Well, the vessel came at last, and we embarked for Rotterdam, from which place we were to make our way as quickly as might be to Saulin, a little retired town in the Dutchy of Cleves, where Master Batie had appointed to meet us. I do think I am a very Jonah on shipboard. Never but once did I cross the seas without meeting a storm. We had a tremendous one this time, and our master was obliged to put back and take shelter for a day or two at Harwich.
Our quarters were wretched enough, especially as our hatches were fastened down half the time. Mistress Curtis was sick in her berth almost all the way, though she called herself a good sailor, and old John Symonds was not much better, but my mistress was well and cheerful, making nothing of all the inconveniences of our situation, and waiting on herself when I had my hands full with poor Mistress Curtis, who was sure she was going to die, and wept the next moment because her lady's meal was served in a cracked yellow pudding basin, without so much as a napkin. Never was a better woman, or one more great in emergency; but she was lady in waiting to the backbone, and ceremony and form had become as her life-blood. She felt a great deal worse than the Duchess, who indeed did not care at all.
We reached Rotterdam at last, a dirty, weary, draggled set. I was glad that, according to Master Batie's orders, we were to make no stay there, but to push on at once to our destination. I dreaded seeing the place where I had been so happy, and, above all, I could not endure that any one should speak to me about Walter. 'Twas a morbid, unhealthy state of mind, no doubt, and I got over it after a time.
We pushed on by boat as far as we could, and then by wagon and on horseback, and sometimes on foot, till we reached the city of Cleves. The very first person we saw in the twilight, as we came to the city gate, was Master Batie himself. He had come that far to meet us, and had provided lodgings for us in a decent little inn just without the gate. No sooner did my mistress reach this place of rest and safety than she broke down utterly, and went into a fit of the mother, which frightened even Mistress Curtis. It was well I could speak Dutch, for the mistress of the house was a Holland woman, and not a little scared at the condition of her guest.
"Is your lady gone mad, think you?" she asked of me.
"Not so," I answered. "She is but tired and overwrought, and the joy of seeing her husband unexpectedly was too much for her. You can see yourself that she is in no fit state to travel. She will be better directly."
"I hope so," said she, with a troubled face. "I fear lest she may bring the priest down on us; they look so keenly after every case of sickness—the vultures that they are. Alack, what have I said."
"The truth," said I, bitterly. "Vultures, and kites, and ravening wolves, if you will."
The hostess looked relieved.
"One never knows to whom one is speaking in these days," said she; "but I would the lady were quiet."