And she gently removed Catherine's arm, and made a feeble attempt to slide off the chair on to her knees, which, after a brief struggle with superior force ended in her finding herself on Catherine's bosom. Then Margaret held out the letter to Eli, and said faintly but sweetly, "I will trust it from my hand now. In sooth, I am little fit to read any more—and—and—loth to leave my comfort:" and she wreathed her other arm round Catherine's neck.
"Read thou, Richart," said Eli; "thine eyes be younger than mine."
Richart took the letter. "Well," said he, "such writing saw I never. A writeth with a needle's point; and clear to boot. Why is he not in my counting-house at Amsterdam instead of vagabonding it out yonder?"
"When I came to myself I was seated in the litter, and my good merchant holding of my hand. I babbled I know not what, and then shuddered awhile in silence. He put a horn of wine to my lips."
Catherine.] "Bless him! bless him!"
Eli.] "Whist!"
"And I told him what had befallen. He would see my leg. It was sprained sore, and swelled at the ankle; and all my points were broken, as I could scarce keep up my hose; and I said, 'Sir, I shall be but a burden to you, I doubt, and can make you no harmony now; my poor psaltery it is broken;' and I did grieve over my broken music, companion of so many weary leagues. But he patted me on the cheek, and bade me not fret; also he did put up my leg on a pillow, and tended me like a kind father.
"January 14.—I sit all day in the litter, for we are pushing forward with haste, and at night the good kind merchant sendeth me to bed, and will not let me work. Strange! whene'er I fall in with men like fiends, then the next moment God still sendeth me some good man or woman, lest I should turn away from human kind. Oh, Margaret! how strangely mixed they be, and how old I am by what I was three months agone! And lo! if good Master Fugger hath not been and bought me a psaltery."
Catherine.] "Eli, my man, an yon merchant comes our way let us buy a hundred ells of cloth of him, and not higgle."
Eli.] "That will I, take your oath on't!"