t on the ground.
But he picked it up again with a spiteful snatch, and went to the
landlord, with tears in his eyes, and begged for work, The landlord
declined, said he had his own people.

"Oh, I seek not your money," said Luke, "I only want some work to keep
me from breaking my heart about another man's lass."

"Good lad! good lad!" exploded the landlord; and found him lots of
barrels to mend--on these terms, And he coopered with fury in the
interval of the boats coming down the Rhine.

CHAPTER LXXXIII

THE HEARTH

Waiting an earnest letter seldom leaves the mind in statu quo.

Margaret, in hers, vented her energy and her faith in her dying father's
vision, or illusion; and when this was done, and Luke gone, she wondered
at her credulity, and her conscience pricked her about Luke; and
Catherine came and scolded her, and she paid the price of false hopes,
and elevation of spirits, by falling into deeper despondency. She was
found in this state by a staunch friend she had lately made, Joan Ketel.
This good woman came in radiant with an idea.

"Margaret, I know the cure for thine ill: the hermit of Gouda a wondrous
holy man, Why, he can tell what is coming, when he is in the mood."

"Ay, I have heard of him," said Margaret hopelessly. Joan with some
difficulty persuaded her to walk out as far as Gouda, and consult the
hermit. They took some butter and eggs in a basket, and went to his
cave.

What had made the pair such fast friends? Jorian some six weeks ago fell
ill of a bowel disease; it began with raging pain; and when this went
off, leaving him weak, an awkward symptom succeeded; nothing, either
liquid or solid, would stay in his stomach a minute. The doctor said:
"He must die if this goes on many hours; therefore boil thou now a
chicken with a golden angel in the water, and let him sup that!"
Alas! Gilt chicken broth shared the fate of the humbler viands, its
predecessors. Then the cure steeped the thumb of St. Sergius in beef
broth. Same result. Then Joan ran weeping to Margaret to borrow some
linen to make his shroud. "Let me see him," said Margaret. She came in
and felt his pulse. "Ah!" said she, "I doubt they have not gone to the
root. Open the window! Art stifling him; now change all his linen.

"Alack, woman, what for? Why foul more linen for a dying man?" objected
the mediaeval wife.

"Do as thou art bid," said Margaret dully, and left the room.

Joan somehow found herself doing as she was