A young peasant girl, fresh and blonde, with large blue eyes, and picturesque costume, came every morning and placed herself before his house, to sell the milk which she brought in a fine brass can, polished like a mirror. The custom of seeing her a few hours every day had gradually caused an affection between her and this worthy couple; although in part based upon personal interest, still it was deep. As the basket maker sometimes said, he had for Lyntje, (which was the name of the pretty peasant), a paternal love, and as for Gertrude, his wife, she said she loved her as she would a daughter.
When the weather was bad, if it rained or snowed, Dewis could not display his baskets, which were usually installed at the door, consequently Lyntje occupied their place and was sheltered from the elements. When it was cold, she came from time to time to warm herself in the kitchen. The milk girl was touched by these delicate attentions, and showed it by giving good measure to Mother Dewis, who for one liard had often more milk than her neighbours for two. These agreeable relations had existed for several years, when suddenly an unforeseen event terminated them.
One morning in the month of August, 1530, Dewis did not see the young peasant arrive at her accustomed hour. He waited until the middle of the day before he put his baskets out, as it threatened to rain. Such a thing had not happened since the day he first made her acquaintance. Mother Dewis was so affected that she forgot to buy milk of another. This gave her husband an opportunity of saying that the use of milk was only a luxurious habit. But it made no impression upon his better half, to whom the absence of Lyntje was a cause of great inquietude.
“Can she be sick?” she asked him with anxiety. But then she recalled her robust constitution, her rosy cheeks, and dismissed that thought as impossible.
The next day no Lyntje. This was extremely grave, and their anxiety was at its height. The basket maker was on the point of going out of the city (which he had not done for perhaps twenty years) to the village where Lyntje lived. He would have executed this design if his wife had not observed to him, that he would gravely compromise the soles of his shoes. This judicious remark caused him to postpone his excursion until the next day. The next morning a countryman came to inform them of the death of Lyntje. The poor girl had been taken ill and died the same night. Before dying, she had remembered her friends in the city, and had expressed the desire that some one would carry them the fatal news. The basket maker and his wife, smitten in their dearest affection, wishing to do something for the repose of her soul, formed the resolution that they would never again use milk!
II
Several weeks had passed since the death of the generous milk girl, and her old friends had not been able to recover the calm of their former life. They seemed on the contrary to become more melancholy as the days and weeks wore on after that unfortunate event. Instead of taking the air upon their doorsteps and conversing with their neighbours, as they had been in the habit of doing, they never sat there now, and had become nearly invisible. They went regularly every morning to the cathedral, where as exemplary Christians, they attended the first mass. Then they had such a depressed air, the expression of their faces showed a grief so bitter, that not an inhabitant of the market dared to speak to them. When, however, one bolder than the others ventured to question them, he obtained only a few syllables in response. The neighbours, who all felt a great sympathy for them, would have been glad to console them. They did not know what to think of such singular conduct, so contrary to all their habits.
“I cannot believe that grief alone, for a friend like Lyntje, could affect them to such a point,” said Mynheer Schuermans, the plumber, one day to his friend, Mynheer Dorekens, the baker upon the corner, who in the morning came to chat with one or the other of his neighbours while his last oven of bread was baking.
“It is true that they lost something,” responded he, “because my wife says so, and she is incapable of telling a falsehood. You know, neighbour, Mother Dewis had more milk for her liard than we for two.”