Denys felt sure this was a deliberate untruth. He bit his lip. "Well, I looked to find myself in an enemy's country at this Tergou; but maybe if ye knew all ye would not be so dour." "I do know all," replied Catherine bitterly. "This morn I knew nought." Then suddenly setting her arms akimbo she told him with a raised voice and flashing eyes she wondered at his cheek sitting down by that hearth of all hearths in the world. "May Satan fly away with your hearth to the lake of fire and brimstone," shouted Denys, who could speak Flemish fluently. "Your own servant bade me sit there till you came, else I had ne'er troubled your hearth. My malison on it, and on the churlish roof-tree that greets an unoffending stranger this way," and he strode scowling to the door. "Oh! oh!" ejaculated Catherine frightened, and also a little conscience-stricken; and the virago sat suddenly down and burst into tears. Her daughter followed suit quietly, but without loss of time. * * * * * A shrewd writer, now unhappily lost to us, has somewhere the following dialogue:-- _She._] "I feel all a woman's weakness." _He._] "Then you are invincible." Denys, by anticipation, confirmed that valuable statement; he stood at the door looking ruefully at the havoc his thunderbolt of eloquence had made. "Nay, wife," said he, "weep not neither for a soldier's hasty word. I mean not all I said. Why your house is your own, and what right in it have I? There now, I'll go." "What is to do?" said a grave manly voice. It was Eli; he had come in from the shop. "Here is a ruffian been a-scolding of your womenfolk and making them cry," explained Denys. "Little Kate, what is't? for ruffians do not use to call themselves ruffians," said Eli the sensible. Ere she could explain, "Hold your tongue, girl," said Catherine; "Muriel bade him sat down, and I knew not that, and wyted on him; and he was going and leaving his malison on us, root and branch. I was never so becursed in all my days, oh! oh! oh!" "You were both somewhat to blame; both you and he," said Eli calmly. "However, what the servant says the master should still stand to. We keep not open house, but yet we are not poor enough to grudge a seat at our hearth in a cold day to a wayfarer with an honest face, and as, I think, a wounded man. So, end all malice, and sit ye down!" "Wounded?" cried mother and daughter in a breath. "Think you a soldier slings his arm for sport?" "Nay, 'tis but an arrow," said Denys cheerfully. "But an arrow?" said Kate with concentrated horror. "Where were our eyes, mother?"