XXI. How Magtelt sought Anne-Mie.
On the morrow Magtelt, being, as was customary, the first awake, said her prayers to My Lord Jesus and to Madam Saint Magtelt, her blessed patron.
Having besought them earnestly for Sir Roel, the lady Gonde, the Silent, and all the household, most particularly for Anne-Mie, she looked at the maid’s bed, and seeing its curtains half drawn she supposed that her companion was still asleep; and so, putting on her fine clothes, she kept saying as she moved up and down the room, or looked at herself in the mirror-glass:
“Ho, Anne-Mie, wake up, wake up, Anne-Mie! Who sleeps late comes last to grass. The sparrows are awake and the hens also, and already their eggs are laid. Wake up, Anne-Mie, Schimmel is neighing in the stable, and the sun is shining bright on the snow; my lord father is scolding the servants, and my lady mother is interceding for them. Canst not smell the savoury odour of beans and good beef broiled with spices? I can smell it well enough, and it makes me hungry; wake up, Anne-Mie.” But the girl could not possess herself in patience any longer, and threw the curtains wide open.
Finding no Anne-Mie: “There!” she said, “the rogue, she has gone down without me; and without me, no doubt, is at this same moment eating those good beans and beef.”
And going down the stairs at a run Magtelt entered the great hall, where, seeing Sir Roel her father, she knelt to him and asked his blessing, and then likewise to the lady Gonde.
But her mother said to her: “Where is Anne-Mie?”
“I cannot tell,” said Magtelt, “she is having some fun with us, I suppose, hidden in some corner.”
“That,” said Sir Roel, “is not her way, for if any one here makes fun of others ’tis not she, but thou, little one.”
“My lord father,” said Magtelt, “you make me anxious by talking so.”