“The heart is good enough,” said Mother, opening the pantry door. “But, my dear Inger Johanne, don’t let me hear any more complaints about you.”
Ugh! They always threaten me with these horrid boarding-schools, where I should learn to behave properly. When I have done something that is a little bad, then I am to go to boarding-school in Sondfjord, but when I have been perfectly wild, as Mother calls it—then I am to go to Germany or to Pommeren, wherever that is.
However, none of the clocks were damaged at all. Teresa had only said they were ruined to frighten me. But just think! I never got my yellow gloves back. Teresa kept them and I couldn’t bear to ask her for them.
Well, that’s the way I surprised Clockmaker Krause, and I got more trouble than fun out of it. However, I shall never curtsey to him any more; he may depend upon that.
XVI
GHOSTS
All the people in the town think that our house is haunted. They say that old Customs Officer Borgen, who used to own the house and who has been dead for many, many years is the ghost that haunts it.
The house is awfully old, with a tremendously long sloping roof, a big garret, lots of closets and poke-holes under the eaves, and a pitch-dark hall with unexpected steps, over which people who don’t know about them tumble head over heels.
Above the big garret, in the high peak of the roof, there are two lofts, one above the other; and it is in the topmost loft that the old customs officer walks about and busies himself; at least, so people say.
“V-s-s-s,” sounds from up there, and a little while after, “Bum, bum, bum.” It may be the wind in under the roof-tiles that says, “V-s-s-s,” but no one can explain the “Bum, bum, bum.” That must be the customs officer, you see.
The maids are always afraid to go to the uppermost loft after dark, and really it isn’t pleasant to go up there when it is light, either. It seems so queer, somehow, as if some one stood behind you all the time who would grab hold of your dress or your braids. Karsten is just as afraid as I am, but he will never own it; he just brags.