“The death-bands on you,” said Grig; “you’re not like a doctor, for you’ve never asked what kind of sickness is on me.”
“It is not that,” said Morrocha; “but there are numbers of people, and their blood runs all together when they see strangers.”
“I am of them,” said Grig.
“I was not going to feel your pulse until you got quiet.”
When he became quiet Morrocha arose and felt his pulse.
“And great is the pity,” said he, “that a fine man like you should be lying in that place on one bed, and I will cure you. If you got potatoes and butter, and ate the full of your fist, you would not be long sick.”
“That’s true,” said Grig, “and if Njuclas Croanj gave me that I wouldn’t be lying here.”
Morrocha asked if they had any food in the house, and Njuclas Croanj said they had,—that Theegerje was just after coming from the mill, and that he had three pecks of oatmeal. And Morrocha bade them give him a peck of meal, and she gave him that. And he asked if there was any butter in the house, and she said there was. “Bring me down a crock of fresh butter,” said he. And she brought that to him, and Morrocha mixed the meal and the butter up together, and he asked for a spoon, and he thrust the spoon into the dish.
“Do you see that?” said he.