaret came softly and sat beside her. "But 'tis one that will not torment you."
"A woman!" exclaimed the young lady, with surprise and some contempt.
"Tell her your symptoms."
"What for? You will be no wiser."
"You will be none the worse."
"Well, I have no stomach for food, and no heart for anything. Now cure me, and go."
"Patience awhile! Your food, is it tasteless like in your mouth?"
"Ay. How knew you that?"
"Nay, I knew it not till you did tell me. I trow you would be better for a little good company."
"I trow not. What is their silly chat to me?"
Here Margaret requested the father to leave them alone: and in his absence put some practical questions. Then she reflected.
"When you wake i' the morning you find yourself quiver, as one may say?"
"Nay. Ay. How knew you that?"
"Shall I dose you, or shall I but tease you a bit with my 'silly chat'?"
"Which you will."
"Then I will tell you a story. 'Tis about two true lovers."
"I hate to hear of lovers," said the girl; "nevertheless canst tell me, 'twill be less nauseous than your physic—maybe."
Margaret then told her a love story. The maiden was a girlcalled Ursel, and the youth one Conrad; she an old physician's daughter, he the son of a hosier at Tergou. She told their adventures, their troubles, their sad condition. She told it from the female point of view, and in a sweet and winning and earnest voice, that by degrees soon laid hold of this sullen heart, and held it breathless; and when she broke it off her patient was much disappointed.
"Nay, nay, I must hear the end. I will hear it."
"Ye cannot, for I know it not; none knoweth that but God."
"Ah, your Ursel was a jewel of worth," said the girl earnestly. "Would she were here."
"Instead of her that is here."
"I say not that;" and she blushed a little.
"You do but think it."
"Thought is free. Whether or no, an she were here, I'd give her a buss, poor thing."
"Then give it me, for I am she."
"Nay, nay, that I'll be sworn y' are not."
"Say not so; in very truth I am she. And prithee, sweet mistress, go not from your word, but give me the buss ye promised me, and with a good heart, for oh, my own heart lies heavy: heavy as thine, sweet mistress."
The young gentlewoman rose and put her arms round Margaret's neck and kissed her. "I am woe for you," she sighed. "You are a good soul; you have done me good—a little." (A gulp came in her throat.) "Come again! come often!"
Margaret did come again, and talked with her, and gently, but keenly, watched what topics interested her, and found there was but one. Then she said to the mayor, "I know your daughter's trouble, and 'tis curable."
"What is't? the blood?"
"Nay."
"The stomach?"
"Nay."
"The liver?"
"Nay."
"The foul fiend?"
"Nay."
"What then?"
"Love."
"Love? stuff, impossible! She is but a child; she never stirs abroad unguarded. She never hath from a child."
"All the better; then we shall not have far to look for him."
"I trow not. I shall but command her to tell me the catiff's name, that hath by magic arts ensnared her young affections."
"Oh, how foolish be the wise!" said Margaret; "what, would ye go and put her on her guard? Nay, let us work by art first; and if that fails, then 'twill still be time for violence and folly."
Margaret then with some difficulty prevailed on the mayor to take advantage of its being Saturday, and pay all his people their salaries in his daughter's presence and hers.
It was done: some fifteen people entered the room, and received their pay with a kind word from their employer. Then Margaret, who had sat close to the patient all the time, rose and went out. The mayor followed her.
"Sir, how call you yon black haired lad?"
"That is Ulrich, my clerk."
"Well then, 'tis he."
"Now heaven forbid! a lad I took out of the streets."
"Well, but your worship is an understanding man. You took him not up without some merit of his."
"Merit? not a jot. I liked the looks of the brat, that was all."
"Was that no merit? He pleased the father's eye. And now he hath pleased the daughter's. That has oft been seen since Adam."
"How know ye 'tis he?"
"I held her hand, and with my finger did lightly touch her wrist; and, when the others came and went, 'twas as if dogs and cats had fared in and out. But at this Ulrich's coming her pulse did leap, and her eyes shine; and, when he went, she did sink back and sigh; and 'twas to be seen the sun had gone out of the room for her. Nay, burgomaster, look not on me so scared: no witch nor magician I, but a poor girl that hath been docile, and so bettered herself by a great neglected leech's art and learning. I tell ye all this hath been done before, thousands of years ere we were born. Now bide thou there till I come to thee, and prithee, prithee, spoil not good work wi' meddling." She then went back and asked her patient for a lock of her hair.
"Take it," said she, more listlessly than ever.
"Why, 'tis a lass of marble. How long do you count to be like that, mistress?"
"Till I am in my grave, sweet Peggy."
"Who knows? may be in ten minutes you will be altogether as hot."
She ran into the shop, but speedily returned to the mayor and said, "Good news! He fancies her and more than a little. Now how is't to be? Will you marry your child, or bury her, for there is no third way, sith shame and love they do rend her virgin heart to death."
The dignitary decided for the more cheerful rite, but not without a struggle; and, with its marks on his face, he accompanied Margaret to his daughter. But as men are seldom in a hurry to drink their wormwood, he stood silent. So Doctor Margaret said cheerfully, "Mistress, your lock is gone, I have sold it."
"And who was so mad as to buy such a thing?" inquired the young lady, scornfully.
"Oh, a black haired laddie wi' white teeth. They call him Ulrich."
The pale face reddened directly—brow and all.
"Says he, 'Oh, sweet mistress, give it me.' I had told them all whose 'twas. 'Nay,' said I, 'selling is my livelihood, not giving.' So he offered me this, he offered me that, but nought less would I take than his next quarter's wages."
"Cruel," murmured the girl, scarce audibly.
"Why, you are in one tale with your father. Says he to me when I told him, 'Oh, an he loves her hair so well, 'tis odd but he loves the rest of her. Well,' quoth he, ''tis an honest lad, and a' shall have her, gien she will but leave her sulks and consent.' So, what say ye, mistress will you be married to Ulrich, or buried i' the kirkyard?"
"Father? father!"
"'Tis so, girl, speak thy mind."
"I—will—obey—my father—in all things," stammered the poor girl, trying hard to maintain the advantageous position in which Margaret had placed her. But nature, and the joy and surprise, were too strong even for a virgin's bashful cunning. She cast an eloquent look on them both, and sank at her father's knees, and begged his pardon, with many sobs for having doubted his tenderness.
He raised her in his arms, and took her, radiant through her tears with joy, and returning life, and filial love, to his breast; and the pair passed a truly sacred moment, and the dignitary was as happy as he thought to be miserable: so hard is it for mortals to foresee. And they looked round for Margaret, but she had stolen away softly.
The young girl searched the house for her.
"Where is she hid? Where on earth is she?"
Where was she? why in her own house dressing meat for her two old children, and crying bitterly the while at the living picture of happiness she had just created.
"Well-a-day, the odds between her lot and mine; well-a-day!"