His fur coat was all unbuttoned, and the tip of his long scarf trailed behind him on the threshold. He held his watch out: "What time is it?"
"Now, then, may the devil take your body and soul to hell, where you long ago belonged, if it isn't you, Rist!"
"What time is it? I say—Look!"
"And here I go and lick Jörgen for—well, well, boy, you shall be excused from your lesson and can ask for syrup on your porridge this evening. Go out to Ma, and tell her Rist is here."
The captain opened the kitchen door: "Hullo, Marit! Siri! A girl in here to pull off the doctor's boots! All the diseases of the country are in your clothes."
"What time is it, I say—can you see?"
"Twenty-five minutes of seven."
"Twenty-one miles in two hours and a quarter—from Jölstad here, with my bay!"
The doctor had got his fur coat off. The short, muscular man, with broad face and reddish-gray whiskers, stood there in a fur cap, swallowed up in a pair of long travelling boots.
"No, no," he exclaimed to the girl, who was making an effort to pull them off. "Oh, listen, Jäger; will you go out and feel of the bay's hind leg, if there is a wind-gall? He began to stumble a little, just here on the hill, I thought, and to limp."