“So, then, every one believes that it will not do to offend him?”
“Good gracious! He poisoned his father, he stabbed his brother with a dagger, and he starved his sister-in-law; and he has killed ever so many other people besides that my aunt Karine knows about, and that every one would know about, if she would speak; but she will not!”
“And don’t you feel afraid that the baron’s anger will be directed against you, when he shall learn that it is your father’s sleigh that upset him?”
“It is not the fault of the sleigh, and mine still less. You would drive! If I had been driving it would not have happened, perhaps; but what is to happen, happens; and when harm befalls wicked men, it is because it is the will of God!”
But Christian, constantly haunted by the dreadful idea that had taken possession of him, shuddered at the thought that destiny had perhaps chosen him as the parricidal instrument for accomplishing the baron’s destruction.
“No, no!” he cried, in answer to his own thoughts, rather than to the son of the danneman; “I did not cause his fit. The physicians said that he had been doomed for twenty-four hours.”
“And my aunt Karine said so too!” rejoined Olof; “so you can rest easy, he will not recover.”
Thereupon, Olof began humming the sad refrain which reminded Christian more and more of the melancholy air which he had heard the previous evening among the boulders.
“Does not your aunt Karine sometimes go to Stollborg?” he asked of Olof.
“To Stollborg?” said the lad. “I should only believe it if I saw it.”