She had voluntarily followed the doctor’s father, yet she could not forgive the dead man, for having brought her out of the warm South into this horrible country.  Having been her present master’s nurse, she took many liberties with him, insisting upon knowing everything that went on in the household, of which she felt herself the oldest, and therefore the most distinguished member; and it was strange how quickly she could hear when she chose, spite of her muffled ears!

To-day she had been listening again, and as her master was preparing to take his seat at the table and sharpen his goose-quill, she glanced around to see that they were entirely alone; then approached, saying in Portuguese: 

“Don’t begin that, Lopez.  You must listen to me first.”

“Must I?” he asked, kindly.

“If you don’t choose to do it, I can go!” she answered, angrily.  “To be sure, sitting still is more comfortable than running.”

“What do you mean by that?”

“Do you suppose yonder books are the walls of Zion?  Do you feel inclined to make the monks’ acquaintance once more?”

“Fie, fie, Rahel, listening again?  Go into the kitchen!”

“Directly!  Directly!  But I will speak first.  You pretend, that you are only staying here to please your wife, but it’s no such thing.  It’s yonder writing that keeps you.  I know life, but you and your wife are just like two children.  Evil is forgotten in the twinkling of an eye, and blessing is to come straight from Heaven, like quails and manna.  What sort of a creature have your books made you, since you came with the doctor’s hat from Coimbra?  Then everybody said:  ’Lopez, Senor Lopez.  Heavenly Father, what a shining light he’ll be!’ And now!  The Lord have mercy on us!  You work, work, and what does it bring you?  Not an egg; not a rush!  Go to your uncle in the Netherlands.  He’ll forget the curse, if you submit!  How many of the zechins, your father saved, are still left?”

Here the doctor interrupted the old woman’s torrent of speech with a stern “enough!” but she would not allow herself to be checked, and continued with increasing volubility.

“Enough, you say?  I fret over perversity enough in silence.  May my tongue wither, if I remain mute to-day.  Good God! child, are you out of your senses?  Everything has been crammed into your poor head, but to be sure it isn’t written in the books, that when people find out what happened in Porto, and that you married a baptized child, a Gentile, a Christian girl. . . .”

At these words the doctor rose, laid his hands on the servant’s shoulder, and said with grave, quiet earnestness.

“Whoever speaks of that, may betray it; may betray it.  Do you understand me, Rahel?  I know your good intentions, and therefore tell you:  my wife is content here, and danger is still far away.  We shall stay.  And besides:  since Elizabeth became mine, the Jews avoid me as an accursed, the Christians as a condemned man.  The former close the doors, the latter would fain open them; the gates of a prison, I mean.  No Portuguese will come here, but in the Netherlands there is more than one monk and one Jew from Porto, and if any of them recognize me and find Elizabeth with me, it will involve no less trifle than her life and mine.  I shall stay here; you now know why, and can go to your kitchen.”