The Cloister and the Hearth by Charles Reade (most interesting books to read .TXT) 📕

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 learnedest 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 eye in every patient. Had they stayed at home, and never 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 any thing. 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