de I will come and visit thee
yonder!"

The "death-bird" drew herself up straight at these words, she seemed as
big again as her usual old shrunken self, and pointed towards the
churchyard with her crutch.

The dogs howled dismally behind the house and durst not come forward.

The old woman collapsed once more. Close to the trellis gate stood a
large heap of planks. She reached out and tapped them with her crutch.
"Good timber here for ever so many nice coffins!" she mumbled to
herself, and tripped away coughing and wheezing, and leaning heavily on
her crutch.

Benjamin Hetfalusy lay senseless in his own courtyard, and when he came
to himself he was unable to utter a word. He had had a stroke, and his
tongue was tied.

Early next morning, while the whole house was still asleep, Mrs.
Szephalmi, all alone, stealthily and unobserved, quitted the house and
made her way across the park to old Magdolna's hut.

This great lady, despite an outward show of culture, believed in and
made use of all sorts of charms and quackeries, and it was not the first
time, so credulous was she, that she had turned to the old woman for
counsel. She had made her tell her her fortune by means of cards,
predict the future, brew potions for her which would make her husband
faithful, teach her spells which would cause flies and other vermin to
vanish, to concoct balsamic cakes to keep the skin white--in fact, she
hung upon every word the old crone uttered.

Magdolna kept her waiting for a long time in the yard before she opened
the door. She said, by way of excuse, that she had been praying, then
she shut the door behind them.

The great lady sat down on a straw-covered chair and began to weep. The
old woman crouched down upon a stool and cleansed some mushrooms which
she held in her lap.

"Dame Magdolna, can you not help my son?" sobbed Mrs. Szephalmi.

"No."

"I will give all I have to whomsoever can cure him. Oh! if you could
only see how much he suffers, nobody ever suffered so much before."

"I know it, and he will suffer still more."

"The doctors cannot cure him."

"No healing herb that ever grew in the field can heal him; it would be
all one even if you bathed him in balm."

"He will die?"

"'Twould be good for his soul if he did die."

"What, is there then anything worse than death?"

"Yes, damnation!"

"You are raving. A child who four years ago was an angel in Heaven, a
child only four years of age--damned!"

"