IX
Once again did Soetkin bear under her girdle the sign of approaching motherhood; and Katheline also was in a like condition. But she was afraid, and never ventured out of her house.
When Soetkin went to see her, “Alas!” said Katheline, “what shall I do? Must I smother the ill-starred fruit of my womb? I would rather die myself. And yet if the Sergeant summons me for having a child without being married, they will make me pay twenty florins like a girl of no reputation, and I shall be flogged in the Market Square.”
Soetkin consoled and comforted her as sweetly as she could, then left her, and returned thoughtfully home.
One day she said to Claes:
“If I brought two children into the world instead of one, would you be angry? Would you beat me, my man?”
“That I cannot say,” Claes answered.
“But if the second were not really mine, but turned out to be like this child of Katheline’s, the offspring of some one unknown—the devil maybe?”
“Devils beget fire, death, smoke,” Claes replied, “but children—no. Yet will I take for my own the child of Katheline.”