But long after the maid had fallen into light sleep at last the mother lay and blamed herself most heavily, for somehow she felt some wrong within herself that laid its punishment upon the maid, though how she did not know, only she wished she had been better. And she blamed herself lest if by any chance she should have found a nearer place to wed her maid, a village where she could go each month or so, or even found a poor man willing to move to the hamlet for a little price that she could promise. Yet even when she thought of this she groaned within her heart and doubted that her son and son’s wife would have spared even this small price, for they kept the money now. So she thought most heavily, “Yet I cannot hope she will never be beaten. Few houses be there like ours where neither man nor his mother will beat a maid new come. And it would tear my heart so, and so grieve me if I saw my blind maid beaten or even if it was done near enough so I could hear of it, or so the maid could run home and tell me, and I helpless once she is wed, that I think I could not bear it. Better far to have her where I cannot see her and where I cannot know and so be saved the pain because I cannot see and so can hope.”
And after she had lain a while more and felt how heavy life lay on her she thought of one thing she could do, and it was that she could give the maid some silver coins for her own, as her own mother had done when she left home. So in the darkness before dawn she rose and moving carefully not to stir the beasts and fowls and frighten them she went to her hole and smoothed away the earth and took out the bit of rag she kept the little store in and opened it and chose out five pieces of silver and thrust them in her bosom and covered the hole again. Then with the silver in her bosom a little comfort came and she thought to herself, “At least it is not every maid who comes from a poor house with a little store of silver. At least my maid has this!”
And holding fast on this small comfort she slept at last.
Thus the days passed and none joyfully. No, the woman took no joy even in her youngest son and cared little whether he came and went except she saw that he was well and smiling with some business of his own she did not know. So the day came at last when the maid must go and the woman waited with the heaviest heart to see what was the one who came to fetch her. Yes, she strained her heart to understand what sort of man it was who came and fetched her maid away.
It was a day in early spring he came, before the year had opened fully so that spring was only seen in a few hardy weeds the children in the village digged to eat and in a greenish tinge along the willow twigs and the brown buds on the peach trees scarcely swollen yet. All the lands lay barren still with winter, the wheat not growing yet and but small spears among the clods, and the winds cold.
On this day one came, an old man riding on a gray ass without a saddle and sitting on an old and filthy ragged coat folded under him upon the beast’s back. He came to the house where the mother was and gave his name. Her heart stopped then in her bosom, for she did not like the way this old man looked. He grinned at her and shaped his lips to be kind, but there was no kindness in the sharp old fox’s face, sharp eyes set in deep wrinkles, a few white hairs about a narrow lipless mouth curved down too long to smile with any truth this day. He wore garments well-nigh rags, too, not patched or clean, and when he came down from his ass there was no common courtesy in his manner, such as any man may have whether he be learned or not. He came limping across the threshing-floor, one leg too short to match the other, his old garments tied about him at the waist, and he said roughly, “I am come to fetch a blind maid. Where is she?”
Then the mother said, for suddenly she hated this old man, “But what pledge have you that you are the one to have her?”
The old man grinned again and said, “I know that fat goodwife who came to tell us we might have the maid for nothing for my brother’s son.”
Then the woman said, “Wait until I call her.” And she sent her younger lad who lounged about the house that day, and the old gossip came as quickly as her old legs would bear her and she stared at the man and laughed and shouted, “Aye, it is the uncle of the lad she is to wed. How are you, goodman, and have you eaten yet this day?”