"Silence there," cried a threatening hoarse voice which instantly cut short the singing.
Hertha's knees were quaking. She saw what happened while scarcely daring to look.
With blood-shot eyes and copper-coloured face, covered from head to foot with melting snow, he came across the floor, his heels ringing sharply upon it, and every one withdrew into corners in awe and terror at his approach.
"What mismanagement is this?" he thundered. "How comes it that Christmas is being kept in my house and I not present? I have had to climb over the wall like a burglar to get in at all. Out with you, you hounds! Canaille, get to your sleighs and begone!"
"Heaven help us! He is drunk!" murmured grandmamma, and wrung her hands.
Hertha threw her arms round her as if she would protect the old lady from his fury.
Johanna now asserted herself. "No one has any right to disturb the festival of Christmas," she said, measuring him with a scornful eye; "not even the master of the house."
"Aye, the devil take your fine speeches," he shouted, staring piercingly in her face with eyes full of hate. "If I tolerate your psalm-singing over there, all the more strongly do I forbid it in my own house. Now I wish to have quiet, do you understand?"
"Only too well," she replied, smiling to herself significantly. Then she gathered up her train and moved away.
He strode up to his mother, who has sunk helplessly into an armchair, and whose head seemed palsied with distress.