“Alas, poor wretch,” said Margaret. She turned very gravely to the men, and said, “Leave him here. And if you have brought him to this, go on your knees, for you have spoiled him for life. He will never walk again; his back is broken.”
The drunken man caught these words, and the foolish look of intoxication fled, and a glare of anguish took its place. “The curse,” he groaned; “the curse!”
Margaret and Reicht Heynes carried him carefully, and laid him on the softest bed.
“I must do as he would do,” whispered Margaret. “He was kind to Ghysbrecht.”
Her opinion was verified, Sybrandt's spine was fatally injured; and he lay groaning and helpless, fed and tended by her he had so deeply injured.
The news was sent to Tergou, and Catherine came over.
It was a terrible blow to her. Moreover, she accused herself as the cause. “Oh, false wife; oh, weak mother,” she cried, “I am rightly punished for my treason to my poor Eli.”
She sat for hours at a time by his bedside rocking herself in silence, and was never quite herself again; and the first grey hairs began to come in her poor head from that hour.
As for Sybrandt, all his cry was now for Gerard, He used to whine to Margaret like a suffering hound, “Oh, sweet Margaret, oh, bonny Margaret, for our Lady's sake find Gerard, and bid him take his curse off me. Thou art gentle, thou art good; thou wilt entreat for me, and he will refuse thee nought.”
Catherine shared his belief that Gerard could cure him, and joined her entreaties to his, Margaret hardly needed this. The burgomaster and his agents having failed, she employed her own, and spent money like water. And among these agents poor Luke enrolled himself. She met him one day looking very thin, and spoke to him compassionately. On this he began to blubber, and say he was more miserable than ever; he would like to be good friends again upon almost any terms.