Pretty Michal was trembling in all her limbs when the housekeeper undressed and put her to bed.
Barbara Pirka went out of her way to be agreeable and obliging. She wanted to make Michal a hot salt and bran poultice and prepare her a posset of centaury, but these and sundry other good offices Michal absolutely declined, declaring that she had no fear of catching cold.
After putting the young woman to bed, she sat down beside her, and rubbed Michal's tiny white feet between her hands. She said it was good remedy against sleeplessness and anxiety.
"My hand has power," explained Pirka; "I am a seventh child and a witch to boot."
An ill-bred person would have burst out laughing; but Michal looked at Pirka with an astonishment which had more of reverence in it than of fear. She had never seen a witch before.
It pleased Pirka to see how Michal folded her hands together as if in prayer.
"Yes. Now I'm a witch and can make and mar as I please. But even those whom I benefit must suffer for it. I was once the wife of a headsman myself. The business pleased me. The only thing that surprises me is how a judge can leave to another the torturing and execution of those he has condemned to death instead of doing it himself. If I were the Emperor I would make a decree that every judge should be his own executioner. I was always at my husband's side when he was at work. I would not have stayed away at any price. When the felon was a woman I used to clip off her hair with a pair of shears. What a lot of lovely hair I've cut off in my time! After my husband's death (a mad dog bit him and he died from the effects of it), I continued the business with an assistant. My assistant was a lanky, awkward fellow. Once he put me to shame on the scaffold by breaking down altogether at his task, so I snatched the sword out of his hand and finished the job myself. Then they took the business away from me and kicked me out: they said that it was not meet that a woman should wield the headsman's sword. So I came hither and entered the service of this vihodar. He could get no other servant, and no other master would look at me. But you are shivering, my dovey! Shall I tell you some pretty tale, my pet?"
At the word "dovey" Michal suddenly recollected her favorite fantail pigeon, which she had put into her pocket, and she begged Barbara to take out the poor creature and give it meat and drink. She had brought some grain with her.
"All right, my darling! But the dove cannot remain in this house. There are so many owls and hawks here that the timid creature would die of fright at the very sight of these savage birds of prey; and besides, don't you know that if your little hen pigeon were to live here and lay eggs without pairing, and hatch them, the brood would be goblins instead of chickens?"
Superstition is contagious. Michal already began to believe that her dove would hatch a brood of gnomes.