"It was getting late, and nearing twilight already. Father and mother had been to church that morning, and were sitting on either side of the hearth, smoking and talking. But I sat at the window, watching the house grow up against the grey evening sky.
"It was a red house on two floors, set high on a hill with a lot of old apple trees on the slope in front, and on one side of the orchard I could see a cowshed and barn, and on the other, stables and outhouses and a big stone store-cellar with one little room built over.
"Close by the store-cellar was a tree, of a sort I did not know. It was all knotty and rough, with a thick trunk and wide-spreading branches, and looked ever so old—there was something misshapen and threatening about it.
"Father and mother, sitting by the hearth, sat without speaking now—just thinking together. They knew each other so well.
"'It's a pity about Lotta,' said mother. And father answered at once without asking what she meant, that it was a pity, surely. He'd been thinking of the same thing, you know.
"But I thought to myself that they did not know at all, really—for how could it be a pity about me in any way, as long as I had all my visions and voices to be happy with?
"And the big farmhouse stood there clear and plain as ever. It looked as if I could just walk in at any moment through the gate and talk to the people indoors. I could see tools and things lying about in the yard, and the bucket by the well, and the dog-kennel and the pigeon-loft, and I could see it was a fine big place, but something old and out of date about it.
"It was all very still and quiet and forsaken. Not a soul, not a beast of any kind was moving anywhere.
"And then I saw something that was more surprising than all the rest. There was a stone wall round the farm and buildings and yard, between them and the fields, and in the middle a gate. And one of the gateposts stood up straight and firm, but the other was grey and almost rotted through, and would have tumbled down if it hadn't been for a whole lot of struts and supports round it.
"Just as I caught sight of that old gatepost, I felt a shiver through me. And I knew that there was something I was afraid of, and did not want to see any more.