“Ay, but they went as they came, maid and bachelor.”
“The parson, saith he so?”
“Nay, for that I know not.”
“Then I'll take no man's word but his in such a tangled skein.” After some reflection she added, “Natheless art right, girl; I'll to Sevenbergen alone. A wife I am but not a slave. We are all in the dark here. And she holds the clue. I must question her, and no one by; least of all you. I'll not take any lily to a house Wi' a spot, no, not to a palace o' gold and silver.”
The more Catherine pondered this conversation, the more she felt drawn towards Margaret, and moreover “she was all agog” with curiosity, a potent passion with us all, and nearly omnipotent with those who like Catherine, do not slake it with reading. At last, one fine day, after dinner, she whispered to Kate, “Keep the house from going to pieces, an ye can;” and donned her best kirtle and hood, and her scarlet clocked hose and her new shoes, and trudged briskly off to Sevenbergen, troubling no man's mule.
When she got there she inquired where Margaret Brandt lived. The first person she asked shook his head, and said—“The name is strange to me.” She went a little farther and asked a girl of about fifteen who was standing at a door. “Father,” said the girl, speaking into the house, “here is another after that magician's daughter.” The man came out and told Catherine Peter Brandt's cottage was just outside the town on the east side. “You may see the chimney hence;” and he pointed it out to her. “But you will not find them there, neither father nor daughter; they have left the town this week, bless you.”
“Say not so, good man, and me walken all the way from Tergou.”
“From Tergou? then you must ha' met the soldier.”
“What soldier? ay, I did meet a soldier.”
“Well, then, yon soldier was here seeking that self-same Margaret.”