“Oh, a man is a man, but a woman is a woman. You must not think all of him and none of yourself. Near is your kirtle, but nearer is your smock. Besides, he is a priest, and can do no better. But you are not a priest. He has got his parish, and his heart is in that. Bethink thee! Time flies; overstay not thy market. Wouldst not like to have three or four more little darlings about thy knee now they have robbed thee of poor little Gerard, and sent him to yon nasty school?” And so she worked upon a mind already irritated.
Margaret had many suitors ready to marry her at a word or even a look, and among them two merchants of the better class, Van Schelt and Oostwagen. “Take one of those two,” said Catherine.
“Well, I will ask Gerard if I may,” said Margaret one day, with a flood of tears; “for I cannot go on the way I am.”
“Why, you would never be so simple as ask him?”
“Think you I would be so wicked as marry without his leave?”
Accordingly she actually went to Gouda, and after hanging her head, and blushing, and crying, and saying she was miserable, told him his mother wished her to marry one of those two; and if he approved of her marrying at all, would he use his wisdom, and tell her which he thought would be the kindest to the little Gerard of those two; for herself, she did not care what became of her.
Gerard felt as if she had put a soft hand into his body and torn his heart out with it. But the priest with a mighty effort mastered the man. In a voice scarcely audible he declined this responsibility. “I am not a saint or a prophet,” said he; “I might advise thee ill. I shall read the marriage service for thee,” faltered he; “it is my right. No other would pray for thee as I should. But thou must choose for thyself; and oh! let me see thee happy. This four months past thou hast not been happy.”
“A discontented mind is never happy,” said Margaret.
She left him, and he fell on his knees, and prayed for help from above.
Margaret went home pale and agitated. “Mother,” said she, “never mention it to me again, or we shall quarrel.”