a plight that a heart of stone must have melted to behold him.  Thus pity led me to him, although it was a penance to stay in his presence.  The old Baron,—­for of this title likewise he could boast, since he had poured a great sum into the Emperor’s treasury,—­this old man, who of yore had but feigned a false and evil show of repentance—­as that he would on certain holy days wash the feet of beggar folk who had first been cleansed with care, now in sickness and the near terror of death was in terrible earnest, and of honest intent would fain open the gates of Heaven by pious exercises.  He had to be sure at the bidding of Master Ulsenius the leech, exchanged the coffin wherein he had been wont to sleep for a common bedstead of wood; yet in this even he might get no rest, and was fain to pass his sleepless nights in his easy chair, resting his aching feet in a cradle which, with his wonted vain-glory, he caused to be made of the shape and color of a pearl shell.  But his nights in the coffin, and mockery of death, turned against him; he had ever been pale, and now he wore the very face of a corpse.  The blood seemed frozen in his veins, and he was at all times so cold that the great stove and the wide hearth facing him were fed with mighty logs day and night.

In this fearful heat the sweat stood on my brow so soon as I crossed the threshold, and if I tarried in the chamber I soon lacked breath.  The sick man’s speech was scarce to be heard, and as to all that Master Ulsenius told us of the seat of his ill, and of how it was gnawing him to death I would fain be silent.  Instead of that Lenten mockery of the foot washing he now would do the hardest penance, and there was scarce a saint in the Calendar to whom he had not offered gifts or ever he died.

A Dominican friar was ever in his chamber, telling the rosary for him and doing him other ghostly service, especially in the night season, when he was haunted by terrible restlessness.  Nothing eased him as a remedy against this so well as the presence of a woman to his mind.  But of all those to whom, on many a Christmas eve, he had made noble gifts, few came a second time after they had once been in that furnace; or, if they did, it would be no more than to come and depart forthwith.  Cousin Maud could endure to stay longest with him; albeit afterwards she would need many a glass of strong waters to strengthen her heart.

As for me, each time when I came home from my grand-uncle’s with pale cheeks she would forbid me ever to cross his threshold more:  but when his bidding was brought me she likewise was moved to compassion, and suffered me to obey.