Page:Christmas Fireside Stories.djvu/313

 The Witch. 301 é go to the doctor with, for he won't hear of any such goings on, or any magic curing ; for he is well read, and doesn't believe in the fairies any longer, since he went about with that schoolmaster of ours." "To the doctor's? Bah! " said the sorceress, and spat upon the floor. '• Yes, I would advise anybody to go to that stuck-up grandee with this wee bit of a body. If one doesn't come with gold and fine presents," she continued, with an affected air of superior know ledge, "he bites and worries you as if you were dogs, and not people. Why, what happened that time Gjertrud Kostibakken lay with the last gasp of breath in her body ? He wouldn't go to a tramp, for he was at a Christmas party at the magistrates', nor did he go either till he was threatened both with bishop and judge ; and he might have saved himself the trouble, for when he came to the door the poor woman was dead. No ! to go to the doctor's with a child like this, — suffering with wasting sickness, is madman's work! But,dearme!"shesaidwithasneer, " you maygotohim for what I care, but if he can help you as much as this—, may I never be able to cure another in my life. They don't know any thing about this wasting sickness, bless you ! There's nothing about it in their books, and they don't know of any remedy for it !—and they know that well enough too, — that's the reason they don't give any powders or drugs and such nasty stuff for it. No, there's no other remedy but lead-melting, but they don't know anything about that." " Let's put the ladle on, mother," she began in a different tone, " it's getting on towards noon. If wc have melted twice, we'll have to melt the third time as well, or wc don't know what might happen. The child has the wasting sickness, but there are nine sorts of that disease in the world, as IVe told you already, — and you saw yourself he had both the goblin -spell and the water-spell, for the first Thursday the lead showed a man with two big horns and a tail. That was the goblin-spell. Last time it was a mermaid, you saw it as plainly as if it had been drawn. That was the water-spell. But now Thursday has come round again, and the question is what will it show now ? The third time is the most important, you must