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 fallen into 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 of him. 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 written _To-day_, and on the other _To-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 a leech, 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 you _are_ there, 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 had answered 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 girl called
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!"
* * * * *
Next time she met the dignitary, he hemm'd and hawed, and remarked what
a pity it was the law forbade him to pay her who had cured his daughter.
"However, when all is done, 'twas not art, 'twas but woman's wit."
"Nought but that, burgomaster," said Margaret, bitterly. "Pay the men of
art for not curing her: all the guerdon I seek, that cured her, is this;
go not and give your foul linen away from me by way of thanks."
"Why should I?" inquired he.
"Marry, because there be fools about ye will tell ye she that hath wit
to cure dark diseases, cannot have wit to take dirt out o' rags; so
pledge me your faith."
The dignitary promised pompously, and felt all the patron.
* * * * *
Something must be done to fill "to-morrow's box." She hawked her initial
letters and her illuminated vellums all about the town. Printing had by
this time dealt caligraphy in black and white a terrible blow in Holland
and Germany. But some copies of the printed books were usually
illuminated and lettered. The printers offered Margaret prices for work
in these two kinds.
"I'll think on't," said she.
She took down her diurnal book, and calculated that the price of an
hour's work on those arts would be about one fifth what she got for an
hour at the tub and mangle. "I'll starve first," said she; "what, pay a
craft and a mystery five times less than a handicraft!"
Martin, carrying the dry clothes-basket, got treated, and drunk. This
time he babbled her whole story. The girls got hold of it and gibed her
at the fountain.
All she had gone through was light to her, compared with the pins and
bodkins her own sex drove into her heart, whenever she came near the
merry crew with her pitcher, and that was every day. Each sex has its
form of cruelty; man's is more brutal and terrible; but shallow women,
that have neither read nor suffered, have an unmuscular barbarity of
their own (where no feeling of sex steps in to overpower it). This
defect, intellectual perhaps rather than moral, has been mitigated in
our day by books, especially by able works of fiction; for there are two
roads to that highest effort of intelligence, Pity; Experience of
sorrows, and Imagination, by which alone we realize the grief we never
felt. In the fifteenth century girls with pitchers had but one;
Experience; and at sixteen years of age or so, that road had scarce been
trodden. These girls persisted that Margaret was deserted by her lover.
And to be deserted was a crime. [They had not been deserted yet.] Not a
word against the Gerard they had created out of their own heads. For his
imaginary crime they fell foul of the supposed victim. Sometimes they
affronted her to her face. Oftener they talked at her backwards and
forwards with a subtle skill, and a perseverence which, "oh, that they
had bestowed on the arts," as poor Ague Cheek says.
Now Margaret was brave, and a coward; brave to battle difficulties and
ill fortune; brave to shed her own blood for those she loved. Fortitude
she had. But she had no true fighting courage. She was a powerful young
woman, rather tall, full, and symmetrical; yet had one of those slips of
girls slapped her face, the poor fool's hands would have dropped
powerless, or gone to her own eyes instead of her adversary's. Nor was
she even a match for so many tongues; and, besides, what could she say?
She knew nothing of these girls, except that somehow they had found out
her sorrows, and hated her; only she thought to herself they must be
very happy, or they would not be so hard on her.
So she took their taunts in silence; and all her struggle was not to let
them see their power to make her writhe within.
Here came in her fortitude; and she received their blows with
well-feigned, icy, hauteur. They slapped a statue.
But one day, when her spirits were weak, as happens at times to females
in her condition, a dozen assailants followed suit so admirably, that
her whole sex seemed to the dispirited one to be against her, and she
lost heart, and the tears began to run silently at each fresh stab.
On this their triumph knew no bounds, and they followed her half way
home casting barbed speeches.
After that exposure of weakness the statue could be assumed no more. So
then she would stand timidly aloof out of tongue-shot, till her young
tyrants' pitchers were all filled, and they gone; and then creep up with
hers. And one day she waited so long that the fount had ceased to flow.
So the next day she was obliged to face the phalanx, or her house go
dry. She drew near slowly, but with the less tremor, that she saw a man
at the well talking to them. He would distract their attention, and,
besides, they would keep their foul tongues quiet if only to blind the
male to their real character. This conjecture, though shrewd, was
erroneous. They could not all flirt with that one man: so the outsiders
indemnified themselves by talking at her the very moment she came up.
