“Uncle Mopius has mistaken the date,” she said, aloud; “and to-day, of all days in the year, he sends this money. I accept the omen. I will not confess at this moment; I will not give up. No one shall say that my motive was either fear or despair. I will fight them all.”
CHAPTER XLV
THE HOME-COMING OF THE HERO
The rebuilding of the cottages was undertaken without delay, and, chiefly to comply with Mynheer Mopius’s injunction, an entertainment was organized by Ursula in honor of her birthday. It was a feast of the usual kind, in the village school-room, with dissolving views, and still more rapidly dissolving cakes. The whole village criticised the various good things provided, especially the patently didactic slides, and went home replete and grumbling. Furthermore, last year’s potato-crop having failed, the village demanded provisions. These also Ursula distributed, especially in the Hemel, as far as the two thousand florins could possibly be made to stretch. Even elasticity has natural limits, and presently dissatisfaction rumbled forth again.
That spring, however, remains memorable in the annals of the Hemel. In April its oldest inhabitant died. He had been breaking up all through the winter, and his gradual decline had been watched by every man, woman, and child in the place. For, firstly, he was the only one among them who could be described as “pretty well off;” secondly, he was a childish bachelor; and, thirdly, every household in the hamlet laid claim to some form of connection with “Uncle Methuselah,” as they called him, though nobody wished him that patriarch’s tale of years.
Uncle Methuselah having died intestate on the seventh day of April, every able-bodied adult in the Hemel, not to mention the children, stood outside Notary Noks’s little office-door on the morning of the eighth. There was much jostling and jesting, also some affectation of sorrow by those who considered that laughs should be taken in disproof of relationship.
The raggedest of the ragged troop, fat Vrouw Punter, had actually concealed an onion under her tattered shawl. Her face was so resolutely jovial that she fancied the lachrymose vegetable might prove useful in her interview with the man of law; for she had heard, and devoutly believed, that if you but held such a thing in your hand, at an emergency, your eyes were certain to overflow. Most of the others poured forth rivers ad libitum, scorning artificial assistance.
But Notary Noks put a stop to that. “Come up in succession,” he said, “and those who feel bad take a turn outside.”