“Den I ikes 'm,” said the child authoritatively, “I ont my mammy.”
“Alas, sweet dove! I doubt I shall have to fill her place as best I may. Hast thou no daddy as well as mammy, sweet one?”
Now not only was this conversation from first to last, the relative ages, situations, and all circumstances of the parties considered, as strange a one as ever took place between two mortal creatures, but at or within a second or two of the hermit's last question, to turn the strange into the marvellous, came an unseen witness, to whom every word that passed carried ten times the force it did to either of the speakers.
Since, therefore, it is with her eyes you must now see, and hear with her ears, I go back a step for her.
Margaret, when she ran past Gerard, was almost mad. She was in that state of mind in which affectionate mothers have been known to kill their children, sometimes along with themselves, sometimes alone, which last is certainly maniacal, She ran to Reicht Heynes pale and trembling, and clasped her round the neck, “Oh, Reicht! oh, Reicht!” and could say no more.
Reicht kissed her, and began to whimper; and would you believe it, the great mastiff uttered one long whine: even his glimmer of sense taught him grief was afoot.
“Oh, Reicht!” moaned the despised beauty, as soon as she could utter a word for choking, “see how he has served me!” and she showed her hands, that were bleeding with falling on the stony ground. “He threw me down, he was so eager to fly from me, He took me for a devil; he said I came to tempt him. Am I the woman to tempt a man? you know me, Reicht.”
“Nay, in sooth, sweet Mistress Margaret, the last i' the world.”
“And he would not look at my child. I'll fling myself and him into the Rotter this night.”
“Oh, fie! fie! eh, my sweet woman, speak not so. Is any man that breathes worth your child's life?”