THE little party at the hosier's house sat at table discussing the
recent event, when their mother returned, and, casting a piercing glance
all round the little circle, laid the letter flat on the table. She
repeated every word of it by memory, following the lines with her
finger, to cheat herself and hearers into the notion that she could read
the words or nearly. Then, suddenly lifting her head, she cast another
keen look on Cornelis and Sybrandt: their eyes fell.
On this the storm that had long been brewing burst on their heads.
Catherine seemed to swell like an angry hen ruffling her feathers, and
out of her mouth came a Rhone and Saône of wisdom and twaddle, of great
and mean invective, such as no male that ever was born could utter in
one current; and not many women.
The following is a fair though a small sample of her words: only they
were uttered all in one breath:--
"I have long had my doubts that you blew the flame betwixt Gerard and
your father, and set that old rogue, Ghysbrecht, on. And now here are
Gerard's own written words to prove it. You have driven your own flesh
and blood into a far land, and robbed the mother that bore you of her
darling, the pride of her eye, the joy of her heart. But you are all of
a piece from end to end. When you were all boys together, my others were
a comfort; but you were a curse: mischievous and sly; and took a woman
half a day to keep your clothes whole: for why? work wears cloth, but
play cuts it. With the beard comes prudence: but none came to you: still
the last to go to bed, and the last to leave it; and why? because
honesty goes to bed early, and industry rises betimes; where there are
two lie-abeds in a house there are a pair of ne'er-do-weels. Often I've
sat and looked at your ways, and wondered where ye came from: ye don't
take after your father, and ye are no more like me than a wasp is to an
ant; sure ye were changed in the cradle, or the cuckoo dropped ye on my
floor: for ye have not our hands, nor our hearts: of all my blood none
but you ever jeered them that God afflicted; but often when my back was
turned I've heard you mock at Giles, because he is not so big as some;
and at my lily Kate, because she is not so strong as a Flanders mare.
After that rob a church an you will! for you can be no worse in His eyes
that made both Kate and Giles, and in mine that suffered for them, poor
darlings, as I did for you, you paltry, unfeeling, treasonable curs! No,
I will not hush, my daughter; they have filled the cup too full. It
takes a deal to turn a mother's heart against the sons she has nursed
upon her knees; and many is the time I have winked and wouldn't see too
much, and bitten my tongue, lest their father should know them as I do;
he would have put them to the door that moment. But now they have filled
the cup too full. And where got ye all this money? For this last month
you have been rolling in it. You never wrought for it. I wish I may
never hear from other mouths how ye got it. It is since that night you
were out so late, and _your_ head came back so swelled, Cornelis. Sloth
and greed are ill mated, my masters. Lovers of money must sweat or
steal. Well, if you robbed any poor soul of it, it was some woman, I'll
go bail; for a man would drive you with his naked hand. No matter; it
is good for one thing. It has shown me how you will guide our gear if
ever it comes to be yourn. I have watched you, my lads, this while. You
have spent a groat to-day between you. And I spend scarce a groat a
week, and keep you all, good _and_ bad. No! give up waiting for the
shoes that will maybe walk behind your coffin; for this shop and this
house shall never be yourn. Gerard is our heir: poor Gerard whom you
have banished and done your best to kill; after that never call me
mother again! But you have made him tenfold dearer to me. My poor lost
boy! I shall soon see him again; shall hold him in my arms, and set him
on my knees. Ay, you may stare! You are too crafty, and yet not crafty
enow. You cut the stalk away; but you left the seed--the seed that shall
outgrow you, and outlive you. Margaret Brandt is quick, and it is
Gerard's, and what is Gerard's is mine; and I have prayed the saints it
may be a boy: and it will--it must. Kate, when I found it was so, my
bowels yearned over her child unborn as if it had been my own. He is our
heir. He will outlive us. You will not: for a bad heart in a carcass is
like the worm in a nut, soon brings the body to dust. So, Kate, take
down Gerard's bib and tucker that are in the drawer you wot of, and one
of these days we will carry them to Sevenbergen. We will borrow Peter
Buyskens' cart, and go comfort Gerard's wife under her burden. She is
his wife. Who is Ghysbrecht Van Swieten? Can he come between a couple
and the altar, and sunder those that God and the priest make one? She is
my daughter, and I am as proud of her as I am of you, Kate, almost; and
as for _you_, keep out of my way awhile: for you are like the black dog
in my eyes."
Cornelis and Sybrandt took the hint and slunk out, aching with remorse,
and impenitence, and hate. They avoided her eye as much as ever they
could: and for many days she never spoke a word good, bad, or
indifferent, to either of them. Liberaverat animum suum.