“Wasn’t it in the big drawing-room that old Norby’s ghost used to be seen?”
“If there’s any one there to-night,” said a voice from the little room, “we know very well what’ll happen.”
The moon drew two windows right across the floor. The big clock on the wall struck two, and the old men turned over and drew the coverlet over their heads.
The big drawing-room lay between Einar’s room and that in which the servants slept. A figure was really walking up and down there in noiseless felt slippers. The moon sent a flood of light across the floor, and the frost-ferns upon the window-panes were flames of silver. But the man walking about there kept in the shade. At last he paused at the window, and looked out. It was very quiet out there in the night. The stars twinkled among the shining clouds, and lower down above the hills hung red and black banks of clouds, looking like some strange, variegated land. The old man wore his overcoat, and his hands were thrust deep into his pockets.
The door opened, and Ingeborg entered with a candle in her hand.
“How is he?” asked the old man, quietly.
“Won’t you come in, father?”
“Is it Einar who wants me?”
“No, mother. He’s spitting blood again.”
But the old man shrugged his shoulders and answered: