him right lovingly to give me tidings of them; but he only pointed to the
helpless man and said that such tidings as he had to give I should hear
only too soon; and this I deemed was so forbidding and so dismal that I
made up my mind to the worst; nay, and my fears waxed all the greater as
he laid his big hand on my sleeve, as it might be to comfort me, inasmuch
as that he had never yet done this save when he heard tell of my Hans'
untimely end.

And then, since he would have none of my help in attending on the sick
man, I ran up to my aunt to tell her with due care of the tidings I had
heard; but my uncle had gone before me, and in the doorway I could see
that he had just kissed his beloved wife's brow. I could read in both
their faces that they were bereft of another hope, yet would my aunt go
below and herself speak with Young Kubbeling. My uncle would fain have
hindered her, but she paid no heed to his admonitions, and while her
tiring-woman arrayed her with great care to appear at table, she thanked
the saints for that Ann was far away on this luckless day.

Thus the hours sped between our homecoming from the chase and the evening
meal, and we presently met all our guests in the refectory. Aunt Jacoba,
as was her wont, sat on her couch on which she was carried, at the upper
end of the table near the chimneyplace, next to which a smaller table was
spread, where Kubbeling and Uhlwurm took their seats as though they had
never sat elsewhere in their lives; and in truth old Jordan had taken his
meals in that same place, and whenever they came to the Lodge the serving
people knew right well what was due to them and their fellows. And
whereas they did not sit at the upper table, it was only by reason that
old Jordan, sixty years ago, had deemed it a burthensome honor, and more
than his due; and Young Kubbeling would in all things do as his father
had done before him. My seat was where I might see them, and an empty