"How long since died Peter Brandt?"
"About two months. Why?"
"And his daughter buried him, say you?"
"Nay, I buried him, but she paid the fee and reared the stone. Why?"
"Then—but he had but one daughter; Margaret?"
"No more; leastways, that he owned to."
"Then you think Margaret is—is alive?"
"Think? Why I should be dead else. Riddle me that."
"Alas, how can I? You love her!"
"No more than reason, being a married man and father of four more sturdy knaves like myself. Nay, the answer is, she saved my life scarce six weeks agone. Now had she been dead she couldn't ha' kept me alive. Bless your heart I couldn't keep a thing on my stomach; nor doctors couldn't make me. My Joan says, ''Tis time to buy thee a shroud.' 'I dare say, so 'tis,' says I; 'but try and borrow one first.' In comes my lady, this Margaret, which she died three years ago, by your way on't, opens the windows, makes 'em shift me where I lay, and cures me in the twinkling of a bed post; but wi' what? there pinches the shoe; with the scurviest herb, and out of my own garden, too; with sweet feverfew. A herb, quotha, 'tis a weed; leastways it was a weed till it cured me; but now whene'er I pass my bunch I doff bonnet, and, says I, 'My service t'ye.' Why, how now, father, you look wondrous pale, and now you are red; and now you are white? Why, what is the matter? What in Heaven's name is the matter?"