e hangman a lashing his bare bloody back. He, stout knave, so
whipt, did not a jot relent; but I did wince at every stroke; and my
master hung his head.

"'Soon or late, Bon Bec,' quoth he. 'Soon or late.' I, seeing his
haggard face, knew what he meaned. And at a town whose name hath slipped
me, but 'twas on a fair river, as we came to the foot of the bridge he
halted, and shuddered. 'Why what is the coil?' said I. 'Oh, blind,' said
he, 'they are justifying there.' So nought would serve him but take a
boat, and cross the river by water. But 'twas out of the frying-pan, as
the word goeth. For the boatman had scarce told us the matter, and that
it was a man and a woman for stealing glazed windows out of housen, and
that the man was hanged at daybreak, and the quean to be drowned, when
lo! they did fling her off the bridge, and fell in the water not far
from us. And oh! Margaret, the deadly splash! It ringeth in mine ears
even now. But worse was coming; for, though tied, she came up and cried
'Help! help!' and I, forgetting all, and hearing a woman's voice cry
'Help!' was for leaping in to save her; and had surely done it, but the
boatman and Cul de Jatte clung round me, and in a moment the bourreau's
man, that waited in a boat, came and entangled his hooked pole in her
long hair, and so thrust her down and ended her. Oh! if the saints
answered so our cries for help! And poor Cul de Jatte groaned; and I
sat sobbing, and beat my breast, and cried, 'Of what hath God made men's
hearts?'"

The reader stopped, and the tears trickled down her cheeks. Gerard
crying in Lorraine, made her cry at Rotterdam. The leagues were no more
to her heart than the breadth of a room.

Eli, softened by many touches in the letter, and by the reader's womanly
graces, said kindly enough, "Take thy time, lass. And methinks some of
ye might find her a creepie to rest her foot, and she so near her own
trouble."

"I'd do more for her than that an I durst," said Catherine. "Here,
Cornelis," and she held out her little wooden stool, and that worthy,
who hated Margaret worse than ever, had to take the creepie and put it
carefully under her foot.

"You are very kind, dame," she faltered. "I will read on; 'tis all I can
do for you in turn.

"Thus seeing my master ashy and sore shaken, I deemed this horrible
tragic act came timeously to warn him, so I strove sore to turn him from
his ill ways, discoursing of sinners and their lethal end. 'Too late!'