He knew very well that she had never had any passion for carding, and consequently was not interested in that blue muffler, which would be so becoming to Femke’s favorite sheep.
But she assured him that he was a prodigal; and that was enough.
“That’s what I’ve always said!” replied Juffrouw Pieterse. “What does he do but squander his mother’s money? If that man wants snuff, let him buy it. The king pays him. I have to work too hard for my money. Don’t I, Stoffel?”
“Yes, mother; but it’s only childishness in Walter!”
“Childishness! That’s what I call it.”
“No it isn’t!” cried the pious Laps. “He’s on the straight road to the trough of Luke 15. He will eat husks! Do you think the Master doesn’t carry out his parables? Just send him to me. The pastors are to blame for it. They don’t explain the Bible. Send him to me.”
“If I only knew how he gets such things into his head!”
“You don’t know? It’s arrogance!”
She spoke the truth.
“Arrogance, Arrogance pure and simple—just as it was in Belshazzar, or Sennacherib, or Nebuchadnezzar.”