"What can I do?" she asked.
"There's nothin'. Misfortune and wastin' away will be to the child—though they do say, if you was to take it to Thor's Stone, and carry it thrice round, way of the sun, you might cast off the ill-wish. But I can't say. I never tried it."
"I cannot take it there," cried Mehetabel, despairingly, "the weather is too cold, baby too ill."
Then clasping the child to her bosom, and swaying herself, she sobbed forth—
"A little fish swims in the well.
So in my heart does baby dwell,
The king has sceptre, crown and ball,
You are my sceptre, crown and all."
She went home sobbing, and hugging her child, holding it away from the house of Sarah Rocliffe, lest that woman might be looking forth at her window, and deepen by her glance the spell that held and broke down her child.
Towards evening fall Jonas returned.
Directly he crossed the threshold, with palpitating eagerness
Mehetabel asked—
"Have you seen the doctor?"
"Yes," he answered curtly.