ly the light cracking of the boards beneath my feet. And
through it all the weeping of that child sounded continuously. The door
was only closed by a bolt. I slipped it softly aside so that not a sound
should be heard. Softly I opened the door. And behold! on the table in
the middle of the room was a tiny babe. The night-lamp flung a
flickering flame across its face, it could not have been more than a
couple of months old. It was wrapped up in fine swaddling clothes, a
tiny embroidered chemise covered its little body, and its wee round head
was covered by a deep cap trimmed with pearls, from underneath which
welled forth tiny little ringlets like fine gold thread. Just like those
little painted angels of whom you only see the heads peeping out of the
sky."

The unknown smiled so sympathetically at the childish simile of the old
headsman.

Then Peter Zudar's face again grew clouded, he drew his chair closer to
his guest's and thus continued:

"My wife was not in the room. Her bed was empty and I could see through
the door, which she had left open behind her, that a large fire was
flickering in the kitchen. My wife was busy with something at the hearth
and with her was her mother, a sly, wicked old woman, whom all the
people hereabouts look upon as a witch. What were they doing there so
late at night I asked myself? The younger woman was holding a pan over
the fire and the elder was casting into it all sorts of herbs. There was
nothing to be afraid of, and yet they were speaking to each other in
whispers and peering timorously around. I know not how the thought
occurred to me, but I suddenly thrust into my bosom the little suckling
lying on the table and carried it off into my own room. There I laid it
down upon my bed and put into its hands again its plaything of little
bells which it had dropped, whereupon it ceased to cry. Then I returned
to watch and see what the two women would do next. The contents of the
pan were already frizzling. Now and then it boiled over into the fire
and the flames shot up all round it. Then the old woman would skim it
carefully with a spoon. And all the time they were muttering together:

"'Are you sure nobody is awake?'

"'No, everyone is asleep.'

"'How about the old Knacker?'

"'He is drunk by this time and so deaf besides that he could not even
hear the blast of a trumpet.'

"At last they finished what they were about, poured the mess into a
large dish, and the pair of them cam