On one occasion that he came to see her, she said to him at his departure.
“Adieu, my son; I am sure that you will never see me again for I am about to die.”
“Devil take it, mother, you have said that so often that I am sick of it. For three years past you have been repeating that, but you have done nothing of the kind. Choose a day, I beg, and keep to it.”
The good woman, when she heard her son’s reply, smiled, though she was so sick and old, and said farewell.
One year, then two years, passed, and still she lingered on. She was again visited by her son, and one night when he was in bed in her house, and she was so ill that all believed she was about to go to Mortaigne, (*) those who watched her called her son, and told him to come to his mother quickly, for that certainly she was about to die.
(*) Mild puns on the names of places were very common in the
Middle Ages.
“Do you say that she is about to die?” he replied. “By my soul, I will not believe it; she always says that, but she never does it.”
“No, no,” said the nurses; “this time it is certain. Come quickly for it is sure that she is dying.”
“Very well, you go first and I will follow you; and tell my mother that if she must go, not to go by Douai, for the road is so bad that I and my horses were nearly swallowed up yesterday.”
Nevertheless he rose, and put on his dressing-gown, and went off to see his mother give her last grin. When he came he found her very ill, for she had been in a swoon which all thought would carry her off, but, thank God, she was now a little better.