The door opened, and an unexpected visitor, Eli, came in, looking grave and kind.
Margaret eyed him in silence, and with increasing agitation.
"Girl," said he, "the skipper is come back."
"One word," gasped Margaret, "is he alive?"
"Surely, I hope so. No one has seen him dead."
"Then they must have seen him alive."
"No girl; neither dead nor alive hath he been seen this many months in Rome. My daughter Kate thinks he is gone to some other city. She bade me tell you her thought."
"Ay, like enough," said Margaret, gloomily; "like enough. My poor babe!"
The old man in a faintest voice asked her for a morsel to eat: he had come fasting.
The poor thing pitied him with the surface of her agitated mind, and cooked a meal for him, trembling, and scarce knowing what she was about.
Ere he went he laid his hand upon her head, and said, "Be he alive, or be he dead, I look on thee as my daughter. Can I do nought for thee this day? bethink thee now."
"Ay, old man. Pray for him; and for me!"
Eli sighed, and went sadly and heavily down the stairs.
She listened half stupidly to his retiring footsteps till they ceased.
Then she sank moaning down by the cradle, and drew little Gerard tight to her bosom. "Oh, my poor fatherless boy; my fatherless boy!"
CHAPTER LXXIX
NOT long after this, as the little family at Tergou sat at dinner, Luke Peterson burst in on them, covered with dust.
"Good people, Mistress Catherine is wanted instantly at Rotterdam."
"My name is Catherine, young man. Kate, it will be Margaret."
"Ay dame, she said to me, "Good Luke, hie thee to Tergou, and ask for Eli the hosier, and pray his wife Catherine to come to me, for G.o.d his love." I didn"t wait for daylight."
"Holy saints! He has come home, Kate. Nay, she would sure have said so.
What on earth can it be?" And she heaped conjecture on conjecture.
"Mayhap the young man can tell us," hazarded Kate, timidly.
"That I can," said Luke. "Why, her babe is a-dying. And she was so wrapped up in it!"
Catherine started up: "What is his trouble?"
"Nay, I know not. But it has been peaking and pining worse and worse this while."
A furtive glance of satisfaction pa.s.sed between Cornelis and Sybrandt.
Luckily for them Catherine did not see it. Her face was turned towards her husband. "Now, Eli," cried she, furiously, "if you say a word against it, you and I shall quarrel, after all these years."
"Who gainsays thee, foolish woman? Quarrel with your own shadow; while I go borrow Peter"s mule for ye."
"Bless thee, my good man! Bless thee! Didst never yet fail me at a pinch. Now eat your dinners who can, while I go and make ready."
She took Luke back with her in the cart, and, on the way, questioned and cross-questioned him, severely, and seductively, by turns, till she had turned his mind inside out, what there was of it.
Margaret met her at the door, pale and agitated, and threw her arms round her neck, and looked imploringly in her face.
"Come, he is alive, thank G.o.d," said Catherine, after scanning her eagerly.
She looked at the failing child, and then at the poor hollow-eyed mother, alternately. "Lucky you sent for me," said she. "The child is poisoned."
"Poisoned! by whom?"
"By you. You have been fretting."
"Nay, indeed, mother. How can I help fretting?"
"Don"t tell me, Margaret. A nursing mother has no business to fret. She must turn her mind away from her grief to the comfort that lies in her lap. Know you not that the child pines if the mother vexes herself? This comes of your reading and writing. Those idle crafts befit a man; but they keep all useful knowledge out of a woman. The child must be weaned."
"Oh, you cruel woman," cried Margaret, vehemently; "I am sorry I sent for you. Would you rob me of the only bit of comfort I have in the world? A-nursing my Gerard, I forget I am the most unhappy creature beneath the sun."
"That you do not," was the retort, "or he would not be the way he is."
"Mother!" said Margaret, imploringly.
""Tis hard," replied Catherine, relenting. "But bethink thee; would it not be harder to look down and see his lovely wee face a-looking up at you out of a little coffin?"
"O, Jesu!"
"And how could you face your other troubles with your heart aye full, and your lap empty?"
"Oh, mother, I consent to anything. Only save my boy."
"That is a good la.s.s. Trust to me! I do stand by, and see clearer than thou."
Unfortunately there was another consent to be gained; the babe"s: and he was more refractory than his mother.
"There," said Margaret, trying to affect regret at his misbehaviour; "he loves me too well."
But Catherine was a match for them both. As she came along she had observed a healthy young woman, sitting outside her own door, with an infant hard by. She went and told her the case; and would she nurse the pining child for the nonce, till she had matters ready to wean him?