They were still discussing the important matter, and offering suggestions to each other, when supper-time came. And after eating their frugal meal, they were about to resume work till it was time to go to bed, when they fancied they heard a little noise just outside the front door.
Blonda ran and opened it and looked out. She could see no one, however, and was about to shut out the keen night air, when she caught sight of a queer-looking bundle in the corner, close to the lowest hinge of the door.
"Why, what can this be?" she cried, as she picked it up.
And closing the door, she brought the bundle back into the room under the light of the lamp. And as she unrolled it, she gave a little cry of satisfaction, for there, soiled and crumpled, was her lost piece of towelling, not a yard of it missing.
"Well, if a ghost borrowed it," said Blonda merrily, "a ghost has brought it back."
"It would have been more civil," said Tonie, "if that same ghost had washed and ironed out the linen before returning it, but I suppose we must not expect too much of ghostly courtesy and good nature."
But while these light-hearted children were talking thus, the ghost himself—as wretched and miserable as ever a ghost could be—was gliding noiselessly over the snow through the woods, looking up now and again to the moon and starlit heaven, and showing two great dark eyes wild and reckless, full of misery and despair. Yet this face so sadly contorted, these eyes so terribly changed, belonged to the one light-hearted, simple-natured Freskel Valden.
The lad's laggard steps were not like the light, swift stride of former days, and it took longer than usual to reach the pastor's dwelling. Yet when he did so, he hesitated irresolutely for some minutes before knocking, and muttered to himself in muffled tones. At last, taking courage, he knocked. The door was at once opened by the good pastor himself.
"Ah, Freskel, so it is thou?" he said. "Come in and have some supper with me. I was just sitting down to mine."
The lad did not seem to hear what the old man said. He staggered in, feeling his way almost as a blind man might do. Then suddenly looking up, he found Pastor Oshart's kind, anxious eyes fixed upon his face.