"Any news from foreign parts, Jacqueline?"
"None for me, Martha. My lad goes no farther from me than the town
wall."
"I can't say as much," says a third.
"But if he goes t' Italy I have got another ready to take the fool's
place."
"He'll not go thither, lass. They go not so far till they are sick of us
that bide in Holland."
Surprise, and indignation, and the presence of a man, gave Margaret a
moment's fighting courage. "Oh, flout me not, and show your ill nature
before the very soldier. In Heaven's name, what ill did I ever to ye;
what harsh word cast back, for all you have flung on me, a desolate
stranger in your cruel town, that ye flout me for my bereavement and my
poor lad's most unwilling banishment? Hearts of flesh would surely pity
us both, for that ye cast in my teeth these many days, ye brows of
brass, ye bosoms of stone."
They stared at this novelty, resistance; and ere they could recover and
make mincemeat of her, she put her pitcher quietly down, and threw her
coarse apron over her head, and stood there grieving, her short-lived
spirit oozing fast. "Hallo!" cried the soldier, "why, what is your ill?"
She made no reply. But a little girl, who had long secretly hated the
big ones, squeaked out, "They did flout her, they are aye flouting her:
she may not come nigh the fountain for fear o' them, and 'tis a black
shame."
"Who spoke to her? Not I for one."
"Nor I. I would not bemean myself so far."
The man laughed heartily at this display of dignity. "Come, wife," said
he, "never lower thy flag to such light skirmishers as these. Hast a
tongue i' thy head as well as they."
"Alack, good soldier, I was not bred to bandy foul terms."
"Well, but hast a better arm than these. Why not take 'em by twos across
thy knee, and skelp 'em till they cry Meculpee?"
"Nay, I would not hurt their bodies for all their cruel hearts."
"Then ye must e'en laugh at them, wife. What! a woman grown, and not see
why mesdames give tongue? You are a buxom wife; they are a bundle of
thread-papers. You are fair and fresh: they have all the Dutch rim under
their bright eyes, that comes of dwelling in eternal swamps. There lies
your crime. Come, gie me thy pitcher, and, if they flout me, shalt see
me scrub 'em all wi' my beard till they squeak holy mother." The pitcher
was soon filled, and the soldier put it in Margaret's hand. She murmured
"Thank you kindly, brave soldier."
He patted her on the shoulder. "Come, courage, brave wife; the divell is
dead!" She let the heavy pitcher fall on his foot directly. He cursed
horribly, and hopped in a circle, saying, "No, the Thief's alive and has
broken my great toe."
The apron came down, and there was a lovely face all flushed with
emotion, and two beaming eyes in front of him, and two hands held out
clasped.
"Nay, nay, 'tis nought," said he, good-humouredly, mistaking.
"Denys?"
"Well?--But--Hallo! How know you my name is--"
"Denys of Burgundy!"
"Why, odsbodikins! I know you not, and you know me."
"By Gerard's letter. Cross-bow! beard! handsome! The divell is dead."
"Sword of Goliah! this must be she. Red hair, violet eyes, lovely face.
But I took ye for a married wife, seeing ye--"
"Tell me my name," said she quickly.
"Margaret Brandt."
"Gerard? Where is he? Is he in life? Is he well? Is he come? Why is he
not here? Where have ye left him? Oh, tell me! prithee, prithee,
prithee, tell me!"
"Ay, ay, but not here. Oh, ye are all curiosity now, mesdames, eh? Lass,
I have been three months a-foot travelling all Holland to find ye, and
here you are. Oh, be joyful!" and he flung his cap in the air, and
seizing both her hands kissed them ardently. "Ah, my pretty she-comrade,
I have found thee at last. I knew I should. Shalt be flouted no more.
I'll twist your necks at the first word, ye little trollops. And I have
got fifteen gold angels left for thee, and our Gerard will soon be here.
Shalt wet thy purple eyes no more."
But the fair eyes were wet even now, looking kindly and gratefully at
the friend that had dropped among her foes as if from heaven: Gerard's
comrade. "Prithee come home with me, good, kind Denys. I cannot speak of
him before these." They went off together, followed by a chorus. "She
has gotten a man. She has gotten a man at last. Hoo! hoo! hoo!"
Margaret quickened her steps; but Denys took down his crossbow and
pretended to shoot them all dead: they fled quadrivious, shrieking.