ere inspanned for the kerk-going, did I fail to whack them as a
mother should? Nooit, nooit! And now--Death has fallen out of the sky upon
the Benjamin of my bosom. Oh, blasted be the eyesight and withered be the
hand of the man that sighted and laid and fired the gun!"

She cursed the Kaiser's blue-and-white-uniformed gunner in every function
of his body and every corner of his soul, waking and sleeping, dying and
dead, with fluent Scriptural curses. The crowded faces about her went
white. Some of the women were crying, others shook their heads:

"Thim that puts the Bad Black Wish on odhers finds sorra knock harrd at
their dure," said an Irish voice oracularly. "An' who but herself did be
callin' down all manner av' misfortune on ivery wan that crassed her?"

"It's a judgment--my opinion," agreed the thin young woman who had been
peeling potatoes, and who wore a wisp of draggled crape round a soiled
rush hat. "Never a shell busted but you'd a-heered her say she hoped that
one had sent another parcel of verdant rooineks to Hell. And me sitting
over against her with crape on for my husband and baby. 'Tis a judgment,
that's what I say."

"Oh, hush, Mrs. Lennan!" said the Mother-Superior. "Be pitiful and forget.
She did not think--she had not suffered. Be pitiful, now that her hour has
come!"

The thick voice of the Boer woman broke out again:

"Did ever I miss of the Nachtmaal? Alamachtig, no! Virtuous as Sarah have
I lain in the marriage-bed--never a sly look for another, and my husband
with dropsy-legs as thick as boomstammen, and sixty years upon his loins.
Thou knewest, and yet the joy of my life is taken from me. Where wert
Thou, O God of Israel, when they killed my little Dierck?"

The Mother-Superior leaned to her, and threw a strong, tender arm about
the fleshy shoulders. She said, speaking in the Taal:

"Hush, hush! Remember that He gave the joy before He sent the sorrow. And
we must submit ourselves to the Holy Will."

The Boer woman snorted:

"As if I didn't know that better than a Papist. Look you, have I shed one
tear?" She blinked hard bright eyes defiantly. The Mother went on in that
velvet voice of hers, making the uncouth dialect sound like the cooing of
an Irish dove:

"Better that you had tears, poor mother! Ah! best to weep. Did not our
Lord weep over His dearest city, and for His beloved friend? And when He
pitied the Widow of Nain, do you think His eyes were dry? Ah! best to
weep."

She