As for the other woman, the Mare, doubtless she was one of those wicked
outcasts, accursed by God and man, who were called heretics; people who
said dreadful things about the Pope and the Church and God's priests,
having been misled and stirred up thereto by a certain fiend in human
form named Luther. Lysbeth shuddered at the thought and crossed herself,
for in those days she was an excellent Catholic. Yet the wanderer said
that she had known her father, so that she must be as well born as
herself--and then that dreadful story--no, she could not bear to think
of it. But of course heretics deserved all these things; of that there
could be no doubt whatever, for had not her father confessor told her
that thus alone might their souls be saved from the grasp of the Evil
One?

The thought was comforting, still Lysbeth felt upset, and not a little
rejoiced when she saw Dirk van Goorl skating towards her accompanied by
another young man, also a cousin of her own on her mother's side who
was destined in days to come to earn himself an immortal renown--young
Pieter van de Werff. The two took off their bonnets to her, Dirk van
Goorl revealing in the act a head of fair hair beneath which his steady
blue eyes shone in a rather thick-set, self-contained face. Lysbeth's
temper, always somewhat quick, was ruffled, and she showed it in her
manner.

"I thought, cousins, that we were to meet at three, and the kirk clock
yonder has just chimed half-past," she said, addressing them both, but
looking--not too sweetly--at Dirk van Goorl.

"That's right, cousin," answered Pieter, a pleasant-faced and alert
young man, "look at _him_, scold _him_, for he is to blame. Ever since a
quarter past two have I--I who must drive a sledge in the great race and