296 The Witch. I Inside in the smoky room with the raftered ceillng, it was dark and dismal. A middle-aged peasant woman of a very common and unintellectual appearance was busy blowing into a blaze some branches and sticks of wood under the coffee-kettle on the open hearth. Håving at last succeeded in this, she raised herself up, rubbed the smoke and the ashes out of her smarting eyes, and said : " People say there's no use in this lead-melting, — for the child hasn't got the wasting sickness ; they say it's a changeling. There was a fell-maker here the other day and he said the same, forwhen he was a youngster, he had seen a changeling in Ringerike some where, and that one was as soft in its body and as loose about its joints as this one." While she spoke, her simple face had : an expression of anxiety, which showed what impression the fell-maker's words had made upon her superstitious mmd. She addressed her words to a big bony woman, whose age might be about sixty. She was unusually tall, but when she was sitting, she appeared to be of low stature, and this peculiarity she had to thank for the nickname of" Longlegs," which the people had added to her nåme of Gubjor. In the gang of tramps with whom she used to roam about, she had other names. Grey hairs straggled out from under her head-gear, which surrounded a dark face with bushy eyebrows and a long knotted nose. The original unintel lectual expression of her face, which was clearly indicated by a low forehead and great breadth between the cheekbones, contrasted greatly with the unmistakable cunning in her small sparkling eyes. Her dress betokened her as a straggler from some northern district; her whole appearance denoted that if she were not a witch, she was at least a tramp, who would be now impudent and audacious, now humble and cringing, according to circumstances. While the peasant woman was speaking and attending to the coffee-kettle, Gubjor was keeping in motion a hanging cradle in which lay a child of a sickly appearance, by giving it now and then a push with her hand. She replied to the peasant woman in a calm tone of superiority, although her sparkling eyes and the quivetjng
