"I wanted him to explain; so I said they were prison-houses to the eider-ducks when they were sitting, for they never stir a yard from their nests. But he did not heed a word I spoke. He went on about drowned men being kept prisoners in the islets, moaning because they can't get out. And he says they will knock, knock, as if they could cleave the thick hard rock."
"What do you think of all this, my boy?"
"Why, when I said I had not heard a word of any such thing, even from my grandmother or Erica, he declared he had heard the moans himself—moaning and crying; but then he mixed up something about the barking of wolves that made confusion in the story. Though he had been hot just before, there he stood shivering, as if it was winter, as he stood in the broiling sun. Then I asked him if he had seen dead men swim and stare, as he said he had heard them moan and cry."
"And what did he say then?"
"He started bolt upright, as if I had been picking his pocket. He was in a passion for a minute, I know, if ever he was in his life. Then he tried to laugh as he said what a lot of new stories—stories of spirits, such stories as people love—he should have to carry home to the north, whenever he went back to his own place."
"In the north, his own place in the north! He wanted to mislead you there, boy. Hund was born some way to the south."
"No, was he really? How is one to believe a word he says, except when he speaks as if he was in his sleep, straight out from his conscience, I suppose? He began to talk about the bishop next, wanting to know when I thought he would come, and whether he was apt to hold private talk with every sort of person at the houses he stayed at."
"How did you answer him? You know nothing about the bishop's visits."
