Denys. “Courage, good Master Richart! Take your time. Here are more eyne wet than yours. Ah, little comrade! would God thou wert here, and I at Venice for thee.”
Richart. “Poor little curly-headed lad, what had he done that we have driven him so far?”
“That is what I would fain know,” said Catherine drily, then fell to weeping and rocking herself, with her apron over her head.
“Kind dame, good friends,” said Margaret trembling, “let me tell you how the letter ends. The skipper hearing our Gerard speak his grief in Dutch, accosted him, and spake comfortably to him; and after a while our Gerard found breath to say he was worthy Master Richart's brother. Thereat was the good skipper all agog to serve him.”
Richart. “So! so! skipper! Master Richart aforesaid will be at thy wedding and bring's purse to boot.”
Margaret. “Sir, he told Gerard of his consort that was to sail that very night for Rotterdam; and dear Gerard had to go home and finish his letter and bring it to the ship. And the rest, it is but his poor dear words of love to me, the which, an't please you, I think shame to hear them read aloud, and ends with the lines I sent to Mistress Kate, and they would sound so harsh now and ungrateful.”
The pleading tone, as much as the words, prevailed, and Richart said he would read no more aloud, but run his eye over it for his own brotherly satisfaction. She blushed and looked uneasy, but made no reply.
“Eli,” said Catherine, still sobbing a little, “tell me, for our Lady's sake, how our poor boy is to live at that nasty Rome. He is gone there to write, but here he his own words to prove writing avails nought: a had died o' hunger by the way but for paint-brush and psaltery. Well a-day!”
“Well,” said Eli, “he has got brush and music still. Besides, so many men so many minds. Writing, though it had no sale in other parts, may be merchandise at Rome.”
“Father,” said little Kate, “have I your good leave to put in my word 'twixt mother and you?”