The Nettle Spinner · page 21 2101And every day Burchard grew worse, and watched his end approaching.102VI103Moved by pity for her husband, the Countess at last found out the cause of his illness, and entreated him to allow himself to be cured.104But the Count in his pride refused more than ever to give his consent to the marriage.105So the lady resolved to go without his knowledge to pray for mercy from the spinner, and in the name of Renelde’s dead mother she besought her to spin no more.106Renelde gave her promise, but in the evening Guilbert arrived at the cottage.107Seeing that the cloth was no farther advanced than it was the evening before, he inquired the reason.108Renelde confessed that the Countess had prayed her not to let her husband die.109‘Will he consent to our marriage?’110‘No.’111‘Let him die then.’112‘But what will the Countess say?’113‘The Countess will understand that it is not your fault; the Count alone is guilty of his own death.’114‘Let us wait a little.115Perhaps his heart may be softened.’116So they waited for one month, for two, for six, for a year.117The spinner spun no more.118The Count had ceased to persecute her, but he still refused his consent to the marriage.119Guilbert became impatient.120The poor girl loved him with her whole soul, and she was more unhappy than she had been before, when Burchard was only tormenting her body.121‘Let us have done with it,’ said Guilbert.122‘Wait a little still,’ pleaded Renelde.123But the young man grew weary.124He came more rarely to Locquignol, and very soon he did not come at all.125Renelde felt as if her heart would break, but she held firm.126One day she met the Count.127She clasped her hands as if in prayer, and cried:128‘My lord, have mercy!’129Burchard the Wolf turned away his head and passed on.130She might have humbled his pride had she gone to her spinning-wheel again, but she did nothing of the sort.131Not long after she learnt that Guilbert had left the country.132He did not even come to say good-bye to her, but, all the same, she knew the day and hour of his departure, and hid herself on the road to see him once more.133When she came in she put her silent wheel into a corner, and cried for three days and three nights.134VII135So another year went by.136Then the Count fell ill, and the Countess supposed that Renelde, weary of waiting, had begun her spinning anew; but when she came to the cottage to see, she found the wheel silent.137However, the Count grew worse and worse till he was given up by the doctors.138The passing bell was rung, and he lay expecting Death to come for him.139But Death was not so near as the doctors thought, and still he lingered.140He seemed in a desperate condition, but he got neither better nor worse.141He could neither live nor die; he suffered horribly, and called loudly on Death to put an end to his pains.142In this extremity he remembered what he had told the little spinner long ago.143If Death was so slow in coming, it was because he was not ready to follow him, having no shroud for his burial.144He sent to fetch Renelde, placed her by his bedside, and ordered her at once to go on spinning his shroud.145Hardly had the spinner begun to work when the Count began to feel his pains grow less.146Then at last his heart melted; he was sorry for all the evil he had done out of pride, and implored Renelde to forgive him.147So Renelde forgave him, and went on spinning night and day.148When the thread of the nettles was spun she wove it with her shuttle, and then cut the shroud and began to sew it.149And as before, when she sewed the Count felt his pains grow less, and the life sinking within him, and when the needle made the last stitch he gave his last sigh.150VIII151At the same hour Guilbert returned to the country, and, as he had never ceased to love Renelde, he married her eight days later.152He had lost two years of happiness, but comforted himself with thinking that his wife was a clever spinner, and, what was much more rare, a brave and good woman.153[24]154[24] Ch.155Deulin.1 2← previousThe Twelve Brothersnext →Farmer Weatherbeard↑ back to The Red Fairy BookThis page in Markdown → https://md.mova.elamur.ai/free/en/corpora/tales/pg540/42/page/2/