“‘If thou do ill, the joy fades, not the pains,
If well, the pain doth fade, the joy remains.’
“But the king, did he make common store of his treasure, and loose his soul for ever from the nymph?”
CHAPTER XVII
For mine enemies have constrained me, as a bird,
without cause.
The Apocrypha.
It happened one day Granny had been longer than usual, and the children sat waiting her return. When she entered the cottage it was with a hurried step and her hood drawn over her countenance. She stood listening with a scared face by the closed door, and had no word for the children. But gradually as the afternoon wore on, and she sat at her herb-bundles, she became quieter, and more at rest.
“Folk’ll come to me fast enough when they’re ailing,” she said to Martin. “‘Have you got anything to cure the dizziness?’ they’ll say. ‘So soon as ever I do go to stoop down to reach anything, I come up all over the hot blooms,’ they’ll say.