"Why am I afraid? These are simple people working—they are real; they talk and sing!" she said to herself, but her hands trembled and the high sun seemed to her more like the unreal glory of the coloured windows in some great church than the sun she knew.
Hardly was the Dame seated when two fine young boys ran toward her, struggling with each other to reach her first.
"Oh, mother, I have learned my book!" cried one, and the other, "Oh, dear mother, I can do the sum now!"
She kissed them fondly and told them she would hear them soon.
"And where are your sisters?" she asked them.
"Alda is among her doves and Grizel is coming to you for help with the hood she is knitting," said one, and the other:
"But May Ellen is with Joan down in the nut-bins, and mother, they are quarrelling about young Dyrk! Each will have it that he likes her best, the foolish things!"
"Run, then, Roger, and bring them to me," said the Dame; "they are o'er young for such quarrels. We will set them at the apples."
Now, before the Dame had gone once around her knitting she was called from it ten times. Would the Dame have them bring in the russets first? Would the Dame look to the new honey, for they dared not take off the bees alone? Would the Dame hear a sum? Would the Dame say which of two disputants had the right? Would the Dame see the miller? Would she take the pay for the gray mare? And such like questionings that left her alone not a moment.
She who sat idle plucked at the Dame's sleeve and spoke timidly to her.