at
and mean invective, such as no male that ever was born could utter in
one current; and not many women.

The following is a fair though a small sample of her words: only they
were uttered all in one breath.

"I have long had my doubts that you blew the flame betwixt Gerard and
your father, and set that old rogue, Ghysbrecht, on. And now, here are
Gerard's own written words to prove it. You have driven your own flesh
and blood into a far land, and robbed the mother that bore you of her
darling, the pride of her eye, the joy of her heart. But you are all of
a piece from end to end. When you were all boys together, my others were
a comfort; but you were a curse: mischievous and sly; and took a woman
half a day to keep your clothes whole: for why? work wears cloth, but
play cuts it. With the beard comes prudence; but none came to you:
still the last to go to bed, and the last to leave it; and why? because
honesty goes to bed early, and industry rises betimes; where there are
two lie-a-beds in a house there are a pair of ne'er-do-weels. Often I've
sat and looked at your ways, and wondered where ye came from: ye don't
take after your father, and ye are no more like me than a wasp is to an
ant; sure ye were changed in the cradle, or the cuckoo dropped ye on my
floor: for ye have not our hands, nor our hearts: of all my blood, none
but you ever jeered them that God afflicted; but often when my back was
turned I've heard you mock at Giles, because he is not as big as some;
and at my lily Kate, because she is not so strong as a Flanders mare.
After that rob a church an you will! for you can be no worse in His eyes
that made both Kate and Giles, and in mine that suffered for them, poor
darlings, as I did for you, you paltry, unfeeling, treasonable curs!
No, I will not hush, my daughter, they have filled the cup too full. It
takes a deal to turn a mother's heart against the sons she has nursed
upon her knees; and many is the time I have winked and wouldn't see too
much, and bitten my tongue, lest their father should know them as I do;
he would have put them to the door that moment. But now they have filled
the cup too full. And where got ye all this money? For this last month
you have been rolling in it. You never wrought for it. I wish I may
never hear from other mouths how ye got it. It is since that night you
were out so late, and your head came back so swelled, Cornelis. Sloth
and greed are ill-mated, my masters. Lovers of m