my good merchant
holding of my hand. I babbled I know not what, and then shuddered awhile
in silence. He put a horn of wine to my lips."

Catherine. "Bless him! bless him!"

Eli. "Whisht!"

"And I told him what had befallen. He would see my leg. It was sprained
sore, and swelled at the ankle; and all my points were broken, as I
could scarce keep up my hose, and I said, 'Sir, I shall be but a burden
to you, I doubt, and can make you no harmony now; my poor psaltery it
is broken;' and I did grieve over my broken music, companion of so many
weary leagues. But he patted me on the cheek, and bade me not fret; also
he did put up my leg on a pillow, and tended me like a kind father.

"January 19.--I sit all day in the litter, for we are pushing forward
with haste, and at night the good, kind merchant sendeth me to bed, and
will not let me work. Strange! whene'er I fall in with men like fiends,
then the next moment God still sendeth me some good man or woman, lest I
should turn away from human kind. Oh, Margaret! how strangely mixed they
be, and how old I am by what I was three months agone. And lo! if good
Master Fugger hath not been and bought me a psaltery."

Catherine. "Eli, my man, an yon merchant comes our way let us buy a
hundred ells of cloth of him, and not higgle."

Eli. "That will I, take your oath on't!"

While Richart prepared to read, Kate looked at her mother, and with a
faint blush drew out the piece of work from under her apron, and sewed
with head depressed a little more than necessary. On this her mother
drew a piece of work out of her pocket, and sewed too, while Richart
read. Both the specimens these sweet surreptitious creatures now first
exposed to observation were babies' caps, and more than half finished,
which told a tale. Horror! they were like little monks' cowls in shape
and delicacy.

"January 20.--Laid up in the litter, and as good as blind, but halting
to bait, Lombardy plains burst on me. Oh, Margaret! a land flowing
with milk and honey; all sloping plains, goodly rivers, jocund meadows,
delectable orchards, and blooming gardens; and though winter, looks
warmer than poor beloved Holland at midsummer, and makes the wanderer's
face to shine, and his heart to leap for joy to see earth so kind and
smiling. Here be vines, cedars, olives, and cattle plenty, but three
goats to a sheep. The draught oxen wear white linen on their necks, and
standing by dark green olive-trees each one is a pictur