"Where should I get hot soup from at this time of day? The fire's been out on the hearth this long since."
That was the answer. Thereupon the driver himself set to and lit the fire, looked for milk and boiled it.
Mother ate only a little of the soup and pushed the bowl to us, so that we should have some warm food too.
When that was done, Steve gave the woman a silver ten-kreuzer for the milk and for the hay which the sorrel ate.
After a time, during which it turned quite dark in the parlour, once or twice, because clouds were passing in front of the sun outside, Tom of the Footpath walked into the room. He was a short, spindle-shanked man, but had a big head, broad shoulders, a very high chest and a great hump on his back. And his head was sunk into his shoulders, so that the mannikin had to turn right round, with his whole body, whenever he wanted to turn his head. I can see him plainly to this day, as he stepped in through the door and looked at us, first sharply and then smilingly, with his wandering, vacant face.
My mother at once became fidgety and tried to rise from her seat, in order to put her request to him in a respectful fashion.
Tom made a sign with his hand that she need not trouble and presently said, in a rather sing-song voice:
"I know, I know, you're the woodman's wife from the Alpel; you had a stroke a year ago."
"I had a stroke?" asked the invalid, in dismay.
"You've been doctoring all round the place, far and wide; and now, because no one else can do you any good, you come to me. They're all alike: they come to me when they're dying; and if, after that, Tom of the Footpath's physic doesn't work a miracle and the patient goes the way of all flesh, then they say that Tom of the Footpath has been the cause of his death."