But one day, when her spirits were weak, as happens at times to females in her condition, a dozen assailants followed suit so admirably, that her whole sex seemed to the dispirited one to be against her, and she lost heart, and the tears began to run silently at each fresh stab.
On this their triumph knew no bounds, and they followed her half way home casting barbed speeches.
After that exposure of weakness the statue could be assumed no more. So then she would stand timidly aloof out of tongue-shot, till her young tyrants' pitchers were all filled, and they gone; and then creep up with hers. And one day she waited so long that the fount had ceased to flow. So the next day she was obliged to face the phalanx, or her house go dry. She drew near slowly, but with the less tremor, that she saw a man at the well talking to them. He would distract their attention, and besides, they would keep their foul tongues quiet if only to blind the male to their real character. This conjecture, though shrewd, was erroneous. They could not all flirt with that one man; so the outsiders indemnified themselves by talking at her the very moment she came up.
“Any news from foreign parts, Jacqueline?”
“None for me, Martha. My lad goes no farther from me than the town wall.”
“I can't say as much,” says a third.
“But if he goes t' Italy I have got another ready to take the fool's place.”
“He'll not go thither, lass. They go not so far till they are sick of us that bide in Holland.”
Surprise and indignation, and the presence of a man, gave Margaret a moment's fighting courage.
“Oh, flout me not, and show your ill nature before the very soldier. In Heaven's name, what ill did I ever to ye? what harsh word cast back, for all you have flung on me, a desolate stranger in your cruel town, that ye flout me for my bereavement and my poor lad's most unwilling banishment? Hearts of flesh would surely pity us both, for that ye cast in my teeth these many days, ye brows of brass, ye bosoms of stone.”